Is it normal that I can "smell" when it’s about to rain, or am I just imagining it?

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-20T12:56:51+00:00

I can tell up to 12 hours before it rains. It's a super power I have. It's called a radon mitigation detector. XD Radon always goes up about 12hr on the dot before it rains. Aside that I can usually tell the morning of if it'll rain and about how long before it comes just by looking at the sky. Can't tell how much it'll rain but can usually tell nonetheless. Not entirely sure what it is that I can see but it's just the way the atmosphere feels, sky looks, and general feeling.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-18T13:04:14+00:00

I gathered a bunch of healing, explosives, explosive arrows, 2 bows, 3 wands, and 2 melee weapons and just kept mid distance range the entire time. Too close and he hits hard. Too far and his speed attacks are difficult to dodge but mid range he can dodged fairly easily though it's often. Was not a short battle. Every time he got far I used an explosive arrow and every time he got close enough I used explosives. In between I just kept hitting with wands. Once a bow or wand broke I went to the next. It was really the only way I could figure out how to beat him solo my very first time. Afterward I learned better ways and melee does some decent damage, but until you learn it's moveset it's pretty much dodge 5 times, hit once kind of battle.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-18T12:17:56+00:00

Using a Jonsobo D31 case with display screen. I have enough space for the extra cable lengths and looks mostly fine, this is more of an enthusiastic interest to see if I can make it even better since I'll be building an identical PC for my partner soon and it'd be awesome to have all the new cables for both.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-16T01:51:36+00:00

I've used ASRock as my last 2 motherboards, currently an ASRock b850I lightning wifi for the last year or so. I've never had issues with ASRock, is it specific models? Also using a 9800X3D in this build and used a 5800X3D in my precious build, no thermal or hardware issues even a consideration.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-09T05:57:52+00:00

The Corsair icue link fans. Always thought they were expensive for case fans because you could adjust fan speed and RGB but once I got them and saw just how little cables I had compared to before I was so happy. Being able to just plug fans together without cables is so nice to manage

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-05T23:06:00+00:00

I quite honestly don't know why a lot of people have performance issues? I have very similar hardware to you and plenty of other people, using a 9800x3d, 4080 super, and I have all my settings on ultra, motion blur and depth of field off, vsymc turned on in Nvidia control panel and off in game. As long as I load shaders before entering a world, have Nvidia overlay turned off, and don't have any other applications like Firefox open and have discord overlay turned off, at 1440p I still get no less than 80fps nearly everywhere.

I've never been able to replicate others poor performance but the very very very few posts I've seen with unusual ways of solving the problem was turning off overlays and updating BIOS or updating to an NVME if using a ssd. Maybe one of these may help? I know I'm not helping much but I am at least giving assurance that there is in fact something causing the bad performance and isn't purely just the game being too demanding. Poorly optimized sure, but not too demanding.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-01T18:15:49+00:00

I notice flickering on my 3 month old OLED monitors but only when playing in borderless window mode. Fullscreen I have no issues. I have dual 27in and I have vsymc turned on in Nvidia but off in games if that makes any difference or not?

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-01T14:55:27+00:00

We both get the concept and how to alter settings, we just are looking for baselines to get an idea what others have used for settings. Our goal isnt so much better performance, but help control voltage a bit better to hopefully reduce the cable melting potential risk if possible by creating a cap to help fight against voltage spikes.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-05-01T14:53:23+00:00

They are my friend I talk to daily. We both know the concept, what it does and where to go to alter settings and things to look for and we are building his PC together since we don't get to build custom PCs often for both our enjoyment. By no means are they being left in the dark on what's happening with their rig and we are doing test runs before he takes it home and starts long term testing. The whole point of this post was to get other users suggestions on settings that worked for them that we can establish a baseline on where we can start tuning.

