Buildapc

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but thought it might help some people, or at least be entertaining.

This is partly a cautionary tale and partly a story of how I nearly got outsmarted by a tiny switch. I've been tinkering with custom-built PCs for over 10 years now, so I'm not exactly a newbie. I've followed all the troubleshooting advice, tried every step, and usually nailed down the problem quickly. But this time, a little thing decided to teach me a big lesson.

A few days ago, my PC was purring along perfectly. No hiccups, no warning signs, just smooth sailing. Then one morning, I hit the power button, the fans start spinning, the lights flash on, and... nothing. Nada. No beeps, no display, just a PC with stage fright.

Cue several hours of troubleshooting. I strip it down to the essentials: PSU, CPU, RAM, and motherboard. Still no love. I try the RAM sticks one at a time in different slots, like some desperate game of PC bingo. No luck. I swap in a different PSU. Same old story. Now I'm getting that sinking feeling; it's either the CPU or the motherboard, and I've got no spares to test with.

So I think, "Well, if I'm going to buy a new CPU or motherboard and risk guessing wrong, I might as well upgrade everything!" I go all-in and order a whole new setup: motherboard, CPU, cooler, and even DDR5 RAM since my new board demands it. Problem solved, right?

Fast forward to the next day, and the new gear arrives. I spend a couple of hours installing everything. Okay, maybe a bit longer because I forgot the cooler bracket and had to reinstall the motherboard a couple of times. But hey, that's normal, right? Finally, it's ready. I hit the power button, fans spin, lights come on, and... nothing. No beeps, no display. Again.

Now I'm thoroughly confused. Thankfully, this new motherboard has indicator lights to show boot progress. It shows the CPU is working, but it gets stuck on RAM and restarts. I go through all the RAM troubleshooting steps again. Still nothing. Then, in a fit of frustration, I don't push a RAM stick in all the way. Suddenly, a beep code! I look it up: "No RAM installed." I push the stick in properly, and the beep goes away.

So now I know the RAM isn't the issue. Then, it hits me. I reach beneath the GPU, yank out the CPU reset switch header, and power it up again. Single beep. I have never sighed so hard in my life.

Nowhere in all the troubleshooting guides or videos I've seen did it mention unplugging case headers. No one said, "Hey, maybe your reset switch has decided to go rogue and mess with you." But here I was, having just bought a bunch of shiny new hardware because of a pesky, broken reset button.

The moral of the story? If your PC fails to boot and gives you no beep codes, unplug the RAM. If you get a "no RAM installed" beep code, your CPU is fine. Then, check the case headers. You won't find advice telling you to try a different case, but sometimes, the smallest culprits cause the biggest headaches.

TLDR: My PC wouldn't post because of a faulty CPU reset switch on the case constantly restarting the CPU. This led me to think it was the motherboard or CPU and buy a bunch of new hardware unnecessarily.

Have been building up this PC over the past couple years. Runs well but am trying to figure out what the best upgrade would be at this point. My guess is memory, but I’m not sure. Budget is flexible but would like to stay under $300. Thanks!

edit to clarify this is a gaming rig

Hi everyone,

It's been many years since I've last built a PC from scratch or even upgraded any parts. I've been using a prebuilt Lenovo Legion Cube C530‐19ICB for several years now and I'm generally happy with it mostly because the case fits nicely in my living room cabinet (hooked up to the TV).

I have an option to purchase a new RTX 40 Series card in a few days for a decent price and I'm wondering which of these will be compatible to my existing PC:

1. 4060Ti (8GB)

2. 4070 Super

3. 4080 Super

I assume I need to check dimensions (not sure if everything has a standard like "full height" etc.) and PSU Watts (how strict are these requirements?). Not sure if there's PCI type/width issues or anything else I need to cover, or what do I get the info for both my PC and each card from.

If anyone can help guide me through figuring out which of these cards could be compatible, I'd appreciate it a lot!

Edit: Seems like the 4080 is too much for my current build (card length, PSU, etc.) but both the 4070 and 4060 could work. Thanks everyone for your advice!

Hello! I have chosen some parts for a PC based around a monitor I currently have. I have a 4k monitor and the games I'd like to play on it and the current PC I have isn't cutting it anymore unfortunately.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Vc2cH

These are the parts I've chosen, I already have 24GB of RAM, just wondering if there's anything cheaper I can get to lower the price and get similar performance. I don't have much experience in building PCs but I've done a bit of research

Currently would like to play Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 on the 4k monitor with no issue.

