Clamibot

Hey everyone! What do you guys think of using this case as a base for a proper laptop? https://www.caseclub.com/product/pc-portable-gaming-station-with-built-in-monitor/ It's extremely expensive for a case, but you'd have a forever upgradeable laptop. 🤪

I think the root of the problem is just people being evil. Regardless of economic system or governmental ideology, the people of a particular country (or even the world for this matter) will thrive if they are righteous, or at least trying to be. They flourish because they create a stable environment for themselves to progress. Doing douchey things creates an unstable environment, and with enough evil people hatching their nefarious schemes, things fall apart for everyone once the instability becomes too great. What we need is abundance economics like the Vulkans have in Star Trek. That'd be nice. In any case, we have to work with what we have, so applying regulations where needed is a good policy to reduce instability and keep companies in check. With that tangent out of the way, the Asus ROG Ally is apparently releasing on my brithday. I'm looking forward to seeing it's performance in games!

Is this panel a glossy panel? Looks like one from the images posted. I ask because I absolutely love glossy screens. Won't use anything else.

That's good news. At least now we know the motherboard is at least mostly usable. Given the information you provided, my next guess is the power delivery on the GTX 980m MXM board is toast. It's more likely that the power delivery on the MXM board itself has crapped out than the power delivery on the MXM slot itself. I've sparked the MXM slot on my Alienware 17 before while performing my GTX 1060 upgrade about 5 years ago (silly me, I forgot to disconnect the battery), and the slot (and GPU, whew) was still fine afterward. Did you ever shunt mod your 980m?

The out of box experience on the X170KM-G seems to be a hit or miss. Sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's not. If you're looking for a stable out of the box experience, the X170SM-G is generally much better in that regard, plus Premamod is available for that model. However, if you win the lottery on a good X170KM-G motherboard, the experience will also be good, you just won't have Premamod. The heatsink fitment depends on the laptop you get as there is a heatsink lottery with these models. I got my X170SM-G from zTecpc back when they were selling that model with Premamod, so I got a guaranteed good heatsink.

This thing looks awesome and very well built. We're looking forward to seeing your results! I took a look at the installation part of the video you posted again to see if I missed anything. Here is the list of dos and don'ts: Do: - Apply masking or electrical tape on the CPU to secure it in the socket - Gently massage the waterblock into place after putting it on top of the CPU (if needed). You probably won't need to do this, but you can if the screw holes are off when you initially install the waterblock. Don'ts: - Do not overtighten the screws. Hand tight or slightly tighter is enough. - Do not use a power tool like an electric screwdriver to install the screws (lol). Use a hand tool only. - Do not use too much force while screwing in the screws. Be gentle.

Not to mention you can swap out the optical drive for another drive bay, giving you a total of 4 drive slots if you count the msata slot. In fact, it is possible to fit 4 2.5 inch drives in this laptop if you use an msata to sata adapter cable for the 4th drive. It's simply amazing how much room this laptop has in it for hardware despite supposedly being the same size class as today's 17 inch craptops. That's lots of storage for all my games, media, and development work hehe. 😁 You can confirm if the combined load is the issue if you enable hybrid graphics and pull the dedicated card, that way you run completely off the iGPU. Do you have a 120 Hz screen like me? In that case the laptop won't let you use the MUX switch key combination to avoid bricking itself. If you have a 60 Hz screen that connects to the LVDS port on the motherboard, then you're in luck and you should be able to easily switch to mshybrid/optimus mode. If you only have the 120 Hz eDP screen, then you'll need a 60 Hz LVDS screen temporarily connected to the laptop to perform the switch and do your diagnosing.

