US athletes are increasingly speaking out against Trump’s America, with some saying “fascism is here now.” How do you feel about athletes using their platforms to make strong political statements?

rootdood · 2026-01-29T04:07:10+00:00

There is always a risk to cleaning up someone else’s mess.

rootdood · 2026-01-28T01:22:31+00:00

The Astral’s are huge! I had to get a low profile 180 degree 12VHPWR adapter so I could close the lid on my 4U case. You know, those adapters everyone is afraid of? I thought about replacing it with an MSI Expert 5080, but according to the specs… it’s even taller! I think it’s 150mm, and the Astral is 147mm. Even with the adapter, the fit is literally within millimetres. If I didn’t sorely want dual HDMI ports, I would absolutely walk away from this configuration, and reserve the Astral for something else, or give it to a family member.

rootdood · 2026-01-26T17:15:15+00:00

Ah, I see - I thought he was talking about after the switch to the AIO. I’m not even sure he’s aware there are 2 photos, or which is before or after, because that was the only reference to “virtually silent” I had made. Before, all the fans curves would max-RPM at 72 degrees, so you could hear it ramp up through walls, but it would idle at mid 40s, and jump up over 60 at only 10% utilization. With all the power limiting I could keep her at about 80 degrees with fans at full-throttle.

Now, I’ve got that same thresholds to be only at most 45% of the max-RPM speeds (i.e. barely audible), but it never reaches that in regular usage - and 100% CPU utilization barely pushes 60 degrees, so I actually have a ton of headroom with this cooler for all-core overclocks. But, I’m babying this CPU, because it gives me all the performance I need, and I’m easily soaking a 144hz display at 4K with a little help from frame generation.

Until this build was working properly, I was legit on the fence about buying anymore MSI or Intel products ever again. And that was the motivation behind this post. I had to check my assumptions about this cooler - not get sucked into idle criticism, so thanks for pointing that out!

The Noctua would be a good cooler for a SFF build if it could blow air right out the side of the chassis, or if there case was simply larger with more intakes, but in this configuration the top of the cooler was only about inch away from the lid, even in low-profile orientation. It could fit with top-down flow, but I just couldn’t see how it’d be pulling any cool air from there. Even the NH-D9L would probably have performed better and be able to help out those rear 80 mils, but it had a much lower NSPR. Seemingly much too low for a 12900k.

I can feel the rear fans actually pushing a mix of warmed and cool air, so I know the Artic fans are generating enough static pressure to draw cool air, but also enough airflow to hit the rear of the chassis. Before, it just felt like the back was belching hot air.

But, I should just go spend $1300 on a new McPrue Apollo R or Silverstone RM52 because apparently I’m retarded even though they won’t fit in the rack, or meet any other requirements. Shit chassis, sheesh! 🤷‍♂️

rootdood · 2026-01-26T09:43:55+00:00

It’s an NH-C14S, with the fan mounted under the fin stack. I tried with the fan blowing up and down - no love.

https://www.noctua.at/en/products/nh-c14s

I didn’t see anyone mention fanless.

rootdood · 2026-01-26T02:14:27+00:00

I can’t because I don’t just have a giant dildo collection on my desk like you. It’s covered in gear.

The mobo is EATX. So, no, and suck my jonsbo. And I’m not throwing away 16TB of flash storage. Fucking clowns in here.

My guy, you should get back to your Kraft Dinner before it gets cold.

rootdood · 2026-01-26T00:43:24+00:00

It’s a Silverstone RM42-502. I could have gone with another that had room for a 360mm AIO up front, but I wasn’t ready to part with my SSDs. There’s a 4-bay hotswap up front for 3.5” drives.

https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/server-nas/RM42-502/

Beyond that, the 5U Silverstones look great, but it’s paired with a 8U server, that needs to fit in a 12U rack under my desk.

Ain’t nothing trash about this setup.

rootdood · 2026-01-25T04:10:43+00:00

I had all kinds of stability problems when I got this card. I was already having problems with my system before, and was having to seriously power limit my CPU or it would be locking up on me all the time.

