A Short Diversion into IT Space

Allow me a diversion from anything gaming or geeky related to dealing with one of my jobs around the house: the IT guy.

My wife's PC has been having a strange symptom: her PC won't go to sleep. When I try to find out why, I discovered that her Sleep option under the power icon simply isn't there. Since there's no Sleep button, it doesn't time out and go to sleep at all.

I've been chasing this down for a while now, and after diving down the rabbit hole of Microsoft forums and Stack Exchange and all sorts of other places, I think I've figured out what's going on.

And, naturally, it comes down to AMD.

Unlike my PC, which has an NVidia GeForce 3070, she has an AMD Radeon graphics card. That distinction is important here, because on my PC I have it set to inform me when new NVidia drivers are present while my wife's PC automatically installs new Radeon drivers. That's mainly because NVidia has a history of having some janky driver updates, and I figured that if I didn't want to get involved with being the IT guy even more than I already am I'd just let it roll on her PC.

Well, as it turns out, if the AMD Radeon drivers get too far ahead --version-wise-- of the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, then the Adrenalin Edition craps out and the Sleep option vanishes. If you then go and manually fix the drivers and the version of the Adrenalin Edition, the Sleep option comes back and everything behaves normally. 

It's one thing if the version/corruption issue is strictly AMD's fault, but come on. Why does it affect Microsoft Windows 11 and its freaking SLEEP option? Are you telling me that there's a memory leak somewhere in one of these two areas that's big enough to drive a truck through that's causing this?

/sigh

Me and My Big Mouth

Thursday night I thought the monitor was "back to normal", and so I wrote as much and set it to post on Friday at 6 AM EST.

Then Friday dawned, and after I took care of my overnight work emails, I turned on my PC to play some music and got up to go make coffee. When I came back, the screen was blank.

Again.

Okay, I've seen this one before. I unplugged the monitor, plugged in the old one, and sure enough there was a picture there. I then waited while I took care of some more work (including a few meetings), and tried plugging the power cord and HDMI back into the monitor and turning it back on.

Unlike last time, no dice.

Well, crap.

It was at that point I saw the coax budget for my outside antenna sprout wings and fly away. I took a short break from work, punched up the Microcenter website, and quickly scanned monitors that fit the size I needed. I found a couple of potential options but really struck out on monitor reviews online. When most of the so-called "reviews" looked like they were generated by a couple of prompts from an LLM, I kind of gave up and went to Microcenter over lunch to talk to the staff. 

An hour later and a very nice chat with one of the staff later and I was home with a new Samsung monitor. Yes, it's a "gaming monitor", but it's not one of these $1000 4K gaming monitors.* I just wanted something that is an equivalent of what I had bought 5 years ago, and that was merely entry level gaming stuff, just a bit larger than the monitors I've used in the past. 

So, here's hoping that this thing lasts at least 5 years. It's not like I'm pushing it to the limit or anything, since my hand-eye coordination isn't what it once was, so games with a high dexterity requirement (which also tend to be the ones with the most advanced graphics) are pretty much off the table for me. That makes my gaming requirements modest enough to keep my costs low. Thank goodness.

Now, I have to get used to more vibrant colors than what I've had before, because these newer monitors have better HDR than what I had on my old monitor.

*Far from it, to be honest. Oh, those $1000 monitors looked pretty, but I have neither the money nor the space for one of those. 

#Blaugust2026

A Brief Moment of Panic

Ever have that sudden nightmare that you wake up from and go "Whew!"

Yeah, I had one of those while I was awake.

Last night I took a break from puttering around on the PC and got up for a bio break. I came back, and... the monitor didn't.

Restarted the monitor, and no dice.

"Okay," I thought, "the PC is in a hung state. No big deal. I'll reboot it."

After rebooting, I heard the telltale Windows startup tones, but... still nothing on the screen.

So I shut down everything and waited a minute, then tried again.

Still nothing.

I was beginning to panic, because I've seen what graphics cards cost these days, and if it was the graphics card that was gonna hurt. A LOT.

Stepping back, I decided to go ahead and lug up an old monitor that doesn't even do 1080i (it does 1024x768) but does have an HDMI port, turned it on, and then plugged in the HDMI output from the PC.

Voila! A screen!

Okay, so it was the monitor, not the graphics card. Before I began going down the rabbit hole of pricing out 32" curved monitors as a direct replacement for my current one, I decided to unplug it and let it be for a good 15 minutes. In the meantime I began perusing prices at Microcenter, and for my needs the monitor was going to cost between $200 - $300. It was doable, but obviously something in my monthly budget would have to be pushed out until October.

But first, let's try the monitor once more.

I plugged in the HDMI cable, then the power brick, and...

Whew. At least I don't have to go running to the store tomorrow at lunch.

#Blaugust2026

Just Come On and Burst, Already

Okay, this is now getting ridiculous.

