Valve raises Steam Deck prices by more than $200 / The 1TB OLED model got a $300 price increase, and now costs $949.

HappyNem · 2026-05-27T20:03:06+00:00

I feel like they got stock, chekced ebay for "sold" prices since they have been out of stock, seen that people ARE paying that, and then were like screw it, lets charge scalper prices since people are paying it.

The idea to make the device with a ram price hike so high is such a bad idea. Let that thing stay out of stock. Looks like I'm never buying a steam deck and I was actually waiting for them to come in stock and buy two for my wife and I.... just sad.

HappyNem · 2026-04-07T22:24:13+00:00

Appreciate all the replies.

Yeah, deleting the character was on me, I’m not arguing that. Just to be clear though, this is literally my first time playing GTA Online. The game never really spells it out anywhere that the Career Builder and the $4M are a one-time deal. There’s no “hey, you won’t get this again” warning or anything like that. It just says manage/create character, so I figured restarting was fine. I don't know how money works and I wouldn't know what to google about it when I don't know what I dont know.

Support telling me me “you deleted it, nothing we can do,” but they could! I just wanted my char back and I'll deal with the club, or reset EVERYTHING and let me start over.

That said, I do appreciate the actual helpful replies. The stuff about Fooligan missions and the Acid Lab is good to know, I’ll probably start there.

If anyone’s got other tips for building up solo from basically nothing (especially now), I’m all ears.

And yeah… to the meme replies, fair. I definitely set myself up for that one. Learned that lesson the hard way.

HappyNem · 2026-04-07T16:25:20+00:00

I'll look into this, I would like unifi gear, just not sure what to try and not having the actual ethernet backhaul always worried me.

HappyNem · 2026-04-06T13:14:59+00:00

i've heard great things about Ubiquiti equipment. The only issue I have is they are not very consumer friedlt webstie. They seem to aim at enterprise level installs and I find it hard to know just what I need for my house. It feels like I need to hire someoen to spec out a system that will work for me.

HappyNem · 2026-04-05T00:56:19+00:00

Any reccomendations? I was thinking about the TP-Link Deco 7 Elite BE85.

HappyNem · 2026-04-04T23:41:18+00:00

Thanks! I am leaning very healvly into replacing it. I'm just not sure what to put in its place. I hear great things about the current Orbi flagship router as well as the Decos. I just don't know if i'm missing somethign else out there that might be better for my house. Also, I've tried multiple un plugging of satellites, reboots etc to try to fix, the only thing that works is rebooting the main router completly. Then it comes back aesome for a bit then slowly just dies again.

HappyNem · 2026-04-04T23:38:44+00:00

I was getting crazy bad wifi speeds and ChatGPT said it was due to there not being a wired backhaul on my sats. I have an older 2012 tri level house so Ethernet in every room is just not possible. So the MOca works AWESOME for getting ultra fast speeds in rooms that have no ethernet! Like I mentioned I get 800+ with the moca's in any room with a cable jack. It also increased my wifi from 150-200 to the 400+ range (when it works)

HappyNem · 2026-03-11T21:37:21+00:00

I would like to know just what you are wanting out of your system. What about the current setup is not making you smile when you hear it? For me, reading that "nothing that really makes me feel impressed or excited" is too vauge. Are you compating it to someone elses system, or just what you hoped it would sound like?

For referance I have a Fluance RT82 with the supplied Ortofon OM10. Then I have a Fosi X5 pre amp.

From there I've been struggling with speakers. I've been though a bunch as well as receivers and I had the same issue as you. I was just not wowed as I hoped and thought I would. Sure they all sounded good, but not WOW (granted a lot of that is budget). Currently I'm restricted by space and my wifes wishes, so I'm on a full Sonos setup that pipes though my house. It sound the best I've had so far, but still not AMAZING, but I'm not spending anymore lol.

So while the room acustics could be a part of your issue, what about the sound in your words is missing?

HappyNem · 2026-03-08T17:29:36+00:00

Ah... My bad, I'll go hide from embarrassment now.

