|OT| The PC Hardware Thread -- Buy/Upgrade/Ask/Answer

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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I don't think the cards themselves have been unimpressive, it's just that they are so pricy.
I think that's the biggest problem.

The second one is AMD happily adopting Nvidias price tiers. At least in my part of the world.
The 5700 XT is for example about as expansive as a RTX 2070 (~20-30€ difference). They are more or less equal in power, but with the 2070 having the objectively better feature set. Not really sure what AMD is thinking here tbh.
The same happened at the high end with the short lived VEGA VII at release. It is similar to the 2080, but at a similar price.

I don't have any hopes for AMD being a force of disruption in the GPU segment. Those cards will be expansive as well.
 

Trisolarian

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Jul 12, 2019
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So, I've finally upgraded my PC, after five years. It isn't perfect yet, I kind of had things to do last weekend and I basically did the bare minimum to get it functioning. Its all kinds of dirty cable shit, dust and crap inside. The final build is this weekend, once my new 2TB (7200RPM!) HDD comes in.

I went from

Amd 860K
8 gb DDR3 1600mhz
GTX660ti
Gigabyte Micro ATX mobo (cheap as dirt one)
Old antec case
Decent PSU
Asus xonar dg soundcard
6 year old SSD (83% life remaining)
6 year HDD (no smart errors)
5 HDD (extensive smart errors)
Blu Ray Drive! (seven years old...)
Bunch of peripherals and like four different old monitors....

to....

Intel I7 3770!
16GB DDR3 16oomhz
AMD RX 470 4GB!!!! (for $97, yay!)
Industrial PC mobo that's is a tank with a fucked up custom BIOs that I have to flash so it unlocks the PCIE x4 slot and allows for S3 ACPI state so I can put the damn thing to sleep
6 year old SSD!
Brand new 2TB HDD
Blu Ray Drive!
Ancient Case!!!
Hopefully my soundcard!
Bunch of peripherals,

I'm a low rent kind of person. (Not just in computer hardware, you should know I try to never spend more than $50 on a cellphone out of pocket)
 

Pogi

illiterate
Jun 25, 2019
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Intel I7 3770!
16GB DDR3 16oomhz
AMD RX 470 4GB!!!! (for $97, yay!)
Industrial PC mobo that's is a tank with a fucked up custom BIOs that I have to flash so it unlocks the PCIE x4 slot and allows for S3 ACPI state so I can put the damn thing to sleep
6 year old SSD!
Brand new 2TB HDD
Blu Ray Drive!
Ancient Case!!!
Hopefully my soundcard!
Bunch of peripherals,

I'm a low rent kind of person. (Not just in computer hardware, you should know I try to never spend more than $50 on a cellphone out of pocket)
If it wasn't too f*cking difficult to find an 1155 ITX mobo in my country, I'd still be rocking my 3770 since its release!
 
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Trisolarian

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I spoke too soon and considering my life, I should've known better than to run my fat fucking mouth.

The PC I bragged about is on life support and it would be a miracle if I was able to bring it back. Long story short, the only way my motherboard has a shot to be revived is if a new BIOs SPI chip will fix a new one, if all four of my current ram sticks have gone bad or if my power supply is slowly failing. Tonight I've got known working PC, SPI chip, RAM, back up powersupply and some time. If its dead. I'm out of PC gaming and I'm starting a thread on PC gaming with a GTX 460 768mb. No joke.
 

ISee

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Mar 1, 2019
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I spoke too soon and considering my life, I should've known better than to run my fat fucking mouth.

The PC I bragged about is on life support and it would be a miracle if I was able to bring it back. Long story short, the only way my motherboard has a shot to be revived is if a new BIOs SPI chip will fix a new one, if all four of my current ram sticks have gone bad or if my power supply is slowly failing. Tonight I've got known working PC, SPI chip, RAM, back up powersupply and some time. If its dead. I'm out of PC gaming and I'm starting a thread on PC gaming with a GTX 460 768mb. No joke.
That really, really sucks.
Are z77 boards still very expansive, wouldn't it be possible to just get a new board for $50?
 

Trisolarian

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That really, really sucks.
Are z77 boards still very expansive, wouldn't it be possible to just get a new board for $50?
Probably, Need to complete testing to figure out if anything I've got is worth additional investment. I've got a few theories on what happened and none of them bode well. Either my BIOs flash didn't go through the way I needed despite it seeming good, there was a power spike that damaged RAM slots/sticks on the board, used GPU that I purchased damaged the board, the board itself was a ticking timebomb (not likely), powersupply could not handle new system (unlikely, as its a 550W unit from a decent brand). Anything currently hooked up could be a goner, up to and including the CPU.

