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We are a very small, tight knit community that started as a cast off from the original NBR forums which were already dying to the point they shut them down in totality. Those forums at one point were so large and influential that representatives from the major laptop makers would frequent them on the regular for interaction and feedback but with changing market conditions, social media and other means of delivery coupled with niche and specialized laptops dying out and being replaced with thin fast and cheap laptops the writing was on the wall. You can't blame laptop makers for this as they simply go where the $$$ is and the vast majority of consumers have zero desire to tinker with their laptops and just want them to work, with good battery life and be light and portable. Every year, we saw true DTRs dying off and those original representatives basically abandoning NBR till all that was left was Clevo and their last somewhat true DTR based on desktop chips was their 12th gen hybrid 15.6" model (Clevo NH55) which did poor enough to signal the end of DTR anything as we knew it with interchangeable CPUs and GPUs. The first real death stroke was Nvidia basically abandoning MXM and upgradeability standards. ----- A community such as this is only as good as the enthusiasts who still have a passion for some older hardware and many of those, myself included, have moved onto more modern laptops because all the modding in the world will not approach the power modern models provide. The best you can do with modern laptops is look for models that at least have or offer the possibility of flexible BIOS so you can at least tune your hardware. Prema still offers his BIOS services on some models commercially followed by MSI which still has their excellent unlockable BIOS options. Dell/Alienware does offer some limited options as does Asus. You can also look to make mods to the actual cooling system itself from something as basic as upgrading the thermal interface material to modding the actual heatsink and fans themselves along with the chassis to improve air flow. Good luck!

Hello everyone! Do you want to upgrade your old laptop MXM GPU? But you can't since the newest RTX Turing, Ampere and Ada aren't working with your eDP display? I have the solution for you! The backlight mod to enable eDP display for your MXM card! Finally the mystery was resolved on why these cards don't display in our eDP laptops. Every cards from Turing to Ada generation, from brands like Aetina, Adlink, PNY, ZRT, Enbik and X-Vsion will work with this mod! What was the issue with these cards then? They were all lacking 3 essential pins. These pins are used to power on the panel. They are called backlight pins! Without them, your screen stays black, even if you have eDP or DP signal in the right video port. The solution: Making a solder-less mod, a flex FPC cable that allows to power the 3 backlight pins with ease! Version 1 manufactured (out of stock, finished). New: Version 2 manufactured and available! The 3 backlight pins are set in 23, 25 and 27 pins of the MXM slot and the MXM card. What we're trying to do is to power the backlight pins using the 3.3V from the pins 278 and 280, that's it! The flex cable is going to be insulated and will be able to handle high temperatures! I'll use double-sided insulated tape for the back side of the backlight pins, to secure the installation. Where can I get one? You can purchase them online, I'll even give a PDF file for instructions. https://ebay.io/m/4vy02C We can finally have an RTX 4080 or an RTX 4090 in the master slot of the MXM and output thru the main eDP display! Clevo P870 with dual RTX 4090? P570WM with an RTX 4090?! P775 with an RTX 3080 Ti?! Will work with (for MXM slot that allows eDP or DP on DP_D and cards that lack the backlight pins) RTX A3000, A5000, A5500 (XVSION), RTX 3060, RTX 3070, RTX 3070 TI, RTX 3080, RTX 3080 Ti (ZRT, X-VSION, Enbik) RTX 4050, RTX 4060, RTX 4070, RTX 4080, RTX 4090 (ZRT, X-VSION, Enbik) RTX 3500 Ada (Aetina), RTX 5000 Ada (Aetina), RTX A4500, RTX 3000, RTX 4000, RTX 5000 (Aetina, PNY, Adlink) (Tell me if I forgot some cards) Brightness native control works only in my P570WM with 4080 and 4090 if the vbios is set to eDP out. Sleep mode and saving modes work. New: The brightness will work on other laptops using the backlight mod v2 PWM module. Working on: Alienware M17X R4 120Hz (PURE-UEFI) Dell Precision M6700, M4700 (PURE-UEFI, NO OPROM LEGACY) Dell Precision M6800 and M4800 eDP version, Dell Precision 7710 and 7720 Clevo P570WM3, Clevo P775, Clevo P870, Clevo X170 Potentially Potentially could work on HP ZBOOK G5 17 and HP ZBOOK G6 17 Disclaimer, Requirements! - This mod can work with laptops that have the eDP set to DP_D and has the backlight pins assigned in 23, 25 and 27 pins in the slot - The BIOS of the laptop shouldn't have any whitelist - The BIOS should be in pure-UEFI - You need to have an eDP display that supports DP 1.1-1.2 (2011-2013 laptops) at least for RTX Ampere and Ada GPU - You need to install/edit EDID data for RTX 4080 and 4090 from X-VSION/ZRT Because the VBIOS set the DP_D eDP to disabled and which results to a non-PnP data being initialized everytime you start the laptop ___________________ After a lot of research and some testing with soldering, that's the conclusion to the solution! Thank you!

