Mr. Fox

@electrosoft is right on the Dell/Alienware extended warranty paying for itself over and over again. It's not likely that you will get the same level of service with another brand. As many things as they do half-assed or poorly, their warranty service is probably still the best. Unfortunate that their products are not the best, but at least you don't have to worry about getting jerked around as much. For every 5 year extended warranty I have owned (from Dell/Alienware) I had parts replaced for free numerous times and complete system exchanges (usually upgrades) multiple times. YMMV when it comes to dealing with scummy companies like ASUS, Acer, Gigabyte and MSI. Getting prompt and good quality service it not likely, but having your out-of-pocket costs covered is still wise. I used to never buy extended warranties, but anything that is expensive to replace with electronics that you plan to keep longer than the standard warranty is frequently going to pay for itself. Even household appliances. We have purchased expensive Maytag and Kenmore front-loading washers and driers for many years and always purchase the longest extended warranty. Ever time it has paid for itself. The Maytag Neptune washer we owned for like 10 years had the electronics motherboard replaced like 4 or 5 times and the cost of the warranty for 5 years was less than paying out of pocket for it one time. The Neptune drier never needed to use the warranty. We also purchase a home warranty each year and that pays for itself almost every year with a failure or repair of HVAC, kitchen stove, water heater or something else. If you get the better packages they cover normal wear and tear, even for things like your garage door breaking or the garage door opener failing, water heater failing, etc. They cover the parts and labor (or replacement) minus a small deductible, just like an insurance policy. So many things made today are "disposable" trash products with no parts available. We have often had easily repairable products replaced with new only because the parts are not sold or they are discontinued within a year or two and no longer serviced. The manufacturers only want to sell new products. They do not want to sell any parts to repair what they previously sold. Most people don't buy the extended warranty. That sucks, but the extended warranty allows you to take advantage of their dishonest approach to business. That's the world we live in now. As far as GPUs go, I am starting to feel like I am even more done caring their screwed up messes than I am with motherboards and CPUs. They are so grossly overvalued that what they have to offer in terms of features and performance no longer matters because the price is so out of scope with the value that it is foolish to pay for it. I am at the point that downgraded seems like the smart thing to do even though it goes against my natural inclination. Gaming and benching are fun things to do, but I would rather just turn down the quality settings and spend a more sane and reasonable amount for something merely adequate than to get screwed over paying out the nose to own the best because the price doesn't scale with value and performance level. If the price and performance do not scale at a similar percentage, or slightly higher on the performance side than the price the product instantly becomes a foolish purchase. If I am going to be dumb enough to spend 30-50% more for the flagship GPU it needs to deliver (at minimum) 30-50% more performance proportionally, in areas that actually matter, than the next best model or it's just a scam and a product that is not worth buying. Paying extra just for the satisfaction of claiming that you paid extra to own the best is simply not a good enough reason to buy it, and not a very intelligent way of doing things.

Hey guys. This could be fun. I have been playing around with AI-generated images. I haven't tried videos yet. My forum profile photo (below) is one of the fakes I created on NightCafe. Looks pretty good. This is for fun only and I don't intend to put a lot of effort into it. But, I think some folks might really enjoy doing this if they have an artistic streak. Some other samples of what I have done just farting around with a free NightCafe account can be viewed at my profile here: https://creator.nightcafe.studio/u/Mr-Fox

Maybe the bigger question is how you can tell if he is not lying. 🤣 Or, when does he ever tell the truth about anything? He seems to enjoy using scams and gimmicks to sell overpriced NVIDIA products. Here is something different to distract us from Jensen's nonsense.

You definitely should. Laptops are very unreliable compared to desktops and the chance that the motherboard will fail is extremely high. You may not be able to buy one and if you could chances are great it would cost more than the value of the laptop. I've seen this happen many times. I don't know why it is recertified but it's not unlikely that it already died once and got fixed, then sold to you. If you buy it you might never need it. If you don't you absolutely will need it and wish you would have.

