Prototime

Last big purchase was a PS5. I woke up early and waited in line for a couple hours to get it. I got it while visiting family out of state a few weeks ago, and unfortunately, the PS5 is too massive to fit in a carry-on bag. My family will be mailing it up to me eventually, but it's a huge item to mail and they've had a lot to deal with lately. I've never really been a PlayStation gamer. Had a PS3 with all of like three games for it; I mostly used it as a Blu-ray player. But there are a lot of great looking exclusives that I want to get my hands on this generation. Looking forward to getting it. In the meantime, playing Mass Effect: Andromeda on my XSX (which, by the way, easily fits in a carry-on bag).

Couldn't get into GOT myself. I'm interested in seeing how Amazon's "Rings of Power" Lord of the Rings prequel show turns out. I massively enjoy Lord of the Rings, the books and the movies. I hope the show mostly respects the source material, and that it doesn't try to GOT-ify Tolkien's work. We'll see...

Maybe ya'll can share tips with me for how to operate on little sleep. The noises where I live are killing me. Definitely keep that requirement. It's a wise policy that I will be adopting too.

As the thread title suggests, post your last purchase (or recent purchase) you have made + (if you'd like) a picture of it. It could be anything big or small. An energy drink? Cool. A new laptop? Nice. A yacht? Go for it. With thanks to NBR user NBRUser0159099, who posted the original "Post Your Last Purchase" thread on NBR on December 6, 2009.

Speaking of which, I happen to still have a tab open from when I was looking at the successor forum poll on NBR just before the site went down. Here are the final results of the poll:

I really wish they wouldn't have linked to reddit, the LTT forums, and Tom's Hardware forums to support the idea that "the community will live far beyond the TechnologyGuide sites." There are three successor forums that the community has built for the express purpose of keeping the community together, including efgxt. They should link to those.

Pour one out for NBR, all. It was a fun ride. Glad we can still be together as a community.

My own gripe: I recently (end of September/beginning of October) moved to a new apartment after the house I was renting basically fell apart. Long story short: pipe burst behind my kitchen sink, caused sink to spew water and flood the kitchen, the water sank into the basement and collapsed the basement ceiling and flooded the basement, destroyed many many of my belongings, mold took over the carpet and landlord dragged their feet to fix it so mold went into the walls, once they finally ripped up carpet they discovered water-damaged tile that had asbestos in it... it was a disaster, and I needed to move. I was happy to finally escape that mess. Now I have a new problem: the neighbors upstairs make a ton of noise and it's driving me nuts. They have a baby, and from what I can tell, they let the baby play on the floor--which seems innocent enough, until you can't sleep at night and can't think straight during the day because of the constant bam, bam, bam on the floor. I'm trying to realign my sleep schedule completely with theirs so that I can get a good night's sleep. So far, the combination of ear plugs + noise cancelling headphones + white and brown noise has helped, but I'll still get woken up in the early morning hours. I've amassed quite a sleep debt over the past couple of weeks, and not sure how much more of it I can take. Not in a rush to move again, but clearly my new place definitely can't be a long term solution :/

The NBR closing mess has definitely been a big bother. Really wish the community would all consolidate around one choice. Totally agree that NBR is the best forum - the moderation staff there was the absolute best, bar none. I sometimes visit avsforum.com which has a pretty good mod staff too, but still not quite NBR level. I avoid reddit - there are decent corners of it, but overall the toxicity and stupidity drives me away. Moving it always a pain. Hope you figure out your plans soon. Which areas are you considering moving to?

