1- I use a pen and paper to jot down ideas and brainstorming to expand on an idea (in the initial phase). I personally find it easier to think of ideas and expanding on new stuff, while writing on paper. This is mostly for general stuff > I have this huge white paper spiral notebook where I like to make all my general planning/idea exploration. I really like having the big white space and no lines. (for my creative writing, I prefer using notebook with lines lol) but for IT stuff and broad ideas, this big notebook is the way to go.

When I have more clarity on what I want to do, I bring things into Notion

2- For me, Notion is pretty much a replacement for Google Notes (which I still often use on my phone), Google Cal, Microsoft Word, And a messy Folder arrangement for all my stuff XD Now, no more headache trying to piece things together. Only converted to using Notion full time since I have a lot more projects and ideas to keep track of and organize (paper and pen ain’t enough anymore..) I still use them, but less, since I prefer having everything Centralized. I love my paper calendar tho <3

For my IT workspace > I modified a social media management Template and made it suit my taste (I had to remove A LOT and add a few things). Basically, I have All the Tittles/Steps Needed on the Left Tab, Status in Middle, ETA and Complete check on the right. And There’s an option to expand the Tittles into a new page when I’m ready to draft out a blog/make detailed Steps > It’s really simple, yet very effective for me.

Thanks to this workspace, I can go from Listing ideas for a post, or anything, to finishing a whole draft, all in one space. And I really like having the Status thingy. I have some custom status to keep track of things, or give reminder, so I don’t have to think much, the status reminds me what I need to do next.

3- I keep everything related to my IT stuff in one place > VirtualBox (It’s solid and there are a lot of resources online for it). I have all my VMs and things related to I.T. on there. If it can’t be a VM, I just put it inside one LOL (like getting packet tracer in Ubuntu VM, or getting Firewall IOS in EVE-NG). I really like having everything related to IT in one place. That makes it a lot more organized and again, less friction for my brain when I need to do something -It’s all just there. Also, there’s a VM for everything/some workaround to getting the thing into VirtualBox > I make it work to make my life easier LOL (tho the process can be wayyy harder XD.. Challenge accepted >__<). And Yes, VirtualBox over a dedicated server for a lot of reasons for me (Topic #1 on HomelabExp)

4- In my Stream deck, I have a shortcut set for Snipping tool (Shift+Win+S). This is SOO important for me because I take A LOT of screenshots for making tutorials. I can’t not have this thing XD. I also have shortcut buttons for all the folders I use often (download, screenshot, common F keys (cus of my keyboard LOL), a bunch of websites, etc.. The stream deck is also a must for me since it saves me a lot of steps. I also have a few thingies set on my mouse but it’s mostly for media and navigation stuff (Logitech G502 with all of its buttons!)

5- Last and but still make my life easier > I got this cheap drawing tablet thingy off of eBay (I think it was $20 somethin’) It’s for scribbling on the screenshots, which I do a lot of sooo it’s good to have when I’m ready to draft out the whole blog. I don’t want to struggle with a mouse for annotations..

And kinda not important, but still good to have > I customized my keyboard with fun tactile switches and some simple mods. After the mods, I really like typing on it. It is really nice to have a fun keyboard when I have to type on for hours at a time XD. The fact that I love typing on it make the process of putting my thoughts into writing a lot smoother.

The things I listed on here are what I have for my PERSONAL setup. Some of these things are more impactful than other, but they all play their part in creating a seamless experience for creating the learnings on my IT website –Homelab Experiments. With the creation process more or less Standardized, I can use most of my brain for struggling when I troubleshoot broken stuff in my VMs XD.. and for learning new things + finding ways to get stuff I use into VirtualBox..

The workflow I have for this are process and thingies I built up overtime, and I still working on improving. There’s always something you can do to make things easier, and more fun/less annoying to Streamline the process of going from Ideas to a finished product. (Just updated my Stream Deck shortcuts after this XD)

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This is an interesting story of me upgrading my PC and solving all the issues that kept popping up. For the most part, building a PC is quite simple when you get compatible parts. BUT when shit goes down, that’s when your skills and SANITY really gets tested. This also really showed that the stuff I got from work, can also be used for my personal projects – and money does solve problems/make things possible!

