Buildapc

...yeah, it's time. I've finally found games I actually want to play that require a half-decent machine, I make all my money on the computer, and I regularly do video editing as well. I always keep my machines for a long time, so they need to be as future-proof as possible and I can't justify saving up for a PC unless it's going to be good enough for the foreseeable future. So here's where my head is at, I'd be grateful for any advice.

tl;dr https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xjP3yF for the general idea, but I'm open to other ideas. It's going to be a linux machine, and all AMD since I hear the drivers work better/are less fiddly. Aesthetically, I like an all-white motif but looks are secondary to pure power and long life. I would like to be able to emulate PS4, Xbox 360, run S&box so my kid can make games, and render my clip shows at high speed. The budget I'm targeting is about £2k. Will mean saving up for a couple months. Parts I'm considering:

CPU

• Ryzen 9 9950X3D (I'm most excited about having a strong CPU, this one appeals to me even though it's a bit of a splurge)
• Ryzen 9 7950X3D
• Ryzen 9 7900X3D

GPU

Anything AMD, 16gb preferred but at least 12gb. AMD RX 6800XT or higher perhaps. RX 7800 XT or similar would be great.

Memory

16gb preferred, DDR5, not too fussy about brand. Maybe someday another 16gb if it becomes worthwhile.

Storage

1 or 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD, any really who cares. I don't need a lot of storage, most of my games are lightweight indies or backed up on my server.

Power Supply

Anything 850-1000w, preferably modular? I dunno.

Cooling

Possibly an AIO liquid cooler. I'm iffy on that, would be happy with a fan if it's more recommended.

Case

Fractal does a nice white wood effect one (North XL), as does Antec (Flux Pro). Happy with anything that matches, but don't really love showy RGB, prefer understated and clean looks.

I finally got enough money to get a desktop but I can't seem to find ones that don't have a 4090 or a basic ass video card.

Need like a mid-level that is amazing for cpu games and ok for video as I don't care about visuals

Basically a computer that can run heavily modded Factorio, Minecraft and rimworld.

Anybody have any links or options that are under 800?

I was hyped for the gabecube but the delays and uncertainty around the pricing have left me wanting to build something that fits a similar niche instead. A Linux box (bazzite or steam OS, haven't made my mind up about that yet) that will keep up for the foreseeable future while being repairable, upgradeable, and (preferably) a small-smallish form factor to sit on top of my media center. That's the big picture for me. However, I've never built a PC before and I'm not sure what that looks like in practice.

I'm looking for advice and hardware suggestions on how to achieve this, I haven't set a budget because I'm not sure what's realistic, and having a reliable system is imore mportant to me, but I'm also pragmatic and don't want to overdo things just because. Below is relevant information and performance goals/questions in no particular order

I'm currently using my steam deck on a dock to fill this niche and it does ok, but it struggles with some titles and the graphics aren't always great when blown up on my TV. I have a 4k TV with a 60hz refresh rate. I want to build a system that can hold a stable 60fps on high settings for most games. Not sure about resolution, either 1080p or 1440p. I struggle with small text in a lot of modern titles (especially sitting ~8 ft away on the couch) and I've read that 1440p can help with that. I also do couch co-op fairly regularly and want support for 4 controllers that are a combination of Bluetooth and 2.4g. Since it'll be a Linux machine I know AMD is the way to go, but that's about as far as my hardware knowledge extends. I'm ok with buying second hand, and I'm fine with using framegen and upscaling to smooth things out.

Does 1440p make much of a difference, and is the higher hardware demand worth it? If so, what's the best bang for your buck CPU/GPU that could reliably achieve 1080/1440 @ 60fps, and do so for the next few years?

How much/what kind of RAM do I realistically need?

How on earth do I pick a motherboard? Lol

Thanks for reading!

So this started one day when I shut the computer down. I went to start and shut it down that way.

When I turned it on again it turned itself off after a few minutes. Then it wouldn't turn on until a few more minutes, then it again shut itself off...

I thought I heard a clicking sound when it goes off, so I think it's the power supply.

So I order a new one, wait a week, a slow painful week. And then I install the power supply.

Same issue.

I bring my tech guy over and he plays with the settings in Bios and updates my Bios. It never shuts off in bios so we think it's fixed..

He has to go because he's a streamer and he has a tournament. So I rush him home and think problem solved.

I go to be with my computer, get her out of BIOS and after a few minutes she shuts off and doesn't turn back on. Same problem as before.

