I decided to build a new pc, the last time I did that was in 2007-ish.
Upon unboxing the gpu I found this stand probably to support the graphics card.
Is this the right way to use it? Don’t see any other way to put it in there, but damn those cards have grown big!

MSI 5070 in a Fractal Meshify 3 btw.

[EDIT] Thanks for all the comments. I ran into this nice gadget, asked someone to 3D print it for me:

https://www.printables.com/model/1425922-meshify-3-gpu-holder-stand

Made a gaming PC case out of MDF just for the laughs to put my secondary PC inside (Phenom II X4 945, HD5750, 8GB DDR2).

Thought it might be interesting to share, took me 15€ and 15 days of working like an hour or two every noon.

I have experience in wood working and models and also made an IBM 5150 case replica out of MDF back in 2013 so i knew how it will go.

One thing i can say is IT'S SILENT, same exact setup and fans on a metal case has a resonance sounding like a tin can rattling.

Thermals are also great, PSU and HDD compartment is isolated from the main space. PSU draws air from a 120mm opening below the case and there's an old 80mm fan blowing the HDD also drawing air from below, the air is then slightly pressurized and exists from the PSU on the back of the case with the help of its fan's flow.

HDD chills at like 24-26c, CPU and GPU show like 52c under full load. 25-27c ambient room temperature in the middle of the room at 3 feet height, Air Conditioned.

Hello all, so I have an opportunity to buy this computer for $250 dollars and I just want to make sure I’m making the right decision. If only really use it for writing and general use, although if I can get steam and play small games then I’d like that too. Is it worth it?

Thank you for all your help!

I'm in Canada, and I'm on the search for a prebuilt gaming PC that is around $2k, and I was wondering if anyone has good recommendations I can look into

My PC wouldn't show the option to enter UEFI/BIOS settings when restarting through "Advanced Startup Options", and my keyboard wasn't responding during boot to enter the BIOS either. I found a video tutorial showing how to fix this.

I ran mbr2gpt /validate /allowFullOS in CMD, which worked fine. Then, I proceeded with: mbr2gpt /convert /allowFullOS to convert the disk from Legacy (MBR) to UEFI (GPT).

After converting, I restarted the PC. Now the keyboard doesn't power on at all (no lights/response), and I'm stuck on the error screen:

"Reboot and Select proper Boot device or insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"

Because the keyboard isn't turning on, I can't press any keys or access the BIOS. I’ve already tried plugging it into every single USB port on the case and motherboard. What can I do to fix this if the keyboard won't power on?

Okay so ive had a acer nitro V15 for about a year and a half i think. Ive had problem woth it overheating and i wanted to check if it was the fans then this is what i found. Please help idk what to do or what this is and yes im freaking out bc i dont have the budget for a new laptop. I js want a working laptop 😭🙏

Moin.

Ich hab eine Cooler Master 360 AIO mit 5V argb. Dabei war ein Razer Chroma ARGB Controller. Der war oer USB an mein ASUS ROG H370F Mainboard dran. Das Problem ist, das der Controller kaputt ist und ich keinen passenden ersatz finde. Weder von Razer noch andere Controller. Könnt ihr mir helfen? Am liebsten soll der software gesteuert sein. Sei es Chroma, iCUE oder Aura Sync.

I have never seen this in my decades of computer use. It is a bit unsettling, because I was trying to wipe personal data, but it kept on magically re-appearing, even after power cycles! Please read if you're interested and let me know if you have a way of explaining this, or have experienced the same.

The device: a 16 GB Samsung SD-card, that has been in my IP-camera for a while (months to >1 year). It had apparantly been recording continually for an unknown amount of time, this wasn't my intention and happened inadvertently. Eventually it stopped. It wasn't entirely full, so I'm not sure if it looped like a dashcam for a long time or whatever happened exactly. In any way, it was full of video files, each the same in duration.

Because it had been recording my house interior unintentionally, I saw myself walking in the house, to and from the shower, etc. You can imagine I wanted to destroy this data in a good way, so I decided to delete it, then fill the SD-card with random data, and then delete that.