Simply put I have built a gaming tower that I have no monitor that will connect with the machine only having a BIOS and no OS. As I understand it, I need something that will connect with an HDMI cable, but that seems to be either a traditional monitor or a tablet. I'm completely unsure which would be more stable, and therefore "better." I lean towards the normal static monitor over HDMI enabled tablets, but I am uncertain if that is just me being out of touch with the latest hardware.

This is the build list I used, except I doubled the RAM to 64 GB of the same type.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mykt4M

Thank you very much, in advance.

Hey all,

I took a gamble on a "for parts" 5800x3d that had a few bent pins. I currently have a 5600x with an ASUS TUF x570-Plus WiFi and thought this would be a nice upgrade.

The problem I'm seeing, is that the system won't post with the 5800 and hangs with the orange/yellow DRAM LED on the motherboard.

I thought to update the BIOS with the old CPU, but I already had a version that would support the new one. After that, I tried swapping RAM modules and only using one, then the other. Eventually I updated the BIOS to the most recent version and resetting with the jumper, but it still won't post.

Looking at the pin layout and considering the bent pins were all in one corner, I am wondering if the original owner tried to install this CPU rotated 90° and delivered some high power where it shouldn't've gone.

Any fun ideas, or did I just pay for a nice learning experience?

I'm currently waiting for all the components for my PC upgrade to arrive. Got the motherboard today and immediately upon opening, I noticed that the CMOS battery was not in its slot but just kind of next to it loose on top of the board. The slot seems fine, it seems to fit securely in there. No scratches on the board either. But now I'm a bit worried - could the battery have shorted something on the motherboard? It holds a charge after all. What do you think - should I return it for a new one untested or are the chances of the battery harming anything so miniscule that I should just go for it and use it in my build?

... caused by my own tinkering.

Edit: SOLVED! simply disconnecting the drives and then adding them one by one (starting with the windows drive, dont know if thats important) did the trick

(Sorry if this is the wrong community for HELP ME posts like this, couldnt find one that fit the bill better)

So recently i made up my find about switching my self-build from 2018 from win10 to linux mint, though i first wanted to try it out in dual-boot. I created a bootable usb and started the installation process to a partition on an ssd thats seperate from the hdd that holds my windows installation. Installation worked out fine, PC powered down from live usb mint and booted into mint from my petition (worked fine). Afterwards i powered it down to check if i could access windows.

After turning it on, instead of showing the GRUB OS selections screen, it just showed a GRUB command window, and my keyboard wasnt recognized.

Powered down, disconnected the ssd in hopes of forcing windows to start, no luck. Entering BIOS via f2 or del on startup didnt work either (probably because fast boot was enabled), tried every available usb-port for the keyboard to either get into BIOS or at least get GRUB to respond. Nothing.

After shopping for solutions online, i cleared CMOS via the button on the mobo. I hoped it would either help the keyboard get recognised by GRUB, or at least deactivate fast-boot. But after powering the pc on again, my screen stays blank and the indication LEDs DRAM and BOOT are glowing.

I already tried taking out one of the two ram-sticks and placing the remaining one in each of the slots, then did the same withe other stick. No effect on the DRAM LED.

Im not quite at wits end here, but i thought before i continue to haphazardly apply fixes found online (and probably making it worse) i would look wether anybody here has good ideas for what steps to take next.

Here is my hardware:

Mobo: nzxt n7 b550

cpu: amd ryzen 5 5600x

gpu: amd rx 580 sapphire nitro+

psu: be quiet pure power 11 500W

ssd: kingston 240gb (linux boot)

hdd1: barracuda 1tb (win10 boot)

hdd2: wd blue 2tb (mostly games and stuff)

Gaming

• Mostly a huge array of co-op games, performance doesn't matter much, just good 1440 frame rate with high settings.
• HOWEVER, sim racing is my exception and I'm wanting to upgrade from a single 27" to something more immersive. Considering I'm on the most minimal, a TV, triple 24s, or VR are all big immersion upgrades, but each with their pros and cons. But all demanding more of the GPU,ideally keeping rates at 120, even 90 maybe... 1080 for triples, but ideally 1440 all-round to make use of FSR better.

