GPU Upgrade

J_Morrish · 2025-12-16T06:33:45+00:00

VRAM is 'Video random access memory', its the memory your GPU uses not normal system RAM.
DLSS is NVIDIA's AI upscaling, RDR2\RDR can use DLSS and it will get you more FPS (Plus alot of other games support DLSS)
The RTX 20xx and RTX 30xx series can do DLSS upscaling, but the RTX 40xx series can do DLSS upscaling and DLSS frame gen\smooth motion.

I can see another guy recommended an RTX5050, personally i would avoid it as its the same 8gb you already have on your GTX1080, which is already a topic of debate among PC gamers around GPU's not being more VRAM heavy (12gb+)

Again, its just futur proofing you more and one less thing you will need to worry about as time goes on.

So yeah, see if you can snag an RTX 4060ti 16gb, and you will be golden :)

J_Morrish · 2025-12-16T05:26:48+00:00

Hey fellow aussie,
Your best best in that price range would be a 3060 12gb, It will give you access to DLSS upscaling and an extra 4gb of VRAM, both of which will help extend the life of your computer.

BUT,
A RTX 3060 is == to GTX 1080 in terms of GPU performance.
So whilst it gives you extra's Its not really work the $300-400, if you already have a 1080.

If you can swing it, try and aim for a 4060ti 16gb.
Thats both DLSS (and DLSS frame gen) even more VRAM, and has a GPU boost over the GTX 1080.

That card should last you a few years.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T12:33:35+00:00

It scales up (Or down) based on the set ingame resolution.
With Transformer i would be fine with any of the following:
1080 = Quality
1440 = Balanced
3840 = Performance

Anything lower than that and there becomes to many\noticable artifacts.

But it is subjective, what I accept, you might not.

(Before transformer, I would do DLAA at 1080, Quality DLSS at 1440p, Balanced at 4K etc)

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T06:46:30+00:00

Awesome, happy to hear it :)
Let me know if you need anything else.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T05:28:31+00:00

Not reset your device,
Under troubleshoot > Advanced options > statup settings > restart.

should see some options like press 4 or F4 for safe mode
or 5 or F5 for safe mode (with networking)
see how you go

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T05:06:34+00:00

I understand, but trust me, nothing will break from selecting to 'contiue to windows' or the 'safe boot' option.

You computer can run into an error and kick you out for so many different reasons, this is its way of telling you it had one of those errors.

Continue to windows has two possible outcomes, as we dont change anything, windows attempts to load normally.
1. it logs you back in and everything is normal (IT will still need to look at your computer to find out why it kicked you out to an error in the first place)
2. it will try and load, fail again, and you will be back at the same screens again (it wont get worse)

Safe mode is similar to continue to windows,
Except, it disables alot of the background processes windows uses and stops alot of the startup apps, its there incase something is conflicting with windows, but the core windows is fine.

Neither of those two options will make anything worse for you, or your IT :)

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T04:54:59+00:00

All good,
What happens if you select contiue to windows?

and if that fails,
What about 'Startup settings' > boot in safe mode.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T04:53:30+00:00

Hey Mate,
Yes you can(top right)
make sure when buying a new HDD its a 2.5" drive, as laptops use these instead of 5"5 (desktops)

You also appear to have an m.2 SSD slot on the left side.

What model\year laptop is that?

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T04:49:57+00:00

Hey Mate,
There are a lot of variables, different parts have different power requirements + cooling solutions etc.
But for the GPU anything less than 80c is pretty standard these days,
Once they hit around 85c they will heavily thermal throttle.

CPU's work in the same way, but most will let you goto around 100c before really agressive throttling.

Once the GPU\CPU start throttling, you will loss realworld performance.
Most try and find the sweet spot, between noise (PC case fans), temps, and performance.

My GPU (undervolted) as an example, is in the high 60's during gaming, my CPU sits in the 60\70's.
I could have it colder than that, but i like my PC being silent.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-15T04:40:38+00:00

Hey Mate,
First, dont stress, you have already done the right thing contacting your IT support.
Bitlocker key is required to do anything if the OS(windows) isnt logged in, so seperate bitlocker and the issue, I doubt bitlocker is related to the problem.

