Before anyone says it, I already have Fedora in another drive (which I will remove to install windows, dont worry) so no need to suggest linux.

Basically the last time I tried 24H2 was earlier this year from a forced update and it sucked balls, major performance issues in most games. I heard that a fresh install could fix this but I really couldnt be bothered so I reverted and blocked updates. But now thanks to my shitty chinese NVME that died with 30TBW with 2 years of use, I have an opportunity to install windows fresh. Should I even try 24H2 again? Better to install 23H2 offline and block feature updates again?

Hello,

I’ve recently assembled a new PC with the parts listed below and I am having problems with the initial install of Windows 11 Pro.

• MSI B850 Tomahawk Max WiFi
• AMD Ryzen 9 7900
• Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5 64GB
• MSI GEFORCE RTX 5070ti
• NZXT Kraken 360
• Samsung 990 Pro 4TB
• HYTE Y70 Touch Infinite case

I’ve downloaded the .iso and burned it to an USB stick and after booting, I get a window titled “Windows 11 Pro Install Driver to Show Hardware” and the option to browse for the needed driver. At the bottom of this window, it reads “A media driver your computer needs is missing. This could be a DVD, USB, or Hard Disk Driver.”

I’ve downloaded and flashed the BIOS to the version 7C91v29 dated 2025-07-04. It’s been a while since I’ve built a PC and it seems like most of the hardware now comes from the manufacturer’s website with its own exe that would be run to install the driver. This is my only Windows computer so I’m not sure how I can get the drivers installed. Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Update from https://reddthat.com/post/42659843/19517206

Parts list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2GWhpK

First computer built from the ground up. I need to replace my Windows 10 laptop that couldn't be upgraded to Windows 11. Purpose: Watch 4K UHD BluRays and local LLM training.

Goals

• Reuse old chassis in the house. Which means it would be a sleeper build.

• Buy used, if available and in good condition

• Watch 4K UHD BluRay

• Train LLMs locally

• Use a Linux OS (Ubuntu 24.04 LTS)

Notes

Since I'm not good at drilling, the biggest challenge is ensuring good airflow from the stock chassis. The CPU Cooler is meant to be a Noctua NH-D15. Learned too late that the radiator wouldn't fit; the PSU is in the way. Fortunately, the included NF-A15s could be repurposed as chassis fans, thanks to some cable ties that come with the PSU. One is placed in the side, the other in the front near where the original speaker used to be. These are intake fans.

Outtake fans are two blowers that fit in PCI expansion slots. Some slots are effectively blocked by the M2 slot heat sinks.

The built-in WiFi board has no Linux driver. A USB dongle had to be used instead.

Motherboard is chosen to eventually accommodate an RTX5090, if needed.

These parts are bought used

• CPU

• GPU

• Monitor

• SSD

• RAM

• PSU

• Motherboard

Gallery

My main question first: Is my setup incorrect or are the dimming zone based monitors really annoying in day-to-day productivity? For one, the brightness of elements on the screen change too much. I.e. the task bar and cursor brightness change drastically depending on the background, even on low settings. On the medium/high settings of backlight dimming you can clearly see the square backlight behind the cursor. Is this normal and I'm just sensitive to this?

Also general HDR question: SDR white content like documents and websites are insanely bright. Is this also normal or should I play around more with the settings? But I assume I should switch them back when I actually want to consume HDR content?

Would love to hear from someone with some experience with HDR monitors especially LCD with dimming zones.

Backstory

I'm currently upgrading my two ancient 1080p 60Hz monitors. Nowadays I do mostly productivity stuff with my monitors, especially a full-time work from home job. But I do play games occasionally, so I wanted to get something for that aspect too.

I got myself the AOC G27G3XMN because it was recommended by Monitors Unboxed as a good entry level true HDR monitor. I wouldn't mind spending more on a monitor, but OLEDs for productivity don't feel worth it to me.

My 10 year old custom built computer is crashing a lot. I would like to use parts of it so I'm not blowing tons replacing everything.

The link for pc part picker has my current case, power supply, and CPU cooler which should all still be good to reuse. The other parts in that build are just ones I picked at random so are totally up for change.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I would prefer to keep it under 1000 CAD. If you want to see my actual current build I will put it in a comment.

