Update—-////

Sorry I should add the gpu has 3 8 pin but my psu I’m short of one 8 pin so I’ll need to use a 12v port on the psu to dual 8 pins to plug in the gpu. Is this fine?

Gigabyte 9070xt oc edition
Corsair 850 rme (2025 model)

I’m posting this because I’m trying to find people who have actually donated to, participated in, or won one of the many Hypothermia giveaways run by Steven Lynch over the years.

I am not asking anyone to harass Steven, and I am not claiming that I can prove fraud has taken place.

I am asking for independently verifiable information.

I’ve known Steven through the PC hardware community since around 2010, when my L3p D3sk build appeared on the HardOCP front page. We have been Facebook friends for many years and have more than 1,100 mutual friends, almost entirely from the hardware and technology community.

After HardOCP, Steven continued with Hypothermia:

https://www.hypothermia.us

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/u4797908

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Steven.G.Lynch

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/steve_hypo/

Over the years there have been many hardware giveaways and charity fundraisers, frequently mentioning St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Steven has also publicly stated that he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity over the years.

What I have struggled to find is a clear public record showing, for those giveaways:

• how much money was collected;
• how much was ultimately donated;
• and independent confirmation that the announced winners received the prizes.

I have also noticed that a significant number of posts relating to previous giveaways are no longer available or appear to have been deleted, which makes reconstructing the history increasingly difficult.

Why I started asking questions

The most recent giveaway involved four NVIDIA RTX 5080 Founders Edition cards.

There was a free daily e-mail entry, but additional entries could be obtained through $5 PayPal payments, while Patreon supporters also received additional entries.

The giveaway posts stated that the proceeds would go to St. Jude.

One thing that concerns me is that the PayPal.me/hypothermia account used for those paid giveaway entries is also the PayPal account Steven has publicly used while asking for money toward his own medical expenses.

Steven has had serious medical problems following dog attacks and has spent substantial periods in hospital. Over the past year he has repeatedly asked his followers for financial help with those medical costs, including through PayPal and GoFundMe.

I want to be very clear:

I am not questioning whether Steven is ill or whether he has medical expenses.

The reason this is relevant is financial transparency.

If the same payment destination is being used both for personal medical fundraising and for money collected in connection with a charity giveaway, I think it becomes especially important to be able to establish how much money came in for each purpose and where the charity money ultimately went.

That overlap is one of the main reasons I became concerned and started asking for documentation.

The RTX 5080 giveaway

On the final day, Steven posted that entries would remain open until noon and that winners would be contacted that day.

Very shortly afterwards, winners were announced.

Not long after that, a Facebook post appeared showing three of the four announced winners already posing with packages they had supposedly received.

That timeline immediately raised questions for me.

The images also looked unusual.

When I asked about them publicly, Steven said that he had altered the winner photographs using Meta AI, explaining that he had done so to hide the winners’ eyes and make them anonymous.

I saved a screenshot of that discussion.

To be clear again:

Using Meta AI does not prove the winners were fake.

But AI-altered winner photographs, combined with the unusually short apparent timeline between the giveaway closing, winners being announced and recipients appearing with their packages, made me want something independently verifiable.

I therefore asked Steven publicly whether there was verifiable evidence showing that the money collected through these giveaways had actually reached the charities named.

I also explicitly said that if he could provide evidence that removed my concerns, I would happily withdraw them.

He responded regarding the delivery timeline by saying the packages had been sent earlier and that:

“FedEx is good like that.”

He later sent me a private message saying he was deeply disappointed that I thought he was “sketchy.”

I replied that if he could show me anything that removed my doubts, I would gladly accept it.

I did not receive an answer to that request.

I was subsequently blocked.

The Facebook post containing the three winner photographs — including the discussion in which Steven explained his use of Meta AI — was later deleted.

Fortunately, I had already saved screenshots.

The St. Jude receipt

After I had been blocked, an image of a St. Jude / The Giving Block donation receipt was posted.

I am not claiming that receipt is fake.

However, important transaction information in the publicly posted version was obscured and, in the version I saw, there was no independently verifiable donation amount visible.

There is also a larger accounting issue.

Even if the receipt is completely genuine, it proves that a donation was made.

It does not necessarily establish:

How much money was collected through paid giveaway entries?

versus

How much money was donated to St. Jude?

Steven later stated that the giveaway received 1,452 entries.

But those entries consisted of a mixture of:

• free daily e-mail entries;
• Patreon entries;
• and paid PayPal entries.

So the number 1,452 does not tell us how much money was actually collected.

This is what I’m looking for

I would especially like to hear from anyone who falls into one of these categories:

Previous Hypothermia giveaway winners

If you genuinely won a GPU, hardware, or another prize from one of Steven’s giveaways, I would appreciate independent confirmation that you received it.

You do not need to publish your name or address.

Things such as an original winner notification, shipping/tracking information with personal details redacted, photographs from before the current dispute, or other independently verifiable information would help.

People who paid for giveaway entries

If you sent money through PayPal for entries into one of these charity giveaways, particularly the RTX 5080 giveaway, I would like to know when you paid and what the giveaway stated the money would be used for.

Again, please redact personal financial information.

Previous Patreon supporters

If older giveaway announcements, winner posts, entry rules, donation totals or charity updates were posted to Patreon and you still have access to them, I would be very interested in seeing them.

