After more than five years with my trusty Ryzen 5 3600 setup, it was time for an upgrade. After careful research, I picked out a set of new components, with the plan—just like so many times before—to assemble them into a sleek new workstation. This time, however, I wanted more than just a performance boost; I aimed for a system that would be quieter, more power-efficient, and future-proof for years to come. Choosing the right balance between raw power and thermal efficiency took some deliberation, but in the end, I settled on a build that felt like the perfect evolution of my setup. Now came the fun part—unboxing, assembling, and, of course, hoping everything would POST on the first try.

My new computer parts

Since it had been a while since we last caught up, I figured this was the perfect excuse to invite my good friend Bjarke over for a weekend of tech tinkering. So, that’s exactly what I did. And sure enough, we spent the entire weekend getting my new system up and running.

You can probably imagine how excited I was—I must have looked like a kid with a brand-new lollipop. But, of course, things weren’t going to be that easy. Let me elaborate.

Assembling the parts

Everything started off smoothly. We unpacked all the components and laid them out on the table—first the computer case, then the motherboard, RAM modules, CPU, PSU, graphics card, and so on.

We got to work, installing the motherboard, RAM, CPU, liquid cooler, and graphics card. I reused two M.2 drives, each with 2 TB, and a single 1 TB SSD. But as the hours passed, daylight faded, and since we were building the PC in my living room—where the lighting isn’t exactly ideal—things started getting tricky. Trying to place components precisely, align screws, and connect cables became a frustrating challenge in the dim light. This fact also sadly reveals our age as well.

Still, after hours of effort, we finally assembled everything.

And then, I pressed the power button.

The struggle

The system powered on, but then we noticed a small red LED glowing on the motherboard. It was the dreaded DRAM light, signaling an issue with the RAM. I couldn’t believe it. Everything was brand new!

We double-checked every cable, reseated the RAM, reinstalled the GPU, and inspected the SSDs—nothing changed. That stubborn red light refused to go away. Desperate for answers, Bjarke even posted in a Danish hardware forum, hoping for wisdom from fellow PC-building enthusiasts. Plenty of suggestions rolled in, but none of them worked. The red light just sat there, mocking us.

By the time the clock hit 3 a.m., we had to admit defeat. We were exhausted, and solving this problem in our current state was hopeless. I didn’t take it well. Leaving a project unfinished gnawed at me, and I barely slept that night. We typically watch a movie or two late at night, but we just couldn't focus. The film choice didn't help either (it was The Electric State). We barely made it through 15 minutes on Netflix before calling it a night.

At 6:15 a.m., I gave up on sleep, went to the bakery, and picked up fresh buns for the family. By 10 a.m., Bjarke and I were back at it. After another round of troubleshooting, we finally found the culprit—one of the RAM modules was faulty. We pulled it out, powered on the system, and watched as the red light disappeared.

And just like that, my PC finally booted.

The relief. The joy. The victory.

Time to install Linux

While Bjarke was busy setting up his computer, I was trying to install a new operating system on my freshly built PC. Since everything was brand-new hardware, I ran into a roadblock—I couldn’t install the stable Debian version. I tried, but Debian refused to recognize either the network or the wireless card. That left me no choice but to look for an alternative. Unfortunately, this is one of Debian's drawbacks. It's my favorite Linux distribution because of its stability and reliability, but the trade-off is not having the latest firmware and drivers.

I managed to install openSUSE Tumbleweed fairly easily. It’s a rolling-release distro with cutting-edge software, but I quickly ran into issues with multimedia codecs. On top of that, I didn’t like openSUSE’s package management system—it felt unnecessarily complex, with long and illogical syntax in the terminal. So I turned to Fedora, the distro that originally introduced me to Linux back in 2003, though I never seriously used it.

I installed Fedora 42 Beta 1.4 with KDE Plasma as the desktop environment, running the latest Linux kernel (6.14.0). To my relief, it had no issues detecting my hardware.

I had never used Plasma before—maybe because it always reminded me too much of Windows. But I was pleasantly surprised by how well-crafted and polished it felt. It’s the little things that make a difference: built-in image conversion and cropping, seamless Android phone integration via KDE Connect, and an almost overwhelming number of customization options to fine-tune the desktop experience.

After tweaking the settings and getting everything set up, my new PC was finally ready to go. Amra had the honor of peeling off the protective plastic, and I moved the computer—along with my new Gigabyte M27Q monitor—into my office.

Off it goes.

Final touches

We gave the old machine a thorough cleaning with the vacuum cleaner, and I applied fresh thermal paste to the processor. It really needed it. So, the old Ryzen 5 3600 won't get retired just yet.

Now, with both my new and old PCs set up in my office, I could finally take advantage of my monitor’s KVM function—allowing me to seamlessly switch between computers using just one keyboard and mouse. Absolutely fantastic!

My new Ryzen 9 9900X machine running Linux.

Epilogue

Today, I decided to give the faulty RAM module one more try before sending it back to the retail shop (I have already created a RMA case) – and it worked! Now, everything is up and running. The world is in order. Peace out.

The specs

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X (4.4 GHz, 12-Core)
• Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 360
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X870 GAMING WIFI6
• GPU: ASUS RX 7800XT DUAL OC 16GB
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5-6000 CL30
• Thermal Paste: Noctua NT-H1 (AM5)
• Case: Lian Li Lancool 207
• PSU: Corsair RM1000e V2 (1000W)
• Monitor: Gigabyte M27Q 27.0" (rev.2)

updated: 2025-03-27