'No Stupid Questions' (NSQ) Internet & Technology Edition

My PC's power supply is constantly making a ticking/clicking noise. How long before I die?
It has been making this noise for at least a year, I think it might be the fan.
 
That sounds stressful, hope you two sort it out. "Google Takeout" will export a lot of user info, additionally it's good for you to have a local copy, backup everything you can ASAP. What type of information are you looking for? An image? A direct message?
My friend downloaded messages from Duo (recently acquired by Google to merge into Meet) that involve a loved one living in a bad situation. They have most of them, but there's about a 2 month period that we can't find back ups for that occurred due to the phone the account was on (and where the messages were downloaded to the account) having to be factory reset. To give an example of scope, most things showed up in their Google drive/photo backups, but third-party related program files like Reddit downloads, Pinterest downloads and Duo downloads though initially present on the phone's photo explorer, aren't for some reason in the Google drive.

If it helps to know, the context is a child explaining abuse that happened to them and the child is still stuck in that situation. Any help at all figuring out if we can get those messages would be a genuine blessing.
 
Using Tor Browser on Android, when I hit 'like' on KF posts, I can see all the reactions but can never select them. It defaults to a 'like' which has led me to liking some autistic stuff. Does anyone have a solution for best Tor KF experience on Android?
I think this just doesn't work in the mobile Tor browser. Usually you need to long press Like to bring up the list of stickers. But Tor browser interprets that as trying to open a link.
 
Need a remote desktop access solution but I have a few specific needs.

I’d like it to be able to work on PCs on both my home network and PCs other networks I have access to. And I’d like to be able to have multiple, preferably browser based, instances running at once.

Free would be best but a paid solution is acceptable.
 
My PC's power supply is constantly making a ticking/clicking noise. How long before I die?
It has been making this noise for at least a year, I think it might be the fan.
It could be dust build up, a blast of compressed air could fix that, or you're just waiting for it to die if that doesn't fix it. If so, replace it
 
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So when did we kill off the ability to run 4 DIMMs all at once without endless headaches?

I routinely did 4 DIMM builds in the past (think 10 years ago) which never had any issues running at advertised speeds, yet I start fucking around with Ryzen and apparently 4 DIMMs means you get to learn how to build your own excitement because XMP profiles (or DOCP profiles, or...) stop fucking working where 4 DIMMs are concerned and this means you need to start very manually tuning that shit to even run, much less run stable.

WTF happened while I wasn't looking?
 
So when did we kill off the ability to run 4 DIMMs all at once without endless headaches?
I’m running 4 and 8 module systems without an issue. You mentioned the key issue - it’s a Ryzen build. Ryzen ram issues are somewhat of a meme at this point but the issue is still very real.

I’d suggest doing a search for your exact mobo and ram combo and find some working settings. I’ve been building systems since I was a child and I’ve never once had the ram issues I do with even modern Ryzen systems.
 
I’m running 4 and 8 module systems without an issue. You mentioned the key issue - it’s a Ryzen build. Ryzen ram issues are somewhat of a meme at this point but the issue is still very real.

I’d suggest doing a search for your exact mobo and ram combo and find some working settings. I’ve been building systems since I was a child and I’ve never once had the ram issues I do with even modern Ryzen systems.
Okay so it's not just me, good.

I'm really regretting buying B-Die 3800 CL14 ram about right now lmao.

I got it to 3400 CL14 and gave up for the evening since it was finally posting instead of just taunting me with clicks until it booted into safe mode, all the while the 3200 CL14 B-die that cost 1/4 the 3800 laughed at me from across the room.
 
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but yeah my preferences in order are
magic elves fix it in my sleep
some "push button, receive cloned drive" solution
actually re-installing all my shit (which frankly might not be a bad idea anyway just because of the weird bullshit you build up over the years)
letting other people fuck with my computer

I think the new external I got for evacuating has a drive clone thing but I don't trust pack-in software like that much
I don't think I've ever used Clonezilla but the older Macrium Reflect(it was free for personal use) was the best (and most surprising) thing I've used since various Linux tools were the go-to.
Macrium is very easy to use and I've used it multiple times, personally and for others, to clone hard drives that then goes back into the same system. Like HDD to SSD or SSD to larger SSD or SATA to NVME. Works well and it is fast.

