I've been facing this problem for about 3 months now where my laptop (lenovo legion pro 5 with a 7745hx, rtx 4070, 32gb ddr5 ram) screen goes completely blank, no cursor no nothing. Sometimes the backlight is on, others it isn't. It's hard to get a video of it happening since I haven't been able to figure out what triggers it.

The troubleshooting steps I've taken till now are uninstalling the display drivers using DDU(for both integrated and dGPU), i usually have the laptop in a docked state so have it in dGPU only mode usually but have tried setting it to hybrid as well, no change. It has no overclocks and I've set an agressive fan profile for the best thermals. The thermals are perfectly fine and a routinely maintain the laptop by opening and cleaning fan housing every 6 months and replacing my thermal paste every 1.5 years. I've had the laptop for a bit over 3 years now and in the last paste replacement which happened mid-late 2025, I put ptm7950 on both the CPU and GPU and replaced the thermal pads for a high quality thermal putty(forgot which one but it came well recommended from a lot of tech channels). I can't find a situation of it being specific to a load scenario since this can happen when I've just left the laptop with no apps open to grab something, while just discord and/or Spotify is open or while I'm playing a game(rainbow 6, marvel rivals, tf2, Fortnite and brawlhalla tried cuz those are the only ones i have on disk) or running a heavy simulation for my uni courses. Once opened the laptop screen doesn't move at all and is on a stand for added ventilation so I can't blame this on a display ribbon cable being pinched in the hinge. I've also run a full set of sfc, diskchk and dism commands and windows doesn't seem to have any file issues. I've run a full malwarebytes scan as well to make sure this isn't a virus, even though i have good internet safety

I'm at my wit's end and don't know what else I can do to rule out issues. I don't have access to a monitor for long periods of time so I can't test if it's the internal display/ribbon cable failing or a hardware GPU issue.

Additionally, resetting the drivers using win+ctrl+shift+B doesn't always work and oftentimes i almost need to spam the key combination and hope that on one of the resets it fixed itself. Sometimes even that doesn't happen and I have to hard restart the laptop and hope for the best.

As a uni student with a tiny budget, I don't think I'll be able to afford replacing the motherboard and I NEED this laptop for my course and personal projects since I don't have any other strong enough compute platform available to me.

I'm completely new to NAS administration and most networking concepts, so I’m looking for detailed, beginner-friendly guidance. I’d appreciate an end-to-end explanation of the recommended architecture and setup sequence, including Proxmox, ZFS, Samba, backups, remote access, monitoring, and recovery.

Please assume that I need explanations of what each step does and why it is recommended. I would also appreciate sanity checks after every major step so I can confirm that my system is configured correctly before continuing.

Hardware

I have the following system:

- AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

- ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard

- NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super

- 32 GB DDR4 RAM

- 256 GB NVMe SSD connected directly to the motherboard on which proxmox will be installed

- 1 × 1 TB Crucial P1 NVMe connected directly to the motherboard

- 2 × 1 TB OEM Samsung Gen 4 NVMe drives

- 1 × Seagate 2 TB ST2000DM005 SATA hard drive

- 1KVA UPS with a NUT for safe shiutdowns in case of powerloss

The three 1 TB NVMe SSDs were scavenged from old laptops. They are currently reporting excellent health according to SMART scans, with no obvious errors or concerning indicators. I would appreciate recommendations for additional tests I should perform before trusting them with data, such as extended SMART tests, bad-block scans, read/write verification, endurance checks, or any other relevant diagnostics.

The motherboard is configured for PCIe bifurcation as x8/x4/x4. The RTX 2070 Super occupies the first PCIe slot and receives eight lanes, while an adapter card in the second slot contains the two Samsung NVMe drives.

I am not particularly concerned about maximum NVMe performance. My router and network are limited to gigabit Ethernet, and I am completely fine with that. Network speed will be the limiting factor rather than disk speed, so I’m mainly prioritising reliability, maintainability, secure access, and a straightforward recovery process.