For the past 6+ years I have used my own desktop PCs for work and now I will be using a company-issued turdbook for work. I repurposed my dual Acer 4K 160Hz panels for the work PC since I will be needing the massive screen real estate for work. I grabbed a 40" Samsung Odyssey G75F 5120x2160 180Hz WUHD monster on sale at Micro Center for $638 (model LS40FG75DENXZA) and it seems pretty great so far. It doesn't like the 4090 and neither does my ASUS 4K 120Hz monitor. I have to lower the resolution to not have a BIOS or Windows Boot Manager black screen (same problem using the ASUS screen with 4090) when using DisplayPort. Something about 40-series firmware and high refresh rate 4K on DisplayPort is glitchy. There are many examples of people complaining about this online. Using HDMI 2.1 it functions flawlessly. The 5090 doesn't care whether I use DisplayPort or HDMI.

We opened this forum so that it can be a soft landing pad for those who still surfed those forums could still mingle. Personally I wanted to keep in contact with those of like mind in hobbies that I also enjoy. Forums have become fragmented over time especially for laptops as manufacturers become more and more locked down both on software and hardware. The identity of the forum may change over time as a result. That being said we are able to keep the forum relatively light in cost so as a result we are comfortable keeping it alive effectively forever. You can always PM me if you have questions or concerns I do try to be as fair as possible in moderating.

The main problem is, that this community has rather few members and not everyone left is tinkering around with their laptops anymore. Like me for example. Normally, i only login once a week, because there is not much interesting activity. This is not, what NoteBookReview once was. Unfortunately. In addition, there are not many models on the market available, that can be used for modding. Almost none with current hardware. Which makes such a forum really difficult to maintain.

Hey everyone! Still rocking the same system. My 5090 has been strong! Hard to think its already been 8 months since I got it. 6 months of that has been shunted for 1200w. It has been getting rung out hard though. I essentially lost interest in talking about this hobby and just been using it for work/gaming daily. 😆Something has pulled me back in to talking about the hobby though. I suppose I needed a break from the daily PC discussion lol. On another note, tonight I flashed my Acer Predator 4090 18" laptop to some random unverified Asus 4090 Laptop bios from techpowerup, and this thing picked up tons more performance. I am able to pull 175w steady in games, I could never do that before, usually 150-160w before. So, I checked my bios, and apparently my bios was the 1215Mhz clock/ 1590 Boost. And the bios I flashed to now is a 1590 clock/ 2040 boost. My GPUz said mine was a 175W bios, so thats why I never tried this before. So, I flashed out of curiosity. And it's just blowing the doors off of the prior bios that was on this Acer Predator. I am not really sure why. But I can run another +250Mhz on the core. It is really odd. Anyways, hello everyone!

The stock voltage is 1.15v and the stock power is 600w. The XOC vBIOS is publicly available on tech power up and is 2001w, which further unlocks voltage and memory another +1000 over other 5090s. Some nice individual over at OC.net PM'd me the extra special HOF tool for even further voltage, LLC, and switching period control. Basically the same as the old KingPin tools. Ordered the HOF 5090D IceMan waterblock on AliExpress. Figured the card is pretty rare and any future owner will def. want the ability to put it under water to take advantage of the voltage and power limits.