So now I'm at a loss. I have no idea what's causing my problem.

Please. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear it. I just want my PC back.

My mainboard is an msi b450 Mortar Max. Until recently, I used a pretty small gpu, which left enough space for my network adapter to fit in the pcie 3x4.

I upgraded my gpu this winter, but there was only space in the second pcie 2.0x16, which (probably) doesn't provide enough lanes. That's why wifi stopped working, and bluetooth started to become buggy.

Now I was playing around with the thought of picking up a 2in1 usb dongle, but I heard they aren't that good.

What's would be the best thing to do in this case?

Edit: The network adapter is a Gigabyte GC-WB1733DI

Hi guys and gals, I was asked to build gaming PC on very tight budget of 200-250 €.
My plan is to buy

• Gigabyte GA-A320M-S2H
• AMD Ryzen 3 2200G
• 16 GB DDR4
• Radeon RX 560

Is this combo worth it in 2026 or should I look further?

I dont know what to do. It won't boot at all now. Just gets stuck on the asus logo. Bad motherboard perhaps? How could I check? Buy a new motherboard and hope it fixes the issue?

Sorry if there's a better community to put this in.

Basically title, I have a 9070xt and whenever I turn my PC on, the GPU turns on (RGB and fans), but I don't get any post or display to either of my two monitors. I only know the rest of the PC is working because I can ssh in. According to fastfetch my GPU is "mesa llvmpipe". After taking the 9070 out and putting my old 6700xt in, everything seemed to work fine.

I brought it to a PC shop just to see if everything still worked. The 9070 worked in their machine, and it also worked when they put it back into mine. I didn't touch anything, brought it back home, and now it's back to it's previous behavior.

I already have a new psu on the way (550w made sense when I first put the system together) but I'm not actually sure it's causing my current problem because it worked at the PC shop.

Any help or insight would be appreciated and I can update with more information if required

Exactly what the title says. I know the prices of computer parts have been skyrocketing because of all the "generative" "AI" bullshit that's been forced on the world, and I'm lucky my computer is just good enough to still be doing what I need it to several years later. It's a laptop, though, so basically no ability to swap components.

I want to get into PC building, more out of necessity then desire, but I'm nervous about ruining good parts. I'm totally fine with building a mediocre machine with cheap, old stuff just to get a feel for how everything goes together. If I can make it run Linux and maybe emulate a PS1 game, I'll be happy. Additionally, I have a HUGE rack mounted server PC from the mid 2000s that, if nothing else, can be gutted for it's spacious casing.

Is building a cheap test machine like this worth while? If so, I'd appreciate any advice on what parts to scoop up and maybe where I could find them.

Hello,

I have been upgrading this PC for years now, and the CPU is way behind. However I'm not sure what to put in. I planned on sticking with AMD, I'm running Linux Mint, and I want to spend $200-300. My monitor is capable of 165 FPS but nothing I play tends to reach that (Counter-Strike 2, Doom: The Dark Ages, Control, other big-budget games). So I'd like something that could help get this thing up to speed.

I'm also interested to hear what other components ought to be prioritized for upgrading in the future.

Thanks

Over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, I decided to make use of a case I got late Summer from an online transaction. The buyer was someone purchasing a computer and insisted on providing several items along with the cash payment I requested. The computer case smelled like smoke, contained cockroach carcasses and frass, and was still otherwise filthy. I ended up putting it in a trash bag, spraying Raid in the bag, and leaving it in my garage. The weekend after Christmas I finally got it out, removed the board, and began cleaning it up. After a few rounds of cleaning over a few hours, I got all of the brown sludge out of it and it started smelling clean. The hardest part was getting the gross brown tar dust out of the creases of the plastic front cover.

With the house to myself, I gathered all the parts, lay them out on the table as above, and began. That's when I met my first hurdle: the rear panel does not come out and the ports do not match.

That saddened me deeply, but then I got over it and decided that cutting holes was the best idea ever. Before I got to cutting, I decided to give it a little test. Don't mind the state of the monitor. I snagged it for $0.63 at a yard sale 15-20 years ago. The scuffs were why it was so cheap. Why the weird number? It was just something in the moment I guess.

That was when I noticed that the case had no cabling. Nothing for power buttons, nothing for LEDs. I guess I'll need to figure something out.

Confident that something was working, I got to cutting. It wasn't pretty, but it fit. To make it more pretty, I added some epoxy putty. After letting it settle, I eventually sanded it down.