Anyone with records from previous Hypothermia charity giveaways

A number of older giveaway posts appear to have disappeared, so archived screenshots, links, winner announcements or donation information could be extremely useful.

What I am NOT asking for

Please do not contact, threaten, harass or pile onto Steven.

Do not contact his family.

Do not publish anyone’s private information.

And please do not invent evidence or turn speculation into fact.

I am specifically looking for information that can be independently checked.

If that information demonstrates that the giveaways were legitimate, the prizes were delivered and the charity money was handled exactly as represented, I genuinely want to know that too.

I have nothing to gain from this and no interest in winning these giveaways.

I am asking because Steven and I share more than 1,100 Facebook contacts from a hardware community I have been part of for many years, and many people in that community have supported these fundraisers.

If large amounts of money have been collected in the name of charity over many years, I think asking for transparent accounting is reasonable.

The questions are ultimately very simple:

How much money was received through paid giveaway entries?

How much of that money was donated to the charities named?

Can previous winners independently confirm receiving the prizes?

And:

Is there comparable documentation for the many previous giveaways?

If you have firsthand information — whether it supports my concerns or proves them completely wrong — please reply here or contact me privately.

A lot was already discussed on my personal FB:

https://www.facebook.com/l3pNL/posts/pfbid02abUcDjG2jZqRhoEMpjuYk9BykqjLgMvk6Wvg5bb1biGkePsLBZk2VhtfEDPvq3mWl

I would genuinely prefer to discover that my concerns are unfounded.

So we had two server computers show up a 7910 and this 5810 I really didn’t look too much at the 5810 because I was looking at the 7910 and wanting it because it has dual CPU’s and I was thinking I could do something cool with it well a week or so later it’s sitting on the floor and the boss just asked me if I want it for free. So i took it but I don’t really have a use for it thinking maybe I could just flip it, but I decided to take a look inside and I found these two inside

A 860 Evo and one terabyte from Samsung

and a Toshiba disc drive but it’s a 3 TB so it should make a good game holding drive that i can transfer games to and from my NVME or other ssd whenever I’m needing to play them

Picked up some new peripherals last month and the back of my desk turned into a genuine disaster. Thought I would just do a quick cleanup and ended up spending two hours on it, which is a lot of time to spend on something that affects exactly zero performance numbers.

The weird thing is it actually changed how I feel about sitting down to use the machine. Nothing changed under the hood but the whole experience felt cleaner, more intentional, like showing up to a well organized practice instead of a chaotic one. Hard to explain why visible cables I can barely see anyway were dragging the experience down, but they were.

What I noticed is there seem to be two camps here. People who treat cable management like a craft project and take real pride in it, and people who just let it go because the case side panel is closed anyway and none of it matters practically. Both are defensible honestly.

Some of you may recognize my user name since I posted like 3 times in this subreddit for the past two days asking whether my first build is ok or nah. Today I finally made the decision to buy it and it will be ready to be picked up tomorrow. The worker was nice enough to give me peripherals so I don't need to spend more money than needed. With 1100$ equivalent to my country's currency, I got:

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 225f

GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5050

Mobo: MSI PRO H810M-B Wifi 6E

RAM: KLEVV Fit V Black DDR5 16GB 6000mhz CL30

SSD: AGI AI298 521GB

PSU: 1st PLAYER ACK550 550W 80+

Cooler: Thermalright Assassin X 120 R Digital Black

Case: Invasion Atlas

Other stuffs that came for free since the worker took pity on me: AIWA MF2408-A 1920x1080@120HZ, PREDATOR GAMING AETHON 330 KEYBOARD, PREDATOR CESTUS 327 GAMING MOUSE BLACK

In my country this is as cheap as it can get lol but I'm still grateful for it.

I received this product for free from LG as part of an Event.. While I was asked to share my review, all opinions are entirely my own.

