Case Swap #2 completed.. but dealing with some issues

Posted on 04-04-2023 by Benie

Ok, just warning but this is going to be quite the long post, but the case swap is pretty much completed. However, this time I’m dealing with a few issues that.. don’t exactly want to be fixed easily, especially one that seems to (thank GOD) only be related to saving and restarting when I’m in BIOS. Hopefully with a BIOS update, I can fix it.
So, why did I choose to do it Monday instead of any other day? Answer: severe
storms Tuesday/Wednesday (now just Wednesday, but as of now we’re not in the likely severe.. hopefully it stays like that and we don’t go under an Enhanced risk). I mainly just wanted to get this over with before the storms come. I don’t need lightning/wind threats to interfere if I have to do a lot of troubleshooting. And I definitely had to today.
Let me just say one thing– I have gotten.. quite proficient in removing/installing a graphics card.

Once I had the green light from my mother that she didn’t need to bother me for
anything, then got breakfast down me and stuff like that, I then got on my computer for the last time (with the old case) and looked up a way to uninstall the drivers for the RX 580. I found ‘DDU'(Display Driver Uninstaller) and was a bit skeptical that it was another scam app, but seeing how Youtubers were talking about it I decided to take a look. And it actually looked pretty legit. Works for both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, and even has a way that keeps Windows Update from putting their generic driver in.
Following their instructions, I unplugged my ethernet cable after I got it, and started the program, and I was surprised they have an option to set my computer up for the installation of a new graphics card (by uninstalling and shutting down after). Ran it and it did the thing.
Unplugged everything and put my case on my bed, then put the other case on my bed. With tools at hand I was ready to go.

STEP 1: Unplug everything from motherboard.
This went (if not better) as planned. Didn’t have much trouble removing all the power supply cables and the front panel connectors.
—
STEP 2: Remove PSU– wait, why am I doing this!? This isn’t part of the case swap!
So I was going to take out the motherboa– no, I need to get the drives off first, and did that. Then I ran into my first issue.. trying to get the HDDs out of their mounting trays. They weren’t screwed down, only secured by the mounting tray itself. I tried to
contact Cave to see what he would suggest to do, but he wasn’t there at the time.
Had to bend the tray in multiple places in order to free the drive, and this took longer than I wanted it. But I got both drives freed.
Now, it’s time to take out the motherboard, but that’s when I ran into my second
problem. Had one of the screws still attached to its standoff. Though I still managed to get the board out, I saw the screw and told Cave.
Now I thought I would have to get a pair of pliers, and that’s exactly what he said to use. Carefully holding the standoff with pliers and using a screwdriver to free the screw, and it worked well; the screw is free. Then I simply put the standoff back in the old case.
—
STEP 3: Install the motherboard in the new case.
The case swap has officially started at this point; out with the old and in with the new. Got the I/O Shield in with minimal effort (compared to the Thermaltake). Tried using the standoff tool and.. honestly it sucked ass. It didn’t make putting in the tiny standoffs any easier, especially how the standoff doesn’t stay in the tool. It’s just useless. Better to do it by hand instead.
With the standoffs in (by the way, I didn’t use a manual and the standoffs were correctly placed. Go me), I put in the motherboard (my grip on the cooler). After a bit I finally pushed the panel into the I/O Shield. Also, the case uses a central standoff that helps you to line up the motherboard. Got the screws in, and the board was installed.

STEP 4: Installing the PSU– no, I need to get the drives on and get the front panel connectors attached, including getting the new fan hub installed. And there were two highlights of this step.
The first one was trying to get the USB 3.0 plug into one of the two available ports on the motherboard. The first one being next to ‘the little fuckers’, and the second being above the SATA ports. With my first case swap, I put it above the SATA ports. But this time I wanted to see if I could put it in the ‘next to the little fuckers’ port. But nomatter what I tried the cable for the plug was just too short. Eventually, I tried feeding it between the space of the drive cage and the fan, and that worked.
To secure the cables better, I pushed them onto the gap of the drive cage.
–
And the second one.. was the little fuckers. You know ’em, you hate ’em! The little dark assholes. I spent what felt like 15+ minutes trying to align the pins in my fingers, so I could attempt to push them all in through one go. Only a few times was I even remotely close to doing so, if it wasn’t for the even more tiny ‘POWER L.E.D -/+’ ones kept shifting out of alignment, forcing me to redo the process over, and over, and over again.
Eventually I got sick of doing it and started putting them in one by one. But then I felt something as I was pushing in the first one. Pushing it in far enough.. I felt some resistance (as in it grabbed the pin). Hooooooolllyyy fuuucckkk. This. is. AWESOME!!! 😁
The little fuckers, are actually WORKING WITH ME!!! 😄
Fractal Design, if you were a girl I would kiss you. You fundamentally ended my suffering. Thank you!! 😍
And as I continued to work, the things stayed. IN. THERE!! I.. honestly, mere words cannot truly explain how happy I was. And who knows, it may not even be a thing with the case manufacturer. I think the Thermaltake probably had that too, that I just never really pushed them far enough in to secure them. Who knows.

STEP 5: It’s semi-modular power supply time.
Ah, my second bane of existence when it comes to building a computer. Never will forget the (unknown named) modular power supply years ago that I tried to use, and it was dead. But I tried my best to use it, having to add two SATA power cables to it (the ‘semi’ part has no SATA cables).
Also, learning from previous experience of the first case swap, at this time I didn’t have the graphics card in, and I wasn’t sitting on my bed doing the job. All of this time I’ve been sitting in a chair. So I didn’t get zapped.
I find it interesting with the 24-pin ATX plug, that it seems this PSU can also be used in
a micro-ATX board (as it has a 20-pin and a 4-pin next to it).
Next was the 8-pi.. wait, why does it have two 4-pins both marked ‘CPU’? Asked Cave who was confused and looked up my processor, and saw I can have both in the CPU_PWR 1 slot (my processor has a max TDP of 60, so it was more than enough power for it).
And that’s about it (that I can remember) for the power supply.

STEP 6: Installing the new RX 6650 XT.
The reason I spent nearly $600 on. The graphics card. I can’t believe I have a mid-range card, my first ever. It even has a backplate. Fancy.
Removed the second and third brackets and slid the card in. Compared to last time I had very minimal issues trying to push it in. Was as simple as lining the card up with
the PCI-E port, and pushing it in until I hear that satisfying *click* sound, then screwing the card in and plugging in the correct PCI-E power plug from the PSU (unlike last
time).

STEP 6.5: Install the USB 3.0 extender card (that I had to undo for the next step).
I was nearing completion of the case swap. Just a few more things to do and I’ll be ready.

STEP 7: Make sure everything’s plugged i– ok, damnit the HD AUDIO plug isn’t in
correctly. I see exposed pins. Fixed the problem with some difficulty trying to reach the plug. Had to undo the previous step to reach it.

STEP 8: Cable Management aka putting the maintenance panel on and don’t mind the bulge caused by the cables not wanting to be packed into the case.
To be fair I did do a bit of cable management to try to flatten everything, but those power supply cables just won’t work with me. I’ve always been horrible with planning cables.

STEP 9: …Pray.
With the case swap completed, it was time to put the side panel on, take it over to my computer table, plug in the basics (keyboard/mouse/monitors/power), hit the power switch.. annnndddd…….
No picture. Computer booted perfectly, but it seemed it couldn’t get past POST as I saw my keyboard wasn’t unicorn barfing (the RGB) normally, aka iCUE isn’t running (aka my computer never made it into Windows). I was doing my best to not panic here, just trying to stay calm as I told Cave what’s going on.
I’ll be covering this in the next step.

STEP 10: Troubleshooting (for hours)
I have a total of three problems, with one of them thankfully fixed. They are listed below. This is also when I ‘became proficient’ of removing/reinstalling the graphics card.

Problem 1.. Computer not going into POST
Severity: Low/Moderate
Continuing from where I left off, Cave suggested I swap cards with the old card. Did that and unsurprisingly I got an image. So my mindset immediately points
to “shit.. DoA graphics card”. Cave tries to think of my options, then sees someone saying to either update BIOS or, to reset CMOS (a small button on the bottom of my motherboard). After swapping back to the new card, I pressed the button then turned it
on, which presented the second problem that’s detailed below. Cave felt it was good to actually get something from the card.
Somehow I was able to get into BIOS with the new card. Cave helped me look around and found something… related to Cryptocurrency mining (can’t remember the full name of the option. And after switching that to On, I actually got into Windows with the new card.