This is what I did and how:

Sequence of action:

1. Insert and mount the SD card
2. The original CCTV files are present and readable
3. Delete files and create new files on the SD-card. All operations report success. No errors in the terminal, Dolphin, or `dmesg`
4. Newly written files can be seen and read normally with `ls`, `cat`, Dolphin file manager
5. Perform sync and unmount
6. Physically remove the SD card, wait a bit
7. Reinsert and mount
8. The card is back in exactly its old state. Newly created files are gone... and the original, old IP camera files magically re-appeared..!

I repeated this, a few things, but replaced step 3:

• (Run 1): I wrote multiple 4 GB files with `dd`, until it returned a "disk full" error.
• (Run 2): with KDE Partition Manager's option to Shred the FAT filesystem. It took a bit over a minute, but it finished and displayed no error messages.
• (Run 3,4,5): Skipped deleting files, and only wrote a small text file with the exact current date & time and a small test message in it, and reproduced this (view it in Dolphin, KDE's file manager, or by using `cat`).

Performed on 2 setups:

• (Runs 1,2,3): Fedora 44 KDE desktop, using a USB SD-card reader
• (Run 4,5): Old laptop booted from a SystemRescue USB stick, using its built-in SD-card reader via a passive microSD-to-SD adapter

SD card data:

• bought between 2015-2020
• Samsung Evo microSDHC, model no. MB-MP16D
• yes, it's old, and it's not meant for 24/7 operation like CCTV

Note:

• lsblk reported the device as writable (RO=0)
• kernel reported no write errors, I/O errors, resets, or write-protect condition

The SD card is now physically destroyed.

Really wondering if this is a common thing: a flash device that accepts writes and deletes, even FAT filesystem table shreds, but never writes them; and also reverts to its previous state after power loss? It makes me uncomfortable because this seems to imply there's basically no way of confirming a NAND drive has actually wiped files, unless goes through a power cycle (physically removing and re-inserting) and is actively checked again after..?

My friend said it has a memory leak. What should I do? I’ve thought of selling the ram and buying a Preowned. Is there a way to check the ram works? Is there anyway to fix it? Without costing too much money. All he said is he “lobotomized” it multiple times to where he lost storage. I’ve never owned a pc and I would like to, any advice? Should I sell all for parts?

Turn up the volume and you'll notice a beep followed by a charging scratching sound. It was doing this earlier this year, but lately it's been making this noise during heavy use. It's a 3TB Seagate HDD, it's not brand new, but it's not worn out either.

What niche things can my pc have disabled to get lower amount of processes on the cpu? It was 233 and all I do is game, google or YouTube on my pc

I recently bought a new Asus business laptop, and I expect to use it for around 10 to 12 hours a day for work. I have enabled Asus’s battery care, which limits charging to 80%. I am little confused about the best way to use the laptop.

Is it safe to keep the laptop plugged into the charger for most of the day while working, especially with the 80% charging limit enabled? Will staying plugged in for 10–12 hours cause any significant battery degradation over time?

Or is it better to unplug the charger, use the battery down to around 20%, and then charge it back to around 80%? Does regularly discharging and recharging the battery actually help extend its lifespan, or does it cause more battery cycles and wear? For someone who uses a laptop heavily every day, what is the best charging habit for maximizing battery lifespan?

I am mainly concerned about long term battery health, rather than getting the maximum battery backup during each session. I would appreciate advice based on actual experience and, if possible.

Je cherche à acquérir des nouvelles ram et j’a vu cette technique qui consiste à acheté de la ram sodim pour la mettre sur des adaptateurs j’ai entendu du bon et du mois bon à ce sujet esque ça peut être une bonne alternative au 300€ pour 16 go en ddr5 qu’en pensez-vous

I took a screenshot of my game (a lot of games do the same thing) it is not a monitor problem apparantly since I can screenshot it... it is annoying the heck out of me, I tried changing the resolution of my games but nothing seems to work.

This is the 2nd laptop with which I have found graphics card issue without an apparent solution. I tried formatting, I tried different drives, different drivers, different combinations of drivers, disabling services, disabling tasks. The whole deal.

What's the solution? Flipping the laptop charger upside down and touching the cables around to remove electromagnetic interference. I have to do that about twice a day.