What I want to build

I'm trying to repurpose an old gaming PC and a few other parts i found laying around the house. My initial plan is:

1. Install Proxmox VE on the 256 GB NVMe.

2. Create a ZFS RAIDZ1 pool using the three 1 TB NVMe drives.

3. Use the resulting pool for approximately 2 TB of redundant storage.

4. Use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a separate monthly backup or cold-storage disk.

5. Provide SMB/Samba shares for backups from my computers and other devices.

6. Access the NAS remotely over the internet, but securely. I was considering Tailscale, although I’m open to better recommendations.

7. Configure automatic ZFS snapshots.

8. Copy or replicate snapshots to the 2 TB HDD once per month.

9. Receive alerts if a drive fails, the pool becomes degraded, or a backup fails.

10. Keep the backup HDD disconnected, unmounted, or powered off between backup runs if that is practical.

The main use case is device backups and occasional temporary file access, not media serving or high-performance virtualization.

Architecture questions

I’m unsure about the best overall design:

- Should I create the ZFS pool directly on the Proxmox host, or pass the three NVMe drives to a TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, or Debian VM?

- If the pool is created on the Proxmox host, should I use a Samba VM, an LXC container, or Samba directly on the Proxmox host?

- What is the safest and most maintainable way to expose the storage to clients over SMB?

- Is RAIDZ1 appropriate for these three SSDs and this workload, or would another layout be preferable?

- Are there any special considerations for using SSDs that were previously installed in laptops?

- Should I perform any additional drive-health, burn-in, thermal, filesystem, or memory tests before creating the pool?

- Are there any problems with using an NVMe adapter card in the second PCIe slot for a ZFS pool?

- Is 32 GB of RAM sufficient for this use case?

I’m not looking for maximum throughput. Since my network is limited to gigabit Ethernet, I’m happy with anything that can reliably saturate or reasonably use that connection.

Backup questions

I would like to use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a monthly cold-storage backup, but I’m unsure about the correct method:

- Should I create a separate ZFS pool on the HDD and replicate snapshots to it using `zfs send` and `zfs receive`?

- Would `rsync`, Borg, Restic, or another backup tool be more appropriate?

- Should the HDD be imported, mounted, and exported after each monthly backup?

- Should it remain physically disconnected or powered off between backup runs?

- How should I schedule the backup?

- How can I verify that the backup completed successfully?

- How often should I perform a real restore test?

- How should I handle deleted or corrupted files so that they are not immediately propagated to the backup?

- Can someone recommend a sensible snapshot-retention policy for this use case?

I understand that RAIDZ1 is not a backup. The purpose of the separate HDD is to retain another copy in case of accidental deletion, corruption, ransomware, pool failure, or other problems affecting the main storage.

Remote-access questions

I want remote access to be secure, with a strong preference for not exposing SMB directly to the public internet.

I was considering Tailscale, but I’m unsure where it should be installed:

- Directly on the Proxmox host?

- Inside the NAS VM or LXC?

- On a separate VPN or gateway device?

- On each client device that needs access?

I would appreciate guidance on:

- Whether Tailscale is appropriate for remote SMB access.

- How to restrict access to only authorised devices and users.

- Whether I should use Tailscale ACLs, subnet routing, or another design.

- How to prevent remote users from accessing Proxmox management interfaces.

- Whether a file-sync application would be safer or more suitable than remote SMB for some use cases.

- What firewall rules and authentication settings I should configure.

Monitoring and maintenance

Please include recommendations for:

- SMART short and extended tests.

- NVMe health and temperature monitoring.

- ZFS scrubs and how often to run them.

- Memory testing before relying on ZFS.

- Monitoring PCIe/NVMe link stability.

- Proxmox and ZFS notifications.

- Email, Telegram, or other failure alerts.

- UPS integration and safe shutdown.

- Checking pool status and scrub results.

- Detecting silent corruption or degraded devices.

- Testing the monthly backup automatically.

I would especially appreciate commands or procedures for additional health tests that should be performed before deployment, along with the expected results or warning signs. I plan on setting up a discord bot that uses cron to alert me about issues down the line.

