Builds & Upgrades - Karmi's Musings & Tech

Windows 11 23H2 update – Dell laptop got it already

August 12, 2025November 2, 2023 by Karmi

My Dell XPS 13 got the 23H2 update on 10/31/2023, but my three home built desktops still haven’t gotten the update. My computers are listed Here.

Was doing a daily update on ‘XPS13‘ and a notice popped up saying that the 23H2 update was ready whenever I wanted it.

ASUS Prime Z790M-PLUS D4 mATX MoBo – BIOS & Drivers

July 28, 2025June 24, 2023 by Karmi

I have found that finding the right ASUS Z790M PLUS D4 drivers can be frustrating for this one. Since 2005/2006 I have purchased $60-$90 motherboards for my builds, but decided to ‘splurge’ on the ASUS Prime Z790M-PLUS D4 mATX MoBo – $171.89 + $12.03 Tax = $183.92.

Requirements were – Micro ATX, Intel Z790, LGA 1700, and 1Gb LAN motherboard. Have moved away from the big ATX & small ITX boards, and prefer the mATX boards and cases now—fact is, I was going to be removing (intact) an older board from my favorite case, a APEVIA X-QPACK3 mATX case, and building a new Intel® Core™ i9-13900K system in it.

I didn’t find a huge mATX selection, and PCPartPicker only had TWO listed, and I went w/ the ASUS Prime Z790M-PLUS D4.

(*1/31/2024 UPDATE: new info in ASUS Prime Z790M-PLUS D4 mATX MoBo: Restore an Image and/or do a Clean Install post*)

Builds & Upgrades — Part 5 (FINAL – Before & After)

August 12, 2025June 13, 2023 by Karmi

Finished up new Build yesterday ‘n have it setup in my primary desktop spot – posting this from it right now. 👌👍🙌😁

Here are: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

‘Before’ as in the intact MoBo I moved out of the Apevia X-Qpack3 case, and ‘After’ as in this new Build inside it now. I name most of my computers after the cases I use to build them, and I’ll update the new components in ‘Apevia’ soon.

Here is a closer look at the new benchmark results – from UserBenchmark:

Builds & Upgrades — Part 4 (“Delivered Today” – NOT!)

August 12, 2025June 7, 2023 by Karmi

OK, ‘Thangs have slowed to a crawl – fortunately I am in no rush ‘n just keep spending more money whilst I wait. 😁👍 However, instead of four Parts there will be a Part 5: here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Let’s get started…

‘Delivered Today‘

I knew that “$50 drop in the price of an Intel® Core™ i9-13900K CPU” mentioned in Part 3 looked unusual for the 2nd ‘Fastest average effective speed CPU‘ right now:

Builds & Upgrades — Part 3 (Costs Incurred to Date)

August 12, 2025June 3, 2023 by Karmi

Part 1 (5/29/23) was about ‘Planning‘ a new Intel® Core™ i9-13900K Build whilst reusing an Apevia case, its 32 GB RAM, its 500 GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 PCIe NVMe (for OS), a Adata XPG SX6000 Pro M.2 PCIe NVMe (for data), and a Kingwin KF-251-BK Dual-Bay Hot Swap Rack.

No rush or actual date for finishing the Build was set; however, an ASUS Prime Z790M-PLUS D4 LGA 1700 mATX MoBo had just been purchased for $183.92 w/ Tax ‘n free shipping.

Whilst writing Part 1 – I had noticed PCPartPicker showing a large drop in price for a ASUS Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition – a drop from over $425++ to $364.00 ($390.54 w/ Tax) and I also purchased it.

Part 2 (6/1/23) was removing the MoBo from the ‘Apevia‘ computer and placing it (mostly intact) into the ‘Rose‘ computer – a huge Intel® Core™ i9-10900K Upgrade for that computer. I am now using ‘Rose‘ as my main PC until ‘Apevia‘ is re-Built.