[U-3C]

Just throwing in a thought about deadly's build.

Reading all this, I get the impression the person this build is for isn't very comfortable with maintaining their own build/opening and tweaking their system. For of course with that, warranty might be less important, but for a people who just buys computers, that could be the only thing that can save them and offer them sort in the case something does fail.

System builders with a limited budget may focus a lot on getting the best value in terms of performance and...dare I say "future proofing?" But for the average person, they just want to get a good enough PC that is cheaper than buying one at the store, and know that it's reliable to use.

Same thing with used parts vs new. You can probably swap out a PSU yourself without a second thought, maybe remove the GPU shroud without panicking at the "warranty void if removed" sticker and replace a fan or reapply the thermal paste after realizing that the GPU is overheating, or know after a quick diagnose that some other part is wrong and need software/hardware tweaking. For someone who doesn't know any of that stuff, it's call Microsoft, turn it on and off then run some diagnostics, hopefully find which part is acting up (or guess in the case the system doesn't run), and call the company responsible for that part, going they give a fix for free. Warranty is the only insurance for many. Sure, hopefully they never need it and based on chance, most probably won't get a defective unit, but when one does or something happens, they'll definitely want it.

A bit anecdotal but take a look at my recent case with my phone. 1 year warranty over 2 didn't matter for most people who take care of their device and put basic protection measures (good case, screen protector, etc.), However, it just so happens the usb port stopped working, and as a result, no power or way of recovering data at first. For me, a battery charger under 7 dollars does the fix. Data can be recovered then with a microSD card.

Bring it to the service centre, they told me warranty is over and that will be 120 Canadian dollars to fix. If I didn't know any better, that would have been 120 dollars. The average person would have definitely wished the phone had a bit better insurance.

As for the 1060...I don't know. 3gb vs 6gb should indeed be considered different cards, but I'll say that I'll lean toward the 3gb one for this case. Maybe in many years problems it won't perform as well, but you can turn the settings down a bit. That much of a price increase seems a bit steep to be honest for the extra 3gb of VRAM for me.

--------------------------

Reunited with workstation PC. Thinking of repasting my R9 390 To bring down idle temps a bit. The fans would kick in even if I just start moving the mouse for a while and it gets annoying in the summer.

Never opened up GPU shrouds before a any advice?

I just know to carefully unplug the cables for the fans and LEDs and give a generous amount of paste to cover the entire die, as there's no heat spreader compared to desktop GPUs. Also watch the pads for the vrm.

Any really beginner mistakes to look out for?

---------

Bought this years ago but never used it. Finally reunited!

Also remembering when "VR Ready" HDMI cables wasn't a thing yet.

 

[U-3C]

Also, for @Tom Yum Goong:

https://twitter.com/zuboko/status/982261016095436800

Was just about to paint something based on that pic yesterday, right before I saw your post.

 

[deadlylover]

I just know to carefully unplug the cables for the fans and LEDs and give a generous amount of paste to cover the entire die, as there's no heat spreader compared to desktop GPUs. Also watch the pads for the vrm.

Any really beginner mistakes to look out for?

If it's very difficult to remove the heat sink then some gentle heat with a hair dryer will help, just uhh be really careful if its blowing on any plastic, you might melt it. (I stress very gentle heat, nothing hotter than the hot water from your tap, start from far away)

If you use non conductive paste then it doesn't really matter if you overdo it (within reason), any excess is squished away from the contact pressure of the cooler. I don't remember if manufacturers still use strong adhesive type thermal pads, if they do then you'll have a long day ahead of you trying to slice it apart and cleaning it all up. *flashbacks to the X1800XT days*

 

[U-3C]

If it's very difficult to remove the heat sink then some gentle heat with a hair dryer will help, just uhh be really careful if its blowing on any plastic, you might melt it. (I stress very gentle heat, nothing hotter than the hot water from your tap, start from far away)

If you use non conductive paste then it doesn't really matter if you overdo it (within reason), any excess is squished away from the contact pressure of the cooler. I don't remember if manufacturers still use strong adhesive type thermal pads, if they do then you'll have a long day ahead of you trying to slice it apart and cleaning it all up. *flashbacks to the X1800XT days*

Thanks for the heads up/checklist!

The heat sink on my MSI card is pretty easy to remove. Held in completely by screws and all the screws are on the back plate rather than in weird crevices. No heat should be gun needed.

No way of knowing how sticky the thermal pads are. I just knowing that in all the videos I've watched, the guys just lifted the heat sink off easily and the pass are all intact, nothing broken, no pieces stuck on different parts. Will be careful with that. I do have lots of spare pads lying around in a worst case scenario. Just need to make sure they are the right thickness.

The paste I have is the Arctic MX-4. Non conducive so should be fine. Also have some paste that came with a Cooler Master 212 Evo. I'll be spreading the paste a my finger so it should be within reason.