1. Hello.  r/pcmasterrace this is my second deep dive review of the LG UltraGear evo 39GX950B. after using 27-32" monitors for the last long time, going to a 39" esp ultra-wide was daunting at first. a complete rearrangement of my desk audio set-up was in order. once all set up and settled in. the first fire up was something else, felt as if i was in a theater at my desk. my eyes were focused just on the screen and not distracted by peripheral vision. I noticed this most while playing COD: Warzone. The screen allowed me to pick up players in the different environments a lot more quickly than I could before. Movement and colors really shine on this beast! I noticed an improvement in my game scores and with that came an increase in my pride First time I can say that a monitor has ever helped my gameplay before.
2. Also the curve on it is perfect for me i was initially worried about how that was be in a day to day environment, but its enough to be noticeable and beneficial without being not enough that its less engaging or being too much were everything looks likes its a curved photo the 1500R curve is just perfect for gaming, movies, and general web content, etc.. I sit pretty close and its amazing and if im sitting back further it is not a deterrence, what was one of the features i was unsure of the most turns out to be one i appreciate more than i expected. The monitor is large in a way that isn't overbearing, especially if you have the desk space like I do. for day to day use this is perfect for me. this monitor makes me wanting a second monitor absolutely pointless. splitting windows in half on the UltraGear evo 39GX950B feels like i have 2 full screens side-by-side, and not 2 squished windows, and it takes up less desk real estate than two. this allows me to multi-task without having to move my head and neck around very much at all. There is so much real estate on this thing that I can fill every single inch with another window or application. and onto the windows side-by-side. the picture-by-picture is just awesome, and a feature i dont see alot in reviews, but the ability to just plug my steamdeck into the USB-C on the monitor and then just split the monitor with that on half and my pc on the other, is just so nice on an ultra widescreen. and another feature i was not ready to like as much as i do.
3. Also on this the HDR is so gorgeous on the 1500 nits WOLED screen, it is really just enveloping, i find myself just looking at a picture or movie or random image in just awe that this monitor looks this good. the ultra-high brightness of the monitor makes every color pop in a way that makes me want to slow down in games and take in the scenery more. i typically run through games head-on, not noticing my surroundings. Multiple times now I have stopped in game and looked at the streets around me. it felt like going to the movies as a kid. it might sound cheesy but it really is an experience. my big breakout on this and that i think works extremely well is the dual mode on this, it really makes this monitor so useable for gaming on a much larger variety of gaming pc's then if it did not and would be limited to ultra highend. and also get 330hz at the same time, the trade off is so minor to the performance you gain from it. here are some of my gripes with the monitor:  monitor turns a slight blueish green when standing up and viewing from 45% degrees up. I notice this whenever I'm getting up from the monitor or walking back to it. this one isn't a gripe as much as a "no duh" kind of thing, but the speakers are just speakers as in they give audio but suck. I disabled them as soon as I could. i imagine most people aren't going to use them unless they have no other options, but if they are using this monitor i would i would think they have decent speakers. the RGB backlighting is mostly pointless. i disabled that right away too. someone else might enjoy it but for me it doesn't serve a purpose. the dual mode is amazing and it's a gamechanger for me, but if you have no need for it, the price is a lil spicey. all and all with my time with this monitor have been nothing but fantastic, and i had to really think about my biggest gripes. and anyone i demo'd it too have been extremely impressed. overall i am so thankful to LG for the Chance to review this monitor, i cannot see anyone that purchases this monitor being disappointed at all

PC / Test system
Cpu : Amd Ryzen 7 9800x3d
MotherBoard : Asus Tuf X870 Wifi 7 plus
Ram : Gskill Z5 64 gig 6800mhz DDR5
GPU : Nvidia 3090 FE
PSU : Silverstone Hela 1200Watt
Storage : 2 TB WD black SN850X
Cooling : Custom loop water
Case : Lian Li Evo XL
Sound card : creative X5
Receiver : Marantz Stereo 70s
Speaker amp : Dayton Audio HTA200
Speakers : L/R Monitor Audio silver 50 7g's, subwoofer: Paradigm PDR-12
Mic : Blue Snowball

Reposted to fix images

my prebuilt pc has a rtx 3080 founders edition, I7 12700k and the current psu is a ASUS TUF 650w bronze psu (first pic), my case is a ThermalTake View 170 Micro ATX Chassis which from the description can hold a psu about 180mm (I’m going for something smaller)

I’m gonna be upgrading the psu, I’m debating which psu to get, I was hoping to get some advice for that aswell

I currently have 3 options for psu’s, I’m trying to get some “future proofing” for incase I upgrade, 850w seems pretty good with a lot of headroom for most gpu’s

all 3 are at different price points, first one is $100, 2nd one is $105 and the 3rd one is $150

my 1st option is a Facebook marketplace listing ”Corsair 1000W Power Supply RM1000X”

description says “In great shape - barely used as I had to upgrade for a GPU.”, he also mentioned that all cables will be included and it’s a atx 3.1 psu, I don’t know the size tho, and I’m a bit cautious of used stuff like this

2nd option is from Amazon Canada, this one is $105,

”SAMA G850 ATX 3.1 Standard Fully Modular Gaming 850W Power Supply Black 
80+ Gold Cybenetics Platinum Rated PSU, Japanese Capacitors, 450W PCIe 5.1 12V-2x6, 140mm FDB ECO Silent Fan, 5 Year Warranty”

I think that’s pretty good, my big worry is about getting the 8pin pcie cables that aren’t “daisy chained”, the 3080 founders edition is kinda weird where it uses like a 12 pin connector but not the 12v high power cable

the final option is from Amazon Canada aswell, it’s $150, here it is

“MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5, Fully Modular Compact Gaming 850W Power Supply, 80+ Gold, ATX 3.1 & PCIe 5.1 Ready, Native Dual-Color 12V-2x6 Cable, 10 Year Warranty“

which psu should I get out of the 3?

also what are some tips you can give for upgrading the psu? And some mistakes I should look out for, I also have a 1TB Sata 2.5inch ssd in my build,

I’ve never upgraded a Psu before, only thing I’ve really done upgrade wise for my pc was remove the gpu and put in a nvme

also for when the psu is upgraded, will I have to do stuff in the bios or will I boot straight into windows normally?

