PC Hardware Talk Megathread

[zamler]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Not at all a hardware question but wondering if someone knew a simple way or could suggest a utility to retrieve Win10 key in an existing PC? I know there are utilities you could download but would rather not go shooting in the dark with google searches on that one.

Need to do a re-install on a couple mini PC's but no Win10 sticker anywhere on them.

As stated you might not need a product key. If you do this works great. Free no bloat no install needed just run.

https://free-pc-audit.en.lo4d.com/download

[TorqueDog]

ProduKey for the win: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/produc...ey_viewer.html

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Did these mini-PC's come with Windows 10 already installed? If so then you don't need the key, it's embedded in the BIOS and Windows will automatically register itself with it when reinstalling

Yes, pretty sure. Ok, good to know. So basically I just create a bootable USB and re-install windows? Been a while since I've reloaded Windows on an existing PC.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Yes, pretty sure. Ok, good to know. So basically I just create a bootable USB and re-install windows? Been a while since I've reloaded Windows on an existing PC.

Yeah, the easiest way is the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool if you aren't already familiar with it.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

[DownInFlames]

Memory Express has pretty good stock of video cards, especially 3080s. Are things starting to get back to normal finally?

[zamler]

Zero 16GB Nvidia cards. I have a particular set of needs.

[DoubleK]

Looking for recommendations for a 17" laptop.

Budget is $1500 and not a penny more.

It's a retirement gift for one of my team members.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by zamler

As stated you might not need a product key. If you do this works great. Free no bloat no install needed just run.

https://free-pc-audit.en.lo4d.com/download

Thanks for this BTW. Worked like a charm.

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Looking for a 4k monitor, will be used for gaming (realized I hate gaming sitting on the couch), photo editing, etc. Not sure of the budget just want good true 4K. Using my Asus VG245 for a while, it's simple but gets the job done

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by FormerPresJamesTaylor

Looking for a 4k monitor, will be used for gaming (realized I hate gaming sitting on the couch), photo editing, etc. Not sure of the budget just want good true 4K. Using my Asus VG245 for a while, it's simple but gets the job done

There's a good deal on the Gigabyte M32U, 32" 4K/144Hz (FreeSync) with HDMI 2.1 support at $709.99 at Amazon.

It's cheaper than the smaller M28U and is also less than the American price, which is US$599 after a $200 price cut.

https://www.amazon.ca/GIGABYTE-FreeS...s%2C245&sr=8-1


Only bad thing is that it's made by Gigabyte and its notoriously bad RMA.

[photon]

I was doing some stuff on my computer and I launched Samsung Magician, the tool Samsung provides for monitoring and updating drives. Some firmware updates and stuff, but it showed a critical alert for my primary SSD (a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro).

It tells me that it's written over 540TB of data! Which seams outrageously impossible, I have only had the system running for a bit more than a year.

I had it export the SMART data and it's reporting:

Data Units Read:    84007451
Data Units Written: 1170018582
Host Read Commands:  461353317
Host Write Commands: 4356320879
Power on hours: 6539 (272 days)

It seems very unusual that writes would be that much higher than reads in general. It says a data unit is 512 bytes and reported in thousands (i.e. a value of 1 = 1000 instances of 512 bytes), so:

Data Units Read: 84007451000 x 512 bytes = 40TB read / 272 days = 147GB / day
Data Units Written: 1170018582000 x 512 bytes = 544TB written / 272 days = 2TB / day

Is my math wrong here? Is it possible for the SMART data to be completely wrong!?

By this measure I'm reaching the rated write endurance of the drive. I'd have to have like 20MB/s transfer going on constantly for that to be right.

Is there such a thing as a virus that eats up drive writes?! I'm at a total loss to think of what could possibly be writing that much data to the drive.

EDIT: Just for laughs I tried contacting Samsung tech support chat. They told me to update then reinstall the Samsung Magician software. I told them it reports the same in other software. They then told me to back up the drive and do a secure erase, then got confused thinking I was talking about free space instead of total lifetime data written. Then told me to put it in a different computer to see if I have the same issue.