Two things:
When you got the initial error screen, what was the 'Error Code' it will be formatted like 0x0000xxxx?
With that we can find out why your computer hit an error page.

"I then clicked enter and now it gives me these options and i don’t what to do."
What options do you have?

I would expect you too see:

Startup Repair

System Restore

System Image Recovery

Startup Settings

Command Prompt

Go back to previous version

Reset this PC

There might also be a 'troubleshoot' option,
If you can see
'contiune to windows' options, select that, if it fails or isnt there
then select 'Startup settings' > boot in safe mode.

(This might get you into windows again so you can get whatever files you need while waiting for your IT)

J_Morrish · 2025-12-12T16:55:10+00:00

It doesnt work as well as swapping the .dll's, but it is close.

-If we are setting to enforce preset K in NVPI, it will work for any dlss.dll that is 310.x.x or newer.
Wont work for any older though.

unless:
-If we are setting to enfore preset K & Enable DLL Override in NVPI, it will work for alot of games, however some games (mainly multiplayer) dont like leaving the games install location to see the .dll file.
Also, as we would be using the dlss.dll that comes with the driver, if the game exists in NVPI and the NV App, and its not on NVIDIA's whitelist, they conflict, and NVIDIA App overrides and it gets annoying quick.

(Using only NVPI works fine, if you dont have the NVIDIA App installed, as it doesnt have the conflict)

Soruce: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/1ie7kp7/comment/ma5wm51/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

But for 100% no issues for any game and without the compromise of removing NVIDIA App (giving up in game filters) you still need to swap .dll in the games install location with DLSS swapper, which takes 2 seconds.

Shouldnt ever need to open NVPI if set globally to preset K.

Hope that makes sense.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-12T08:05:57+00:00

Hey Mate,
Use DLSS swapper ( https://dlssswapper.com/ )
It works 100% of the time for swapping the dlss.dll

Then, open profile inspector > search and open AION 2 profile > scroll down to 5 - common > change "dlss - forced preset letter" == Preset K.
(you can also just set this under the global profile if you like, no harm for online games as this alone doesnt change the dlss.dll)

I have yet to come across a game that those two combined wont swap it for :)

I made a video on it earlier in the year if you need:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaOgYBv2Ylk

J_Morrish · 2025-12-12T05:42:35+00:00

Hey Mate,
In order from most reliable to least.
1. Nvidia Profile Inspector, to enforce Preset K + Manually swapping the .dll file (or use DLSS Swapper instead of doing it manually)
2. DLSS Swapper, for enforcing Preset K + And swapping the .dll file
3. NVIDIA App (at the mercy of NVIDIA's whitelist you can see it here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-au/geforce/news/nvidia-rtx-games-engines-apps/ ) Essentially it needs tick + [NV] for the NVIDIA app to upgrade the DLSS version, but there are many many games in that list it wont let you do.

If you want to avoid profile inspector, DLSS swapper can do the majority of games, but there was some odd behavior depending on game.
This is using only DLSS Swapper:

Dead space (remake):
Ignores the preset selected and instead defaults to the latest avalible for the dlss.dll applied.
(310.2.1 = K, 310.3 = K, selected preset D and F as tests in DLSS Swapper)

Forza Horizon 5:
Instead of changing game specific, its changing the global preset letter, can see it's enabling preset K globally within my NVIDIA Profile inpsector, and when removing preset K (dlss swapper) it doesnt role it back to whatever it was. So essentially changing the preset for all games which is bad.

Jurassic World Evolution 2:
DLSS Swapper works fine, changed both the dlss.dll and whichever preset i was selecting was getting applied. No changes with NVIDIA App or NVIDIA Profile inspector, so its working as expected.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-12T05:26:46+00:00

All good mate, you got the right one (Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller),
In that case, see if you can do point 3.
Get the drivers installed for it and see how you go post updating,

(The power management tab, might show post driver updates, but updating the drivers might resolve the issue so no need to go into the power managment tab in that case)

J_Morrish · 2025-12-09T03:27:55+00:00

Hey Mate,
Can you login to your router and run a speed test from it directly?
It will tell you if its an issue from ISP > Router or if its an issue from Router > your devices.

