[X] My Assistant

First mistake:
Win32
Second mistake:
Foobar2000

No, but really, I feel bad for you, but I don't have a clue why it happened or if it'll happen again. Did you run out of RAM due to some insidious background process?

I can only guess but yea, i waited 10m for it to show me the win logon screen but it never did...probably cos something memory leaked and stopped everything from functioning.

Laptop ram size seems to have leveled off at 16gb. I did see one 24gb and a some 32gb machines. The cheapest 17" dell with 32gb was a $2200 one, system76 was closer to $2600. MSI has some cheaper, but won't ist prices and configurations on their own website- so it's kinda hard to browse. The $1400 MSI looked to have unimpressive specs elsewhere, but I don't claim to know which chipsets are good.

It's mainly GPU perfromance I'm falling behind on, but CPU and RAM could do better.
Current specs to the best of my knowledge [why won't people give GFX memory size for laptops?]:
Inspiron 5765, out of warranty since December of 2017
AMD FX-9800P CPU, quad core 2.7GHz
16GB DDR4 RAM, 1866MHz
AMD Radeon R7 M445DX, 4GB?? GDDR5
Crucial MX500 2TB, 6GBPs
1920x1080 60Hz 17.3" screen
DVD +/- RW burner
SD card slot
2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0

Is that what you have right now?

All i know about current laptops is that AMD dominates the mobile CPU performance both in speed and wattage.
And Nvidia is absolutely fucking consumers over with their different max-q/s variants of GPU's because they have wildly different performance.

This post has been edited by Pillowgirl: May 12 2020, 04:08

Yes, that's my current specs and what is just barely passing muster nowadays for gaming.
I'd like to stick with all AMD, as it's been a consistent thing that nvidia drivers suck. With some help from.people on IRC, they can usually ne made to work, but I suspect they don't fully utilize the chip. Part of it might also be AMD drivers seem more ammicable to forcing directX support, though DX11 still seems to be an awful thing not cleanly workable yet.

Current specs to the best of my knowledge [why won't people give GFX memory size for laptops?]:
Inspiron 5765, out of warranty since December of 2017
AMD FX-9800P CPU, quad core 2.7GHz
16GB DDR4 RAM, 1866MHz
AMD Radeon R7 M445DX, 4GB?? GDDR5
Crucial MX500 2TB, 6GBPs
1920x1080 60Hz 17.3" screen
DVD +/- RW burner
SD card slot
2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0

Thinkpad X201 Tablet, out of warranty since probably 2012 or 2013 at latest.
i7-640LM, dual core 2.13GHz, Nehalem/Westmere
8GB DDR3-1600 RAM (200MHz clock, 1600MT/s. There's a difference.) (maxed out)
Integrated GPU (Intel Iron Lake). Uses same RAM bus as the CPU.
WD20SPZX 2TB 5400RPM HDD
1280x800 AFFS (similar to IPS) 12" 60Hz (with wacom "penabled" digitizer)
Docking bay has a DVD burner
SD slot
3x USB 2.0 built-in, 2x USB 3.0 on ExpressCard.
With the dock in place, 9 USB ports total.

I still don't really need anything more. I like my desktop for GPGPU stuff and improved performance for video encoding things, but I could quite comfortably just use this laptop for months. I never hit the 8GB ceiling either (though admittedly I'm not running Botnet 10 on here, just FVWM in Debian sans-systemd, so I don't have too much overhead by comparison).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 12 2020, 11:51

A couple opinions I got basically say I'll need a desktop to upgrade cost effectively. Especially if I don't want to switch back to nvidia.

A couple opinions I got basically say I'll need a desktop to upgrade cost effectively. Especially if I don't want to switch back to nvidia.

If you want upgradeability, yeah, that basically rules out most any laptop now.
Even mine's pretty limited with its upgradeablity, pretty much just RAM and the ExpressCard slot (which I appreciate a lot).

Having 100% CPU on Windows Defender issues lately. Guess it's time to find a new AV...?

Building a desktop for sure now.
[pcpartpicker.com] First Draft Parts List
[pcpartpicker.com] Mark II
Anything look out of place, or over vs underkill compared to other parts?
I want to keep it all-AMD.
The mouse and keyboard are placeholders, but similar to what I plan on.
The PSU may be swapped for a similar Corsair Platinum. The specific reason is those models are supposed to put out a minimum of RF noise- ham radio is a big hobby of mine. I do want 500W or better to give headroom if I ever want two GFX cards.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 14 2020, 06:01

I think there's better quality x570 boards, i haven't heard anything about the TUF.