Problem 2.. ‘Input Not Supported’ message when turning my computer on
Severity: Low/Moderate
As I said before of trying to get the first issue resolved, this issue, according to
what Cave found, is a well-known issue related to Acer monitors. And since both of my monitors are Acer.. yeah, fuck. However, it appears the issue no longer pops up… really fucking weird.
Cave said it might have to do with the monitor refusing to go to a low resolution for BIOS.

Problem 3… ‘E’ drive not being detected in SATA2 –(SOLVED)–
Severity: Very low
I noticed this when Cave was trying to help me with the first two options, that nothing was being detected in SATA2 (in BIOS).
I fixed this (thankfully) by doing what I did with the first case swap. I move
the SATA cables up to the ports at the top. With this, I tried to do some more cable management on the maintenance side and was able to put the panel on a bit easier (not completely but it’s somewhat better).
But yeah, this problem is fixed now.

Problem 4… ‘Boot-looping’ when saving/restarting in BIOS
Severity: Moderate/High (will be SEVERE if it also happens during gameplay)
…This issue, was preventable. At least, how I see it. Cave however, disagrees. So after the first call of trying to fix the first two issues (including the third one), I hooked it all up and turned it on. The first problem presented itself again, and I shut it down via the switch on the back.
But, instead of waiting until I heard everything completely shut down (fans and all), I decided it would be a great idea to flip the switch back on. …And the computer started back up without me pressing the power button. Then after 5 seconds, it shuts down and then restarts, 5 seconds later.. shuts down and restarts.
Cave assumed it was the fan hub that might be drawing too much amps (or the drives drawing too much. But plugging it into the SATA power cables that go to
the SSD didn’t fix it either. However we were noticing a pattern. It only happened when saving/restarting in BIOS. But Cave was running out of options, so we came with a solution of unplugging the HDDs and run the fan hub off it it only, but that wasn’t it either.
I though, decided to leave the fan hub unplugged and just save without changes in
the BIOS… and it did it again.
My heart sank into my stomach, thinking I fucked up the power supply. But Cave doesn’t think so, because the computer would had never turned on at all if it was the power
supply (he says). And that is true. And also, since the issue seems to only happen when leaving BIOS, it appears I may’ve somehow fucked it up. And maybe the only way to fix it is to flash BIOS with the latest update for my board.
So, until I decide to risk it and flash the BIOS in an attempt to fix this problem I created, I will have to live with my computer sounding like a leaf blower (with the three Noctua fans in the case).

—
With my computer (mostly) working, Jero wanted to hang out with me in VRChat. Knowing I haven’t done any stability tests with my new graphics card, I decided to do
a FurMark benchmark (1080p). Pressed the GO! button and… put my hands over my eyes fearing my computer would auto-restart or something. And after two minutes later…

My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw just how COOL the temp was. So let’s compare this score with my former (hothead) RX 580.

5781 higher score. 96 FPS higher.. and running 40*C cooler. This card. This.. fucking
card. 👩‍🍳💋👌 And it’s not even OC’d.
It was worth the $330. Definitely. 👍

And that concludes this blog post. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I was struggling to get it published before tomorrow’s quite nasty storms.

Posted in Computing, Drama, Personal, Weather Alerts | Comments Off on Case Swap #2 completed.. but dealing with some issues

Arvixe fixes issues with my blogs / Stage 1 of the case swap completed

Posted on 03-31-2023 by Benie

==============================================================
Arvixe fixes issues with my blogs
==============================================================
For at least a month, everytime I try to publish/update a blog post I would be greeted to this message;

I would get no email to show me what the error is and how I could possibly fix it. And this didn’t make publishing posts impossible to do. Refreshing the page usually went around the error.
I blamed it on the https that WordPress kept bitching at me to get, but never decided to report it to Arvixe …until this issue kept me from grabbing the latest update
from WordPress.
But trying to get ahold of Arvixe, it seems their own website is having issues (though not related to mine). Trying to go to the home page, pointed me to a very odd link that I’m not going to show here (of it maybe having the potential to be a scam or something, and I rather not expose you folks to it). Infact I couldn’t even get to my Customer Portal to give them the support code they ask for. Now I would say something about all of this (in the form of a rant), but since I’m kind of stuck with this company, there’s no point of saying
it. Plus it would go off-topic.
Now, getting ahold of their live chat was thankfully still possible. Though it was very concerning when they wanted me to confirm that I own this site (like they were having a lot of trouble trying to locate it in their database). But they found the problem and fixed it. And the issue wasn’t WordPress struggling to work in HTTPS, but I was apparently using the wrong PHP version. The one that helped me, didn’t set the version
to 7.4 (which WordPress uses). They set it to 8.1 instead. What a colossal failure, just like their– nope, not going there. Not here. In reality I’m sure it was an honest mistake.
But now the issue’s fixed; the error has disappeared, and I was properly able to grab the update.

==============================================================
Stage 1 of the case swap completed
==============================================================
Before you ask, no, I haven’t switched to the new graphics card (yet). For that
will (hopefully) happen sometime during the first week of April. I’ll need at least two days where my mother doesn’t bug me about wanting food.
This morning though, instead of working on JeroWorks 3.0, I decided to go on and install the two Noctua fans in the new case. Plus I wanted to properly see the inside of said
case (what I have to work with, once the day comes). And it was already losing points with me: no written manual / still using FPCs (thought Cave told me I wouldn’t have to deal with the tiny fuckers) / going through hell to remove part of the PSU Shroud (and
the HDD drive cage) in order to install one of the new Noctua fans I got.
–
So let’s start with the first issue: no written manual. What. the. hell. Ok, case manufacturers. I get it. “Everyone has a phone by now. Let’s post the manual as a .pdf”.

Please don’t do this. You left me with nothing. Nothing about what sized fans I can use. Nothing about what the hell the bottom of THIS is used for..

(Cave assumes it’s for cable management)
You also left me nothing that directed me TO yourall’s .pdf! You guys seem to truly hate lazy people who won’t Google their answers. And that just doesn’t feel fair. All I can say is I’m so glad I have friends like Cave would be more than happy to assist me with these problems.. unlike you assholes who seem to just assume people that buy your cases build computers for a living. And I mean that.
—
Moving on.. those fucking fucker FPCs (Front Panel Connectors) are back. However I’m not really surprised. Infact Cave did explain the reason why they still do this. Yet you would think this would be universal by now, and had made it easier by now. But for some reason the only ‘universal’ thing is these tiny fuckers still exist to ruin my life.
Now again, I have no problem trying to figure out which pin goes to which header (as long as I have the proper documentation).. the problem is the pins have no clamp that keeps them there Why do fan and power supply pins for the motherboard have clamps, but not front panel connectors? Even the tiny ‘POWER LED -‘ & ‘+’ don’t have clamps. If they
did, I wouldn’t (back in 2020) had been spending all night in a call with Jero, hoping he could show me how to keep the damn things in the headers without them slipping out due to tension.
I know how to get them in. I just don’t know how to properly keep them in. Especially the ‘POWER LED’ ones. In an attempt to try to humor myself, I tried to look up memes about those tiny fuckers. While there wasn’t that many, I did see a lot of comments of saying
they “don’t plug in the LED due to it acting as a strobe light at night”. This makes me wonder if I would be good to just plug in ‘POWER SW’, ‘RESET SW’ and then finally ‘HDD LED’ and leave the rest unplugged.
Because that’s all I really need, especially POWER SW (as without it I won’t be able to get my computer out of sleep mode). RESET SW I’ll need incase I have to do an emergency restart, and HDD LED to know my drives are still OK (especially during POST). From what I read, I should have no problem just doing it like this. And hopefully they won’t fall out to allow me to work on the rest of the case. Maybe I might even do some cable management to tie down the cable the FPCs use, to hopefully remove the tension.