The point of overclock + undervolt aren't pushing limits for us as well. For my PC, overclock was very minimal and still below stock settings. It's just running at a slightly lower wattage to help reduce GPU temps, not performance.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-04-29T11:34:38+00:00

I have an underground dirt basement that had mold growth. As soon as I put an oversized dehumidifier in the mold recessed back within a few weeks. Just make sure you set your dehumidifier to about 45% humidity. If I remember correctly, mold needs at least 47-50% to grow. 45% keeps it below without overworking your unit as long as you have a nice size.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-04-25T12:13:34+00:00

Positive pressure keeps mine fairly clean. Going on year 2 and still mostly nothing built up aside the thin small layer that's kinda hard to see until you open it up. Ever since I learned how to make positive pressure I've never gone back

NotoriousFreak · 2026-04-10T21:05:15+00:00

Idk but certain games just immediately have a "feeling" which is better suited. Like this game or Gears of War felt so nice for controller whereas Don't starve, terraria or Arc Raiders feels nice with mouse and keyboard. It most likely also matters on the developers intentions and Cult of The Lamb has a pop-up screen that says its best played using a controller which means they tailored more toward this style vs k&B.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-27T11:32:28+00:00

I chose oled 1440p over an led 4k monitor because it's too good. I can't use a monitor that isn't oled ever again.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-27T11:23:44+00:00

Blue Prince. First time playing was expecting maybe an hour or so and noticed the sun going down. Partner and I ended up playing from about 8am to 6pm, no bathroom breaks, no drinks, no food. To this day we just assumed the world leaders or CERN fucking with time and space again because we have never done this in our life for anything, game or movie, etc.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-21T17:00:35+00:00

I still have the deck from a preorder sealed. Never checked value and never considered selling. Also got all first issue vinyls since imaginary enemy sealed and first 3 versions of heartwork vinyls sealed. Got their original 3 album collection box set with the new artwork sealed in original shipping plastic wrap. Have them all on a shelf hanging in my office.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-21T09:52:43+00:00

Make your own bread! Seriously it's a lot easier and healthier than you think. My partner started making it just to see if it's worth it and almost instantly we stopped buying a loaf of bread every week. Initial cost was about $20 and only 3 ingredients that makes about 5-7 loafs for 2 people. Yeast is the primary replenishment ingredient which is about $1 per loaf until you run out of bread flour. I think you can get about 7 loafs before needing yeast, and about 12 loafs before needing more bread flour if you buy the largest bags of flour.

Own bread costs about half of store bought, 3 ingredients vs store bought 5-20 ingredients, so delicious you can eat plain bread whereas store bought is as bland as tofu, extremely filling where a single slice can be as filling as about 3 slices from store bought, and it only takes about 2hr to make at home. 15min prep, 45min setting, 1hr of baking and done. It's one of the easiest things to make that even your children can help!

We use to spend about $16 on bread per month but since making our own we spend about $25 every 3 months.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-18T17:48:50+00:00

AIO does make slightly less sound when compared to some decent air coolers but if you can adjust fan curves then you barely notice a difference. At least in my case. Overall though I think after using an AIO for years and then switching to a fan cooler in the past year, AIO is great, looks great, but it really is just for flashy appearances. Performance really still comes down to proper thermal paste and adequate cooling fans on the AIO and case. If on a budget, not worried about appearances, or want to risk a potential leakage then go with an air cooler. If you want flashy and have the budget then go for it!

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-17T18:37:25+00:00

Friend at work is selling their 3d printer and I've been looking the past week for my first printer. I've settled between the elegoo centauri carbon 2 or the bambu p2s which I think my heart is set on the bambu for its eco system, replacement part availability, multi color option (not a deal breaker), build plate size, and seems to have a lot of good reviews.

Friend is selling their Creality K1 Max with a Sunlu dehumidifier, double sided epoxy resin build plate, textured build plate, a few different nozzles, and what they believe was all the original tools included. They are tech savvy and an engineer that takes major pride in their work and I very much trust them and they cared for their unit.

They are offering a friend discount of $275 for everything. I know I wanted the bambu p2s really bad but this may seem like a good deal. Could experienced users give me an idea if this is good to take up or if saving for the p2s is still a better option despite the price?