Data Science

• I need my PC to be a workhorse. Many hours of my week are ETL of big datasets and complex models. Lots of calculation time and lots of loading tables/arrays into memory for queries and transforms.
• Ive recently gone up to 32GB DDR4 3600 (going to go to 64) and an R9 5900X. It's done nothing huge for gaming, but it's increased my data crunching tasks significantly.

What I have right now...

Guts

• Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard
• AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor
• MSI MECH 2X Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Video Card
• Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory

Storage (This is way behind)

• Samsung 860 Evo 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
• Silicon Power UD90 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
• And some ancient 2TB 7200 HDD that's a dying archive only drive

Primary display

• Acer Nitro XZ272U Pbmiiphx 27.0" 2560 x 1440 165 Hz Curved Monitor

Cooling

• Lian Li Lancool II Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case
• Deepcool LT520 85.85 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

Where I'm stuck...

• Should I go up to AM5 even though I just got the 5900X?
• Do I then go DDR5 instead of 64GB DDR4 or am I getting too many year's ahead of myself?
• The 6700XT is not overclocking friendly, for sim racing I may need to bump up if going for more display.
• For storage, what's the best way to go for a bunch of games installed, but also not having stuff get in the way of data crunching applications and calculations? Should I reserve a drive purely for data? Can I dedicate anything to it on top of the 64GM RAM coming in?
• Lastly, the display conundrum for sim racing; VR, TV, triples... 49" UW on top of any above upgrades is just way over budget.

I'm basically just after ideas of what to prioritise next, what can wait a while, and what path I should be starting on for future-proofing without spending the budget on future gear too soon while it's all expensive.

Advice much appreciated.

I’m in the market for a new monitor. It’ll be used for gaming and browsing, but also light graphic design/video editing and lots of email- and document-writing, some spreadsheets, etc. My graphics work is not very color sensitive, and I have a “normal” $100 IPS monitor on the side to compare.

The two options that caught my eye so far:

BenQ Mobiuz EX3410R - 34” 21:9 1440p 144hz VA with 1000R curve (450 USD)

BenQ Mobiuz EX270QM - 27” 16:9 1440p 240hz IPS (570 USD)

I’m upgrading from a 24” Acer Predator XB253Q GX 1080p 240hz IPS, which I chose because I had a 90’s desk with a hutch that limited monitor size. I’ve been fairly happy with it despite a few quirks and low PPI, but that desk is going to the curb soon so it’s time for something bigger.

My PC is Ryzen 5800X3D, 32G RAM, RTX 4700 Ti. I predict my usual games will hover around 180-200 fps in QHD, and 120-140 in UWQHD.

I know I’d be happy with what would be a direct upgrade to a 27” 1440p version of my current monitor, but I’m feeling the pull toward the novelty of UW and curved. I've only had 16:9 and a few 16:10 flat monitors.

Here are my concerns about going UW curved:

1. Since I’m doing some WFH text and graphics, I want to make sure I won’t regret the leap. I think I’d get used to the curve, but I’ve heard that some VA panels can get a bit wonky with text.

2. While my graphics work is not very color sensitive, it sometimes is a little bit… I can’t be giving people jaundice, I mean. The Acer isn’t exactly perfect either, but it’s good enough. And I always check photos on my side monitor and my phone.

3. Whatever I choose will be my daily driver for probably 7+ years. I’m concerned that there will always be adjustments and compromises if I go curved. Meanwhile, flat 16:9 is fool-proof, but I’ll always suffer from grass-is-greener syndrome.

4. I know both of these options run the risk of backlight bleed - the VA because it’s large and curved, and the IPS because it’s IPS. The “IPS glow” doesn’t really bother me too much, but edge bleed would. I got lucky with my Acer - it’s pretty much solid black. I don’t know which would be more risky for developing backlight bleed.

5. The EX270QM is brighter and has much better color - bother a wider gamut and more accurate. I’m not sure if the curve and extra width will be a worthy trade-off, even if I love 21:9 curved. So, again, a different grass is greener problem.

6. I really enjoyed 240hz G-Sync smoothness, but I don’t play serious competitive stuff and I could downgrade to 144hz, as long as the other benefits are worth the trade-off. I also think QHD will hover around 180fps in my current games, and UWQHD around 140 maybe. I’d probably only get the full benefit of 240hz QHD in older games.

Do any of you own either of these or similar monitors? And even if not, please alleviate any of my concerns or try to sway me one way or another. If you have other recommendations in the $450-600 range, I’d welcome them too.