Could someone provide a recommended architecture and a detailed implementation plan covering:

1. Pre-installation hardware, SSD, memory, and PCIe testing.

2. Proxmox installation on the 256 GB NVMe.

3. A sanity check confirming that Proxmox is installed correctly.

4. ZFS pool and dataset creation.

5. Commands to verify the pool, devices, sector sizes, health, and performance.

6. A sanity check after creating the pool.

7. NAS service deployment.

8. Samba share and permissions configuration.

9. A sanity check from a local client.

10. Snapshot configuration.

11. Monthly backup replication to the SATA HDD.

12. A sanity check proving that the backup is usable.

13. Secure remote access using Tailscale or an alternative.

14. Firewall and access-control configuration.

15. Monitoring, alerts, scrubs, and maintenance.

16. Recovery steps if a drive, Proxmox installation, motherboard, or entire system fails.

17. A regular restore drill to verify that the backup strategy actually works.

For every major step, I'd appreciate it if you could include:

- The commands or GUI actions.

- What the step changes.

- How to verify that it worked.

- What output would indicate a problem.

- Whether I should stop before continuing if the check fails.

- How to undo or recover from the step if necessary.

I’m happy to learn and follow commands, but I would appreciate explanations rather than a list of unexplained commands. Please point out anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe about my proposed design before I begin, and suggest a safer alternative where appropriate.

I’m completely new to NAS administration and most networking concepts, so I’m looking for detailed, beginner-friendly guidance. I’d appreciate an end-to-end explanation of the recommended architecture and setup sequence, including Proxmox, ZFS, Samba, backups, remote access, monitoring, and recovery.

Please assume that I need explanations of what each step does and why it is recommended. I would also appreciate sanity checks after every major step so I can confirm that my system is configured correctly before continuing.

Hardware

I have the following system:

- AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

- ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard

- NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super

- 32 GB DDR4 RAM

- 256 GB NVMe SSD connected directly to the motherboard on which proxmox will be installed

- 1 × 1 TB Crucial P1 NVMe connected directly to the motherboard

- 2 × 1 TB OEM Samsung Gen 4 NVMe drives

- 1 × Seagate 2 TB ST2000DM005 SATA hard drive

- 1KVA UPS with a NUT for safe shiutdowns in case of powerloss

The three 1 TB NVMe SSDs were scavenged from old laptops. They are currently reporting excellent health according to SMART scans, with no obvious errors or concerning indicators. I would appreciate recommendations for additional tests I should perform before trusting them with data, such as extended SMART tests, bad-block scans, read/write verification, endurance checks, or any other relevant diagnostics.

The motherboard is configured for PCIe bifurcation as x8/x4/x4. The RTX 2070 Super occupies the first PCIe slot and receives eight lanes, while an adapter card in the second slot contains the two Samsung NVMe drives.

I am not particularly concerned about maximum NVMe performance. My router and network are limited to gigabit Ethernet, and I am completely fine with that. Network speed will be the limiting factor rather than disk speed, so I’m mainly prioritising reliability, maintainability, secure access, and a straightforward recovery process.

What I want to build

I'm trying to repurpose an old gaming PC and a few other parts i found laying around the house. My initial plan is:

1. Install Proxmox VE on the 256 GB NVMe.

2. Create a ZFS RAIDZ1 pool using the three 1 TB NVMe drives.

3. Use the resulting pool for approximately 2 TB of redundant storage.

4. Use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a separate monthly backup or cold-storage disk.

5. Provide SMB/Samba shares for backups from my computers and other devices.

6. Access the NAS remotely over the internet, but securely. I was considering Tailscale, although I’m open to better recommendations.

7. Configure automatic ZFS snapshots.

8. Copy or replicate snapshots to the 2 TB HDD once per month.

9. Receive alerts if a drive fails, the pool becomes degraded, or a backup fails.

10. Keep the backup HDD disconnected, unmounted, or powered off between backup runs if that is practical.

The main use case is device backups and occasional temporary file access, not media serving or high-performance virtualization.

