NZXT PODCAST - #195 - Case-A-Thon #3 (Ft. Jules)

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

On this week's episode of the NZXT Podcast... We have our Technical Support agent, Jules, to help us answer the most common customer support questions along with very helpful PC building and maintenance tips! Save up to 38% on NZXT cases on Amazon! nzxt.co/43RyEDE

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 195 of the NZC podcast, the official podcast at NZC community. This podcast recorded live every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific Center time on the official N6C Twitch is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcast Spotify, SoundCloud. My name is Mike and with me as always is Ivan. How are you doing, Ivan? How we do, baby boo? Happy Friday. We are live with our third NZXT case aton, case a thon podcast. We have a very special guest today, but before I introduce them, I want to make some quick announcements. So announcement number one is yes, the caseathon. We have some awesome deals going on right now on our Amazon store. Go to nzxte.co slash Amazon, click on the cases

tab, and you can save up to 38% on NZXT cases. It's pretty good deal, Mike. I don't know. I think people should definitely take advantage of it. What do you think? You're literally saving money, so yes, it's definitely worth it. You're literally paying money. You are losing money if you don't buy an NZXT case right now. All right. Next announcement is for those of you who are tuned in live right now on Twitch.tv slash NZT, you are in for a very special treat, which is a giveaway.

We are giving away three NZXT cases. The winner gets to choose any case they want. People love this giveaway. I think the last two times we did it, like everyone that won couldn't believe they can actually choose whatever case they want. So it's awesome. Type exclamation giveaway in the chat. You'll get a link to the giveaway. It tells you how to enter.

And if you stick around to the end of the stream, you will get a super secret word from Mike that's going to give you a bunch of entries into the giveaway. So stick around to the end. Last announcement before I introduce our guest is if you are an NZXT club member, You are also eligible for some free poochie points just for tuning in live. If you tune in for 15 minutes, you get 500 pp. Tune in for 30 minutes, you get 1,000 pp. And if you stick around for over an hour, you get 5,000 pp. I actually regret calling them poochie points, but I do enjoy saying ppp, so pp, p p p p p p p pes.

A lot of p pips. Also, if you don't know what the nzxt club is, go to nzxti.co slash club. It'll tell you all about it and why you should join basically what it is. It's a fun way to interact with NZXT on social media and on Discord and to just get free stuff. So I have a very special surprise too for the club members coming up next week. We are introducing two new giveaway items as voted by the community.

stay deep for that. Anyway, enough about me, enough about the club, enough about everything else. Let me introduce our special guest. Jules, welcome to the NZXT podcast. How are you? I'm doing great. All right, Jules. You've been an NZXT customer supported NZXT for many years.

How did you get into this role? So I got this role pretty much around the time that we were still in pandemic. and I actually start off and just as a regular, well, as a regular customer service agent. And then what happened is about two weeks into me being here, they're like, you really know, like, a lot of the tech support stuff. Do you just want to jump straight into being like a tech support agent? And like, I'm in. Nice.

And that was, I guess, almost five years ago, right? Yeah. So it'll be, I'll be at my five year come the end of September this year. Well, half a decade. So what's your experience been like helping builders in regards to the NXT cases? Because we are here to talk about cases. Yeah. So when it comes to all about with especially like case builds, it's a lot of people, it's,

you get some basic questions. I'll come up like, you know, hey, I receive my case and I, you know, I don't have any of the mounting accessories. And it's usually like, hey, you know, check the basement. You know, there's an accessory box down there should get you everything you need. Or, you know, it'll be somebody. like they'll read through the manual and they'll see the words like uh intel front panel and they're like well i have an amd motherboard so is this going to work and it's like yes it'll work with most most boards nowadays like you don't have to worry it's just what the connector's called so it's a lot of that it's

and then a lot of first time builders who are just kind of getting into it and you know they have a lot of questions it's it's the best thing on that is getting those questions like hey you know kind of getting a fresh perspective of somebody who's maybe not been doing this for as long as i have So I guess I thought you were going to say it's people that don't know how to take the case out of the box. Kind of hard. Believe it or not. Yeah, I've gotten a few of those. It's just like, hey, you know, what am I supposed to do on this?

Or like, why is, like, am I supposed to leave all this, all this plastic on the case? I'm like, well, that's your own preference. But I would just say, you know, it's going to be very satisfying when you peeled it off. True. So I was actually going to kind of leeway into that. It was, you know, you talked about like acceptance. accessory bosses but like what other questions like what's like the most common questions that you usually get from like people coming into customer support most

common question I'm gonna get in there is actually nowadays regarding regarding GPUs like people were you know we're seeing graphics cards get bigger and bigger and people were concerned about you know hey is this gonna fit in the case upside is at least with all of our cases I haven't run to one that runs into a problem anymore even the new H5 I've not seen anything with it but there's a lot of people who will call in and it's a lot of compatibility

it's a lot of like hey if I get you know if I put this AIO in my case am I gonna lose out on am I gonna lose out on space long answer not really short answer is do you have an H5 that's true so I guess you know

speak you at H5 and 5 you're coming on five years, how has like the questions changed from back when you began here five years ago to like now? Like how has, I guess the, how is like the questions and the concerns changed throughout these years? A lot of it now has actually been, it used to be a lot of this. I know like Mike, you and I used to work CS together.

And I know a big question we would always get. is how do I improve, like, you know, hey, the airflow on this isn't great. How do I improve this? How do I do this? That was a big question fairly early on. And it was just like, hey, you know, you just have to think a little bit differently

about how you're building. The airflow is good. You know, the airflow will be solid, but just like a slight few tweaks to your build that maybe you're not used to. Nowadays, it's a lot of it is a lot of pre-questions, a lot of how do I actually set things up? Yeah, it's funny.

looking back, there was, and we talked about this last week with Kevin, which, by the way, if you missed that episode, check out the bot. It's very informative on YouTube. There was a time,

you know, when back in the day where NZXT was not known for having airflow, and it was, apart from getting questions about that on customer service, it was literally a meme

on social media. It was just a joke. Like, NZXT does not have airflow, and now, you know, all our cases are basically covered in holes. They're all, And they'll have like a lot of, you know, great performance features.

So I do imagine not getting those types of questions anymore. I am curious, Jules, you know, because I'm sure you do get asked a lot in, you know, tech support and customer services, you know, when it comes to choosing the type of case, what do you think is the most important thing that a customer should consider when choosing an NZXT case. The biggest thing that you should consider when picking out a case is actually, what are you looking

to do with the computer and what parts do you want to use? Because it's it can be really frustrating when you get, like, you've got every part picked out for your build, you got everything, you feel everything's perfect, and then you go to put in your motherboard and you realize that, oh, I bought a slightly

different ATX motherboard that's just a little bit wider and it's like, oh, it's not fitting in the case, especially, you know, oh, it's running into the cable bar in my case, stuff like that. So it's always check your parts first. Be sure on that. If you need to go a little bit bigger, go a little bit bigger. And then after that, it's, I always ask like, okay, and you know what you've got maybe at that point, you're probably two choices.

You know, you maybe narrowed it down. It's like, okay, maybe I don't need something super compact or maybe on something tall. You know, you kind of go from there. And then it just how are you going to use your computer? Are you going to have it, like, is it going to be a statement piece on your desk? or is it going to see something that lives under your desk or out of sight? Maybe you don't need, if it's going to be something that's going to be out of sight, then maybe you don't need to go for the RGB version.