Edit - TL;DR: I’m torn and indecisive between 21:9 1440p curved VA and 16:9 1440p flat IPS. Color and quality are important, but so is gaming immersion. I yearn for something new from my 16:9 past, but I’m afraid I’ll fight with regret. I seek to learn from wisdom and experience. Please help.

I want to build a linux PC for digial audio and home network storage.

I plan to use a microphone to record acoustic instruments, so being quiet is a priority. Also, my usb audio interface and usb MIDI devices should be plugged in directly, no using a hub, so a lot of usb ports is another requirement. I'm not clear on whether my devices take advantage of usb3 speeds, but I think I'd better make sure I have more usb3 ports to use that speed if it's available.

Besides that I'd like to run a storage server for my home network. I'm not sure if this is a good idea on the same box I want to record on, but usage should be pretty light and I don't want to build a whole other device for this.

I have an older graphics card already, so I don't need that. I'd like to have a slot available in case I decide to get into experimenting with AI, but that's not in my budget for now.

I'd like to keep this under $1K. What parts should I get? It'd be extra helpful to put together a list in Micro Center's PC builder, since that's where I'm tentatively planning to pick up all my parts.

Hi all!

I’ve recently bought new components for my pc but i miss calculated what would fit in my current case (by about one or two millimeters). I have the arctix liquid freezer iii 280 which doesn’t fit in my current corsair crystal 570x. The problem was that the ram didn’t fit on the mb because it hit the fans below the radiator (top mounted).

I’ve looked into the fractal cases and the torrent seems the best bet but it also looks like it was designed for air cooling and putting the 280 radiator in the front defeats the purpose. I’ve also considered the North XL but im unsure if everything will fit with the top mount. I’m looking at Fractal cause i saw good reviews from GN but i’m open to everything!! (If it has a white variant even better:))

I previously researched and thought everything would fit so i kinda lost some faith in myself regarding this.

Any suggestions are welcome,

Thank you so muuch!!

I've got $90 to blow. I'm basically rich now. What should I upgrade? Uses are software development, vms, jellyfin, nas, local llms and occasional gaming. I haven't had issues with the psu but I'm thinking a name brand gold rated psu could be good. Otherwise 32gb more of ram?

PCPartPicker Part List

I needed a PC to test a PCIe card recently, so I put something together with some spare parts. The only PSU I had around was a corsair CX750M I took from a prebuild from about 2014-2015, one with the green labels. Searching around the internet I see loads of people saying not to buy them, but what about one I already have? How bad really it is? Will it fry my motherboard or burn my house down? Or is it just inefficient?

And can they easily be replaced?

I'm not looking, just pondering and wondering about Framework.

Hey Lemmy, I need some recommendations for a CPU-intensive slightly mobile rig. I run a lot of engineering simulations and I need a computer that I can move between my home and work on a semi-frequent basis. I'm looking for something more powerful than a laptop and I'll have monitors/peripherals at both locations. Maybe a mini-ITX in an HTPC style case? The sims don't really make use of GPU, so integrated graphics is just fine. They multi-thread a bit, but there are still single-core bottlenecks in the process, so highest single-core performance is probably pretty important. It's also got to handle 128GB of DDR5 and a M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.

A lot of the faster CPUs seem to need some serious cooling (100W+ TDP!) and I'd rather not have a jet engine roaring constantly since this thing will be sitting right on the desk next to me eating 100% CPU most of the time. Are there small form factor cases that can support water cooling? When Intel says a CPU has a processor base power of 125W, but a Max Turbo Power of 253W, does that imply that the 253W can't be sustained even with enough cooling?

My PC is getting on a little, it's running on an i7-4790k, 16gb ddr4, and a GTX 970. right now, it's struggling some in most games even though I don't play any triple A titles. What would be a sensible upgrade that wouldn't get totally bottlenecked by the CPU?

In most games I'm playing the CPU is pinned at around 25% while my card is maxed at 100% 3d and vmem usage so I'm fairly sure it's just my card that's the main limiting factor.

Laptop battery recently died, and I'm planning a new PC build anyway, so I'm wondering: can I just remove the HDD from my laptop and connect it to the motherboard? Would I need any extra parts or hardware? I'm guessing no, but it's hard to research on my phone. Any guidance is appreciated :) thanks!

anyone here has those? i'm kinda budget constrained, i need a quiet sfx psu, heard lian li one are kinda loud

I'm looking to replace the HDD on an HP Pavilion dv 6 6130-us. It has an i-3 2330M CPU. I know it's old as dirt, but I'd like to use it to run old games. It's also the only thing I own with a CD drive.