Ah, at this point, I could just return everything I bought (HDD, GPU) and put that $200 toward a laptop.... Which I'm not ready to spend money on.

I may not like my options but I've got them, which is nice.

2020 is just that kind of year.
 
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Trisolarian

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It lives. New bios chip with a fresh bios.
All devices and add in cards working, correct ram identified. New bios is a custom bios that does not support efi boot for anything but USB so gotta get ANOTHER bios chip flashed tomorrow. So many custom bios for this board.....

Lol. Don't try this at home kids, firmware is no joke.
 

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
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My Windows 10 PC is struggling to keep it's internal clock to the correct time now from day to day, I'm assuming this is a sign of the CMOS battery needing replaced?
Unless it's something else?
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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My Windows 10 PC is struggling to keep it's internal clock to the correct time now from day to day, I'm assuming this is a sign of the CMOS battery needing replaced?
Unless it's something else?
Do you have a Linux Distro installed? Because that's a common problem with Linux/Windows dual boot systems. At least in my experience.

Windows assumes the time is in local time, Linux assumes it is in UTC.
If that's the case you either need to switch Linux to local or Windows to UTC.
I prefer setting Linux to local, as it isn't my "main" OS, it is also more easy as switching windows to UTC needs registry editing and Windows doesn't like using UTC in the first place.

All you need to do is put the real time clock on your mainboard into local time:

Code:
timedatectl set-local-rtc 1 --adjust-system-clock
Now you can check if it works with

Code:
timedatectl
If you see "RTC in local TZ = yes" than everything worked and Windows Time should get back to normal (you might need to sync it one final time)
 

AHA-Lambda

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Oct 9, 2018
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My local PC shop is still closed in the meantime due to lockdown, any fears for worse symptoms if I leave this for a while?

(Yes, I'm technically incompetent with my hands, so I ain't doing it. I didn't build my PC either)
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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My local PC shop is still closed in the meantime due to lockdown, any fears for worse symptoms if I leave this for a while?

(Yes, I'm technically incompetent with my hands, so I ain't doing it. I didn't build my PC either)
If the PC is not keeping time when powered off but is synchronising the time correctly when it contacts the time servers then you should be fine. It's annoying to see it being wrong for a minute or so but as long as time keeping is correct while the PC is on then all the timestamped security stuff should be happy.

Some eventlogs might be a bit disordered but i doubt you care unless you like poking about in windows etc.
 
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AHA-Lambda

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If the PC is not keeping time when powered off but is synchronising the time correctly when it contacts the time servers then you should be fine. It's annoying to see it being wrong for a minute or so but as long as time keeping is correct while the PC is on then all the timestamped security stuff should be happy.

Some eventlogs might be a bit disordered but i doubt you care unless you like poking about in windows etc.
Yeah that pretty much covers the experience.

When i turn it on a given morning, it will think it's the previous evening. I'll manually sync with the time servers and then it's fine for the rest of the day while it's on or asleep.
Pain in the butt but sounds like it's not a big worry yet then.
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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Fyi, you don't need to get the battery from a pc shop. It's a standard CR2032 flat "coin" battery that you should be able to get from regular stores too, assuming those are open.
 

NoNoNoByAllMeans

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May 2, 2020
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Purely gaming - I'd go for a i5 10600K (I assume you would not go for the i9 K, but overclocking is real easy nowadays and the i5 unlocked should be cheaper than the locked i9, on AMD you can overclock all models). But if you were going to use it for either professional or hobby media work while also gaming, I'd go for AMD, then I'd probably shoot for the Ryzen 3900X. You also have the 3600 which is a good alternative both for workstation usage and gaming, it doesn't quite keep up with the 10600K overclocked in gaming nor the bigger AMD models in rendering etc, but it is the best bang for your buck in general.

If you game at 4K, then the difference between these CPUs will be drastically smaller as the GPU does most of the work.
So to summarize I'd get a 10600K if you were just going to game, spend more on your GPU than to get an i9 or a 3900X, but if you were going to game and do work, get a 3900x. If you don't need the best of the best gaming perfomance, get a Ryzen 3600, and you'll still get great rendering performance.

