GPU Support Bracket 2026: Kill Sag in 12 Steps, 15 Min

Your graphics card is a brick hanging off a card-edge connector about as thick as a few stacked business cards. That connector was specified to carry signal and power, not to work as a structural cantilever holding up half a kilogram of milled aluminium. Nobody on the PCI Express committee ever wrote down how many newton-metres of droop a triple-fan cooler is allowed to inflict on the slot. And yet here we are in 2026, propping up two-thousand-dollar GPUs with four-dollar aluminium sticks.

This is a tutorial, not a sponsorship. By the end you will know why sag happens, how to measure whether you actually have it, which brace to buy without paying $738.99 for one, and how to fit it in twelve steps that take about fifteen minutes. We will also wire 5V addressable RGB the correct way, because half the 2026 market has decided a support brace should double as a light show. The Machine has no strong opinion on the light show. The Machine has very strong opinions about people who push a 5V 3-pin plug onto a 12V 4-pin header and then wonder why their LEDs died.

Why GPU Sag Happens

The cantilever problem

Strip away the branding and a graphics card is a lever. It bolts to the case at one point (the I/O bracket screw) and clips into the PCIe slot at another, and everything past those two anchors hangs out into the case unsupported. Gravity pulls down on the mass of the cooler, and because that mass sits at the end of a lever arm, it produces torque at the slot. The longer and heavier the card, the more torque. A graphics card with a stubby single-fan cooler barely notices. A 300-plus-millimetre, triple-slot flagship notices a great deal.

The failure mode is not dramatic. The card does not snap off. It droops a millimetre, then two, then three, until the far end of the PCB is visibly lower than the slot end. That droop is the tell, and it is why this entire accessory category exists. It is also entirely preventable with a rigid object placed under the far end, which is the whole idea.

Why 2025-2026 cards got heavy

Coolers ballooned because power did. Each generation of flagship silicon dissipates more heat, and the only cheap way to move more heat is more metal and more fans. The heaviest board-partner designs on cards like the RTX 5090 now occupy three or four slots and stretch past the length of the motherboard's expansion area. We covered how far that has gone in our RTX 5090 review, and the weight problem is not exclusive to the halo part. Even the tier below it, the cards we lined up in the RTX 4090 versus 5080 comparison, ship with coolers heavy enough to bow a slot over time. Outlets from Ars Technica to Engadget have tracked the cooler arms race across the 40- and 50-series launches; the support-brace boom is simply the accessory market catching up to physics.

What sag actually damages

Three things, in rising order of how much they should worry you. First, the PCIe slot's plastic retention clip and the solder joints anchoring the slot to the motherboard take a constant bending load they were never rated for. Second, the card's own PCB flexes, and repeated flex near the connector fingers is how you eventually get intermittent contact and cold-boot display failures. Third, and most visibly, the cosmetic insult of a $2,000 card sagging like a wet paperback in a case with a tempered-glass window. A brace addresses all three for less than the price of a sandwich.

Bracket, Brace, or Holder? The Naming Mess

One product, five names

Before you can buy the right thing you have to accept that the market cannot agree on what to call it. 'GPU support bracket', 'GPU brace', 'anti-sag holder', 'GPU support stick', and 'graphics card support' all describe the same object. A price-history tracker in 2026 lists one such product literally as a 'graphics video card brace', which is three nouns doing the work of one. This matters for searching: filter by function, not by keyword, because the same $8 stick appears under four different product titles across three marketplaces. If you search for one name you will miss two-thirds of the market.

The three physical types

Under the naming chaos there are only three real designs. The pillar (or support stick) is a vertical post that stands on the case floor or PSU shroud and rises to meet the underside of the card; it is the most adjustable, most common, and usually the cheapest. The brace or bracket bar spans horizontally, often anchored to the case or a PCI slot cover, with an arm that reaches under the card; sturdier, fiddlier to fit. The vertical mount is the nuclear option: it rotates the card ninety degrees so it hangs from the case rear rather than cantilevering off the slot, eliminating sag entirely but introducing a riser cable. We will get to vertical mounts in their own section.