I've upgraded the RAM to the maximum it will support (16 GB). I'm thinking an SSD will help it run a great deal faster, but I'm stuck on what to get. So far, the Crucial MX500 seems like a good choice, but I'm wondering if any semi-reliable cheap SSD will do for something this old. I have to stick with something with a 2.5 inch form factor that uses SATA. Thoughts?

Recently I tried to clean my PC with an I5 11400F CPU. I removed the GPU and wanted to remove the CPU cooler too but couldn't do it. I tried though and I think I might have damaged the motherboard with a screwdriver in a few places during the process (don't ask how). Can it be the reason for the spikes? Like could I damage some sensors and now they sometimes fail and show 0°C (which is what 100°C to TjMAX means)? There are no other visible issues with the PC though so I guess it can be a just a bug. Btw I can't add screenshots because of some weird Jerboa bug

Anybody familiar with quadro cards?

I'm currently running an old Titan X for monitor display only and an RTX 3090 for computing/rendering.

If I run any monitors off of my 3090, I eventually get a BSOD when running renders or AI models. I think it's a driver issue due to being forced to use the driver for the old Titan card.

So I'm looking to get a quadro card for my 5 displays, a mixture of display port, dvi, and hdmi.

Anybody got any affordable recommendations? It will need to have at least enough processing power to run my viewports in 3dsmax and blender.

I'm not building a PC at the moment, but this drove me nuts last time I got a laptop, and I've been wondering if anyone else has ideas along these lines.

I'd like to have a laptop that:

• Has a 100 Wh battery (100 Wh being the largest allowed on airplanes, so generally the limit on what one can get). I don't mind the weight or the cost, but recently it's been increasingly-difficult to find 100 Wh laptops. The laptops that do tend to be heavy power consumers; they're aimed not at providing a long battery life, but managing to keep a gaming laptop running for a short period of time.

• I'd very much like to have a Thinkpad-style trackpad, with three mechanical buttons. I don't care about the "nipple mouse" on Thinkpads. Synaptics makes these, but laptops with them are quite difficult to find these days.

• Is as upgradable as possible. I'd rather not pay an exorbitant amount to have a large amount of memory and NVMe on the thing.

• I don't really care about heavy weight or large size (at least within the kind of weight classes that laptops have).

• I would like to have a centered keyboard, though, if the laptop is large. I don't use a numeric keypad (I have an external USB one that I can use for the very rare times that I want to use something where it's actually useful), and many larger laptops (which often have larger batteries) de-center the keyboard and stick a numeric keypad on the side.

• I generally favor vertical screen space (i.e. for reading documents and webpages rather than watching movies). 16:10 ratio is preferable to 16:9, and I'd take more-vertical ratios if they were available.

• It'd be nice to have so much lower bezel below the monitor that I could lie down and use the thing on my chest without my hands obstructing the view of the screen.

• I'd use Linux on it. At least with major vendors, compatibility isn't really an issue these days, but it's something that I do keep in mind.

• It's not vital that I have discrete video hardware, but if I do, I'd rather go with AMD hardware rather than NVIDIA, as AMD is more Linux-friendly.

• I'd slightly-favor not getting something out of China, though that's not a must-have.

• Having a fair number of USB C ports -- which I expect to use more of moving forward -- is nice, as is rapid charging.

• I'd rather not have "gamer-style" aesthetics with LEDs and a ton of decorative plastic molding all over the thing.

• I can live with an unimpressive integrated camera, though I do use the thing occasionally.

• I don't mind doing some work on this, like spodging open a laptop to upgrade non-soldered memory and NMVe, but I don't really want to go to the degree of 3d-printing a laptop case or something like that myself.

• I'd be willing to get a thicker laptop.

• I'd slightly favor having fan vents on the side rather than bottom, so that if I put the laptop on my chest, I'm not blocking said vents. That being said, that's a hard ask these days with thin laptops and wanting to have a fair number of ports on the side.

• I'd like to have a wired Ethernet port, but I can live without it; a USB adapter would be okay.

• I'm not rabid about display brightness, but I've generally found that Thinkpads have a weak-enough backlight that it can be annoying, even at maximum power. OLED would be nice.