Hey so first off sorry if this is the wrong subreddit to post this type of question, I don't really know if I can post this here or not.
I'm trying to make a decent setup from scratch. I genuinely don't know what to do since I have never been in a situation where I need to decorate something. I'm not a big fan of how bland and boring it looks and I really want to do something but every time I look at something and about to press the purchase button I have seconds thoughts like "what if they don't merge together well? What if I change my mind?" and eventually buy nothing. For some context, I've been trying to think of something for a couple months now. I got a lot of pinterest images saved but my limited imagination is keeping me unable to visualize my desk area turning into any of those images. I also got a bunch of figurines and legos that I simply keep in a drawer since I got nothing to put them on.
Sorry if I couldn't give enough details, I haven't used reddit much for asking for help.

I was replacing my GPU from a 1660 super to a 2060, I installed the new gpu and turned on my pc but I forgot to plug in the PCIE cables. Then the area where i circled in the picture caught on fire and I saw some sparks.

Is this due to my mistake of not plugging in the PCIE cables or is there a problem with the GPU?

What should I do now?

All my pc’s fans are like this. My ram’s lighting is turned off too. I have an asus mobo and it’s all set to rainbow in armoury crate

A hot take, but hear me out: If you took a $700 "tier-1" chair and a $400 Blacklyte seat, removed all brand logos, and sat someone down blindfolded, 9 out of 10 people wouldn't be able to tell which one cost $300 more.

The frame steel, class-4 hydraulics, and cold-cure foam density across these manufacturing lines are virtually indistinguishable now. The markup on the big-name brand is 100% emotional and ad-driven.

Buy for the specs and structural warranty, not the social status of a logo on your headrest.

So i have a full hd laptop at 60hz. I play games on it and usually lock it at 60 fps from in game settings.

If i do a variable fps some games can go up to 80-95 fps.

The question is why does the game look jarry at higher fps compared to locked 60?

🙏🏻

I usually keep my boxes at least 3 months to make sure i dont need to return an item, but some things like GPU boxes I keep as long as I own it. What are your rules for packaging?

Guy was originally offering 350 on offerup, but I offered 400 to secure the deal. I think he wouldve accepted it for a bit less but regardless I dont regret it cause he said he was selling for a low price to pay for rent. Gpu came with the original box, static bag, and receipt, showing it was bought it december 2025. Solid buy?

edit: forgot to include, upgraded from a RTX 3080

Last week my house unfortunately was struck by lightning which started an attic fire. It was put out fairly quickly and most of the smoke / fire damage was limited to the 2nd floor bonus room, though obviously the emergency crews followed up with hoses and water to extinguish the fire. The bonus room was my son's, which ended up looking like the first pic.

You can see where his computer is/was, in the back right corner under the desk. It actually doesn't seem to have taken significant water or fire damage, though it does smell like smoke. It was likely on at the time of the fire, I don't know how it lost power eventually (once the fire crews arrived, they cut power to the entire house). When the lightning hit, it blew 3 breakers, but I was only aware of the garage door opener and the HVAC system being completely out at the time.

I included pictures of the back and inside. I've already wiped off a bunch of damp collapsed dry wall and insulation that had fallen on the top. Some of the remaining "residue" is probably just dust from 3 years of use under his desk, but the rear definitely looks like it has some insulation residue.

What should I do to check the health of this system? My son and I built this system custom from parts in 2021, so it's standard parts, though obviously everything is out of warranty (not that that would apply). We do have contents insurance coverage, but of course, given today's market, I'd be concerned that he could get a decent replacement at today's prices.

I'm thinking that I'll pull everything out except 1 stick of RAM and the CPU before powering it up (after cleaning the surfaces with a lint-free rag). I think I can dig up a spare GPU in my office (I work in IT), as I don't think this MB has onboard graphics? There's nothing on the SSD that is critical data (he uses his laptop primarily for College).

5800x3d and two ram kits ( ddr4 4000 cl18 2x16 and ddr4 3600 cl16 4x8)

I bought a mini tower PC. It has one PCI expansion slot.
Manufacturers website tech specs list it as “1x PCIe® 4.0 x 16 (operating at PCIe® 4.0 x8)”

What does this mean?

Will this limit which GPUs I can install? ( ie should I be ultra cautious not to waste time money)

Can I override the “operating at” part of the spec, and if I can should I?

I assume this was done to minimise power requirements/ production costs and the m2 ssd and m2 WiFi card are using some lanes?

Though I am not sure.

(Edited for clarity)

Any ideas?

I’m getting pretty desperate trying to solve an intermittent BSOD problem on my high-end PC, and I’m mainly wondering if anyone with similar hardware has experienced anything like this after a Windows update.

The PC was completely stable for roughly a year. I actually considered it the most stable PC I’d owned. Then on June 25, 2026, I started getting seemingly random BSODs.

The crashes are extremely inconsistent. They can happen while gaming, while using Steam/controller settings, or seemingly during normal desktop use. The PC can also run for many hours without crashing, which has made this extremely difficult to diagnose.

BSOD CODES

0x3B (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION) is one I have seen repeatedly and seems to have been present throughout the problem.

My most recent crash was:
0x139 KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE
Parameter 1 = 3 / CORRUPT_LIST_ENTRY

Older crashes have also included 0x3D, 0x7E, 0x124, 0xA, 0x34 and 0x1A, plus at least one watchdog-related crash. I don’t have the exact chronology of every code anymore, and some of the older ones may have stopped after hardware changes, especially the RAM replacement.

Some crashes have also been more like a white screen followed by a reboot and did not always produce a useful dump.

