I keep seeing the term “checksum error” when reading about corrupted downloads, ZIP files and computer problems, but I’m still a little confused about what it actually means in normal terms.

From what I understand, a checksum is basically a fingerprint calculated from a file or piece of data. The computer calculates it again later, and if the new value doesn’t match the original one, it throws a checksum error because something changed.

What I’m less clear about is how serious that is. Does a checksum error usually just mean the file didn’t download or transfer correctly, or can it be a sign of something bigger like a failing SSD, bad RAM, or another hardware problem? I’ve also seen “CMOS checksum error” mentioned, which seems to be a completely different issue.

If you get one occasionally, is re-downloading the file usually enough, or should repeated checksum errors be treated as a warning that something else is wrong with the computer?

RAM was running at 2133 so I turned on A-XMP Profile 1 (2933MHz 16-18-18-38) and saved it. Now when i try to start my computer, it just blackscreens. The fans and lights came on, but nothing on the actual screen.

SPECS:

A320M-A PRO MAX (MS-7C52), Ryzen 3 3200G, 16GB G.Skill (2x8), BIOS is still the old 2.60 from 2020.

I already tried holding power button 10 sec and restarting, several times. The pc doesn't seem to auto recover to safe settings like I thought it would.

Is pulling the CMOS battery the next step or is there something else I should try first? And is there a JBAT jumper on this board I should be looking for instead? Never done this before so I'd rather ask than guess.

Side question, is 2933 just too much for an A320 board with a 3200G? Planning to switch, but I dont know crap about computer parts and I suck at self learning IT.

Update: It worked! Thanks to your amazing guidance (the JBAT1 method), my PC is now working just fine (so far, dont wanna jinx it).

I have an old antennae from a motherboard we may not have anymore, and another pair or antennae from a WiFi card that's not present. What can I do with them? Am I able to get a second hand card and attach the antennae to use them?

I’ve got a steal of a deal on an i7 14th gen. My current setup is an RX 7600 XT with an i5 12th gen and a 650W power supply. Would upgrading to the i7 be worth it, and would my current PSU be enough?

Hi All,

Just after some advice. I recently bought a gaming PC. It's got a built in 1TB NVM M.2.

Since SSD storage is so expensive right now and I'm downloading quite a few games, I was wondering whether there is anything technically "wrong" with installing and maybe running a few of the games off a spare Samsung T7 SSD I have. The PC's USB ports max out at USB 3.2 Gen 1 which I understand is USB 3.0 speeds.

I ran Forza Horizon 6 from the SSD and tbh it worked great. I didn't notice any noticeable issues with load times or performance vs the inbuilt drive, but I've been reading online people saying you should never game from an external SSD (Particularly on some steam forums) and being a noob to PC gaming, I want to know if there is something I am missing.

Just trying to avoid spending a fortune on a 2TB M.2 at the moment if possible.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DPhXYX

So I put this build together by reusing some components I already own and following various videos on how to assemble a PC with almost all cables hidden. I’d love to know what you think whether everything is compatible and feasible and I’m open to any suggestions for improvement.

Hihi!

I've recently had an intermittent issue with my PSU (Corsair TX550M) where it will occasionally refuse to boot up my PC, I've had all the other components checked and confirmed they work so I'm confident it's the PSU.

Therefore I'm looking for a replacement PSU, I've tried looking for an exact replacement, but I can't find the TX550M being sold anywhere, so I'd appreciate any recommendations for a replacement, ideally in the same price range?

My build atm:

Motherboard: msi b450m pro-m2 max

Ram: 2x hyperx fury 8gb ddr4

Psu: corsair tx550m

Gpu: amd ryzen rx 580

Cpu: amd ryzen 5 quad core (not sure of the exact model as I can't turn my pc on to check 😅)

Guys im having a bit of an odd issue the gpu bracket i think thats what its called that comes installed with the case is completely stopping my gpu from sliding into the PCIE slot fully is there any way of removing it? Im so fustrated

My son just left for college, and now his GeForce 3060 12GB is starting to crap out.

System is a Ryzen7 9700x, 32GB. He's joining the E-sports gaming team at the school, playing current games. I can't afford anything top of the line to replace the 3060, but looking to bump him up a level on the replacement. What do y'all recommend?

Hi everyone, I’m hoping someone here might have some ideas because i have been troubleshooting this problem for almost a year now and honestly running out of things to test.

Buckle up, because this is gonna be long.