I'm not a huge fan of the holes, but it's not completely ugly. Testing, I still need to fix the holes for the PS/2 mouse, but that's not really a concern. Maybe I'll borrow the kid's tools and give it one more go.

Having finally mounted the board, I get to work fabricating a power button. I don't have pictures of the button pieces, but for the cable I used the coded cable from a DVD player. For those that don't know, DVD drives used to require an external decoder card to play DVD disks. That technology is obsolete, and I'm pretty sure I don't have the cards, so I don't really need it any more. I ended up epoxying strips of aluminum from soda cans into the plastic holder for the power switch and then later wedging the contacts from the cable up against the aluminum strips. The power signal only needs a momentary close, and the exact resistance doesn't matter. On the backside of the power button I epoxied a small loop of copper to press against the aluminum contacts I made. The button has built-in springs, so a momentary switch is born.

From there, I had just enough to work with, so I installed a case fan to address the error messages, installed a SSD and then installed Fedora Linux. Why Fedora? Well, that's because Mint crashed from the desktop shortly after boot and I didn't feel like doing real troubleshooting.

It started to feel real, and I had ordered some sets of switches and LEDs. The original Dell switch had the power LED built into the power switch. Drive activity LED or reset switches were not part of the original build, and while I wanted drive activity, I wasn't interested in a reset switch.

I didn't document the process much here, but here is testing the LEDs.

I had to wedge the power LED near enough to the power button to allow the light pipe to pick it up. The drive activity LED is shown here wedged into the case near the vent.

I wasn't a fan of that location and ended up carving out part of the plastic case and using hot glue to keep it in place.

Here it is from the outside, looking pretty. It's 9MB, so I don't blame you for skipping this one.

I was pretty happy with that, so I took a few more minutes to clean the board well and do some cable management.

On the software side, I initially tried playing Minecraft, but it was terrible. This was paper MC on a network server, but I hadn't disabled enough to play well.

Eventually I had nearly everything turned all the way down and it was playable.... more or less. (SUPER NINJA EDIT! I forgot I put an AMD HD 4530 in there, and that's why it was so playable)

No matter what I did, reducing the resolution and using mods to disable most effects, Hollow Knight was still unplayable.

Using Firefox was fine. It even played Jellyfin without any complaints. Videos do seem to need to take a little bit to buffer or they end up skipping frames.

The last thing I tested was LibreOffice and then Opened a Sheets .xlsx in excel.com. The Sheets was a test of patience, and crashed several times trying to use larger data sets. It even caused Firefox to crash due to OOM. I had to use a smaller data set (50k lines instead of 100k) and everything was much better. I did not have the patience to find where it really started to struggle, but MOST spreadsheets are not that large.

I had to put it down for a couple weeks, but after asking people's opinions of what games to test on it, I was given the following:

Doom: No problem! I would be concerned if I couldn't get it to play Doom.

Elder Scrolls Arena: It was perfectly playable, but the audio was a little bit crackly.

Elder Scrolls Daggerfall: It was laggy in dosbox and the audio was terribly crackly.

More testing to be done in comments, but for now I'm pooped!

[ Off topic ]

Couldn't find a laptop-specific community to ask this question.

I'm thinking to buy a 2nd hand/refurbished laptop.

For study purposes, browsing the internet, tinkering with a few note-taking apps like Obsidian, Capacities, Logseq etc. I'll persue coding in future.

Will definitely use linux. Probably Zorin OS or Fedora.

My last laptop broke back in 2023 and I've never touched a pc/laptop since. This is probably why, I lack the understanding of computing power of laptop grade processors in today's standard.

I just want to know that the things I'm hoping to do with my yet-to-buy laptop within a linux environment, will a i5 chipset be enough?

Here's what specs I'm hoping to get alongside the chipset:

16 GB of DDR4 RAM ( Non-soldered ) ( At least )512 GB SSD ( any variant will do )

I'll eventually upgrade the RAMs and SSD in future. Maybe when I'll start coding. But for my study purposes, 16 gigs is more than enough.

Will i7 be a perfect balance with the 512 + 16 GB combination or i5 will be efficient enough?

[ Picture is collected from another Lemmy post. Excuse the picture ]

A few years ago I mistakenly bought some used ECC DDR3, 256GB (8x32GB) of the stuff for $110. Given the current memory shortage, is it time to dust it off and let someone else put it to use somehow? Or is DDR3 just too old to be worth it? I already have 128GB of DDR4 in my server and don't really need more for myself, but I have considered getting a second server to play with that I can stick these in.