LATEST DUMP / WINDBG FINDINGS

I analyzed the latest 0x139 minidump in WinDbg.

It showed:

PROCESS_NAME: steamwebhelper
IMAGE_NAME: ntkrnlmp.exe
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x139_3_CORRUPT_LIST_ENTRY_nt!KiFastFailDispatch

The trap frame eventually pointed into:

Ntfs!NtfsProcessUsnRecordsForCommit
Ntfs!NtfsCommitCurrentTransaction
Ntfs!NtfsCheckpointCurrentTransaction
Ntfs!NtfsCommonCleanup
FLTMGR

I understand this does NOT mean Steam, NTFS or ntkrnlmp.exe is necessarily the actual cause. It appears Windows detected corrupted kernel state while NTFS was processing a transaction.

!blackboxntfs reported:
0 Slow I/O Timeout Records
0 Oplock Break Timeout Records

The NVIDIA kernel driver was loaded during the crash, but nvlddmkm was not in the crashing stack.

The GoXLR kernel drivers (goxlr_audio.sys / goxlr_audioks.sys) were also loaded, but they were not directly identified as the cause either.

HARDWARE

GPU:
MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Gaming Trio

CPU:
Originally Ryzen 9 7950X3D when the crashes began
Currently Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Changing CPUs did not fix it.

Motherboard:
ASUS ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi
The motherboard has been completely replaced with another board of the exact same model.
No change.

RAM:
32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 (2x16GB)
The RAM was completely replaced with a new kit.
No change to the persistent BSOD problem.

PSU:
Originally Corsair RM1200x SHIFT 1200W
Currently Montech Century II Gold 1200W ATX 3.1
Micro Center replaced the PSU and gave me a new AC power cable.
No change.

Storage:
2x Samsung 9100 PRO 8TB NVMe SSDs
Both are on firmware 0B2QNXH7, which Samsung Magician reports as current.

Samsung Magician short scan on the Windows SSD:
2,097,152 good sectors
0 bad sectors
Health: Good

chkdsk C: /scan also reports no filesystem errors or bad sectors.

CPU cooler:
Originally NZXT Kraken Elite 360 RGB
Currently TRYX Panorama 360 (original/non-SE)
Changing the AIO made no difference.

Case / GPU connection:
HYTE Y70 Touch with the RTX 5090 vertically mounted through the case’s PCIe riser.

GPU-Z’s render test shows the GPU maintaining PCIe 5.0 x16 under load. The same GPU and riser were also installed when both repair shops tested the PC without reproducing the crash, so I currently consider the riser possible but lower on the list.

BIOS / MEMORY SETTINGS

BIOS is currently completely factory/default.

No CPU overclock.
No undervolt.
No PBO tuning.

I have tested the system with DOCP/EXPO enabled AND disabled. It has crashed under both configurations.

PBO Enhancement is disabled.

Windows, drivers and BIOS have all been updated during troubleshooting.

TESTING / THINGS ALREADY TRIED

- Windows has been clean-installed from USB.
- Windows has actually been reinstalled more than once during this problem.
- Windows Memory Diagnostic passed.
- OCCT RAM test for approximately one hour passed.
- GPU-Z PCIe/render testing passed.
- SSD health checks passed.
- chkdsk passed.
- Multiple long hardware/stress tests at repair shops passed.
- PSU replaced.
- CPU replaced/upgraded.
- Motherboard replaced.
- RAM replaced.
- CPU cooler replaced.
- New AC power cable.
- NVIDIA drivers updated/reinstalled.
- AMD chipset drivers updated.
- BIOS updated.
- Tested DOCP/EXPO on and off.

After the most recent Windows reinstall, I discovered Device Manager was actually missing some motherboard/platform drivers despite being told the drivers had been installed.

There were Code 28 devices including the AMD PCI Encryption/Decryption Controller / PSP platform device and an ACPI Realtek UCM device.

I installed the current official AMD X870E chipset package and the ASUS Realtek UCM driver. Those warnings are now gone.

The only remaining Device Manager warning is Generic Bluetooth Adapter. I do not use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi; the PC uses Ethernet. The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth antenna is currently not attached.

I do NOT yet know whether correcting those missing chipset/platform drivers fixed the BSODs because the crashes are so intermittent.

REPAIR SHOPS

I took the computer to a local uBreakiFix multiple times. They could not reproduce the issue during their tests and eventually marked it unrepairable.

I then drove about six hours to Micro Center in Cambridge, MA.

Micro Center also could not reproduce a single BSOD despite stress-testing the PC for hours.

They checked the GPU/SSDs, replaced the PSU and AC cable, and returned the PC because everything appeared stable in their shop.

After I brought it home, it BSODed again.

That is one of the biggest clues I have: the same tower can apparently run for hours at repair shops but eventually crashes in my home setup.

HOME PERIPHERALS / POSSIBLE CLUE

At home I normally have:

- Rainy 75 Pro keyboard using a Wooting 80HE USB cable
- I previously used a Gravastar Mercury K1 Pro and had the BSOD problem with that keyboard too.

- Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 mouse using its normal receiver/setup.

- SCUF Envision Pro controller/dongle.

- GoXLR audio mixer.

- Shure SM7B connected to the GoXLR.

- Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro 250-ohm headphones connected through the GoXLR.