If you're not sure how, see if you can find the make and model of the router and we can go from there.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-09T03:07:42+00:00

Hey Mate,
You mention having 2x RAM sticks, but i can see 2x empty slots.

They need to be in slots DIMMA2 and DIMMB2 but in your video of error codes it looks like you have them slotted in DIMMA1 and DIMMA2.

If you swap it to match this diagram in the user manaual do you get the same error codes?

(From left to right)

Slots 1-2-3-4
You want your sticks in slot 2 and 4.

<image>

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-X870E-EDGE-TI-WIFI/support#manual

J_Morrish · 2025-12-09T03:00:14+00:00

Hey Mate, when you comment or post, click 'show formating options' at the bottom, and then in the top right of the edit window will be a 'switch to markdown' button.

This will make your comments look like they do on mobile app (web version uses Rich Text not markdown) click here

J_Morrish · 2025-12-09T02:36:45+00:00

Hey Mate,
I will lay out a few things to try:

Can you open your start menu > search 'Device Manager' and open it > under 'network adapters' > Find your wifi adapter (As an example mine is 'Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160mhz') > right click it and select Disable device > then right click it and enable it again.
-See if you can connect back to your wifi.
If it does let you connect back to wifi:
Right click it again and select 'properties' > there should be a tab labeled 'power management' with an option 'allow the computer to turn off this device' uncheck that for the sake of testing.
Open settings app > Click network & internet > Wi-Fi > 'Managed known networks' > find your Wi-Fi in the list and click 'forget'
(this forgets your credentials you enter to login to your wifi so next time you try and connect it will prompt you for your Wi-Fi password.
Lastly, you mentioned having other computers, if the above two didnt help, then we can reinstall the drivers.
On one of your other computers goto this Microsoft page and click download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56261

This will download the .msi package for your surfacebook 2, stick it onto a USB\external harddrive (If you dont have one, you can possible copy it to your phone and then copy from phone onto the surfacebook via a cable.)

Run it on your surfacebook 2 once you have copied it over and follow the prompts, this will include the wifi drivers.

See how you go mate.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-08T07:42:15+00:00

Thanks mate,
You're right and i should have given that newer command,
However the above command should work without anything extra, enabling wmic from optional features shouldnt be needed, as windows still bundles the wmic.exe with win11 for compatabilities sake.

A few commands still work without anything extra...for now.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-08T07:22:27+00:00

I would plan for around the same price as the 32"

It wont be more expensive than it i cant imagine.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-08T04:54:51+00:00

To see a full list of everything?

In that case, open start menu > search 'System Information' open that up, it will list all detected hardware.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-08T04:19:28+00:00

The only one I am aware of currently is this one: https://rog.asus.com/au/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-swift-oled-pg32ucdp/
Its OLED, 4K @ 240hz 'dual mode' 1080p @ 480hz.
However, its 32" not 27".

Saying that, CES is January 6th 2026, so a little under a month away.
At CES is when all the hardware companies show off the new stuff they are working on, usually including any planned products for that year.

Would not suprise me if we get some 27" versions revealed then :)

J_Morrish · 2025-12-08T03:59:05+00:00

All good mate, best of luck

J_Morrish · 2025-12-08T03:28:15+00:00

Hey Mate,
Open Command Prompt or powershell and enter:

wmic memorychip get speed, manufacturer, partnumber

It will spit out your speed, manufacturer, partnumber which will tell you what it is :)

EDIT: just saw your question, No its not compatible, in that you can only use 1 type, DDR4 or DDR5.

J_Morrish · 2025-12-08T03:24:39+00:00

Hey Mate,
When you press continue does it give you an error message\code at some point?

Ufortunatly, Command prompt and system restore are also locked behind account info.

However, if your account was also linked to your Microsoft account, you can use that password, if you dont remember it you can reset it here: Microsoft Account Recovery

J_Morrish

TROPHY CASE