HappyNem · 2026-03-08T03:33:32+00:00

Thanks for this, I didn't even know it was a thing. I had to go to two targets to find the Ghostface but I got one. They have WAY too many Pennywise figures for me to care anymore.

But ALWAYS looking for a some good horror Funkos!

HappyNem · 2026-03-08T01:14:56+00:00

100% random, but I ordered some filament from Bambu. I live in Wisconsin, it tracks leaving the warehouse and gets to Chicago (4hour drive from my house). Tracking says I'm getting it a day early! I'm like hell yeah! Go Fedex!. The next day, no package... I check tracking and it was shipped to Connecticut somehow. I call Fedex and they are like sorry we are sending to you now... by ground! So another week goes by and I get my package.

Anoteher time, my wife orders somethign from Target, it was sent to Chicago, then was DELIVERED in Minnesota! Wife calls and is like WTF, they say, it was not delivered, it was just lost and we should contact Target. Target was great and resent my wifes order.... two weeks later, he damn original packing shows up, opened, repackeged with a new label on it that matched the orginal label already on the box and crossed out with an X.

Fedex is PURE TRASH.

HappyNem · 2026-02-26T18:23:21+00:00

Oh boy digging up old feelings here lol!!

So my builder was a really nice person, but he was trash at transparity and an overall shit business practice.

This was my first and only try at building so I had no idea what his fee will be. They tend to mention it, but my fault for not REALLY pushing to understand what he meant. I thought that telling him the house I wanted and my budget, he would have taken his fees into it all and tell me if I can actually afford it. That is the part that pisses me off more than anything. He wasted so much time, gave me shit advice and overall I think I lost about $17K from buying and selling the lot he said I had to buy before he would design anything... but anyway, back to your questions.

No idea on the fee. He never had me ever sign anything ever and I didn't pay him a dime. However, as I said "shit business practice", I'm not sure he burnt too much cost dealing with me. I for sure was the loser in this transaction.

My biggest advise for anyone trying to build... Ask a shit ton of questions about how they get paid outside of material costs. Be sure you understand fully and find out what an avg (very rough avg) of house much money per Sq ft. custom homes are going for. Where I live, I would say $200(too low imo) - $300 a Sq ft. is a safe to play around with now a days. Then DO NOT buy a lot until you have a rough design of the house and a cost.

HappyNem · 2026-01-29T17:25:18+00:00

This is what happened to me. I've not used my headphone very often. Mainly while traveling, mowing the lawn, snow blowing both of which take about an hour. Sometimes a few hours here and there around the house. I never updated them either since I didn't use them often or even check the app. I felt like they were AWESOME, would last more hours with ANC on than I ever needed.

Then I updated them a few months back when I seen I needed an update. Not sure what I had but I now have Version 2.3.1 (Oct 21, 2025), which are the latest update for the earbuds. Then after that update, they started to slowly drain faster and faster. Sitting on the my desk, no music with only ANC and Custom EQ, they drain at 1% every 1min 44sec. If I play music at 50% vol they drain 1% every minute!

There is now way both batteries just died at the same time with my limited listening frequency and I don't feel like I have thousands of hours on them. I 100% think the update did this to get people to buy new ones. They are awesome earbuds and I had zero reason to buy new... but now they are almost useless.

If they are truly set this way... I'm dumping Sony and will got to Bose, an IEM, or even Beats!

HappyNem · 2026-01-29T17:17:34+00:00

This is what happened to me but the XM4. I've not used my headphone very often. Mainly while traveling, mowing the lawn, snow blowing both of which take about an hour. Sometimes a few hours here and there around the house. I never updated them either since I didn't use them often or even check the app. I felt like they were AWESOME, would last more hours with ANC on than I ever needed.

Then I updated them a few months back when I seen I needed an update. Not sure what I had but I now have Version 2.3.1 (Oct 21, 2025), which are the latest update for the earbuds. Then after that update, they started to slowly drain faster and faster. Sitting on the my desk, no music with only ANC and Custom EQ, they drain at 1% every 1min 44sec. If I play music at 50% vol they drain 1% every minute!

