Technical Questions Thread (Collective Brain Moochathon 2k25)

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2025 version of the thread where we can ask guilt-free technical questions and mooch off the collective IC brainbox. Shout out @billy for the original thread.

I’ll start! I came into possession of a Universal Audio Apollo Twin. It is great! I have a 2020 Macbook Air with two Thunderbolt ports. I need a Thunderbolt dock and I would prefer to have one cord running to the laptop. I need to connect power, the Apollo Twin, a monitor, a Novation keyboard (usb-c), and a Behringer Pro-800 (I got one for Christmas, it is wonderful particularly for the price).

Does anyone have a recommendation for a Thunderbolt dock that would meet my need/want? If it isn’t obvious, this setup is for music production. The CalDigit TS3 Plus looks looks good, and I read that the Apollo plays nice with it, but I don’t have any experience here.

Thanks!

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I’ve been using the CalDigit Element Hub for the last 18 months or so, very satisfied with it – for my uses. I filled all its ports (4k monitor, 1080p webcam, mouse, keyboard, watch charger etc) and the “host” usb-c cable I move from my Mac to my Linux PC once every few days when i’m switching between my tasks. But in full disclosure: the first unit they sent me was DOA. They kindly sent another while I returned the first.

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Is Time Extension the best retro-news blog? Recommend others?

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what forum or messageboard would someone go on the year of our lord 2025 to ask for very specific computer technical feedback??? like i don’t even know what computer nerd community would be the best for something like this,

My GPU and my pc are being weird in that every day for the last 4 days I wake up and the gpu isn’t booting (the fans spin for a second before stopping) and the computer goes ahead and boots without the GPU. Then I swap some power cables around or reseat the GPU and it magically works. I can restart the computer as many times as I like during the day and it still works but consistently every morning I wake up and try to turn on my computer and the GPU won’t work until i reseat it/change the power cables around or something.

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The machine could be going to a power save setting and the bug is in how it’s waking back up. You can check in “Power Options”. If it’s reliably from Sleep mode that narrows it down a lot

Windows could be trying to update something each night and is getting in a bad state. Can check if anything is queued and waiting in Windows Update.

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Will try to test it from sleep. My guess is that it’s a hardware. Now that I think about it more this started since I opened up the PC to add an ssd. It could maybe be a weird power option in the BIOS? I’ll try to check.

Could the windows update thing affect like the entire boot up proccess before the OS kicks in? Like I completely turn it off each night. I’m dualbooting with linux btw

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Do you have another PCI slot? It could be that the wrangling of the cables is connecting a short in the slot. Those slot are trash. Having dealt with hardware failure when I’m experiencing strange and inconsistent problems I often find it’s the mobo’s fault.

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double check that the gpu power cable is completely connected. Had this problem with an nvidia card where one of the little thingos was loose

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yeah I have another PCI slot and I had the same problem when I tried put it in there.

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I’m sorry, dealing with a failing computer feels like dealing with an obstinate child who doesn’t want to do their homework.

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I got this whole PC in december (tarif scare purchase) and just realized I still have my 1050 and a whole other motherboard lying around so if the problem still persists tomorrow I could do some tests. Be it plugging my new GPU (3070) to the old motherboard or the old GPU the new mobo.

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Since I can eventually get it to work this feels like the child is throwing a big tantrum before giving in lol

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Ah, yeah you’re fully shutting things down. No need to worry about an overnight update thing then.

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Just spit balling ideas here. Does your power supply have sufficient wattage for your setup? You said it started after hooking up a new part. I don’t know if this is the best resource but Newegg has a wattage calculator

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it should have more than enough power. It’s 750W and I bought it brand new on december.

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Yeah, that’s a better analogy

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this is like the main thing I was suspecting. If it’s this there’s a couple stuff that wouldn’t make much sense to me but I guess it could be that I’m really bad plugging those power cables.

Also now that I think about it this issue started since getting an nvme drive and cloning my previous boot drive (sata ssd) into it. Right now it’s working fine and I can turn off and turn on the computer without problems. If/when it fails again tomorrow morning now I have 3 things to test.

  1. Plugging my old GPU (1050) and seeing if that one works. (the only downside is that it is low profile and doesn’t need the power cables so doesn’t help with ruling that out completely)

  2. Removing the nvme ssd I added when the problems started and try to boot the computer from another hard drive to see what happens.

  3. Re-assembling the old PC and plugging the new GPU (3070) into it and seeing what happens

Thanks for the help! Trying to explain all of this to other people gives me new ideas. Will report back tomorrow.

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Yeah, definitely not a wattage issue. I also have a 3070 system and the 800w psu I got for it was massive overkill.

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I always leave room for adding power hungry components too. It seems like it would suck if you need to upgrade something that you need the power for. Like a power hungry USB C port that you can charge a tablet or steamdeck on. I use mine to power a USB C Pinecil because my computer desk is also my everything else desk when needed. I think it uses 60 watts.

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Anyone have external bluray drive recommendations? Looking to start ripping some.

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