Category: Video Games

Gaming Discussion w/ Video & Images

Alienware Liquid Cooler FAILED

Yeah the old cooler was a piece of crap. I was able to fit this cool master in there & that’s plenty of cooling for this i7-7800x. I removed the radiator & put the chassis fan back in place. This runs even cooler than it did before & actually what happened was the old radiator did what they always do in these, it failed. They had a small radiator, look at how there appears to be no room in here for one, well, they managed it, but it ran out of coolant, overheated, & actually the ram bank next to the CPU even failed!

Fortunately for the customer, the three other banks work & he only wants 32GB of DDR4 anyway. So, he’s upgrading to two 16s since not only did the ram slot fail, the ram stick failed too. I imagine it got really hot being right next to the overheating CPU & radiator & yeah, fortunately, all is not lost, he’ll replace that workstation memory with some G.Skill gaming memory. The G.Skill memory has heatsinks, not that it will overheat anymore because this new configuration will be vastly superior to what Dell had in there. I’ll install that ram when it arrives later today.

It’s funny that Dell decided to save money by putting workstation memory in their Alienware gaming PCs. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I’ve also reinstalled Windows since that was corrupted. He should probably upgrade his M.2 but it’s working & he has 2TBs in other drives.

Prior to this I had a guy’s PC he was using as a racing simulator in. I basically updated the BIOS & the AMD chipset + AMD graphics drivers & it ran great. It was still crashing for him but I advised him to lower his settings since his card was really only spec’d to run at a maximum 30 fps at 1440 & perhaps 60 fps at 1080. Sometimes there are hardware limitations like that which people do not foresee. As with this Alienware, it’s running a 1080 TI, which is a bit outdated, but the PC was still worth fixing.

That’s the majority of the machines I get. Sometimes I want to take more photos & make more notes & explain everything I’ve done, but I just don’t have time to do that. I used to keep paperwork, physical paperwork, starting in the 90s, each machine had a sheet of paper I’d then file away. I used to have just thousands of these but those files were destroyed long ago.

Sold my old Alienware

I picked this thing up at a Goodwill & had to gut it entirely & even take apart the power supply & clean it & replace the fan. I cleaned all the other fans & bought a replacement side panel. I also replaced the M.2 & upgraded the ram. In addition to that, I took apart the graphics card, cleaned that, & reapplied thermal paste. I then installed an oem version of Windows 10 & all the latest drivers. I had updated the bios earlier & yeah, it ran great, the guy who bought it got an incredible deal, I sold it for a mere $350. Still, it’s an i7-7700 w/ a 1070 so it’s pretty much entry level at best at this point, despite how well it runs things. I guess I do have a 6th generation i7 with a 960 that can do basic things, but the 1070 at least can hit or break 60 fps in most things.

I never really used it much, it was another box for Save the World sometimes.

I won’t miss it & likely won’t ever buy another one, this just came at the right price at the right time. I actually have another Alienware case, which I’ll get rid of here at some point.

Fortnite Season Update

So the bugs and glitches are still persistent. I have started leveling my Save the World accounts as well between battle royale gameplay. I continue to run into ridiculous players who intentionally sabotage the battle royale games. I think they are used to losing & in addition to that, some of these kids would rather take the easy L as opposed to even trying for a win. I don’t think they can take the disappointment of actually trying for a win & losing so instead they sabotage the games intentionally, then act like it isn’t even that serious.

That being said, no one said it was serious. However, some people have skill, & some players just try to drag those players down. I’m still, as always, behind on videos & edits. The issue is that I would rather play more & that’s why videos are left undone. I also want to post some of what is going on in Save the World but as always, check out my streams.

Also, their attempts to fix the hammer glitches ultimately resulted in simply a hammer nerf. Typical Fortnite. Also, when they went to fix the hammer glitches, they kind of fixed it, but overall didn’t fix it, & then re-added several other bugs back to the game. I am hoping they sort those bugs out & we get a more consistent game for the rest of the season.

Here are some of the more recent videos! As of this posting I am only up to 23 crown wins & Division 7, but there is still some time left.

Also, here are some screenshots.

Recently I did the Plankerton defense. I am currently preparing for Canny.

Here’s an older clip from a previous season that I found on discord.

Fortnite Arena

I made it to division 6 after a little bit of play & then won a duos game with Bart.

I think he was happy but he sounded really tired. Bart doesn’t live in the United States so I am unsure even what time it was for him but this was around noon for me.

I also diagnosed a gaming computer for a guy, another situation where the pins were bent.

This is a common issue. People come in & tell me their machine won’t post after they’ve built it & then I find the pins are bent. Something this severe I won’t even try to fix. It’s possible, but just not something I want to do. These pins are a lot smaller than they appear in the photo & he’s going to return it & get another motherboard instead.

It’s important to make sure the CPU is installed correctly the first time or this is what will happen. I’ve seen this many times over the years. It used to be that people would bend the pins on the CPU, which, people still do with AMD chips. I fixed a chip for a kid earlier this year, fortunately for him. In fact, the machine was a pre-built & arrived with bent pins from the builder. I was able to bend them into place & the machine booted after that. As far as this one goes, I could have made an attempt, but it’s better if he replaces the motherboard & he was fine with doing that.

I also won this solo squad recently.

I was so disappointed in all my squad games with friends & had vowed not to get caught up playing pickups again, but, I did, & after a bunch of 2nd place finishes, I finally won this squad game, solo. It came down to a 2 v 1 & they both had hammers & crowns & I didn’t, but it worked out because I had a few builds, guns, & a jump trick for a headshot I did at the end.