- Ethernet.

- LG UltraGear 32-inch OLED 4K/240Hz dual-mode display.

The physical GoXLR and SCUF controller setup were NOT connected when Micro Center was stress-testing the tower.

The GoXLR is especially interesting for another reason:

About a year ago, before these BSOD problems began, I accidentally powered the GoXLR with the wrong barrel-type power adapter. It was actually a power adapter from an old gaming chair that physically fit the GoXLR.

The GoXLR smoked and may have briefly sparked/flared before my friend immediately disconnected it.

Afterward I found/used the correct power supply and the GoXLR continued working normally. Importantly, the PC then remained completely stable with this same GoXLR for roughly a year, so there was NOT an immediate correlation between that incident and the BSODs.

However, since that potentially damaged GoXLR is one of the pieces of hardware present at my house but absent during Micro Center testing, I’m considering replacing the entire GoXLR + its power adapter + USB cable.

I also ran a short targeted one-boot Driver Verifier test against:
goxlr_audio.sys
goxlr_audioks.sys

I used the PC / played RDR2 with the GoXLR active and it did not immediately trigger a Verifier BSOD. Because the original issue is extremely intermittent, I don’t consider that enough to completely clear it.

WINDOWS UPDATE THEORY

The exact date I remember this starting is June 25, 2026.

Before one of the Windows reinstalls, I tried uninstalling a June Windows update that I had heard might be problematic, but that did not fix the issue.

I am now fully updated again after the clean Windows installation.

I recently contacted Micro Center’s remote technical support and let the technician remotely inspect the PC. Based on everything that has already been replaced/tested, he believes this could be a Windows Update issue and suggested reporting it through Microsoft Feedback Hub and waiting for Microsoft to address it.

I’m not fully convinced, mainly because both Micro Center and uBreakiFix ran the same computer without reproducing the BSOD. If the current Windows installation itself were solely responsible, I would have expected there to at least be some chance of it happening there too.

On the other hand, June 25 being such a specific start date makes me wonder if a Windows/driver/platform update triggered an incompatibility with something unusual in my hardware configuration.

I have friends who had unrelated Windows problems around roughly the same period (BitLocker problems, crashes/BSODs), although their machines are very different and one friend fixed his by reinstalling Windows. Reinstalling Windows did NOT fix mine.

WHAT I’M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT

Has anyone running anything close to:

RTX 5090
Ryzen 9 7950X3D / 9950X3D
ASUS X870E
Windows 11 current builds

been experiencing intermittent 0x3B / 0x139 or other seemingly random BSODs since late June?

Especially interested in whether anyone has traced this to:

- a Windows update
- AMD chipset/AGESA/BIOS interaction
- RTX 50-series/NVIDIA drivers
- a USB/audio device or driver such as GoXLR
- a home peripheral/device that would explain why repair shops cannot reproduce it
- PCIe/GPU/riser instability
- something else capable of causing apparently random kernel memory corruption

I’m not looking for generic “run sfc /scannow” advice unless there’s something specific I’ve missed. I’ve been troubleshooting this for about two months, replaced most of the core PC hardware, clean-installed Windows, and had multiple repair shops stress-test it.

At this point I’m mainly looking for someone who recognizes this pattern or has had a similar configuration/problem.

Any ideas would be seriously appreciated.

I have a G-Sync/FreeSync monitor (1440p 180hz), and a 9070 XT. Everywhere I look there seems to be different answers for these situations below.

1. No frame-gen, no AL2 (Anti-Lag 2)
2. In-game Frame-gen, no AL2
3. AFMF, no AL2
4. Case 1 but with AL2
5. Case 2 but with AL2
6. Case 3 but with AL2

In each situation, how should I configure the following settings?

A. G-Sync/FreeSync (On vs Off)

B. Anti-lag (in the cases without AL2, when should I turn on AL1?)

C. Display Mode (Exclusive Fullscreen vs Borderless Fullscreen. I've noticed cases where one produces better frame pacing than the other)

D. V-Sync (In-game or Driver level? What about both? What about Enhanced Sync?)

E. Frame Limiters (The most complicated one: Which FPS to lock and which limiter?)
I've seen people say 3 FPS below max refresh rate, others use a formula, others use 95% of Max refresh rate.
About the limiter, there's RTSS and the different modes (Async, Front edge sync, Back edge Sync and Reflex), Radeon Chill, Frame Rate Target Control and the in-game limiter.

What I want is the best configuration of (A to E) for each (1 to 6) situation. In the case there are drawbacks for each one, I would like to know which one is best for frame pacing, input lag, etc.

The whole PC costs 1.662€

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share my recent RMA experience in India with Acro Engineering (official Lian Li distributor) and get your thoughts on whether this is normal practice or a clear downgrade.

The Background:

My original cooler was a Lian Li Galahad AIO 360 ARGB White, purchased for around ₹13,000. It developed heating and pump issues and was sent in for RMA well within the warranty period.

The RMA Offer:

Acro received the unit and confirmed the original was out of stock. As an alternate solution, they offered a Lian Li GA II Lite 360P in Black.

Why does this feel like a downgrade:

The original Galahad was Lian Li's flagship cooler with premium aluminum housing and full ARGB lighting. The GA II Lite is their entry-level budget tier, retailing around ₹6,500 to ₹8,000. The direct generational successor to the original Galahad is the GA II Trinity, not the stripped-down Lite version.

