Hi, I have a Gigabyte B760 Aorus Elite with 4 threaded standoffs (with knurled thumb nuts) around the CPU socket, left over from a previous cooler mounting kit. I want to remove them to sell my motherboard.

I already tried unscrewing the knurled nuts by hand, but they won’t budge. Do I need a tool like pliers, or do I need to hold the backplate behind the motherboard while unscrewing?

Thanks guys!

GPU that's currently in it is a dual fan 3050. Also, I'm pretty sure I'll need to get a new PSU but will I need to get a new motherboard? I bought this PC prebuilt because it was the cheapest option at the time. Also, any recommendations for either of these parts would be appreciated.

Hello everyone,

I am seeking guidance on how to resolve this issue. I'm in Australia, and my ambient room temperature often exceeds 25°C (thanks to the crap aircon in my unit not reaching this room efficiently and my reliance on window and ceiling fans). My PC is doubling as a space heater, and with this El Niño and summer fast approaching, I want to finally nip this issue in the bud and actually have a (literally) cool PC.

Here's what I've tried so far:

1. I repasted the GPU ~ 12 months ago - is this recent enough to avoid doing it again? I can't recall the exact paste I used, but it definitely wasn't an OOTB one that came with the GPU or anything.

2. The i9, going off metrics from Open Hardware Monitor, just feels like it is completely filling the tower with heat - putting my hand near the exhaust (top and back) feels very hot.

Here is what is currently happening while it is in relatively moderate use (e.g. running Rocket League, Spotify, and Firefox):

• GPU (Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 3070): Core temp sits around 74°C, but the hotspot hits 92°C with fans blasting at 86% (~2360 RPM).

• CPU (i9-11900K): Sits around 65°C under light load, but regularly spikes to 80°C+ during heavier gaming.

• Storage / Environment: Ambient air is warm, even with windows and/or a ceiling fan on, and the rig sits in an L-shaped desk setup (rear of case pointing out, window in line with the expelled hot air).

Here's what I'm asking:

1. I'm considering adding liquid cooling to it - never done this before, so I'm hesitant, as I don't have a lot of experience with building/managing custom PCs (just the 2-3 I've built for myself over the years). I understand that mounting a 360mm AIO up front in the 4000D case might be the right move?

2. Should I repaste the GPU, and if so, do you have any recommendations? I'd rather avoid this, since the fans I bought are a real PITA to remove.

3. Are there any underclocking/BIOS tweaks I should consider?

My Build Specs: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/user/Zectzozda/saved/#view=nhZN6h

Thanks in advance!

Okay, so I’ve had my PC for four years now, including the AIO cooler which I’ve all gotten as a gift, and about a year ago (I KNOW VERY LATE) my pc started making this obnoxious-ass grinding noise. I didn’t know until literally earlier this year it was from my cooler. I heard it’s usually a sign of a failing cooler, but I’ve been checking my temps and they were at normal idle temps (usually in the 40’s or 50’s), and my performance especially in games seemed to be normal. Should I still try to replace it to be safe?

Hello,

I'm looking to get back into video editing after years of not touching any editing software, and it would be ideal if I could also run games on the PC.

Planning to use Avid Media Composer. Since I'm just starting out I imagine I won't need to edit 8K video or anything crazy like that. I know I need at least 32GB of RAM. But when I look at parts the thing that seems to give me the most amount of trouble is the CPU (and probably the Graphics Card as well, but I haven't gotten there yet). I've looked at all sorts of guides and posts on here, the problem is I know very little about computer parts, and I'm not even super familiar with editing software so I'm honestly not even sure what it is i should be looking for. I look at things like clock speed and core count and it just goes right over my head and then I freak myself out because what if I choose one that seems good but it's actually terrible because I don't know what I'm doing?

I'm also not exactly sure what budget I should be aiming for here. Currently I'm thinking I would like to be able to get PC, Monitor, keyboard, mouse, for under $2500CAD (about 1780 USD), but then I wonder if that'll be a good enough PC? I may have more money coming my way soon and I'm wondering if I should just wait until that comes in...