----------------

Woops, forgot to attach file at end of post you replied to.

Fixed that.

 

[castleofargh]

or you can do like me, get a 1060 3gb because you had no idea there was another model with 6.

informed decision 101.

 

[214324]

Look as someone who has a distorted view on risk management because I day trade for a living, we all have our biases.

A great system for 2 years, then a decent one for 5+ after is fine, and it's what I've decided would make this person most happy.

A great system for 3-4 years on a ticking time bomb of a power supply, with 120GB less SSD space, ehhhhh.

It's a tough call, I want a phone call in 4 years asking for a GPU upgrade versus a disaster PSU taking parts out with it. Keep in mind again they've been using a Radeon 5000 series for a while...they aren't PCMR chasing frame rates, they need a reliable base because chances are the only upgrades they're gonna get are hand me downs.

I've made the objectively wrong decision and that's fine, call it a stop loss.

Edit: met up with him just then, the PC is for his little sister who only plays browser games....

Well...could be worse I guess...that's not what I had in mind when he said it's only for games.

Didn't I say that the PSU upgrade was fine? And the SSD for the price I just quicksearched and found the 240, not the 360GB.

Well that's...anticlimactic. Why the heck was the case non-negotiable then? If it was a matter of aesthetic I'm actually going to flip.

Just throwing in a thought about deadly's build.

Reading all this, I get the impression the person this build is for isn't very comfortable with maintaining their own build/opening and tweaking their system. For of course with that, warranty might be less important, but for a people who just buys computers, that could be the only thing that can save them and offer them sort in the case something does fail.

System builders with a limited budget may focus a lot on getting the best value in terms of performance and...dare I say "future proofing?" But for the average person, they just want to get a good enough PC that is cheaper than buying one at the store, and know that it's reliable to use.

Same thing with used parts vs new. You can probably swap out a PSU yourself without a second thought, maybe remove the GPU shroud without panicking at the "warranty void if removed" sticker and replace a fan or reapply the thermal paste after realizing that the GPU is overheating, or know after a quick diagnose that some other part is wrong and need software/hardware tweaking. For someone who doesn't know any of that stuff, it's call Microsoft, turn it on and off then run some diagnostics, hopefully find which part is acting up (or guess in the case the system doesn't run), and call the company responsible for that part, going they give a fix for free. Warranty is the only insurance for many. Sure, hopefully they never need it and based on chance, most probably won't get a defective unit, but when one does or something happens, they'll definitely want it.

A bit anecdotal but take a look at my recent case with my phone. 1 year warranty over 2 didn't matter for most people who take care of their device and put basic protection measures (good case, screen protector, etc.), However, it just so happens the usb port stopped working, and as a result, no power or way of recovering data at first. For me, a battery charger under 7 dollars does the fix. Data can be recovered then with a microSD card.

Bring it to the service centre, they told me warranty is over and that will be 120 Canadian dollars to fix. If I didn't know any better, that would have been 120 dollars. The average person would have definitely wished the phone had a bit better insurance.

As for the 1060...I don't know. 3gb vs 6gb should indeed be considered different cards, but I'll say that I'll lean toward the 3gb one for this case. Maybe in many years problems it won't perform as well, but you can turn the settings down a bit. That much of a price increase seems a bit steep to be honest for the extra 3gb of VRAM for me.

--------------------------

Reunited with workstation PC. Thinking of repasting my R9 390 To bring down idle temps a bit. The fans would kick in even if I just start moving the mouse for a while and it gets annoying in the summer.

Never opened up GPU shrouds before a any advice?

I just know to carefully unplug the cables for the fans and LEDs and give a generous amount of paste to cover the entire die, as there's no heat spreader compared to desktop GPUs. Also watch the pads for the vrm.

Any really beginner mistakes to look out for?

Might want to rephrase. You just made it seem like the warranty doesn't matter for a person who isn't comfortable with maintaining their own computer.

With the current market right now and a focus on reliability, you're better off buying a prebuilt. GTX1060 builds are around $850-900+ even in the United States for a Ryzen 3/5, 8 GB DDR4 3200 (you basically have to go 3200 since Infinity Fabric's operating speed is tied to RAM), 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD, GTX 1060 6GB, $50 for an A tier PSU (M12II Evo), some probably $70 case (at least a good one), a A320/B350 motherboard, and a $30 heatsink. Your warranty on each part is spread, with some range between 2 and 5/7 years. If one thing goes wrong, you have to manually debug to fix it: no single phone call or the nice service of a large vendor, etc. Even though you're getting maybe a SSD and a better motherboard/PSU into the mix, the onus is on you. For that person, a 2 year warranty from the likes of say Dell's Alienware is going to go much further than the individual warranties on each part. Having the warranty on each part doesn't matter then if they're not going to be taking advantage of it themselves.