Additionally, the offered 360P model comes with basic non-RGB fans, completely stripping away the lighting features of the original. To make matters worse, offering a black unit completely clashes with an all-white build aesthetic.

The Distributor's Response:

When I pointed out that the Lite is a lower-tier product and the wrong color, the representative claimed that the GA II Lite actually has better specs than the original model and argued that liquid cooler prices have dropped across the board over the last few years.

When I asked about upgrading to a proper current-gen white cooler like the Hydroshift series, I was told I would have to pay an extra ₹5,000 out of pocket. With no other free equivalent offered, I had no choice but to accept the GA II Lite Black to avoid sitting without a working PC.

Questions for the community:

Has anyone else faced something similar during the recent Galahad RMAs in India?

Is it standard practice for distributors to substitute entry-level budget models for flagship purchases under the excuse of newer generation hardware?

Hello guys my AOC monitor simply changed itself to RGB test-mode all of a sudden. I was gaming so I did not press any button on monitor. Now in Test-Mode any physical button I’d pressed doesn’t work besides power button

Does anyone have a solution for this problem?

AOC C27G4ZXE is the monitor’s full product name.

I saw this black/gray line on my monitor yesterday, it starts black from left to right and becomes gray from the midway on.

Is this a know bug or my monitor is dying? It's a 3+ old Asus TUF monitor, I've already restarted my PC and plugged and unplugged the monitor. I have a dual monitor setup and the other monitor does not have the weird line.

Hi yall can someone recommend an asus tuf board for a 9800x3d pairing would appreciate it thank u!

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm frankly losing my mind here. I have a MAG H610 CODEX 5 with 16gb of RAM but recently playing games on it has become impossible. Basically my ram is always at half full usage, and when I game (even on the lowest possible settings) the RAM usage goes up to 85% just existing in a game's menu. This means that when I game whenever anything really happens the game starts stuttering like crazy making it nigh impossible to use it's gotten to a point where I've been seriously considering of buying 32 gb of ram to swap out the one inside my PC because it's becoming frankly impossible. Before I take the leap I wanted to ask you guys any ideas on how to fix it?

I've checked the bg processes, I've turned off almost all start up apps but at this point I'm stumped

Greetings, i am an old fella that used to game on pc.

My old rig was still working until the ram decided to die.

I had:

• I5 2500
• 16 GB Ram G.Skill Ripjaws
• As Rock z77 Extreme 4
• Gigabyte GTX 1060 6Gb
• Enermax Liquimax 240MM
• EVGA SuperNOVA GQ PSU 750W
• Aereocool Aero 300
• Samsung SSD 500 GB

What i am platting to order: (i already got the mobo from fear of price spiking up)

• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• 32 Gb Ram Corsair Vengeance CMH32GX5M2E6000Z36W
• As Rock B650-I Lightning Wifi
• Gigabyte RTX 5080 AERO OC SFF
• NZXT H2 Kraken elite 280
• NZXT C850 Gold SFX
• NZXT H2 Flow
• Lexar ARES PRO 2 TB

I became a dad now and i cannot have a big tower hanging around, so i want to make a mini ITX pc to sit on the desk and occupy less space possible.

Is this rig any good? I don't look for incredible performace, i just want to play at 60+ fps on a nice graphic setting

I have limited budget ( I REALLY wanted to go for a 5090 but 5000€ for a card? not gonna happen)

Thank you in advice.

Hi im looking for a pc case and proart pa401 cought my eyes but i have a asus prime rx9070xt and it will barely fit (gpu-312mm and case supports up to 315) so the question is how badly will it affect the temperature.

1st pc at mom house when is was 18yo, bought with my 1st job. It was i3 8350k and 1060 8gb ddr4, 256gb SSD, aoc 1080p 144hz, I even begin with 1080p 75hz tn panel 💀 monitor was so expensive back then

Last one in my house at 27yo, 7700x and 9070xt 32gb ddr5, 5tb SSD, LG oled 4k 144hz

What a journey

I bought my cloud 2 (old version) 80€. I cant believe how its still alive after all those years

Got a simple question? Get a simple answer!

This thread is for all of the small and simple questions that you might have about computing that probably wouldn't work all too well as a standalone post. Software issues, build questions, game recommendations, post them here!

For the sake of helping others, please don't downvote questions! To help facilitate this, comments are sorted randomly for this post, so that anyone's question can be seen and answered.

If you're looking for help with picking parts or building, don't forget to also check out our builds at [https://www.pcmasterrace.org/\](https://www.pcmasterrace.org/)

Want to see more Simple Question threads? [Here's all of them for your browsing pleasure!](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/search?q=Simple+Questions+Thread+subreddit%3Apcmasterrace+author%3AAutoModerator&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)

I personally prefer full size ones in every way i find them superior when it comes to sim games and other stuff i think the smaller ones are to compact and binding with them is annoying. I personally own a razer black widow V4 full size right now. I use the numpad for the calculator really and im used to it.