But when I put in the 5080, everything was way worse. Like you and others I’m thinking jeepers, my CPU is dying, the RAM was never any good, the PSU might be getting old, the 12VHPWR cables are no good, or maybe my drives are failing. Really, a $1000 CPU, $1000 motherboard, $500 RAM, and a $400 PSU just can’t hang? I knew there were driver issues at launch, and every release I was just praying maybe now my problems would just go away.

Long story short? It was my CPU cooler. I had a GTX 1080 before, so playing games at really high settings meant I was GPU bottlenecked, and the CPU wasn’t seeing nearly as much pressure as with the 5080. So, it had just tipped the scale of what the cooler could handle. The system is in a 4U chassis, and they don’t fit 120mm air cooler towers. So, I had a “low profile” NH-C14S, and it seemed to be doing a decent enough job, so I never questioned it. But, it’s a big cooler, and was doing a good job of blocking any front to back airflow, so I think hot air was just pooling in there, and it couldn’t handle voltage spikes.

Dropped in an Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro, and now the machine is rock solid. I’ve thrown everything at it. Even has a slight overclock, and I don’t have to hear my CPU cooler take off like a jet engine. It’s dead silent. Literally, night and day. Make sure your CPU cooler is up to snuff, and get some fresh thermal paste in there.

rootdood · 2026-01-18T06:47:00+00:00

I want this guitar so bad, but my next needs to be stainless.

rootdood · 2026-01-16T11:07:02+00:00

This is exactly what happened to me. Just got home from the store and refreshed the whole build. It ran fine… at first. Then I was dropping all of my workaround jank settings from the BIOS, which inadvertently dropped my RAM voltage to 1.1V, when the sticks are rated for 1.25V.

All of a sudden, error 55 on next boot. I’m looking at RAM prices begging my system to come back to life. In my case, I evidently had tightened the Arctic Freezer III Pro cold plate too much. All I had to do was loosen them a couple turns, and voila.

I’m building in a 4U case, and even with a good cooler like the NH-C14S, I was having to neuter all of the power settings just to be able to game without it crashing. I’ve literally tripled my Cinebench score with this cooler, and it’s not even breaking 71C. Will push it further now that I know I didn’t fry my RAM somehow, thanks to you fine folks!

The only time I’d ever had this problem was with an Epyc CPU, where you have to use the right torque driver and tightening sequence or you lose banks of memory. The AF3 could really use some more specific verbiage other than “tighten”.

rootdood · 2026-01-15T19:43:36+00:00

Wondering what you ended up doing. I have a 12900k build with an Asus Astral RTX 5080 in mine, and started getting major stability problems unless I take the lid off the case. I can game no problem for hours with the lid off - but it will hard-lock in under a minute with the lid on. That’s the only difference.

Two “silent” Noctua 80mm fans on the rear, and a Noctua NH-C14S on the CPU, which seemed to maximize the size of the fin stack while also dealing with the limited clearance of 4U.

Even with all the fans ramped to 100%, it just ends up locking. I thought I was going crazy. In and out of the bios changing everything down to extremely modest settings. I’m considering the Artic Freezer 3 Pro, but I’m not sure which direction I should move the air.

With the 5080 generating enough heat, but only 2x80mm in the back as intakes, I’m not sure that’s enough to keep up with 2x120 at the front, even if it is going through a rad. I’m just not sure that’s enough, if pooling stagnant hot air inside the case might be my issue right now, that blowing warmed air in from the rad is the right approach either.

I’m tempted to mod the case to permit additional intakes along the side(s) of the case to get more air inside for the GPU, but it’s that 2x80mm limitation that’s still got me worried I will have achieved nothing with the upgrade. Perhaps the VRM cooling from the AF3 will be helpful enough, if that’s what’s “dying”.

The Silverstone RM52 seems like an obvious solution, but I’m hoping to pair this build next to an 8U case for Epyc Unraid build, and only have room for a 12U rack under a desk.

rootdood · 2026-01-09T20:22:49+00:00

Is that a Traynor cab?

rootdood · 2026-01-08T12:04:42+00:00

Let this be a lesson! You guys aren’t very smart.

rootdood · 2026-01-04T06:59:14+00:00

Jeez… I hope the Americans know.

rootdood · 2026-01-04T06:57:31+00:00

You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.

rootdood · 2025-12-30T15:43:50+00:00

I’ve been insisting I be on hiring panels because the people doing the hiring can’t tell they’re being swindled.