It's only a $100 AUD price increase because they're unwilling to accept used GPUs. Since the fan is going to be the point of failure, you can get some for about $10 or less, especially since a good amount of aftermarket coolers have easily replaceable fans now (MSI is one that comes to mind). It's $40-$60 AUD otherwise. You also don't seem to be quite understand how important VRAM is in GPU aging. Having fast enough and just enough VRAM in general makes or breaks a GPU's long term viability. They aren't going to have the benefit of improved image compression algorithms when their accelerators are tied to one set of older standards.

-----

Nothing really special to look out for outside of hardened thermal paste. They're not that fragile. You can even throw them into the oven to reflow them and they'll be perfectly fine. The only main thing you have to worry about is your choice in thermal paste.

Just keep track of the screws since there's usually tons of them.

 

[U-3C]

Might want to rephrase. You just made it seem like the warranty doesn't matter for a person who isn't comfortable with maintaining their own computer.

Sorry about that. Was typing on public transit with a large box in my hand. Will fix when I have time. Thanks for the heads up.

Nothing really special to look out for outside of hardened thermal paste. They're not that fragile. You can even throw them into the oven to reflow them and they'll be perfectly fine. The only main thing you have to worry about is your choice in thermal paste.

Just keep track of the screws since there's usually tons of them.

Alright, will keep that in mind. Thanks again bud!

 

[vantt1]

Cloning a system SSD is harder than I remember. Finally succeeded but now I can't extend the system partition to fill up the gained space from upgrade. Welp, time to reinstall Windows and might as well convert to GPT...

How do you even

 

[U-3C]

It seems the laptop my school is selling is indeed the G551 laptop.

It's the model with a 960m and a 6700hq in it. Being sold for a 1/3rd the price original price. Not bad at all! Might consider getting one as a second mobile station, or maybe just sell it and make a profit?

If I can get some spare parts from broken ones, even better.

 

[214324]

Cloning a system SSD is harder than I remember. Finally succeeded but now I can't extend the system partition to fill up the gained space from upgrade. Welp, time to reinstall Windows and might as well convert to GPT...



How do you even

The GUI partition manager is kind of buggy. I had a situation like that and I had to use diskpart to deal with it.

 

[vantt1]

The GUI partition manager is kind of buggy. I had a situation like that and I had to use diskpart to deal with it.

Yeah I figured. Diskpart can convert to GPT but I'm pretty sure it can't do it on an active system drive.

 

[deadlylover]

Well that's...anticlimactic. Why the heck was the case non-negotiable then? If it was a matter of aesthetic I'm actually going to flip.

Yep it's aesthetics, if I didn't have to buy this case then fitting the 6GB and a good power supply would have been much easier (only one part substitution instead of 3). Well at least the case cooling is overkill and should give it the best chance at living a long, hard life playing browser games... (I think it's those Chinese online grindfest pay-to-win games)

There was a really good deal on a prebuilt, 8400 + 1060 6GB no SSD though for exactly 1k but the warranty is only one year from Dell, I'm not kidding.

I binge watched Violet Evergarden, ehhhhh it was nice enough, I give it a 7/10. Has anyone watched Highschool DxD, I've been seeing that series name pop up for as long as I can remember, and there are some oddly well known voice actors in there...

@vantt1

IIRC you cant extend the first main partition because there's that stupid ~470MB one at the very end that's "blocking" it, what's in there? (from memory anyway, I might have encountered that before)
Usually the 500MB system reserved one is placed at the very start, it's not that is it?

Backup before you go fiddling with that last partition ahhahaha.

 

[vantt1]

@vantt1

IIRC you cant extend the first main partition because there's that stupid ~470MB one at the very end that's "blocking" it, what's in there? (from memory anyway, I might have encountered that before)
Usually the 500MB system reserved one is placed at the very start, it's not that is it?

Backup before you go fiddling with that last partition ahhahaha.

On the old drive it was also at the very end, so after cloning onto the larger SSD it ended up in between the system partition and the unallocated space. I moved it to the very end but wasn't able to extend the system partition.

 

[SeraphicWings]

Guys, finally I've found the perfect high-resolution anime music combo for my own satisfaction. Planning to get an affordable 2.5mm cable on my next pay check

Anyone rocking the same combo as mine?

Spoiler: New combo

 

[AxelCloris]

Guys, finally I've found the perfect high-resolution anime music combo for my own satisfaction. Planning to get an affordable 2.5mm cable on my next pay check

Anyone rocking the same combo as mine?

Spoiler: New combo

Not using either piece of gear, but I've been looping that track on Soundcloud for a good chunk of the morning today. Where did you end up buying yours? I'm thinking about ordering from CDJapan.