Just scored a 980Ti for 50 bucks on ebay. Not really anything to write home about, except that it appears the owner was not aware that it came equipped with the morpheus 2 aftermarket heatsink which can't be sourced for anything less than 250-500. Obviously not going to spend that much on just a heatsink so I'm quite happy with the purchase. It's going to be a busy winter this year :)

I do! I'll snag a picture when I get home :)

What's up everyone! I am sorry I have been away for awhile. I am trying my hand at YT and hopefully build a large enough following to get sponsored by a CNC maker or continue to build my reserve to buy one. I haven't had the urge to upgrade any of my PC's to the latest and greatest (although I am thinking about the 9950X3D). I came across some local listings on a 5090, that weren't exactly deals (used, still above MSRP). The days of great used hardware prices are dead - people want 80 to 110% of their purchase price, and with new cards closing in on their MSRP's, I don't know who is buying used at these prices. I think that if Intel releases the B770 and it's under $400, I'll pounce on that card. I only need something good enough for video editing and CAD. I hope you and your families are doing well. I'm back here fully, doing my normal lurking.

I had some time to play with the threadripper platform and tried a PBO with scalar 2x and -10 on all 96 cores, went from 119k to over 153k 😄 But the second try it shutdown 🤣 Still have the 1200w PSU 1U inside that the case came with so i think this is the weak link..i need to mode the case, cut it so i can add Bquiet 1200w ATX PSU titanium but dont have the time for the work right now

Getting 1,000+ FPS is something I have never experienced before. Below is Ark Ascended doing just that on all low settings and 1080P. 6000c26 with 65k tREFI, all tuned to the max with 2167fclk. My son took a picture of me with my phone while I was in the bios breaking things (So posting it here! lol. 😂 )

Sometimes this is why I love this hobby. O it's no supposed to work Intel? Lets see about that.

Maybe someday I can be bothered with Memory tuning, but its not going to be today, or tomorrow, or the day after :) I enjoy overclocking to yield tangible gains in gaming. Looks like PCIe Bifurcation works on my Aorus ITX x570. That being said I had to scrunch up the ribbon cables so much for the test that I think it was rendered non-functional. The 7900 XTX wouldnt show up at all and the 3090Ti was misbehaving quite severely reporting the link at PCIE 2.0 But it POSTed! so thats progress of a sorts. Got a shorter ribbon (60mm) so hopefully that works i'll test this weekend.

Grab it before its too late😁 Remember its an limited edition. MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPUs listed on eBay for almost $27,000 — limited edition graphics card demands 500% premium from resellers As you can see... The world is filled with stupids. I'm sure there is some out ther that are willing to pay $27K for the Lightning.

https://www.overclock.net/posts/29562444/ What grade are you in? Are your classmates really mean to you, or is it a parenting issue?

While I missed the boat on the best pricing for 8000MT+ RAM, I am happy I spent the 150 to 180 for each of the nine 4TB NVMe SSDs I got over 2025. I went nuts on the Acer GM7000 SSDs. I did a quick calculation, I have over 100TBs in SSDs (spread across 8TB, 4TB, 2TB and 1TB drives) in operation. If I were to buy them in today's prices, I'd have to spend over 30K. Damn! I guess being a frugal data hoarder has it benefits once in awhile.

I've applied for a lot of jobs I am ideally suited for and could do with my eyes closed that have not worked out. Ageism is illegal, but it is more real than anyone wants to admit. I have one that looks even better that I have my third interview for today that I pray works out and it would probably end up being the best one I have applied for. The one that looked promising that you referred to is not off the table, but the President wanted to see how how the financials looked for 2025 and how January revenue looks before adding a new c-suite resource to staff. On the WireView Pro... when you get around to it, this screenshot might be useful if you run into any complications getting Windows to correctly identify it. I think the key is manually installing the driver in Device Manager, immediately powering off and unplugging the PSU long enough for the board and everything attached to lose power. It appears there was some sort of delivery failure. I replied and it shows to have been sent, but you evidently cannot see the reply on your end. Thanks for checking on me, brother. I really appreciate it.

Happy New Year everyone.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Blessings to all of you.