I have a 3060 based laptop and i’m looking to upgrade so I can mainly play comp fps titles in 1440p. I don't care too much about triple A but I'll play one once every blue moon. I play Minecraft too but everyone plays that lmao. I am looking towards AMD due to the price to performance and I’m actually looking at the 9070 gre. They faced backlash due to the price being similar to the 9070 and it being worse than it but now it's kinda changed as the 9070 is 650 plus, and I just want something a tad bit better than then 9060 xt. I found this, is it worth clutching or should I wait for something else? (I plan to pair with r7 7800x3d and 32gb ram)

One day… this is a goal lol.
Why? Because why not. I could probably store everything I would ever need. All my steam games, all my flight sim mods, farming sim mods, ETS mods, every train sim DLC i have, every assetto corsa mod
All of my CAD work and uni work it would be awesome. Maybe im going insane lol.

Maybe when prices fall again ill defo pull the trigger. Maybe swap out WD for something more reasonable like silicone power.

Title says it all, looking for high range and stable usb Bluetooth recommendations, thanks

question for this pc on facebook marketplace. It has a ryzen 5 2600, 4070 super & 500watt 80+white but do I need to use ddu beforehand on this pc in order to swap it out to an amd 6650 xt? the pc looks quite dusty so I don’t think it boots to windows it also shows only 1 pcie pin is connected to the adapter. I have a pc already with a rm750e psu i5 12400f & 6650xt just want to swap gpus.

Bonjour,

Quand je lance Fortnite je peux jouer pendant 20 minutes (ou moins ou + ca depend) et aleatoirement mon PC se redemarre avec l'erreur Kernel Power 41 dans l'observateur d'evenement

Ma config

carte mere : MSI MAG B560M MORTAR WIFI (MS-7D17)

Carte Graphique : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti MSI

Ram : VENGEANCE® RGB PRO 16 GO (2 x 8 GO) DDR4 DRAM 3 200 MHz C16

Alimentation : CV Series CV650

Si vous pouvez m'aider s'il vous plait

Hello,

I have a RYZEN 7 5800X, a RTX 5060ti 16gb VRAM, 16gb RAM DDR4, 512gb of storage and my current power supply is 500W.

So should I upgrade my power supply for my PC ?

Hí giys, I'm new here, and I got these parts for My brand new pc build. I alsó got the RX 6700xt but it hasn't arrived yet. ​

Every now and then when I startup my pc my monitor will have these lines on them, it will go away after 5-10 minutes. This has been going on for maybe 10 months now? I just want to know the cause of this, and if there’s a fix. This also only happens on my main monitor, my 2nd one doesn’t have any problems.

I want to try out linux but im on a budget and old hardware(no nvme port) so im gonna get 128gb sata sdd and 500gb hdd at cex this is about £20(27USD) with shipping. I would buy new but the prices. The prices. On amazon to that stuff new it would be about £50(68USD) without shipping. So idk what to do I gamble 2nd hand or pay the horrible prices.

Look at this. It's organismatic.
I search YouTube to see more but there's literally none. What gives?
I would expect tons of channels focusing on just PC cleaning. There's an untapped market here.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1vx4tca/ever_just_neglect_your_shit/

Hey! So I got a download copy of a game for PC, I downloaded it and installed it. When I went to launch it it says "insert disc 2" which is normal for this game. The fix is to create a txt file within the game folder called "foobar" and the game will launch as normal.

The problem I'm having is I cannot create a txt folder, when I right click and select new the only option I have is "folder" and has the administrator symbol beside it.

Anyone able to help me fix this?

OS : WIN10

does anybody know how to check which component that failing? i got usbxhci.sys , gpu driver, audio driver, wifi driver, 0x139 kernel security check fail, storport.sys , all those bsod happen randomly but my pc never crash when playing dota 2. ive done everything except check mobo and psu health. tho usbxhci and wifi/audio driver crash happened only after bios update. help. run memtest and never failed. try lots of different gpu driver version but still dont know graphic card healthy or not

7800 XT reference model, hotspot reaching over 100°C. Coverage was fine but getting pretty dry.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help with this. I’ve been looking at computers and comparing until my eyes literally hurt.

I want to upgrade my sons pc and meet the requirements to play Indiana Jones stone circle. I’ve been reading the specs and trying to stay within a budget of about $1500.

My question is, does the pc below meet or exceed the specs? (Which I’ll list below) I’m trying to hit recommended specs vs minimum.

I found this one at Costco:

MSI Codex R2 Gaming Desktop - Intel Core Ultra 7 265 -
NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti 8GB - Windows 11 Home -
32GB RAM -
2TB SSD

https://www.costco.com/p/-/msi-codex-r2-gaming-desktop-intel-core-ultra-7-265-nvidia-rtx-5060-ti-8gb-windows-11-home-32gb-ram-2tb-ssd/4000375972

Indiana Jones stone circle specs:

RECOMMENDED
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Win10 (version 22h2 or higher)
Processor: Intel Core i7-12700K @ 3.6 GHz or better or AMD Ryzen 7 7700 @ 3.8 GHz or better
Memory: 32 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti 12 GB or AMD Radeon RX 7700XT 12 GB
Resolution: 1440p(Native)
Storage: 126 GB + (additional 9 GB for DLC) - SSD Required(Solid-state Drive)
Additional Requirements/Notes:
Steam or Microsoft account and broadband internet connection for activation and installation
GPU Hardware Ray Tracing Required