Maybe you just go for the regular just clean flow version. But if you like, hey, I want a statement piece. I want to load this thing up with more LEDs in a Christmas tree, then absolutely go for the RGB version. Have fun with it. Yeah. But before you contact customer service, you should ask yourself, Am I a desktop or a desk bottom, right, Jules?

Right, were you on your case? Yeah. All right. So, what advice would you give people when it comes to choosing between the H5, the H6, the H7, or the H9? And the reason why I chose those cases in particular and I left the H1 out is not because I don't like the H1. it's because the H5, the H7, the H6, and the H9, they all essentially fit the same motherboards. You can put obviously a mini-ItX motherboard in all of them,

but most people have an ATX mobile, right? And it's going to come down to those four cases. So what advice do you give people to decide between those four in particular? So a lot of that actually is just going to come down to You know some people like me I have an H6 this has been my case since release And when I came to picking it out I move from a 7 to a 6

I want something a little shorter a little more compact Even though it's a little bit wider And really it's going to come down to what's going to fit best in your setup Some Like some of us want to have that Out of Site PC That that you know if you're going to go for that that's your own choice I prefer having my PC visible

it's fun it's a nice little conversation piece but if you're going to have it tucked under your desk then maybe something like the five or the seven will be an excellent fit but please don't put an h9 under your desk I've unless it's like you can unless you have like off to the side where someone can see it but I I see people like tuck an h9 under their desk and I'm just like, please let it be out there, let it be something that people can check out. Yeah, and you know, I brought up the NXT Airflow meme earlier at the start of the show, but I think another NZXT meme over the years has been this whole desktop, desk bottom debate, and me personally, I am a desktop, not a desk bottom.

I do think the PC should be on the desk, not just for looks, but also just performance, man. And like keeping a PC on the floor just requires more, more maintenance because you have to keep it clean, cleaner, basically. Yeah. It's a little annoying. It is more work, especially. It doesn't matter if you have a, like, if you have a carpeted room, especially do not put your PC on the floor. If you have a carpeted room, just. Or if you have, have Zelda's. Yeah. If you have pets, it's better just have it on the desk. Yeah.

Because when you're, when you have your PC on the floor, it's going to pull in more dust. It's going to get more debris. It's going to be exposed to it a lot more. and I have both. I have another PC that's hidden under my desk right now that I use for VR. And so, you know, it's like you can do the multi-setup, but end of the day, this is my main. And I want to show it off. How often should you be, I know there's some people that never cleaned a PC.

So like, how often should you clean your PC if you don't have pets? And then like if you have pets and it's carpeted and it's on the floor, you know, with a maybe a wood piece underneath. Like, how often should you be cleaning your PC? So if you have no pets, if you have a relatively clean, if you're like an area that's super dry, especially, you know, you have that whole situation where it's like you have a, just a good environment for the PC. You could probably get away with maybe every three to four months.

But I would still say maybe every two months, every, you know, 60 to 90 days. Just set a time on your calendar. Set a time of like, hey, this is going to be. like maybe a Saturday morning or I'm not doing anything or you just have a day. It's like you know just pop the panels off take some compressed air to it or

get like a good ESD safe vacuum and just clean the dust out especially because if you do it a little more often it doesn't give the chance for the dust to stick and you'll just you'll be fine. It'll look great all year. With our cases because we use fine mesh

I actually don't find a whole lot of dust getting into the PC itself, it gathers, usually on the, for my H6, it's going to be on that front panel. And my camera just decided to turn itself. Yeah, I was going to, I'm going to show people. Yeah. Sorry about that. I went completely black for a moment. What are you doing there, Jules?

I don't know. I'm going to show people. I haven't clean mine in a lot, but you can kind of see that the dust right here is just settled. But, yeah. Inside the case, I literally don't see anything at all. Yeah, because if I, I honestly, let's see, I've been maybe about two months now. Try to just reach it. It's so easy.

Yeah, like, this is my front panel on mine, and you can see the dust through it. But inside my case, there's not a spec. There's going to be now. After I took this off, there's definitely going to be some in there. But, you know, this is maybe about, this may be about. this may be about two months that's not bad at all and I have a pet

I have a long hair cat she and she hangs out on my desk you have a long hair cat and you have long hair so it's a double whammy there Jules all right Jules I know you have the H6

but is like what's your personal favorite in the XC case to build in and why Hs I'm actually going to have to say it actually is the six The 6 is a case that surprised me because I actually had the 22-22 version of the H7 before this. And before that, I had the H-440, which I still have it.

It's in a box in the closet with my snowblind mod done to it and everything. I was planning on originally redoing that mod on the 7, but then I got my hands on the sample of the 6, and I was doing the customer service test build for it. I was checking it out and seeing all the features. I was like, I think I like dual chamber cases. I think I really like this. And I think I'm just going to end up getting it.

And what ended up happening is I did. I got myself one of the cases. I've done my tweaks to it. And that's just like, you know, changing out the panels because I like to have a black, outside, white inside from my cases because I'm an RGB nut. I like to kind of just show everything off. The H6 is definitely, I think, I agree with you.

I think it is probably the best case to build in. And it also, I think, is the best case with the newest NGC components, especially the single frame fans. I love how they look on the bottom. Yeah. Yeah. I can't really see it because it's so bright in it.

But I have the F280. so the dual 140 fan the back wall is the F-360 and then I have the Cracken Elite V2 with the 360mm on top so I've got just all core fans the only fan that's left in here that's not a core fan is the rear 120 and I might just take that out entirely and put like a sensor panel or something back there

Creva 6 in the chat is saying what's this obsession with the PC cases are you going to seriously talk about cases for one hour? The answer is, no, we're going to talk about cases for at least four hours because we're going to do four case-a-thon streams. So, yeah, we are. I thought you were just going to keep me for four hours. We are obsessed with cases.

That's why we are in Z-X-T. All right, Jules. What should someone check before buying a case just to make sure all their parts are compatible with their build? your motherboard form factor your graphics card those are going to be the biggest parts that are going to dictate what's going to fit in your case motherboard is going to be the first one i always say it's just and that's the easiest one it's go in and just see you know is it an atx motherboard is it an matx motherboard is it an eatx motherboard because those are still even popular and you'll even have some otherboards that show you know oh it's ATX but it's a little bit wider

but especially our boards our boards are all very standard ATX like the same mounting pattern same size and I so want to build with one of the new boards I know soon my

my dream is to one day build in an EATX board and just max it out like just have like two graphics cards and capture card even a sound card on that thing just, you know, have it all

take the out. Yeah, no, like these, when you get to like the enthusiast EAT exports, I've done a few enthusiast builds just doing built commissions before I was working here, just helping people out with like, hey, I need like a, I need a modeling PC or I need a cat PC and I was like, okay, well,

how far do you want to go? And I've been given some fun budgets. Like, yeah, I want to do this. Like, oh, oh, we're effectively money's not an option. Okay, let's have some fun. I'm going to see if I can like get you a quadro or something like that. Yeah. What would you say is the biggest mistake people make when choosing a case?

