u/DaKrazyKid went on Reddit to exhibit their mini-ITX gaming PC build dubbed "RAM Machine," which features 36 RAM sticks. The OP said the Steam Machine, with its paltry 16GB of RAM, inspired the build, which has 16 RGB RAM sticks controlled through SignalRGB to give you all that RGB goodness, and they’re giving it away to one lucky commenter in the r/PcBuild subreddit. It’s unclear if the Redditor is affiliated with SignalRGB, although the giveaway seems to be sponsored by the company because of the disclaimer that excludes employees, affiliates, and subsidiaries of SignalRGB, their immediate family members, and persons living in the same household from the sweepstakes.

Although the PC itself isn’t a top-of-the-line unit, it’s a decent build that offers better specifications than the Steam Machine. The RAM Machine comes with an Intel Core Ultra 5 CPU, a single-fan RTX 5060 GPU, 32GB of Patriot DDR5-8200 RAM, and a 2TB Patriot SSD, all attached to a B860-I motherboard and powered by a 750-watt PSU. While this might not give you native 4K gaming, this is more than enough for 1080p gaming and could even handle some 1440p titles. We checked the cost of this mini-PC on PCPartPicker, and a similarly specced unit costs more than $1,500. This makes it 50% more expensive than the Steam Machine and quite a valuable giveaway.

RAM Machine Giveaway - To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment. from r/PcBuild

This isn’t the first time that SignalRGB has sponsored a giveaway of a wild-looking PC if the company indeed sponsored this. Just last year, it turned a microwave into an all-in-one PC and gave it away to one lucky winner. It also had another raffle in 2023, this time a powerful gaming PC built inside a Starfield control panel case. The biggest thing these three PCs have in common, of course, is that they use SignalRGB to control the RGB lights in these systems. Although this is a free app you can use to control the RGB lights on your computer, no matter what brand they’re from, it also offers a Pro subscription which costs $5.99 a month or $45 a year. This tier gives you more advanced features like cooling control, system monitoring, macros, and more.

If you want to join the giveaway, all you need to do is head to the Reddit post and leave a comment. Don’t get your hopes up, though, as it already has more than 78,000 comments at the time of writing.

An unlucky gamer has taken to Reddit after their brand-new Steam Machine was hit with a "red line of death" after just 20 minutes of use. u/me_hill posted on the r/steammachine subreddit, saying that they played No Man’s Sky for just five minutes and then updated the machine before it bricked itself. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that the Redditor could do much to troubleshoot the issue. The Steam website says that their particular issue, which is marked by the right half of the LED bar turning into a breathing red light paired with a solid red light on the indicator LED, indicates GPU failure, a possibly fatal issue harkening back to the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death.

Well, the Steam Machine was pretty cool for the 20 minutes that it worked from r/steammachine

Valve was only able to produce a limited number of Steam Machine units for its initial run, which is why it had to resort to a randomized queue to deter scalpers. While the company did not say how many consoles it had available, it’s likely still in the thousands (if not tens of thousands), meaning there’s some chance that it will ship units that will fail within the first year. For now, it seems that this Redditor’s post is an isolated incident and it’s unclear what caused the failure. u/me_hill said that they already put in a ticket to Steam support, but they haven’t updated yet on whether the company has responded already.

The Steam Machine is one of the most anticipated console releases in the past few years, which has been delayed for several months. It was also released at a relatively high price of $,1049, making it even more expensive than the PlayStation 5 Pro, as Valve cannot afford to subsidize the hardware with video game sales. It was initially thought that the living room PC console would launch at around $750, but as the company announced it amid a memory shortage, its engineers said that the company had to increase the price by around the same level that the Steam Deck experienced in May 2026.

This is certainly a disappointment for u/me_hill, who probably initially felt quite lucky as they were one of the selected few given the privilege of buying the first batch of Steam Machines. In an ironic twist of fate, they were also incredibly unlucky to become one of the first victims of the “red line of death,” an early nickname for the failure and a nod to the “red ring of death” that indicated a critical hardware failure on the Xbox 360 launched around 20 years ago. Nevertheless, other Redditors commented that this is par for the course for customers who buy the first run of a product, with the Redditor themselves saying, “That’s early adoption, I guess.”

We’re hoping that Valve can address this issue for u/me_hill as soon as possible, and that they don’t have to wait months before they can get their hands on a replacement unit, despite its limited stock. In the meantime, they’ll have to settle with their existing equipment (or maybe even get one of the best budget gaming laptops instead) while they’re waiting for their Steam Machine to be fixed.

A Redditor and PC gaming enthusiast says their PC might have saved their life, after the rig deflected a bullet fired through the wall of their house by their neighbour. According to the post, the neighbour claims that the firearm was accidentally discharged by her dog, sending the projectile into the house. u/angelbabyzz says police state the PC changed the trajectory of the bullet — which she found under her pillow — and that it would have otherwise hit her while she was sleeping. On a positive note, Angelbabyzz is now planning how to spend their $3,500 insurance payout on a new gaming PC build.

Neighbour shot my PC through the wall from r/pcmasterrace

While trying to make sense of what was happening, Angelbabyzz recalls that their neighbor arrived sobbing and shaking. They claimed that their dog had discharged the firearm, shooting through the wall, tearing through the tower PC on the other side. Images shared by the Redditor show the tower PC full of shattered glass and detritus. Among the most seriously damaged contents are G.Skill Trident Z RGB memory modules. These, and the motherboard RAM sockets, appear to have been heavily impacted by a weighty-looking lead slug.

If this tale isn’t already bordering on the bizarre, two further details push it firmly into truth-is-stranger-than-fiction territory. Firstly, Angelbabyzz’s neighbor claims that their dog “accidentally discharged” their firearm. Secondly, the police told the Redditor that “the PC changed the trajectory of the bullet, and it would have hit me while I was sleeping if the PC hadn’t been there.”

Good neighbors

Despite their recent brush with death or serious injury, Angelbabyzz is sympathetic with her trigger-happy dog-owning neighbor. The Redditor feels “she is appropriately paying her dues in this situation and won’t be pressing for anything further.” This is on account of the “constant apologies,” as well as her gun being confiscated, the criminal charges, and the insurance / monetary penalties the neighbor will face.

After three days of cleaning up broken glass, Angelbabyzz now has the much more pleasant problem of shopping for a replacement PC with a $3,500 budget. So, after recalling their hair-raising story on Reddit and sharing the gruesome images, they are now asking for build recommendations on PCMR.

In some replies to the original post, Angelbabyzz reveals that they found the bullet under their pillow, but their SSDs are said to be completely undamaged. That might be a reference to the Samsung SATA drive we can see in some of the images.

While the RAM kit is probably the worst damaged component, we think it is worthy of keeping to frame in a presentation case - ‘My Trident Z saved my life.’ G.Skill offers a lifetime warranty on its RAM, but it only covers defects in materials and workmanship.

Update 5/4/2026 11:25am PT: Added comment from Temu spokesperson.

A Reddit user who gambled a mere $20 on a 4TB external HDD from Temu has revealed, to the surprise of absolutely no one, that the drive was actually a scam, showing that it contained nothing but innards of a microSD card reader with a generic memory card attached to it. According to the post on the subreddit r/pcmasterrace, they decided to risk purchasing the item off the marketplace because it only cost $20. By comparison, the 4TB variant of the WD My Passport external hard drive costs around $165. The SSD version, one of our best external SSDs, costs $719.99 on Amazon. It’s obvious that the item is fake, but since the absolute dollar value is minimal for the user, they decided to gamble on it.

"Temu requires sellers to ensure their products match their listings accurately and removes listings that do not meet platform standards. Buyers who receive items that do not match their description are eligible for a full refund under the Purchase Protection Program," a Temu spokesperson tells us.

I got a 4TB external drive off Temu and this is what they sent lmao from r/pcmasterrace

In fact, the scam was so obvious that Temu refunded the purchase "suspiciously easily." Instead of finding a 2.5-inch SATA drive inside its plastic casing, all they found was a microSD card reader hot-glued to the back. It’s unclear if they attached it to their PC to see if it reported and delivered the claimed 4TB capacity. This is unlikely, though, because the highest capacity microSD card readily available on Amazon is only 2TB and costs at least $289.99.

Even then, some scammers tamper with the storage firmware to make it show a larger capacity than what’s available. One reliable way of finding this out is through testing software like the H2testw utility or by filling up the drive with your files, only to discover that your data has overwritten itself because of the lack of space.

Fake drives have been around for so long, but it’s proliferating even more now because the AI-driven chip shortage is causing both SSDs and HDDs to skyrocket in price. This fake drive is easy to spot, as it probably feels lighter when compared to a real hard drive, but some dupes do a good job in copying the look of the original, and you’ll only discover that it’s not what it says it is when you plug it into your PC. Even then, some knockoffs offer performance close to what you’d expect, so much so that you’d only know it’s a fake if you know what you’re looking for.

Temu is known for selling cheap knockoffs; that’s why many Reddit users do not recommend purchasing storage drives and other sensitive electronics off the website. Nevertheless, it does come through sometimes, like this user who received a free RTX 3060 GPU, although they’re yet to see if they really hit the jackpot.

A laptop user brought their PC to a repair shop, apparently complaining of overheating issues on their gaming laptop. You can see in the Reddit post embedded below that it took the tech less than ten seconds to fix the issue after the tech peeked underneath the device and saw that it was covered in stickers all over, including the vents for its fans. When the technician took off the covering, the laptop seemed to be able to breathe again, prompting the laptop owner to peel off the remaining design that didn’t cover any vents from the bottom of the gaming laptop.

This lady wondered why her gaming laptop overheats while gaming. from r/pcmasterrace

It’s unclear why the laptop owner thought it was a good idea to cover up the vents of their laptop. It could be that it was their first time owning a gaming laptop and that the previous computer they owned was a MacBook Air, which has no fans and uses passive cooling, or they’ve only used smartphones before and have no experience working with computers. Unfortunately, computers, especially gaming laptops, are a completely different beast, and they require a lot of airflow to achieve the performance demanded by several titles. Keeping vents clear of blockages is a no-brainer for PC enthusiasts and tech-savvy people, but, unfortunately, not everyone has the same level of knowledge.

Despite that, researching on the internet is free, and even the AI Overview on Google search said, “Laptops get hot primarily due to blocked air vents, dust accumulation on fans, and high processor usage from demanding applications or excessive background processes.” The first phrase hit the nail on the head for this particular problem, but it seems that tinkering on their expensive devices might feel a bit too much for some people, even if they decked it out with a lot of aesthetic features.

Hopefully, the user learned something from this incident and that their laptop suffered no serious long-term issues from this incident. We also hope that it starts their journey to becoming more curious about the equipment they use. Everyone starts with zero information on computers, after all, and only the combination of interest and environment makes many tech enthusiasts the people they are today.

A Reddit user took to the social media platform to complain about Toshiba, which, they said, refused to honor the warranty on a 20+ TB enterprise hard drive. The documents Tom’s Hardware examined indicate that Toshiba refused the warranty replacement on the grounds of no available stock and a possible wait time of one year for a replacement 24TB model.

According to the r/DataHoarder post, the company where the user worked bought several 20+ TB hard drives a couple of months ago for their storage array. When one of the drives failed, they returned it to Toshiba, only to be told that their only option was a refund at the original purchase price. The company didn’t offer to replace the broken hard drive with a new one from their stock, meaning they’ll have to purchase a new drive at a significantly higher price today.

This is definitely a disappointment for any buyer, especially in the corporate setting, as they don’t often base their purchase decisions solely on price. Instead, they consider reliability, longevity, and the manufacturer's guarantee of support. Refunding an item at its original purchase price makes sense for the company. However, most users feel that the least a PC manufacturer can do is replace it with the same component (or a similar one if it’s no longer available), even if it’s more expensive.

“I'm guessing they saw dollar signs from the AI bubble and sold off their safety stock or are seeing an unusually high failure rate in those drives,” 615wonky said on their post. “Both reasons to stay far away.”

Other manufacturers are also taking extreme measures as the AI-driven shortage of memory and storage chips is pummeling the PC market. Another Reddit user had an issue with the Silicon Power RAM they bought, being slapped with a 15% depreciation fee for returning defective RAM sticks. This wouldn’t have mattered much if the prices of memory modules stayed flat, but the fact that a pair of 8GB DDR5 RAM sticks now costs more than $200 (compared to less than $55 for pre-shortage prices) means that the money they received from the return isn’t enough for even one 8GB DDR5 memory module.

The solutionism surrounding artificial intelligence has ironically made people even more apprehensive about the concept, forcing people to push back in whatever ways they can against the onslaught of generative slop. As such, the largest coding subreddit on the platform, r/programming, has just announced a temporary ban on all content related to AI large language models (LLMs) for the month of April.

Announcement: Temporary LLM Content Ban from r/programming

The mod team is trialing this ban for the next two to four weeks to see how it affects the community and whether it could turn permanent. AI as a topic isn't banned entirely on r/programming — it's a software development community, after all, so, be that as it may, AI can't be taken out of the picture entirely. Posts that discuss AI in general, such as technical breakdowns on machine learning, are still allowed. You can expand the Reddit post above ('Read More') to see the entire message.

LLMs, or large language models, are the trendiest topic in AI, so this is a simple signal-to-noise ratio issue of how much people talk about them versus other topics. Most legacy programming communities were built around expert understanding of code long before AI made it easier, so things like vibe coding are almost sacrilegious. LLMs are naturally tied to that, so any discussions related to them are deemed low-quality.

