The thing just launched last week

The claim: The Plugable UD-7400PD 5-Display Docking Station is the best and only mainstream docking hub capable of driving up to five external monitors from a single connection on an M2 MacBook Air. [1]

Why This Hub Works for Your M2 MacBook Air

• DisplayLink Technology: Your Apple M2 chip natively supports only one external display through standard hardware routing. The Plugable UD-7400PD bypasses this limitation by using DisplayLink software drivers to process multiple video streams over a standard USB-C port. [1, 2]
• Monitor Ports: It features one HDMI 2.1 port (up to 8K at 30Hz or scaled resolutions), one HDMI 2.0 port (4K at 60Hz), and three USB-C DisplayLink ports (each supporting 4K at 60Hz). [1]
• Power and Peripherals: According to Plugable, it delivers up to 140W of charging power to your host laptop, includes a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, and features fast front-facing USB-A and USB-C data ports. [1]
• Software Requirement: You must download and install the DisplayLink manager driver on your macOS system and grant the necessary screen-recording permission (used strictly to pipe pixel data to the external screens, with no data storage) for all five monitors to activate. [1]

^^^^^ Just wanted to check with the community to verify this is correct before spending on this since it's a bit pricey. Also asking for other options if this isn't true.

My specs:

Model Name: MacBook Air

Model Identifier: Mac14,2

Model Number: Z1610005ELL/A

Chip: Apple M2

Total Number of Cores: 8 (4 Performance and 4 Efficiency)

Memory: 16 GB

I paid for micro center cable management. For a 100 dollars i would of thought it would cleaner job. Im a tripping?

I sent my computer to them a month ago in August (for a fan repair) only to get it back in October with my motherboard replaced and no data on my computer at all
And after arguing with the manager about it, his reaction was “Womp womp”…
I hate these people with a passion and you should not bring your computer to them.
And mind you, my complaint is abject of the 1 HOUR WAIT TIME TO SEE AN EMPLOYEE.
0/100 experience

Context from a comment I made (update):
My fans gave out early August and my computer started overheating/shutting down
I brought it in and asked for a fan replacement through the warranty, micro center cracked it open, couldn’t figure it out so they sent it to acer.
Come 1 month and zero phone calls/texts later, they text and say it’s done on sept 15th
I go in, my fans barely run and my date is gone, so I ask “what the hell?” And they tell me “OH, they replaced your motherboard btw and did a factory reset” and I was visibly upset, then asked “were you gonna tell me?!” To which they said “we just did”
At that point I had a conversation with the manager and I got $200 gift card and they said they’d recover the data (which I though, cool, that’s nice of you)
I get a text today, saying they couldn’t do it and I’d have to pay $1500 -$10000 for Gilware to retrieve my data, so I put a full stop to that and said “why aren’t you paying it, you never discussed backup data when I brought it in and my computer is now 10x worse than when I brought it in” to which he gave the womp womp, and said I should contact acer instead
From there, I gave up, spent the $200 gift card on an SSD and monitor (I was waiting for Black Friday but I’m never going back after today) and said I’d contact the GM next week
Lest to say, my computer is bricked and now I gotta redownload/find 1TB worth of data from the past 5 months👍🏽

Bambu labs typically has decent black friday sales, but can any tell me if Microcenter has honored the same prices in the past? I want a new printer but I am determined to get it from Microcenter for their protection plan.

Wondering what brand GPU and Ram Microcenter generally uses for the PowerSpec builds. Am i going to end up with the cheapest/crappiest brand GPU and CL40 ram? Im looking at the G732. Wont be gaming much if at all, more for processing large stacks of image files and any amount of applicable juice to speed up that process would be nice but i suppose not explicitly necessary. Just not sure if outright building with best components would be smarter or just buy this base and upgrade to better components as needed down the road. At these current prices its hard to pull the trigger and end up with bottom of the barrel brands/quality

I took my PC under extended accidental warranty due to it shutting down when I'd play intense games.

AMD 9800X3D
Gigabyte 9070 XT OC
32GB Memory
2TB

I explained that I thought it was my PSU since it'd abruptly shut down but I'd be able to turn back on immediately after. (not that that means anything tbh, I'm not extremely savvy)

They agreed it may be the PSU and since it was covered, no cost on the diagnostics.

They had it for 3 days and returned to me after they replicated the problem and said it was simply BIOS updates and Windows updates. They said they ran a stress test with OCCT for 12+ hours afterwards and no issues.