Finally they told me to warranty the drive. I'm sure THAT will go over well, but I guess I have nothing else to try.. try to convince them that some bug in the drive is causing it to misreport the data written? I guess I could just ignore it and hope that it's misreporting, but I don't really want my system drive to die unexpectedly when it can't write to it anymore.

EDIT2: I checked at 10pm, and the number is at 1170036988.. so supposedly 8GB was written to the SSD. From what I have no idea.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Has anyone else had Afterburner cause massive FPS drops (like 30%) by polling? First time I've experienced it, took me like an hour before I realized that the drops were perfectly timed with the polling interval. Never had an issue with Afterburner before, but closing it solved the problem instantly.

[Cliche]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Has anyone else had Afterburner cause massive FPS drops (like 30%) by polling? First time I've experienced it, took me like an hour before I realized that the drops were perfectly timed with the polling interval. Never had an issue with Afterburner before, but closing it solved the problem instantly.

Isn't MSI afterburner highly dependent on Rivatuner statistics server? Rivatuner Statistics server has some settings that cause some games to not run because it interferes with the DRM on certain games. It wouldn't be out of norm for the base settings to cause slowdowns or failure to execute.

Originally Posted by photon

I was doing some stuff on my computer and I launched Samsung Magician, the tool Samsung provides for monitoring and updating drives. Some firmware updates and stuff, but it showed a critical alert for my primary SSD (a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro).

It tells me that it's written over 540TB of data! Which seams outrageously impossible, I have only had the system running for a bit more than a year.

****/Snip/****

EDIT2: I checked at 10pm, and the number is at 1170036988.. so supposedly 8GB was written to the SSD. From what I have no idea.

here are some stats from Crystal Disk info on my system drive.

Power On Hours : 41961 hours
Power On Count : 413 count
Host Reads : 23616 GB
Host Writes : 72556 GB
NAND Writes : 18421 GB

my total write count after nearly 5 years is about 80tb on a 240gb drive, with a health state of about 56%.

usage rates may vary as I am just a gamer. Don't even do crypto. No coding work done on the system, and nothing logs into the system really, maybe the UPS software or universal media server.

Other disk usage monitoring can be done in win10 under taskmanager performance tab, open resource monitor, disk tab.

process with disk activity is the most relevant window. after that, knowledge of the various processes would be important.

[photon]

Yeah I've been playing with Resource Monitor and stuff and I can't see anything unusual, Chrome is generally the highest disk usage when I'm browsing (writing to cache), but there's nothing that even comes close to writing at the rate needed to get to 500TB in a year.

I decided to get a new SSD just in case, don't want to run into a situation where I suddenly can't do anything anymore. At MemEx I asked the service dept since Samsung told me that all their warranty service is provided by the vendor and not by Samsung, so figured might as well try.

He was amazed as much as me, he thought either there was some kind of firmware bug or maybe the drive was used before I got it somehow. Either way he seemed willing to process the warranty, but turns out I got it at Amazon (I don't think MemEx had stock when I got it).

So I contacted Amazon and they refused to process the warranty. I tried explaining what Samsung said. When I asked Samsung they said Amazon should process the warranty and they gave me a letter to give to Amazon stating such. They even linked to their website that says the vendor does warranty support in Canada. Amazon refused to even look at the letter or Samsung's website. I figured I was out of luck.

Finally after I asked for a supervisor they said they'd just give me a refund. I didn't even have to send the drive back. I said I just wanted a warranty replacement but again they said Amazon didn't do the warranty service, wouldn't look at Samsung's letter or website, and just gave me a refund.

So in the end I got a really cheap SSD upgrade.

But warning to anyone buying Samsung SSDs from Amazon, don't expect any warranty. Though I think Samsung probably would have done something if I told them Amazon flat out refused.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Cliche

Isn't MSI afterburner highly dependent on Rivatuner statistics server? Rivatuner Statistics server has some settings that cause some games to not run because it interferes with the DRM on certain games. It wouldn't be out of norm for the base settings to cause slowdowns or failure to execute.