Either buying too much case or buying too little case. I've seen, what I mean when they buy too much case is, hey, I've got all these parts figured out, and they go with like an H9 or an H7. Why are you putting an ITX motherboard in that system? especially without a vertical GPU bracket. Like, that's so much open space. That's an interesting point. And I guess I was going to save this question to the end of the show,

but I'll ask it now since you brought it up. And because Eternalo just asked it, they said, I've been one in an H6 for a while, but I have a micro ATX motherboard. Would it look weird? And before I let you answer, I do want to let them know that, not about looking weird, but I have seen that often.

I do see a lot of micro ATX, even mini ITX motherboards in cases, and I would say looks are subjective, but it'll work, right? But I'll let you answer that, Jules. Do you think it will look weird? Micro ATX, no. Micro ATX, especially, it's going to depend on your other parts. I would definitely recommend if you're going to go micro ATX. and you're not going to utilize a,

if you're just going to have a graphics card, you're not going to use an extra adding card, like a sound card or a capture card, then I would definitely recommend getting a vertical GPU kit and really just show off your graphics card because it'll help fill out the case a little more. And you're not, especially the best part about micro ATX

and the reason I really like it is a form factor is when you go to ITX, you actually pay more than most ATX motherboards. But when you go, micro you can actually save a few bucks and that's money that goes into a better graphics card that's money that goes into more RAM that's money that goes into better storage you know it's when it comes to a build think smarter not harder so a micro ATX motherboard can look great even the cost savings on that could just go

straight into buying a vertical GP amount so there you go there's your savings there's your your look on it because especially I can't use the with the with the vertical GPU kit in here I can't use the extra ports anyway so why would I have the extra parts of the board Yeah, and I always tell people, too, when they ask me for advice. I don't know why people ask me for advice, but they do. And I always tell them, in my humble opinion, you know, micro ATX is probably the most, like, underappreciated form factor of all motherboard sizes. Because most people don't need an ATX, let alone an EATX, right?

And the part of that is because most people don't need more than one PCIE. slot, right? But then if you go mini ITX, you're a little limited and also those boards are, you know, kind of expensive. But then micro ATX, it's like the perfect middle ground. You know, you have just enough for what you need. I see ice fix in here saying, you know, you know, but there's only two, two RAM slots. Well, yeah, like most people don't need eight RAM slots either. Well, yeah, when you're looking at micro, that's the other reason I like micro is you're generally more likely to find four RAM slots. You'll still have, you know, two dual channel sets ready to go. But if you go ITX, you're usually only going to get two.

You might have, there are a few ITX motherboards out there that will support four RAM sticks. But those are incredibly compact. Those are like you're going to, you are going to end up making some sacrifices in terms of what features you're going to have available. So that's why I love micro and actually for the longest time My main motherboard I had that it was moving between Dones PCs was a Asus Maximus 4 gene And that one is a it was back when Asus's Maximus series still had a micro ATX option So micro is a great form factor

It gives you a lot of flexibility And it's one that I like building in because it can still look good in an ATX case especially mid-towers like the ones we have. Maybe in a full tower it might look a little small, but in a mid-tower, it's still going to look good. So I guess since we're kind of on the topic of just building, you know, just building PCs and everything, when someone gets their NZXT case or any case,

what's like the first thing that most people should do before starting to build? and especially for like a thing that most people don't do. Build outside of your case first. Make sure all of your parts are properly working. And especially if you are ordering from multiple, you're ordering for multiple retailers and you're ordering over time. I also say this is I don't, I don't do the whole ordering this piece at the beginning of the month,

this piece, too, etc. Save up. Make sure you try to order everything at once because you want to build outside the case. You want to make sure everything's working first. You know, breadboarding is a great way to start because I can't tell you how frustrated I've been in the past where I've just kind of went like, hey, I'm just going to build this. And I get everything put together and the motherboard is just toasted. And then I have to completely tear a PC down, go through an RMA process with whatever retailer I go through. And it's a headache.

It's it can also be a heartache. And when you're working, I did build commissions for the longest time. I would take I would have people reach out to me as like I want a gaming PC or I want to work PC and I would order all the parts and then I'd have to tell them it's like hey I got everything put together and we're running into a problem I need to tear it down I need to I'm gonna have to reach out to the retailer and in most cases I don't want to make someone wait so I'm paying out a pocket for me to buy my like to buy an extra motherboard stuff like that so it's always just test your parts first be ready you know have that ready and especially when you do that it gets you ready for kind of of the next step of building, which is getting everything actually in the case, a lot of it is already going to be prepped and ready to go for you. Is there an ideal order when it comes to installing the components to make it easier, especially if you're building outside of the case? Like, what's the order?

People should be connecting everything. Start off with just your everything's going to start with the motherboard. The motherboard is the spine of your computer. It's what everything else connects to. So that is the backbone of everything. You need to just make sure your CPU's properly socketed. If you have an AIO cooler or tower cooler, it has some extra hardware. Get that on there.

One thing a lot of people overlook, and this is just one that might save some people a headache. Almost every motherboard mounting hardware I've seen has 3M adhesive for the back, for the, what they call it, like the back plate. Use it. Trust me, it's better than trying to fish the, it's better than trying to fish the standoff off later. But socket the CPU, put in your RAM, put in your store. Like if you have M.2 storage, put in your M.D.2 storage. Just prep everything that bolts directly the motherboard first because you're going to test it on, you're going to bench it first anyways.

And the best part about that is then from there, you're going to plug in your, when you're still benching, you're going to be connecting your power supply to that. But once you disconnect your power supply from there, you already have your motherboard prepared. That's just going to drop in the case, screw it down. And from there, it's put in your power supply. Get the case wired up first. That's the other one is also like before you, before you wire your power supply to everything, I usually go the power like putting the connecting the power supply is usually one of the last things I do. When I'm doing the actual build because it makes it easier for me to manage cables.

I can kind of go through things as the the case is built. Some cases will already have the front panel connectors already decently managed. So it's, I can connect the front panel. I can connect the USB connectors, everything like that, have that just easily connected. If you're going to use any RGB components, then make sure those are kind of in place, know where you want them and get them wired up. Once you have all that done, then you already have those maybe partially tied down, maybe a few zip ties or cable ties, just keeping things put together.

And it makes, then you get to the power supply and the graphics cards, the graphics card should generally be the last thing you're installing in the PC. It should be like the power supply should be right before that, but then the graphics card is going to be the last thing. That's kind of your, that's your crown on top of your king right there. And ironically, that's usually the first thing gamers want to buy is that. Oh, absolutely. So I don't work at customer service, but I always say my motto honestly is customer service is the only service.

And on social media and the community channels, you know, we're always trying to help people when they ask questions. And I think for us on social, I think the two biggest questions slash controversies we see are regarding cooling. first being the AIO and second being the fans. And the controversy is people have their own opinions on like the optimal way to install the AIO. Like tubes should be up, tube should be down, radiators should be on top, radios should be on the front. And then for the fans, for whatever reason, even though we give people diagrams on our product manuals and on our website that show air goes in, this way, air goes out that way, people have their own theories on how airflow works and they make all these weird diagrams of like, you know, can I have one fan blowing in and out

in and out in the front and then one fan blowing in and out on the top and then all these different theories. So I just want to put people's minds at ease here and have you tell them because you're the expert here, Jules, not me, not Mike. but you know, what common mistakes are people making when they're installing AIOs, when they're installing fans? Like, what should people be aware of when installing those two things? I'll start with AIOs because this is actually probably the simplest one. First up, the biggest rule you need to follow when installing your AIO is that

your pump should never be the highest point in the loop. You should always make sure that at least if it's a custom loop or an AIO, You want to make sure that the pump is going to be a little bit lower than everything else. That's why optimally, I prefer to top mount every AIO I can get if I have the option. Or if it's going to be side-mounted, then I just make sure that the pump cap itself is going to be below the top of the radiator. And that's just to make sure that air doesn't get into the pump itself because it could heavily detriment the life of the cooler itself. You know, these are a properly maintained AIO doesn't, you know, the great thing about them being closed loop is they're set it and forget it. You'll, they'll work for years with no problems whatsoever.