Merry Xmas and happy holidays to all! It bit funny and ironic we just talked about your adventures with Best Buy.....good luck! Two observations on the yellow tip again: If it were black, you wouldn't be able to see even the mild scorch marks. Companies should start including these in white or yellow for clear visibility of scorching. I still suspect there are plenty of black connectors out there already with scorch marks. You just can't see them. The bottom row strikes again with the weaker, [ ] design which I posit is susceptible to physical stress and speeds up the cycle as they are heated up and in conjunction with the physical stress are pulled ever so slightly open making them even more susceptible. --- These connectors really should not be physically stressed at all and the weaker the design (like MSI's bottom row array) the more the stress can cause meltdowns in conjunction with migrating imbalance of amps over time for various reasons.

Merry Christmas to all my extended family in this thread!!! Now, I am in a bit of a dilemma. Bestbuy has the Prime 5070 TI for $749.99, brand new. I just spent that on the "Like New" card from Amazon. I am going to cancel the card from Amazn and begrudgingly buy from Bestbuy. Here goes nothing....

So I ended up snagging a pair of V-Color 9600 2x24GB DDR5 off of eBay new from a seller I've dealt with before In today's market conditions, couldn't beat the price of $489.99 plus I had two coupons for eBay (basically, "you haven't shopped us in a long time!" coupons) for $15 off and $10 off respectively. I was able to use both of them knocking it down to $464.99 for a total of $495.80 shipped and with ebay rewards, that knocks another $15 off of it making it $480.92 to my door. Am I doing backflips? No, but much better than those G.Skill sticks that would have been $650.40 to my door.....still..... This is *exactly* why I try to avoid new platforms because once I start it gets ugly real fast. 🤣 Remember 11th gen? I was just going to pick up a 11700k and the cheapest Z590 board and use my dirt cheap DDR4 sticks to "give it a whirl." Within 4 months, it is several 11900k's binned, Asus Z590 board and EVGA Z590 along with multiple kits of DDR4.... I'd like to say I won't end up binning some 285k/290k chips, but that would be most likely a big ole fib....🤣

Regarding 5090, still have some telegram bots reporting new drops and prices, yesterday was a founders 5090 drop from nvidia directly on their website for 2099 Euro. Got the notification and went on the site. Got one in the shopping cart but after like 5 minutes of thinking if I need it, I decided to close the website. Every game I play like battlefield 6 or stalker 2 works perfectly on the 4090. So it just a waste of money for me. Also went to the website like almost 40 min later and they were still available, tried to put one again in the cart and it went through, I was against one click to order it and closed again. So it looks like the market is saturated a little. Also got this baby to play with. Nice looking card😃. An oldie but still packing a punch with those 32GB HBM2 memory for larger AI models. Will try some qwen 2.5 and Llama bigger ones on it

Sold my Z890 Apex and 285K to @win32asmguy Paid for and shipped to them this afternoon.

I haven't uploaded a video in a long time. Now that I finally found stable settings I wanted to save a permanent record for myself and help anyone else that feels like they are spinning their wheels. Moving from Intel to AMD overclocking is more difficult than moving from Windoze to Linux. Maybe (just maybe) there is something in here that would be useful to Brothers @jaybee83 or @Raiderman

A little preview of what I'm building next Sage 621e

Sometimes I feel like I make the worst decisions. Found this card brand new from a small shop in Florida.

So I finally have a formal staycation lined up for christmas time, first time in maybe 6 years...So naturally I have some work lined up lol 2x GTX 690 w/ accelero xtreme 1x ATi HD 5870 w/ accelero xtreme 2x GTX 280's (1x w/ accelero xtreme) 2x 9800 GTX's w/ accelero xtreme (Having to modify, doesnt line up perfectly) 2x ATi HD 5970's (1x accelero xtreme) 1x AMD R9 280X TRI-X 1x AMD R9 390X TRI-X 1x ATi 4870x2 Reference 1x GTX 295 Dual PCB 1x GTX 970 MSi Gaming 1x RTX 3090Ti 1x 7900 XTX Red Devil (Never Finished) 1x GTX 1060 3GB (Reference) I might pick up a few more GPU's if the price is right. Thanks to @Mr. Fox's writeup I'll likely start to pick up some of the water cooling equipment so I can put the 7900 XTX and 10850K (also courtesy of The Fox!) under water and get a bench built around that next to my Daily Driver. Luckily I am still working more than I sleep so picking these parts up should be more than plausible... If you guys have any 3rd party heatsinks for older cards feel free to reach out, I seem to have a fascination with accelero xtremes :)