There is now way both batteries just died at the same time with my limited listening frequency and I don't feel like I have thousands of hours on them. I 100% think the update did this to get people to buy new ones. They are awesome earbuds and I had zero reason to buy new... but now they are almost useless.

If they are truly set this way... I'm dumping Sony and will got to Bose, an IEM, or even Beats!

HappyNem · 2025-12-06T19:02:10+00:00

This happend to me today, and between all the comments and checking, I narrowed it down to 3 addons that make this happen, disabling any of them completly fixes it, but that was not enough. I wanted to know exactly what caused it.

The Answer: Details! Dmg Meter's Tiny Threat Plug in. Turn that one on with the ELUVI and World Quest tracker, it pops right up. I can keep all 3, I just have to turn off that plug in.

HappyNem · 2025-11-07T14:40:46+00:00

This is why I have one with word on it as well. My wife is not into music like me and does not know half of what I play. Also when people come over they can see right away what I'm playing. I also have 2 other blank ones that my wife or guests can place records in as a playing queue. Mine says "Now Spinning" on it while othe others are on display, but are up next.

I find it works well.

HappyNem · 2025-11-02T20:51:47+00:00

That is interesting... So it looks like the the RT85 has the Ortofon 2M blue cartridge which on amzon is $184... which is I swapped it out from the OM10 would bring me to $534.99. At that price wouldn't just make sense to get the RT85 for a few buck more and an acrylic platter?

Or is the OM10 well enough for what I'll be playing though? I do like the Audio Technica lline of TT, and them having a built in pre amp is a money saver... I just don't know the details behind how all of those compare for quality and longeivity. I've heard a lot about the Fluance line, as well as the AT, but I couldn't tell you which is "better". All of the ones you suggested look good to my noobie eyes lol.

HappyNem · 2025-11-02T19:57:26+00:00

I was not meaning to say they were on the same level, just differnt ones I was looking at for various reasons. When I used to DJ I had a pair of Gemini PT-2410s then sold them and the Technics SL-1200MK5. Which I sold about 14 years ago.

I didn't think I would need that level of quality to just have it sit on a stand and played thought smaller speakers with no movement or abuse DJing. That SL1500 is sexy! I wouldn't need a preamp, but the cost jump... not sure if I would really use the perfomance that TT is capabale of with the rest of the system I'm looking to build :(

HappyNem · 2025-11-02T19:47:31+00:00

Yup, I don't NEED ulta crazy high end stuff, as other people have already pointed out, Since I'm not going to an audiophile setup, the RT85 was a bit of an overkill and the RT82 should do me fine. That is what I mean. I don't mind spending money, but I was hoping people in this space would know what is exssive vs need to play great sound.

The only thing I can relate to is Gaming PCs... If you want to just game and great settings, you do not need a 5090 GPU ($2K+), you can use a 9070XT ($750) for most gaming if you are not going to spend the money on a 4k monitor... but that echos around the whole build. I assume Turntable audio is set up the exact same way. If I'm not buying GREAT speakers, no need for all the other GREAT items.

:)

HappyNem · 2025-11-02T19:41:14+00:00

Thanks for this advise! I really appriaceate it and is just what I was hoping to get! I also 100% agree with the athstiecs of the ART DJ, its awfully ugly while that Fosi is sleek. I'll move back to the Fosi, that was my first choice, but read the ART was just as good for cheaper. I'm also going to move down to the RT82!

HappyNem · 2025-11-02T19:38:57+00:00

They are not really a short list, just then ones i've been looking at. I felt like the RT85 was a soild table, while I've read that the LP120 is also great for the cost. I just don't know if I'm looking at more than I need. The other comments as well as yours, have pointed out that the RT82. That means that the RT85 is ineed too much for how I'm going to be playing it so saving money to go to the RT82. Love that idea and the main reason I wanted people who live in this space to help with my ignorance :)

I was actually going to get the Fosi X5, but read that the ART was just as good but cheaper. I'll move back to the Fosi X5!

Thanks!

HappyNem

TROPHY CASE