Architecture questions

I’m unsure about the best overall design:

- Should I create the ZFS pool directly on the Proxmox host, or pass the three NVMe drives to a TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, or Debian VM?

- If the pool is created on the Proxmox host, should I use a Samba VM, an LXC container, or Samba directly on the Proxmox host?

- What is the safest and most maintainable way to expose the storage to clients over SMB?

- Is RAIDZ1 appropriate for these three SSDs and this workload, or would another layout be preferable?

- Are there any special considerations for using SSDs that were previously installed in laptops?

- Should I perform any additional drive-health, burn-in, thermal, filesystem, or memory tests before creating the pool?

- Are there any problems with using an NVMe adapter card in the second PCIe slot for a ZFS pool?

- Is 32 GB of RAM sufficient for this use case?

I’m not looking for maximum throughput. Since my network is limited to gigabit Ethernet, I’m happy with anything that can reliably saturate or reasonably use that connection.

Backup questions

I would like to use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a monthly cold-storage backup, but I’m unsure about the correct method:

- Should I create a separate ZFS pool on the HDD and replicate snapshots to it using `zfs send` and `zfs receive`?

- Would `rsync`, Borg, Restic, or another backup tool be more appropriate?

- Should the HDD be imported, mounted, and exported after each monthly backup?

- Should it remain physically disconnected or powered off between backup runs?

- How should I schedule the backup?

- How can I verify that the backup completed successfully?

- How often should I perform a real restore test?

- How should I handle deleted or corrupted files so that they are not immediately propagated to the backup?

- Can someone recommend a sensible snapshot-retention policy for this use case?

I understand that RAIDZ1 is not a backup. The purpose of the separate HDD is to retain another copy in case of accidental deletion, corruption, ransomware, pool failure, or other problems affecting the main storage.

Remote-access questions

I want remote access to be secure, with a strong preference for not exposing SMB directly to the public internet.

I was considering Tailscale, but I’m unsure where it should be installed:

- Directly on the Proxmox host?

- Inside the NAS VM or LXC?

- On a separate VPN or gateway device?

- On each client device that needs access?

I would appreciate guidance on:

- Whether Tailscale is appropriate for remote SMB access.

- How to restrict access to only authorised devices and users.

- Whether I should use Tailscale ACLs, subnet routing, or another design.

- How to prevent remote users from accessing Proxmox management interfaces.

- Whether a file-sync application would be safer or more suitable than remote SMB for some use cases.

- What firewall rules and authentication settings I should configure.

Monitoring and maintenance

Please include recommendations for:

- SMART short and extended tests.

- NVMe health and temperature monitoring.

- ZFS scrubs and how often to run them.

- Memory testing before relying on ZFS.

- Monitoring PCIe/NVMe link stability.

- Proxmox and ZFS notifications.

- Email, Telegram, or other failure alerts.

- UPS integration and safe shutdown.

- Checking pool status and scrub results.

- Detecting silent corruption or degraded devices.

- Testing the monthly backup automatically.

I would especially appreciate commands or procedures for additional health tests that should be performed before deployment, along with the expected results or warning signs. I plan on setting up a discord bot that uses cron to alert me about issues down the line.

Could someone provide a recommended architecture and a detailed implementation plan covering:

1. Pre-installation hardware, SSD, memory, and PCIe testing.

2. Proxmox installation on the 256 GB NVMe.

3. A sanity check confirming that Proxmox is installed correctly.

4. ZFS pool and dataset creation.

5. Commands to verify the pool, devices, sector sizes, health, and performance.

6. A sanity check after creating the pool.

7. NAS service deployment.

8. Samba share and permissions configuration.

9. A sanity check from a local client.

10. Snapshot configuration.

11. Monthly backup replication to the SATA HDD.

12. A sanity check proving that the backup is usable.

13. Secure remote access using Tailscale or an alternative.

14. Firewall and access-control configuration.

15. Monitoring, alerts, scrubs, and maintenance.

16. Recovery steps if a drive, Proxmox installation, motherboard, or entire system fails.

17. A regular restore drill to verify that the backup strategy actually works.

For every major step, I'd appreciate it if you could include:

- The commands or GUI actions.