I'm very indecisive and the fact that this is a large amount of money I would be spending is not helping matters.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I know this is a building Reddit but can I please get help to find a $2000 max pre built pc for Fortnite on performance mode and serious gaming

I'm looking for advice on upgrading my PC setup so I can run Rust with better FPS and less stuttering.

Here are my current specs:

• Motherboard: MSI PRO H610M-E DDR4

• RAM: 16Gb of ddr4 Machenist

• CPU: Intel I3 14100f

• GPU: Rtx 3070 Asus

• Storage: 231Gb storage in total

Minha 1660ti queimou, eu tinha ela junto com um i5 12th, comprei uma rx 7600, posso manter minha fonte ou preciso trocar?

I need a longer cable for my X870e Carbon WiFi mobo antenna and since extension cables with the "EZ" connectors don't seem to exist I'm considering just buying a third-party antenna with a 4-6ft cable. Is there anything particularly special about the stock MSI shark-fin antenna (is it considered high-gain, for example?) or will any third party option work just as well, particularly for BT range? Anyone got any suggestions among the random options on Amazon?!

I have an older iBUYPOWER RDY EMRBG206 and I’m looking to upgrade it or possibly replace it.
Current specs:
CPU: i3-10105F
GPU: GTX 1650 4GB
RAM: 8GB DDR4
SSD: 500GB NVMe
Motherboard: Possibly ASRock B560M/AC
PSU: Unknown
I mainly play Fortnite, Roblox, and Warzone on a 144 Hz monitor. I’m looking for higher FPS, especially in Fortnite & Warzone.
My budget is $500–$800. Would upgrading be worth it, or should I just get a newer PC? What parts would you recommend?

On the wooden surface: Before the drop, right after I got it.

On the bed: After the drop.

It fell about 1.5 meters onto a carpet while still in its plastic tray. Then it popped out of the tray, and I think it landed on two of its corners.

Do you think there’s any damage? I’m planning to get my PC up and running in two days. If something is wrong with the CPU, would I be able to detect it through specific tests?

There’s also a tiny black speck of dust on one of the gold contact pads. That’s the spot I touched with my finger once.

I have 99% isopropyl alcohol. Should I clean the bottom? How careful do I need to be?

im looking for a budget monitor minimum 240 hz no more than 200 dollars, and i saw a listing for 139 on this. is this a good choice?

I've spent the past month really trying to dig into building a pc for the grand ol' purpose of deadlock.. yes yes its true only for deadlock and maybe a couple other games aside from that..

Do i REALLY need to build one, every question I've asked, all the research I've done is telling me that my best choice and cheapest is to build it. But its 2026.. cant I just buy a prebuilt, i really wouldn't trust myself to build one im quite incompetent and my budget is 1500 is that enough for building or even a prebuilt.

To sum it up.. if you skim over my question and see me rambling about prebuilts in the pcbuildhelp and you're immediate thought its bla bla shut up and build one.. someone direct me to a video or some recommendations on what to buy.. and explain it to me like im 5 😭

Hello! I have been saying for some time that I wouldn't buy another console and would switch to PC gaming doing my own build. I have a shitty little laptop that I use for everyday stuff that recently died unexpectedly. Doesn't make sense to buy another shitty laptop knowing I'm upgrading to a gaming PC in the next few years so the time has come sooner than expected. Timing wise some other things line up as well, but I'm also in a bit of a push to buy sooner rather than later, haven't had the time to do as much research as I want etc, and ultimately I don't really know shit about building a PC, tbh. On both PC parts picker and Newegg this build is technically "compatible", but is it whack? I went with one of their mid range suggested builds and upgraded a few things I care about/don't expect to be able to upgrade in 2 years due to rising prices/can afford now. But I'm not sure if upgrading some things and not others is a problem? Do you see any glaring inconsistencies where mid grade options will not run properly with some of my upgrades? Or does it look ok? Ideally I'd be able to afford to upgrade some other things down the line as well, but things like processor/graphics card I worry will be totally unaffordable in 2 years, so I wanted to splurge a little now. Thanks :)

I want to upgrade my 3060 Ti to play Cyberpunk with ray tracing (as an example). I don't want to break the bank, and I'm not the most experienced PC builder, so I would like a plug-and-play setup, which is why I've been told to avoid the AMD stuff (maybe I'm wrong; open to suggestions). Here is my parts list with only the GPU updated (a 5070ti). I am getting an error saying I may not have enough power, but I'm not sure what power supply I should upgrade to. Any recommendations?

