And that concerns me for Canadians. If things continue on a downward trend, Americans with serious money (note: I do not have “serious” money) will head to Canada, further exacerbating the housing shortage.

I really appreciate you saying this (although I’m not OP). I’m scared for my family, my kid is in the LGBTQ community, and we live in fucking Florida, the smelly dick of the US. We are getting our passports setup just in case.

I work in maintenance/construction, and I’m surrounded by MAGA screaming idiots. These people can’t be argued with. All these people care about is hurting others. It’s astounding what this country has become. A shell of its former self. The US has already failed, and none of them can see it.

I keep mine in the family area. More distractions, but it keeps me more available for everyone.

For Bluetooth, many adapters have a cable that plugs into a USB 2 header on the motherboard. If it isn’t plugged in, you won’t have Bluetooth. And of course, make sure you have drivers for it. Windows usually handles it, but often the drivers that you can download give extra performance.

As long as you have something that works for you, that’s all that matters. I have a 7900 XTX now, and I’m watercooling it only because I already had everything except the block. It runs cool on air.

And I agree, watercooling is almost never worth it. I love the hobby, so I stick with it, but I don’t generally recommend it. It is an incredible amount of work and money.

When I bought my reference 6800XT, the temps were horrible. The regular core temps weren’t too bad, high 70s to mid 80s, but hotspot was constantly in the low 100s. Mem temps were about the same.

I had good airflow, and a cool house. Checked all the torques on the board, everything seemed fine. I finally went watercooling, and the card cooled down so much it was unbelievable. I could run 3dMark on a constant loop, and never even crack 50 degrees. Fur mark for an hour, never above 44 degrees and this was on a single 360 rad.

However, temps crept up by 10 degrees over time. Paste pump out happened. Tried a different paste same thing happened a couple months later.

Finally tried Gelid GC Extreme, and it has stayed the course. I think the coolers on the reference cards are just bad, and when you add in thermal cycling, it’s a bad time. I found it especially suspect that the 7900 XTX reference boards had major vapor chamber problems. I wonder if there wasn’t a problem a while in the making.

Honestly, if you are just getting a torque wrench for spark plugs (and any other BASIC projects at home) any brand will do. Just make sure it has the torque range you need.

I recommend “click type” because they are easy to operate correctly, and easy to take care of. Seriously, read the manual that comes with it, and follow the steps everytime. If you do this, it will last you a long time.

I bought my two torque wrenches from Harbor Freight for about $10 each. Torquing frame bolts or spark plugs? No problem. Would I use them for valve train or engine internals? Absolutely not.

If you don’t want to go the cheap route, go to any big box store like Home Depot or Lowe’s (US) and anything name brand will do, as long as it has the torque range you need.

I have all three cases (4000D, 5000D, 7000D), and offer a counterpoint.

They are very complicated cases, the 5000 and 7000 especially. But- they work for just about anything. No matter what style you want in your PC (solid colors, hidden cables, hidden drives, air cooled, water cooled, etc), these cases work. I agree there is excess, but it makes them work for a vast amount of users. Nothing like buying a case and realizing there is absolutely no way you can fit something in there.

I’ll agree with you that first time setup is a bitch. But once you get it how you want it, it’s fantastic. And I appreciate the extra parts, because (at least for me) builds change frequently, according to my needs and interests. I just found a smaller box, and keep all the extra components in it saved in case I need them later.

Either way you look at it, I hope you enjoy it, they are great cases.

Crucial generally makes great stuff. The BX series is low budget, but everything else I have used is awesome. I have two MX500 2TB, a 1TB version, and a P3. No complaints from any of it. I upgraded RAM in an older laptop, and it works perfect as well, and the price is nice.

KDE is amazing. When I started messing with Linux, I tried Mint Cinnamon, which is nice, but just didn’t tick all of my personal boxes. Tried Arch, had no idea what I was doing. Ended up trying Nobara with GNOME. Really hated the “Apple” feel. Everything seemed out of place. Later tried Nobara KDE, and I have been there ever since.

KDE allows me desktop widgets for monitoring my watercooling hardware and internal temps. And everything feels right.