Hahaha, the PRO 7995wx is good even Overkill for what is needed it but it was an offer i cannot refuse😆😆. Was in holiday and didnt have time for it. Still need to optimize and rearange Cables inside, got a 9100 Pro2 TB for that Pcie gen 5. Need more ram and also gpus. Ignore the gtx1050 , it's only for tests. I will need to get an riser 90 degree to fit the gpu inside. But I love the mainboard, Asrock wrx90 ws evo, went with it because the other wrx90 is from Asus and I despise them. More expensive as the asrock and full of problems .Reddit and forums are full of them. STUPID Asus wants over 1k euro for that mainboard and still cannot make it work. The Asrock is incredible, so many options, bulid like a tank, a lot of connectivity, bmc remote management is superb. And it booted and did the whole diagnostic and memory training in under 3 minutes. That's good for a complicated platform like the threadripper.I love it. Use case it will be my homelab brain. Will run a gazillion VMs because Cores are plenty and I will also start Local AI training. Still need to decide on gpus..maybe I will get some Rtx A series ore Rtx Ada for it.

Hello everyone ! linked is my early version of a pascal to ada lovelace vbios editor. Works for Mobile and Desktop cards UPDATE v1.4 enables you to modify clock values and power values. The program fixes the checksum as well, and it was tested on a P4000m, more pascal testing needed !! Here is the link, the details are explained in the repository https://github.com/JadeRover/Nvidia-vBIOS-Clock-Power-Tweaker Get the latest version V1.4 from the releases : Releases · JadeRover/Nvidia-vBIOS-Clock-Power-Tweaker Pictures of v1.4:

Well priced too. I think I'll pick one up for a proper "just in case" scenario. I went back to running the Matrix vBIOS because it keeps my game clocks steady over 3200 everywhere. Fallout 76 is no problem. I can even run stock settings, but WoW will trip the WVP2 without adjustments with the 800w bios. On the flip side, my hot spot differential is ~12c with the stock factory application so I'm good atm on that front. No native 12vhpwr on PSU? 🤣 Nice on the warranty just in case. How did the A-die fare in the 5080 variant for comparison? Would it boot at 1050mv VSOC? Let us know how stability testing goes... let's see how this 9955X3D in the 5090 variant compares to the returned 5080... How are the noise levels between the two?

Thanks for asking bro Fox. And huge thanks. I'm taking it one day at a time. Now I'm trying to reduce my cigar/cigarillo consumption. I may have halved my consumption from around 36. But it's still way too high even with vaping. I have started vaping with low nicotine levels. I'm also trying to reduce or better said change my (food)lifestyle. Eat more healthy food to try lower the blood pressure/cholesterol. It's way above recommended. This on top of medicines I take for it. There is some big changes so I don't know if everything is feasible/doable. It's now 14 days since I had a stroke, so it will take time. The question is whether I can achieve my goals. It's too early to say. But I'll try.... So small steps each day. But it's hard. Very hard to change how you have lived the last +30 years. Big changes at +60 is hard 🙂

IT WAS THE CABLE!! I think my 5090 did it in lol. Swapped the 12vhpwr. No crashing!!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

World's first MXM SLI on PCI-E 16x connection. The P870 can only support 8x per MXM slot because the necessary connections are missing! And a small hardware change is also required to enable 16x, as it's currently disabled at the hardware level! I even tried rerouting the connections from the slave MXM port to the master MX port on a P870TM motherboard. It actually worked, and you can run all RTX MXM cards at 16x! Tested with AMD ,RTX2060, 380 and 4070 Th mini HDMi is one for internal Display and one for external Display port Conector on mainboard. Also Works with internal Display. The Connection is from DP Port on card to Mini HDMI Connector (The Mnini HDMI is A Display port connector !) The mini HDMI was only practical because it is very thin and a mini DisplayPort would be too thick.