So, what constitutes LLM "discussions"? It includes (but is not limited to) any news stories about new models coming out, guides on how to build or modify your own model, or perhaps a developer's self-deprecating question on whether AI will replace them. Even Nvidia is using AI to write code internally, though it's still supervised by a real person to ensure a new update doesn't suddenly break functionality just because the AI hallucinated.

The human element made software engineering not only an exciting hobby, but a valuable career path since the ingenuity of devs couldn't be replicated or replaced. It had a high barrier to entry, but that only meant you were closer to the skill ceiling if you managed to climb and get in. Unfortunately, over the past couple of decades, software development has already become a very saturated field.

This led to an overabundance of amateur or novice devs who aren't as lucrative to employers, and the AI boom just compounded the whole situation. LLMs like OpenAI's Codex and Claude Code further lowered the barrier to entry — arguably a good thing considering how it made programming more accessible — which meant the skill gap between new developers and old ones has only kept widening.

The effects of the AI boom on employment are beyond the scope of this article, but it serves as important context, nonetheless. There is a huge influx of freshies trying to get into these communities where they're regarded as outsiders, and deservedly so, since these places were never meant for entry-level discussions. The ban on LLMs in r/programming, therefore, can be interpreted as a long-overdue cleanse rather than Luddism.

A few comments in the announcement post thought that this was an April Fool's joke, while others argued that the post was exceptionally poorly-timed if it wasn't. The r/programming subreddit has had a ban on LLM-generated content for a while, so this wasn't an unexpected development. The community has 6.9 million members, the highest in its category, so this decision can have a serious impact on other subs as well.

Shopping for a gaming PC can burn a huge hole in your wallet, especially given the ongoing price increases in memory, SSDs, and GPUs. An easy way to tackle inflated pricing is to opt for a prebuilt, and in one such case, a lucky Redditor managed to find what can only be described as daylight robbery. As per a post by u/tdcdude17 on the PC Master Race sub-reddit, an iBuyPower gaming PC with high-end specs was picked up for just $1,000 from Costco, making it an exceptional deal given the hardware on offer.

The specifications of the prebuilt PC include an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is currently one of the best gaming CPUs on the market and costs over $400 on its own. It is paired with 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 2TB SSD, and a dual-fan Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card from MSI. The PC also includes a 360mm AIO liquid cooler, a basic keyboard and mouse combo, and a pretty solid mid-tower case with tempered glass finish on the front, side, and top. There are no details for the power supply, but the thread does confirm that the original cost of this iBuyPowerPC is $1,899.99.

Steal or steal? from r/pcmasterrace

So how did u/tdcdude17 manage to get it for $900 less? It turns out the Costco store they visited had the prebuilt gaming PC listed as the last display unit. Retailers often discount such units to clear out inventory and make room for newer products. However, it’s worth noting that display units may not be in brand-new condition and could be missing original packaging or accessories. In fact, the Reddit thread includes a photo showing the PC strapped into the back seat of a car without its original box.

Finds like this may sound too good to be true, but there have been a few similar instances in the past. We spotted a similar instance last year where a Reddit user managed to score a high-end gaming PC featuring an Intel Core i9-14900KS, an RTX 4070 Ti Super, and 64GB of DDR5 memory for just $600 from a pawn shop, despite the system being valued at over $2,500. The interesting bit is that the memory kit alone was reportedly worth close to the purchase price of the entire PC.

In another case, a buyer in the UK snagged a flagship prebuilt PC worth nearly $5,000 for around $2,400 at Costco. The system included top-tier components such as an RTX 5090, a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 64GB of DDR5 memory, and a 2TB SSD, essentially offering premium hardware at nearly half the expected price.

A Reddit user posted on the r/pcmasterrace subreddit to showcase their unexpected Corsair 32GB DDR5-6000 RAM haul. According to u/AccomplishedFan8690, they bought a single 32GB kit online for $300, but they were surprised to find an entire box arriving on their doorstep. The box contains 10 32GB kits, totalling 320GB. If we look at current pricing on Amazon for the best gaming RAM, most 32GB Corsair kits cost around $400, meaning this complete package is actually worth around $4,000 or more. With no motherboard offering that kind of DIMM support, and 32GB being the sweet spot for gaming, they won’t be able to use all 10 kits, which likely consist of a total of 20 sticks. Instead, they plan to sell the extra RAM for under the current inflated prices.

So it happened to me from r/pcmasterrace

We’re unsure how this happened (or if it definitely happened), but sellers making mistakes in packing and sending orders are not unheard of. For example, a Samsung customer ordered two 9100 Pro SSDs late last year, but received 20 instead, while an Amazon customer canceled their Asus ROG Astra RTX 5080 order and just refunded, but the expensive GPU was delivered anyway. One commenter suggested that the person packing the order saw “1 box” on the order label and assumed that it was an entire box of RAM kits and not just one piece.

This would’ve been an amazing haul last year before the memory chip shortage, but given that prices have jumped by 500% in the last quarter of 2025, one could say that this is absolute gold. Some European retailers are reporting that RAM prices are slowly stabilizing, with some models even cutting prices. However, PC manufacturers continue to warn about looming price hikes, with a U.S.-based retailer saying that it will have to pass on costs to its customers once its existing inventory runs out.

The memory chip shortage is brought about by the massive demand of AI hyperscalers as they rush to build data centers to support the massive demand for compute. However, this is driven by investors pouring billions of dollars into AI, not by organic growth from customers. Some industry experts are even doubting the sustainability of all this spending, saying that there is “no way” that all these infrastructure costs can turn a profit. There really is no telling what the future will bring for RAM pricing, but in the meantime, we can just let u/AccomplishedFan8690 enjoy all that RAM and share the extra at lower prices with some of the lucky few.

A Reddit user on the r/DataHoarder subreddit shared how they were able to save money on hard drives by flying to the U.S. instead of purchasing them directly in the U.K. According to u/cgtechuk, they’ve been monitoring the prices of 28TB drives in the U.K., and only saw them go up. Because of this, they decided to take a trip after New Year's to buy ten of these high-capacity drives in the U.S. instead. Since Best Buy and B&H Photo both set a maximum purchase limit of just five drives each, the Redditor decided to get the drives from both shops. When the order was confirmed, they then booked a flight and a hotel in New York.

Decided to fly to the US to buy some hard drives from r/DataHoarder

We checked Amazon to see the cost of the Seagate IronWolf Pro 28TB HDDs in the U.K. and the U.S., and what we found was quite jaw-dropping. In the U.S., this hard drive "only" costs $609.99 a piece — and you could even get a discount on them if you’re able to find a good hard drive deal. On the other hand, Amazon UK lists the same drive and capacity at $980.46.

That’s a price difference of more than $370 per drive, and if you’re getting ten of these, then you’re looking at a savings of at least $3,700. On the other hand, the cheapest round-trip tickets between London Heathrow and JFK International start at less than $700. Even if you factor in the cost of a cheap hotel near JFK, which goes for around the same price for four nights, plus an extra $300 for pocket money, you’re still looking at savings of around $2,000. u/cgtechuk would have saved even more than that, though, as they said that they redeemed points for both the flight and the hotel stay.

To avoid getting scammed, they recorded everything when they picked up the drives they bought from Best Buy and B&H, including the serial numbers. They then tested each and every drive in their hotel with SeaTools, Crystal, and even copied files onto them to ensure that they didn’t get scammed with swapped-out drives. With everything verified, they then packed all ten drives (with their foam inserts) in their carry-on while putting their packaging in their checked luggage in case they need it for warranty.

Even though the AI build-out has mostly affected memory and storage chips, hard drives are also slowly but surely following the trend of limited availability and increased prices. In fact, their prices have surged by 46% since the third quarter of last year, and Western Digital has reported that its production capacity for 2026 is already sold out. This is because even though hard drives are much slower than SSDs, they’re still crucial for AI hyperscalers for nearline storage. With the latter surging in cost (up to 16x more expensive than HDDs), data centers are switching to more cost-efficient HDDs to store massive amounts of warm or cold datasets. This, in turn, drives up demand, resulting in higher prices for everyone, including consumers.

A Redditor posted on the r/Corsair subreddit, complaining that the company cancelled their $3,499 pre-built PC order on New Year's Day, only to discover that the unit had been raised to $4,299 the following day. Senior_Ball_9068 said on the post, “I believe that they cancelled my order exactly because they raised the price.” This is a massive $700 price hike, especially at a time when memory prices are hitting record highs, leading to significant disappointment for users.

Thankfully, a Community Captain took notice and messaged the user to get their order number and get to the bottom of things. According to u/CorsairLucky, “The order was flagged by our fraud detection system and was canceled as a result. On January 1st, our Holiday Deals promo pricing ended, and the normal pricing was reinstated. But we’ll be getting OP taken care of!”

It seems that Corsair sent a coupon to u/Senior_Ball_9068, allowing them to repurchase their order at the sale price. More than that, they’ll also monitor the order, ensuring it reaches the Redditor so they can enjoy the new year with a brand-new gaming rig.

My order has been cancelled and they raised the price. from r/Corsair

This is a commendable move by Corsair, especially given that the OP wasn’t at fault. And while we’re unsure whether they reached out to Corsair customer service to fix the issue, it seems their Reddit post gained a lot of traction, catching the company's attention. The Redditor ordered the Corsair Vengeance a5100 gaming PC, which comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, 32GB (2x16GB) of DDR5-6400, and a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD. The original $4,299 is indeed too much for a build like this, but the $3,499 sale price seems reasonable.

We looked at the specifications for the gaming PC and built something close using PCPartPicker. The total price of the custom build should be around $3,120. While many enthusiasts will not pay the $380 premium that Corsair charges for its pre-built PC, the Redditor said that they prefer that because they “never had the experience of building a PC myself” and that they did not want to “break…something up in the process.”

And even though others say that it’s easy to learn building one from scratch, it's probably something that the OP doesn’t want to risk, and that they’re willing to pay extra for the privilege of not having to think which parts to order, worry about putting it together, and the peace of mind of warranty coverage for the entire PC.

A Reddit user managed to get their hands on an Nvidia GTX 1660 Super for just $8.40 at their local Goodwill thrift store. According to u\Lucky_Mess4798, the card is in working condition and, based on the shared photo, appears to be an MSI-branded model. A respectable 1080p gaming GPU for its time, the GTX 1660 Super typically sells for $50 to $100 on used marketplaces, making this purchase stand out as a rare find.

Found a 1660 super at goodwill for $8.40 yesterday. Haven’t tested it yet however. from r/pcmasterrace

Released back in October 2019, the GeForce GTX 1660 Super featured Nvidia’s Turing architecture. With a launch price of $229, one of the highlight features of the GTX 1660 Super was the faster GDDR6 memory compared to GDDR5 on the non-Super GTX 1660, which offered a boost in bandwidth and overall performance.

Sadly, it lacked any dedicated hardware for ray tracing or DLSS, thus making it one of the last GPUs before the RTX series went mainstream. The GPU is still quite capable, as it can handle popular eSports games and certain older titles with some minor tweaking (like FSR) required for demanding games due to its limited 6GB VRAM. While the GTX 1660 Super may not be as powerful as some of the more recent offerings, getting it for just $8.40 still makes it a great deal.

We often hear about Reddit users sharing stories about finding cheap computer hardware at clearance sales, thrift stores, or pawn shops. In one such case from earlier this year, a user managed to purchase an RTX 3060 12GB for only $4.99, which makes it even better than the GTX 1660 Super deal. The used GPU was reportedly purchased from a Red White & Blue Thrift Store, and worked without any issues.

However, some bargains don’t turn out as expected. In another incident, a shopper managed to purchase a GeForce GTX 1060 for only $5 during a Black Friday sale, only to discover after opening the box that it contained an older GTX 560 Ti instead. The mix-up is a reminder that while thrift stores and clearance sales might lead to some incredible deals, it’s always recommended to double-check what’s actually inside the box before leaving the store.

A frustrated user has taken to Reddit after Zotac denied their GeForce RTX 5070 Ti RMA for a suspected bearing issue, saying that it found “irreversible” PCB damage that cannot be repaired “due to the limited tools” the company has. According to I_Main_TwistedFate’s Reddit post, the company said the physical damage was found near the PCIe connector during a visual inspection of the card before testing. Zotac then claimed that this type of damage isn’t “caused by normal GPU operation” and instead recommended that the user “File a Damage Claim With the Shipping Carrier.”

“When your card arrived at our facility, our technicians performed a visual inspection prior to electrical testing. During this inspection, they identified a crack in the PCB (printed circuit board) near the PCIe connector. While the gold contacts themselves appear intact, the board material above the connector is visibly fractured,” the service manager told I_Main_TwistedFate.

The Zotac representative later added, “The type of cracking found is consistent with external mechanical stress during handling or transportation. Since this damage cannot be caused by normal GPU operation, we recommend filing a shipping damage claim with the carrier that delivered the package to ZOTAC USA.”

Just a warning if your planning to buy a Zotac card as my RMA has been denied PT2: Now they are offering that they can dispose of my card. from r/pcmasterrace

This probably led to enormous frustration for the user, as they initially sought an RMA for their three-month-old RTX 5070 Ti because it was making unusual noises they suspected could be a fan bearing issue. They even shared photos of the supposed PCB damage, which appeared to be considerably minor. The biggest insult was that Zotac even offered to dispose of the GPU at its facility if I_Main_TwistedFate did not want it returned.