Man, I will have your family in my prayers for a speedy recovery, brother. Some things like this were an annoyance when we were healthy young people and they hit us harder as we mature, even if we remain very healthy and strong. Our defenses are not as robust as they once were. It's a long shot, but rather than assume it is better to ask. By chance have you seen there is an updated version of MSI Afterburner? I did not know until recently because I disable the automatic checking for all OS, drivers, firmware and software updates and never check for updates manually for anything unless I encounter a problem of some sort. I just discovered a week or two ago that there was a more recent version that dropped after RTX 50-series launched. 4.6.6 (Beta5) Released : Feb 2025

I guess it makes sense to see paranoia and performance anxiety to start messing with a person's mind that spent twice (or or more) than a GPU's real worth in terms of its capabilities for nothing more than a perceived "privilege" of acquiring it. [link] The engineering defects and performance problems those privileged characters are experiencing, or worried about, is probably enough to give some of them a severe case of tachycardia.

Sorry to hear that you and the wife are under the weather, brother. I hope it's gone soon and you get back to normal. That artifacting looks terrible. It looks a lot like the artifacting that occurs when you have overclocked the GPU too far for stability. I wonder if MSI Afterburner is somehow doing something goofy to the boost mode while it's running? Strange. Boy these sure are some crazy days that we're living in with things that are extremely overpriced not even functioning correctly. We had Ryzen CPUs getting burned, Radeon video cards with defective vapor chambers, Intel CPUs getting degraded by excessive voltage and opportunistic core boosting. 12VHPWR connectors melting, updated connectors melting, now Ryzen CPUs burning again, Intel moving to a suckier CPU design, now the most expensive GeFarts GPUs ever having missing ROPS, a mickey mouse performance increase, deceptive and misrepresented marketing, the next newest 12VHPWR power connector version update still melting, and a 50-series FE desktop GPU engineering abortion designed like something made to be installed in a turdbook. Blackwell Blackscreen Syndrome when using MFG, and now crap like this artifacting. We're getting shafted left and right. I hope that we never look back on this as the good old days because that's not a very encouraging future.

AI is the most useful tool ever for cybercriminals. One step forward, three steps backward. Security software and OS patches are not going to help. Totally a placebo.

I hope Intel pulls their head out of their butt next gen and focus on higher core count, returning hyperthreading and elimination of crappy smartphone cores and the retarded chiplet crap. If they release something equivalent or better than 14900KS in terms of core and thread count and overclocking (CPU and memory) prowess this will be my last AM5 setup. If not, then it might still be and I may stop spending money on computers. Reliability is something everyone can appreciate, but overclocking is becoming very mediocre. Without excitement in that area my interest in computers totally vaporizes. I was going to jump on an X870E Apex when it drops. I still might if the temptation is great enough. I am having second thoughts because I am not really seeing a lot of meaningful variance in performance on AM5. It really seems like AM5 overclocking (CPU and memory) limitations are more at the CPU design level than they are motherboard design. I think their CPUs reach the edge of overclocking functionality long before the motherboard capabilities start to be exhausted. We are living in one of the worst times I can remember for PC enthusiasts. Everything is pretty screwed up right now in terms of CPU and GPU performance, with extremely poor monetary value, stunted performance and stunted overclocking. I hope it doesn't get even more sucky, but I won't hold my breath. I suspect it will just continue on a path of regression, with less of what I want at a higher price for less than I am willing to embrace. Gaming is rapidly becoming a joke from every angle (hardware and software). Overclocking is swiftly becoming a joke as well. Computing in general is circling the drain. People love eating unhealthy garbage that makes them sick and purchasing compromised silicon trash so much that all there is to eat is garbage and the only things for sale are trash. The prices for both are exhorbitant. The consumer target markets are the idiots, ignoramuses and fools of the world that have access to money and shouldn't, and those groups of losers seem to have us outnumbered. As usual, we all get to have what the losers are willing to put up with. Idiots with access to money and an eagerness to spend gobs of it on trash really screws things up for the rest of us.