- What the step changes.

- How to verify that it worked.

- What output would indicate a problem.

- Whether I should stop before continuing if the check fails.

- How to undo or recover from the step if necessary.

I’m happy to learn and follow commands, but I would appreciate explanations rather than a list of unexplained commands. Please point out anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe about my proposed design before I begin, and suggest a safer alternative where appropriate.

I’m completely new to NAS administration and most networking concepts, so I’m looking for detailed, beginner-friendly guidance. I’d appreciate an end-to-end explanation of the recommended architecture and setup sequence, including Proxmox, ZFS, Samba, backups, remote access, monitoring, and recovery.

Please assume that I need explanations of what each step does and why it is recommended. I would also appreciate sanity checks after every major step so I can confirm that my system is configured correctly before continuing.

Hardware

I have the following system:

- AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

- ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard

- NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super

- 32 GB DDR4 RAM

- 256 GB NVMe SSD connected directly to the motherboard on which proxmox will be installed

- 1 × 1 TB Crucial P1 NVMe connected directly to the motherboard

- 2 × 1 TB OEM Samsung Gen 4 NVMe drives

- 1 × Seagate 2 TB ST2000DM005 SATA hard drive

- 1KVA UPS with a NUT for safe shiutdowns in case of powerloss

The three 1 TB NVMe SSDs were scavenged from old laptops. They are currently reporting excellent health according to SMART scans, with no obvious errors or concerning indicators. I would appreciate recommendations for additional tests I should perform before trusting them with data, such as extended SMART tests, bad-block scans, read/write verification, endurance checks, or any other relevant diagnostics.

The motherboard is configured for PCIe bifurcation as x8/x4/x4. The RTX 2070 Super occupies the first PCIe slot and receives eight lanes, while an adapter card in the second slot contains the two Samsung NVMe drives.

I am not particularly concerned about maximum NVMe performance. My router and network are limited to gigabit Ethernet, and I am completely fine with that. Network speed will be the limiting factor rather than disk speed, so I’m mainly prioritising reliability, maintainability, secure access, and a straightforward recovery process.

What I want to build

I'm trying to repurpose an old gaming PC and a few other parts i found laying around the house. My initial plan is:

1. Install Proxmox VE on the 256 GB NVMe.

2. Create a ZFS RAIDZ1 pool using the three 1 TB NVMe drives.

3. Use the resulting pool for approximately 2 TB of redundant storage.

4. Use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a separate monthly backup or cold-storage disk.

5. Provide SMB/Samba shares for backups from my computers and other devices.

6. Access the NAS remotely over the internet, but securely. I was considering Tailscale, although I’m open to better recommendations.

7. Configure automatic ZFS snapshots.

8. Copy or replicate snapshots to the 2 TB HDD once per month.

9. Receive alerts if a drive fails, the pool becomes degraded, or a backup fails.

10. Keep the backup HDD disconnected, unmounted, or powered off between backup runs if that is practical.

The main use case is device backups and occasional temporary file access, not media serving or high-performance virtualization.

Architecture questions

I’m unsure about the best overall design:

- Should I create the ZFS pool directly on the Proxmox host, or pass the three NVMe drives to a TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, or Debian VM?

- If the pool is created on the Proxmox host, should I use a Samba VM, an LXC container, or Samba directly on the Proxmox host?

- What is the safest and most maintainable way to expose the storage to clients over SMB?

- Is RAIDZ1 appropriate for these three SSDs and this workload, or would another layout be preferable?

- Are there any special considerations for using SSDs that were previously installed in laptops?

- Should I perform any additional drive-health, burn-in, thermal, filesystem, or memory tests before creating the pool?

- Are there any problems with using an NVMe adapter card in the second PCIe slot for a ZFS pool?

- Is 32 GB of RAM sufficient for this use case?