My Old PC + Planned upgrade path

When building my previous computer, I made sure to keep upgradability in mind. I used a B550 motherboard, so I can upgrade my Ryzen 5 3600 to the next generation later down the line. I also had enough power with my 750W PSU, so I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade to Ryzen 9 5900X. The price was really nice, and I wanted as much raw processing power as possible -in case I needed more cores… he rationalized.

Upgrading to a Ryzen 9 + problem start 

I was sort of surprised when my PC was unstable and kept powering off randomly. This is especially weird because the problems only started appearing after 2 days of things working normally -the Temps were good (Shoutout to the AK620), the Bios was new, no updates pending, all the components were connected properly and worked fine (I triple checked it boss!). 

Finding root cause of computer crashing 

After a few hours of typical hardware troubleshooting, and reading through reddit posts, I finally found the problem. The crashes would happen due to the CPU usage and power draw spiking when I was importing photos into Lightroom -I had OpenHardware Monitor and Task Manager open to, well, monitor things.

The B550 motherboard I had ‘technically’ supported the CPU, but that did not mean it could run it properly. The power delivery on my motherboard was not nearly enough to support the power hungry 5900X, even with good cooling/low temps. To put in perspective, the ryzen 5 3600 I had previously was drawing 70W after overclocking, while the stock 5900X spiked to 180W, now that’s a lot of power… and problems

Still more crashes after fix… This makes no sense!

-So getting a new motherboard is the solution, right? 

Yes, but actually No. It wasn’t really possible to get a Micro ATX motherboard in stock (at Microcenter) that could handle the 5900X properly, which I only found out after trying (sadly). When getting a new motherboard, I went a little extra, and got a really good X570 board. Unlike B550, X570 offers better power delivery alongside multiple new features. The only problem is that the Micro ATX board I got was still having  the same problem with intermittent shutdowns. What the hell man ?_? The Temps on the CPU were good, the new Mobo said it supported things properly, and I should have more than enough power… I have no idea why it was still crashing.

Fixing problem with money 

At this point, it’s been 3 days since I started trying to fix the problems and I was over it. So, I just went to Microcenter to see if they could fix it quickly for me.

The only problem was the 3 days it would take to get to troubleshooting my PC because they were backed up. This was too long for me since I had photos that I needed to edit and send out quickly. The main reason why I needed them to do it for me was due to the lack of components I could use to troubleshoot. 

So I made my most baller move yet, and just got a whole new computer LOL. (New Mid-tower case, ATX Mobo, another set of 32GB ddr4 RAM, PSU, M.2 boot drive, but not the GPU… sadly -not really my prio here). My reasoning was that, since I got a new Motherboard and Computer Case, I might as well get a whole new PC so I could give my old PC to my little bro -just spend a few hundred dollars more… as  I begged my poor wallet to take out all the money I had left ;-; 

More part failing/dead

Anyway, with the new and final build, I thought I would have everything working properly and stuff BUT things kept breaking bro. This time, the computer was not powering at all -PSU dead… after countless crashes, forced shutdowns, broken cables, unstable current; and honestly, a pretty fun wild ride. So (o-o) make that my 7th drive to Microcenter in a week… (those are 2+ hours round trip each depending on traffic -one reason why things were taking so long) 

New PC problems…

Finally, after getting all the hardware sorted, I had many other problems with Windows 11 not recognizing the new hardware, then I got multiple blue screens (for hardware issue), and in the end, it went into a boot loop (WOW, just what I needed…)

You know, I think windows was just tired of the countless shutdowns in the middle of loading, and Windows recovery mode failing many times. So, it decided it had enough… and same here brother -so I got a fresh windows install. (RIP all my apps, files and most importantly my VMs in Virtualbox -completely forgot I put them on my boot drive ;-;) 