Multiple websites and YouTube channels --here's a link to Rock Paper Shotgun's article-- reported that RAM manufacturer Micron is shutting down their Crucial consumer division to essentially go chase AI and Datacenter work.

If you've been keeping track, Micron is the third largest manufacturer of RAM after Samsung and SK Hynix. The loss of Crucial means that there's going to be one fewer player in the RAM market, and more loss of choice among consumer PC buyers. Yes, that includes gamers, too, as we tend to push the envelope of PC performance than the average PC user, but given the spiking of RAM usage in "normal" software such as browsers, video streaming, and Office-esque applications, this is going to hurt us in the long run.

And for what? To try to get some of that AI bubble money?

Yeah, this isn't going to end well...

The 16 Year Itch

The oldest mini-Red is back home for winter break after her finals*, and practically the first thing she did after arriving was to get together with some friends to go play SWTOR.

Although this isn't the Smuggler I've heard
so much about, I've been told that the Mini-Red's
friends created toons that would qualify for the
Fashion Hall of Shame on the Hawtpants of the
Old Republic blog.

I must have done something right.

***

Our main PC, the one I use for gaming, is over six years old now. At the time, the i7-3770 was pretty much the best processor you could buy, and while I skimped on a few other parts of the build I definitely made sure the processor would last. And last it has.

However, that also means that the hard drive and other components are six years old as well, and I've grown a bit nervous about the hard drive in particular. Sure, I back up data to an external drive on a regular basis, but if you've ever had to deal with a hard drive crash it's not what I'd call fun. Therefore, I'm looking at replacing the hard drive with an SSD and adding another HDD for the pictures/movies/whatever storage.

That ought to keep the PC active and running for a while.

However --and you knew this was coming, right?-- I'm planning on building a replacement over the course of the next year or two. Not to replace the main PC in general, as it'll be perfectly fine for what my wife uses** for the next 4-5 years at least, but a separate PC that I'll be able to use for gaming going forward.

I have a small confession to make: I've not built a PC from scratch since Windows XP was the current version of Windows.

I used to build and rebuild PCs back through the 90s, mainly to keep our old 386/SX20 486DX33 486SX66 going, and yes, I was one of those people who would spend hours perusing the telephone directory sized Computer Shopper on a monthly basis. However, after the Windows XP machine's motherboard failed in 2007 I priced out the cost of replacing it directly with a prebuilt vs. building it myself, and I was surprised to find that it was more cost efficient to just buy a computer with Windows and MS Office already installed as opposed to building one myself.

Yes, I know that in general this is still the case, but after dealing with the HP Phoenix for the past six years, I think I'm ready to go back to building one myself. The reasons are pretty straightforward:

• I control what goes in the machine.
  
  I didn't realize just how much I missed controlling the hardware when I was trying to see if I could tweak the system. The machine has all the prerequisites for handling overclocking, except for the motherboard. If it were me selecting the components, I'd have bought a motherboard that could handle overclocking. I might not have tweaked anything, but I prefer having the option to do so.
  
• The price of MS Office isn't a limiting factor any more.
  
  Since Microsoft is pushing people into MS Office 365 as a subscription service, I've been moving in the direction of using either OpenOffice or Google Drive. I've no reason to get a new version of MS Office when Office 2010 on the main PC still works and I've got free options.
  
• The cost versus performance of the components hasn't changed that much over time.
  
  Back when I last built a PC, the performance of the components kept changing drastically on a yearly basis. In 1999, I bought one of the first AMD Athlon PCs, and for a brief period of time I owned one of the fastest PCs in the world. Three months later that was no longer the case. After 2-3 years, the Athlon was showing its age to the point where it wasn't keeping up with the new games at all.
  
  The i7-3770, however, is in a different situation. Three years after it was built, it was still a fine performer. And now, six years after it was built, it has finally slipped off the recommended requirements for the latest games. We're not talking the minimum requirements, but the recommended requirements. By contrast, that old Athlon was off the minimum requirements for a lot of games by 2005-6.
  
  Why the change? Advances in processing power have come at a more incremental rate, especially the last several years, and AMD's Ryzen architecture has propelled them back into the performance game with Intel and given PC builders a good alternative to Intel at a great price for performance. Intel may still be the gamers' processor of choice, but AMD is now a viable option, particularly once their 7 nm Ryzen 3rd Gen architecture ships in 2019.

Given all this, I've started getting the itch to build a PC once again. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to start perusing the enthusiast web sites/YouTube Channels while I dream a little.

*Finals are stressful for anybody, but for a Music Performance major, the jury cranks the stress levels up to 11. For the uninitiated, a jury is a performance you give before either the entire department or a significant number of them that determines whether they believe you fit enough to continue progressing in your music career. Think of it as a Masters' Thesis defense, but every semester, and you get the idea.

**And for gaming in general.