Magnetic, screw-down, or shroud-standing

Pillars anchor to the case one of three ways. A magnetic base sticks to a steel case floor and repositions in seconds; it is the default on entry-level units like the nkomax brace and it is glorious right up until you own an aluminium or tempered-glass-floored case, where magnets do precisely nothing. Screw-down bases bolt to a mounting hole for permanence at the cost of flexibility. Shroud-standing pillars simply rest their weight on the PSU cover. Pick based on your case's floor material and whether you plan to move things around, and remember that a magnetic base is only as good as the steel it grips.

Prerequisites: Tools, Clearance, Software

Hardware you need

The list is short and cheap. A Phillips #2 screwdriver for the I/O bracket screw and any screw-down base. A ruler or, better, calipers to measure the gap the brace has to fill. A flashlight or phone torch, because the gap under a GPU is the darkest place in your case. Optionally a small spirit level; some premium braces, like the ASUS ROG Herculx, build one in, but a phone app or a $2 bubble level does the same job. And of course the brace itself, chosen after you have measured, not before.

Hardware requirements on the PC side: a case with clearance under the card (most have it; small-form-factor cases may not), a steel floor if you want a magnetic base to grip, and, only if you care about lighting, a spare 5V 3-pin addressable RGB header on the motherboard. No header, no ARGB, and that is fine; the brace still braces.

Software for the before-and-after check

You do not strictly need software to install a stick under a card, but a five-minute thermal baseline turns 'I think it is fine' into 'I have numbers'. Grab the current release of HWiNFO64 (the 8.x branch), GPU-Z (the 2.6x series), or just use nvidia-smi, which ships with every NVIDIA driver on the current R5xx branch. On AMD, the Adrenalin overlay or amdgpu_top on Linux does the same. The point is to log idle and load temperatures before you touch anything, so that afterward you can prove the brace did not choke an intake fan.

Capture a baseline first:

$ nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,temperature.gpu,clocks.gr,power.draw --format=csv
name, temperature.gpu [C], clocks.current.graphics [MHz], power.draw [W]
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 41, 2610, 61.98

# 41 C at idle, ~62 W. Write this down. Numbers WILL differ per card - that is fine,
# you are comparing THIS card to ITSELF before and after, not to a review chart.

Measure before you buy

The single most common mistake in this entire hobby is buying a brace whose adjustment range does not cover your card's gap. Measure the vertical distance from the bottom edge of the GPU (the shroud or backplate lip) down to whatever the pillar will stand on, case floor or PSU shroud. Write it down. Then buy a brace whose range brackets that number with room on both sides.

# gap-worksheet.txt  --  fill this in BEFORE ordering
slot_underside_to_floor_mm   = 128   # PCIe slot underside down to the case floor
card_bottom_to_stand_mm      =  84   # GPU bottom edge to PSU shroud (where the pillar stands)
measured_sag_mm              =   3.5 # droop at the FAR end: card tip vs slot-end height
target_brace_range_mm        =  74-120  # must include 84 with margin -> nkomax-class fits

In that example an 84 mm gap sits comfortably inside a 74-120 mm brace, which is exactly why the 74-120 mm class is the default recommendation: it covers the great majority of ATX builds. Measure yours; do not assume.

Budget vs Premium: The Under-$10 Reality

The under-$10 tier owns the category

Here is the number that should frame every purchase: a 2026 market report found the $0.00-$10.00 band contains 30% of all tracked GPU support bracket products, making it the single most competitive price tier in the category. This is not an accident. A support brace is a bent piece of aluminium, a thumbscrew, and maybe a magnet; there is no moat. PropelRC's 2026 guide prices the nkomax GPU Brace at $8.99 with a 74-120 mm adjustment range and a magnetic base, the Oddtone GPU Support at $8.99, and the Uyubao GPU Support at $3.99. A separate price-history page shows one brace at $7.19, having dropped on 2026-08-03 from $7.99. The category floor is genuinely under ten dollars, and at that price the brace is cheap insurance against the sag a card from our 4K-capable GPU tier can develop.

The value pick and the premium options

Of Zen and Computing's August 2026 roundup ranks the nkomax GPU Brace Support first outright, citing its aluminium build, magnetic base, 74-120 mm range, a 4.7 rating and 7,469 reviews, the closest thing this category has to a consensus default. The same roundup lists upHere's RGB GPU Brace and EZDIY-FAB's GPU Holder among the named contenders, so brand competition is real even down here. Spend more and you buy precision and polish, not fundamentally more function. OVRClock's July 2026 guide highlights the ASUS ROG Herculx White, with a 72-128 mm range, an integrated spirit level, and Aura Sync support, and an Acer GPU Support Bracket with a 70-120 mm range and 0.5 mm adjustment increments. That last figure is the differentiator: fine-thread precision for people fitting a card behind tempered glass with a millimetre to spare.

