I have to add a few caveats as it has been cool at night. That really helps because I can switch the swamp coolers to fan mode at night to cool the house down. So far this summer the house is staying cool and hits about 75 degrees F. around 8pm and then I turn on the swamp coolers for a few hours then switch the cooler to fan mode overnight. That will probably change in July and August but the June 2024 power bill was $15.00 cheaper compared to last year and I think the weather has been about the same comparing this month in 2023 to 2024. I have been more pro-active this year using fans to cool the house overnight and not using the swamp coolers until late in the day. I think that had the biggest impact on the electric bill this month.
Mom is still concerned about her little laptop after the glitch it had a week ago. It seems to be working okay now and I think it just needed to completely power down to reset itself. From my own experience of troubleshooting my dead PC, I have seen a bad power cable, a bad/old surge protector and a bad power supply. I think aa bad power supply/glitchy power cable/surge protector combo probably fried my old motherboard. That motherboard was about 8 years old and I certainly got my moneys worth out of that board/pc.
That being said I think if you want to upgrade/build a new PC I’d go with AMD and an AM5 CPU setup or the newest AMD CPU ZEN 5 9000 series depending on the price. I suspect AM5 series CPU’s and motherboards will drop in price after the release of the ZEN 5 CPUs. Two things I almost never do. I never buy the newest CPU when it comes out as I want to see how buggy it is. I almost never upgrade unless forced to because of software support. I would recommend if you need to upgrade your pc now you go with an AMD 5 motherboard and AM5 CPU. If you want a major upgrade wait three to six months to see how good the new AMD Zen 5 CPU’s are, and Intel says it is releasing a new CPU/chipset and means a new CPU socket/motherboard upgrade. I just can’t see paying $500.00+ for a CPU and another $500.00 for a mother board and Nvidia wants nearly $2000.00 for the top end graphics card. AMD is the best for a budget PC builder. Though it is tough to admit a $1000.00 is now a budget build PC.
My Adventures in selfreliance 