Now there’s one thing I didn’t list, but it’s related to the ‘no paper manual’. And that’s trying to figure out how to remove the front panel in order to install the fans. Never had to do this before, as usually the case supplied the fans for me. I was forced to join the call with Kovo and the others in order to get help (through Cave).
After he sent me a video showing what to do, you not only have to remove the bottom filter but reach into the bottom and feel for a small (but wide) button that you have to really press in with all of your might, in order to pop the front panel off. There I saw the other side of the panel had a (non-removable) dust filter. I then tried the ‘breath test’ by blowing into the mesh to see how fast I would feel my breath, to see how hard the fans would have to be spinning to pull in cooler air from the room. It took a second until I felt my breath, when normally it would be instant.
This could be a problem, but Cave feels with how high powered the fans are, they would be able to easily move the air into the case.
Speaking of the fans, I decided to hold up on the installation of the fan hub. The main reason, is unknown cable routing once I install the motherboard into the case and get the power supply hooked up. I plan to hook it to one of the two SSD drive bays, but I dunno at this time which one to do so (depending on how the cable routing goes). I have to
wait.
I also had to remove the front panel frame, as I had to remove part of the PSU Shroud in order to install a drive bay front fan. Never had to do this (and remove that part of the shroud) either. Definitely a (quite painful) learning experience. Cave told me he’s had to do this, and it’s very annoying at first. He definitely wasn’t kidding, hurting my fingers of squeezing these things and then pushing them away from me to make the frame pop
off. Not to mention also needing to be careful with the front panel cables.
And getting the removable part of the shroud out, that was a pain as well. Thought I was going to break it with how it was bending, but it finally popped off.
Managed with both tasks, and got the two Noctua fans installed to the front of the case.

But I wasn’t done. I had to re-mount the drive cage. ..I ended up attaching it on wrong, not understanding why the holes weren’t properly lining up (and nearly destroying it trying to get the screws in). But after finally correcting my mistake, it’s all good.
Also, glad to say the drive cage itself has brackets I can attach the HDDs to and then slide them into place, just like my Thermaltake.

But yeah. Fans installed (outside of the current Noctua fan that’s in my current case that’s serving as the exhaust fan). I’m pretty much ready for my second case swap! 🙂
First I gotta get through the weekend (and some storms/very strong winds). And it could very well happen again this coming Tuesday/Wednesday.

Posted in Computing, Drama, Personal, Weather Alerts | Comments Off on Arvixe fixes issues with my blogs / Stage 1 of the case swap completed

Biting the bullet — actually using the VRCCC (or VCC) for the first time

Posted on 03-29-2023 by Benie

With this post I’m announcing I’ll be working on JeroWorks 3.0 once again. This is due to four factors;
1. Jero himself. It was up in the air if I should even work on this again or not.
2. Having to.. ‘distance myself’ from certain people (something that happened last night between me and CultFur).
3. Needing to do maintenance on JeroWorks 3.0. I finally tested it and while nearly everything still works, the ‘Lay Down’ poses aren’t showing up (at all).
4. Being told (in the VRChat Discord) what I’ve learned that brought JeroWorks 3.0 to life, hasn’t changed even though it’s been almost a year since I did this.

So that means I absolutely have to use the VRCCC (or ‘VCC’ as it’s internal name). Why? I tried loading the JeroWorks 3.0 scene file in Unity alone and.. it’s blank. Kind of terrifies me, and I’m hoping that using the VRCCC is now the way to do it.
And after installing it, I can see what others have said that it uses a similar layout to Unity Hub.

Setup was pretty straightforward, aka semi-automated. It found the Unity version, and set everything up.

After importing JeroWorks 3.0, I could see why the VRCCC is required now. Apparently my project is a ‘legacy’ version (no shit). But after a few clicks it made a backup for me and migrated it to be compatible with the VRCCC. I must say, it’s first impression is really cool of how it did all the work for me, of updating the SDK and stuff.
And when I was finally able to get into Unity.. the project, is still blank. But after a not so quick search of my ‘E’ drive (where my projects are), my mind finally clicked when I saw the files there. The ‘JeroWorks 3.0’ project was supposed to be there to move this side project out of my main project, but I could never get the damn thing to import right. And the fact it’s blank again, I know I wanted to try another idea, but I’ve forgotten said idea over the months.
So after migrating that project to be compatible with the VRCCC, I loaded up Unity and there everything was! And all I have to say is.. my god, do I have a lot to re-remember how this was done, and how I was taught. I remember little bits here and there, of
what ‘levers’ to flip and what ‘buttons’ to press. This feels like one of those FNaF Parts & Services videos. Just look up and see the idle posed Jero clone that has somehow moved closer to my screen (by itself) as I’m trying to re-learn how to do the poses and stuff. That would be horrifying: Five Days in Unity.
But I’m sure with time, I’ll be able to re-learn everything. However I am noticing an issue in the Animator tab. A warning with ‘Please fix compile errors before creating new state machine behaviors’. Though this could possibly be from an outdated plugin, which I’ll need to look into for an update. But if it’s not, then I might be forced to ask someone of
the VRChat Discord to call me and look into this problem. I would laugh if I was actually right, that the SDK updates actually changed the way this is done now, and I’ll have to throw away everything I’ve done and restart (possibly all the way from scratch))… or it might not even be possible at all anymore of the way I’ve done it in the past, forcing me to make the poses be more optimized (aka having to redo the poses).
…And by then, it’ll literally be ‘from scratch’.

Posted in Computing, Personal | Comments Off on Biting the bullet — actually using the VRCCC (or VCC) for the first time

Why I feel Jero’s job just might be the end of our relationship

Posted on 03-26-2023 by Benie

Up and down, back and forth goes the ever present ‘Jero drama’. From him always
being “very tired” or “so exhausted” (that even he himself admits is a problem) of not being able to see me (or even say hi to me in Discord). Such a recurring theme, huh? Him also failing to be communicative. ..And you’d think I would’ve learned from this fucking mistake by now and just kept him as a friend.
…*sighs* Because he’s the only one I know, that doesn’t push me into anything I feel uncomfortable (such as changing my life). He also doesn’t make me feel I can’t be with my friends when around him (unlike others), because I’m too scared to say the wrong
things, or too nervous to say no thinking what they wanna do that’s nice would ‘only happen once on a blue moon’ (and I don’t want to disappoint them).
And this is why I don’t really want to look for another, even with how frustrated I get with him sometimes. I can’t just move on like I could in the past. I did mean what I said
before: “nobody can replace Jero”. …Because he doesn’t try to change me. 😑
This is why they say “change your own life, before you attempt to change the life of another”.
–
But I lowkey worry that either I, or Jero is going to one day cause the other to end the relationship. And I feel it’ll be Jero ‘making that decision’ due to stress of his job and of me once again (as I said above) simply requesting him to work on his communication (and also to do something about his overly tired nature).
But at the same time, when you’re stressed I can understand you rather not ‘discuss your failures’ with anyone. ..Because he’s (allegedly) going to be fired, on Monday. And it’ll
be ‘his fault’ (as his boss would see it).
So what happened to him, is… asshole coworkers either took tools from Jero’s father’s work van and never returned them.., or stole them. I’m scared to think it could be racial profiling or something (because he and his father are black), but that doesn’t really matter if Jero can’t find those tools to clear his name.
And I dunno if he has found the tools or not. He won’t tell me anything (again, lack of communication).
I fear the stress of him losing his job, combined with my aforementioned requests, is going to send him over the edge and end the relationship. He’s probably going to feel that I could find a better person that him, that ‘doesn’t fail in life’. And of course my response would be a big, fat “NO”. But his mindset might not allow me to save the relationship. That’s what scares me. *sigh*
Else, he might just completely stop talking to me (aka ghost me). …Or let his emotions take control, which makes him end up taking his own life. Lord forbid on that.
—
EDIT: Two days later (on the 28th)…
It seems he has chosen the ‘ghost me’ option. But I have to remain patient. Because remember what I said when Jero had just gotten his job, how I was preparing myself for this but not prepared for him to either stop talking to me on Discord and/or stop seeing me in VRChat for just one time a month? I’m still sticking with that plan.
…And he has stopped talking to me since the 25th; two days with zero communication from him (the 28th). Plus, on the 27th, I noticed he went on red status in VRChat. Now you could argue that again it’s because his sister wants to play.. but usually he tells me
this (after I asked him to), and he wouldn’t need to use red status. He told me before that orange status works for that.
No, he’s clearly trying to avoid people. I dunno if this is just me, or someone else who got under his fur. Yet it couldn’t be Grey again. …*sighs* I dunno. All I wanna know is.. why? If he is trying to avoid me, why? Why not just, you know, tell me he wants to end the relationship and be done with it? Why try to avoid me? That’s the childish way.