See this video for a more in-depth answer 2020 CPU overview from GamersNexus.
Dunno if I should go for a i9 10900 or a Ryzen 3700 build
 
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NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
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Purely gaming - I'd go for a i5 10600K (I assume you would not go for the i9 K, but overclocking is real easy nowadays and the i5 unlocked should be cheaper than the locked i9, on AMD you can overclock all models). But if you were going to use it for either professional or hobby media work while also gaming, I'd go for AMD, then I'd probably shoot for the Ryzen 3900X. You also have the 3600 which is a good alternative both for workstation usage and gaming, it doesn't quite keep up with the 10600K overclocked in gaming nor the bigger AMD models in rendering etc, but it is the best bang for your buck in general.

If you game at 4K, then the difference between these CPUs will be drastically smaller as the GPU does most of the work.
So to summarize I'd get a 10600K if you were just going to game, spend more on your GPU than to get an i9 or a 3900X, but if you were going to game and do work, get a 3900x. If you don't need the best of the best gaming perfomance, get a Ryzen 3600, and you'll still get great rendering performance.

See this video for a more in-depth answer 2020 CPU overview from GamersNexus.
Thanks for the recommendations! Sadly the 10600k isnt being stocked on my country. We so have the 3900x tho 🤔
 

NoNoNoByAllMeans

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May 2, 2020
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I did hear that the new Intel CPUs were short on supply, so if you absolutely need a CPU for a PC build right away then just get the one from AMD, either way you will have a fantastic system.

If you can wait then of course you have the 4000 series from AMD coming out in the fall (probably October - November), but I honestly am reluctant to ask you to wait - one can always wait for new tech to arrive, so if you need a system fast don't hesitate, if it isn't urgent, wait. 😛

Thanks for the recommendations! Sadly the 10600k isnt being stocked on my country. We so have the 3900x tho 🤔

Just to add why you might want to wait for the 4000 series. They're expected to be faster at the same kinds of frequency (IPC improvement) and also to run at higher frequencies, which would theoretically put them ahead of Intel in both gaming and rendering (which they already are).
 
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NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
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Just to add why you might want to wait for the 4000 series. They're expected to be faster at the same kinds of frequency (IPC improvement) and also to run at higher frequencies, which would theoretically put them ahead of Intel in both gaming and rendering (which they already are).
I just read that the 4000 series got delayed until January :(
 
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NoNoNoByAllMeans

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Saw it on the other site

I'll be damned, I mean I guess it makes sense. Intel has nothing to truly compete with AMD on all fronts, at least not until their 10nm (lmao) or 7nm CPUs are out. Watch that GamersNexus video and decide what fits you the most, depending on if it is just for gaming or also work.
 
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NarohDethan

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I'll be damned, I mean I guess it makes sense. Intel has nothing to truly compete with AMD on all fronts, at least not until their 10nm (lmao) or 7nm CPUs are out. Watch that GamersNexus video and decide what fits you the most, depending on if it is just for gaming or also work.
I’ll watch the video, thank you so much for the info :) I was eyeing an i9 but I do want the best bang for the buck. I’m a programmer by trade so the extra power will always be welcomed.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
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Dunno if I should go for a i9 10900 or a Ryzen 3700 build
Such a stark difference in price makes it hard to recommend something.

In general, I agree with NoNoNoByAllMeans (love your name btw) when they say that Intel has trouble to compete with AMD. True for all tiers but the 10900k. Having to choose between the 550€ 10900k and the 450€ 3900x, I'd take the 10900k, if my budget would allow for it of course.
In all other tiers, AMD is mostly the wiser choice particularly if you want the best bang for buck performance. x570/b550 supporting PCI Gen 4.0 while z490 currently doesn't also plays a role here. You don't want to have to upgrade your CPU when you decide that now is the time to use a gen 4 NVMe, or a Gen 4 GPU.

For the 3900x: Do it if it easily fits your budget.
It's a good CPU for gaming and all your multi-threading needs. I perceive 450€ for 12c/24t to be a good deal and the 10700k can hide in a corner.
 
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NarohDethan

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Such a stark difference in price makes it hard to recommend something.

In general, I agree with NoNoNoByAllMeans (love your name btw) when they say that Intel has trouble to compete with AMD. True for all tiers but the 10900k. Having to choose between the 550€ 10900k and the 450€ 3900x, I'd take the 10900k, if my budget would allow for it of course.
In all other tiers, AMD is mostly the wiser choice particularly if you want the best bang for buck performance. x570/b550 supporting PCI Gen 4.0 while z490 currently doesn't also plays a role here. You don't want to have to upgrade your CPU when you decide that now is the time to use a gen 4 NVMe, or a Gen 4 GPU.