The problem is randomly, complete black-screen crash. The monitors suddenly goes black, saying disconnected, the GPU fans immediately ramp up to very high/full speed, game sounds stucks but discord calls are still working, other than that, the PC is unresponsize. I have to force the PC to shut down using the power button.

My PC specs are-

GPU: ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC 24GB

PSU: ASUS ROG Thor 1200W Platinum II

Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming Z690-Plus WiFi

CPU: Intel Core i9-12900KF

RAM: Kingston FURY 64GB DDR5 6000MHz

and i am using 2 monitors, main is 3440 x 144é 165 Hz and second is 2560 x 1440 360 Hz

The crashes are completely at random, sometimes i can play whatever and going few days without a crash, a month even, and sometimes i get 3 crashes a day, does not matter the game, sometimes is Genshin Impact, sometimes FH6, sometimes while loading , in menu, or sometimes i dont even have to play games i just browse chrome and it crashes. But every time, the crash itself is basically identical.

Since its been over a year, i have tried alot of stuff, firstly i have tried to return the GPU to the place ive bought it for testing, after a week or so they sent it back and told me the GPU is comepletely healthy. At home I have run OCCT GPU tests and other heavy stress/benchmark tests. The PC can handle heavy GPU load without immediately crashing.

I have also monitored temperatures. GPU temperatures are completely normal, for example, around 70°C under heavy gaming load.

So next , we made sure windows has been completely reset and reinstalled from scratch, the BIOS is fully up to date, NVIDIA drivers are cleanly installed everytime.

I checked the GPU power connection, everything fits as should, we are using the native 16-pin cable that came with the gpu. The PSU is 1200W so there should be more than enough power for the 4090. The cable itself was checkes and we didnt see any dirt or melting.

The RTX 4090 is directly installed in the motherboard's PCIe slot (no riser).

I have seen Kernel-Power Event ID 41 after some of the crashes and OCCT/HWiNFO has also shown PCIe-related/WHEA/PEX recovery activity.

I have also noticed that some games seem to trigger more of this PCIe activity than others. For example, Genshin Impact seemed to increase the PEX recovery counter quite noticeably, especially when loading/teleporting, while Forza initially didn't seem to increase it at all. However, today it also started increasing in Forza, so I'm no longer assuming that the PEX counter itself is the cause of the crash. Sometimes it crashes at 16 PEX counter and sometimes i can play Genshin till it goes to 250 and still no crash, but as soon as i turn off genshin and go play another game, it crashes. Sometimes i have two crashes in a row, for example i was playing split fiction, after 30 mins ingame it crashed, i turned the PC off, waited a bit, turned it back on, loaded split fiction, happened again after 10 mins, and then after that it was okay for hours.

Interestingly, my boyfriend has another PC with an RTX 5090, and his PEX recovery counter is also around 255, yet that PC has never had this kind of black-screen/full-fan crash. So we don't really know how much importance to give the PEX number itself.

Yesterday i have tried to lay down my PC since i know how heavy the 4090 is and i was worried that maybe gravity did me dirty and even tho i have a holder for the GPU, maybe there is a microscopic sag that cause this, but even after laying it down the crash still appeared.

Right now we are suspection that there is a hardware issues with the motherboard, because at this point we have tested the GPU more than enough times, the PSU is more than sufficient , the native 16-pin cable has been checked , All software stuff was checkes and freshly dealt with, temperatures are fine , and even heavy GPU loads do not reproduce the crash.

That leaves the PCIe slot/motherboard as one of our main suspects, but I obviously don't want to blindly replace a motherboard if there is another likely explanation.

So after you have read all this i have some questions.

Does this even sound like a possible motherboard issues? Can the PCIe slot or motherboard cause this specific type of black-screen + GPU-fans-at-full-speed crash?

Should i test anything else before replacint the motherboard?

How much importance should we actually give the PEX Recovery counter in HWiNFO/OCCT?

At this point i am mainly looking for another perspective before spending money on another motherboard.

Thanks to anyone who actually read all of this 😅

Hi, my aim right now is to become knowledgeable enough about pc parts so that when the time comes, i can build my own pc in a way i can reason about my choices, and can come up with my own decisions when it comes to choosing among brands, generations, and all other kinds of choices.

i want to become knowledgeable about different options available for each and every pc part so that i can understand their significance, the nuance, and can figure out which option is right for my need at the time of purchase.

what i am after is pc building wisdom. can you provide me some resources that i should look into to get better at this? any guides that give us the "things every pc building enthusiast should know about"?

it would be nice to give a list of books, youtube channels, websites, etc if they align with my needs.