We’re unsure what caused the PCB damage to the GPU, but it seems to have been due to wear-and-tear rather than accidental or deliberate damage. This is similar to the $3,350 repair bill another customer received from Asus for their RTX 5090 after the company discovered a microscopic “surface irregularity” on the expensive card. It could be that these companies are just covering themselves in case these seemingly minor damages lead to a catastrophic failure. However, it’s still infuriating for anyone who spent hundreds or thousands of their hard-earned money on these expensive parts. On the other hand, Nvidia has been extremely generous, replacing a damaged RTX 5090 despite it being caused by the user, and even offering a replacement unit for a $10,000 RTX Pro 6000 that was broken in transit.

Fake hard drives have become more common over the past decade or so, as online marketplaces have connected third-party sellers and buyers. That's exactly what happened to Reddit user u/BulyudiPorti, who purchased a Seagate external hard drive — or at least thought they did — and received a hollow drive with barely anything inside.

datahoarder from r/DataHoarder/comments/1nykjtr/fake_seagate_external_drives

As seen above, the user opened the drive only to find a small circuit board driving a microSD Card, glued to the chassis with a piece of metal underneath. An identical metal block is also attached to the top lid to give it a false sense of heft, so it feels real at first glance. The user echoes that sentiment, saying how "everything about it looked and felt legit," up until the disassembly revealed what was really lying under the hood.

No further details were shared, such as where the drive was purchased, but we can see it's packaged as a 1TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim, a fairly common option on the market. The innards of this model reveal a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive inside the enclosure, with a SATA-to-USB adapter at the top. So, it's safe to say that seeing a sticky SD card hastily strapped together in there instead confirms you've been scammed.

Lots of commenters pointed out that this is easily avoidable: all you need to do is buy from reputable vendors or marketplaces with stringent consumer protection laws. The original poster never replied, possibly lending credence to the narrative that they perhaps got it from somewhere disreputable, with one commenter mocking, "Wdym the $29.90 24TB drive is a scam?" Since there are no conclusive details, we must reserve our judgment.

Stay vigilant out there, no matter where you're buying from. If a deal looks way too enticing, it's most likely a scam, and bad actors are often ten steps ahead of you to game the system out of issuing returns. However, even buying from reputable platforms can sometimes end badly. Just recently, someone received a literal brick in lieu of the RTX 5080 they ordered from Amazon, and that's just one story out of countless others. Check out our roundup of the best external drives to inform yourself of what's actually worth buying. We also regularly scour for deals so you can score a legit discount.

Nintendo is infamous for its stringent stance against any kind of copyright infringement, to the point where even fan-edits have gotten people in trouble. So, when the company tells you to stop illegally distributing games, you should probably listen. But that doesn't seem to be the case for "Archbox," who served as the primary moderator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit for some time, before he was charged last year for selling pirated games.

Originally reported by Nintendo Everything, the company is now seeking a $4.5 million default judgment because the defendant never showed up for the court proceedings. Archbox, whose real name is James Williams, is popular in the Switch modding community. He reportedly ran several pirating sites, along with "shops" — such as JITS — where games are available to download on jailbroken Switch consoles. James not only tested Nintendo's patience pertaining to its intellectual property, but committed the cardinal sin of piracy while doing so: charging money for it.

"Since 2019, Williams has been either directly or indirectly the owner, manager, operator, creator, administrator, supplier, and/or overseer of several online Pirate Shops, and has worked to actively promote these Pirate Shops to communities consisting of many thousands of individuals," reads the official filing.

According to online discussion, James asked for donations to give access to "pro" subscriptions, where people would be able to download games a lot faster, likely with uncapped speeds. Those who often sail the seas know never to hide pirated content behind a paywall, because that then constitutes grounds for a lawsuit. Nice-guy Nintendo even first warned James by sending a cease-and-desist through a law firm last year, but he reportedly never responded.

The lawfirm, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, investigated a number of online piracy storefronts and identified James as one of the leading kingpins, who was then located through email addresses tied to repair orders in Surprise, Arizona (yes, that's a real city). This happened before the Switch 2 was announced, which meant that Nintendo was more rigorously protecting the now-outdated console. But the company likely has more than enough lawyers and resources to keep an eye on any platform where it sees its products being pirated.

A Redditor thanked his father for gifting him something that he plucked out of the trash. Alternative-Run363 claims that his dad enjoyed a big ‘W’ by fishing out a PC packing an Intel Core i5-9400F, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660, and more. That’s a ‘W’ indeed, since it all seems to work, and Windows 11 is installed and activated. It's certainly better than the kipper bones, tin cans, or old boots that Thomas Jasper Cat Sr. usually found in the trash.

My dad Found this pc to me in the Trash with an gtx 1660 and a i5 9400f w dad from r/PcBuild

In this latest case of finding computer treasure in the trash, we don’t get much of a backstory regarding the find. However, it certainly looks like the PC system in the picture has seen better days. You can clearly see dust and grime has built up in this machine over the years. From the single picture, it is difficult to determine if there are dust filters missing or if they were just unmaintained. According to the social media posting, there's a glass side panel that was removed for the photo.

So, let’s take a closer look at what Alternative-Run363 managed to snag for the grand total of zero dollars and zero cents:

• CPU: Intel Core i5 9400F
• CPU Cooler: Asetek Shark Gaming AiO
• GPU: Asus Phoenix Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660*
• Motherboard: Asus TUF B360-Plus Gaming motherboard*
• RAM: 16GB dual-channel
• Storage: 500GB Kingston A2000 M.2 NVMe SSD
• Case: InWin chassis with at least two system fans
• PSU: Unknown, unknown condition
• OS: Windows 11 was installed by Alternative-Run363, and they found out it was activated
• (*We guessed these precise component models after some pixel peeping)

A Reddit user found a discarded gaming PC while taking out the trash at their upscale apartment building and decided to give it a second life. According to u/Triggerhappy62, the computer appeared to be from around 2017 and contained almost everything needed to make it run, except for storage.

It featured an Intel Core i7-7700 CPU, a Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 GPU, and 16GB (2x 8GB) of DDR4-3000 RAM, all installed on an MSI B250M Gaming Pro motherboard. The entire system is powered by a Corsair CX750 PSU and features an optical drive with a driver disc still inside, as well as a network card. The case itself is branded with Enermax, a custom PC builder known for its high-end builds.

These specifications indicate that the PC, as found by u/Triggerhappy62, was a proper gaming rig, and it appears that its previous owner has finally decided to upgrade their system, as suggested by the missing drive. Despite its age, this system remains decent and an upgrade from the original poster’s existing computer, which features an Intel Core i5-4670K CPU, a Gigabyte Radeon RX 570 GPU, and 16 GB of DDR3-1866 RAM, all mounted on a Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WiFi mini-ITX motherboard from Free Geek. This nonprofit organization distributes old computers to the community at no cost or for a low fee.

Found a gaming pc from 2017ish while I was taking the trash out at my upscale apartment building. It was in our trash room just sitting there. from r/pcmasterrace

A Redditor took to the social media platform to ask for guidance on a GPU their friend found. The images in the original post show a unit labeled as AMD Radeon with what appears to be four rubber pegs at the back. There’s also a sticker near the pins marking the graphics card as “Engineering Sample NOT for Qualification” and saying that it was “Made in China-ATI/PCP NOT FOR RESALE” and dated 10/01/25.

One of the first commenters in the post suggested that the graphics card is an AMD Radeon AI Pro R9700, which was first announced at Computex 2025. The card that AdagioScray3267's friend has in their hands looks remarkably similar to AMD’s reference design, which AMD has clearly labeled as an artistic rendering in the PowerPoint presentation. The mysterious graphics card also has a sticker stating 300W — the same TDP as the R9700. This GPU is basically a Radeon 9070 XT with double the VRAM and is optimized for workstations and AI workloads.

There were various suggestions on what they can do with this find, with some saying that they can put it in their system, as it’s quite a great GPU in terms of graphical performance. On the other hand, others suggest selling it and acquiring a proper gaming GPU. The Radeon AI Pro 9700 costs around $1,324 (including tax and shipping) new in the retail market, but it’s likely to be hard to find, as it’s primarily focused on professional users and workstations.

A potentially* UNRELEASED unknown model EVT Prototype AMD graphics card has been found by my friend. What model is it? And what do we do with it? from r/Amd

An extremely unfortunate and hilariously misguided PC user has gone viral on Reddit after accidentally "ejecting" their GPU from their PC via Windows like it was a memory stick. The unlucky user was lured in by a fairly standard Windows ejection screen because of their virtual machine configuration. Curious, they clicked eject on their GTX 1050Ti, accidentally breaking their PC in the process. Thankfully, the user was able to restore functionality, but only after an hour of fumbling around with settings. The tragedy is made all the more poignant by the user's faint cries of 'Oh merde,' which broadly translates as French for "Oh bother."

Do not eject your GPU from r/pcmasterrace

Virtual insanity

If you've never seen the option to eject your PC’s GPU, you aren’t alone. This feature of Windows is only seen in a few very specific situations. In YnosNava’s case, they were running “a Virtual Machine with PCIe passthrough under Proxmox.”

PCIe passthrough is a technique to benefit from improved video acceleration in a virtual machine. It basically speeds up GPU-sensitive operations in the virtual machine by providing direct access to the graphics card hardware. YnosNava appears to have been “playing around” with this feature in a Proxmox open-source server install, on the quest for improved performance.

One of the peculiarities of PCIe passthrough in a VM — in this case, at least — is that the GPU you have decided to directly access is listed among attached devices that are available to be ejected with the click of the mouse.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should

The Redditor who had thousands of PC-DIY enthusiasts on tenterhooks with posts charting their extraordinarily long BIOS update odyssey (100 hours+) had some sad news to share today. GoatWithAGun posted a defeated “Welp, we’re done here,” and shared a picture of their famous-for-15-minutes PC, which was described as “completely unresponsive” after the monitor seemingly lost signal from the machine.

Welp, we’re done here from r/pcmasterrace

In the above post, which serves as both an obituary and epitaph for the deceased PC, GoatWithAGun sensitively told those gathered around this virtual deathbed “As of 2:14 PM Philippine Standard Time, my monitor lost signal from the PC and I returned to it completely unresponsive to any troubleshooting.” The Redditor graciously thanked those who had followed their fight to resuscitate the PC, and those who had donated.

Our previous coverage saw the efforts to update the BIOS of this PC’s BioStar A320MH motherboard extend past the 24-hour mark (flashing 66% complete). Actually, follow-up posts saw the Redditor start new threads at 48-hours+, and 100-hours+ before quiet darkness descended today.

It may be unfortunate what has happened to this PC, which the Redditor said they decided to BIOS-flash due to the lure of BioStar stability fixes. However, it shouldn’t be the end of the system, with replacement motherboards readily available. Other components of this system like the AMD Ryzen 3 1200 CPU, 4GB of DDR4-2400 Kingston HyperX memory, an Asus GTX 1660 GPU, a 128GB Transcend SATA SSD, and a 480GB Crucial SATA SSD are all likely unconcerned with the motherboard’s sticky end.

Before signing off, GoatWithAGun seemed to hint that they may soon have a new way to reanimate the dead BioStar A320MH motherboard. The Redditor said that a BIOS programmer is on the way (with a spare BIOS chip, we would hope). Thus, there may be a chance that this bricked single-BIOS device could rise again – if the BIOS contents are the only hurdle to it being able to boot.

GoatWithAGun will probably announce the result of the BIOS programmer tinkering off of Reddit, due to a segment of the platform the Redditors says have “grown tired of me.” It’s a shame those folks couldn’t just go and read and comment on something else.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D processors appear to be dying at an abnormally high rate on ASRock motherboards, to the point where the issue has gained the attention of ASRock Reddit moderators. Moderator SoupaSoka on the ASRock subreddit created a "9800X3D Failures/Deaths" megathread revealing an allegedly high amount of user reports surrounding dying 9800X3Ds on ASRock motherboards. Over 40 reports have been made so far, with 32 of them on ASRock's boards.

We've reached out to ASRock for comment and will update if we get an answer.

The megathread reveals that Ryzen 7 9800X3D deaths in association with ASRock motherboards, while abnormally high, seem to be occurring in an inconsistent fashion. Some 9800X3D's are allegedly dying during boot-up, while some are dying within hours, days, or weeks of ownership. Some reports also claim their CPUs were dead on arrival. AMD and ASRock are allegedly aware of the problem; however (probably due to the aforementioned inconsistency), the sole cause of the issue causing 9800X3D's to die has yet to be determined.

Did my 9800x3d die? from r/ASRock

A summary of dead 9800X3D reports in the megathread features over 40 user reports of dead CPUs. A few non-X3D reports were sprinkled in there, suggesting the issues could extend beyond the 9800X3D. Some of the worst reports include users who went through two dead 9800X3D's to only have their non-X3D fallback CPU working well without issues. Still, some of the luckier users claim to have their replacement 9800X3Ds working fine.

One potential workaround mentioned in the thread is a BIOS flashback reversion to an older ASRock BIOS. At least one report claims to have "revived" a 9800X3D by using BIOS flashback to revert to an older BIOS. The megathread creator recommends that 9800X3D owners (with ASRock boards) revert to an older BIOS revision with this method if they experience POSTing failures after BIOS updating with their 9800X3D.

The full reports include a few MSI, Gigabyte, and Asus motherboards. 40 reports is not a critically high number, considering the amount of 9800X3D processors AMD sells every month. However, the most telling issue is that 32 of the 40 reports come from users featuring an ASRock motherboard.

This problem could be an extension of the original Ryzen 7000 burning catastrophe last year that was caused by badly tuned firmware pushing certain voltages beyond safe levels. It could be a case that ASRock's firmware is doing something similar to Ryzen 7 9800X3D processors, but time will only tell if this is the case. These issues also appear to be different from the first 9800X3D burnout reports we saw late last year that were allegedly caused either by user error or a faulty AM5 socket.