It is highly dependent on Riva, yes, but this was regardless of title - I tried it in four different games and was having the same issue. I had actually bought a few games off Steam because I'm anticipating getting my Deck e-mail in the next couple of weeks, and one of them was Hades. Figured I'd fire it up on my higher hz monitor, but it was borderline unplayable due to the drops. I initially thought it was a problem with Hades but then tested Hollow Knight, Mass Effect and The Ascent and had the same problem. Same issue when I switched from my 165hz monitor to a 4k60hz monitor - instead of dropping from 165 to ~110, FPS dropped from 60 to 40.

If it was a DRM issue I wouldn't expect those games (other than ME Legendary) to be an issue. I certainly wouldn't expect exactly the same proportional frame rate drop regardless of game (~30% across the board). Just a weird problem overall.

Weirdly, this is only a problem when I'm using my eGPU, and it's polling that eGPU at the same time as the CPU of the laptop that's plugged into it. That delay might be what's causing the problem.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Memory Express has pretty good stock of video cards, especially 3080s. Are things starting to get back to normal finally?

Doubt it. The pricing is still far from msrp for alot of A.I.B cards. The reason there's stock is mining isn't profitable anymore, those who really need a card bite the bullet and got one at a way higher price and those who are waiting the extra few months till next gen overhaul in a few months.

Most cards at places like best buy and canada c9.puters etc are still charging 1200 to 1700 for a card that's 699 usd for a 3080 FE and most aibs should only be only 150 to 175 over FE pricing. If you want a lower tier of msi,zotac or gigabyte. That's like the Venus,trinity or gaming cards. Not great built cards and all 3 have terrible rmas. The cut corner cards run hot and you get all of this still for 3 too 500 bucks more than it should be priced at after taxes.

I was looking at getting a different 3080 than what I have . (Aorus extreme 3080) because gigabytes software sucks and dosent recognize the cards leds and I can't chance the lcd panel off that ####ing stupid chidi egg. I'm happy I have a 3080 but Wanted a good asus card which still would cost me 1900 after taxes from Canada computers . That's still almost double what msrp is suppose to be for that card. I only got a 3080 due to trading up3 times from a 3060ti out of a dell pre-built I had to buy to get it lol

I might just get a 3070 again for a new system as the are only 15 to 20% over msrp. With the money saved I can get a hyte 60 case, noctua fans and upgrade my 5800x to a 5800x3d.

Well now that I ranted ...no , until pricing drastically continues to fall then no it's not going to be normal as retailers won't lower prices that much.

The cycles just going to continue again in August/September. Scalpers made alot of money last time around so they will try again and the millions who waited this long will do battle once again with the chip shortage predicted to last till the end of 2024........

Realistically we could be near the launch of the 5000 or 6000 series for nvidia before things balance out as the new intel and tcdm plants won't be up and running till then at least.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Did these mini-PC's come with Windows 10 already installed? If so then you don't need the key, it's embedded in the BIOS and Windows will automatically register itself with it when reinstalling

Actually you need to register your your product key to your hotmail/outlook/ Microsoft email then it will auto detect.

[photon]

Yeah at this point might as well wait for the 4000 series comes and see if I can get a 3080 for a decent price.

The 4000 series sounds like they're going to need a LOT of power too, help us AMD, you're our only hope.

[PsYcNeT]

LHR has been fully cracked finally, so any resumed supply will likely dry up pretty quick.

Just an fyi for anyone who might be intending to buy a card this weekend.

[cam_wmh]

Anyone done a PC Health Check, on their Windows 11 eligibility?

The returning message I just got;

The processor isn't currently supported for Windows 11.
Processor: Intel Core i7-6700 2 3.4GHz

This is an error?

On this list of eligible processors, there are fricking Atom's & Celerons...
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...tel-processors