But if they get air into them and they start dry running, that will shorten their lifespan. And you'll, you'll know pretty quickly. You'll hear, you'll hear cavitation. You're going to hear just terrible noise out of it. So, yeah, you just want to be careful about that one for AIOs. just make sure that everyone does this whole debate of like, oh, your tubes need to be at the top. Your tubes need to be at the bottom. In terms of performance, you're not going to see much, if any, difference.

If you want to have your tubes at the top, the only thing you might experience is a little bit of extra, like a little bit of an extra trickling noise. Because there is an air gap in all AIOs. That's just there because water likes to expand and contract. and if that wasn't there, well, we would really would not want to use AIOs. If there was no room for it to expand and contract because that would be a matter of,

well, now I'm going to have something pop. So I guess since we're kind of talking about optimization and everything like that, is there like a way to optimize airflow in NCC case from either to cooler or to fans configuration?

Yeah, when I always tell this people is this error has two things that's going to want to do. When you're pushing air through, it's going to want to continue in as straight align as possible. If it runs in anything, you're going to get turbulence. That's when you start getting case noises. That's when you start getting kind of just a reduction in performance. So that's why I really like the on the six is that that angled fan, it gives it a softer angle to go through. It's not like if you had a sidewall fan that's just completely flat like on the nine, where that air is just going to blow towards the glass. So it doesn't have to make that hard 90 degree

turn. So when I when I'm looking at how I do this is there's that first rule is that air is going to want to travel in a straight line. And the other part is with any, without with any airflow, you'll notice this just in your own home. Heat rises. That's just convection. And so you want to kind of generally have cool air comes in from the bottom or comes in from the side, and it's going to want to exhaust out the top. If you have a case like the six, the seven, the five now that you can actually do that very easy bottom intake, you just you have that fresh air that's going to go to your graphics card and that's where, you know, make sure your bottom is an intake. Make sure I always go front for my intakes for a lot of the cases I work with. And regarding that as well, when looking at your cooler, a big part of it is kind of deciding if maybe a certain fan doesn't need to be there anymore.

I have, as I mentioned, the fan on the back of my six, I don't really see much benefit to it as of late because I have an AIO. All my cooling is going to go out the top, so it doesn't need that extra air path right there. I can instead replace with a sensor panel, something along those lines. But if I had a tower cooler, I would definitely want to have that there because I'm going to be passing air directly into that spot. I need to get it out of the case as quickly as possible. And you just want to make sure that you have a defined air path. Aside from that, Ryan keep things balanced. There's positive airflow and negative airflow.

Positive is when you have a lot going in. negatives when you have a lot going out. And I think I'm sorry, might have got those flipped, but you run into, when you go into positive and negative airflow, you're going to run into problems. You know, if your, if your airflow is in balanced, then you're going to start seeing dust collecting more either on the

outside of your case or, you know, if it's incredibly, if you have nothing but exhaust, then your case is going to pull air from somewhere and every place it could pull air from is going to be also where dust is going to get in. If you decide to have fun and build an H9 case and make every single fan and exhaust, that air gap that exists for the glass, that's going to be your intake. Yeah. I mean...

I've actually seen that happen too. Because we see in setups all the time, like, you know, for like the photos, what they'll do is they'll put the fans all on the inside for intake because that's what the RGB is. And then someone will point out like, wait, do you have all exhaust? exhaust right now. It's like it's for the photo. Like they just wanted to make it look for the photo, but in like actuality like do it for the gram. Yeah, exactly. Do it for the gram. But and I guess I guess that kind of leads into my other question, which is like, are there any like tools or accessories or like tips that you can give that can make building a PC easier?

One of the most, so a couple of most valuable tools I've had. I was trying to see if I can find but it's not on my desk right now. Get a good screwdriver. It's really just my first start on that. Is having good tools. And especially with a with building a PC, you could do everything with generally two sizes. You need a Phillips 0 and a Phillips 1. That's generally the only two bits you're going to need for most PCs.

A Phillips 0 is going to be your big, or no, is it the zero is small? I can't remember the sizes on these. But Phillips 0 and a Phillips 1 are going to be generally all you need on it. You don't need to go completely out there. Like I have an LTT screwdriver and an I Fixit kit. Those are my go-toes. I've pulled those out just because they're in my, they're usually in my laptop bag.

But that would be, that would be in terms of like physical tools. Also, reusable cable ties. So just Velcro cable ties are super useful just for during the building process of like, I need to anchor down this cable for a moment. I need to anchor this cluster of cables together. If you want to keep things clean in the end, then yeah, you're going to use zip ties. You're going to keep them trimmed and it's going to look really clean. But Velcro ties are invaluable when doing a PC build.

I was actually going to ask you about cable management, but you already answered the question. I'm surprised you call them cable ties. Everyone I know calls them zip ties. I guess you don't want to get sued, right, by whoever owns that trademark. Yeah, well, because zip tie is a trademark term. But yeah, I know I've heard zip ties, zap straps, all kinds of names, just depending on where you're in the world. But I've always kind of just used the term cable tie to cover everything because that covers not only, you know, the usual zip ties or I can't remember the actual term for them. Do you say Frisbee or Flying Disc?

I say Frisbee, which I know that is, it's the same thing with like tissues. I'll say tissues, but I know some people will say Kleenex. You can see for that one day. Oh, yeah. Also, I say Band-Aid, but we all know Band-Aid is also a brand. It's a bandage. Yeah. All right.

I'm sure, Jules, you have come across a lot of builds in your time here and working in customer service. What is one of the coolest customer builds you've ever seen in an NZXD case? I have seen some very interesting builds done where, I think probably one of the most interesting ones I've seen is somebody doing a custom loop system where they actually did an external radiator on an H9 so that the case, it's one of the cleanest builds I've ever seen

because all you see is a couple of very short tube runs that go outside the case. They routed the tubes into the rear channel and then there's an external radiator that was hidden off the side of their desk. And it is one of the cleanest, builds that took me by surprise because I looked at this case for maybe 20 minutes and I'm trying to figure out. I was like

where's the pump? Where's the where's everything? I just see tubes. And I racked my brain around it. The radiator was on the desk? Yeah, the radiator was hit was off to the side of the desk. Interesting. Interesting. And it was like a really cool radiator too. It was like a was like a 360 by 360 radiator. If it was on the side of the case, it would

look like an extra side panel just hanging out the side. That sounds scary for some reason. Well, I think we also had somebody we worked with who did the exact same build and I was like, wow. So I guess that's a creative way for somebody to use like a case. Has there been another creative way of like someone using an NCC case from what you've seen, I guess? Yeah.