The GPU is kinda outdated, just buy a 5700 and flash it to XT.
A 5600 might have the same or slightly better performance then a 580 and cost slightly more.
I wouldn't buy a 580 new at almost 200$.
I would personally buy a 1660 super if it was cheaper then a 5700.

The PSU is fully modular, i don't recommend them since half the cables are still essential.
Semi is fine if you wanna save money.


Also there's the 4000 series of cpu's coming out soon so i'd wait on buying a new system, prices might drop or new hardware might be better for the same price.

This post has been edited by Pillowgirl: May 14 2020, 05:42

The PSU may be swapped for a similar Corsair Platinum. The specific reason is those models are supposed to put out a minimum of RF noise- ham radio is a big hobby of mine. I do want 500W or better to give headroom if I ever want two GFX cards.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Wouldn't you just need to make sure the PSU was decent, most gold rated and good silver rated psu's won't be noisy. Its a problem for really shit non-rated and some super cheap bronze psus.

Also a good metal PC case will attenuate most/all of the RF.

Then can't you just have a good power board with a basic noise filter. At one stage I was looking at expensive power conditioners or big batteries but a $100 power board with a basic noise filter was enough for my needs.

The only time I had problems was with sensitive equipment inside a large PC (E-atx or something) with quadfire graphics cards.

Updated post, and modular wasn't a factor at all in the PSU choice.
Cheaper CPU, changed make of gfx card.

I've had a meanwell medical grade PSU raise the noise floor from S3 to S5 just by commoning it's DC ground to the radio's ground...

[pcpartpicker.com] Different PSU + monitor, faster RAM for cheaper, fixed mouse price.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 14 2020, 09:14

If you're gonna downgrade the CPU then consider switching chipset to B450/B550 unless you really need the features of X.

I think the MSI bazooka series was really good and half the price of X boards.

I see [pcpartpicker.com] this one listed there, but isn't really any cheaper. Wanted something with wifi support built it, or would it just be better to get a PCIe wifi card?

Edit: I do want to stick a serial card I already have in it, that may be a factor.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 14 2020, 06:43

Having 100% CPU on Windows Defender issues lately. Guess it's time to find a new AV...?

Manual scan? Although, MsMpEng.exe's cpu usage have been observed to spike up to 90% while installing definition updates.

[github.com] Windows Defender configuration tool ConfigureDefender

This post has been edited by loli-hujan86: May 14 2020, 09:32

Motherboard sold out, hard drive turned out to be 5 year old stock, added misc parts and adjustments. Upsized PSU cause ran out of stock.
[pcpartpicker.com] Mark IV

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 14 2020, 21:51

Just spent 3 hours figuring out why my on-board sound card was not working - in the end it was just too much dust in the cabinet, cleaned it and it works. This machine has more than 15 years old (the motherboard that is), the CMOS is fucked, the front buttons do not work anymore, half the PCI slots are unusable. But for the sake of it i'll keep using it until i cannot fix it anymore.

Motherboard sold out, hard drive turned out to be 5 year old stock, added misc parts and adjustments. Upsized PSU cause ran out of stock.
[pcpartpicker.com] Mark IV

Is there a reason you keep changing monitor?

It was an ultrawide and now it's a x1200p one, with your GPU and CPU you should be aiming for a 1080p 120hz screen or a 1440p 60-75hz.
By the way, once you go 1440p you can't go back.


One last thought, the crucial 1tb SSD is nice and all but i've seen 1tb M.2 ssd's that are actually cheaper(i think it was between 90-110$).

The ultrawide was a suggestion of a monitor somebody else liked. But actually sizing it up, I like the idea of the 16:10 best.
[pcpartpicker.com] Mark V, what I ended up with after much whack a mole.
Eh, I like the options of the sata, it fits in all my machines. The 2TB version is in my good laptop.

The ultrawide was a suggestion of a monitor somebody else liked. But actually sizing it up, I like the idea of the 16:10 best.
[pcpartpicker.com] Mark V, what I ended up with after much whack a mole.
Eh, I like the options of the sata, it fits in all my machines. The 2TB version is in my good laptop.

Do you need WiFi? WiFi isn't good for competitive games.

The PSU is overkill, your whole system doesn't consume that much, even 500W in my opinion is enough.
You could change it to 500W to 750W in case you want to upgrade in the future.
Dual GPU is good but not many games support it, unless you want to use it for compute.

Do you really need BluRay RW?