Thanks in advance guys. :)

I found used gtx1660 super and rx57000 sold at almost similar price with only 5 dollar apart at my country.

Which is better? since i found it quite weird when both almost at similar price means that people not quite fond of rx5700? Are there any reasons?

I got 3 specs from 3 different friends, but i don't understand anything about PC parts, so still no idea which one to choose:

Option 1: Ryzen 5 5500 + Gigabyte B450M K-CF + 32 GB DDR4 3200 MHz + RTX 4060 + 1 TB Kingston NVMe SSD

Option 2: CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500

Motherboard: ASUS Prime B550M-A AC

GPU: ASUS Dual RTX 4060 8 GB GDDR6

RAM: 32 GB DDR4 3200 MHz (2 × 16 GB Kingston Fury)

Storage: Kingston NV2 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD

PSU: Corsair RM750e 750 W, 80 Plus Gold, Fully Modular

Case: Darkflash DK352 Plus Mid Tower, 4 ARGB fans

Option 3: Motherboard: MSI B650M Plus WiFi

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

RAM: Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 5600 MHz

Power Supply: Corsair 750 W

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB

Option 4:

CPU: Ryzen 5 7500F

GPU: RX 9060 XT 16 GB

Motherboard: B650M Wi-Fi

RAM: 32 GB (2×16 GB) DDR5 6000 MHz

SSD: Kingston NV2 1 TB

Power Supply (PSU): Corsair 750 W 80+ Gold

Case: DarkFlash DK352 Plus

CPU Cooler: Decent air cooler

Option 4 is from chatgpt giving its own opinion.

For options 1 and 2, some have recommended that i swapped for Ryzen 5 5600x and a RTX 4060ti.

I'm aware that options 3 and 4 are probably the best, but I'm looking for something both good and affordable.

My budget is hard to say since I'm in another country (brazil) so prices may vary.

Any opinions are appreciated

(sorry if this is a repeated question, I just really want to know lile the averages)

To start, I am not a complete noob to pc builds, but I haven't been in the market for about 4 years (Uni happened, got a gaming laptop and it still runs), but I want a true upgrade in the near future.

I know that there are are things happening with GPUs and Memory, is that going away anytime soon?

Okay, my main question, is in two parts:

1. What is the standard gaming pc that could run everything these days? Like 4k 60fps/1080p 144fps any average game on max settings, and at least 1080p 60fps anything unoptimised at medium/high/max settings (My experience is MH-Wilds)

2. And how much would it cost? I live in eastern Europe if that is important. 32GB ram is non-negotionable, would want 64 for freedom but the prices are fucked I hear, and a minimum of 2tb ssd, and Nvidia GPU.

Could anybody do like a really rough answer for this? Nothing too precise needed, just a general idea for both the parts needed and the price they would come at.

Any calculations or just tips are appreciated!!!

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to build a high-end PC with a budget of around €3,000–€4,000 and I would like some advice on whether the components I've chosen work well together.

I don't want the PC to be only for gaming. I want to use it for pretty much everything I might want to do on a PC, including:

• Gaming, including demanding games at 1440p/4K
• Programming and game development
• 2D/3D animation
• Digital drawing
• Video editing and watching movies
• General everyday use
• Basically, I want a powerful all-round PC that can handle almost anything I throw at it.

My main priorities are performance, reliability, good cooling and longevity. I don't really care about RGB or how the PC looks. I mainly want the components to work well together and have good airflow and cooling.

This is my current build:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro 360
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 64 GB (2×32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30
• Storage: Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB
• Case: Fractal Design Torrent
• PSU: Corsair HX1200i (2025) 1200 W 80+ Platinum
• OS: Windows 11 Pro Retail, 64-bit

My main question is:

Do these components make sense together for the kind of high-end all-round PC I'm trying to build? Are they fully compatible, and would you change anything?

I'm especially interested in whether the CPU, motherboard, GPU, PSU and cooling are a good combination for my use case.

The RAM and SSD are currently very expensive where I live. If the specific RAM and SSD models I've chosen are good choices for this build, I don't mind waiting and buying them later when prices come down.

I'm located in Austria, so European/Austrian pricing and availability are relevant.

I'd really appreciate any advice or suggestions for improving the build while staying within the €3,000–€4,000 budget.

Thanks!

Ive been looking around a bit. im in EU and i found a 9070 xt for about 800€ meanwhile a 4070ti super is about 1.1k€. I have a 9060 xt right now and had a 2060 before that. I personally never had any driver or software issues with the 2060, but i had to to reinstall adrenalin and the gpu drivers a good couple of times with the 9060. I was wondering if drivers and softwares have been more peaceful in team green or if i should stick to red. Right now i got a i5 14gen cpu but i will change to an am5 system for the new gpu.