I still have my Ranger and it still works like it's brand new. I've had it for almost 8 years now. It was a year old when I got it (overstock nobody had bought) back in 2015. I've never replaced any parts in it due to failures. The motherboard is still the original one that came with the laptop, and I have the CPU upgraded to a i7 4930 MX, the GPU upgraded to a GTX 1060, and the RAM upgraded to a 32 GB kit of Kingston HyperX 2133 MHz SODIMMs, which aren't even sold anymore. You can't find that RAM anywhere anymore. I upgraded the screen to a 120 Hz screen as well when I did that GPU upgrade. In addition to those hardware upgrades, I also have the upgraded CPU and GPU heatsinks by Chichen, and have liquid metal on the CPU, plus Phobya Nanogrease Extreme on the GPU. I put some Nanogrease on top of the CPU VRMs so they'd have good heat transfer to the CPU heatsink. Chichen's upgraded heatsinks for the Alienware 17 are very good. I've run the CPU at around 4.1-4.2 GHz most of the time during heavy use, and this thing has been very heavily used. My unit still shows no sign of wear even after the close to 8 years of use it's been through. It still runs like it's brand new as I said before. This laptop is built extremely well and is made to last, unlike the stupid crap on the market today. I wish there was a version of this laptop with modern desktop class hardware as I really like the physical design of this laptop. @Ashtrix From the symptoms of the issue you described and the list of things you've tried, I'd guess your issue is probably a power delivery issue on the motherboard itself. What's interesting though is that when you tried a CPU stress test, you didn't experience a shutdown. It appears your problem only occurs on combined CPU + GPU workloads, so the issue is probably with the power delivery circuitry on the motherboard itself that the DC jack connects to.

Well I guess I'd be your guy if you wanted a translation in realtime then. 😁 What's funny is that you post these Thai overclocking videos from time to time, and I enjoy them every time you post one since I can understand what they're saying. I don't usually look for videos in languages other than english, but this guy's videos have some really good content. At that point where the video starts when I clicked on it, the dude was going over the instructions on mounting the direct die waterblock. He was saying that he was putting tape on the CPU package to secure it in place before mounting the direct die waterblock. He also said to not overtighten the screws.

I personally like high refresh rate VA panels since they have very good colors and are immune to burn in. Yes the colors aren't as good as OLED, but they're good enough for me. There is also the black smearing issue that is inherent to VA panels, but this is really dependent of the screen you get. On the newer Samsung VA panels, the black smearing is pretty much nonexistent. Same with my Dell S3422DWG as long as you keep the contrast high and set it to the maximum overdrive setting. Of course if you're like me and you absolutely detest matte screens, you can also mod the screen to make it glossy, which further improves the colors and gets rid of the stupid matte blurring and washing out effects.

I normally don't like handhelds, and I absolutely detest BGA hardware, but I decided to get a Steam Deck since they were on sale during the Steam Spring sale. I wanted to see what all the rage was about. I've beein messing aorund with my Deck for a few weeks now, and surprisingly I like this thing quite a bit. Being able to play my PC games on the go has been a dream of mine ever since I was in elementary school, and now we have a PC gaming handheld that actually has semi-decent performance. There's still quite a ways to go, but it's a start. Being a hardware enthusiast and all, I didn't hesitate to start teaking things. I never run anything stock. It has to be custom tuned by me. That's one of the most fun parts of getting a new computer. There's a new adventure to find the performance ceiling of your new device! The first thing I did was proceed to overclock the screen. The screen runs at 60 Hz at stock, but I can get it up to 70 Hz before artifacting occurs. 72 Hz is the highest it'lll go before giving out completely. I then overclocked the CPU to 4 GHz and overclocked the GPU to 2.1 GHz. This required increasing the power limit to 35 watts to get the clock increases sustained. The Deck runs much hotter as a result, but this was expected and I'm not thermal throttling yet. The total APU power consumtion never actually reached 35 watts, max was around 25. The processing power this device has in such a small power envelope is really making me reevaluate my priorities and wants in regards to computer hardware. Laptops never turned out to be what I wanted them to be, and real soon I won't want to have anything to do with them if LGA options don't return. I've made my return to desktops and decided to make my builds portable if I ever need lots of computing power to take with me from one place to another. For computing on the go, modern PC gaming handhelds may just be a viable alternative to laptops for me. The DTRs of old were awesome and all, but let's face it, gaming while walking around isn't an option with a laptop. Battery life sucks too. I've never had a laptop that got more than 3 hours off a charge. For my purposes, a portable desktop would be less convenient than a DTR, but would serve the same function for me. The hit I take in convenience wouldn't be much of a big deal. With my Steam Deck, I can pull it out of my backpack and game some whereever I am, put it to sleep, put it back in my backpack, and then take it out again sometime later to resume my gaming session. I can even game while walking around! Gaming on the Steam Deck is convenient everywhere! I'm really excited with the announcement of the Asus ROG Ally. That's gonna be a Steam Deck on steroids, and I'm gonna like it a lot more given its 120 Hz screen and it's ability to actually reach 120 FPS in games. You guys who've known me for a while know I'm a high framerate snob, so you bet I'm going to buy the ROG Ally and enjoy the hell out of it. But yeah, extra long post from me this time since I haven't posted anything in a while. I just had a lot to say. To sum it all up, I'm thinking of going with a portable desktop + powerful PC gaming handheld combo for my future setups. That'll give me my portable moster rig on the go, and give me an ultraportable handheld for gaming anywhere, which is what I wanted out of laptops in the first place. This should give me exactly what I want while costing less than my previous setups. Or you know, the cost savings on my portable devices just go into making my desktop even more of a monster rig. 🤣