Same. My next GPU, whenever that is, will probably be Intel or AMD. I liked my Arc GPU. I haven't ever liked any AMD GPU, so that tells you something right there. I haven't ever liked AMD CPUs either, but I didn't approve of what Intel did with Core Ultra. So, I said screw 'em and so did lots of other people. It's not awesome, but also not terrible. Just kind of "meh" overall. But, the point is, Intel didn't get any money from me this time, and probably won't until they get their priorities straight and get back on track. I know none of them care what I approve of, but I get to decide how to spend my money and I am not going to reward them for having dung for brains. I'm hoping (against hope probably) that there are enough people left that think like I do and if enough of us do not approve and make a conscious decision to spend (less of) our money on inferior brands they will have an ephiphany and pull their heads out of their butts, or lose a fortune, tank their stock and start losing investors. It will be what they deserve for being arrogant imbeciles with a false sense of immortality. It happened to Intel. Nobody ever thought it would. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. NVIDIA is pushing their luck. It can happen to them, too. And, I hope it does... soon. Not so it can benefit AMD. I don't care about that. Just because they deserve it. They need to know what goes around comes around and it needs to cost them dearly with the only thing in the world they care about... money. They need to lose most of it and get a hard reset. With the burning wuss-boy power cables, missing ROPs, betting everything on fake frame DLSS, AI bullcrap and whatever comes next for their fake performance spoofs, (plus who knows how many other gimps and latent engineering defects are waiting to be discovered,) they'll probably need less help than it would have required a few years ago. I hope we all get to enjoy watching the Green Goblin's lair get burned to the ground together. It doesn't take a big cut to bleed to death. Lots of smaller cuts will do the trick. We need to stop behaving like lap dogs and start behaving like cunning wolves that hunt in packs, go for the jugulars, and take no prisoners.

All they have to do is impose the tariffs to go both ways so that China is forced to pay a very high tax on products owned by American companies to purchase products manufactured in China. The US and the rest of the world needs to grow some gonads and completely decouple from China socially and economically and let them implode. They are overpopulated and under-resourced, and ripe for insurrection and civil unrest.

More evidence of incredibly poor judgment from the Green Goblin. Being super stupid is the new normal. I am glad that Corsair isn't drinking the wee-wee flavored Kool-Aid.

The mere fact that as many sold at insane scalper prices as there were is a very sad testament to the abject idiocy of the average human being. Passion and desire overtake them and they lose the ability to exercise sound judgment and self-control. In this case the market is being driven by fools and extremely stupid people that have lots of money to waste or access to credit cards, but lack sufficient common sense on how to use either of them wisely.

It will update the BIOS (firmware) and CPU Microcode (firmware) but probably not the ME or not the EC (also firmware) if you use the SPI programmer. If you flash it normally and then use the SPI programmer the EC will remain on the newer version and generally the Intel ME will remain the same. Indeed. I don't know why there are so few AMD boards with dual BIOS. Some aspects of that feel insulting to me. Like mobo manufacturers have the attitude, they're just AMD gamers and casual PC enthusiasts. They won't notice or care. It's downright sinful and inexcusable that a $700 board like the Gene does not. This should be an expected standard feature, like having USB ports and HDMI/DP, on all desktop motherboards and GPUs in all price ranges. Honestly, it should even be standard on turdbooks to have dual BIOS given the hazard that Micro$lop Updates flash (and sometimes brick) the BIOS on laptops owned by dummies that leave it enabled on purpose and noobs that don't know they can disable it. ASUS does block it sometimes even with BIOS flashback. But most of the time they do not and you can often flash unsigned firmware mods, depending on what was modded. What they do block is downgrading Intel ME and sometimes the EC firmware. Interesting to see some of the latest AMD X3D chips burning again. I have seen examples of it a few time in the last week or two. I wonder if AMD rolled out a buggy new AGESA and SMU and those that burned are all the same version? Weird that everything was fine and then it was suddenly not OK for few people.