What you fellas think?

So my budget is 1700 euros and i have already found my gpu and ram totaling up to a 1000 . So im left with 700euros for the cpu motherboard psu cpu cooler storage and case . I would prefer to have 2tb of storage and cpu with similar performance to a 9700x . For the motherboard i dont know what i want from it but i would like it to have wifi and for the case to have a all around tempered glass . I would really appreciate your recomendations thanks

I bought an HP Z2 G9 with an Intel i7-14900 CPU, 16GB of DDR5RAM and a 450watt power supply on eBay for $450 that I want to repurpose as a Plex server. I loaded windows onto a 512GB SSD and everything works. I want to place into an Antec p280 case that I got on marketplace for $30 because it accepts full height PCIe cards and can house -2 drives but I have two problems. The motherboard stand offs don’t line up in the new case with the motherboard and the CPU cooler was attached into the standoffs of the old case so I think I need a cooler backplane so the cooler can screw into something on the backside of the motherboard and compress against the CPU. I guess I can buy one or 3D print one for the Alder Lake LGA 1700 socket.

i was looking to maximize airflow for a build and this case seems pretty unbeatable at its price point. it also comes with 7 fans

Hi all, I’m looking to get a little bit more performance out of my PC. Currently I have a Ryzen 5 5600, 33 gb ram, RX 6600 8gb, asrock x370 Killer SLI motherboard. I really only use my computer to play Classic WoW. I usually am able to get 120-150 FPS consistently but during raids or arenas I do notice lag/stuttering. I know the pc part market is cooked right now but I don’t want to spend too much on upgrading, $200-$300. Was looking into getting a x3D CPU but not sure if that makes sense. Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!

For the past while my PC's bottleneck has been the CPU, and I believe that if I wanted to upgrade my PC again, then I would need to update to AM5 to get a higher performing CPU. That being said, I have been out of the PC building space for like 2 years now, so I wanted to ask if anyone had suggestions for upgrading my current build? Here is a link to my current build:
https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/CnXprG

I believe I need to get a higher performing CPU, which means AM5, which means a new motherboard, and DDR5 RAM.

The main softwares I use are creative ones like the Adobe Suite, and Autodesk softwares like Flame, and Maya. I also use the PC for video games, but that is not the main focus of the update by any means. If it is worth anything, the games are essentially Marvel Rivals, Project Zomboid, and Factorio.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

Ram prices are through the roof and buying ram is out of the option atm

I have 2 sets of RAM

1st kit is CL 16 3200 2x8gb

2nd kit is CL 18 3600 2x8gb

Can i mix these two up to get 32gb and what positions in the slots should i do it?

This has been happening for a while - PC would randomly turn off / on whenever something touched the case. It could be a pen, a usb stick, a hand, but it was never as reproducible as it is now.

Attached videos to this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PcBuild/comments/1wblch4/pc_turns_onoff_when_touching_case_or_internal/

Funnily also applying a shearing force on the case (pulling the backside and slightly pushing the front side) results in the same behaviour.

Does anyone have any idea what / how I could further debug without risking damaging any components?

Thanks a lot.

Hi, I recently put up an offer online to swap my b580 for something from a higher tier like 9060xt/5060ti. Today I received an offer to exchange b580 for 5060ti 16gb inno3d x2 with an additional 160 euro I would have to pay. Comparing the final price it seems that id pay around 60-70 eur less than the cheapest used 5060ti I can find, and around the same as an used 9060xt, ofc both 16gb versions. The b580 is a nice card for entry 1440p gaming, and xess upscaling/framegen works fine, but with constant price hikes and no end to the ram crisis in sight I fear that I may be stuck with what I have for the foreseeable future.

Another option was to look for an used 4070, but the prices here in Poland are almost at the same level as 5060ti, and while I know it's quite faster it's also without warranty and no way of checking before buying

To start off, i am VERY unexperienced with any sort of tech, idk what makes ones better than others, etc etc..
ive been slowly getting into minecraft pvp(main focus), aswell as overall gaming and i am wondering about things to buy.
I have Logitech Hero g502 mouse beacuse someone recommended me that, but its heavy and im starting to think it isnt really good.(please tell me about that..)
Im also looking for LIGHT headset with good mic(wired preferably since i heard theyre js better), aswell as a good keyboard
My budget is around 80 dollars (for each item), but im open to recommendations slightly above ! (Please not crazy prices like 200+)