Wait so we can now finally pair a high end CPU with a mid range GPU in a BGA laptop? Could I configure this thing with a 13980HX + RTX 4060? This laptop is impressive, especially considering the price and despite it being a BGA machine. The 13980HX + RTX 4080 model is on Best Buy's website for $2500 and is significantly more powerful than my X170. It also costs less than what I've spent on my X170 in total. Must... resist... urge... to... buy...

The return to normal GPU prices may have started: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/best-buy-heavily-discounts-nvidia-rtx-30-graphics-card-stocks The cards have already all sold out (no surprise here) due to hungry gamers finally getting good prices for a GPU. $420 for a new Founders Edition RTX 3080 is a pretty good price. That's basically where it should've been at this point in time given it's now a last gen card. Just wait. People have spoken with their wallets and are refusing to buy GPUs at current ridiculous prices. Prices will come down. I like seeing things unfold the way they should. Poor sales will improve once prices are no longer sky high. I guess it takes a while for that fact to be realized.

Wait for integrated graphics to improve to the point where you no longer need a dedicated GPU. That may work if you never move to higher resolutions than 1080p. Aww who am I kidding? We're enthusiasts! Integrated graphics will never be enough since our performance requirements keep growing with the increases in hardware processing power.🤣

I really don't like authors who write articles that serve as shilling for higher prices. Why would anyone want to justify higher prices? Most people want lower prices, but apparently some people think everyone is made of money. The thing is that even if the author is correct (which he's not), it doesn't matter. Consumers don't care about a company's BOM or other costs associated with products a company makes. Nobody cares how much it costs to make a product, consumers only care about how much it costs to buy said products from a company. If the prices are too high, people will complain and simply not buy the products. The 4090 is undoubtedly the best value GPU of the Lovelace series, which is weird as the highest end GPU of any generation usually has the worst price to performance ratio. I don't foresee many sales of the xx50 to xx70 class cards from Nvidia this generation.

I'd personally rather go with cheap high capacity SATA SSDs now that prices have been falling and are rumored to continue falling till or through next month. I personally don't notice a difference in performance between NVME SSDs and SATA SSDs, probably because consumer workloads benefit more from random read/write speeds than sequential read/write speeds. You can get a 4TB SATA TLC SSD from Crucial for about $230 now. It's amazing how SSD prices continue to drop.

I love how this idea keeps evolving. I'm loving it! Now I wonder how we could scale it up to something with a 24 or 27 inch screen to allow more space for ATX motherboards and large radiators. You'd definitely need a suitcase to transport it at that point, but it'd be cool nonetheless, and a true fusion between a desktop and laptop with the benefits of both and none of the downsides of either, with the exception of weight.

I'd been using Avast for the past 19 years and finally ditched it a few months ago because I was fed up with how it was becoming adware. It seems like an additional process gets added by it every year as well so it keeps becoming more bloated. To add onto those two things, it now causes problems with some of my games and screws with my game dev workflow from time to time flagging stuff I compile as viruses (like what?). I just use Windows Defender nowadays. For anyone other than individuals who genuinely require lots of security, Windows defender is enough. I also run scans with SuperAntiSpyware from time to time to remove tracking cookies that I may have picked up inadvertently and remove malware if I feel I did something stupid. But yeah, basically refrain from doing something stupid and you'll generally be fine and not get a virus. It can still happen even if you're careful, but the chances are very low, and Windows Defender can take care of the kind of stuff most users (including us) would get.