Some random ass problem I’ve never seen 

So now, after all that, things should be good right? And well, sort of Yes? But not really. After I got everything sorted, and things being stable? (I was able to import, edit and export my photos and get that out of the *picture). Things were working fine, but then everything would be really unstable when I put my ram on their XMP profile (eXtreme Memory profile). This would cause, you guessed it, my computer to crash intermittently -not this again… I had my computer shut down in the middle of a RANKED game, so, definitely a big problems… especially because we were actually winning the game XD

This issue was actually the one that took the longest to figure out and I was thinking of leaving my memory at the stock 2133MHz speed, but it was just too much power under the table -remember brother, POWAH! Yeah, you right, we got this bad boy for a reason, for a just cause, for ‘science’ (wait, I did not say th-… YES, SCIENCE!)

I always knew that Ryzen chips have a few quirks (Thanks Tech Channels on YouTube!) and they are especially sensitive to voltage and memory speed (thanks for confirming the info Reddit brothers), but I did not think it would be as sensitive as a gamer to bright lights in their dark room

More Reddit and YouTube ‘research’ + Repurposing skills from previous job 

After going through some Reddit posts to figure out an answer, I found a thread about running stress tests to validate things, and then it clicked. Ahhhh, I forgot you could also do that for regular computers, similar to what I did with the server hardware at my old job… BRUH (I forgot this part because all the computers I built and upgraded before just ‘Worked’ without BS problems).

So anyway, I was off to some more Reddit posts and YouTube videos to ‘research’ Stress Tests program for PC. And after an additional 3 hours procrastinating, watching ‘research’ videos, I finally settled on Prime95… Just that, cus I wasn’t about to get too deep into another Rabbit hole (*Flashback to the countless hours I spent trying to undervolt to try making things stable… oh dear) Additionally, I knew my GPU was good (after testing it myself before -just to see the numbers I would get LOL)

Finally got PC to run properly 

Running the stress Test, while monitoring things was actually super helpful. It’s much easier to spot the problem. Running CPU and RAM at stock speed was really stable -it ran without crashes for 2 hours, which is more than enough for me (Some recommend running Prime95 12, 24 and even 48 hours for rock stable performance, but I’ve got things to do, so 2 hours more than enough -like a regular person lol).

When running the RAM with its XMP profile (3200MHz), it would cause a lot of problems -even with the CPU… really so gosh darn sensitive. My assumption with this, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that the higher voltage on the RAM with XMP enabled is affecting the picky, sensitive ryzen CPU.

So, I tried swapping back to my old RAM kit, with its XMP at 3000MHz, and well, IT WORKED! Everything’s stable! I had the stress test running for another 3 hours to make sure, and it was all good. Again, this makes no sense because the RAM kit worked well with XMP on the other system, and the 5900X is capable of supporting MUCH higher speed RAM… BRUH, this legit reminds me of all the BS errors that made no sense with the servers we were doing QC work on. 

Learning outcome

This is all to say that I, well, the nerd in me, really did enjoy this journey. (I told you it was for Sciec- Shush, I’m trying to wrap up this long story).  It was super fun figuring things out and making things work, and seeing it all come together in the end (Thankfully, otherwise I would have had to call in the ‘IT manager’ from his vacation -my dad, LOL).

There were so many learning opportunities here, and I love how this got me into Problem Solving mode. It reminds me of the times when me and the boys (well mostly me and my mentor Marek), were trying to figure out problems on the ‘unpassable’ Microsoft Servers we were working on back at ZT Systems. 

I always love being in the ‘zone’ whether it be with editing photos or videos, problem solving for hours on end, or like now -writing a cool ‘little’ story. It’s just such a good feeling to be so focused and interested in what you do, that you lose track of time

I hope you enjoyed reading this long short story :3 I’m trying to write more stories, in preparation for my other project. I would love to hear feedback from you, if it’s too long, too detailed, not detailed enough? Or if your time invested in a post is not too long so you ran out of time? Just any comments I guess, because this is just the beginning for me. 

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