I recommend Logitech G305 for mouse, it's not expensive, efficient and "faster" than wired.

I made a change to your build [pcpartpicker.com] https://pcpartpicker.com/list/yPt8k6.
Hopefully it could be helpful for you.

I do want 500W or better to give headroom if I ever want two GFX cards.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

I didn't read the list, just giving suggestions.
Don't bother buying a new mouse and keyboard unless your current ones bring you suffering.
I find I don't need GPU's powerful/wasteful enough to require a 500W PSU. Mine has an official TDP of 75W, but the energy used according to the actual card firmware is 37W (GTX 750 Ti; not that I'd recommend nvidia at all these days on a new purchase. Whenever I finally need to upgrade I'm not sticking with them unless they do a complete turn-around on their attitude towards FLOSS development). My computer would have plenty of headroom with two of these, even using the official 75W rating.
Development and such is moving away from "two GFX cards" as an approach. Also, QEMU-KVM kind of sucks in my opinion, having used it. So I'd not recommend it for that either. I can't really justify a two-GPU build. Unless maybe if I was just using one for OpenCL constantly, but I don't really see that happening realistically.

If you really want low RF noise, I wonder if there's such a thing as a linear regulated PSU in this day and age. I bet the heat output would be absolutely monstrous. That's just a side-thought.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 15 2020, 09:35

Do you need WiFi? WiFi isn't good for competitive games.

The PSU is overkill, your whole system doesn't consume that much, even 500W in my opinion is enough.
You could change it to 500W to 750W in case you want to upgrade in the future.
Dual GPU is good but not many games support it, unless you want to use it for compute.

Do you really need BluRay RW?

I recommend Logitech G305 for mouse, it's not expensive, efficient and "faster" than wired.

I made a change to your build [pcpartpicker.com] https://pcpartpicker.com/list/yPt8k6.
Hopefully it could be helpful for you.

I do need wifi, and having it on the mobo instead of a pci-e card is nice, but my picking for mobos with that chipset were very limited. Trying to finalize stuff, I was watching each model go out of stock in real time.

PSU is entirely overkill, again selection there were very limited to have a platinum- first couple choices all went out of stock, so it was that or a similar rosewill supply to pick from. That one was a bit cheaper+shorter lead time. Nothing wrong with a bigger one though, should stay cool and not be stressed.

Bluray reader is nice, and not much more to write it too in a 5.25" drive.

I don't like the shape of current logitech mice, just got another of what I have.

While I could cancel some of it, already ordered bits- ended up just pouncing before everything else decent ran out of stock.


Also note that bestbuy doesn't actually have inventory on any mobos, or none that they will ship. Also, their stores are just bad and I don't want to buy from them.

I didn't read the list, just giving suggestions.
Don't bother buying a new mouse and keyboard unless your current ones bring you suffering.
I find I don't need GPU's powerful/wasteful enough to require a 500W PSU. Mine has an official TDP of 75W, but the energy used according to the actual card firmware is 37W (GTX 750 Ti; not that I'd recommend nvidia at all these days on a new purchase. Whenever I finally need to upgrade I'm not sticking with them unless they do a complete turn-around on their attitude towards FLOSS development). My computer would have plenty of headroom with two of these, even using the official 75W rating.
Development and such is moving away from "two GFX cards" as an approach. Also, QEMU-KVM kind of sucks in my opinion, having used it. So I'd not recommend it for that either. I can't really justify a two-GPU build. Unless maybe if I was just using one for OpenCL constantly, but I don't really see that happening realistically.

If you really want low RF noise, I wonder if there's such a thing as a linear regulated PSU in this day and age. I bet the heat output would be absolutely monstrous. That's just a side-thought.

I don't have a desktop right now, or a set of peripherals worth using. Wasn't after a mechanical keyboard perse, but found the matrix and rollover count of my laptop one to be restrictive recently. That Cherry seemed to git the bill there, and actually look nice instead of 'gamer' and leds everywhere on it. I think I actually ordered the black switches version, in a black case.

More just a future proofing thing, making sure it has room to grow

I do use linears for anything pertaining to the radios, and either bench mount variable is a large linear. The variables have a getup with transfrmer taps and relays to reduce dropout and thermal dissipation- but still throw off some damn heat. Neat listening to the relays click as you spin a knob.
I did breifely think about the notion of a linear ATX supply. It'd end up being the size of a tower over again and entirely spendy and implausible. At a point, the motherboard makes more noise than the PSU does, and that plain case note covered in windows and random plastic grates should aid in that end.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 15 2020, 12:05