Well holy crap this thread has been incredibly active today! I'm liking this a lot as it's feeling like a real conversation! To add some more to today's conversation, I went and bidded on a Samsung B-Die DDR4 RAM kit and actually won! This is the very first time I've ever won a bid, so I'm feeling proud of myself. Freaking bid snipers made me lose all other bids I've ever been a part of. It's super annoying when someone swoops in and takes the bid from you at the last second. I decided to not deal with that crap this time around and instead set up automated bidding for this listing. I'm excited for this kit to come in and continue my RAM overclocking escapades. It was very daunting to start out with, but now I'm hooked. TUNE EVERYTHING AND OVERCLOCK EVERYTHING FOR MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE MWAHAHAHAHA!

I have a delidded CPU with a peltier AIO mounted on top. It seems to work pretty well. Granted, I don't let the temperatures on the CPU go subzero, I just introduce a large temeprature differential to increase heat transfer and keep the CPU much cooler than it normally would be under conventional cooling methods. I've always found it strange that normal thermal paste does better than liquid metal at subzero temperatures, but I suppose that makes sense given that metal expands and contracts more than paste does. Extreme cooling is awesome. The colder you go, the more performance you get!

The quest for ever more performance is addictive in itself. I'm a performance enthusiast, but for games. So fortunately for brother @Mr. Fox, I'm not your typical gamerboy you have to complain about.🤣 My performance requirements are very high, 144 FPS in ALL games. As such, I usually end up needing high end hardware to get the job done. That's how I got into benching, but I bench only video games. I always find the conversations we all have very interesting reads. I enjoy tweaking my hardware to push it to its max so I can get the best performance possible. And it doesn't end there as I can employ software tweaks on certain games to increase performance further. Perhaps I should make a guide for increasing performance in games as much as possible by employing both hardware and software tweaks as I'm doing software experimentation on my games as well.

Typically what I'll do is some experimentation by starting at the maximum speed I know the CPU is stable at, and then I'll run cinebench and keep increasing the frequency by 100 MHz steps until the system crashes. At whatever frequency the system crashes at, I set the CPU multiplier to match and also increase the voltage by 25mv. I'll then run cinebench again. If the system still crashes, I raise the voltage by additional 25mv steps until the system is stable. I then repeat this process until I run out of thermal headroom. Typically the frequencies you can reach in games will be higher than what you can achieve in cinebench by another few hundred MHz since the load will not be as high.

Aww man, that's a bummer. I didn't see that.

Maybe this will interest you then: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275480705689?epid=13056675991&hash=item4023edfa99:g:saQAAOSwgaxjNjcz&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4IlCNM0VPjO6z7nVNIZO1KlhpeINPo4yDXkxNWYhEzbUjx0SB4Mz%2BqlK7Z%2BcGSQKPlYyZM3Qv%2BwJndDNqFNhBJeKxuPF5%2FPfmSlOeg49FtDHd6MdRFSvcq%2FaKRKnd%2FD0bDGP4VXaSebnd0lZgv%2BkTk%2ByIHNPX8zb1m1%2FgT34%2F9OUH8D4AbEGmXLWT4%2FzC3HucHGJTETKNeK5poPngZ%2F0wGD8safu%2BqAIZkJ1nagPgBoUHhsPD2sz9yuYWnHoGarLOeFiWmX9uX2Qeay29H%2B2xdV6ZfmZQVRUQkVIsBIXZ4mG|tkp%3ABFBMoO7tvMFh I soooo wish I had gotten this laptop for $1200 in it's high end configuration. It has cosmetic damage to it, which is why it still hasn't sold despite this listing being up for months. If you're ok with the cosmetic damage and don't care or are willing to put in some money to repair it, this is an amazing deal. Best part, the seller says this unit has Premamod on it! I was seriously considering buying this as a secondary machine, but you can have dibs since you're looking for a laptop as your main machine right now.

The one thing that sets Samsung SSDs apart from competitors is power efficiency, so they're really good for laptops. Your battery life can improve significantly vs having a competitor SSD since the Samsung drive firmware is better (generally speaking, obviously not in the case where their new 980 pros are having issues). Of course if you're using a desktop, or if you're imposing heavy workloads on your laptop on battery power, the difference is minimal.