Well this weekend I installed the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, AM4. Luckily it had flashback as the firmware did not support the 5800X3D when I got it, one flash later and it POSTed. Though the extra memory modules I purchased were no good, seller is attempting to replace but we'll see on that front. I also traded the 3090Ti for a 9070 XT. I just didnt have a use for it and my server needs dont justify it at all. Also added an NVME to 10Gbps Eth adapter. With the 9070 XT sitting in slot 3 under pcie 4 x8, acting as the Frame Gen mule. I am able to sustain 60 FPS at 4K with Monster Hunter Wilds, with Frame Gen via Lossless Scaling carrying it to 120 "fps". I have to say, this method is quite viable. At 2x Fixed with both GPU's I am using less power than when using the 7900 XTX alone. I'll try out some FPS titles eventually to see if the latency is perceivable. Under Monster Hunter Wilds and GoW: Ragnarok I cant perceive the latency. Ideally I would like to use Adaptive so that if the FPS drops under a threshold the Frame Gen could fill the gap but I could feel the delay on the mouse hand. Under this scenario and the "improved" ducting from the A/C, the GPU was running at 22C, with the Ambient temperature being around 16C from the A/C unit. There is still gaps in the ducting but it would make the system less accessible as well. Pretty happy with the results glad I kept chasing down this experiment. Hate that its needed for certain titles to play well but I do appreciate that its there.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/153759825 | https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_fire_strike/submissions/5988575 Not too bad for the cute little guy.

That why its a mod and its not easy to pull off, a lot of time and money but its cool to see other people doing this to fight back against NVIDIA. Sadly AMD refuses to take advantage of NVIDIA's mistakes to make themselves a good option. Speaking of the RTX3000 series there are rumors that NVIDIA is bringing back RTX 3060 GPUs https://www.notebookcheck.net/GeForce-RTX-3060-re-launch-Nvidia-preparing-to-bring-back-5-year-old-gaming-GPU-later-this-month-claims-report.1245823.0.html This is stupid, why politicians from both parties always create terrible solutions that wont change anything especially when kids are very tech savvy. Plus this bill is useless especially when Parents buy PCs for their kids they register the account (MS Account) or whatever under the parent's name and age, It would be more scary if they have to verify the age of the user through a webcam every time you wanna login. Just another excuse for the government to take more money out of regular people pockets. Also the media is nothing but propaganda and ragebait same with social media.

Couple of new additions to the roster. Traded one of my 5700 XT's to a coworker for his 6500 XT. It'll act as my frame Gen mule on the TV and main gaming monitor. The second was my first real GPU. Anyone care to guess what it is?

Another reason why I want to live part time in Norway @Papusan besides the Snow and Cold. When a government agency can produce an entertaining video that also points out a serious consumer issue, you got to give it to them. "The memories may be yours, but the photos are mine" WOW. The Norwegian gov took shots at all companies.

Quake II RTX - silky smooth on Linux at 5120x2160. Had to lower my power limit with LACT to 500W because the shunted 5090 with the 800W Matrix vBIOS was making the WireView Pro II scream like a stuck pig. My UPS also started squealing because it exceeds its 1500W capacity.

THIS is why I love MSI...... MSI just contacted me about my RMA on the AI1300P to inform me they have zero stock of the newer revision (AI1300P PCIE5) and would the following PSU be an acceptable replacement: https://us.msi.com/Power-Supply/MEG-Ai1600T-PCIE5/Specification Uh, yes, that will definitely be a suitable replacement!! I'm going to wait till it gets here and then do my system with it along with the swap to Ultra 265k, WVP2 and custom 140mm fan cooling for the DDR5.