But it really matters not, for I’m going to give him two months to the time he stopped talking to me (aka May 25th). If he still lacks the courage to talk to me for some bizarre reason, then I’m ending the relationship. “But Benie, two days? Don’t you feel that’s unfair on him for you to be talking like this? Why not just give it a week and then say all of
this?” you’re probably asking. Well, either you’re new to the server or you haven’t really been following me. Either way, just look on the top right of this blog post and
search ‘Jero’, and be blown away with the number of posts I’ve talked about him.
Anyway, I’m just starting to grow tired with his lack of communication. ..This is really it, in a nutshell. This is the only flaw he has that I just cannot tolerate. I..I feel I was lied to when he said he would ‘try’ to change it, and I feel I’ve given him more than enough chances to change it. Yet I also know, what he does isn’t intentional. Nothing he does, is ever intentional. And I would even teach him how to be communicative, if he would be willing to learn it. I kept hoping it would come naturally to him, but I really need to stop that because it clearly isn’t going to happen.

This is why I’m giving him two months to ‘shape up or ship out’. I don’t think I’m being unfair, for the months he’s done this to me and has no intention to wanna learn this on his own. I still remember the second time I dated him, with Wufy and others confronting him about this problem, and literally within the next day he played the “can we just be
friends” card, aka wanting to ‘take the easy way out’, instead of wanting to learn.
I lost count on the number of times I’ve told him “communication is key to a healthy relationship”, and it just goes in one ear and out the other. Yet again, he isn’t trying to do this intentionally! But if (or when) it becomes two months with zero communication from
him (with him continuing to get on VRChat in red status), I’m no longer going to care if it’s unintentional, or not.
And even if…even IF he contacts me again before that deadline happens, I still want him to learn to be more communicative, and be willing to learn. And the relationship could still end even before the deadline if he doesn’t want to be taught. By that point it’ll be clear to me he has no true interest in maintaining a healthy relationship, and I deserve better.
But I’m not going to end my friendship. Heavens no. Yeah, I would need to move on, but I still feel.. glued to him. Because even with this lack of communication, Jero’s still an absolute sweetheart. And if he decides to get a new BF (which I doubt he’d ever be interested in dating anyone after that point (possibly for the rest of his life)), I will warn his BF to watch out for Jero’s lack of communication.

I’ve said before, that he’s the only one that I know I can trust, and doesn’t try to change me. And also trying to find another Jero-like person would take a very long
time (months, maybe even years), but it has to beat dealing with someone who doesn’t seem to understand telling your lover that you’re still fucking ALIVE is a great idea to
do.
Of course I don’t really need to worry about his ‘un-alive status’, as his non-understandable attempt of keeping me from being with him in VRChat, is showing that he still very much is alive. But he just might stop doing that too. Still dunno why he’s doing this, and why he feels he needs to avoid me (or someone else).
—
But until May 25th, I will wait patiently for him to respond (and no other messages will be sent to him). Something tells me I won’t have to wait long, but we will see.
“Why didn’t you just move on before? You claim he’s done this so many times, why don’t you just leave him?”, and you would have your point if you would be asking this. But again you haven’t been reading all of my posts about him.
To sum it up if you’re the ‘TL;DR’ type of person, it’s the good memories (him being an absolute sweetheart when he is communicative) and knowing he never means to do these things to me, that keeps bringing me back to him like a boomerang. But after May 25th (or him deciding to end the relationship of not being able to handle being communicative (at least give an emoji to indicate he’s busy)), that’s going to change.

—
EDIT2: He actually responded, and things are quite better. Though I never really had a chance to bring up the communication problem (to work on it), I now understand why he’s been doing what he’s doing. And it also explains why he’s been so tired. ..The man hardly gets any sleep, or time to himself! More on this later.
First off, he didn’t get fired. The ones that stole the tools, returned them. So I guess you could say they ‘borrowed’ them? But what he told me what happened to him and his
father (that nearly sent them to the hospital if it wasn’t for Jero’s quick thinking), being told you’re fired would be possibly the best thing that could happen to him. Honestly.
Their boss has a brother. And the brother has been taking a lot of various drugs. And this brother, has been allowed to work as the boss has vouched for his brother.
The brother has been working with Jero and his father.. and making their lives a living nightmare to where he’s fucking up their hard work, and getting away with it because he’s the boss’ brother. The worst was yet to come, but somehow Jero got a vision of something really bad about to happen, to alert his father not to ride in the back or the front seat of the truck with the boss’s brother driving, as it might be the last thing that happens to him. But his father played it off of Jero just being ‘paranoid’.
And yesterday, that same dire vision actually happened. Can’t remember everything he
said, but they were in a large parking lot and Jero’s father was driving the truck, with Jero in the passenger’s seat. The boss’s brother offered to drive in his place. Jero looked at his father in a “don’t do it!!” stare, but his father let the brother drive anyway, with him setting in the back seat.
Then Jero told me the boss’s brother popped the clutch, then jumped out of the van (I’m not making this shit up).. So, the van was moving with no driver in the parking lot, and it was heading for the street, with lots of people. And it was moving quite fast and picking up speed.
Jero managed to get into the driver’s seat and put the clutch back into place and slammed on the brakes, stopping the van. Clearly his fight or flight response went into overdrive and I’m glad it did, as he saved his life and his father’s. And you would think the brother wouldn’t just be fired, but charged for attempted murder. But nothing. happened. to him. Why? He’s the boss’s brother. And when you’re the boss’s brother, you get a ‘get out of being fired’ card.
Today, the brother nearly got Jero and his father fired by installing cable in the wrong direction, and making the two having to redo all of their effort.

Outside of his job, he told me the hours got changed which is why he’s working more hours and able to enjoy less. So they’re working them to the bone, which is why he hasn’t been on Discord. He’s just been so tired, and that’s understandable.
I’m just glad nothing bad happened from all of this. When I saw him come on, I thought he was ready to end it. Told myself to be ready, but deep down I feared it would turn sour for both of us. Thank goodness, I was wrong. We’re still together. He still loves me, and I still love him. And what he said has finally made me no longer feel he’s trying to avoid me.
Just wonder when the next time my mind will go places it shouldn’t. Because I will promise you.. this probably won’t be the last time when I’ll once again feel he’s avoiding me, or not being communicative enough, instead of just stepping back, taking a deep breath, …and trying to tell myself he doesn’t fucking do these things to me on
purpose.
But I’ll end up forgetting about it, and this’ll happen again. I could do well with reading my own blog posts and realize nothing he does is intentional. But it seems I literally have to be reminded (multiple times), by Jero, for it to sink IN. 😑
But forgive me, because a history of him not being communicative tends to take its toll on me and that’s where my mind goes to, instead of more recent events.

Posted in Drama, Love Drama, Personal | Comments Off on Why I feel Jero’s job just might be the end of our relationship

Jero might not have his job for much longer (but for a good reason) / ‘Two-day'(yet free) delivery & video card ‘from Newegg’ / My Nardoragon pet

Posted on 03-24-2023 by Benie

This originally was going to be posted on the 24th, but I felt quite bored/tired and didn’t get it done. A lot more has happened since then.

==============================================================
Jero might not have his job for much longer (but for a good reason)
==============================================================
It’s good to understand there are more important things in life than being focused on your overheating graphics card, such as the health and safety of your BF (and of course of your own health and safety).
But since I don’t really worry about my health as much as I really should, I focus on
my BF’s instead. And the story he told me, makes me saddened, sickened, and pissed off. But, I guess as they say, “it’s all part of the job”. Though this is more “putting profits infront of lives”. Which is unfortunately, very common in this day and age.
Three times (just this week mind you), Jero has had a near-death experience at his work of supervisors either not doing their job watching the workers, or the boss using cost-
cutting measures to get a job done quicker.. at the cost of their workers having a higher risk of injury, or worse.
So, you would probably feel I’d be all “hun, that’s too dangerous! You should quit!!” But you gotta keep in mind, he’s tried very hard to look for a good job and found nothing. If he quits, I doubt he’ll have anywhere else to look. However another thing is, he’s with his father too in the same work place. And his father’s being verbally abused by his boss.
I talked Jero into staying with his job, and he plans to. But he will not hesitate to leave the next time the abuse happens again, and his father will be helping him look for a new job they can both do together. And of course I wish them all the luck I can.