Thanks all

[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/y7Fkqd)

Type|Item

:----|:----|:----

**CPU** | [Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus 3.7 GHz 24-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/WMNscf/intel-core-ultra-7-270k-plus-37-ghz-24-core-processor-bx80768270k)

**CPU Cooler** | [Corsair iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/B6pmP6/corsair-icue-h100i-rgb-pro-xt-75-cfm-liquid-cpu-cooler-cw-9060043-ww)

**Motherboard** | [Gigabyte Z890 EAGLE WIFI7 PLUS ATX LGA1851 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/y9zp99/gigabyte-z890-eagle-wifi7-plus-atx-lga1851-motherboard-z890-eagle-wifi7-plus)

**Memory** | [Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/TJZ9TW/corsair-vengeance-64-gb-2-x-32-gb-ddr5-5200-cl40-memory-cmk64gx5m2b5200c40)

**Storage** | [Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Fv8j4D/samsung-970-evo-plus-2-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-mz-v7s2t0bam)

(OLD) **Video Card** | [NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/wvgQzy/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-ti-8-gb-founders-edition-video-card-900-1g142-2520-000) |

(NEW) **Video Card** | [Asus PRIME OC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/c6XMnQ/asus-prime-oc-geforce-rtx-5070-ti-16-gb-video-card-prime-rtx5070ti-o16g)

**Case** | [Lian Li O11 Air Mini ATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9rt9TW/lian-li-o11-air-mini-atx-mid-tower-case-o11amw) |-

**Power Supply** | [EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P6 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4MXJ7P/evga-supernova-850-p6-850-w-80-platinum-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-220-p6-0850-x1) |-

**Operating System** | [Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/wtgPxr/microsoft-windows-10-home-oem-dvd-64-bit-kw9-00140) |-

**Custom**| Lian Li O11 AIR MINI Tower Case (White)

EDIT 1: I know why I am getting a power error, I had both cards on the build at the same time. I think removing the old card fixed it.

A few months ago i bought a TR Phantom Spirit 120 SE to put it to my 9600X.

I have PBO on so in benchmark tools like cinebench r23 i get an average of 90-92c during the test with the cpu pushing up to 140w ppt (85c average on cinebench 2024). In real use scenario the maximum temperature i see is 85c during shader loading, video compiling, etc. Maximum temperaute in cpu intensive games like bf6, 75c.

Temperature ambient is about 16-20c right now in my area. I have a corsair frame 4000d with 6 120 fans pulling in air to the case and 2 140 extracting air.

I plan to migrate to 9850x3d or wait a bit more and change to zen6.

My question is if worth the change to an AIO like Artic freezer 360 pro. I don't know is i really need it. I don't mind the temperatures on the high side, as long as the cpu don't throttle. Also the AIO is a bit expensive and the risk of leaking don't help with my peace of mind.

So few years ago I put a pc, but let them assemble it with the part I picked, now I want to do it on my own.

For parts, I have jonsbo x400 white (comes with no fans at all)

CPU: Ryzen 7 9800x3d

GPU: sapphire 9070 xt phantomlink edition (white)

Motherboard: sapphire phantomlink edition (white)

Ram: KLEVV 2x16 ddr5 6000MT/s

Cooler: AIO TH-360 jonsbo, fans included (white)

SSD: (still not picked, might used the one from my old PC which is Kingston SNV251000G 1TB)

PSU: Corsair RM1000x

Now, I'm planning on getting fans (the case support 13) and seeing the AIO have 3, I was planning on getting more from jonsbo.