The $738 listing and other traps

Now the warning. One Newegg GPU support bracket listing shows a price of $738.99, last updated 2026-08-12. That is not a premium product; it is a marketplace anomaly, a mispriced or drop-shipped listing that exists to be avoided. When a category's honest ceiling is a $75 branded vertical mount and its floor is $3.99, any listing three orders of magnitude above the floor is noise. Filter it out. The genuinely premium end is well-defined: Cooler Master keeps a company-hosted ARGB GPU Support Bracket product page, last refreshed 2026-06-13, and the Bailink '2026 Updated ARGB GPU Support Bracket' listing on Newegg, dated 2026-05-11, leans on 5V 3-pin addressable RGB, evidence the category has shifted from pure function toward aesthetics. Even the enthusiast press covering PC culture, from Polygon on down, now treats the lit-up brace as a build-photo staple. None of that changes the physics; a $4 stick and a $75 stick cancel the same torque.

Install It Right: 12 Steps to Zero Sag

The twelve steps

Fifteen minutes, twelve steps, one screwdriver. Each step has a reason attached, because 'the guide said so' is how people crack PCBs. Do them in order.

1. Confirm you actually have sag. Sight down the top edge of the card against the PCIe slot. If the far end droops more than a millimetre or two, proceed. If it is dead level and the card is light, you may not need a brace at all. Do not manufacture a problem to solve.
2. Power down fully and pull the plug. Shut down, switch off the PSU, and unplug the mains lead. Rationale: an ATX PSU keeps 5V standby power live on the board even when 'off'; you want the system truly dead before hands go inside.
3. Discharge and ground yourself. Hold the power button for ten seconds to bleed residual charge, then touch bare case metal or wear a strap. Rationale: static will not care that the brace is passive; you are working next to the GPU.
4. Measure the gap again, in situ. Confirm the floor-to-card distance from your worksheet against the real, installed card. Rationale: the number on the box is the range; the number under your card is the target, and they must overlap.
5. Choose the contact point. Identify a rigid part of the card's underside to push on, the backplate lip or the metal shroud edge, never a fan and never bare PCB. Rationale: pushing on a fan blocks airflow or destroys the fan; pushing on bare PCB is how you crack traces.
6. Test-fit the base at zero load. Stand the pillar where it will live and confirm the base sits flat and, if magnetic, actually grips. Rationale: a base that rocks or a magnet that will not hold on your floor tells you now, before the card's weight is on it.
7. Raise the height until it just kisses the card. Extend the pillar until it makes light contact with the chosen point, no more. Rationale: the brace's job is to remove the droop, not to lift the card. First contact is your zero.
8. Lift the sag out, do not jack the card up. Add only enough height to bring the far end level with the slot end. Stop when the droop is gone. Rationale: over-extending bows the card and slot the other way, trading one stress for a worse one.
9. Level and align. Check that the card is parallel to the slot, using the built-in spirit level if your brace has one or eyeballing it against the slot's top edge. Rationale: a card braced crooked is a card twisted in its connector.
10. Lock the adjustment. Tighten the thumbscrew or locknut hand-tight, then add a witness mark (a dab of paint or a pen line across the joint). Rationale: thermal cycling and vibration walk unlocked adjusters loose; the witness mark shows at a glance if it has moved.
11. Route the ARGB cable, or skip it. If your brace lights up, run the 5V 3-pin lead to a 5V addressable header, matching the keyed pin. If you have no such header, leave it unplugged. Rationale: a 5V plug on a 12V header cooks the LEDs, and no build ever failed for lack of glowing aluminium.
12. Power on and verify. Boot, confirm the display comes up, listen for any new fan rattle, and re-sight the card. Rationale: a POST plus a quiet fan plus a level card is the three-part confirmation that nothing shifted, shorted, or got blocked.

How much force is 'just enough'?