Um, as of late, uh, sensor panel mods. People adding, you know, everybody's done this whole, it was the only time we're all adding, we're all adding RGB. We're all adding other stuff. And then people was like, hey, I'm going to get a Raspberry pie screen and like start showing system data or maybe not even doing system data, but just like having what's effectively a fun billboard inside their case. Like I, I love that idea. And it goes back to. One of my first mods I did on a case was I did a transparent LCD screen in an H440. That was the system I was using when I first started here.

And that's made out of a torn apart monitor. I've got parts for another one. I'll eventually do it. But I did my H510 that was using the office for the longest time. Also had that mod on it because I went to a thrift store, found a, I found the panel. And I was like, okay, I'm going to just do this. And it became a fun little project just to do her, you know, just because it looked cool. I tried to do it on H7 and I ended up destroying two very not cheap old monitors in the process.

But those kind of, those kind of mods where people are adding these parts to further express themselves. Because that's one thing I do like is I'm an aesthetics first builder sometimes. The graphics card I have in here is a a Yesden Sakura 3080 and I love this card. It looks great. I get people mad at me because I have my Founders Edition 3080 TI sitting in its box right now and like, but you have the better card. Why don't you use the better card?

Because this is pretty. It is a pretty card. Are there any are there any NZT cases that are discontinued rules that people are asking, they still ask for? I'm just going to point this one out here.

Ivan, I know you've got one in your background as well, but yeah, our good old friend of Manta comes up from time to time. You know what's funny about that? Because that's my favorite NZXT case ever. I keep saying that like every stream, it seems. And that's right here

in case you can't see it. Or, no, sorry, Yeah, there you go. But what's interesting about this case is when it came out, the reaction from the community was, this thing is too weird. And then we stopped making it. The reaction from the community is, when are you guys going to make this again? It's pretty awesome. I don't know what that. I totally get that.

I remember it was the two reactions I saw to the Manta when it came out, because it was before my time here. But it was some people were like, oh, this is too weird. I don't want to work with this. And the other question is, hey, can I get a micro ATX version of this? That was me. I wanted a micro ATX version for the longest time because I thought the curved panels is really cool. I had not seen anyone else do it. And what I wanted to do the second I saw is I want to hydro dip this case.

The curve panels on it just lean itself so well to, as said, expressing yourself with your PC. And that's the thing I want to do. Now, this one's clean, ish, but it's a lot of fun. Like, it's a really fun case. And I know, like, we've seen even some other fun stuff. I actually remember when we were doing a little bit of cleanup around the office, and I ended up finding one of yours, actually, that you were very, like, wondering where it had gone.

The race car? The race car, Nanta. Oh, yeah. I'll see if I could find the picture of it. You probably search NZXT Rocket League Manta. Yeah. Here it is.

Look at this thing. Yeah. When I found that thing, I was I saw it and the first thing I did is I pulled out my I pulled up my phone, took a picture, just sent it to Ivan. I'm like, hey, is this it? And your response was my baby. I'm like, cool, where do you want it?

I actually got in trouble for making that. I spent way too much money on this thing. But yeah, shout out to Remus who built this and Sharkbait Design Works, who painted it. Oh, wow. Yeah, they did a great job. Yeah. And,

Jules, I do want to ask you some more questions about problems. Not to digress from the fun case. here but you know because you brought up the Manta you know and I've built I think three or four PCs in that in that case at this point and um you know I've seen a lot of people build in that case as not just that case but any case in particular but I'm curious what frequent problems do you think or do you see people run into when they're building in NZXT cases not just MANTIS I just brought of Mantis because I have seen people run into problems with that case because they don't understand it because it's so big for a mini ITX case but just in general like what are the

frequent problems that you see people run into when they're building inside of NXT case A frequent problem I'm going to say on this one is overthinking and not reading the manual is actually a big part of it you're supposed to read the manual manual yes it's not just a pretty map that it's not just your pretty coloring book that you get with your with your case but yeah definitely just you get a manual for a reason we do these great little you know the great little fold-out maps of showing where everything plugs in and also just some people will not take a look at it and they're going to be overthinking of like where everything goes and then you'll overlook things a lot.

So it's just one of those things. If you have a question, the first thing you should do is just check your manual real quick. Everything's laid out really nicely. If you're confused about where something plugs in. And from there also, especially like with us, check the support site.

You know, support.nzxte.com is our support page. And you'll find a lot of guides and FAQs. Someone may have already asked the question you have. already be addressed. Check the manual. Yeah. I mean, that's good advice. I think that's good advice.

I also think it's good advice to contact the customer service department. The reason why I say that is because on social media, you know, like I do see a lot of people that spend a lot of money on a PC, you know, or a computer part, you know, sometimes people will spend their life savings on a PC, to be honest, and they'll post on Reddit or they'll go on the Discord server or they'll go on Twitter and be like, hey, my PC's not working. What do I do? It's just like, I always tell them, just get in touch with customer service, please, we're going to help you. It's not that I don't want to help them on Reddit or whatever, but it's just the, you know, the customer service team will always know more than the social media team.

And not saying you should and messages on social, which will also help you when we can. But I mean, customer service, they're the ones that they know the answers. So I think that's good advice. Apart from reading the manual. I think also the big thing I want to point out is that our manuals are online. So if you do lose your manual,

you can literally just look up cracking this manual case, you can always do that. The NZXC chinchilla is in the chat. saying it's not the 1900s, you know, why are you building a PC without supervision? It's a good point. Yeah. And yeah, as you said, a big thing on it is don't be afraid to ask questions or even

just reach out. You know, I, some of my favorite calls to get during the day are people who were like, hey, I bought a Cracken or I bought a case. You know, I'm stuck on this step or I'm stuck on here. You know, how would you do this? How would you? like and just giving maybe somebody just a little nudge in the right direction. Because even if it even if you think it's like, oh, this is a dumb question.

It's like there are no there are no truly dumb questions. You have a question. Someone's going to have an answer and they're going to help you out on it. A question that I've been getting quite a bit has been people picking up the, you know, kind of diverging a little bit from cases, but people grabbing a player two prime and they get everything hooked up. They turn on the power switch. The PC flashes, but they don't get any signal. And I'm just like, hey, did you know under the small glass panel there's a little power button?

Go ahead and press that. And the PC starts up for a try and like, oh, I hear people will do it. It's like, oh, I feel so dumb. It's like, no, please don't. Like, it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to reach out. If you are, if you're running into a problem, maybe even just getting somebody to ask that simple question of something you've overlooked will help. You know, there's, there is, it is valid.

to ask questions and the upside for that is we've got at least for us we've got several ways to do it we've got the live chat on our website it's in the bottom right corner of every page you know that's a great way to get a hold of us you can reach out to us via the ticket system at support nzxte.com during the week during us hours we have a phone line um which can also be found on the support page so you know definitely reach out we can we're here to help out and you know if you may you may think it's like oh i've gone through everything i've on through every single step. We see hundreds of questions a day.