Looking at their site they have a Workstation 30 day free trial but I don't know if there's a surprise gotcha involved in that one.
 
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So uh...at no point ever should a temp sensor on a motherboard component be reporting a temp in excess of 100c...right?

I've got 2 rad fans blowing down from above and a rear intake fan with 3 front exhaust so I think there's enough airflow in there to at least keep things from completely cooking and yet there it is. I'm still trying to track down which component is doing this since I only noticed it when I got to windows and started mucking around with fan curves and the "aux2" sensor was reporting 107c, but I suspect it is something under the x570 heatsink structure since that part was toasty as fuck when I touched it compared to everything else around it.

e: sensor and temp correction
 
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So uh...at no point ever should a temp sensor on a motherboard component be reporting a temp in excess of 100c...right?

I've got 2 rad fans blowing down from above and a rear intake fan with 3 front exhaust so I think there's enough airflow in there to at least keep things from completely cooking and yet there it is. I'm still trying to track down which component is doing this since I only noticed it when I got to windows and started mucking around with fan curves and the "aux2" sensor was reporting 107c, but I suspect it is something under the x570 heatsink structure since that part was toasty as fuck when I touched it compared to everything else around it.

e: sensor and temp correction
Depending on what program you're using they report some temps incorrectly, however that is still way too hot. Most likely CPU or maybe the chipset although the latter should never run that hot. When was the last time you checked the thermal paste on the CPU?
 
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Depending on what program you're using they report some temps incorrectly, however that is still way too hot. Most likely CPU or maybe the chipset although the latter should never run that hot. When was the last time you checked the thermal paste on the CPU?
I'm using FanControl which is where I found that sensor in the list of available sensors when it probed for sensors during setup.

All CPU related sensors are running south of 50c under idle (usually south of 38c in windows, south of 51c idling in bios) so I don't think it is that, CPU can hit 70 under load but I've never seen it go higher than that: I'd certainly hope so with a waterblock on it and 700mm of 140mm wide rads dumping the heat...

VRM and chipset seem to run under 50c, though there's on outlier chipset sensor at 60c.

I'm hoping the 108c is an incorrect reading as you suggest because the delta between that and the next nearest is over 40c which seems way off.

I'll try HWinfo and a couple other monitoring apps and see if it shows up there too. Whatever sensor it is doesn't show up in the BIOS, so I do wonder about that, but the BIOS is an Asus BIOS so I don't know if I completely trust that either...
 
Every mobo I've had will shut off if anything hits 100c, so I would be suspicious of that reading honestly.

Temperature reporting can get funky. I think it's probably summing two sensors together. Whenever I check my CPU temp it never moves from 16.8c which is obviously pretty wrong considering my house is hotter than that. The BIOS has the correct value though.
 
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I’ve seen temperature sensors report crazy numbers and when I went to verify with a thermal probe none of them were close to accurate. Those one size fits all monitoring apps are prone to false readings and even picking up and reporting on sensors that don’t exist. If anything was at 100C you’d know it.
 
What's the best place to buy one of those specialty rigs that uses GPUs with no monitor ports (forget the name ATM) en masse for mining crypto or the like?

The one vendor I knew went out of business (citing COVID supply chain fuckery, he was being sued over order fufillment and literally couldn't do shit) and so help me I literally cannot find anyone else selling the exact same thing.
 
What's the best place to buy one of those specialty rigs that uses GPUs with no monitor ports (forget the name ATM) en masse for mining crypto or the like?

The one vendor I knew went out of business (citing COVID supply chain fuckery, he was being sued over order fufillment and literally couldn't do shit) and so help me I literally cannot find anyone else selling the exact same thing.
I think the keyword you are looking for is "ASIC", which I think will help you finding a place to buy them since a quick google search yielded quite a few places selling them, though I never got to the point of ASICs so no experience with any of them. Hopefully someone else can speak to that.
 
My PC's power supply is constantly making a ticking/clicking noise. How long before I die?
It has been making this noise for at least a year, I think it might be the fan.
Turn off computer, stick a screwdriver or something (preferably plasticy) to stop the fan, turn on computer, see if noise is gone, pull out the screwdriver see if noise starts. If it's the fan, it's probably a fan bearing, cleaning may help, but if it doesn't just keep using it until you STOP hearing the noise, then if the fan is dead, replace the fan or the power supply.
 
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