EVGA, one of Nvidia's most prominent partners, made waves two years ago, in September 2022, when it exited the GPU business. If the sudden closure of the EVGA forums is any indication, the company will continue to wind down its business.

At the time of writing, a banner on the forum's main page posted yesterday reads: "Responding to the feedback from our valued customers and in light of Reddit’s widespread popularity, EVGA would like to encourage its community to transition to Reddit. As of this announcement, our existing forums will be read only and our team will actively engage with customers on Reddit threads moving forward."

"EVGA and our Moderators would like to thank all its forum members for the years of posts bringing together a great community of PC Enthusiast, and we hope to continue this community at its new home on Reddit."

"Please head over to our new community home on Reddit at HTTPS://www.reddit.com/r/TEAMEVGA/"

So, while the EVGA Forums will continue to exist in a read-only form for an undetermined amount of time, all remaining support and community is being pushed to the TEAMEVGA subreddit.

EVGA previously cited major issues with Nvidia from its place as an industry-leading AIB partner. Despite leaving the GPU business, the company denied closing its doors. What does EVGA sell nowadays? Well, not much. The company has erased all mentions of GPUs on its website, leaving just power supplies, gaming peripherals, and a few last-generation Intel motherboards. Although we had seen an EVGA X670E prototype, the motherboard never reached the market.

EVGA has managed to (mostly) stay in good favor with its customers since it exited the GPU business, even honoring RMAs for several GPU customers after the fact with its remaining stock. EVGA's other hardware products, like its power supplies, are generally considered quality options and sell in decent volume. Thus, perhaps there is still hope, which is just a sign of EVGA cutting unneeded fat. However, power supplies aren't EVGA's bread and butter, so it remains to see how long the company can stay afloat.

It's unfortunate to see how things have progressed since EVGA parted ways with Nvidia. Nvidia customers lost a lot when one of its best AIB partners abandoned the GPU game.

Despite Starfield being a poster-child for AMD's technology on PC, one glaring omission from lift-off was  support for frame-generation technologies such as AMD's FSR, Intel's XeSS, or Nvidia's DLSS. But it seems that particular ship will leave the yard sooner rather than later: Via a subreddit post, Bethesda Softworks has confirmed Starfield support for both AMD's FSR3 and Intel's XeSS is coming early next year, along with other potentially impactful changes, such as a "new ways to travel" promise.

According to the subreddit post from the official Bethesda Softworks account, Starfield is bound to receive at least some of what amounts to significant updates to both the Starfield game engine and gameplay experience. Support for both AMD and Intel's frame-generation technologies should be a boon for players sporting anything but the Best PC Builds (which is most of us). Extra frames per second and increased game fluidity are always welcome - especially for notebook or portable handled gamers.

Beyond FSR 3 and XeSS support, the Bethesda post also clarifies that a number of features and requests are being worked into the game. There are quest fixes; city maps (anyone who can only memorize routes by driving them, like me is sure to thank Bethesda for that one); mod support (here's hoping the Starfield community can outdo the tremendous mod work done for Skyrim, in time); and an intriguing  "all new ways of travelling" bit that's sure to catch the minds of anyone who thinks that being able to pilot a ship but not a hoverbike kind of defeats its purpose. There's no telling what other ways of travelling actually means: whether leisurely strolling with the set of in-game parents you get with the "Kid Stuff" trait, riding hoverbikes through a dune-like planet, or merely a review of ship piloting and exactly how scientifically-exhaustive (to the tune of empty) interstellar travel can actually be.

According to the post, Bethesda is looking to pace Starfield updates around every six weeks, each of these dealing with a variety of bug fixes and gameplay improvements. But as Starfield's launch came and went, we had the opportunity to see just how well it held up to other Bethesda titles in terms of "shipped bug" count. And while FSR3 support would have made perfect sense to make the cut towards the launch version of Starfield, it's a well-known quantity that for something to be brought in, other things, other work, other improvements have to be let go. Perhaps our experience of Starfield being more bug-free than usual at launch is also a result of these frame-generation technologies not being programmed into the (facelifted, but still ageing) Gamebryo-based "Creation 2" game-engine, which Bethesda developed in-house.

Hang tight to those frame-rates, space cowboys.

The newer Ryzen 5 5600G (Cezanne) has replaced the Ryzen 5 4600G (Renoir) as one of the best CPUs for gaming. However, a trick has breathed new life into the Ryzen 5 4600G, transforming the budget Zen 2 APU into a 16GB graphics card to run AI applications on Linux.

Not everyone has to budget to buy or rent a Nvidia H100 (Hopper) to experiment with AI. With the current demand for AI-focused graphics cards, you may be unable to access one even if you have the money. Luckily, you don't need an expensive H100, an A100 (Ampere), or one of the best graphics cards for AI. One Redditor demonstrated how a Ryzen 5 4600G retailing for $95 can tackle different AI workloads.

The Ryzen 5 4600G, which came out in 2020, is a hexa-core, 12-thread APU with Zen 2 cores that operate with a base and boost clock of 3.7 GHz and 4.2 GHz. The 65W chip also wields a Radeon Vega iGPU with seven compute units clocked up to 1.9 GHz. Remember that APUs don't have dedicated memory but share system memory. You can determine the amount of memory inside the motherboard’s BIOS. In this case, the Redditor had 32GB of DDR4 and allocated 16GB to the Ryzen 5 4600G. Typically, 16GB is the maximum amount of memory you can dedicate to the iGPU. However, some user reports claim that certain ASRock AMD motherboards allow for higher memory allocation, rumored up to 64GB.

The trick converts the Ryzen 5 4600G into a 16GB "graphics card," flaunting more memory than some of Nvidia's latest GeForce RTX 40-series SKUs, such as the GeForce RTX 4070 or GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, which are limited to 12GB. Logically, the APU doesn't deliver the same performance as a high-end graphics card, but at least it won't run out of memory during AI workloads, as 16GB is plenty for non-serious tasks.

AMD's Radeon Open Compute platform (ROCm) doesn't officially support Ryzen APUs. Third-party companies, such as BruhnBruhn Holding, offer experimental packages of ROCm that'll work with APUs. That means APUs can work with PyTorch and TensorFlow frameworks, opening the gate to most AI software. We wonder if AMD's latest mobile Ryzen chips, like Phoenix that taps into DDR5 memory, can work and what kind of performance they bring.

The Redditor shared a YouTube video claiming that the Ryzen 5 4600G could run a plethora of AI applications, including Stable Diffusion, FastChat, MiniGPT-4, Alpaca-LoRA, Whisper, LLM, and LLaMA. Unfortunately, he only provided demos for Stable Diffusion, an AI image generator based on text input. He doesn't detail how he got the Ryzen 5 4600G to work with the AI software on his Linux system. The YouTuber has vouched to release a thorough video of the setup process. 

As for the performance, the Ryzen 5 4600G only took around one minute and 50 seconds to generate a 512 x 512-pixel image with the default setting of 50 steps. It's an excellent result for a $95 APU and rivals some high-end processors. The author said he used DDR4 memory but didn't list the specifications. Although the Ryzen 5 4600G natively supports DDR4-3200, many samples can hit DDR4-4000, so it would be fascinating to see AI performance scaling with faster memory.

The experiment is fantastic for those who own a Ryzen 5 4600G or Ryzen 5 5600G and want to play around with AI. For those who don't, throwing $500 into an APU build doesn't make much sense when you can probably get a discrete graphics card that offers better performance. For instance, AMD's Radeon 16GB graphics cards start at $499, and Nvidia recently launched the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, which has a similar starting price.

First-time Raspberry Pi projects can yield serious creativity as they often stem from specific needs. In this case, we have a lovely creation by a maker known as Kind-Rope5478 over at Reddit. Their first Pi project has been dubbed Memory Box, and it features some creative uses of the Raspberry Pi’s ability to use external hardware as well as a well-executed case design.

According to Kind-Rope5478, the project idea came from a desire to develop a custom video player box. Instead of just choosing a video from a menu, they wanted to introduce an outside element requiring users to make a physical selection. The box would use NFC cards to trigger the video in this case.

Although the NFC cards are used to select folders of videos, you can use the button on the front to skip between videos. A dial is also available for volume control that, when pressed, will switch the box between video mode and an idle mode that displays random quotes as well as the time. A feature also allows you to copy video files from a USB drive to the Pi.

All the hardware is housed inside a custom frame made from red oak with a slit on the side to help with cooling. It’s powered by a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB model, but you could get away with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ or maybe even a Pi Zero for this project. It has a 10.1-inch touchscreen panel secured behind an 8” x 12” acrylic panel. Connected to the Pi is an NFC reader along with a 5V Noctua Fan.

In an interesting twist, Kind-Rope5478 revealed that the software for the project was written using ChatGPT. More makers are opening up their creative potential thanks to AI, and this is an example of how newcomers can adapt the technology to bring their ideas to fruition. That said, it’s not without pitfalls. Kind-Rope5478 went on to explain that the software occasionally crashes, so some tinkering will be necessary to clean up the code.

If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, check out the original thread shared to Reddit, and be sure to follow Kind-Rope5478 for any future updates.

A Redditor has shared details and images, charting their work in creating an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Mini ITX Founders Edition (FE). Nvidia never released such a card, so this project was based upon previous 'mini FE edits', and Clashmains_2-account's dreams. In the subreddit, the plucky individual says that they bought a compact RTX 3060 and a 3D printer to make their wishes come true.

Sometimes it is easy to be disappointed when a company doesn't make a product that fits in with your wishes or expectations. It is harder to do something about it, and thus we applaud Clashmains_2-account for investing their time, money and energy in what looks like a great attempt to realize this card that never was.

The main ingredient of the home-made GeForce RTX 3060 FE was a Gainward GeForce RTX 3060 Pegasus. This made a great starting point as Clashmains_2-account wanted their finished FE card to be an ITX design. As sold, the Pegasus is just 170mm in length. To get started the Redditor says that they copied the physical dimensions of the Pegasus PCB and heatsink, and designed around that constant.

Another change that Clashmains_2-account was inspired to implement was swapping out the Gainward fan for more compact model, fitting within the FE design ethic - to have a fan that doesn't encroach on the clean edged shroud. A 92mm Noctua fan was chosen for the task, and though it looks smaller than the model it replaced, Noctua has a great reputation for quiet and high performance spinners.

Many will probably agree that this Nvidia Founder Edition inspired GeForce RTX 3060 Mini ITX model looks very cool, though the Redditor humbly highlights some "rough spots" in their 3D printer output. It was, after all, their "first 3D print project." If you hit the source link, you will see several helpful Redditors discussing print filament materials that would better fit this kind of product, and discussions about improving fit and finish. The print was created in PLA, a plastic which hasn't the greatest resilience to high temperatures, it become malleable at around 60 - 80 degrees Celsius. The project creator is clear when they say that this is not a functional piece, rather more of a test. They also state that future builds will be printed in ABS or PETG.

The GeForce RTX 3060 is getting a bit long in the tooth now, so has dropped out of our Best Graphics Cards for Gaming in 2023. Perhaps some enthusiastic PC DIYers will be inspired to Mini ITX FE redesign something like the newer GeForce RTX 4060. For this, or your other inspired 3D printing projects, take a look through our recently updated Best 3D Printers 2023 feature for recommendations across a variety of price points.

A Reddit user created a custom monitoring program to monitor the connector temperature of 12VHPWR-equipped graphics cards like the RTX 4090 (one of the Best GPUs) that have earned a reputation for melting. The program utilizes a 10k sensor that measures the temperature of the connector to warn the user or protect the graphics card from potential damage.

According to the user, who goes by u/mamolengo, the only item you must buy is the sensor for his program to work. You can get them for as little as $8 to $10 on Amazon, and most motherboards have a header to support them. In the Reddit user's case, he plugged his into his Corsair iCUE commander pro. 

Malmolego says the program will read the sensor data and can be programmed to trigger a fail-safe command when the connector temperature reaches a "certain level." For instance, the app can be programmed to turn down the GPU power limit (like in MSI Afterburner), kill an application/game or shut down the computer immediately.

Monitoring the temperature of the 4090 connector before it melts from r/cablemod

Even though this system won't fully resolve the melting problems that might occur on a 16-pin graphics card, it can, at the very least, give you a warning ahead of time to potentially prevent any damage. If you have not heard by now, the latest 12VHPWR 600W power connector utilized by most of Nvidia's graphics cards has been known to melt under normal use, particularly by its most powerful graphics card, the RTX 4090.

Nvidia claims that user error is the source of the issues, as they are not fully plugging in the 16-pin power connector. However, PCI SIG is already developing a revised version of the 12VHPWR 16-pin connector, called the 12V-2x6 connector, that will reportedly fix the melting problems caused by the first version. Incidentally, Nvidia has taken some of the modifications done to the 12V-2x6 connector and applied them to the RTX 4070.

In the meantime, before Nvidia switches all of its GPUs to this new power connector — or the modified version on the RTX 4070 — Mamolengo's little safety application can still be helpful for RTX 40-series owners. Depending on the situation, the application can be used to potentially prevent damage from legitimately bad connector insertions and damage that might come from the connector itself. In the case of the latter, users can report the high-temperature readings to the GPU manufacturer so that the card can get repaired under warranty.

After some controversy stemming from Reddit-based reports that it is not accepting games with AI art into the Steam store, Valve has clarified that it only intends to block those submissions where the artwork may infringe copyright. 

"While developers can use these AI technologies in their work... they can not infringe on existing copyrights,” Valve representative Kaci Boyle told the Verge in a statement.