Happy New Year from Norway to all my good friends🙂 The rockets is already fired up. Money down the drain, LOL

Microcenter 9070xt return story and some nice information on GPU checking and return procedures: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So all is well that ends well. Made the trip back up to MC St Davids to return that 9070xt and found out a few things. I had asked how a defective / non working card had slipped out for sale and how two more open box Challengers showed up for sale the next day. The rockin' tech assist associate let me know exactly how everything works. The one I bought had been shipped to their main return hub in Ohio from another store as a return then redistributed to the St David's store which means they do send out refurbs/returns that are supposed to work and seed them to stores to resell. You can tell if it is a main hub open box/refurb item (any item) with the green sticker on the side along with a marking. Sales associate pointed it out to me. If the card is returned as defective/not working and verified as such, the card gets marked down as defective and sent to ohio. Ohio then contacts the main companies for replacements/repairs. If they get back a new card in return, it goes back in new stock. If they get a refurb, it goes in as a refurb. Either way, they are then seeded back out to the various MC branches. What this means is you will never return an open box item that won't eventually be sent back to Ohio main returns and then reseeded to various MC stores. As such, there is near zero chance for you to return an item in the hopes of repurchasing it as an open box status. The problem with mine is it wasn't marked "defective" when returned (original new buyer probably just thought it was incompatible) but even then the main hub is supposed to check all cards for working status before shipping out open box / refurbs. Probably Amazon Renewed/warehouse magic where it is assumed it is working and just a return and they didn't check it at all. The receiving MC does not check the working status of open box / refurb items received since they are supposed to have been checked by Ohio main. On the other hand, the original store that took the return was SUPPOSED to check it before sending it to Ohio either way and they failed to do that. St. Davids immediately checked it even when I said, "it is dead. Get ready to see your VGA diagnostic light fire up white" A few seconds later after plugging it in I heard the tech chuckle and go, "yup, there's the VGA fail light in all its glory." 🤣 Refund immediately issued. It wasn't St David's fault but the original store who took the return and failed to plug it in and check it and Ohio mains for not checking it too. I did ask if for open box purchases can the customer request a quick check to make sure it at least posts and he said sure. I will keep that in mind next time. Thanks for attending my Ted Talk.....

A few of you might know I was put on unpaid furlough on Friday, along with about 8 or 10 other people where I worked, including my daughter and the company owner's nephew that has worked there for 15 years. I had my second job interview for an opportunity that looks really promising and I expect to be an even better job than what I had (which was great in every respect until Friday). I have never been unemployed before, but I am hoping to get an offer on this next week. So, please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I hope all of you in the US celebrate a great Thanksgiving with your loved ones. We all have so very much to be thankful for, even when there are days that it doesn't seem like it.

Hopefully this was not a waste of sand. But, I will find out as soon as I button things up. If it's not better than what I already have it's going back for a refund.

Off-Topic: The Phoenix Micro Center grand opening for VIP members is 11/5. My wife better hide my wallet. 🤣 It's an hour each direction from where I live, but at least it's not the 6-hour drive each direction to Tustin, CA.

Seeing as AMD offers a complete vertical offering with CPU and GPUs, it makes sense even if it makes me feel a lot of icky. I suspect over time, based on how things go, Nvidia will continue to purchase more of Intel and could actually acquire a majority stake if not buy them outright at some point. This is the logical conclusion and AMD vs Nvidia is headed to final boss mode showdown. Heck, maybe Nvidia can right their CPU division down the road. Let's not forget Nvidia is an American company too as is AMD. A lot of this is on Intel.... And a lot of this is on AMD....

Mission accomplished. 100% working. My UPS is screaming bloody murder now and a quick MSI Kombustor run is now showing nearly 1200W getting pulled from the wall, whereas before it was between 850-900W doing the same thing. It was not possible to do the Jufes incognito shunt mod because this new style of resistor has the solder points lower than the black plastic part of the resistor. Older resistors were the opposite, with the solder points on each end being flush or taller than the plastic. The resistors don't make contact as the solder points unless you use solder to bridge the air gap with this newer design. The dimensions are also smaller, so even if I had the right resistors in terms of resistance they would have been too long to work. So, she is soldered. I figured out on the second resistor that it worked easier to flip it over with the labeled side facing the original resistor. It was easier to hold in place for soldering with them face-to-face instead of labeled side up due to the shape of them. I have to leave for a doctor's appointment in a few minutes but I will do more testing tonight and this weekend. Will most likely hook up the chiller tomorrow. Here are the PCB photos. Very well-made GPU. Shunted resistors... Looks like Kombustor was drawing around 800-900W. @tps3443