I currently have a Intel Core i5-12400F (bought a pre built from Starforge) and am thinking of upgrading to an Intel i9-14900K or KF and I'm wondering what steps I need to take in regards to preparation and during installation

I bought a bit of thermal paste a while back that was a corsair one that I saw in Walmart for cheap, but if I need better I'll get better, I also have a Arctic Freezer 36 Air Cooler

Hello! I excitedly bought myself a new Graphics card for my setup. Now, this was the first time I'd ever built a computer, and the case I used was an old hand-me-down mid-tower. While purchasing the card I considered power draw and airflow, however I did not account for size. The drive bay can't be removed if not by forceful means. I assume the best course of action is to just purchase or find a bigger case, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any option so that's why I'm asking here. What do I do? Do I try to hardmod my case into having enough space for the card?

Recently, I was thinking about upgrading my gpu, but I'm a little unsure what model makes sense. My system is quite old, but I am also (modt of the times) not a lot of an ultra graphics gamer.

My system:

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 Mainboard: MSI B450 mortar max Gpu: gtx 1070 Case: Fractal design define mini c Power: Be quiet! Pure power 500W Atx

Actually, I want to switch to linux in the future, so I tend more to the AMD direction.

I have a budget of around 400. But I was also looking for something that isn't too hard on the power bill...

I don't need the newest stuff so does instance a rx 6700 make sense or would you say just changing the gpu isn't enough?

I’d like to share these basic rules to help anyone planning to build a PC avoid costly mistakes and make sure everything will work together. Below is a table with the most essential compatibility rules. Hope this is helpful, and feel free to add anything I might have missed!

Rule - What to check / Why it matters

1. CPU ↔ Motherboard socket / Socket must match (e.g., AM5 CPU requires an AM5 Socket etc). If they don’t match, the motherboard won’t power on or the CPU simply won’t fit.

2. CPU brand ↔ Chipset support / Intel CPUs require Intel-compatible chipsets; AMD CPUs require AMD-compatible chipsets. Each chipset only supports certain CPU generations.

3. CPU model ↔ RAM type (DDR4 vs DDR5) / Some CPU + motherboard combinations support either DDR4 or DDR5. Always choose the RAM type that your CPU supports.

4. CPU TDP ↔ Cooler mounting & cooling capability / Make sure the CPU cooler is compatible with the CPU socket and can handle the CPU’s thermal output (TDP). More powerful CPUs generally require larger and more capable cooling systems.

5. CPU Cooling System↔ Case clearance / Make sure the height of the air CPU cooler fits inside your PC case. Otherwise, if you choose to use an AIO liquid cooler instead, the case should have proper support and enough space for the liquid cooler radiator.

6. Motherboard form factor ↔ Case form factor / ATX, micro-ATX, mini-ITX — the board and the case must match physically.

7. Storage form factor ↔ Motherboard / SSD M.2 devices need M.2 slots on the motherboard that supports (SATA or Nvme or both). 2.5" drives need SATA ports.

8. Storage devices↔PC Case / Make sure your case has the appropriate number of drive bays for the SSDs or HDDs you plan to install.

9. Motherboard↔GPU UEFI GOP / A modern graphics card require a UEFI-compatible firmware (most GPUs from the last decade are)

10. GPU size & power↔ Case clearance & PSU / Check GPU length vs case clearance; check GPU power connectors and PSU wattage/headroom.

11. GPU power ↔ PSU / PSU needs the correct connectors (for example, 8-pin PCIe, or dual 8-pin PCIe, or modern 12VHPWR etc) and enough wattage to properly power the GPU.

12. PSU↔Motherboard & CPU / The PSU needs the correct connectors for the motherboard (typically a 24-pin and an 8-pin) and enough wattage to properly power the CPU.

13. PSU↔Case clearance / Check PSU dimensions vs case clearance

14. Windows 11 requirements / CPU supported by MS Windows 11; The motherboard must support UEFI, TPM 2.0, and Secure Boot. GPU compatible with DirectX 12 or later, with a WDDM 2.0 driver.

Windows 11 supported Intel processors https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-supported-intel-processors

Windows 11 supported AMD processors https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-supported-amd-processors

• You don't have to worry about rules 9 and 14 if you use Linux.

• Using the rules above alongside your motherboard’s manual helps prevent mistakes when planning a PC build.