I’m not looking for maximum throughput. Since my network is limited to gigabit Ethernet, I’m happy with anything that can reliably saturate or reasonably use that connection.

Backup questions

I would like to use the 2 TB SATA HDD as a monthly cold-storage backup, but I’m unsure about the correct method:

- Should I create a separate ZFS pool on the HDD and replicate snapshots to it using `zfs send` and `zfs receive`?

- Would `rsync`, Borg, Restic, or another backup tool be more appropriate?

- Should the HDD be imported, mounted, and exported after each monthly backup?

- Should it remain physically disconnected or powered off between backup runs?

- How should I schedule the backup?

- How can I verify that the backup completed successfully?

- How often should I perform a real restore test?

- How should I handle deleted or corrupted files so that they are not immediately propagated to the backup?

- Can someone recommend a sensible snapshot-retention policy for this use case?

I understand that RAIDZ1 is not a backup. The purpose of the separate HDD is to retain another copy in case of accidental deletion, corruption, ransomware, pool failure, or other problems affecting the main storage.

Remote-access questions

I want remote access to be secure, with a strong preference for not exposing SMB directly to the public internet.

I was considering Tailscale, but I’m unsure where it should be installed:

- Directly on the Proxmox host?

- Inside the NAS VM or LXC?

- On a separate VPN or gateway device?

- On each client device that needs access?

I would appreciate guidance on:

- Whether Tailscale is appropriate for remote SMB access.

- How to restrict access to only authorised devices and users.

- Whether I should use Tailscale ACLs, subnet routing, or another design.

- How to prevent remote users from accessing Proxmox management interfaces.

- Whether a file-sync application would be safer or more suitable than remote SMB for some use cases.

- What firewall rules and authentication settings I should configure.

Monitoring and maintenance

Please include recommendations for:

- SMART short and extended tests.

- NVMe health and temperature monitoring.

- ZFS scrubs and how often to run them.

- Memory testing before relying on ZFS.

- Monitoring PCIe/NVMe link stability.

- Proxmox and ZFS notifications.

- Email, Telegram, or other failure alerts.

- UPS integration and safe shutdown.

- Checking pool status and scrub results.

- Detecting silent corruption or degraded devices.

- Testing the monthly backup automatically.

I would especially appreciate commands or procedures for additional health tests that should be performed before deployment, along with the expected results or warning signs. I plan on setting up a discord bot that uses cron to alert me about issues down the line.

Could someone provide a recommended architecture and a detailed implementation plan covering:

1. Pre-installation hardware, SSD, memory, and PCIe testing.

2. Proxmox installation on the 256 GB NVMe.

3. A sanity check confirming that Proxmox is installed correctly.

4. ZFS pool and dataset creation.

5. Commands to verify the pool, devices, sector sizes, health, and performance.

6. A sanity check after creating the pool.

7. NAS service deployment.

8. Samba share and permissions configuration.

9. A sanity check from a local client.

10. Snapshot configuration.

11. Monthly backup replication to the SATA HDD.

12. A sanity check proving that the backup is usable.

13. Secure remote access using Tailscale or an alternative.

14. Firewall and access-control configuration.

15. Monitoring, alerts, scrubs, and maintenance.

16. Recovery steps if a drive, Proxmox installation, motherboard, or entire system fails.

17. A regular restore drill to verify that the backup strategy actually works.

For every major step, I'd appreciate it if you could include:

- The commands or GUI actions.

- What the step changes.

- How to verify that it worked.

- What output would indicate a problem.

- Whether I should stop before continuing if the check fails.

- How to undo or recover from the step if necessary.

I’m happy to learn and follow commands, but I would appreciate explanations rather than a list of unexplained commands. Please point out anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe about my proposed design before I begin, and suggest a safer alternative where appropriate.

I remember reading about a year back about people trying to get thapar to give free perplexity pro or Claude or something with the college email ID. I can't seem to find any conclusive answer.

Did we manage to get a perplexity/claude/chatgpt etc educational pro tier or is thapar still doing it's usual kanjoosi?