Don't do it bro. If you really want to try it then use an SPI flash programmer to save a chip dump to a .BIN or .ROM backup and use it to put back the old firmware when you confirm the latest sucks. If you do it that way the motherboard won't have any say as to what gets flashed. I used to do this frequently with unsigned turdbook BIOS mods. If I am not mistaken using the programmer will not downgrade the Intel ME. You would be stuck with a crappier newer ME version. To avoid that you would use the programmer to flash the newer BIOS and that would leave the better older Intel ME. That board has dual BIOS, right? You should not flash both chips.

I hope he puts a 1000% tariff on all transactions with China... buying and selling. Instant death to GPUs and motherboards assembled in China using parts patented and made by American companies. 💯 Buh-bye China. RIP.

Yes it is very close. This game benchmark seems more CPU heavy than most as well, so the minor difference might be largely your CPU if the benchmark using more the available cores.

Somebody needs to deliver the message to NVIDIA. Roman and Steve (GamersNexus) are doing that, but the bottom line is NVIDIA don't care. They never have. The difference now is that they care less than they used to. Hey, Jensen...

Unfortunately, I would not consider any laptop GPU as being a "good product" because they are all overly expensive for what little value and performance they deliver. They are all pretty lackluster products. The high P5000 price is likely a combination of scalping and having an unusually generous amount of video memory. Laptops are designed based on a premise and mindset that high prices, poor value, sketchy quality and compromises are status quo. Probably the cheapest way to get your hands on an MXM P5000 is to buy a functional Precision equipped with one that is in very rough aesthetic condition for around $500 and yank the GPU from it to upgrade your own. Salvage whatever additional spare parts are worth keeping (or selling) and toss the leftover junk that isn't worth salvaging into the garbage. Plus it never hurts to have a spare motherboard in your parts stash. It is the part most likely to fail on a laptop.

Totally get that and agree. 4K is not great below about 27-inch. Text is too small unless you increase scaling above 100% and I do not like anything except for 100%. Increasing the scaling just makes everything uglier because it jacks up too many elements and makes them all out of whack proportionally. Even using 100% scaling for 4K on my 27-inch screen I increase the font size for menus and desktop icon text to make it as easy on the eyes as 1440p. My Precision 17 has a 4K display and I manually change the resolution to 2560x1440 and that works fine. 4K at 100% scaling is horrible on a 17-inch laptop... borderline unusable and miserable. And, I have very good eyesight other than a touch of colorblindness.

Looking at it now. I like it all except for the white keys. Not fond of the look of that. How do you like yours? Not a bad price for a durable American-made product that would be used for many years. I do not like TKL so it is good they offer a "normal" keyboard. https://system76.com/keyboards/launch_heavy_3/configure

I have never truly liked any laptop with a screen smaller than 17.3" (as the minimum) and I ended up not keeping anything smaller because I found them extremely annoying and unpleasant to use, not to mentioned being further compromised by the size reduction.

Is that keyboard sold by System76 on their web site, or is it marketed under another brand name?

I can set aside my fondness of overclocking high-end computers if I need to. Stuff is so crippled now that it is looking like this hobby might be systematically eliminated for us by the idiots making the products we buy. China doesn't offer anything the world actually "needs" when you stop and think about it. Unless cheap slave labor to make electronics and silicon trash for the rest of the world at the lowest possible cost and the maximum profilt possible is something of a "need" for someone. They bring nothing of value except for cheap labor for the manufacturing of electronics and that eliminates jobs at home. The reliance on them is created and artificial and they are actually expendable. They are reliant on foreign trade for some of life's basic necessities and survival will be more difficult for them. Without help from the United States and a few other nations they will starve to death because they import most of what they need. Between 2000 and 2020, the country’s food self-sufficiency ratio decreased from 93.6 percent to 65.8 percent. Changing diet patterns have also driven up China’s imports of edible oils, sugar, meat, and processed foods. In 2021, the country’s edible import-dependency ratio reached nearly 70 percent. We should stop giving and selling them what they need to survive. They are a third-world nation with a few wealthy dynasties and the most evil totalitarian government in the world and the most-polluted environment in the world. As a nation they only possess what they can buy or steal from other nations. I am OK with not having high-end computers and other digital rubbish this is not necessary like camera doorbells and eavesdropping digital assistants and smartphone operated thermostats.