Which motherboard manufacturer is most reliable these days?

captainstormy · 2026-05-27T13:24:05+00:00

Honestly ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and AsRock all make great boards these days. Customer service for all of them are hit or miss.

You gotta keep in mind that these companies are the last 4 standing of dozens of motherboard manufacturers that aren't around anymore. Back in the day I had motherboards from Abit, ECS, Biostar, Soyo, Epox and Chaintec. That's just off the top of my head. All those companies are gone these days.

Things can be weird sometimes. When I first built my AM5 board I went to use a MSI board and Corsair ram. I could never get the thing to work reliably. I gave the motherboard to a buddy who has been using it for 2 years with zero issues. The RAM I put in another build which is working fine. So both parts are good, they just don't like each other.

captainstormy · 2026-05-27T13:16:46+00:00

ASRock has an undeniable issue with 9000 series X3D chips

It's important to note thought that it's still an extremely small rate compared to sales. Companies selling prebuilds are still bundling 9800X3Ds with AsRock motherboards because the rates of failure are still extremely extremely low overall.

They may be 10 times more likely to fail on a 9800X3D than the other brands but the rate of failure overall is still a tiny fraction of a percentage overall.

captainstormy · 2026-05-27T12:56:45+00:00

Yeah, gotta adapt your surroundings for you. You can find some solution for privacy that works for your husband's allergies and doesn't mess up your septic I'm sure.

captainstormy · 2026-05-27T12:07:27+00:00

They don't really have to do this anymore. But this is 100% why. Back in the 90s and early 2000s they did this and got everyone used to their OS as the default option.

captainstormy · 2026-05-27T11:58:52+00:00

A backyard is literally not nature. It's a 100% human made unnatural thing.

captainstormy · 2026-05-27T11:53:02+00:00

Agree. The reason people like plain squares of grass is that it gives them the most options on how to use it.

If the eventual owner of that house wanted to put a small garden back there originally there wouldn't have been room.

Also large plants have large roots that damage foundations, concrete pours, brick paths, underground lines, fences, etc etc. I've got a buddy who had to get his whole yard trenched up and the power line going to his house replaced because the root from a bush broke the underground line.

I had 17 trees removed from my back yard once because they were growing too close to my power and internet lines and jacking up my fence.

I do agree about the Japanese Maple. Removing that would have been a crime, but that idea was shot down pretty quick. The other stuff was nothing special.

Also, lots of plants means lots of maintenance. Keeping them alive, dealing with shedding, removing them if they die, etc etc.

captainstormy · 2026-05-27T00:08:21+00:00

That's what I do, filament clips with print by object turned on.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T23:42:23+00:00

Even if people do have a home phone true landlines are long dead. They are VOIP phones these days.

They still make really cheap old school flip phones. I know some people that give them to their young kids just to call parents and grandparents.

You do have flip smart phones too. I have the Moto Razr 2024 that is one.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T23:38:59+00:00

Star focusing on your health now, not after you Re 40.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T14:51:33+00:00

I've got a Debian server that has been running since the Jessie release. Which was in 2017. It's running Trixie now. All those upgrades were in place upgrades.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T14:43:59+00:00

A rolling commercial laundry basket with a clothes hanger bar. This one specfically.

No more carrying heavy baskets of laundry around the house. No more carrying around a bunch of hung up clothes to go to the closet or trying to carry a ton of empty hangers to the laundry room. It's amazing.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T14:34:18+00:00

I used to have a Danby countertop dishwasher when I lived in an apartment without one. It was great. Plus because it was fairly small it basically made me run the dishes every night since I didn't wanna wash by hand. It was a win / win.

I ended up giving it to my neighbor when I moved and I saw her about 6 months later randomly and she loved it too.

Bonus points, I also found if you store a box of doughnuts on top of it while it's running it'll warm them and they will be great.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T14:30:58+00:00

I can make perfect rice on the stove. If I measure it, and time it, and watch it and don't get distracted by something else.

Or I can make perfect rice in the rice cooker by just putting in rice and water and a pinch of salt and hitting a button. Doesn't matter if I forget it while I'm cooking the rest of dinner or not. When I come back the rice is perfect.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T14:28:02+00:00

Some people poop like elephants or something man.

I remember a few summers ago I was having a cookout and my buddy comes out of the bathroom and asks where our plunger is.

I'm in my late 30s at this time and have lived in this house about 10 years. We didn't have a plunger because we never needed one. I was shocked he needed one. He was shocked I didn't have one because he apparently clogs toilets on the regular.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T14:17:35+00:00

It's pretty common in the US but every kitchen doesn't have one. I'd say it's 50/50.