==============================================================
‘Two-day'(yet free) delivery & video card ‘from Newegg’
==============================================================
Me: *sighs* Alright, The PSU only has one left. Here, I got the money.
*next day*
Me: Alright, the case is coming tomorrow. Nice. The PSU should come next, by the 28th. And the graphics card should arrive by next month.
*next day*
UPS: Here’s your case… and your graphics card!
Me: ..HUH?! WOW. Thank you! Wait.. why is the GPU in a Newegg box? Did I…? No. I better make sure though.
Me: Ok, so I did only get the case from Newegg… then why did the GPU come in a Newegg box, and not an Amazon box?? Maybe I should ask Amazon, and also see if I’ll get my PSU as quickly.
*next day*
Me: ..Oh my god, my new PSU!!

Look, I don’t know who’s up there that managed to manipulate the markets for me to get these parts much, much earlier than expected, but thank you. Whoever you are.

And I also still don’t know why the graphics card arrived in a Newegg box, to make me assume I had bought the card from Newegg as well as Amazon, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.
UPS (the company used to ship) didn’t really help with this matter, as I got two emails from them when I got both items, claiming they were from Newegg. If the card didn’t come in a Newegg box, I would’ve thought this just being a glitch with their website. But, I still have to see it as one, as again.. I did not order the same card from Newegg.
My only guess is the 3rd party seller (that Amazon says the card came from) is linked
to Newegg in some form. Or, a simpler answer is they just.. you know, used a Newegg box as it’s the only thing they had at the time to fit the card in. I doubt there was
any ‘trolling’ involved in this, as they don’t know I prefer to use Amazon over Newegg.
–
So, I have the parts. Does that mean I’ll be doing the case swap a lot sooner than I said I would?

Four reasons;
1. I need to get more fans for the case. It only has two fans, and it needs a total of 5. I plan to get two more Noctua fans (like the one I have). I also need to get some connectors for them, that I only need to use two fan headers on the motherboard.
2. I need to do this during the weekdays, not the weekends (as my mother doesn’t really bug me during the weekdays, so I can work in peace).
3. The PSU is semi-modular. It kind of scares me, thinking history is going to repeat itself.
3a. The fear of Dead on Arrival (DoA) or malfunctioning upon use parts. It’s semi-
rare, yes. But since.. well you know. If Amazon isn’t willing to get a truck to my house, I cannot get it RMA’d.
—
So yeah. That’s why I’m not jumping for it. One fan on the front is not going to work. I need three, especially where the drive cage is. And I’m leery on that semi-modular PSU.
DoA is only happened once in my life. I hope to never have that number go up.

==============================================================
My Nardoragon pet
==============================================================
CultFur *doing naughties with me* Oh Benie, my master!!
*record scratch sound*
‘freeze frame on my avatar’
(Cue music here)
*sigh* Yep, that’s me! You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation for someone to call me their ‘master’. Well let’s just say one thing lead to another and OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?!
*clears throat* Sorry about that, that was just my soul crying out for help. It does that from time to time, pay no attention to it.
Let’s just say I’m going to require help to undo years of wanting to know it’s OK with the other. Well, not completely (of course), but I’ll need to around this guy, as he likes being controlled. …First I have to fix getting so embarrassed when someone talks lewd with
me.
I’m supposed to be the dom. I’m supposed to make the other feel embarrassed. But my heart is too kind to do that to someone.
I’m hoping someone can teach me to be ‘a true dom’; to be a proper master. But without those lessons.. oof. I’m just, I can’t handle it. I’m no master. I like knowing the other
is OK with whatever, you know? It’s called ‘consent’. And doms who don’t use consent shouldn’t be allowed to breed. Seriously. And this is why I’m wholesome. I care about the feelings of others.
Of course you can say “this is a game”. Yes and No. There’s still a person behind that avatar, and that person should be treated with respect. Not as a ‘sex toy’. These are my beliefs. And this is why I sometimes don’t feel I’m “a true furry”. Never did. I’m not a degenerate who’s in their 20’s or 30’s.

But you’re probably wondering how I even met this guy, and what lead up to it. Well, it started with Inari actually sending me an invite to join him. Everything went alright, and then CultFur joined. He seemed to take a liking to my avatar. Though he was also
calling Inari and others a ‘bottom’ (guess as a joke).
Now I can’t exactly remember how this went, but what I do remember is I was laying while sitting up on my bed, and did a ‘bottom test’ on him (see if he would lick my paws). And I don’t remember when I actually did this (as I had done this twice, the first time when the others were there and again when he was by himself). But I do remember him running away when I called him cute, then telling Inari that he licked my toes and is running
away, and he ran after him. And now everyone’s running after him. Was hilarious.
But at the end we all got tired (except for me, that I was still occasionally chasing him). I then saw him chilling near the door and came over. And that’s when he properly introduced himself out of nowhere, that he was flirty and stuff and really wanted to do it with me.
But it was WAY past my bedtime at the time and I needed my sleep. He also told me the reason why he refuses to be called cute. And it was unlike anything I’ve heard. It wasn’t because of a ‘silly law’ they made up or them not feeling they’re cute, but a pretty tragic story of the last time someone called him cute. It was bad, and a very understandable
reason.
–
The next evening, I wanted to join CultFur just to say hi and chill.. but mainly to get out of the world as Mibit was there, and.. well, let’s say one of the most awkward moments happened. Earlier I was with Queenie in a public instance, and Mibit joins the instance unexpectingly. And later.. let’s just say poor Queenie had his paws full. Then after he was done with both of us, Mibit wanted to chill with me.
This is when I really wanted to just join CultFur, and leave Mibit. ..Instead CulfFur joins us. Wonderful. We go from very awkward to even more awkward! I told them that I wanted to join them, as he was with friends. But I never said why because.. well, Mibit.
And before Cult could get lewd with me, he’s like me; one-on-one. So Mibit had to leave the instance.
And with me with Cult, this was when he questioned if I was fine with being his pet. And me, always never thinking as I was in the heat of the moment, agreed to it. Now I don’t mind being a master. I just need, like I said, to be more of a dom. To be more controlling.

And so.. there we go. Finally done with this blog post. Because I need to be writing another one that’s more personal to me.

Posted in Computing, Drama, Love Drama, Personal, Politics, Weather Alerts | Comments Off on Jero might not have his job for much longer (but for a good reason) / ‘Two-day'(yet free) delivery & video card ‘from Newegg’ / My Nardoragon pet

Jero was half right (final post of this topic [for now] as I have a solid plan thanks to friends)

Posted on 03-22-2023 by Benie

So I’ve been dealing with this hot graphics card for months, and I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. However, a solution has finally blessed me in the form of my close friends
of the Mystery Skulls discord server.. literally the last place I have asked for help. But, as they say: “saving the best for last”. And this was no exception to this rule.
I have spent, nearly.. and I do mean nearly $600 on PC parts, all picked by my friends. And they are.

PSU: EVGA 850 Bq 80+ Bronze (needed for graphics card. My 500W PSU won’t be enough for it)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C (needed for graphics card [it could only be found
on Newegg. And I wanted a case that didn’t have a heavy tempered glass side panel])
Graphics Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6650 XT (to replace my aging RX 580. It’s the equivalent of an RTX 3060 Ti. Mind-blowing.)
–
The reason why I went on and bought everything now instead of waiting until I could find someone to help put paste on the RX 580, is 1) the PSU has 1 left in stock. And 2) ..It would feel like a waste of time on the repair guy’s end, and I don’t feel like buying a stupid travel bag to put the case in (so it’ll be safe for Uber).
Also, I feel more confident of doing a case swap than I do replacing the paste, as it’s something I have done in the past (with success). Yes, the FPCs are going to be a pain, but I know how to deal with them. The case is similar to my current case, except taller and lacking any tempered glass. And as long as I don’t rush, I will do this.
I know how to install a PSU. I know what happens if I accidentally shock myself. Though I also gotta note to myself, of the day that I do this to completely uninstall the old video card drivers.