A recent development on Reddit revealed that Valve is willing to ban Steam games that feature questionable, AI-generated images. According to the Reddit post, user potterharry97 was trying to publish a game to Steam with 2 or 3 AI-generated assets that he thought would pass Valve's inspection. 

However, Valve contacted him, saying it could not ship the game due to copyright issues with the AI-generated art in the game, saying the art assets appeared to be "relying on copyrighted material owned by third parties." Valve added, "As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets..."

For the game to pass Valve's inspection, the developer must "own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets..." according to Valve's response to the original poster. Even after the developer went back and modified his artwork by hand, Valve still banned his game due to the same copyright issues.

Valve's stance on AI-generated content will prevent a lot of developers from utilizing AI-generated content in their games (unless they want to jump ship). Based on Valve's response, developers must effectively own the rights to ALL source material used to train the AI. This is a blocker since most AI networks are trained on millions of images/assets across the web to create compelling content.

The right of AI art-generation services like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion to use copyrighted training data without permission is very much in question. Some claim that grabbing any image or text that's available on the open Internet and ingesting it for training is "fair use," while many artists say otherwise and courts have yet to decide.

Getty Images is currently suing Stability AI for using its images as training data without permission. A group of independent artists is also suing over unauthorized use of their images. The problem has caused a group of developers to build Glaze, a tool that's designed to make it harder for image generators to train on pilfered images. 

While we don't know yet how courts will rule on the issue of using copyrighted images as training data, the outcome could be costly not only for the AI-generators themselves but also for anyone who relies on them to create game art. If you build a successful game that uses AI-generated art based on copyrighted images, you could find yourself on the receiving end of a future lawsuit as could a company like Valve which would distribute and profit from the game.

To calm liability fears, Adobe recently promised to indemnify enterprise customers of its Firefly image-generation service against potential copyright claims. However, Adobe's training data comes from tis own collection of images that has already secured permission to use.

We’ve got ourselves a whale of a Raspberry Pi project on our hands today. A maker and developer known as TheAmateurRunner over on Reddit has brought the classic Big Mouth Billy Bass into the modern era, with a little help from our favorite SBC. If you’re not familiar with this talking fish, it was a popular wall-mounted decoration from the early 2000s, known for singing and generally startling anyone who walked by, until the motion sensor was swapped out for a button.

According to TheAmateurRunner, this is very much still a work in progress. But so far, they’ve managed to control the Big Mouth Bill Bass with a Raspberry Pi and successfully integrated ChatGPT. It flips its tail and turns its head to relay messages retrieved from ChatGPT. At the moment, the mouth doesn’t move, but this should be fixed with future updates.

TheAmateurRunner explains that the Raspberry Pi communicates to a couple of APIs to handle the interactive features. It uses both Google and OpenAI to receive voice commands as well as process responses for replies. The idea is to modify a Big Mouth Billy Bass that can talk back and forth with users using ChatGPT.

If you don’t want to disassemble a working Big Mouth Billy Bass, we don’t blame you. In this case, TheAmateurRunner is using a broken one purchased years ago and restoring it with new functionality. The Raspberry Pi used in this project is a 3B+ but you could get away with using a Raspberry Pi 4 if that’s what you have on hand.

To receive commands, the Pi is using Google Speech to Text. This text is then parsed to OpenAI for processing. Responses are handled using Google Text to Speech. TheAmateurRunner explains in a comment that the unofficial ChatGPT API wasn’t working, so a workaround had to be introduced with OpenAI.

If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project in action, check out the thread shared to Reddit. There, you can also get a glimpse of the hardware setup controlling the Big Mouth Billy Bass. We’re looking forward to future updates on this project so be sure to follow TheAmateurRunner to see the final project.

If you're wondering why the camera on your Surface Pro X suddenly stopped working this week, you're not alone. A flood of Surface Pro X owners took to Reddit yesterday to complain that their webcams unexpectedly stopped working — an issue that can have various repercussions.

Surface Pro X owners attempting to use the camera are greeted with the following error message: 

Error code 0xA00F4271 (0x80004005). 

What's interesting about this particular issue is that it affects every single Surface Pro X customer. Given the encompassing nature of the camera failures, the most likely culprit is an expired security certificate, according to Reddit user Wapitiii. If you roll your Surface Pro X back to any date before May 23, 2023, the camera "magically" starts working again — giving credence to the suggestion that a security certificate is to blame. This isn't a good workaround, by the way, as rolling back the date on your device can result in authentication problems for secure websites or programs on your PC.  

"Well, setting the date manually back to April, but as stated before, the incorrect date interferes with date/time sensitive websites or apps," wrote PCurrington on the Microsoft Community forum. "Chrome immediately started blocking my email website, and I was unable to access a travel message board. Any software/website that tracks the date. So, when I want to use the camera, I have to manually adjust the date back, use Zoom, and then correct the date to automatic to use other apps or websites."

Without functioning cameras, Surface Pro X customers are unable to partake in video calls using Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet (among other popular apps used for work and education). In addition, the Surface Pro X's camera also works as a way to log into Windows 11 using Windows Hello. Users with non-functional cameras will need to login using alternative methods. 

Despite the widespread nature of this latest Surface Pro X problem, Microsoft hasn't officially commented on the problem yet. The company is at least aware of the problem, as a note in the Windows 11 Feedback Hub shows that Microsoft is "looking into it." Unfortunately, there is no timeline for a fix, so customers will need to roll back the system clock manually to use the camera (and risk upsetting other programs), or perhaps invest in an external webcam. 

Microsoft's Surface Pro X is a bit of an odd duck in the broad PC market to begin with: it's a 13-inch convertible powered by a Microsoft SQ1 or SQ2 Arm processor. The use of a power-sipping Arm processor allows the device to last up to 15 hours per charge. 

Microsoft earlier today released the Windows 11 "Moment 3" Update (KB5026446), but it is doubtful that it addresses the camera issues faced by Surface Pro X owners.

We thought the whole 16-pin connector (12VHPWR) meltdown fiasco was behind us, but new user reports have emerged months after the first incidents occurred. Unfortunately the GeForce RTX 4090 — one of the best graphics cards we've tested — just can't catch a break. Over the last few days, at least three new victims have come forward to detail their (literal) meltdowns on Reddit.

One Redditor recounted how the 16-pin power adapter melted on their TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card after around six to seven months of usage. They assured the readers in the Reddit thread that they correctly connected the cable, wiggled it to see if it would come off, and ensured there were no gaps. They didn't often use the GeForce RTX 4090 for gaming but instead for training, with the graphics card typically pulling around 350W to 500W. Surprisingly, the Redditor's other Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC hasn't presented issues. However, they noted that they were using an adapter from "Moody" — we suspect they may be referring to Cablemod or MODDIY aftermarket adapters.

Meanwhile, another Redditor had a similar experience: while changing cases, they discovered that the included 16-pin power adapter from Nvidia had melted. Unluckily for them, there were also signs of some damage to the graphics card's 16-pin power connector. 

The third case is a rather peculiar one. We've mostly been seeing user reports of either the 16-pin power adapter or the 16-pin power connector melting, and, in some cases, both. However, the third victim shared a photograph of the 8-pin power connectors from their Corsair SF750 80 Plus Platinum SFX power supply showing some signs of meltdown. The minimum recommended power supply capacity for the GeForce RTX 4090 is 850W. Nonetheless, the Redditor ran a modest setup with a Ryzen 5 7600, a 65W chip, and a GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition — reportedly limited to 70% of its power limit (315W). They have had the system since Dec. 2022, which more or less aligns with the same failure period as the other Redditors.

The last advisory from Nvidia, posted in Nov. 2022, assured consumers that Nvidia was investigating the user reports. At the time, the chipmaker had detected around 50 cases on a global scale. However, it's a small sample size, given that Nvidia has likely sold tens and thousands of GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards.

Since Nvidia hasn't provided any updates recently, it's unknown if the company is still investigating the problem. The preliminary verdict was that the connectors weren't fully installed into the connector on the graphics card, and Nvidia chalked the issue up to user error. We're not saying it's impossible, since the 12VHPWR connector is a tiny connector, and sometimes accidents happen. But some of the victims claim to be veteran builders with a long track record of being able to plug power connectors in without problems. Plus, given the attention the issue has received, GeForce RTX 4090 owners are probably double- and even triple-checking their 12VHPWR power connections. 

Nvidia was reportedly researching other methods to ensure the connector was seated correctly before turning on the graphics card. But it's not clear whether Nvidia has made progress on solving that problem or if they're even still looking into it. 

It looks like the Xbox Series S is facing serious memory allocation issues in Borderlands 3, at least according to Reddit user u/jokekiller94 — who posted a screenshot of the game crashing on their Series S console with an "out of memory" error on the screen. 

The issue isn't limited to the original poster — Reddit user u/bacon_sammer responded in the thread, saying they have the same issue with Borderlands 3 crashing frequently on their Xbox Series S. They said the game runs fine on the Xbox Series X, however, so the it seems to be a Series S issue.

Sadly, this type of memory allocation issue is not uncommon for Microsoft's little console. According to reports from Digital Foundry and The Verge, the Series S' small memory capacity is a headache for developers to optimize around. It is the single biggest contributing factor to the console's lower graphical settings and lack of ray-tracing effects on Series S ports, and it bottlenecks the console's already weak 4 Teraflop (PS4 Pro level) GPU.

Apparently, complaints among developers regarding the Series S' memory became so extreme that Microsoft released a dev kit in June 2022 that gave developers more manipulation over the Series S' memory system. 

The Xbox Series S is Microsoft's most recent entry-level console running on AMD's modern Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures. The console features a 4TF AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 20 compute units clocked at 1550MHz, a 512GB NVMe SSD, and 10GB of GDDR6 memory that is shared between the CPU and the GPU. Strangely, the memory bandwidth is mixed, with 8GB featuring 224GB/s of bandwidth and the other 2GB running at a paltry 56GB/s.

The 10GB memory capacity is why the Series S' memory allocation issues are so problematic. Modern-day PC titles generally recommend at least 16 GB of system RAM, plus at least 6GB to 8GB of VRAM for playing games at high settings. The Series S' unified memory system does reduce a game's memory requirements compared to a PC, but 10GB is still a pretty small number for modern-day gaming (not to mention the unorthodox bandwidth configuration, where only 8GB runs at high speeds). 

Thankfully, the memory allocation errors don't appear to be a widespread issue, and hopefully Borderlands 3's developers will fix this problem in a future patch. But the Xbox Series S' overall longevity does not look good given its past and present memory capacity issues. 

Microsoft is again drawing users' ire with new changes coming to Microsoft 365 Outlook and Teams apps. Previously with these apps, clicking on a link would open the default browser that a user set within Windows. So, if you clicked a link in Outlook and your default browser was Google Chrome, it would only open in Chrome.

However, Microsoft explains that these links will now open in Microsoft Edge by default. Edge is, of course, the successor to Internet Explorer, and Microsoft has tried all kinds of tricks over the years to boost the browser's market share. Nevertheless, Microsoft says that this change is for the benefit of its users.

"If you have a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription, browser links from the Outlook app will open in Microsoft Edge by default, right alongside the email they're from in the Microsoft Edge sidebar pane," Microsoft writes in a support post. "This allows you to easily access, read, and respond to the message using your matching authenticated profile. No more disruptive switching—just your email and the web content you need to reference, in a single, side-by-side view."

According to Microsoft, this change will first come to Outlook but later arrive for Teams to "help you stay engaged in conversations as you browse the web."

Not surprisingly, many users aren't thrilled about Microsoft's latest change of heart to "help" its users. A quick trip to the sysadmin Reddit shows that IT administrators are livid about the change. "In all seriousness, forcing their browser on users through unscrupulous OS choices and vendor negotiations was the prime reason for the original anti-trust suit. I fail to see how this is any different at all," wrote ripvannwinkler. Another user, unixuser011, added, "This isn't the 90's anymore, you can't act like Edge is the only game in town, you have to respect people's browser choice. You aren't Google, stop acting like it." 

Redditor hume_reddit provided further context on how the change affects organizations:

• Only links set to open via a web browser are affected. Links that are set to open in a client app or within Outlook itself will continue to do so.
• User experiences will vary by policy configuration; please see the next section.
• Web links from all accounts in the Outlook for Windows app will open in Microsoft Edge, but the side-by-side experience is not available for non-AAD or non-MSA accounts at this time.

As if sensing that this change wouldn't be well-received by all users, Microsoft concludes its support post by stating, "Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you can turn off this feature the first time it launches in Microsoft Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after that."

Interestingly, this latest pro-Edge move comes as StatCounter reports that Apple's Safari overtook Edge for second place in global desktop browser market share for April 2023. StatCounter reports that Safari captured 11.89 percent of the desktop browser market, while Edge slipped to 10.95 percent.

This Raspberry Pi project, created by a maker known as Breadcodes over at Reddit, is guaranteed to bring out your inner Pokémon trainer. Using our favorite microcontroller, the Raspberry Pi Pico, Breadcodes is able to sniff data that would normally be transmitted from the original link port and manipulate that data for some cool hacking. With this setup, you can trade any pokémon you want over to an original cartridge.

In the post shared to Reddit, Breadcodes demonstrates the system in action. In the demo, we see a Game Boy Advance SP connected to a breadboard using the original link port. A Pico is also attached to the breadboard and is responsible for handling the emulation side of the project. The Game Boy Advance SP can interact with the Pico as if it were a second Game Boy, making it possible to trade pokémon using the original trade functions, in this case, on a real copy of Pokémon Yellow.