For the 3900x: Do it if it easily fits your budget.
It's a good CPU for gaming and all your multi-threading needs. I perceive 450€ for 12c/24t to be a good deal and the 10700k can hide in a corner.
I think I’ll go for the Ryzen 3700. The 3900 is priced the same as the 10900 but I’m not sure I wanna spend that much money hahah
 

Trisolarian

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Update on the saga:

I just ended up reinstalling windows. Turns out that the 'Windows Boot Manager' was not showing up in the boot options menu of ANY bios for the board. Probably a quirk of the older EFI firmware revision and how it handles Windows 10. Gotta install Windows 10 after first load of the firmware and not before or use a previous install. Great. I've observed newer boards NOT having this issue.

OFC I have back ups, so it isn't the end of the world.

Now I'm waiting on my new 2TB 7200 RPM HDD andn I'll clone my 1 tb HDD to that and bring over certain files from my failing 2tb before scrapping the old one. I'm going to try something new this time in regards to my SSD, I'm going to focus on installing commonly used games, specifically for mulitiplayer, on that drive.
 
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ISee

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I'm looking for a new board and figuring out the PCI-E generations, lanes, multiplicators and what gets "deactivated" in what circumstances is surprisingly complicated.

-The Gigabyte B550 Master (Manual) has one 16xPCI-E gen 4.0 lot and three gen 4.0 NVMe x4 slots. But the "GPU" slot will only run at 8x speed if the second or third NVMe slot get populated.

-The Asus B550 E (Manual) has two PCI-E gen 4.0 slots, you can run them in either x16 or x8/x8 modes. It has one gen 4.0 NVMe x4 slot.

-The B550 Tomahawk (lousy Datasheet) has things. But according to the website it has one 16x PCI-E Gen 4.0 slot and one NVMe x4 Gen 4.0 slot.

-The Asus X570 E (Manual) has three PCI-E gen 4.0 slots, you can run them either in x16, x8/x8 or x8/x8/x4. It also has two gen 4.0 NVMe x4 slots.

-The Gigabyte X570 Ultra (Manual) has one 16xPCI-E gen 4.0 and one 8xPCI-E gen 4.0. In addition, it has three gen 4.0 NVMe x4 slots.

-The MSI x570 Unify has two PCI-E gen 4.0 slots, you can run them either in x16 or x8/x8. In addition, it has three gen 4.0 NVMe x4 slots.

Looks like the only way to get full gen 4.0 x16 PCI-E and at least two NVMe gen 4.0 x4 slots is x570. A bit disappointing because some of those b550 spec sheets are excellent, especially the B550 Master.

I need to sleep over this and decide what I need/want.
 
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Durante

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I'm looking for a new board and figuring out the PCI-E generations, lanes, multiplicators and what gets "deactivated" in what circumstances is surprisingly complicated.
Yeah, the last time I was shopping for mainboards that was by far the most annoying part. Especially if you plan to use a lot of SSDs.
 
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ISee

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Question: A NVMe gen 4.0 raid zero (?) setup would nearly double the sequential throughput, correct? But would it also improve latency or random, small read/write operations?

edit: On some X570 boards you'd need to run one NVMe through the chipset and one through the CPU itself in a raid setup. Would that effect latency negatively etc?
 

Copons

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FFS

I was working on my laptop when I heard a loud POP from behind the desk.
Everything looked fine, the 4-way extension lead was on, the laptop was powered, the monitor was powered as well.

So I think, well let me try turning on the PC!

Another loud pop, and this time the 4-way extension lead turns off, everything's off as well.

I replace the extension lead with a spare one, everything turn on again.

Except the PC.

Have I managed to blow up a Corsair TXM 650W 80+ Gold with less than 2 months of life, and an extremely moderate usage?
 
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Durante

Durante

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A loud pop sounds bad.

Question: A NVMe gen 4.0 raid zero (?) setup would nearly double the sequential throughput, correct?
Yes, unless you are bottlenecked elsewhere (i.e. some bus, or raid controller -- should probably use SW).

But would it also improve latency or random, small read/write operations?
It shouldn't really improve latency of individual operations, but should improve IOPS/aggregate latency of a set of operations.

edit: On some X570 boards you'd need to run one NVMe through the chipset and one through the CPU itself in a raid setup. Would that effect latency negatively etc?
Hard to say.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
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Another loud pop, and this time the 4-way extension lead turns off, everything's off as well.
Sounds a bit like a short. But...
A loud pop sounds bad.