And a lot of them are the same question over and over. That's why when it reaches that point, it goes into a frequently asked questions page. We're going to try and, you know, I write a lot of those. I'm trying to actually improve them. But reach out with that question or on a lot of the product pages, you'll actually find a Q&A where you can submit a question and you can also see questions that other people have submitted. go through that, find

a lot of these just, it's always best to just, hey, don't and the big one is, don't try and just brute force fix it. If you can't find an answer, don't just start plugging things into random places. Don't

start, you know, don't start flipping cables. Don't plug your USB into a fan header. Please do not plug a USB into a fan heater or an RGB header. I have seen some things in my time. time just at me bro i feel like you just yeah just you know just you know and yeah if it's like hey you're outside of hours maybe go on reddit you know maybe go on if uh if not are you know not

if you're not just going on like r slash nzxte uh our build a pc you know there's a lot of people there or join the you know the discord community is also great for that where people will just jump in and just ask a question and you know maybe you'll have situations where you'll get um Maybe it'll just be some rando who will give you some answers. Or sometimes it might just be somebody from the CS team who's just off hours checking things out. And it's like, oh, hey, yeah, I know the answer to this. Whatever you do, whatever you do, do not ping the NZAC chinchilla because the NZAC chinchilla messaged me on Discord this morning because someone needed support.

And he was like, they ping the chinchilla instead of it. I just have a quick question, a quick like clarification as well just before we go. onto these other questions. Yes, there are no dumb questions, but who is dumber? Someone that goes, hey, I don't know what to do. Let me go ahead and ask and call in or go to the tech support chat and just figure it out. Or someone that fries apart in their PC because they don't think to just go ahead and do a little bit more asking around. Who's dumber in this point?

So seriously, do not be afraid to just ask questions. It's not a bad thing. Yeah, especially because I'll say this and it's a big thing that people don't realize we will generally help out to the best of our ability. But if it is a matter of user error to a point where it's egregious, like you decided it was a smart, like you decided it was a smart idea to plug a, a crackens USB cable directly into 12 volt RGB and just completely fried that cable. It's we don't know the extent of the damage. We may be able to provide you with a replacement cable and see if you can get things plugged in. But chances are that has done irreparable damage to the Cracken. And let's say you bought a really nice Cracken Elite V2 and you completely fried it out.

Well, that's a very painful $300 lesson. You know, that's, I've had a few of them. I've had quite a few expensive lessons in my time because I did run out of that problem where I was a little too prideful. I didn't ask questions and I broke some things. but I've also learned now it's like if I'm if I'm not finding the answer just off some basic troubleshooting then I need to reach out I need to ask questions and

I've been doing this for 23 years now so wow yeah I've been I've been doing this since I was in middle school I've been I've killed components I've completely destroyed computers in my time that's comes with the territory on it but it's all learning experiences but the best

thing about that is I have that experience and I can give advice based on it and maybe prevent you from deciding it was maybe worth taking a little bit more time to make sure something was wired correctly so that when you flipped on a switch you didn't just turn a motherboard into some charcoal. What would you say is the one piece of a device that will save a first-time builder a ton of frustration? I think we just kind of covered a lot of that is the biggest piece of advice I have is ask questions.

You know, don't be afraid to ask questions. You want to, you're your first time builder. And there's nothing wrong with that. The way you learn is to experience. But there are those who already have that experience. So maybe just tap into that resource. Has anyone ever asked you a question where they thought they had a really big problem? And in reality, the fix was super easy.

All of the time. I have had people who have reached out about, like, the power button situation with people trying to power up in H6 and I'm completely forgetting about the power button on the front of the case is a big one. Oh, I'm supposed to plug it into the graphics card. Yeah. CPU power is a big one. I've seen people who are like, I've got everything hooked up. I press the power button and nothing's coming on. And I'm like, you know, did you make sure that your 8 pin in the top left corner?

your mother words plugged in. It's like, oh, I don't think I need to do that. It's like, it's there for a reason. Maybe just ask that. But it's also a lot of the simplest, a lot of big, a lot of problems that you will rack your head over for hours can be broken down to the simplest answer. The system right here, there was a point where when I, when I changed it over to an Intel platform and I rebuilt the whole PC, I was wondering

why I was getting no display for a good 45 minutes. And then I realized that my graphics card wasn't powering on at all. Like, oh, I know what I did wrong. And it was because I have these little angled connectors on the back of the graphics that go around, that wrap around the back of the graphics card to keep everything clean. And I had not plugged those back in. So it was just no power going to the card. That was 45 minutes of wondering why I was getting no display. Wow.

I guess another thing is they should have plug your, monitor into your graphics card make sure you turn the power switch on if you know the standard stuff happens all the time

start from the simplest answers and work your way up because it's we always especially if you're a builder who's been at it for a while you tend to think well there's no way I can make that mistake there's no way I would I would forget that you know that's that's your ego

kicking in and you need to tell your ego to like step aside for a minute, you know, keep it simple and just like, you know, if it's generally the most, uh, the biggest headaches usually have the simplest answers. Keep it simple like me and Mike. Mm-hmm. So I guess for the final thing. So let's say we finally put together this PC, uh, it's working. It's, it's everything's working A-okay.

Games are being played, stuff like that. Do you have any software, uh, that people should? like download and use to keep either eyes under PC or just very helpful software in general. Yeah. Um, rather that and I'm like, I'm not saying this as my way of plugging our software, but legitimately I do use cam like daily. It is a, it's a good piece of monitoring software to have out there. I use other software alongside it, but for my at a glance, I use cam.

That's just been really solid. When benchmarking to just check parts and make sure everything's working properly, my preferred tool is OCCT. That just gives me a quick way of stress testing the PC, just doing a very good surface level check on everything of like run a power test, run a simple GPU test, run a run LIN pack. You know, it gathers a lot of utilities and makes it really easy to make sure things are working. If you want to get into more along the paid software side of things, then grab yourself a copy of 3D mark and use that to compare how your PC is performing against others because that can really quickly expose if there is a hardware issue. I've had situations where you get everything hooked up and the graphics card is maybe not performing as well as it should and you're trying to figure out what it is. And then that's where these other tools can come in. It's like, hey, I'm getting a low score.

Why am I doing this? GPUZ, CPUZ are good tools of just checking what maybe the parts are running at, especially GPUZ. I've had a couple graphics cards that I've worked with where I'm wondering why they're performing solo. And then I'll actually load up GPUZ and find out that the card is stuck running in PCIE3 by one, even under heavy load. and I get confused for a little while what's going on

and I'll reach out to usually GP manufacturer, I'll tell them it's like, hey, this is what's going on and they'll run you through the usual troubleshooting of, you know, reinstall drivers, reinstall this and stuff like that and I was like, okay, and they'll be like, okay, yeah, this is an anomaly, this is weird, let's get that swapped out for you. Yeah, and when in doubt, you can also just go to download more RAM.com.

That's a good piece of software too. Mm-hmm. All right, Jules, I have a question for you from Sage, the Plug. They ask, here's a question for Jules. With all the tech support you give to customers, do you have any suggestions you do on your own build that is not the usual recommended way, i.e. a vertical front-mounted GPU, et cetera.

Oh, that's something. I've wanted to actually do for a build. Like I want to actually do some some more exotic mods on a case. But things that I'll do on a lot of these aren't really to the

norm. That's a hard call. There you go. I guess the answer is no. I do a lot of things that are very, I do a lot of things that are by the book, but it's more of I think the thing that throws people off, and this is why I mentioned And maybe get yourself some reasonable cable ties is I tend to try and cable manage things incredibly tight to make sure that it looks good when I take the side panel off. But gather things in ways that they kind of make sense going together.