According to Breadcodes, the configuration relies on two logic-level shifters, as the Game Boy uses 5V while the Pico is a 3.3V module. The system is also able to print images to an original Game Boy Printer that's connected using a Game Boy color cable. This cable is a little easier to come across than the original link cable used with the original DMG Game Boy.

In addition to creating this setup, Breadcodes is also working on developing a desktop application that can work as a user interface. This interface will allow users to set images for printing and configure pokémon for trading. The desktop app is still a work in progress and at the moment is intended for regular Pico modules, rather than Pico Ws.

To interface with the link cable, Breadcodes is using the Pico’s SPI library. This allows for basic control of the printer but gets a little more complicated when trying to operate between two Game Boys. There are a few tricks you can use to make this process a little easier, which Breadcodes explains in the project thread. If you want to read more about this project and dig into the details about how it works, check out the original thread shared to Reddit and be sure to follow Breadcodes for future updates. 

Who doesn't like fanless PCs? But sometimes, aftermarket options may not meet your requirements. That was what happened to one Redditor. Instead of using an aftermarket passive CPU cooler, the ingenious enthusiast modded some 1kg copper bars to cool his Ryzen 9 7950X, one of the best CPUs on the market.

The user's system revolves around the Streacom DB4, a fanless case that caters to mini-ITX builds. In the interior, an MSI MPG B650I Edge WiFi houses AMD's 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X and 64GB of DDR5 memory; meanwhile, an HDPLEX 250W GaN ATX power supply provides up to 250W of power.

The DB4 comes with a passive cooler that supports chips up to 65W. Streacome also offers an optional module that expands the cooling capacity to 105W. However, it still falls short of the Ryzen 9 7950X's 170W TDP, which is why the avid DIYer took matters into his own hands. Plus, the user has an affinity for fanless systems.

The core of the user-modified cooling system is the two ESG Feinkupfer 1 kg (2.2 lbs) copper bars, which retail for approximately $100 apiece. The Redditor reused the small plate that comes with the Streacom DB4 but added a custom-tailored 233 mm (9.17 in) copper bar to keep the processor and the motherboard's chipset cool. The unmodified copper bars transfer the heat toward the Streacom DB4's four side panels. According to his estimates, the system now weighs around 13 kg (28.66 lbs), with the copper combining for 4.4 kg (9.7 lbs) and the case and other parts checking in at 7.5 kg (16.53 lbs) and 1 kg (2.2 lbs), respectively.

He didn't use soldering to connect the different copper parts and the copper bar to the case's panels. Instead, the Redditor utilized Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut, a liquid metal-based thermal compound, between the copper parts, and Arctic MX-6, a carbon filler-based thermal compound, where the copper bar makes contact with the case panel.

After pushing the Ryzen 9 7950X to the max for two hours, the owner observed 95 degrees Celsius on CCD1 and 90 degrees Celsius on CCD2. The motherboard temperature was about 77 degrees Celsius, while the Streacom DB4's side panel temperatures oscillated between 50 and 60 degrees Celsius. The temperatures are not bad. Soldering the joints would help with improving the temperatures. Of course, the cooling performance from a copper bar doesn't compare to that of a heat pipe or a vapor chamber. The enthusiast utilizes his system for programming so the processor doesn't run at its maximum state for prolonged periods. Therefore, the DIY copper cooler should suit the owner's needs.

High-performance microprocessors tend to get hot and, when overclocked without proper cooling or throttling, can literally burn out When an old CPU does so in an old PC because of dust and a worn out fan, there is nothing surprising about it. But when a new CPU breaks on a shiny new motherboard, that's surprising. This is what happened to an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, one of the best CPUs, which belonged to a Reddit user. And, according to other users, he's not alone. 

"The CPU pad is physically bulging," wrote Speedrookie, the owner of the burned-out processor. "I imagine there was just too much heat on the contacts causing the pad to expand. Not that the CPU has an internal component which exploded."

At least when it comes to AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D-series processors, it appears that this is by far not an isolated case. There are reports from other Reddit users who had the same experience with their Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs on motherboards from Asus and MSI.

Famous overclocker der8auer also had an issue with an AMD Ryzen 7000X3D chip burning out during some early overclocking tests a few weeks ago. As you can see in his video, he says "I did not expect this to happen so quickly and especially right out of the BIOS."

There are about a million of reasons why a modern processor can burn out. Defective sockets or a motherboards are likely causes and insufficient cooling can cause a similar result. A BIOS version that tends to automatically overclock CPUs too much could be a yet another reason for a processor failure. In fact, as noticed by HXL (@9550pro), Asus has just withdrew old BIOSes for many of its AMD X670-based motherboards, but for some of them old BIOSes are still available.

"There is a YouTube channel from Russia, a guy with a team who mainly repairs GPUs," wrote Nolmir87, another Reddit user. "They already have two motherboards from Asus and Ryzen 7000X3D AM5 CPUs in repair that burned in the exact same spot. The socket is dead, the CPU is dead too. They said more mobos and CPUs are incoming to them."

While there isn't enough evidence to draw any conclusions at this point, given the fact that we are dealing with Ryzen 7000X3D-series processors with 3D V-Cache and not with regular Ryzen 7000-series CPUs that bulge in the same spot and die, it is possible that the CCD chiplet with 3D V-Cache SRAM tile on top is getting overheated Perhaps, this happens when a motherboard attempts to boost CPU clocks too high and the chiplets do not get enough cooling. 

While AMD's X3D chips burst their clocks just like regular Ryzens, AMD does not offer these processors with an unlocked multiplier to enable their manual overclocking. Perhaps the reason for the lock is to prevent this situation and maybe an overly aggressive automatic overclock by the motherboard could cause the same malfunction.

Again, given that the information is insufficient to say the least, we cannot make any conclusions at this point. We'll reach out to our contacts at AMD and the motherboard vendors to see if they are aware of any issues. For now, we recommend that those with AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D processors keep a close eye on their CPU temps, use adequate cooling and keep their BIOSes up-to-date.

Blizzard recently released a playable beta of Diablo IV. However, it appears that not everything is sunshine and rainbows in the Sanctuary, though. An alarming amount of user reports have emerged on Reddit and the Blizzard forums, claiming that the beta is bricking the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, one of the best graphics cards.

One Reddit user reported that his Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G had perished after playing the game for only 20 minutes. According to the Redditor's recount, the cutscene in the chapel was the exact moment his GeForce RTX 3080 Ti went haywire. It didn't take long before other affected users started to pitch in. Another user claims the cutscene also bricked his Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G. However, users have also experienced crashes during normal gameplay too.

The reported symptoms are identical among the different cases. The system immediately throws a black screen at the user, and the cooling fans on the graphics cards go crazy. Subsequently, no image comes from the graphics card even after a system or several system restarts. However, it's important to note that the issue doesn't affect everyone, though. Some Diablo IV players have reported that while they have suffered crashes from the beta, the graphics cards miraculously survived.

The user feedback on the original Reddit thread shows that most of the bricked GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards are from Gigabyte. There was also a good number of cases from unspecified vendors. However, one GeForce RTX 3080 Ti from EVGA reportedly bit the dust too. Sadly, the issue isn't limited to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, either. One GeForce RTX 3080 owner and one Radeon RX 6900 XT also came forward, reporting their bricked graphics cards.

It's too soon to tell whether Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or Diablo IV is the culprit behind the bricked graphics cards. However, another GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G owner reported that Valheim bricked their graphics card. Gigabyte sent the user a replacement but didn't provide any details on what was wrong with the graphics card. So there is seemingly a precedent that something may be wrong with Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards.

Neither Blizzard nor Gigabyte has spoken about the issue. As a stopgap solution, users are recommending their peers cap the frame rate for safe measures. Nvidia GeForce owners can limit the frame rates on their graphics cards through the Nvidia control panel. The "Max Frame Rate" option resides in the "Global Setting" tab right under the "Manage 3D settings" section.

This Diablo IV bricking graphics card issue certainly has that New World-killing GeForce RTX 3090 vibe. Initially, users blamed New World because the open beta didn't have a frame rate limiter, making the GeForce RTX 3090 render the game menu at unnecessary high frame rates until the graphics card ultimately died. However, EVGA later discovered that bad soldering around the graphics card's MOSFET circuits killed the GeForce RTX 3090s, not New World. So it's not impossible to think that a bad batch of GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards may have escaped the factory. 

There's always a certain amount of risk when playing a beta version of an upcoming game. However, it shouldn't kill your graphics card - unless a defect exists that we don't know about, and Diablo IV exposes it.

Windows 11 users that have applied the latest feature / bug fix update are complaining about storage performance. The impact appears to be quite severe for those affected, with some talking about transfer performance being halved, others saying OS and game loading takes much longer. Thankfully, victims of this bug say that rolling back the update returns their prior storage performance. Additionally, in a quick test using Windows 11 and the same update, we couldn't replicate this performance issue.

The Moment 2 Update for Windows 11 arrived last week, as a Patch Tuesday release, a couple of weeks after being trailed on the Windows Experience blog. Microsoft engineering started a Reddit thread to monitor and respond to feedback, but the thread doesn’t look like a happy place to be, with a number of issues repeatedly raised. Probably the most annoying bug discussed within the comments affects storage performance.

At this early stage in the complaints / feedback loop, we can’t be confident over the configurations affected, the scale of this issue, or what exactly is happening. However, the problem seems to most commonly affect users of NVMe SSD storage.

Considering some examples from the Reddit thread, brought to light by Neowin today. Mesp21, one of the first to complain about the Moment 2 update, claimed their SSD speeds went from 7,000 MB/s to 3,000 MB/s after the update. A rollback of the Windows update restored prior performance.

Another user, MrBigDog99, was lucid enough to save before and after screenshots from the CrystalDiskMark storage benchmarking tool. Here you can see that disk writes have been most severely impacted, but reads haven’t fared well either.

Above are screens showing the severe storage performance impacts observed by MrBigDog99 and shared on Reddit. Below you can see our system, using a similar spec NVMe SSD, wasn’t adversely affected by the Moment 2 Update (KB5023706).

Interestingly, Microsoft said that it fixed a file copy slowdown with the KB5023706 update, but the update is having the opposite effect on these Reddit users. Sadly, it seems to be the case that the software maker has fixed one problem only to introduce another. Windows 11 has been particularly unfortunate with regards to storage performance and related issues.

If your Windows 11 install is being slowed down by the latest update and you can’t bear to wait for Microsoft’s next patch to fix it up (maybe), then you can roll-back right away by following these steps:

• Right click the Start button and open Settings
• Near the bottom left, click the Windows Update section
• Click Update History
• Scroll down to the Uninstall Updates section and click it.
• Select KB5023706, before confirming the action with the ‘Uninstall’ button.

Last month we wrote a guide about how to optimize your SSD performance in Windows 10 or 11, for those looking to get their systems in tip-top shape. We also recently reminded readers about disabling VBS to speed up Windows 10 or 11 by up to 15%.

Earlier this week, Puget Systems said that it worked with Samsung to identify the cause of failing 980 Pro SSDs in customer computers. After making waves on Chinese web forums and Reddit for months, the problem was blamed on an older firmware (3B2QGXA7) that shipped in early versions of the 980 Pro.  A newer firmware, 5B2QGXA7, has seemingly resolved the issue. 

That said, according to Puget, the Samsung 990 Pro, the follow-up to the 980 Pro, seems to be having some issues of its own. The company is concerned about early reports of endurance woes with the 990 Pro, despite offering excellent performance and passing its qualification process with flying colors.

As we previously noted, many users reported that their 990 Pro health has declined, on average, one percent per week. One user said that SMART diagnostics pegged the drive at 6,641GB written and an incredible 7 percent decline in health when monitored with a software utility. Another 990 Pro owner reported a 12 percent health decline in a month. Perhaps the most alarming statistic came from Neil Schofield, who posted on Twitter that his drive health eroded 36 percent after 2TB of data was written.   

Puget has apparently seen enough, writing, “these drives are popular and commonly used as both the primary OS & application drive as well as high-speed storage for project files, so if the endurance (and thus lifespan) of the drives is indeed dropping at this rate it is very concerning.” As a result, the company will suspend the use of most Samsung SSDs (though it will still carry 500GB versions of the 980 Pro). That said, it's unclear how long this shift will last.

Puget already relies on Sabrent’s 4TB and 8TB SSDs for customer systems and will now add 1TB and 2TB SKUs to replace the 980 Pro and 990 Pro. The move to Sabrent is curious when more established brands exist in this space, like Crucial, Western Digital or Kingston. However, Sabrent SSDs do have a good reputation for high performance, and they consistently appear on our best SSDs lists. 

Puget went on to add that it doesn’t often comment when switching brands for components within its computers. After all, most of its customers likely don’t care what kind of memory, power supply, or SSD is installed if performance and reliability metrics are satisfied. However, it says, “because we have been so outspoken about Samsung SSD reliability in the past we felt that it was important to speak up in this particular situation.”

Puget is clearly thinking about its long-term reputation here, adding this bit near the end of its post about the Samsung / Sabrent decision: “Regardless of what the situation ends up being, we fully stand behind our systems and will do the right thing for our customers.”

Over the past few months, there have been numerous reports of Samsung 980 Pro SSD failures, with many complaints originating from China. We never heard an official statement from Samsung on the matter, but custom PC builder Puget Systems definitely took notice after it "received a surprising number of reports of failing Samsung drives." Puget worked with Samsung to identify the problem, and a firmware update is available for affected 980 Pro SSDs.

