Jack Stoner

BIOS voltage options are only available on some models. Many do not have options for undervolting or overclocking. If you do have tweaking options or are using them, resetting BIOS to factory defaults will eliminate any tweaking. Does it do it only on battery or only with mains power adapter? or both? I'm suspecting some component has been damaged by all the overheating. I can't say what diagnostic would zero in on a component. e.g. running memtest could show an error but not be the memory because of other flakey component.

I wouldn't suspect the BIOS. Is it shutting down when the PC is "idling" or is it under load (apps running)?

ASIO4ALL is probably the culprit, not Cakewalk. I tried it one time, on an experiment, and it corrupted my PC audio.

The Crucial site will tell you max memory. What you posted about model is inconclusive for the crucial data base.

8 GB is a good upgrade (check to see if it will accept that much as some can't). Crucial Memory site has charts for most manufacturers and models and lists what is compatible. Good place to start. Another good bang for the buck is an SSD drive to replace a mechanical drive.

I saw a complaint on the Dell forums, today, about an XPS 13 overheating and noisy fan.

I bought a laptop, not as a desktop DAW replacement, but to use for on-site recording, I settled on a Dell gaming laptop primarily as gaming models have more cooling, Something to consider when choosing a laptop for recording use. An XPS13 or any XPS model would not be my choice for your application.

Assuming the fans are working OK and dust has been cleaned out, I would consider replacing the CPU heatsink thermal paste.

An attempt at MAC OS was made several years ago using conversion software. That was a failure. I don't see anything other than the current Windows version with the current staff. It would require complete re-writes for any other OS.

+1 for Macrium Reflect, even the free version. Clones can be iffy and for that reason I do like JIm, make a full disc image (all partitions) backup to a separate drive then restore to the new drive. Another reason not to use Clone, its reported a clone will copy everything including bad sectors and corrupted data. A disc image does not.

I found AIMP installed on an old Win 10 laptop. AIMP reads data from CD. CD Title, Artist and track song titles.

I'm looking for a Windows (11) media player that will display song titles on my Red Book compliant audio CD's that are burned with Disc Name, Artist and song titles. I had a media player years ago, maybe back in the Win XP era that would do it. It wasn't a problem as I could validate burned discs in my car CD player that displayed CD Name, Artist and song titles. I bought a new car and like most it doesn't have a CD player. Commercial CD artwork and other data, along with song titles, show up on most CD players but the data is retrieved from an on line database. Ones I burn for recording studio clients are not in on line data bases so nothing to retrieve. I've tried several media players and none display song titles (including Windows Media Player, VLC and a couple more).

The general consensus on other forum threads are a "desktop". It will have needed I/O ports, room for expansion and needed cooling. No hard drive for OS and DAW, only a SSD, and an M.2 NVME is the fastest. Whether you need all the cores of an i7 depends on what you will be using in a DAW. I recently built a new desktop for a friend and used a 10th gen i3 and was surprised how fast it ran (and 4 cores). My background is also IT, I'm a retired LAN/WAN Network and hardware help desk manager.

I have an M.2 2280 NVME SSD drive installed in a Dell laptop without a heatsink and I haven't checked temps but no "temp alarm". I have another M.2 2280 NVME installed in my desktop motherboard and located about the same as yours. The motherboard came with heatsinks for M.2 2280 drives. The current temp for the NVME drive is 43 deg C and thermal max is listed at 80 deg C. I also have a 2.5" SSD mounted in a case hard drive slot and its current temp is 37 deg C and thermal max is 70 deg C (Both SSD's are Samsung). My motherboard is a Gigabyte Designare Z390.

Many have the TPM built in, no extra module is needed. Sounds like what you have. My Z390 Gigabyte motherboard has it built in. If the check up is "happy" you should be OK.

Tom has decided he wants it so its gone. Jack

I just excessed a fully functional Frontier Tranzport, wireless DAW controller. The drivers are old Vista era, but installing in a compatibility mode in Windows works. I had it working in Windows 11. Free for shipping costs (est $20). PM me.

A new issue has recently cropped up in Windows Defender (anti-virus) for Win 11 and I believe Win 10. Defender's "Memory Integrity" function has been updated and is now flagging some drivers ".inf" files as security risk and the memory integrity function cannot be turned on until the flagged drivers (and/or .sys) are removed. My list included some drivers no longer needed and they were deleted. However, I still have a fully functional Frontier Tranzport (wireless DAW controller) and the drivers for this are on my list. Frontier is gone so no new "secure" drivers will ever be issued. Thus the Defender memory integrity will never get enabled. Maybe a 3rd party AV is an option, but I've had some DAW problems back in Win 7 times with 3rd party AV's (tried several). For others, if you run across this you will be faced with doing away with DAW hardware (or software) or keeping them and not being able to enable memory integrity.

You really need a "real" recording interface unit for recording and recording playback, along with studio monitor speakers. PC sound cards are not very good with latency and along with PC speakers tend to "color" the sound so you don't hear the full recorded sound fidelity.

I know basically nothing about Ryzen CPU's. DAW guru Jim Roseberry, a couple years ago, stated Intel for lower latency and Ryzen for gaming and video. I don't know if that still applies.

I've tried several (maybe 6 or more and last one was a "Logi") Logitech mice and after 10 to 15 minutes of use my hand (palm) is sore. I have a Microsoft mouse and no hand pain. The Microsoft only has left/right click and scroll button. I like the Logitech's with the extra mouse functions that are not on Microsoft mice.

Speaking of drum kits. Funny story. The first year I toured with Johnny Cash's brother Tommy Cash (I toured 7 years in his Florida band) Jimmy Peppers came out of retirement to play drums. Peppers was the road band drummer for Ferlin Huskey in mid 60's (and went on to be band manager for George Jones and a somewhat successful Nashville songwriter and producer). Peppers didn't have a drum set and was loaned a Sonar set. Peppers started with a full set and started send parts back to the owner, said he didn't need them, and wound up with bass drum, snare and hi-hat, nothing else. The Sonar set got full use as the owner, who was also an ex Nashville drummer, toured with us the next 6 years.

In actuality for what I do with Cakewalk, very old hardware would probably do as I use it basically as a computer based "tape recorder" as everything I do is analog. But if I was building a system for full blown DAW it would be "latest and greatest". One reason is hardware obsolescence with Windows OS'. We have seen this with the Microsoft hardware requirement for Windows 11. Within Win 10 Microsoft has dropped device hardware support in newer versions and I would expect this to continue with Win 12 and beyond. Thus to build now, even though old is still good enough, go for latest.

Sort of off subject. The ref to Apollo 13. I never watched the movie since I was involved with it. I was a PCM Telemetry processor programmer working at Goddard Space Flight Center. I generated a lot of Telemetry processor "erratas" for Houston so certain parameters could be displayed on the tracking station Telemetry processors, and reported to Houston, but really have no memory of what all they were. Back in those days, the "high speed" data links to Houston (and Goddard) from the tracking stations was 4800bps. Telemetry data came down from the spacecraft at 51.2Kb/sec so it all couldn't be sent in realtime.

If I were to build a new desktop, now, it would be a "Latest and greatest" with a 12th gen CPU. 10th gen is two versions behind.