Like gather fan cables together and make that one of its own run that will exist within a larger run. Stuff like that. Just keep things grouped is where I would say. Because it's just going to make things easier when you. you eventually decide to swap out parts. Gotcha. I like that. All righty, now it's time for everyone's favorite part of the show.

We probably should get some theme music for this portion. It's where Mike is going to ask you some rapid-fire questions. Take it away, Mike. All right, Jules. You ready? Answer to however you want to do it. But usually the first thing on top of your mind is always the best. Okay, easy ones.

We'll ease it in. What games are you playing right now? Right now I am replaying through Gundam Breaker 4. I bought it on Switch when it came out and then it was recently on sale on Steam and good old games, so I went ahead and grabbed it for PC because it looks a lot better on there. Aside from that, my vice of choice for the past 18 years has been Maple Story. And so I've kind of gotten back into playing that.

That's been a lot of fun. That's been, I think I got back on that maybe about. a year and a half ago at this point and just been having a lot of fun with it. That's a fun game. Yeah. And aside from that, I like to just pick up random stuff from time to time. I'm very much, I like to modify games. I like to have a little bit of my own little bit of fun with it. What was I gotten here because I'm planning on doing a with a couple of, with one of our members of customer service, some other friends, we're looking at doing the

Dark Souls seamless co-op mod. Oh. Because we used to play a lot of it just normal before, and we tried out the Elden Ring seamless co-op, and that was a lot of absolute chaos. And now we're thinking about, well, what could we do with Dark Souls? Ooh, that's fun. So I guess, is Maple Story your favorite game all time? Or what is the number one game that you call? My number one game of all time is actually a PlayStation 1 title.

It is a game called Tomba. It is a action platformer with some RPG elements. It's got a very interesting main character who's this just this little dude with pink hair who

it's just like you're jumping around you're throwing these evil pig characters it is so it's such a charming game it is so well polished and so much fun and when they did the remake of it when

Libid Rump had announced that and put it out I jumped I screamed I was so happy to the point where I bought the big collector's edition and almost every piece of merchandise they made available I have the I have the special edition NeoS

controller I have the plushies I will buy everything for that game I love it so much and I ended up finding out later on down the road because I was like, hey, I really like this. I started diving into who made this game. I found out that the guy behind it, Fujwara, he is the father of the Ghost and Goblins series and a lot of that game's DNA is in Tomba.

He made Tomba. He made Tomba, he made Tomba 2 through a company called Whippy Camp. And eventually those were the only two games that that company had ever put out. He went to more of a mentor role later on and helped another company. called Deep Space make a game called Extermination, which is also one of my other favorite games. So a survival horror game from the PlayStation 2

before we got Resident Evil 4. And it's just I love that, but going back to it, I really love Tomba. It's such a polished and fun platformer. It really lit that spark of why I love 2D platformers. Wow. And I guess going along with that, so if you can only

play, single player or multiplayer, for the rest of your life? Which one are you going to choose? Oh, that one is actually really hard. But I've found that I'm a much more social person. I feel like I would

definitely need to I don't think I could give up multiplayer gaming at this point. I am an MMO junkie. I've played Maple Story. I used to play a lot of wow. I had to get out of it. I just kind of fell out love with the game and then I started playing a lot of Final Fantasy 14.

I used to play EverQuest. I used to play a lot of, there was a, there was a point in my life where I think I have played upwards of 50 or 60 different free MMRPs over the course of a few years, just trying things out. And so games like Perfect World, Repels, Terra, Wild Star, like I have played so many games over the years and I've always like when it comes to especially massive

multiplayer that community that builds up from it is so fun let's see what is your guilty pleasure um my guilty pleasure okay I will say this this is like my guilty pleasure slash hobby

to the point where it gets a little dangerous for me but I built like my big hobby is I build model kits for just primarily Mecca, so Giant Robots, and you can kind of see one of them right here. There's this one I just recently

finished back here, if I can grab it. But this is like this is my my vice. This is my I love just having something that starts from just sheets of

plastic and eventually I get something that just looks so cool. And I'm getting, I'm learning more stuff. I'm starting to get a little more comfortable with painting, with customizing. So it's definitely that's my, that's my guilty pleasure on that one is I love model kits of all kinds. I don't even stick to just one company. The two that are on my desk right now are very, are from two very opposite ends of that spectrum.

They're both third party companies. So they're not like a big Bandai kits. The one on top of my desk that's kind of peeking over here. That's a Bandai kit. It's not Gundam. It's Super Robot Wars, but then I have cases behind my camera that are filled with Gundam, Zoids, uh, Mega Man stuff, like all kinds of things. Just it's, it's very therapeutic to me as well.

Like you have that you start from plastic sheets and at the end you have something that like, I built this. I made this. And I look at it as like, I have the coolest toys. That's the best way to think about it is I have the coolest. I love that. All right. We're going to get into some would you rather's.

So first one. We'll start the standard easiest one. Would you rather have one wish for anything or infinite untaxed money? Oh, I'm going for the infinite untaxed money right now. Like the wish for every. I feel like the one wish for for everything one, I would be so afraid of like, oh, like, having a big missed opportunity because it's like that's such a that's such a heavy thing to have but infinite untaxed money i feel like that's one of those things that if you're

smart with it you can achieve a lot of a lot of goals that are not only good for you but good for the people around you so that's that's where i'm looking at there is you know it's like it's either money you choose the money one or you choose something else but like I don't a lot of a lot of my problems would be solved if I had money if I had untax money like I'm just going to throw out there if I if I had you know if I had to never worry about you know paying for anything whether it be you know going through going through school worrying about food just having the roof over my head if I never have to worry about any of that again then that is so much just general life weight off your shoulders I

I feel like at that point, because all of that stress would be gone, your mind would just go into this, like, completely unlocked state of like, okay, I don't have to worry about what do I need to do? It's like, what do I want to do? What do I, like, really want to do? And just going into just full, untapped potential mode. Let's see. Would you rather never have to be with your clothes or your dishes again?

It's always done for you. Oh, I'm gonna go close. I'm legitimately gonna go close. I If I never had to like ever worry about my laundry ever again, that would make things so much easier. Especially because like dishes could be useful.

But I'm also one of those people that like when I'm done with a dish, I try to just be like I'm just going to clean this now. Put it away. Not worry about it because If I don't do that, it's going to be, it's going to build up. It's going to become a headache later. And then I'm looking at a sink full of dishes.

I would rather, and especially if anybody's a cat owner or even a dog owner and that animal does wet food. If you've ever allowed wet food to sit in a sink or in a set of dishes, that stuff dries like concrete. It is such a problem. Just take, just take not even. five minutes. It takes I don't even do like though

I don't use a dishwasher I just I have a sponge I have my sink and I have a strainer just do it just take the just take a couple minutes and just do it and not worry about it later on would you rather never get tired or sick? I have gotten

incredibly sick in the past and I would honestly rather never be sick again I can you know being tired is like that reminder of hey, you need to stop, you need to rest. You need to slow down and just enjoy things. You need to enjoy things for what they are.

If you're tired, that's your reminder of like, hey, you're alive. Time to just breathe. But being sick sucks. I have had COVID three times. So once actually before lockdown, I went to a concert. I came back. I was incredibly ill, and we found out afterwards that, yes, I had actually gotten infected. Then the second time was after going to a, actually the second and third time we're both after going to a convention.