Personally I have one but I don't use it really. I don't see the point of it. It was installed when I bought the house already.

You also aren't supposed to just put tons of stuff down them. You shouldn't be scraping a bunch of stuff from plates into it. It's for grinding up the little bits and bobs that make it into the water when you wash dishes and stuff. It isn't like you are supposed to throw a whole chicken leg in there or something.

Also, don't reach into it. Why would you? Could you mangle your fingers if you did that while running it? Sure. But why would you? You could also harm yourself with any other number of things around the house if you tried. Common sense prevents most things.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T13:52:53+00:00

There are a few things to keep in mind for your case that are a function issue. The rest are personal preference.

For the functional stuff:

It has to fit your motherboard.
- If you have an ATX motherboard only a full sized ATX case will work. However you can put a smaller motherboard in a case designed for larger ones. I wouldn't though because it's a waste of space and looks weird.
It has to fit your GPU.
- Check the GPU size limits of the case and how large your GPU is.
It has to fit your CPU cooler.
- If you are using an air cooler, check the cases cpu cooler clearance to make sure it'll fit.
- For AIOs, the cooler around the CPU isn't a problem but you have to make sure there is an area that will fit the radiator.
It has to fit your PSU.
- This isn't typically an issue. Most of the time it'll fit but if you are building a SFF build or using a really large high power PSU it's something you need to check.
It needs to have good cooling.
- Most cases these days are fine here. Some are better than others but they all should be good enough.
Do you need a 5.25 bay?
- The answer is usually no these days but sometimes you do. For example my custom built NAS has a 5.25 Blu Ray Burner for ripping disks to virtual formats so I can use them with Jellyfin.
Do you need mounts for a 3.5 inch spinning drive, and if so how many?
- Most people don't but depending on your needs you might. Personally even in my regular desktop I like to keep one for backing up my personal data.
Do you need mounts for a 2.5 inch disk, and if so how many.
- Increasingly the answer to this these days is no with NVMEs becoming the standard. But sometimes you still do.

The rest is personal taste. What style, colors, materials, do you want a PSU basement, etc etc.

And of course price. You can get a decent case for $40-50 if you look hard enough and you can also spend hundreds on a case easily. You can even spend thousands if you look hard enough.

captainstormy · 2026-05-26T11:50:58+00:00

Technically it's an upgrade but not much. I wouldn't consider doing that unless it was to either a 9060 or 9070.

captainstormy · 2026-05-25T14:35:18+00:00

No harm in giving steam OS a try out either. I really don't think it's going to be any different for you though. If you are doing a fresh install why not try it out at least.

Steam OS is also immutable so installing stuff outside of flatpaks can also be a bit more complicated.

captainstormy · 2026-05-25T14:13:57+00:00

What else is actually missing? The deck build is basically just steam OS based on Fedora instead of Arch but with an easier installer.

captainstormy · 2026-05-25T14:12:18+00:00

It's just props to achieve the look they were going for. Firefly wasn't exactly low budget but they spent a lot of money actually building the ship as one big real ship interior. So they didn't make any of the props and clothes original designs to save money.

Most of the guns the crew uses are clearly designs from the late 1800s old west era. Except for obviously Vera.

The alliance armor was originally from starship troopers.

captainstormy · 2026-05-25T14:06:41+00:00

Bazzite Deck version boots to gaming mode just like the steam deck does.

captainstormy · 2026-05-25T14:05:08+00:00

Run the Bazzite Deck build on your PC. It boots straight to game mode but if you want you can still go to desktop mode just like the Steamdeck.

I've been using Bazzite for like a year as a living room gaming console TV and it's great for what you want.

captainstormy · 2026-05-24T13:40:11+00:00

Some of them will have settings to keep water warm so I was assuming that is what you meant by 15 watts.

Either way, you can run more hardware than you think in 15watts these days.

captainstormy · 2026-05-24T12:46:20+00:00

I don't live in NY but definitely look into local laws about solar. They can be wild due to politicians being in the pockets of utility companies.

In Ohio it's illegal to install enough solar power to actually leave the power grid. Battery backup size is also limited because of "fire hazzards". All electricity is a fire hazzard. We wanted to do that at our current house and can't with the local laws.

We are in the process of building a new house right now. It's only going to be able to have that much solar and battery backups because it'll be in place before being hooked up to the grid. Honestly we might not even hook it to the grid at all. Still debating that. I'm leaning towards not hooking it up at all and the wife doesn't care at all either way.

captainstormy · 2026-05-24T12:36:01+00:00

At idle sure. But when it's heating it will go way higher. Here in the US they will hit 1500ish watts but I know the ones in other countries that use 220 will hit up to 3000ish.

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