According to Puget, the failures traced back to the 3B2QGXA7 firmware and primarily affect 2TB versions of the 980 Pro (although lower capacities are not entirely immune). Puget doesn't detail the cause of the failures, but Reddit user reports suggest that the SSDs report a S.M.A.R.T. value of 0E (media and integrity error) or greater in CrystalMark or AIDA64. In addition, an 03 value (available spare) lower than 100 percent may also be reported. It's recommended to use the Samsung SSD Magician software to scan the drive for errors if the 03 or 0E value is out of spec.

"The newest one is one of the 2TB ones. Over 2000 errors already," reported user RaXelliX on Reddit. "And the middle one 2TB has already failed with over 32,000 errors and is locked to read only mode. I fully expect the two others to fail soon too."

"Bought a 2TB 980 Pro in February of this year and installed it a few months later in May. Manufactured August 2021," added Meme_Attack in a separate Reddit thread. "Lasted a grand total of 4 months before I noticed Media Errors ballooning from 300 to 6,000+ after a full Samsung Magician scan. Also found 9 red blocks through the same scan. Lost 5% of available spare, drive's at 95% as I speak. 4.1 TB written. Super careful and light use." 

So, what happens if your drive reports abnormal 0E or 03 values? Well, it usually means that your 980 Pro is on a one-way ticket to an early death. According to Puget, the most common issue that users face is that the SSD goes into read-only mode. Given that most users have their OS installed on the SSD, read-only access makes the boot drive unusable. Unfortunately, once your 980 Pro goes into this failure state, there is no way to recover your data, even with the firmware update.

However, the new firmware update from Samsung will prevent the failures from occurring in the first place if your drive is still functioning. So, if you have a 980 Pro running the 3B2QGXA7 firmware, you'll want to update to the newest firmware (5B2QGXA7) using the Samsung SSD Magician software ASAP. It should be noted that 980 Pro SSDs running the 4B2QGXA7 or 5B2QGXA7 firmware are not affected by this issue.

Puget Systems customers who have already experienced a Samsung 980 Pro SSD failure or have problems using the Samsung SSD Magician software can contact the company for guidance. All other 980 Pro users would need to reach out to their respective system builder or contact Samsung directly if the SSD was bought from a third party.

A ghost from the past emerged on a Reddit thread the other day. A user has managed to get his hands on a Radeon Pro prototype that leverages the entire Vega 20 die.

AMD has produced many graphics cards and accelerators based on the Vega 20 silicon. But only the more exclusive and niche models came with the fully-enabled Vega 20 die, which houses 64 CUs, equivalent to 4,096 shading units. The small list includes the 2018-era Radeon Instinct MI60, which targets the AI and deep learning market, plus the Radeon Pro Vega II and Radeon Pro Vega II Duo, which wound up in select Mac Pro machines. Sadly, the retail market got to reap the full benefits of what Vega 20 had to offer.

The mysterious Radeon Pro from the Reddit thread sports the same aesthetics as the Radeon Pro V420, a professional-grade graphics card that also never made it to the market. Photographs of the PCB reveal the big Vega 20 silicon, which measures 331 mm², with four stacks of high-speed HBM2 memory. In addition, the prototype features one 8-pin PCIe power connector and a 6-pin PCIe power connector, a suitable configuration for up to 300W.

Since it's unreleased hardware, GPU-Z had difficulty figuring out the Radeon Pro graphics card. However, according to the software, it has the same device ID as the Radeon Instinct MI60. In addition, the utility reports SK hynix as the manufacturer of the HBM2 memory, but in reality it's Samsung.

According to the owner, the Radeon Pro graphics card comes with two different sets of firmware. The primary firmware has a higher power limit with 32GB of 1,600 Mbps memory, whereas the second firmware features a more modest power limit with a memory quota of 31.984GB. In addition, the graphics card sports the typical blower-style cooler, which looks pretty good and even has a bit of RGB lighting to it. The Redditor reported temperatures less than 80 degrees Celsius
under load, with the cooling fan hitting speeds of 3,800 RPM. For reference, the cooling fan has a maximum rotational speed of 5,000 RPM.

The Radeon Pro prototype hits 1,700 MHz, so it's well within the range of the other Vega 20-powered SKUs. The Radeon Pro Vega II tops out at 1,720 MHz, and only the Radeon Instinct MI60 flaunts a 1,800 MHz boost clock speed.

Performance could be better, in part because it's a prototype and needs proper software-level support. As a result, the Radeon Pro graphics card doesn't perform 100% during real-world tests. Nonetheless, it delivered a double-precision performance of up to 6.4 TFLOPs, around 14% slower than the Radeon Instinct MI60.

It remains a mystery why AMD backpedaled and didn't launch the Radeon Pro V420. It would have been a very competitive professional graphics card at the time.

Microsoft Edge started out as a relatively barebones and resource-efficient rival to Google Chrome and as a replacement for the unloved Internet Explorer browser. As it has, it's gained new features that have been most useful but occasionally infuriating (we’re looking at you, Discover). However, Microsoft’s latest Canary Channel build of Edge enables a Split Screen option that could be useful to many people. It was first noticed by Leopeva64-2 on Reddit.   

While every modern browser includes tabs that make it easier to switch from one website to another, simultaneously viewing information from two websites isn’t possible without opening a new browser window. Microsoft Edge’s new Split Screen option allows you to combine two tabs into one and view them side-by-side. Split Screen is an experimental feature only available in the latest Edge Canary release (Build 111.0.1639.0), which you can access with the following steps:

1. Download and install the latest build from the Microsoft Edge Canary Channel for Windows 10/11.

2. Type “edge://flags” in the Edge address bar. This will bring up a list of all experimental features accessible in the latest Edge Canary build.

3. Type “split” in the Search flags box to bring up the Split Screen feature.

4. Click the arrow on the drop-down menu and select Enabled. You will be asked to restart Edge to make the changes stick. Click Restart.

5. Once Edge restarts, you should see a new Split Window icon to the right of the address bar. Click it.

6. If you have more than one tab open, you’ll see your current active tab on the left window and your other available tabs on the right window.

7. Click on the second tab that you want active. It will now display in the right window.

Now you can view two pages side-by-side and independently scroll through each. You can also have multiple Split Window sessions spread across multiple tabs or group them. It’s a great way to enhance your workflow, and we’re happy to see Microsoft putting valuable, differentiating features into Edge. 

Currently, the new Microsoft Edge Split Screen feature is only available in the latest Canary Channel build for Windows 10/11. It is not available on the Dev or Beta Channels. Unfortunately, macOS users are also out of luck, as the most recent Canary Channel build (111.0.1633.0) does not support the feature.

It is unknown at this time when Split Screen will find its way into more stable Dev or Beta Channels or when it will eventually land in the stable release.

The GeForce RTX 4090, which tops our list of best graphics cards, is a 450W graphics card. Considering the latter, it doesn't sound like a good idea to slap a blower on the Ada Lovelace flagship. But it looks like one brave graphics card vendor went ahead and did that anyway, and now a Redditor has brought us the first evaluation of a GeForce RTX 4090 with a blower cooler.

The mysterious GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card sports a dual-slot design with a blower-style cooling system. Besides the GeForce RTX logo and its model name, the graphics card lacks any logos that might give us a clue as to its manufacturer. However, an interesting piece of Morse code translates to "AI Edition," which alludes to the reason behind the blower design. According to the GPU-Z screenshot, Nvidia is the sub-vendor for the graphics card. However, the GeForce RTX 4090 looks almost identical to a Manli Geforce RTX 4090 blower graphics card that surfaced a few months ago.

The owner recounted in the Reddit thread that he bought the GeForce RTX 4090 in Japan from an unmentioned vendor for the equivalent of $2,675. The graphics card arrived in an obscure white box with no marketing or branding. Aside from the foam to hold the graphics card in place and the triple 8-pin to 12VHPWR adapter, nothing else was inside the box. It didn't even include a user manual or warranty card.

The GeForce RTX 4090 blower shares the exact specifications as Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition. The power limit is locked down to 450W. Nonetheless, the Redditor still managed to put an extra 1,800 MHz on the memory. Despite relying on a blower cooler, the performance didn't appear to be compromised. The benchmarks showed the graphics card's performance was within the margins of other GeForce RTX 4090 models.

Under a heavy workload, the GeForce RTX 4090 sounds like a jet engine. According to the owner, the cooling fans ramp up to a whopping 5,200 RPM. The default fan curve allows the GPU temperature to hit 78 degrees Celsius (C) and the memory to scale to 96 C. Using a custom and more aggressive fan curve, the GPU temperatures drop to 67 C while the memory comfortably sits around 88 C.

In addition to hardcore gamers, Nvidia has positioned the GeForce RTX x090-tier SKUs to creators and researchers. However, the chipmaker isn't very fond of manufacturers that put out blower-type models because they cannibalize the brand's A-series models, which have replaced the Quadro lineup. 

For example, some system integrators favored the GeForce RTX 3090 blower graphics cards over Nvidia's more expensive A-series offerings, such as the A100, in their server products. Although we never got an official statement from Nvidia and its partners refused to comment on the reason, GeForce RTX 3090 blower graphics cards magically disappeared without a trace.

Unlike the typical GeForce RTX 4090 with a 3.5-slot design (which can sometimes cross over to the 4-slot domain) this blower variant only utilizes two slots. This design enables the GeForce RTX 4090 to fit into very compact cases and lets professional users install multiple (sometimes up to four) graphics cards into a single system. 

In addition, given the GeForce RTX 4090's specifications and generous 24GB VRAM with ECC support, it's a capable graphics card for specialized workloads including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. The GeForce RTX 4090 is practically a poor man's A-series, so to speak.

We've seen zero announcements for GeForce RTX 4090 blower graphics cards — the Manli one is only on our radar courtesy of a hardware leaker. So perhaps Nvidia is still against the idea of vendors releasing blower versions of its flagship GeForce RTX gaming products, which would explain why the GeForce RTX 4090 from the Reddit thread doesn't carry branding.

Nvidia was recently engulfed in the melting 16-pin connector fiasco, but now things are heating up for AMD. Reports and user feedback have shown that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX can get sizzling hot, with hotspots hitting 110 degrees Celsius. As a result, PowerColor, one of AMD’s notable partners, has issued a call for user reports on Reddit so it can send the details to AMD for further investigation.

Thus far, the 110C hotspot phenomenon appears only to affect MBA (Made By AMD) or reference Radeon RX 7900-series graphics cards, whether you purchased them directly from AMD or one of the chipmaker’s partners. There haven’t been any reports of custom designs afflicted with the issue, suggesting a potential design flaw with the reference cooler. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves: The million-dollar question is whether the 110 degrees Celsius junction temperature is within specification for Radeon RX 7900-series graphics cards. We’ve reached out to AMD for confirmation; however, the chipmaker hasn’t gotten back to us yet, probably due to the holidays.

There’s a precedent of Radeon graphics cards reaching 110C, which aligns with AMD’s specifications. If you don’t remember, the normal junction temperature for the Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards, such as the Radeon RX 5700 XT, was 110C.

“Instead of setting a conservative, ‘worst case’ throttling temperature for the entire die, the Radeon RX 5700 series GPUs will continue opportunistically and aggressively ramp clocks until any of the many available sensors hits the ‘hotspot’ or ‘Junction’ temperature of 110 degrees Celsius. Operating at up to 110C Junction Temperature during typical gaming usage is expected and within spec,” stated AMD in a blog post three years ago.

Besides the junction temperature, it’s essential to look at the edge temperature to determine whether there is an underlying problem. The edge temperature corresponds to the temperature measured at the edge of the silicon. So it’s an excellent metric to reveal the condition of the mounting pressure. A low value means there’s good mounting pressure. “110 hotspot is within spec if your card is getting up to 90° GPU edge temp... If 110 is hit at 70 edge, yeah that is not ideal,” commented an AMD representative on Reddit.

AMD has already said that its GPU team is investigating the problem. It’ll be essential to evaluate if the high temperatures are the culprit for the thermal throttling, forcing the graphics card to fall below the rated clock speeds. Otherwise, it’s normal behavior. Remember that AMD only guarantees the base clock speeds for its graphics cards.

Meanwhile, owners are reportedly RMAing or returning their Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards. The feedback has been a mixed bag, though. In a Reddit thread, some said AMD had accepted their RMA, while others claimed the chipmaker rejected the RMA and refunds.

Some user reports say repasting solves the problem on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, but it’s not a 100% fix. There is a theory that the cooler’s cold plate is uneven. That would explain why the thermal interface material (TIM) looks thicker in the middle than on the edge of the die. One Redditor suggested that a graphite thermal pad could solve the problem. That’s interesting because AMD opted to use thermal pads in previous generations of Radeon graphics cards, so it’s unknown why the chipmaker went for TIM on RDNA 3. Either way, we don’t recommend you tear off your cooler since it would likely void your warranty. The only option right now is to wait for AMD’s guidance or just attempt to RMA the graphics card, though the latter would be a fruitless endeavor if the card proves to be operating as expected.

One Redditor has unknowingly purchased an engineering sample (ES) of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan X graphics card, which used to be one of the best graphics cards. While it’s common to find ES samples of Intel or AMD processors on the second-hand market, it’s not every day that you see an ES sample graphics card, much less one from the Titan family.

The rare GeForce GTX Titan X has all the dressing of a retail sample except for the display outputs. While the original has a DVI port, an HDMI 2.0 port, and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, the ES sample only retains the HDMI 2.0 and one of the DisplayPort outputs. The lack of video outputs initially made the Redditor believe that someone had scammed him with a fake Titan graphics card. However, an Nvidia forum representative has clarified that the graphics card is an engineering sample, judging by the part number that begins with 699.

“I don’t know where this came from but we sometimes seed engineering cards to partners and unfortunately it occasionally winds up on some marketplace,” replied the Nvidia representative in the Reddit thread.