But my micro-stuttering/mouse-pointer-freezing seems to be Optimus related; it happens only when the iGPU/dGPU switch. Most owners experience this issue when the iGPU/dGPU switch, and some experience it at other times. (You can tell that your dGPU turns on when your power light color turns yellow). Here's an explanation from @PMF of how DPC Latency and Optimus may interact to cause the stuttering: PMF said: ↑ How do I measure DPC Latency? You can download and run a program called LatencyMon: http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon Run this program for about 30-60 minutes, and see if any error messages come up indicating that your system may have difficulty handling real-time audio. Also click on the "Drivers" tab to see which drivers have the highest Execution Time. One or more of these drivers may be the culprit. Oftentimes, but not always, an offending driver may be "ndis.sys", which is the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS), and is the driver for your network card. For example, @spaceray noticed he had terrible micro-stuttering when he was on wireless internet, but when he disabled his wireless and used the Ethernet port, the micro-stuttering went away. He then ran LatencyMon and saw that the Highest Execution Time for ndis.sys was 5468.120370 ms when on Ethernet, but skyrocketed to 273534.716821 ms when on wireless. This indicated pretty clearly his micro-stuttering was being caused by his Killer Wireless. Sometimes, it's clear what device uses a driver--like ndis.sys being used by your network card--but it's not always. For example, on my computer, LatencyMon showed that Wdf01000.sys has a high Execution Time, but there's no easy way to figure out which devices may be using this driver (and it can vary). How do I resolve the issue micro-stuttering/mouse-pointer-freezing? As I said before, there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. But here are some things you can try - most of which involve experimenting with various device drivers. Run LatencyMon to identify which drivers have the highest Execution Times and DPC Counts. Try to identify which device uses the driver (using either the info LatencyMon gives about the driver, or Google search the driver name). See if the device's drivers are outdated. If they are, download the latest drivers for the device. You can get them typically from the manufacturer's website, or by going into your Device Manager, right-clicking on the device, and clicking "Update Driver Software." If that doesn't resolve the micro-stuttering, go into your Device Manager (for Windows 10, right-click the Start button, and then click "Device Manager") and disable that device, assuming it's not something critical. Reboot and see if micro-stuttering is still there. If the micro-stuttering is completely gone, then you've identified the device whose driver is responsible for your stuttering. To prevent future stuttering, you can: Simply keep the device disabled. But this would then prevent you from using the device. Double-check that you have the latest driver version. This might not work, however. Try rolling back to a prior driver version (which again, you may be able to get from the device manufacturer's website). You can try experimenting with various prior versions to see if you find one that resolves the stutter. This still might not work, however. Simply uninstall the driver (via the Device Manager). This might make the device unusable, but there might also be other default device drivers that will take over in their absence. (You can pretty quickly figure this out depending on whether the device still works or not after you uninstall the driver. If it doesn't work anymore, you can always re-install the driver to make it work again). You might lose some functionality using default drivers, but it might be a pretty minor loss, especially in comparison to bad stuttering. Note that Windows Update may try to force the previous non-default driver back onto your computer; if so, see this workaround: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...os-owners-lounge.793376/page-47#post-10344748 Keep looking out for new driver updates from the manufacturer; a future driver version may get rid of the stutter. @SirGadden reported that an ELAN driver update (which he received through Windows Update) resolved his stuttering issue. Note that not every device will receive driver updates through Windows Update, so you may have to hunt down new driver versions from the device manufacturer's website. If the micro-stuttering is still there but is occurring less, then you've identified one device whose driver may be responsible for your stutter. Repeat steps 2-3 for other drivers that LatencyMon identifies as having a high Execution Time. If the micro-stuttering hasn't changed, then you haven't identified the responsible driver. Repeat step 2-3 for other drives that LatencyMon identifies as having a high Execution Time. Note about the Killer Wireless Card Adapter: Killer Wireless seems to be a common culprit for several owner's micro-stuttering woes (although it's not always the cause, as @whirledpeas can attest to). Especially if LatencyMon identifies ndis.sys as having high Execution Time (although you might want to try out this tip out this regardless of what LatencyMon says) - try what @spaceray did. Disable your wireless card in the Device Manager, reboot, and plug in Ethernet. Then see if your micro-stuttering issue has been resolved. If so, you can either (1) connect to the internet via an Ethernet cable in the future and keep your wireless disabled (obviously not ideal), or (2) switch out your Killer Wireless Card for an Intel Wireless Card, like @spaceray did (and successfully resolved his issue). I personally had my reseller swap out the stock Killer Wireless Card for an Intel Wireless 8260 card when I bought my GS43VR, and I've been one of the lucky few to have hardly any micro-stuttering. If neither of the above two options sound appealing to you, you can try (3) downloading prior or different Killer driver versions, or (4) keeping your Killer drivers up to date in hopes that a future driver will eventually fix it. Note: Even if your ndis.sys driver has high DPC latency, there's no guarantee that swapping the wireless card will fix your stuttering issue, and it certainly hasn't worked for every user that's tried it, but multiple users have reported that swapping cards has worked. Thankfully Intel 8260 cards are relatively cheap ($15 USD or so), but it's still a potential solution that involves spending some money, and there's some risk it won't work. I personally think if you're having terrible stuttering issues, it's money well spent, but obviously it's up to you. If you tried the above steps 1-3 and they didn't work, then you may have to start throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Here are some other options: Make sure all of your computer's device drivers are up to date, in hopes that an updated driver will fix the problem. Try updating the BIOS; a fix might eventually come through a BIOS update Try experimenting with disabling devices in your Device Manager, one by one, to see if you can identify the culprit. This obviously will take some time. Alternatively (or additionally) to the last suggestion, just start uninstalling various drivers - you might eventually identify the culprit this way, too. If you're up for it, you can also try rolling back to Windows 7; Windows 7 drivers may, at least for some devices, cause lower DPC Latency than Windows 10 drivers. *Shortcuts to possible solutions: With all these principles in mind, here is a list of various solutions that other users have found worked for them. This list was originally compiled by @hmscott and later supplemented by me. If steps 1-3 don't work, or if you'd rather take a scatter-shot approach, you can try simply going down this list and seeing if anything works for you. Prototime said: ↑ Lastly, you can always report this issue to MSI Support. The more people who raise it with them, the better likelihood that they can help fix this through a BIOS update or otherwise.

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You know the drill. Sound off below. Ready. Set. Gripe! With thanks to BeastRider, NBR member who started the original thread on April 5, 2011; and 2.0, NBR member who started a successor thread on December 21, 2014.

There so many gaming forums here, and I strongly recommend collapsing the separate gaming forums into a single forum as it exists on NBR. The gaming forum on NBR has already been slow in its final days, and having so many gaming forums will spread out gaming conversations and make participation less convenient and more diffuse, and increase confusion as to which forum a particular thread should be in--decreasing the likelihood that people will see and participate.

Glad to see this thread carrying on. I'm laying Mass Effect: Andromeda. Just beat Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. I never played any Mass Effect games until recently and wow, I did not know what I was signing up for when I got that trilogy of games. 400+ hours later and I'm still hungry for more. Also, Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved. Nice for a change of pace, and loads of arcade fun.