Edit: I am running Linux Mint Cinnamon as of now. The PSU was replaced in 2021

I have a Dell XPS with a GTX 1080 in it and it's getting a bit dated. I would love to build a machine. I was thinking possibly amd, as it seems better value. I figured I'll keep my 4tb nvme drive and maybe the ram but I should probably buy everything else new.

Any recommendations or should I just mess around on pcpartpicker?

So I've got this 1 liter PC I would like to mount under my desk. I got the compatible vesa kit from lenovo, and would rather use the standard bolts that are provided.

How do I fix them to my particle board desk? Simple holes will not hold the tight thread of the bolts, and I didn't find 'hollow' screws that would hold these, I'm not even sure they exist.

What would be the solution here? Just skip the bolts and put some regular screws? I fear the result won't be very clean...

Thanks

When the postie comes, I'll be building a PC for the first time in years. What are the do's, don'ts and tips nowadays?

Obviously classics like RTFM, plan ahead and retrieve any dropped screws are evergreen.

Things I believe are true: tighten your CPU cooler screws evenly (like putting on a car tyre), all screws should be no more than finger tight, build in a dust-free environment.

What about grounding yourself? I remember reading that the danger of this was way overstated and e.g. anti-static wrist straps were a waste of money. Is building in a case that's plugged in (but powered off) enough?

I've seen recommendations to build outside of the case first to test components - is this good advice?

Anything else?

I've been slow to make an upgrade, and figure what better time to switch to linux?

Did what I could to try to research that the parts were all fairly linux friendly, with a warning about the motherboard's wifi7 maybe not yet supported yet by the kernel.

Looking for a mid-high range build without going crazy on the cost. Build actually came in a bit cheaper than I expected, so feel like maybe I'm missing something here.

My monitor, which I'm planning to keep, does have G-Sync, but I don't know that I'll miss it.

PS: I know i can get more life out of my old hardware, but I want to turn that into a NAS.

EDIT: Fixed link.

Hi, its my 3rd pc build so i'd like to see if there is some kink that I'm unaware of or something else that doesn't really fit.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fQrGFZ

I mainly used it for gaming in 1440 or maybe at 4k and it will be on linux.

thank you for your time

I think I'm sort of overspending on the CPU and the monitor. Could anybody offer some advice?

I've been looking to upgrade to something like 64gb of RAM however I'm still using DDR4. So future-proofing to a new motherboard and CPU with DDR5 sounds like a logical plan. However I'm not even sure if that would be worth it. I figure you guys would have a better idea of what I should look at upgrading.

CPU: Intel i7-8700k

Motherboard: ASRock Z390

RAM: 16gb DDR4 3200mhz

GPU: RX 6700XT

Let me know if I'm missing any specs, it's been years since I last looked at my hardware.

Please help! I'm trying to remove this metal plate to get to my GPU for cleaning. From what I saw it had one star pattern bolt at the end of a slope connecting to the chassis, removing it loosened it a little but I don't know how to proceed. Dont want to damage anything.

Edit: I got it figured out! Had to pull a metal tab on the back as I jostled/slid the plate. Thank you!

Recently I asked about a new PC build. I got helpful responses about the topic but also a suggestion of just upgrading my GPU to a 3080 (from 3050). I looked deeper into it and it looks like I can do it easily even right now. Then I saw a 3080 FE for sale and I've always been a fan of how they look so now I want one.

However I also discovered that my CPU (i5-11400F) will be a severe bottleneck in that configuration. I don't really mind decreased GPU utilization and I'm pretty sure my CPU cooler will keep up just fine (tested in benchmarks and UE5) but will it give me any serious issues such as freezes or full on crashes? My resolution is 1080p btw (with the monitor itself actually being 768p but I increase resolution in games beyond that for better quality) but I might as well upgrade it to a 1440p one soon if necessary and use it for the new build when I undoubtedly waste my money on it.

I have a GigaByte AB350M-DASH motherboard.

This motherboard has a M2_WIFI socket, M keyed, if I correctly understood what I've been reading on it.