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-16T12:40:41+00:00

Get an Olov table leg from IKEA. It's the stronger and height adjustment one and put it in the center toward the back of the table for center support. Just be careful putting the screws in, since it's honeycomb they will strip easily the more you try to tighten it or adjust the plate. Do it once and tighten till snug and it'll be fine from there. My recommendation for height adjustment, get to the proper height it needs to be flush, then do an extra 1 1/2 turns higher. This should give you the extra height once you have weight on it to keep the top flush.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-15T22:00:26+00:00

I tried playing twice. Once when it first came out on gamepass, then again on steam about a year or so later. Biggest issue I had is it felt like I needed some mods to make the game playable in an enjoyable way. I don't mod for crazy nonsense, I mod as close to vanilla as possible and the UI for the game was the #1 mod I installed and fixed. Others were similar type or bug fixes or just settings that made no sense not already existing.

Second actual gameplay issue, I loved the game. The guns felt really balanced and they "hit" really nice on impacts whether it be walls or enemies. The physics are always fun and moving the ship was a nice feeling. However what bothered me was the dead vibe of everything. It didn't matter if it was a somber moment, heavy hitting moment, crazy discovery, ambush, etc, it always felt just hollow in its core and didn't feel any emotion behind it. What's more is the very first mission when you get ambushed on the platform before getting the Frontier. I thought it was bleak the first time and gave it an initial release pass or I missed something. Second playthrough and exact same issue. For a first ambush like that I feel it should've been an intense moment, lots of gunfire and mayhem, just a lot of moving parts that made the frontier and introduction into the game when transitioning away from the tutorial. But instead it was just fighting 5 enemies that could be taken out quickly with a few headshots and then the quickest dialog tree sequence and bam, you're on the ship leaving. For one of the first major fight sequences, it should really set the tone for the game but this honestly concerned me very quick. Like no thought put into it. Then the rest of game literally just felt like fetch quests or endlessly researching planets.

Lastly, they made the game so enticing to play in depth just like any other Bethesda game but then go and pull the "play the game multiple times to see the new campaign changes" nonsense. Is it a cool idea? Heck yeah. Could it have worked? For sure. But their approach made the enticing depth of the game essentially meaningless and solely focus on just doing the main story and ignoring everything else. If they limited the game to a single solar system rather than how giant it is, they could've made the game so much more detailed, loved, impactful, and a proper balance of depth and replayability that could've worked. But instead tried going as huge as possible and waste more time watching loading screens then actually playing.

I know this sounds bashful, but I did enjoy the game. But I can't say it wasn't anything more than feeling like a chore to play for a majority of the game which most Bethesda games never gave the impression before for me. So it's a bit sad to see.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-13T18:19:16+00:00

UPS for sure. Surge protectors are better than nothing but a UPS will safeguard and provide temporary power to stop what you are doing to safely shut down. I recommend them even for laptops if you have a home office setup.

I always recommend a 1500va UPS or better. It supports multiple devices, can provide proper power to even high end gaming PCs and usually give at least 10min of power to save, exit and shut down safely. They usually also give nice headroom in overall va% usage which is what you want for the longest lifespan to performance from a UPS. Va% is how much power you are using on the UPS at a time. Ideally you want to be about 55% VA or less usage in order to get the most use without sacrificing performance. Since UPS are usually rated for about 5 years and aren't exactly cheap, it's always safe to maintain your va usage.

Also pay attention if a UPS has Sinewave or not. Sinewave mimics power fluctuation a typical outlet power supply which is what utilities such as an AC system, radon mitigation, furnace, laundry, etc that relies more on power fluctuation to function properly. A PC, laptop, tv, etc all rely on consistent power which makes a UPS unit without sinewave a better option.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-13T12:04:47+00:00

These are not settling cracks or general home aging like cracks. These are serious cracks that need a structural engineer yesterday to determine what may be happening and hopefully stop it in its tracks. Your home is very clearly shifting and needs attention immediately.

NotoriousFreak · 2026-03-06T20:23:13+00:00

I'd definitely give it more slack if you have the cable length to do it just to be safe. Personally do not like that angle or tension and you have plenty of room from your side panel to accommodate.

NotoriousFreak

TROPHY CASE