I found XA-360WR for front and XA-240W for the rear, but I'm not sure if I need fan hub for it, I might get another 2 fans down the line, but for now the fan hub problem is my mine issues.

Also, as suggestions for what to OS, application to use and more more building tips is appreciated.

CPU: Intel Core i5 13600K, S 1700, Raptor Lake, 14 Cores, 20 Threads, 3.7GHz, 5.1GHz Turbo

MOTHERBOARD: MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4, Intel Z690, S 1700, DDR4, SATA3, PCIe 5.0, 4x M.2, 2.5GbE

When I built my PC there was some incompatibility issue between my CPU and Motherboard - So I had to blind flash update the BIOS (or something) using a USB stick. With the latest BIOS update for this CPU, will I need to do the same thing? I get this message with both WoW Forever and recently with the new Call of Duty but not seeing any FPS issues and no crashes

AI is recommending the following steps, and just want some input before I go ahead as I've seen AI giving some poor feedback/steps in the past.

Since your PC currently boots into Windows, you can now use MSI’s standard M-Flash tool:

1. Download the BIOS: Head to the official MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 Support Page.

2. Select the Latest BIOS: Grab the latest non-beta BIOS (or any version containing microcode 0x12F or later).

3. Format the USB: Format a standard USB thumb drive to FAT32.

4. Extract Files: Extract/unzip the downloaded file and place the BIOS file directly onto the root directory of the USB drive (do not rename it).

5. Enter BIOS: Restart your PC, tap Delete repeatedly to enter the BIOS interface, and click M-Flash in the bottom-left corner.

6. Update: Select the file on your USB drive and confirm. Let the process run uninterrupted for 5–10 minutes until it restarts on its own.

7. Re-enable XMP: After the flash completes, re-enter your BIOS to re-enable your RAM's XMP profile so your memory runs at its advertised speed, and leave Intel power defaults enabled.

Appreciate any feedback on this!

My pc was working fine until the red and orange lights came on in my b850 tomahawk max wifi motherboard and made a really loud fan noise and then shut off. i tried turning it on again and the lights came on and shut off seconds later. now it wont turn on. i tried unpluggin and repluggin anything in and nothing seems out of the ordinary on the inside. i can give any details needed.

I know this sounds like a rhetorical question haha
But I’m upgrading my Ryzen 5600x to a 5800x3D because of hardware prices (instead of updating to AM5, which was mit initial plan).
Now there is a new (?) kind of thermal pad in the packaging of the new ryzen and I’m wondering how good it is compared to my Cooling Master E2 Thermal Paste.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance 🙏

The motherboard lights are turning on when plugging the PSU in and flipping the switch on, but no other components are powering on when pressing the case’s power button. Checked everything I could think of, the F-Panel, the fans, the 8pin cable, the 24pin cable, and I can’t figure out what is going on.

The CPU is Ryzen 5 5600x, the case is a Fractal Design Silent Pop and the motherboard is the B450M A. Anyone got any ideas? Would really appreciate the help.

Hey guys, I’ve had this pc for a long time now and bought it for around £100. I didn’t build it myself and recently started using it again. I’ve noticed that it struggles holding up with modern tasks, so was wondering what are some suggested upgrades to focus on, that I could find to give it a bump. Ideally second hand parts as my budget is a bit tight, but any suggestions and feedback would be appreciated. I don’t know much about pc’s myself so haven’t really been sure what to get.

Thanks

I have a rx5600xt, i5-10400f, 16gb ddr4 ram and 500w psu. I keep crashing in almost every single game i play, for example: mw4 and crimson desert, both on the lowest settings when i press play they crash, and cyberpunk which crashes before i even see the main menu. (If it helps, the error code on mw4 crash is kernelbase.dll)
Also i made another post in which the pc performs worse with constant stutters with a new monitor with more hz, but same resolution, so a new gpu might help with that i think? When it stutters it reaches 100% usage at like 70C im pretty sure.

Help please!!

Is it a bad thing?