For now though, I will (try) to ignore my current card that’s overheating.. until I start to see crashing/freezing (and/or artifacting). By then, the card would be at the end of its life. But, given for the fact I’ll get the new card by next month, I don’t think I’ll see an issue before then. And given how it has been OK for this long, I think I should be good for a week or two.
Though if it does happen, I’ll be switching to my Steam Deck until I get the new
hardware (which means no VR).
—
I feel like I’m ‘celebrating too early’ here as things could go wrong.. my CPU may start becoming the bottleneck again. I pray not, but one day it will happen (again), just like with my FX 4350. Then hello 2020, you’re knocking at my door again telling me I’ll have to replace the motherboard and RAM (to get into AM5, then replace the CPU).
Or not. Who knows. Maybe I’ll get lucky and can get into the Ryzen 3000 or 4000 series without having to replace the board, but needing to replace the RAM to a higher frequency.
…But what’s this (that I totally wasn’t holding my breath when I was trying to find the results of this search)?

‘less than 8% bottleneck in many games and is a perfect match to avoid FPS loss.’

Definitely puts a smile on my face, that this isn’t going to be a repeat of 2020 (of no longer being stuck with that FX 4350).

.
But for now, I’m just glad I finally.. finally found that light at the end of the tunnel. All it took was joining the call and talking to Cave and Nova. Bless them for their help, of ending what felt like I was suffering alone, and I could never go to Jero again about my computer
issues.. and I still can’t. Unless he asks how’s my computer doing, I’m going to keep this from him. ..I don’t feel I should have to, but I have to respect his wishes.
He’ll just think I’m “picking at it like a rash until it bleeds”, and maybe he’s right. But
I NEEDED TO KNOW!! ..And seriously, the irony kills me when he’s worried about my health, yet when I’m worried about my GPU, he says “it’s fine”.
Even when I have solid proof of thermal throttling, he’ll still still think the card ‘is
fine’ when he’s the ONLY one that has told me this.
Sorry hun, but majority rules. Still love you though (outside of this).

Posted in Computing, Drama, Personal | Comments Off on Jero was half right (final post of this topic [for now] as I have a solid plan thanks to friends)

Early morning power outage / Asking my friends for help

Posted on 03-22-2023 by Benie

==============================================================
Early morning power outage
==============================================================
I don’t know what woke me up this morning, but my internal clock wanted me to be up. It was around 7:55 in the morning and I heard my mother say “..woah”. Looking around the room (while still in my bed) I’m noticing how dark it is.
What happened? It wasn’t a storm that blew through. It wasn’t ice, yet the power’s out. So I indistinctly get up to go check the fuse box. Flicked all the fuses. None of them were off. So it wasn’t a fuse popping.
Better go report the outage on my phone, then. Check our power company, and notice noone was reporting this. So I’m trying to report the problem. My mother interrupts
me, getting anxious. Tell her to wait. 5 seconds later, someone else has already reported the outage. Estimated restoration time is 10am. About 2 hours from now. And I see the source of the outage, affecting 4,000 customers right now, in the downtown area. Seems someone hit a telephone pole with their car, that just so happens to be connected to one of the sub-stations which controls a quarter of this city’s power. Great. Not the first time I’ve seen this, though.
Welp, can’t do much. Might as well head back to bed and sleep the time away for when power is restored. And it was restored a half an hour before 10am.

==============================================================
Asking my friends for help
==============================================================
Since I no longer have to wonder if what I’m seeing is thermal throttling or not (it is) and with all my plans in place… I just have to wait to see if I can either get someone to come here to repaste the paste, or go up to them via Uber. The one I tried contacting last night has yet to reach me, but I bet their response will be “sorry, we only work on
laptops” or “sorry, we don’t do onsite visits for your case”. But there are others out
there. Surely.
Meanwhile, I wanted to discuss with my friends that whole ‘get another card to act as a fail-safe incase I fuck up’ plan incase I have to do this myself. But finding friends that actually have built a computer, was kind of rare. The only one that was actually informed enough, was Inari. But he wasn’t my first pick. I’ll explain later.
First I asked Ferret, one of Jero’s friends who just happened to be on at the time. I thought for sure, he would know how to build computers.. and he doesn’t. Well, he kinda does, but he’s had a bad history with PC Part Picker, where it claims he’s good yet.. bad stuff happens to him. Said blue smoke was coming from his.. what was it again? Fan controller or something? It had something to do with fans, but I forgot what it was. So if it was his fan controller, that means the blue smoke…. was coming from his motherboard. Oh
fuck.
So he would rather “blow two grand on a prebuilt”. ..I wish I had your kind of disposable income, Ferret. I also wish I was able to save money for myself instead of for an in-home generator (with my mother throwing money in my savings account for it).
–
I then went to Toucan, thinking he might’ve built a computer. He has, but.. well sadly I cannot remember everything he said. The only thing I remember quite well, is the ‘he can’t help me’ part. ..Yeah. So this was a mistake asking him. Oh wait, I also remember he’s the second person I know that doesn’t know a GPU has thermal paste. He kept assuming I’m talking about my CPU.
At this point I was thinking of asking Inari, but I just felt it wouldn’t work as he’s a fursuit maker, not a PC builder (at least I don’t know him ever discussing PC parts). Plus he isn’t in the US. I need to find someone who’s in the US.
–
So next was Lostwolf. He hasn’t built a PC but he knows someone in his group that has. And then he spent most of the time spinning around me, asking questions of stuff I have already tried and didn’t work (as I’m really sick and tired of re-explaining my issue, word per word).
He wanted me to relax and watch videos with his friends, which I tried to do. But my mind kept on swarming of things I could literally do right now, but am too scared to do them. If only I had the courage to just go on and replace the paste myself. But I had questions if I even bought the right paste for the job.
Eventually I had enough ‘relaxing’ and finally caved in to see Inari. Even if he can’t help me, maybe he can reference me to someone who can.
–
And finally, we have Inari. And much to my surprise, nearly everyone there has built a computer. Inari especially. To me it seemed he knew what he was talking about, staring at one of his friends and saying “I know of an upgrade for you”. So I’m thinking “ok, this is perfect!” But I was struggling to explain what was going on as everyone was talking over me. Was very annoying, but I did my best to be patient and wait my time to speak.. which was far and few in-between.
One of his friends though, ‘took over’ for Inari and I tried to explain my issue, but again too many people were canceling out my words. We moved to another area of the world where I was able to fully explain my issue. And while I don’t remember everything I was told, I have learned a lot.

Key things I’ve learned;
1. Definitely replace the paste.
1a. Do NOT ‘spread out the paste’ as the guy in that video of replacing the paste of this card. It may not be even when mounting the heatsink on it.
1b. Half the size of a pea would work for applying new paste (this makes things even more complicated for me).
1c. As for ‘buying the right paste for the job’, he mentions the paste I have would work, but he would’ve gone for something else if he was me. Sadly I forgot what paste he said to
get, but I think it was ‘NX’, or ‘XT’.. or something along those lines.
1d. The paste I got, I was warned would “come out runny”.
2. Try to remove the front panel to have more airflow into the case, or get a case that has a meshed front panel to allow more airflow. …I knew it was a mistake of getting the case I had, but at the time I was on a budget and had to cut a few corners.
3. Consider adding more fans. From the friend, he uses these ‘Wathai 120mm Industrial high flow‘ fans (that he calls “server fans”). I’ve never heard of this brand name in my life. And Inari recommends I get these ‘Akasa 120mm APACHE Black‘ fans. Another brand I’ve never heard in my life.
3a. Apparently, Noctua fans are bad as the ball baring “goes out in 6 months”. …Fuck. So let this be a mental note for future me, that I might have to replace the exhaust fan (again).
4. It’s up in the air if the Thermaltake 700W that I currently still have in its box that’s brand new, is as ‘bad’ as the Overclock discord told me. Maybe I should ask in
the Microsoft Community discord and see what they could tell me, if it’s ‘worth’ spending over $100 on a PSU, or use the 700W I have for the new card (if I decide to go that route).

So this is all I know right now. Also when the guy left, he said to “do research on fans”. Right, like that’s going to happen when I’ve been used to asking others for help when it comes to PC part researching.
I need to keep asking others for their opinions, and then gather them in a list. Buuuut the problem with that is, there will always be conflicting responses of “you should
get X”, “NO!! X is shit, get Y!”, “are you shitting ME?! Y IS SHIT!!” etc.. etc. 😩
There’s never an easy way to make informed decisions when it comes to PC hardware. …And I HATE DOING MY OWN HOMEWORK!! 😑 Why I ask others to do it for me!!