• Refer to your motherboard’s official website for the CPU, memory, and SSD compatibility lists.

[edit: 0.1] (Added more info based on comments.)

Hello, my brother prebuilt pc sometimes restartes when there are network issues with our internet over the phone line.

Over the summer when the network work's with no issies he never experiences restarts, but the moment we started getting snow and networks issues his pc restarts on random, we know that network issues happen because the iptv box from our carries alwo experience network issue at the same time.

We tried reinstalling windows, also installed bazzite which worked fine, byt yesterday at the same that the iptv box experienced network issues the pc rebooted.

Is there any way to diagnose this and fix?

Edit: this happened when he bought it with a tp link wifi usb dongle last year AND over ethernet since last few weeks.

Hello everyone. (First Lemmy post!) I'm having a terrible time with my build crashing games and I know there are WAY tech savvier that might give me a few ideas. The games that crash/wont even load are: cyberpunk, Dead Space, Last Epoch, the Division 2 to name a few. I built my computer 2 years ago and upgraded a year ago to:

ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus AMD Ryzen 9 5900X NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO SL DDR4 RAM 32GB CORSAIR RM1000x PSU

The issue very much seems to be my GPU as when I run Cinebench GPU test, after a while will close itself. It does not overheat just closes. I have tried doing a clean windows install, using DDU to wipe and then install most up to date drivers, and even attempting to reseat the GPU. I've tried drastically lowering the game settings but the result is the same.

So, first question: am I in fact stupid? second question: what on earth is wrong with this thing?

I've been having an issue with my computer deadlocking after roughly 10-30 minutes of it being on. The simple test was when the computer froze up it didn't register any inputs, caps lock didn't change any lights on my keyboard, the computer fans still ran, sound just stopped instead of tonally rattling my headphones like a regular bsod.

I'm not entirely sure what could be causing it other than it's a hardware issue. PC parts list below.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/f2hPRV

The things I have tried are as follows:

Booting with my old windows 10 and Linux Mint Windows didn't seem to record anything major in event viewer.

Switching out my ram cards one at a time and running a check on the sticks themselves. Neither stick appears to be the issue.

Checked my CPU seat for any damaged pins or debris.

Made sure all plugs are properly installed and all drivers are installed.

Flashed bios to both the recommended version and the most up to date version.

Set CPU, GPU, and internal SSD to gen 4 power in the bios.

I also ran a log check on Mint and the only error that it spat out was this:

[Dec 7 13:03] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[ +0.000006] [Hardware Error]: Corrected error, no action required.

[ +0.000004] [Hardware Error]: CPU:0 (1a:44:0) MC14_STATUS[Over|CE|MiscV|AddrV|-|-|SyndV|CECC|-|-|-]: 0xdc2040000602010b

[ +0.000008] [Hardware Error]: Error Addr: 0x000000000008bdc0

[ +0.000001] [Hardware Error]: IPID: 0x000700b020347000, Syndrome: 0x000000262a1f2603

[ +0.000003] [Hardware Error]: L3 Cache Ext. Error Code: 2

[ +0.000001] [Hardware Error]: cache level: L3/GEN, tx: GEN, mem-tx: GEN

Looking this up seems to spit out a fault in the GPU, but this is way beyond my skill level here.

Thank you for any advise or tips for troubleshooting. I'm still within the return and replace period for my parts so if this indicates anything needing to be replaced, that's always an option.

Thank you all very much!

Edited for formatting

Will it be good to go with amd buldup? . Because intel price are skyrocket

I can't fit 3 120mm lian LI fans up top on this case, a Fractal Design Meshify 3, even though I thought PCpartpicker said it could. On top of that, the SL and CL series fans dont share the same touch points for transmitting power. So the one on the back would have no power to exhaust, and my reverse flow up at the front spot on the roof can't share with what would have been the other two fans. Clear oversights, oops. So now I have what is effectively two fans up top, and two fans I can't even use.

Well, not too sure how to fix this. Anyone have ideas on how I might salvage this or get the original idea to work? I uhh... I am not sure where to go from here. Not exactly urgent, one of the parts isn't here yet and I'm still waiting on things.

Also to clarify: I can't find the article or document anymore, but I was trying to emulate a fan setup that was supposedly ideal for hot components and environments (Florida.) Standard 7 fan config, but the front most top fan is intake not exhaust, supposedly it has a great effect on cooling as it wasn't just removing the fresh air from the highest front case fan.

Price are skyrocket