Launched in 2015, the GeForce GTX Titan X leveraged the GM200 (Maxwell) silicon, which measured 601 mm² and housed up to eight billion transistors. At the time, TSMC produced the GM200 for Nvidia on the 28nm process node. The Redditor's GPU-Z screenshot didn't reveal anything spectacular about the engineering sample. It still has 3,072 CUDA cores operating at 1,000 MHz and 12GB of GDDR5 memory at 7 Gbps. Being an engineering sample, the graphics card boosted up to 1,076 MHz, 13 MHz lower than on the retail GeForce GTX Titan X.

The GeForce GTX Titan X is too long in the tooth to be a gaming monster by today's standards. The graphics card performs roughly in the same ballpark as the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. The Redditor tested it in Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1080p (1920x1080) with maximum preset, and the graphics card only managed to deliver an average framerate of 37.95 FPS. The GeForce GTX Titan X makes for a nice collector's item and belongs on a wall. The Redditor didn't share the price he paid for the ES graphics card, only that he bought it on eBay.

Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX Titan X at $999 seven years ago. It's funny how times changed when one grand could get you a flagship graphics card back then. Nowadays, you can't even buy a GeForce RTX 4080 for the same amount of money.

It would appear that even Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card is susceptible to the ongoing 16-pin power adapter meltdowns. The first reported case of Founders Edition surfaced on Reddit over the weekend.

The affected GeForce RTX 4090 owner stated in a Reddit thread that they bought the GeForce RTX 4090 from Best Buy on October 19, so the Ada flagship wasn't even a month old when it fell victim to the meltdown. The user housed the graphics card inside his Asus ROG Helios case without the side panel on so as to avoid bending the 16-pin adapter (the alleged cause of other RTX 4090 meltdowns). The Redditor confirmed that they had connected the three 8-pin PCIe power cables from his Asus ROG Thor 1200W power supply.

The user spent the next seven days playing Call of Duty: Warzone, around two to three hours a day, but then his screen went pitch black on October 29th. But, unfortunately, it was already too late when they took apart the system. The damage was already done, and the 16-pin power adapter and the 16-pin power connector on the GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition had melted. The Redditor has returned the damaged graphics card and adapter to Nvidia for analysis. Unfortunately, although the chipmaker sent the Redditor a replacement three days later, they are reluctant to install the graphics card.

According to the thread on Reddit, we're just four incidents short of reaching the magic 30 number. Until this weekend, there was only user feedback on custom GeForce RTX 4090 models, but it seems like even the Founders Edition may not be safe. Nvidia's investigation continues as new reports continue to pile up. In a short statement, the chipmaker said it was still investigating the reports and didn't have any new details.

The only new development so far is that Nvidia has confirmed to the German publication Igor's Lab that the company purchased its 16-pin power adapters from two manufacturers: Astron and NTK. Both adapters conform to PCI-SIG's specifications. However, Zotac and Gigabyte allegedly told Igor's Lab that the NTK adapters are less vulnerable to failures after several mating contacts. The important word here is "less," so there is still an inherent probability that a failure can occur.

There have been numerous theories around the 16-pin power adapter's failures, spanning from the adapter's design to user error. Sadly, there's not much GeForce RTX 4090 owners can do other than wait until Nvidia concludes its investigation. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, so let's hope Nvidia can end the GeForce RTX 4090 casualties sooner rather than later.

According to a report by Vice, Redditor PoisonWaffle3 shared a new post detailing how he managed to snag one of Netflix's 10-year-old caching servers for free. Even though it is a decade old, it packs some serious hardware even by today's standards and features an impressive 262TB of storage. This post represents one of the very few times we've seen Netflix's server infrastructure up close and personal.

The Redditor says he received the Netflix server courtesy of the company he works for, an internet service provider. Apparently, the ISP has used these Netflix servers for years but is now upgrading its infrastructure with newer hardware, which is how PoisonWaffle3 managed to get this server for free.

According to Vice, this server is known as a Netflix caching server and was part of Netflix's open connect content delivery network (CDN). This system is still in use today and is designed to reduce overall bandwidth demands on the Netflix platform by giving ISPs their own Netflix caching server. This allows popular Netflix content to play directly from the ISP's servers instead of traveling from Netflix's server farms.

The server is painted in bright red and comes in the form factor of a 4U rack-mounted server chassis. An LCD for monitoring server health is on the front, along with a pair of VGA ports and a pair of USB ports. To the left is a pair of thin power supplies that are likely hot-swappable.

Specs feature a Supermicro motherboard packing a single Intel 10-core hyperthreaded Xeon E5 2650L v2 chip, 64GB of DDR3 memory and a 10 GbE card. For storage, the system utilizes six 500GB Micron SSDs and 36 7.2TB 7200RPM drives. We don't know what protocol the drives are running on, but we can presume them to all be SAS drives (including the SSDs).

Even by today's standards, these core specifications aren't bad and were incredibly good back in the early 2010s when this server was first deployed. 64 GB of memory and 262TB of storage is nothing to sneeze at, especially for home use as a network attached storage (NAS).

Putting aside the beefy specifications, the unit is apparently pretty simple on the software side of things. According to Vice, Dave Temkin, Netflix's former VP of NSI says these Netflix servers are just Intel FreeBSD boxes, while some run on Linux. This makes sense, considering the servers were only designed to cache video files coming from Netflix servers and nothing more.

According to the Redditor, his Netflix caching server did need some repairs, including replacing a few noisy fans and one failed drive, but that's about it. He says the server will get a second life operating as a NAS at home.

A Newegg representative told Tom's Hardware via email that it refunded a customer who claimed to have received blocks of metal instead of an Nvidia Geforce RTX 4090. The company also says banning customer accounts is a "normal" part of the fraud investigation process.

"The customer sent a claim to Newegg that his package did not contain the new 4090 graphics card he ordered but instead weights in the photo he sent us," Eric Wein, head of public relations and partnerships at Newegg, told Tom's Hardware.

"We suspended his account, which is our normal protocol when investigating fraud cases, for a few days so we could investigate. (This protects the customer in case someone else has access to their account.)"

The ban was a part of Reddit user u/NuclearInnardsBeep's initial complaint, who had written at the time that "Newegg seems to have locked my account instead of responding, so that's cool."

Wein went on to say that Newegg was "unable to determine the source of the theft," and that it issued a refund while the customer was suspended and then reinstated their account.

"The package was weighed both at Newegg and by the carrier. Its weight was the same and standard in both measurements for that 4090 graphics card, Wein wrote. He added that this "has been the only fraud case like this" and that "Newegg considers this a resolved customer case."

Tom's Hardware reached out over Reddit to ask u/NuclearInnardsBeep about the refund, but didn't hear back before publication. We'll update this story if we get any new details.

The initial post of the RTX 4090 box was met with a mix of displeasure from the PC building community, including some users who expressed issues with Newegg's customer service, and surprise, as some onlookers thought the whole thing might be a gag for upvotes on Reddit. A number of Redditors suggested pushing for a chargeback from the customer's bank, while Gamers Nexus' Steve Burke offered to pay full price for the box and weights.

We have been unable to verify much about this story, and details of the weights that rocked the PC gaming community have been shrouded in mystery. There has been some anger towards Newegg recently, especially after the PC parts vendor had to make changes to its open-box return policy back in February after Burke posted a scathing video about his experiences attempting to return a motherboard. Additionally, the Newegg Shuffle, which bundled hard-to-find graphics cards with other components in a raffle system during the peak of the mining boom and COVID-19 pandemic, was criticized for making desperate people buy extra items they didn't want.

This wouldn't be the first time someone claimed to have received a missing or replaced item. A quick search pulls up someone who claimed to buy a MacBook from Best Buy in June, only to receive an empty box.

This incident, regardless of its veracity, has stoked the fires of a community looking for parts vendors to trust.

Wein's full email is reprinted in full below:

The customer sent a claim to Newegg that his package did not contain the new 4090 graphics card he ordered but instead weights in the photo he sent us. We suspended his account, which is our normal protocol when investigating fraud cases, for a few days so we could investigate. (This protects the customer in case someone else has access to their account.)

We were unable to determine the source of the theft. Given that, during the suspension period, we issued a refund and reinstated his account.

The package was weighed both at Newegg and by the carrier. Its weight was the same and standard in both measurements for that 4090 graphics card.

This has been the only fraud case like this.

Newegg considers this a resolved customer case.

A recent Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 buyer has been lamenting his purchase on Reddit. It isn’t another case of a delivery switcheroo though, as this time the PC DIYer is feeling ‘burnt’ due to the graphics card power connector melting. A lot of power travels though a confined space with an RTX 4090 using the 16-pin 12VHPWR power connector, and so far this is the first report of a melted "quadropus" adapter — the standard 4x 8-pin to 1x 16-pin Nvidia adapter cable that comes with all 4090 cards.

Still, we have to wonder if the user was just unlucky, made a slight error in installation, or if this is the first of many such melting power connector tales we're going to see in the coming months. The RTX 4090 might be the fastest of the best graphics cards right now, but it's also one of the most power hungry GPUs to grace PCs.

Update, 10/24/2022: There are now two reports of melted RTX 4090 16-pin adapter cables, the second from a user with an Asus RTX 4090 TUF Gaming OC card. We don't know how many people have purchased RTX 4090 cards, but we urge caution in how you install the cables. We've reached out to Nvidia, Asus, and Gigabyte for comment and received the following response from Nvidia:

"We are investigating the reports. We are in contact with the first owner and will be reaching out to the other for additional information." —Nvidia's Bryan Del Rizzo

Original text follows below.

Checking out Redditor reggie_gakil’s setup via the above-linked thread, it's a powerful looking RGB infused PC system that packs in a potent mix of air and liquid cooling solutions. A reference RTX 4090 sucks 450W down though the compact power connector, but factory overclocked models can push that up to around 500W, and manual overclocking could increase that to 600W or more.

The Redditor asserts he was simply playing Red Dead Redemption 2, with a relatively modest GPU load of 400W, when the cable melted, which appears to rule out extreme overclocking. Assuming that's true, we still have several potential points of failure.

All power connectors need to be seated properly and fully engaged to ensure trouble-free conductivity. This is a particularly crucial concern with higher power components where a poor connection might cause overheating or even electric arcing, with disastrous consequences. Reggie_gakil’s images show signs that there was a connection issue present, causing the connector and socket to melt.

The big question is whether the issue was precipitated by user error, a fault in the connector, or something else. “Bend was not that aggressive,” the Redditor states in a comment following the publication of the connector pictures and questions from other social media users.  “Sure there was bend, still this should not happen on a 2K Euro GPU PSU Corsair RMX 1000.”

Looking closer at the images of the melted connectors, it might simply be the case that the bend in the cable was too near the connector, or that the sockets on the adapter were faulty / loose. There's clear damage that seems to originate on the top-right and top-left pins, while the center section doesn't show as much melting. And of course it's impossible to rule out a flaky power supply — what worked fine with a lesser GPU may have crossed some critical threshold with the RTX 4090.

Whatever the cause, we hope the manufacturer(s) contacted will help clear up reggie_gakil’s melted connector issues. Then he can get back to some high-resolution, fast frame rate, pistol packing fun in the wild west.

Beyond that, CableMod has a guide on the new 16-pin connector and cables. It recommends avoiding bend on the cables and notes, "...it appears that bending the wires too close to the connector could result in some of the terminals coming loose or misaligning within the connector itself. This may lead to an uneven load across the other wires, increasing the risk of overheating damage. The risk of this is substantially higher if the bend is done horizontally in relation to the connector orientation (left to right)." That almost feels... prescient given this Redditor's experience — look at the second image above and notice the horizonal bend on the cables.

For anyone else who manages to acquire an RTX 4090, we can only recommend verifying that all the 8-pin and 16-pin connectors are firmly seated and avoid bending the wires anywhere near the connector as much as possible. Leaving the case side off at first while you fire up some games and check the cable and connector temperatures might be wise.

The big Windows 11 22H2 update was released for mass consumption earlier in the week, delivering new Start Menu and Explorer features and various other refinements. However, it wouldn't be Windows without a much-heralded update precipitating annoying issues for a sizable segment of its users. In the friendly fire line this time were Nvidia GeForce graphics card users. The problems, reported via numerous forums and social media platforms, included irritating "stuttering and massive lag while playing games," reports Bleeping Computer.

The source collected a handful of quotes from Reddit users, who vented their anguish on the news and discussion-centric social media site. One user complained about his CPU not being utilized by games after the Windows update. Another moaned about highly unstable framerates when gaming, and another grumbled about games stuttering. Something all these users had in common was powerful modern PC builds with Nvidia GeForce graphics. Another consistent clue to the underlying problem was that many reports cited CPU underutilization in their games. A CPU with as low as 5% utilization amid a gaming session sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, we see an example of a Tom's Hardware forum member having a nightmarish stuttering games experience in the wake of the Windows 11 22H2 update. Thankfully, forum moderator and Windows 11 expert Colif helped out with the issues, describing a workaround so that the OP could go back to silky smooth gaming.

If you aren't keen on workarounds like rolling back updates of large software packages and drivers, you should probably wait for Nvidia (or Microsoft) to address these glaring issues with a patch or hotfix. Nvidia already confirmed that it is aware of the performance and stuttering issues. While it is still at the information-gathering stage, it is good to know that it is getting busy before the weekend.  

Of course, our advice to those Nvidia gamers using Windows 11 who haven't applied Microsoft's 22H2 feature update is to hold back for now. Nvidia and/or Microsoft will probably address the CPU utilization sourced stuttering and slowdowns soon.