The whole install lives or dies on steps 7 and 8, so they earn a paragraph of their own. 'Just enough' force is the amount that brings the drooping end back level with the slot end, and not one turn more. A useful mental model: the brace is catching the card, not lifting it. If you can watch the far end rise as you extend the pillar, keep going until it stops drooping; the instant it sits level, lock it. If the card starts to tilt uphill or you feel the pillar taking real weight, you have gone too far and you are now stressing the slot in reverse. When in doubt, err toward slightly under-supported rather than over-jacked.

Why the order is not negotiable

The sequence is deliberate. Measuring before buying, and again in situ at step 4, stops you owning a brace that does not fit. Choosing the contact point before applying any load, step 5 before step 7, stops you discovering mid-lift that the only flat spot is a fan. Reseating comes before bracing, never after, because a brace fitted to a half-seated card just locks the fault in place. Skip a step or reorder it and the failure modes in the troubleshooting table are exactly what you will meet.

Verify Alignment and Thermal Load

The straightedge check

Alignment is verified by eye and by edge. Lay a straightedge, a steel rule or the flat of a long screwdriver, anything true, along the top of the card and compare it to the top of the PCIe slot. They should be parallel. Then sight along the connector: the gold fingers should sit square in the slot, not tilted. If the card now points slightly uphill at the far end, you jacked it too high in step 8; back the pillar off a hair. Level, not lifted, is the target.

The thermal sanity check

The one way a support brace can actively hurt you is by sitting in front of an intake fan. Prove it did not by comparing load temperatures to the baseline you captured in the prerequisites. Run a loop while you play or run a stress test:

$ nvidia-smi --query-gpu=timestamp,temperature.gpu,fan.speed,power.draw --format=csv -l 5
2026-08-21 14:02:11.001, 71, 62 %, 421.88 W
2026-08-21 14:02:16.002, 72, 64 %, 428.03 W
2026-08-21 14:02:21.003, 72, 63 %, 419.44 W

# Compare steady-state temp to your PRE-install load numbers. Within 1-2 C = the
# brace changed nothing thermally. A sudden 5-8 C jump = you are blocking a fan.

Windows users who would rather log to a file and read it later can do the same with one line and let it run through a full game session:

PS> nvidia-smi --query-gpu=temperature.gpu,clocks.gr --format=csv,noheader -l 10 > gpu-log.csv
# Play for 20 minutes, close it, open gpu-log.csv in a spreadsheet, eyeball the trend.

Expected results

A correctly fitted brace produces three observable outcomes: the card is visibly level, load temperatures are within a degree or two of the pre-install baseline, and there is no new noise. If you are curious how much thermal and clock headroom you actually have to play with once the mechanical side is sorted, our GPU overclocking walkthrough reads these same sensors under sustained load. The brace should be invisible in the numbers and obvious to the eye.

RGB, ARGB, and the 5V 3-Pin Question

5V 3-pin versus 12V 4-pin

The single most expensive mistake in this whole tutorial costs about eight dollars and a set of LEDs. There are two incompatible lighting standards and their connectors look deceptively similar. Addressable RGB (ARGB) runs at 5V on a 3-pin plug with one position blanked. Old-style RGB runs at 12V on a 4-pin plug. Put 12V through a 5V ARGB strip and you burn it out instantly. The 2026 Bailink brace and Cooler Master's ARGB unit are both 5V 3-pin devices; treat every lit brace as 5V unless its own box says otherwise.

5V ADDRESSABLE RGB  ->  3-pin, ~3.0 mm spacing, ONE position blanked (keyed)
   [ +5V ] [ DATA ] [ (blank) ] [ GND ]

12V RGB (the WRONG header for a brace)  ->  4-pin in a row
   [ 12V ] [ G ] [ R ] [ B ]

Rule of thumb: 3 pins with a gap = 5V ARGB.  4 pins in a row = 12V RGB.
Match the arrow on the plug to pin 1 (the +5V / 12V pin). Never cross the two.

Wiring it without frying it

Find the header labelled something like ADD_HEADER, ADDR_LED, GEN_RGB, or ARGB in the motherboard manual, the 3-pin one, 5V. Orient the connector so the arrow or triangle on the plug lines up with pin 1. Seat it fully. If your board only has a 12V 4-pin header and no 5V 3-pin, you cannot drive an ARGB brace from the board at all; use the small inline controller some braces ship with, powered from a spare SATA or USB lead, or leave the lighting off. Do not 'make it fit'.