I have already bought a standard PCI card, as buying an M2 card would end being more expensive, but would an E keyed card work on this motherboard too?

I was looking at an AX200 card, and it keyed as such.

I'm a decently happy owner of a system with an i5-11400F and an RTX 3050. It just barely works for my needs (1080p 60-90 FPS ultra) but next year there will be some new games I'd like to play such as GTA 6 and FH6. With the current trends it's obvious my current system won't handle that on settings higher than low. So I'm thinking of getting a new PC.

For now I'm thinking something like a Ryzen 7 and an RTX 5070 Ti should work. That would be around 2.5-3k USD in my area depending on the components. Also I'd like a large monitor so I'll have to upgrade to a 1440p one which will increase the hardware requirements too.

AMD cards are quite expensive here apparently (9070 XT is significantly more expensive than 5070 lol) and I'm a massive fan of RT so those are not an option (I can remove the RT requirements if there's no way to use it with decent settings at no less than 60 FPS). Also NVidia 40 series is not good value here like at all.

Another interesting option is RTX 5080. It's still within my budget of around 3k but I'm very afraid of the connector melting issues. After all I can't build a PC myself (not an option at all) so a special well known company will handle it instead and nobody knows what connectors they use (I can ask as they're pretty open about this stuff but still). I've already worked with the company btw and it's not shady so that should be fine as long as I don't forget to edit a decent PSU in the specs instead of their common firework ones.

However with my limited knowledge I can't predict how far technology will go in the short term. We already saw that the latest gen showed pretty much no improvement over the previous one. So is it even worth waiting for the next year's tech or will it just be the same but with more AI frame gen slop and zeros in the price tag strapped to it? And will games get so much more demanding in just a year or two that trying to target ultra is already a bad idea?

What makes me even more worried is the slightly unstable financial situation in my country. It's possible that tech will get significantly more expensive here soon.

Yea this post is very long so I guess say gingerbread if you read it till the end lol.

Title, basically? Thank you for help, if you might know where Asrock keeps a complete list, haha.

Working with a B550 pg velocita and trying to upgrade the cpu from a ryzen 3 (3000-something) to a ryzen 5 3600. It's working with the ryzen 3. The code showing up on the mobo's led screen for debug codes is 7C, but I can't find what it means anywhere.

Bios is updated to the latest because of efforts to use a ryzen 5 5600x with it, but kept getting F9 code before and after bios update.

cross-posted from: https://feditown.com/post/1522327

I'm looking to buy an RX 9060 XT and was hoping to collect more sources comparing different models. I'm mainly looking for noise & temperature comparisons between the base models available.

So far the best source I found is Techpowerup. They have comparisons for stock behaviour and noise normalised between the 6 models they tested. Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT Pulse OC 16 GB Review
Unfortunately, they've mostly tested the huge triple fan designs until now. From the base models, the Reaper has terrible cooling and the Sapphire Pulse unfortunately only offers 1 DisplayPort connector.

Hardware Unboxed also only compares 3 higher end models in their review. AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB Review, Gaming Benchmarks!

Does anyone have reviews for the other base models, XFX Swift (dual fan) and ASRock Challenger?

Theres a lot more to this stuff than I thought there would be when starting out. I spent the day familiarizing with how to take apart my pc and swap gpus .Trying to piece everything together.

Apparently in order for PC to startup right it needs a graphical driver. I thought the existance of a HDMI port on the motherboard implied the existance of onboard graphics but apparently only special CPUs have that capability. My ryzen 5 2600 doesnt. The p100 Tesla does not have graphical display capabilities. So ive hit a snag where the PC isnt starting up due to not finding a graphical interface output.

I'm going to try to run multiple GPU cards together on pcie. Hope I can mix amd Rx 580 and nvidia tesla on same board fingers crossed please work.

My motherboard thankfully supports 4x4x4x4 pcie x16 bifurcation which isa very lucky break I didnt know going into this 🙏

Strangely other configs for splitting 16x lanes like 8x8 or 8x4x4 arent in my bios for some reason? So I'm planning to get a 4x bifurcstion board and plug both cards in and hope that the amd one is recognized!