And it was one of them, I should not have driven home. I will say that. I made it almost, I made it all the way to an exit. I felt really terrible. My friends and I went to go eat breakfast. And I was just sitting there at the table. It was, we were at a, I think it was an I hop. And I'm just sitting there with a giant cup of hot chocolate in front of me because that's the only thing that sounded good.

I drank that. I think I got like something simple to eat. We went back to my friend's house about a block away from there. And I passed out on his bed for about six hours. Yeah, no, the funniest thing is I was that was full blown COVID. I was asleep on his bed for six hours. He didn't get it. He came out of that.

He's a mute. It was one. It was one from CS. Wow. Like he dodged that and he like that was just the whole thing. That took me out for about two weeks. I would rather never go through that part again. Yeah.

And if this thing would stop, I need to find the time out on this camera. Okay, and then for the final question, this is a theoretical. Okay, so I give you $1 million right now, or you get $50,000 for every kill you get in counterstrike. One game, one game. So you have to get at least 20 to get it, which is very easily done. but then if you get to like 30 or 40 that's that's extra change in your pocket what do you think and I know Ivan I wonder what Ivan's thinking right now because he's a countertrag guy I would take a million dollars you know yeah I'm with Ivan I'm with

the guaranteed mill I am like just straight with the guaranteed bill like I get it like you know hey I can I can stack kills and yeah easily jump over that but there's also that whole thing of maybe during that game I'm not I'm just not going to do too well maybe it's going to be that whole thing of everyone's just going to end up, you know, rushing one point and I'm going to go there and I'm going to get nothing but assists or I'm going to get like I'm not even able to get anything through or I am just going to get dog pile and just completely wiped out. I walk out with maybe 100K, maybe 150K is like because I just didn't get the opportunity to, you know, to click some heads. And now it's more of just like, no, I'm taking that I'm taking that guaranteed mill right off the bat. I was wondering if Ivan was be like, I know he's a couch like. guy you'd be like no I do it I get 30 kills easy kind of thing maybe maybe back in the day when I was actually I just seen Ivan with the Satoro gojo meme of just like nah I'd win that I'd win I mean 10 years ago maybe now there's like no chance like I'm just taking that mill and I am even going to pay those

taxes on that mill that's that's how confident I am I cannot get more than 20 bills counter. I didn't think about that. California tax would be pretty, you get like 600,000 then. Yeah. I'll take the 600. Okay.

All right. I think that's it on the things. Before we go into announcements, Ivan, is there anything you want to say before I go into announcements? There is, Mike. I just want to thank Jules for joining us

for Caseathon stream number three. It's been great chatting with them. I also want to let him know. He's doing a great job. I really appreciate everything he does. for NZXT so thank you Jules for all your hard work. Okay. Very welcome on this one.

Yeah. I try to always help y'all guys out. Like when you guys hit me up, it's I try to get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, we go to announcements real quick.

So first, we're doing a case-a-thon. So we have tons of cases and other things available. Go to nz-cccccc-com slash Amazon or Esclamation point deals in chat. You can save up to 38% off on NCC cases and a bunch of other things that we have on sale on Amazon. If you guys want to see what's next on the case on Lauren was in here earlier, but he, we have all the details of the NCC caseathon on the NCC blog. You can go to n60.com slash blog.

And I see there's Harbor Quest. There's a Harbor Quest alert right there. You're claiming your poochie points. And to use those poochie points. You can join in free giveaways. I would say that there's going to be some special thing that he's adding in soon. So literally, there it is. Literally, you just participate.

Do, it's super easy. It's free points and you can literally get free stuff. I literally just sent out like a bunch of cases and peripherals and everything like that. So join the club nz60.com slash club or estimation point club in chat. Um, follow at nzxt on all social media platforms and then email podcast at nccc and let us know what you think of the case-a-thon. And thank you, Jules. Seriously, like one being an awesome customer support agent, like 10-ad-10.

And also, thank you for joining us and giving us some really good insights. And honestly, like, I may use up some of those things later, especially, I may add that case sensor into my PC because I'm looking at it. I'm like, I could do it too. I could do it. Oh, it's one of the, it's one of the, like, coolest mods you can do that requires so little effort on it and especially nowadays people are coming up with really cool ways of like mounting them. You'll find some of them nowadays where they'll actually like hang off of your fans.

So like you'll find like ones I'll get like a bracket with it that'll just mount from top of your case. It can look really sweet. I want to do one in one of my builds where it's kind of I want to do a very a very cyberpunk inspired build. And so I want to build one up maybe not as like a regular sensor panel, but kind of go a little a little deep on it, make it look like a billboard. and then like hide the sensor information in it. I want to do something fun like that. Do you have anything before we give the people out here the secret word and then the podcast?

Do you have anything you want to say? Yeah. So I do, I will say this, I need to, I always try to get this out there. Support.ncc.com. That's our main support page. Definitely check it out if you've got questions. And if you've,

even if you've got something that's not on there already, Um, shoot us a message, you know, send a submit ticket. And you know, if you, you'll get either myself or someone else in the team who will get back to you. But we those questions really help. We actually try to, especially we get one where the question comes in a lot. It's going to find its way into an FAQ eventually. And we want to try and do or trying to improve that. Um, always just if it's, if it's, if it's even if it's just simple, if it's just a big, you know, just like, I don't know what's going on here.

Like my computer's not starting. or something's just not plugged in right. You know, just reach out. Just always ask, just ask more questions. Don't, don't think that you have to do everything yourself. Just just ask questions. It's better to, it's better to ask, it's better to ask, it's better to ask provision than beg forgiveness later on in some cases.

That's the one we're looking at here. And I know many people have said, I will say that that comment I made earlier about plugging a USB into a 12 volt power. I did not just pull that out of nowhere. I have seen that more times than I can count on one hand. That's why I try to tell people is. And also for, you know, plugging in like a like an NCXT four pin into 12 volt power.

Those are five volt base. If you do that, you will kill the fan. Just always don't don't just think, oh, it looks like it's work. That's covered in the manual. It says don't do that. So check the manual, ask questions. and just and don't be afraid to ask questions. There's no shame in it.

Read the manual? And yes. And maybe maybe don't ask in Chinchilla every question on that. They might be able to give you some good advice. But there's other things of, you know, they're dusty little guys.

Yes. And dust is the enemy of your electronics. Okay. I think that's it. I haven't you have anything before. And the, uh, podcast for the people. Uh, no, thank everyone for tuning in.

Thank everyone for, uh, being part of the NXT club. Appreciate y'all. Yeah. So I'm going to give the, uh, code right now. Remember, we are giving way three, three winners. We'll get three cases. Uh, you guys can choose whichever you want you want. So, uh, make sure to do estimation point giveaway, do all the gleam entries.

And I'm going to give away the N6T taxes is actually a funny code. I wish I did that. That's a funny one. But it's always got to be case related. So I got to make a pun. So the code for 500 extra entries into the Glebe giveaway is, Rest My Case. Rest My Case is the code for 500 extra entries.

That's your way saying thank you guys for joining us. Thank you, Jules, for joining us as well. And remember, we're tuned in live on Fridays at 10 a.m. Pacific Center time on the official NCCT. And don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. Got any questions for us? Send an email to podcast at nzzyx.com or tag at nxc on all social media platforms. Thank you, Jules. Thank you, everyone.

Have a safe weekend. See you guys later.