It has been quite some time since last verbally visiting the ill-fated PosAlt project. Crashes and BSOD seemed to be the system's lot until I finally agreed to take the risk and replace the motherboard. This was no small feat, either, as B550 motherboards had been in short supply since their release - particularly Micro-ATX variants. I found what I felt would properly suit my needs in the Gigabyte B550M DS3H and proceeded to wait and wait for this part to become available. It finally did and the project was rescued from the morass that is Asrock.
As an aside, since building this system, I have had the misfortune of participating in two other builds featuring Asrock motherboards. These boards are nicely priced, packed with features and readily available. I would not recommend them to anyone at this point. Every one of the three builds based on Asrock motherboards has failed due to the motherboard - confirmed after no small headache in testing. Better to wait on availability from a better manufacturer than to trust Asrock ever again. In fairness, I had a similar experience with Asus which caused me to avoid their product stack entirely, however I have since returned as the company seems to be creating better components now. For the time being, Asrock is unreliable. Shoddy. Not worth the risk.
With the basic Gigabyte B550 motherboard in place, the system is now running stable. I do not regret upgrading the GPU, as the shortages in the 2020-2021 market have made this investment seem like a genius idea. Binning the PSU and SSD, on the other hand, was a mistake. I should have held onto them until I had full confirmation that the system's problems were elsewhere. Live and learn, I guess, but this is a lesson learned many times over many years. Perhaps it is not a lesson I will learn after all.
I took the system as a whole a bit farther by changing the RAM to a Trident Z Neo kit and purchasing an actual case for it to reside in. Changes in the home layout and furnishings have rendered the desk built-in concept unworkable. Lastly, I also removed the stock fan in favor of a liquid cooling setup. The system is well and truly complete, ringing in at a cost of about $950 instead of the originally proposed $230. Since it doesn't really apply to the PosAlt concept any longer and given that my son will need a PC for the forseeable future, I've graduated this hardware setup to a new category following the schema devised for my own systems. This is iteration 1 of MalsCore:
MB: Gigabyte B550M DS3H
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
HSU: Corsair H60
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16GB DDR4 3200
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 80Plus Gold 750W
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce 1650 SUPER
HDD1: Samsung 970Evo Plus 250GB M.2 SSD
HDD2: Samsung 860Evo 250GB SSD
OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
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