Software sync

Once wired to the correct header, the brace's LEDs appear as an addressable device in your board's lighting suite: ASUS Aura Sync, MSI Mystic Light, Gigabyte RGB Fusion, ASRock Polychrome. The ASUS ROG Herculx is explicitly Aura Sync-aware, so it drops into an existing ASUS lighting profile without a second app. Set the device's LED count to match the brace if the software asks; too high a count leaves dead LEDs at the end of the chain, too low truncates the effect. This is cosmetic and entirely optional. The brace braces whether or not it glows.

Vertical Mounting as an Alternative

How vertical mounts kill sag outright

A support brace fights torque. A vertical mount removes it. By rotating the card ninety degrees so it stands on end behind the case's rear panel, GPU face toward the side window, the mount changes the direction of gravity relative to the card. Instead of cantilevering out horizontally with all its weight pulling down on the slot, the card hangs vertically, supported along its length by the mounting bracket. There is no lever arm to droop. This is the only approach that eliminates sag as a concept rather than counteracting it.

The riser-cable catch

Vertical mounting is not free. The card no longer plugs directly into the motherboard slot; it connects through a PCIe riser cable, and the riser has to match your platform's PCIe generation or you will drop link speed or lose stability. A PCIe 4.0 card wants a 4.0-rated riser; a 5.0 card wants a 5.0-rated riser, and those are genuinely harder to build well because of the signal integrity involved. We got into why the newest bus generations are so demanding on cabling and traces in our look at PCIe 6.0 motherboards; the short version is that the faster the bus, the less forgiving the riser. Buy the riser rated for your slot, not one generation down.

LIAN LI's multi-directional bracket

The branded end of this niche is well-populated. LIAN LI launched its Multi-Directional Vertical GPU Bracket in 2025, and Tech Critter reported a U.S. price of $74.99 on 2025-08-27. 'Multi-directional' means it can angle the card rather than forcing a single fixed vertical orientation, which helps with clearance against side panels and radiators. At roughly $75 it costs ten times what a magnetic pillar costs, and it solves a slightly different problem, presentation and sag together, while adding a riser you now have to trust. For most builds a $9 stick is the right answer; the vertical mount is for people who want the card shown off, not just held up.

Common Pitfalls (and Fixes)

Every one of these is something people actually do. Each has a one-line fix.

Mechanical mistakes

• Bracing against the fans or bare PCB. The soft, spinning, or fragile parts of a card are exactly the wrong contact points. Fix: push only on the rigid backplate lip or the metal shroud edge; if the only flat surface is over a fan, use a wider saddle-style brace that spans to solid metal.
• Jacking the card upward past level. More support is not better; over-extension bows the card and slot in the opposite direction. Fix: raise only until the droop disappears, then stop. Level is the goal, not lifted.
• Trusting a magnet on the wrong floor. Magnetic bases do nothing on aluminium, plastic, or tempered-glass case floors. Fix: confirm your floor is steel before buying magnetic; otherwise choose a shroud-standing pillar or a screw-down base.

Electrical and buying mistakes

• Crossing 5V and 12V RGB. A 5V 3-pin plug forced onto a 12V 4-pin header instantly kills the LEDs. Fix: match pin count and voltage, 3-pin with a gap goes to the 5V addressable header, full stop.
• Buying before measuring. A brace whose range does not include your gap is landfill. Fix: measure the card-to-floor distance first, then buy a range that brackets it; the 74-120 mm class fits most ATX builds.
• Chasing a mispriced listing. The $738.99 marketplace listing is not a premium tier, it is a data-entry error with a buy button. Fix: anchor your expectations to the real range, $3.99 to about $75, and ignore outliers in both directions.

The one everyone forgets

The brace does not stay put through a house move. Transporting a case knocks magnetic and unlocked pillars loose, and a brace lying flat inside the case can rattle against the card it was meant to protect. After any move, re-sight the card, confirm the witness mark from step 10 has not shifted, and re-level if needed. Two minutes of checking beats discovering a dislodged pillar wedged into a fan blade after a two-hour drive.

Troubleshooting Table

How to read this table

Symptom on the left, likely cause in the middle, fix on the right. Work top to bottom; the common causes sit near the top, and most of them trace back to a step you rushed rather than a faulty part.