Honestly, I think it would be a better option to just do what Ferret does and buy a fucking prebuilt. But there we go again with me asking “is X good?”, because I don’t care to go on
these ‘PC brand name here’ (and other informative) websites, and have the knowledge to know what the fuck I’m reading. And I’m being punished for never…. never putting in the effort to learn things like ‘core clocks’, ‘chipset’, and other things true builders use.
This is why I don’t call myself a ‘PC Gamer’. I don’t deserve the title.

Posted in Computing, Drama, Personal | Comments Off on Early morning power outage / Asking my friends for help

My options of dealing with this GPU heat problem

Posted on 03-21-2023 by Benie

Hey again. So Jero responded and, his response hasn’t changed (which is quite surprising). I still feel though, he’s quite tired and not able to think straight. But he feels he’s ‘said all he can’ and there’s ‘nothing else he can tell me’. And he won’t even tell me what dips would definitely show the signal of thermal throttling, which irks me. I told him what I’ve seen, the dips and the core clock occasionally dropping below 1000 MHz, and how this is not a game (it’s a stress test).
But it seems nothing I’m saying is convincing him that I might have a problem with those temps. Literally everyone I’ve spoken to says those are dangerous temps, even
fucking FurMark itself shows the temp being in the red!! …He’s the only one that
says “nothing’s wrong with it”. And I wish I could believe him.

However, after just recently doing a much longer than usual (10 minute) FurMark stress test, I have to agree to the naysayers (sorry, Jero). As soon as it gets close to 90c, I see dips. Big dips. And if that’s not proof enough, the FPS was going down as the test continued. The lowest it got was 50 FPS.. and it was very noticeable.
It IS thermal throttling. I finally see the proof right infront of me. The FPS drops were enough to convince me.
Okay, now that I have confirmed thermal throttling, I have to put some options on the table of either mitigating, bypassing, or just flat out ignoring the problem until I see a game I play begin to freeze/crash due to the heat.
Now these options aren’t from anyone I’ve spoken to about this, or saw online either through a YouTube video or a website. These are coming from myself.
And my options are…

ATTEMPT TO FIX THE PROBLEM (with fresh paste)
1. Call every PC repair company around me, and see if they’ll be willing to do
an in-home visit to replace the paste, check for throttling after it’s done, and let me know if I need to add more fans to the case (or get a new case).
1a. If an in-home visit won’t work, then I will go to them (via Uber). Need to buy a travel bag first for the case, to not scratch up their vehicle.
1b. If the Uber thing will not work for me, I’ll have to man up and do it myself. However I’ll be looking for another card to use as a ‘fail-safe’ incase I fuck it up.

MITIGATING THE PROBLEM (going to see if any tech guy can help with this)
1. Purchase and install two 120mm fans on the top of the case.
1a. Do what Jayz2Cents did in this video, of adjusting the RPM of my exhaust fan to make sure there’s equal pressure in the case.

BYPASSING THE PROBLEM
1. Look for and buy a new graphics card (I was recommended the 6600 XT to be the most compatible with my existing hardware, and a fairly cheap $300).

IGNORING THE PROBLEM (Risky)
(Don’t need to explain this as I already have)

NOTE: I’ve tried a step that used to be here, but I removed it due to failure. And that was to see if undervolting could be used to lower the temp. And the answer is Yes and No, with a mix of the game I was playing to test.. freezing up my entire computer.
So I tried three different tests, using Planet Crafter as my stress test, @ 1920×1080 with VSync on. I was suggested to set the core clock to 1200 MHz and then set the Core Voltage to -200mV (which is 0.950V).
And these are the results;
Test 1: 1200 MHz at -200 Core Voltage | FAIL (game froze my computer in 45 seconds)
Test 2: 1200 MHz at -100 Core Voltage | FAIL (game froze my computer in 15 minutes)
Test 3: 1200 MHz at (no Core Voltage) | FAIL (card went above 85c)
The second test, the card went to 83c yet stayed there. This was surprisingly good (yet still hot).. but the game froze.

With that colossal failure, I’m now trying to contact people around me. There’s one that’s fairly close to me (that I could walk to them).. but going by the reviews, it seems they only work on laptops. Still, I asked and hopefully I’ll find out one day.

Posted in Computing, Drama, Personal | Comments Off on My options of dealing with this GPU heat problem

When you really wish your smart BF was living with you, to help calm your fears of your GPU

Posted on 03-21-2023 by Benie


5am. I should be in bed by now, but my body won’t let me. As I’m still grasping at straws trying to find an actual solution. But, it’s a new day again. I got my rest. And all I’m going to say is.. well, I hate saying this but I can no longer go to Jero about this problem. Not that he has told me he doesn’t wish to (or can’t) help, the fact he’s been working makes him not really.. a ‘dependable source’ when all my friends (even their grandmas) tell me to replace the paste; that the temps are way too hot and eventually the card is going to have issues.
Yesterday I sent him what FurMark told me, and he.. he tells me the dips are caused
by “what you’re looking at”. Um. Hun. FurMark is a GPU torture device. It’s the only thing my card is ‘looking at’, which is a big furry doughnut that moves around with a crazy background. I– okay, hun. You.. you just get some sleep. Clearly you aren’t sleeping right because of your job, and me telling you all of this isn’t helping with that.
So I’m just going to have to believe the naysayers. I’m sorry. You aren’t here with
me, doing these tests and watching the numbers, and will comfort me if you deem that the naysayers are right that this is indeed thermal throttling… and replace the paste for
me.
It’s just me here against the world, hun. I’m scared. You’re not here to hold me, to tell me what I should do. And that’s why I can’t come to him about this again. He can’t put his full attention to this problem. He can’t take over my computer, and see these numbers in real time. He’s only going by what he knows. Mine is a ‘rare’ problem.

But you’re probably asking yourself “Benie, what’s going on? I thought you said there was no problem, that the naysayers are wrong”. Aye, I did say that. But I continued to monitor the problem to make absolutely certain I had “nothing to worry about” (according
to Jero). …And one world I joined started shaking that feeling of comfort. It was a medium sized banquet hall that Stray made, and some of my friends were there. And the world has multiple mirrors.
But these mirrors held darkness within them. The world itself made my graphics card run surprisingly in the normal temperature range (saying in the high 70’s). Turning on one of the mirrors, made that temp go up 10c (to where it’s now showing 89c for the first time). And my mind’s all “GREAT.. it’s getting worse!!” And… I saw dips when it hit that number. Clearly a sign of thermal throttling, right? Yet it didn’t always do this when it hit that dangerous number.. aaand also, the fan speed suddenly dropped with those dips. So I thought “it’s probably just VRChat, with people changing avatars and stuff”.
But I turned off the mirror anyway, and saw the GPU cooling itself back below 80c. God damn, those mirrors are a worse stress test than FurMark.
Anyway, so you could say that’s the end of the ‘stress testing’, right? ..Then why was I seeing dips even when the temp was within the normal temperature range?! OY, graphics card! Stop trolling me!! 😡 I tried to ignore it but hearing the fans suddenly spin down then spin back up when a dip happened, had me on pins and needles.
–
Went to go see some other friends after the last ones were leaving. One friend in particular had a ‘fur shader’. And you know how my graphics card absolutely loved that. Looking towards them, my FPS dropped to 20. They were literally a walking FurMark stress test for my graphics card, and I couldn’t disable the fur shader they had. So I prayed my card would just handle it, and thankfully it did (no crashing/freezing at least).

The next day I ran FurMark again (this time for two minutes). And on the second minute I noticed dips. They weren’t huge dips, though. This is the info that I had sent to Jero, and what he told me.
Then I decided to Google “is my GPU thermal throttling?”.. because I
seriously wanted/needed to know the difference between these ‘normal’ dips that Jero claims are fine, and dips that would definitely show a problem. Saw several videos, with all of them recommending to use a program called ‘HWiNFO‘. Huh. Why not HWMonitor? And why haven’t I heard of this thing? But the problem.. is all of these videos were using
a NVIDIA graphics card, pointing out what to watch out for with the modern 2090’s and beyond. ….How in the fuck is this helpful to ME?! My card doesn’t show this! And it makes me feel they’re all doing this…
Haha Laughing GIF - Haha Laughing Lol GIFs
“HE HAS AN AMD CARD!!! WHAT A CHEAPSKATE!!!”