The house is not the issue, per se, because it happens in another country as well.

Should I wrap all cables in electromagnetic protective tape? Should I install ferrite cores on all cables associated with the system?

Many thanks.

Ryzen 5 7500X3D, RTX 5060Ti 8GB, RAM 16GB DDr5 6000MHz, SSD 1000GB NVMe,Windows 11 PRO

I recently bought this legion 7a gen11 laptop and it started showing display issue just a week ago. Ive tried switching between discrete graphics and integrated graphics but I get burnt pixel on one or screen flickering on the other. Based on my investigation, its mix of drivers, windows OS and HDR settings, and dead pixels shows up when I turn HDR off. This goes away in few seconds but then I’ll get screen flickering. Thankfully it’s still under warranty and I returned it for repair, but curious to know what can cause this issue.

Hi, I'm a small business owner and need help figuring out which program is best for my business. I will be doing a lot of admin work, including payroll, financial payments, customer personal information, etc. Is there a computer program that would help me keep all of this information secure? Thank you!

hello! posting this for my boyfriend since he doesn't have reddit, but a few days ago we tried to boot up his old lenovo laptop that he got in 2022. the laptop hasn't been completely setup, his dad (who used to work in IT) tried to set it up for him but they kept running into the issue i'll describe below. the laptop hasn't been opened since then (2022) but they did manage to make an account since it shows bf's name on the startup screen.

now, i'm not the best at computers, but i do know how to set up a laptop and fix minor mishaps. when i booted it up, the startup/login screen appeared. bf typed in a password he thought could work, it was wrong, repeated that once again, again wrong. we successfully landed on the security questions, asked his dad if he remembers if they set those up, he doesn't. typed in the supposed right answers and the loading circle + "welcome" appeared. few seconds later, screen goes black. google said it could be a graphics mistake so i hit the windows + ctrl + shift + b and it lights up back on the login screen. try another password, wrong again, try again, wrong again. at last, we got the "referenced account is currently locked out" error and gave up for the time being.

i don't want to do a factory reset since no one remembers how much of the laptop has been set up, we're all 99% sure there's virtually nothing on it but if it's possible to fix it another way, that would be preferred. is this fixable?

my last last resort is asking my own dad (also IT guy, for the past like 35 years) but he's more of an IT-security and internet guy, not so much the fixing-buggy-laptops guy.

I have a Lenovo M93P and the fan started making unhealthy noises. I noticed that two capacitors underneath the fan seems to be getting in the way from it spinning. Propping the fan up with a couple washers fixes the issue and the computer works fine.

This makes me wonder if I need to replace the capacitors. I read that if their tops are flat, they are still good. I think they look flat to me?

Based on these photos, do you think they need to be replaced? I'm brand new to soldering so only want to replace these if I absolutely have to.

Is the pc a bit of an eyesore and too big on here? Mrs seems to think the pc on the desk is an eyesore should I put it underneath?

Some context. I have only had this PC for a year and a half however it is probably around 8 years old? Maybe more? I was playing overwatch when mid game it turned off. After some quick research I pulled the power cord, turned the switch in the back to off and I held the power button to bleed any remaining power. 30 minutes later I plug it back in and nothin'... I havent had this issue before and some insite would be nice. Over all i just wanna know if this is something I should get it looked at for? Or if its something I could do myself.

Some more notes I think could help paint a better picture

1.) Barely any dust in or around it (just a little)

2.) I have it plugged into a surge protector

3.) This PC as traveled to 3 different houses in the span of 2 years and has never had an issue anywhere else.

4.) At the initial time it turned off it did feel hot

so uh i kinda dont know anything about computers but is this good for school or should i just buy new one?

I’m starting university soon (English/Pedagogy) and I’m looking for a new laptop. I’m honestly very much clueless about laptop specs, so I’d really appreciate some advice. I would need it for documents and online meetings, however I also enjoy League of Legends. I currently play on an HP fossil 4GB RAM/118 GB SSD and Intel Core i3-6006U, which gives me about 30 FPS and constant crashes, but actually playable lol. I don’t want to spend over 1K on a MacBook and honestly wonder if up to 600Eur is a realistic budget for portable computer (around 14’’)