• I don't mind paying somewhat-more for a laptop like that, but I'd prefer to not go more than several hundred extra, not several thousand.

Some things that I've looked at that hit at least some of these:

• Thinkpad T-series. This is what I'm using now; I've used and been relatively-happy with Thinkpads in the past. I'm generally happy with the aesthetics. It ticks the "Synaptics trackpad" box. Lenovo has no option for a large battery (my T14 has a 57 Wh battery) (whereas Thinkpads used to have available externally-accessible batteries that would extend beyond the bounds of the case; some even had a smaller backup internal battery and let a user hot-swap the larger batteries). At least on the T-series laptop I have, the components are not soldered and I had no problems spodging the thing open and upgrading them. Charging speed is okay, but isn't mind-blowing. Bottom air vents. It's out of China these days. Has a decent amount of bottom bezel, but not enough that I can lie down without my hands obstructing the screen. In general, I'd rather have a heavier/thicker laptop with a longer battery life than is the case for these today.

• Framework laptop. These are one of the few laptops that permit one to increase the number of USB C ports. They also have the option to get a large laptop with a centered keyboard. They don't provide an option to have a user-replaceable trackpad, unfortunately, so no Synaptics trackpad, and they don't provide another option for mechanical trackpad buttons. These only go up to 61 Wh battery. They specifically target working out-of-box with the base Linux kernel, no third-party drivers.

• Tuxedo Computers's InfinityBook. These guys make a 14-inch-display laptop with a 99 Wh battery, which is an uncommon combination. No three mechanical trackpad buttons, no AMD video. They don't extort one on hardware upgrades, though they do have a relatively-high base price. Good Linux support, as they ship with various Linux distros.

Any laptop can have the battery situation mitigated by hauling around a USB-C powerstation, which is what I do today and I suspect why laptop manufacturers are willing to scrimp on internal battery. Maybe I could set up something to disable charging unless the internal battery is low if a power station is connected...not sure if it's possible to detect that, whether there are power stations that also communicate with the host. But I'd rather have a larger internal battery.

To solve the "hands obstructing screen when using laptop when lying down" issue, I did try picking up a head-mounted display, a used Royole Moon. This was not satisfactory; it took a lot of twitchy setup for each use, I found that it tended to fog up, it placed what I found to be uncomfortable pressure on one's nose, and I found that if the screen wasn't exactly right, parts of the display would appear to be out-of-focus. It also completely cuts one off from the world, which is fine for some of my use, though not a solution all the time. I don't think that head-mounted displays are really a replacement for traditional monitors yet.

• Don't use a laptop at all, and just use a luggable PC, maybe in a backpack or suitcase, microATX or mini-ITX with some kind of power station. External portable monitor. This opens up an enormous number of options; I can use any USB trackpad (or even other input device) and keyboard. My battery problems go away, because I can choose the size and charging speed of the powerstation backing it, could have hundreds of watt-hours. I don't need to worry about blocking the vents. Graphics options -- lots of portable OLED monitors -- and upgrading the thing are good. The option is available to put the display on a stand in front of the keyboard if I'm using it with it sitting on my chest when lying down, which probably isn't going to be an option with a laptop. However, there are also a number of downsides; it means that the components probably aren't as focused on low power usage or dealing well with hibernation unless I want to do the investigation work that laptop vendors already will have. Less-portable and has more setup time; one probably wants to put at least a USB hub, portable monitor, keyboard, trackpad/trackball, and maybe WiFi receiver on the table/desk when being used. No "lid switch" to auto-suspend, though I expect that I can rig something up to do that or just reconfigure the power button, if all else fails. Powerstations don't normally have a way to report remaining battery charge (though some UPSes do over USB, it's not treated as a "battery"), which is unfortunate, as one doesn't get things like a "time remaining" estimate onscreen.

Anyone else been in a similar situation and wanted something along those lines, has had ideas or done research?

I'm building a PC for my wife to do photo editing / retouching / other 2d/non moving stuff. I'm aware that this kind of software does benefit from GPU acceleration, but I'm also under impression that it's not critical. One additional constraint is that it should fit into teenage engineering's computer-1 case, because orange. I'm personally having a preference for AMD stuff, but I could be talked out of it. Two similarly priced options I had in mind were:

• Ryzen 5600 / 16G ram / radeon 6600 GPU
• Ryzen 8600G / 32G ram / no gpu

Thoughts / suggestions?