According to one source The performance loss for using 4x lanes for GPUs doing the compute i m doing is 10-15 % surprisingly tolerable actually.

I never really had to think about how pcie lanes work or how to allocate them properly before.

For now I'm using two power supplies one built into the desktop and the new 850e corsair psu. I choose this one as it should work with 2-3 GPUs while being in my price range.

Also the new 12v-2x6 port supports like 600w enough for the tesla and comes with a dual pcie split which was required for the power cable adapter for Tesla. so it all worked out nicely for a clean wire solution.

Sadly I fucked up a little. The pcie release press plastic thing on the motherboard was brittle and I fat thumbed it too hard while having problems removing the GPU initially so it snapped off. I dont know if that's something fixable. It doesnt seem to affect the security of the connection too bad fortunately. I intend to grt a pcie riser extensions cable so there won't be much force on the now slightly loosened pcieconnection. Ill have the gpu and bifurcation board layed out nicely on the homelab table while testing, get them mounted somewhere nicely once I get it all working.

I need to figure out a external GPU mount system. I see people use server racks or nut and bolt meta chassis. I could get a thin plate of copper the size of the desktops glass window as a base/heatsink?

Starting from a mid-90s (Pentium 2 original CPU) PC case, I plan to build a PC designed for high-quality BD/ripped 4K BD playback, paired with an HDR monitor.

What pointers need to be considered?

Switch: 10Gb RJ45 Router: 10GB RJ45 NAS: 10Gb RJ45

Seems a shame to not have 10G-baseT on my desktop.

I have an older home built machine, built on a MSI Tomahawk B450. I'm not looking to upgrade at the moment, but I have an empty PCIe 2.1 x16 slot.

I don't expect to be able to guarantee 10Gb ethernet speeds with my motherboard and CPU, but I'd like to get close. I've seen that Intel X540 NICs don't have any power saving/thermal modes, so they should be avoided. Aquantia apparently was acquired be Marvell and basically ignored to death -- and the AQC113 has rumors of an unfixable bug that sometimes leads to it not being recognized at system boot. Realtek doesn't have a chips/boards available yet, and Broadcom costs two arms, two legs, and three noses.

Any suggestion on what to get? Bonus for PCIe 2.1x16 over PCIe 3x8, really want to stay under $100US.

So its been almost 10 years since i've swapped computer parts and I am nervous about this. Ive never done any homelab type thing involving big powerful parts, just dealt with average mid range consumer class parts in standard desktop cases.

I do computational work now and want to convert a desktop pc into a headless server with a beefy GPU. I bit the bullet and ordered a used P100 tesla 16gb. Based on what im reading, a new PSU may be in order as well if nothing else. I havent actually read labels yet but online info on the desktop model indicates its probably around a 450~ watt PSU.

The P100 power draw is rated at 250 W maximum. The card im using now draws 185 W maximum. Im reading that 600W would be better for just-in-case overhead. I plan to get this 700W which I hope is enough overhead to cover an extra GPU if I want to take advantage of nvidia CUDA with the 1070ti in my other desktop.

How much does the rest of the system use on average with a ryzen 5 2600 six core in a m4 motherboard and like 16gb ddr4 ram?

When I read up on powering the P100 though I stumbled across this reddit post of someone confused how to get it to connect to a regular consumer corsehair PSU. Apparently the p100 uses a CPU power cable instead of a PCIE one? But you cant use the regular cpu power output from the PSU. Acording to the post, people buy adapter cables with two input gpu cables to one output cpu cable for these cards.

Can you please help me with a sanity check and to understand what i've gotten myself into? I don't exactly understand what im supposed to do with those adapter cables. Do modern PSUs come with multiple GPU power outputs/outlets from the interface these days and I need to run two parallel lines into that adapter?

Thank you all for your help on the last post im deeply grateful for all the input ive gotten here. Ill do my best not to spam post with my tech concerns but this one has me really worried.

Last weekend I tried to put together a new machine with all new parts except a few SSD's, a soundcard and the case.