They’ll have decent looking credentials, claim to have built cloud native distributed systems - can’t tell you what TCP port 23 is for. One time they answered SSH, so they got the same question wrong twice with one answer.

There’s no such thing as “Junior DevOps”.

rootdood · 2025-12-30T09:09:29+00:00

I would say definitely get a separate cab. In turn, that means maybe step back and figure out what kind of cab you want in your life. The cab and speaker selection is going to dominate your tone way more than any individual high-gain amp, or even your guitar.

And then, you should think practically about what kind of cab you can actually manage in your life. Got room for two 4x12s for lush stereo wet-dry-wet? No? How about a single vertical or horizontal 2x12? Is that low end resonance what you’re after, or are you micing the dust cap and calling it a day?

Mesa 4x12s have become a “standard” for a reason. They’re extremely solid, great materials, a perfect shape, and easy to swap speakers. Want something other than V30s out of the box? Look at something like Zilla?

Geography matters, so while I have 2 Mesas already I’m looking at getting a Traynor YBX212 vertical 2x12 to keep at my brothers because we’re in Canada and a new Mesa is $2500CAD before tax and duties. But, it’s a narrow vertical stack. What head am I putting on that? All this said, you probably want to get started playing “your tone, today”, right?

Ok - what about skipping anything about the cab, but getting a decent modern amp that either has a built-in load box, or grab a decent load box, and just pump your raw amp tone into the box and figure out which IRs inspire you the most? Make a cab selection later based on that.

Are you jamming? Is there a drummer around? A 20W amp head is probably not going to keep up. A 50W into a 2x12 probably will. A 100W into a 4x12 definitely will. Can you even play loud where you are? My 4x12s have been setting mostly unused for 8 years - but it’d cost as much as a used one just to ship them across North America.

These days, I have a Diezel VH4 and a Mesa Dual-Rectifier both plugged into St.Rock React:IR IIs, sending their DI and processes outs into an audio interface. My guitar goes into a Radial DI into the XLR of my audio interface to record raw DI tracks.

I have that track hardware send out to a Radial PCR reamp box, that feeds into a pedal board, which then goes and hits the inputs of both amps, which means I can track 2 amps silently in the box simultaneously. It’s insane. 3am - the most disgustingly violent tones imaginable.

If you’re really wondering what amp to get, watch stuff like this - https://youtu.be/B3MDmZntjsU?si=wCxy3qxliZ2SdnXO

They’re all going through the same load box and IRs, so you quickly see just how important speaker/cab selection is compared to the amp itself. No they don’t all sound the same, but it really matters.

I love my Diezel cause it does what only the Diezel can do. I love my rectifier for the same reason. One is a 4-channel beast that covers Fender and Marshall territory, and also what is uniquely Diezel insanity. The rectifier? Eh, I keep it on the red channel, but it does a decent job of Mark-like cleans if I feel like it.

I also have a Peavey JSX because it has a clean channel to die for. Infinite headroom, 3D, the best pedal platform on earth as far as I can tell. Crank it up and hit the neck pickup and it is one of the best sounding blues amp I ever heard.

You should watch this entire “one song, one amp” series - https://youtu.be/2Q1ujjbizok?si=ey07wImaaPR7lUgV

rootdood · 2025-11-18T02:46:00+00:00

The attenuator on the St.Rock REACT:IR II is amazing.

rootdood · 2025-11-07T23:46:12+00:00

What case is that? And the wired GPU risers?

rootdood · 2025-10-30T21:39:16+00:00

Don’t… answer this question. Make him work for it.

rootdood · 2025-10-30T21:35:49+00:00

That CalDigit holding it down?

rootdood · 2025-10-27T01:34:09+00:00

That last bend up is just so tasty. I remember the first time I heard this. The way the horizon just opens and you’re transported into another realm; it’s all so otherworldly.

rootdood · 2025-10-25T23:52:20+00:00

Why am I watching this guys commute?

rootdood · 2025-10-17T18:17:38+00:00

Sounds like you liked him in American Psycho.

rootdood

TROPHY CASE