I saw another video that seemed the most promising. Instead of saying “look at MSI Afterburner” (like the others), he was using the new program itself. And apparently, their card has a very, very simple ‘Thermal Throttling’ sensor. How simple? Showing a ‘Yes’ or
a ‘No’. He said “this is seriously all you need! You can stop the video right here. You can’t get any more simple to exactly know if your card is thermal throttling.”
This guy was reading my fucking mind! YES!! Give me this program NOW!! 😄 So I got it downloaded and installed, and ran it. …But my card wasn’t showing this extremely reliable sensor. I looked through every sensor I could see on my card, but nothing
about ‘Thermal’ was listed (apart from this ‘Thermal Diode Temperature’ sensor). I did everything the guy said to do in the video, but.. it wasn’t there. And then I noticed, he was using a fucking 2090. 😑
Okay. So I guess AMD cards lack this EXTREMELY FUCKING USEFUL sensor. Fuck
you, AMD!! How I REGRET going cheap and buying you (back in 2018)!! I should had just stuck with NVIDIA!
But yet, my CPU.. has this damn sensor! WHAT THE FUCK!! Is it just my card?! Or is it a problem with the software itself? I needed to ask.
Couldn’t find an official or unofficial Discord server for this program, so I felt I was SoL. But I did find, of all things.. a forum. Yes. a forum. in 2023. That’s rare. And it looks like a clone of those old style Bulletin Board forums. The early 2000’s called, they want their forums back!
But I made a (temp) account with them to ask why is the sensor missing. Is this a “blame the manufacturer” thing, or do AMD cards not have this sensor? The creator of the program got ahold of me with a not so useful answer, but an answer I have to accept. They said “The GPU most likely has a throttling feature, but if you don’t see such sensor then it doesn’t expose its state. Most later GPUs usually do.” Proving it’s not ‘just a NVIDIA thing’. It’s the card itself. ..And I don’t have a ‘later GPU’ because I’m a fucking budget builder. 😖 I don’t see spending $400+ on a graphics card being ‘worth it’. *sighs*

So now what? I’m back at square one.. not any fucking CLOSER to knowing if my card is thermal throttling. At this point I rather just buy another card.
But I did do one last ditch effort, just to see if it would do anything– last night (at
4:40am) I dedusted my computer. It wasn’t that much dust. I then tried to take the card out, but.. I forgot how in the fuck I put it in the case. This case doesn’t make it easy to get it out. There’s this bracket on the outside of the case that holds the cards together, but I forgot how to remove it and I didn’t feel like unplugging everything from the back of the case and trying.
So I tried a Plan B: put my finger on the fans and hold them, then use the nozzle to blow the dust out. And it worked great. A lot of dust was flying out of the card. I cleaned the outside and tried to clean the inside too. I was getting a few dust bunnies flying out of the card, and it was looking very promising (like this was the reason for the dangerously high temps).
When I felt I got all the dust out, I plugged the monitors and VR cables back into the back of the card, put in the power, and turned it on. I was scared (as usual) it wouldn’t turn
on.. or worse, not show a picture. But that bracket kept the card in
and (thankfully) prevented me from screwing myself.
With the side panel off, I decided to do a FurMark test. This test lasted for about 3-4 minutes, and it was struggling to hit 88c. But there’s the thing.. the dedusting
did nothing for the temps. I just found it a bit interesting how leaving the panel off actually helped it a bit. However when I ended the test, the fans were apparently having a hard time trying to ‘cool’ the card (when it was already below 54c). How odd. Is this a sign there might be something wrong with the fans?
I then put the case back on and did the test again. It managed to hit 88c in half the time it took when the side panel was off. ..Even hitting 90c for the first time. Greeeeeat!!
I was watching the clock and I saw it occasionally struggling to stay above 1000 MHz.

Here’s the results I sent to Jero.


It claims the max was 89c, but I saw 90c a few times in MSI Afterburner. And speaking
of MSI Afterburner…

Again, it’s great. It’s so great that all of that effort dedusting the card was FOR NOTHING!! Fucking love that feeling of wasting my time! 😠
Now those big dips, I believe were caused by using ShareX to take these pictures. I should had just used my phone instead for a more reliable reading, but I was tired and wasn’t thinking.
But you might also notice the decline of the core clock as soon as it hit 89c. It was going down, occasionally getting close to going below 1000 MHz. But it was staying just
below 1250 MHz.
And Jero is probably going to see this as ‘normal’ while everyone says he’s wrong. *sighs* I hate getting these conflicting responses!! This is just like when I tried to Google the safe temp for this card, and the numbers were all over the place. Jero’s not here with me IRL to see the proof, to tell me the absolute truth.

…Will anyone, tell me if my card is thermal throttling, that I can trust?! Because when it comes to hardware, it’s just like choosing pizza toppings; everyone cherry picks their favorites.
Maybe I just need to go to an Overclocker discord server or something and ask there, like I did when it came to my FX 9590 (and that damn thing was thermal throttling). Maybe they can give me other alternatives than “replace the paste”, like.. an aggressive fan curve or undervolting the card in BIOS.
Even if that means I’ll have to run my games at a lower graphics quality, so be it in order to keep this damn temp below 80c.

Posted in Computing, Personal, Politics | Comments Off on When you really wish your smart BF was living with you, to help calm your fears of your GPU

Stress test results that throttle your card

Posted on 03-19-2023 by Benie

*me, pacing back and forth in the waiting room of Computer Hardware ER*
*The doctor shows up with a grim look on his face, then stares at me*
Me: Doctor.. how’s my graphics card? Is she.. thermal throttling?
Doctor: *sighs deeply* Benie, maybe you should sit down.
Me: *getting scared, feeling sick as I sit down*
Doctor: Well, we– *turns into a random ad about Raid: Shadow Legends*
Me: ..WTF!!

When I woke up, I was strongly thinking of just going on with the ‘dedust’ plan first. But first I needed to know if it’s even possible to open up the blasted front panel (where the three intake fans are), so I can clean off the dust on the other side of the tempered glass window.
Checking my phone.. I see no videos about doing this (of this particular case). There was plenty of videos of opening up the front panel.. but for other Thermaltake models. And the only videos for this case are useless unboxing/review videos. *facepalm*
Since it seems my decision ‘has been made for me’, I went back to the original ‘stress
test’ plan: run Planet Crafter on Ultra graphics settings, for 10 minutes and watch the temps in CPUID HWMonitor. But what is this? A graphics setting beyond Ultra? ‘Maximum‘? This should be good for a stress test.
*takes deep breath* God, have mercy on my soul for the sin I’m about to commit on my graphics card. 😂
Set a timer for 10 minutes, reset HWMonitor’s values, and loaded my save. I watched the temps almost immediately jump to 70c and climbed fairly quickly to 80c. As it
approached 85c I then started noticing the core clock going down. Finally the temp stopped around 87-88c. Looked at the clock and notice it was going
between 1298 to 1355 MHz. Is this a sign of thermal throttling? Sure looked like it to me. But when I gave the results to Jero, he said “this is normal for the clock to be bouncing up and down”. He said to use MSI Afterburner instead of HWMonitor, and use a program called ‘FurMark’ for stress testing. I actually remember using this in the past.
So I got the program up and see the UI.
What should I be using…? I assumed ‘Preset: 1080 (FHD)’. Even though this is for more for benchmarking, it would still work as a stress test. Got this next.

Hit the big ‘GO!’ button and watched everything soar into the sky. And after a minute, here are the results.

Jero told me to monitor the core clock. If that line drops drastically, then it’s thermal throttling. And as you can see…

it’s not! My graphics card is stable and NOT overheating. This. is. awesome. 😁 I don’t have to worry about it anymore. And this will silence the naysayers.

Seeing this proves to me, that as long as it stays below 90c (the maximum safe temp), I’m fine. If it goes above 90c, I’ll likely see thermal throttling. This will work as a thermal threshold for me. Just need to keep my eye on it when I’m in games.

Posted in Computing, Drama, Personal, Politics | Comments Off on Stress test results that throttle your card