Yes, unless you are bottlenecked elsewhere (i.e. some bus, or raid controller -- should probably use SW).

It shouldn't really improve latency of individual operations, but should improve IOPS/aggregate latency of a set of operations.

Hard to say.
Thank you
 

NarohDethan

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Have I managed to blow up a Corsair TXM 650W 80+ Gold with less than 2 months of life, and an extremely moderate usage?
I had a Corsair PSU as well that died in less than a year, I’ll never but PSUs from them ever again.
 

Copons

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Blurgh, I hate how much these seemingly stupid things destabilize me. -_-
I don't have money issues, so it's not like I can't afford a replacement or whatever, but damn, my brain is such an idiot when it comes to my PC...

Anyway, the thing that really bothers me is that it popped when it was off.
I even hadn't turned it on in like a week or so. Of course it was plugged, and the PSU switch was on, but... WTF!

Now, since at this point I think it's the house that has power issues (even though... I can turn on oven, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, TV, and PC all together and nothing happens...), I wonder how I can alleviate the problem.

Like, is a PSU the right answer? Is there anything more appropriate?
What should I know when buying one? (never had one before)
 
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NarohDethan

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Blurgh, I hate how much these seemingly stupid things destabilize me. -_-
I don't have money issues, so it's not like I can't afford a replacement or whatever, but damn, my brain is such an idiot when it comes to my PC...

Anyway, the thing that really bothers me is that it popped when it was off.
I even hadn't turned it on in like a week or so. Of course it was plugged, and the PSU switch was on, but... WTF!

Now, since at this point I think it's the house that has power issues (even though... I can turn on oven, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, TV, and PC all together and nothing happens...), I wonder how I can alleviate the problem.

Like, is a PSU the right answer? Is there anything more appropriate?
What should I know when buying one? (never had one before)
It could have been a capacitor, AFAIK those can explode at anytime.
 
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Durante

Durante

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Blurgh, I hate how much these seemingly stupid things destabilize me. -_-
I don't have money issues, so it's not like I can't afford a replacement or whatever, but damn, my brain is such an idiot when it comes to my PC...

Anyway, the thing that really bothers me is that it popped when it was off.
I even hadn't turned it on in like a week or so. Of course it was plugged, and the PSU switch was on, but... WTF!

Now, since at this point I think it's the house that has power issues (even though... I can turn on oven, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, TV, and PC all together and nothing happens...), I wonder how I can alleviate the problem.

Like, is a PSU the right answer? Is there anything more appropriate?
What should I know when buying one? (never had one before)
I mean, if you are unsure about the quality of your domestic power, you can try to mitigate that in a few ways.
The cheapest is probably getting a fancy power strip (or PDU) with overvoltage and/or overcurrent protection.
Another option would be getting a UPS, though that might be overkill. There are now decent options in the <100€ range I believe so it's not that bad.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
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edit:
NVM, was already answered.
(second to late, lol)

edit 2:
Just one tiny addition. PDUs will not give you infinite surge protection. They have sacrificial circuits (so to speak) and will eventually lose their capability to mitigate spikes. Still no need to go overboard. Just keep in mind to exchange them every year if you have a severe problem. The expansive PDUs do not last much longer btw.
 
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Trisolarian

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FFS

I was working on my laptop when I heard a loud POP from behind the desk.
Everything looked fine, the 4-way extension lead was on, the laptop was powered, the monitor was powered as well.

So I think, well let me try turning on the PC!

Another loud pop, and this time the 4-way extension lead turns off, everything's off as well.

I replace the extension lead with a spare one, everything turn on again.

Except the PC.

Have I managed to blow up a Corsair TXM 650W 80+ Gold with less than 2 months of life, and an extremely moderate usage?
Computer problems!



I feel your pain, although you were not the cause of your issues here. (I was the cause of mine)

UPS will help.

Cost of a UPS vs all new equipment.
 
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Copons

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So, as it's clear all this electricity talk is total magic for me.
I've tried looking at PDUs but seem to be all oriented to server-racks, with specs I'm not familiar with, and prices that look... low?
On the other hand, when we talk about "fancy power strips", is this what it means?

8 Protected AC Outlets: Shield your expensive office, computer, household, or home theater electronics against harmful voltage fluctuations, surges, and energy spikes of up to 900 Joules with three-line AC protection
I mean, Belkin is the only name I recognize. Everything else looks cheap, and is cheaply priced as well.

Except this, but for some reason it looks fishy to me! 😄