Specs:

-AMD 9950X3D

-64GB Corsair 30-6000 RAM

-Samsung 9100 2 TB nvme drive

-Gigabyte Aorus pro X870E mobo

-RTX 5080

Took some doing but eventually we did get it to power on. However, it would only power on and there was no video output. After some searching I've come to conclude it was a memory training issue (apparently DDR5 can take a long time to do this, this was new to me).

Eventually we got into bios and installed win11, which was extremely slow even by MS standards.

Once in Windows though, several issues:

-Task manager shows only 8 of my 16 cores

-Overall performance seemed very slow considering the hardware

So I went back into the bios, disabled all the "performance" options for the cpu, loaded optimized defaults and after that I did have all 32 threads visible in task manager, but this disabled EXPO for the RAM. If I re-enable EXPO, I again only have 8 visible cores in task manager.

On top of that, booting up takes ages. The Aorus splash screen appears almost immediately but remains there for MINUTES before loading windows, which also takes a good minute by itself.

I tried to flash the BIOS but I already have the latest available version installed.

From searching and Chatgpt I've gotten the answers that it's possibly a memory issue (doesn't seem to "remember" the training, having to do it over every boot?) or an issue with connected drives/usb/... being detected slowly, but I've aready set the bios to fast boot, only take SATA drives from last boot, only EFI, etc etc but nothing seems to have any effect.

Edit: after another day of testing and troubleshooting, we're almost good.

-core count fixed, was caused by a "gaming" setting in the bios?? that I had never heard about.

Slow boot remains but is apparently due to the high amount of connected drives (1 optical, 1hdd, 2 sata ssd'd & 4 nvme drives. So something I'll have to live with unless I disconnect the drives.

Been benchmarking & stress testing since the fix and results are looking very hopeful. Temps don't exceed 70°C even under full load (cinebench) and gpu remains at a crisp ~64°C. Framerates are great as hoped/expected and at full blast I still barely hear it because of the Noctua cooler.

All in all a gigantic mess and lots of frustration, but eventually worth it. Thanks again for your thoughts and perspectives, it definitely pushed me in the right direction!

I could use a sanity check on a cooling situation. It doesn't seem right or possible. Sorry for the long post.

CPU: AMD 9700X MB: Asus TUF Gaming B650E Wifi RAM: 4x16GB T-Force CL30 Case: Antec P182 (Giant quiet gaming case from 2007)

The system has been together for about 5 months. When I got the components, I picked up a $30 CAD generic cooler:

"iCan 6-Heatpipe CPU Cooler | 2*120mm PWM Fans with Rainbow Color | TDP - 265W | Fan Speed upto 1800RPM | Fan Noise - 31DBA"

It all ran OK, was quiet but not silent. Only has fan noise when working hard. In other words: Great.

I'm doing a bunch of ffmpeg/x265 transcode benchmarking. With the iCan cooler, it would thermal throttle (75C throttle, 76C measured) at 5350MHz. It would bounce between about 5200 and 5450.

Anyway, a buddy told me the Noctua D15 is the best air cooler going. I did some reading. He seems to be right. It is a highly regarded cooler.

The D15 fits into the system fine but only one of the 140MM fans will fit. The 140mm fan won't fit in the back, due to the VRMs. The 140mm fan won't fit in the front, due to RAM. So, the D15 has a 140mm stock fan and a 120mm screamer (140CFM). That's a lot of air.

It doesn't cool nearly as well. Not even close. I've bumped up the thermal throttle to 80C (where it sits 100% of the time while transcoding). Fans are set to 100%, all the time. It barely makes 5GHz with the D15. Average is about 4900MHz.

I put the iCan cooler back on and it went back to almost boost clock frequency.

The thermal paste is very well done. I was super careful between cooler changes and I clean the old stuff with alcohol before applying fresh and mounting another cooler.

Why does the smaller cooler with a far worse machined CPU contact area cool better than the gigantic D15?

I will say, when using QFan and the iCan cooler, the fans ramp in about 2 seconds after launching ffmpeg. QFan with the D15, it takes about 4~5 seconds for the fans to fully ramp. The D15 has a substantially heavier CPU block and this does seem to add considerable inertia (which is nice).

Any thoughts?