The two that scare people

Two rows deserve a word beyond the fix. 'No display after fitting' almost never means the brace broke anything electrically, because a passive aluminium stick cannot short a PCIe lane. It means the card nudged out of the slot while you worked; power down, reseat until the retention clip clicks, and it comes back. 'Temperatures rose' is the other one people panic over; it is not the brace heating the card, it is the brace parked in front of an intake fan. Move it two centimetres and the numbers return to baseline.

When it is not the brace at all

Some symptoms predate the install and the brace just got the blame because it was the last thing you touched. Coil whine under load is normal GPU behaviour, not a brace fault. A card that already threw PCIe errors before you owned a brace has a seating or slot problem the brace will not fix. Rule the brace in or out by removing it for one boot; if the symptom persists with the brace gone, look elsewhere.

Advanced Tips

Put the brace where the lever is longest

Torque is force times distance, so the droop is worst at the far end of the card and the support does the most good there. If your card has a rigid contact point near its outer tip, brace there rather than in the middle; the same upward force cancels more sag the farther out it acts. On very long cards a single pillar near the end beats a pillar in the middle every time. This is also why the mid-card kickstand some coolers include helps less than a proper end brace; it is fighting the lever at its weakest point.

Backplate pads, open benches, and precision threads

A few situational upgrades earn their keep. Braces with a thermal pad on the contact saddle let the backplate shed a trickle of heat into the brace; it is marginal, but free if the brace has it. On an open test bench there is no case floor and no side panel to worry about, so a freestanding pillar or a weighted base is the move, not a magnet. And for tight tolerances, a card fitted behind tempered glass with a millimetre of clearance, the fine-thread precision of something like the Acer bracket's 0.5 mm increments lets you dial in exactly level without the last turn of a coarse thread lifting the card too far.

Fix the I/O bracket screw first

Before you blame the slot, tighten the obvious anchor. The single screw holding the card's I/O bracket to the case is the card's other support point, and a loose or missing one lets the whole card pivot. Seat the card fully, tighten that screw properly, and only then fit the brace to take up whatever droop remains. Bracing a card that is not even screwed in at the back is treating the symptom while ignoring a bolt you can tighten with your fingers.

The Complete Working Setup

The reference configuration

Here is the whole thing as a single reference template. Fill in the placeholders from your own card and measurements; the fixed values are the ones the 2026 market data supports.

# staresback-gpu-brace.conf  --  reference template, Aug 2026
card               = [your GPU]            # record slot count, length, weight from the spec sheet
measured_gap_mm    = [card_bottom_to_stand]   # from STEP 4, the in-situ measurement
brace_type         = adjustable pillar, magnetic base, aluminium
brace_range_mm     = 74-120                # nkomax-class, PropelRC 2026, ~$8.99
contact_point      = backplate lip / metal shroud edge   # NEVER fans or bare PCB
support_height_mm  = measured_gap minus 0..1   # kiss the card, lift the sag out, do not jack up
level              = card parallel to PCIe slot (spirit level if available)
argb               = 5V 3-pin -> ADD_HEADER    # optional; skip entirely if no 5V header
lock               = thumbscrew hand-tight + witness mark
recheck            = every 6 months / after any transport
budget             = $3.99 (Uyubao) .. $8.99 (nkomax) .. $74.99 (LIAN LI vertical)
ignore             = the $738.99 listing

The final checklist

Run this before you close the case: the card is level against the slot; the brace contacts rigid metal, not a fan; the adjustment is locked and witness-marked; load temperatures match the pre-install baseline within a degree or two; any ARGB lead is on a 5V 3-pin header and nothing is glowing that plugs into 12V; and the I/O bracket screw is tight. Six checks, about a minute, and the $2,000 card is no longer hanging off a card-edge connector by faith alone.

When to skip the bracket entirely

Honesty to close: not every build needs one. A short, light, single- or dual-fan card in a horizontal slot with a properly tightened I/O screw may show no measurable sag at all, and adding a brace to it is decoration, not engineering. The brace earns its place under long, heavy, three- and four-slot coolers, the cards that made this a live 2026 accessory category in the first place. Measure, judge, and if there is genuinely no droop, keep your nine dollars. If there is droop, nine dollars is the cheapest insurance in the entire PC.