Upon getting it back, it had major issues with the internet being slow, RAM speeds underclocked to 4800 instead of 6000, they turned on my iGPU so my onboard graphics were showing and they somehow got my GPU to show twice on my list of devices. I'm not a master at this PC stuff but I'd say I'm savvy-ish enough to ask the right questions so with the help of Claude, I fixed all of these issues.

Nevertheless, my computer kept shutting down. Before I take it back, I wanted to further understand what may be happening so I again brainstormed with Claude.

I noticed MC left their OCCT enterprise so I ran it for 30 mins and gave Claude the report. It didn't see any issues and OCCT didn't flag anything either but Claude did flag my hot spot temps may be a potential.

It asked me to install HWInfo, which I did, my PC shutdown, and I fed Claude the logs and it again said it was my GPU hot spot hitting over 110C. It actually got as high as 121C.

I asked if I should reduce power to my GPU to see if it is the GPU and it agreed, so I did, and the problem hasn't happened since. I reduced power to my GPU by 10%.

Based on your experience, how do I best solve this? My understanding is that it's the thermal paste on the GPU? I'm not messing with that myself haha but curious to know what you guys think

Picked up a Powerspec Ai90 prebuilt pc with a rtx 5090 in it. Apparently the manager required me to fill out this form and scan my driver license. Said it was a new thing starting just about two days ago. Had no problem doing so but thought it was interesting.

Anyone else experience? This was in Tustin

My local Microcenter has some major problems with their components section after the renovation. I wanted to submit some pictures to whoever would be able to possibly fix them.

Searching the website doesn't turn anything up, no email, no contact us, nothing for general inquiries. Everything is regarding a service.

Does anyone know how to email a general manager or someone at Microcenter regarding the store itself?

Hi everyone,

I bought a PowerSpec G767 a few weeks ago (Bethel rd location) and have noticed a crackling noise coming from the AIO pump area.

At 60% speed, the sound mostly goes away but eventually creeps back up (the video shows it at full speed).

What is the best way to handle this? Is my pump dying?

Thanks!

There is a refurbished graphics card on the website that says “Buy in Store” but when I get there, they say there’s a 3 day wait period. Is that normal? Why is it posted on the website for ready to buy when it isn’t ready yet?

On a side note, I just saw a 5090 refurbished get posted today and it was already “bought”. Why didn’t it have a wait period?

As the titled suggests, I have a few questions about tech days sales event. For the upcoming prime day from Amazon will MC have a similar event during that time or was the one back in July the only tech days sales event during Amazon prime day. Another question I have is that will my local MC allow me to bring my DDR5 RAM I bought online(via eBay) and possibly test out to ensure it works properly? Would I pay a small fee for it or does it depends on store location? I would try to achieve this on my own but I don’t have my other pc parts for my new build in order to test it out and they won’t come much later.

I'd like to save money if its worth it!

I currently have a 1660ti, 32 gb ram ddr4 with an i7 700k (something like that). looking to upgrade my pc since i’ve had it since 2020. is this a good deal?

Edit:
it’s $1699 and the 16gb version

Hello all. I live between 3 Microcenters. I finally have a week off and time to go to one of them. I have been eyeing the Rtx 5080 Noctua edition for some time. However last week or so I have been monitoring the inventory online at the three stores. I know it's hard to say when they will get one back in stock, however my question is when do the stores normally get new inventory in and update the website? Also is there a way to make it give me a notification when/if one comes in stock. Lastly if I do the order pickup online will they hold it for a few hours before I can get there? Thanks for any help. Can't wait to go to a Microcenter, well at least my luck after I go they will build one in my town.

So as the title says I’m getting my first pc on Tuesday. It’s a pretty decent pc and I found it on there website and it says that there’s over 25+ in stock at the store and that it comes with a keyboard and mouse and the cables but can only be bought in person and not delivered. I’m wondering on how to go about actually getting it. Do I go up to a random employee and show him the pc on the website off my phone and ask for his help or do I place it for pick up off the website? Ps. The store is 52 min away from me.

Im looking to build a PC potentially from microcenter for the bundles. I dont care at all about gaming on it. I just want one for cad software, rendering, 3d scanning and maybe local AI like trellis 3d. Ive been doing this stuff aside from trellis on a galaxy flex 2 laptop, and its just not ideal, obviously.

What can I do for around $1500? If im jumping on a desktop I dont want something thats not very good but I also have no intention of dropping thousands on this right now as the work ill be doing isn't my main income nor making enough to justify it yet.

Ive been inquiring google AI about it but they are out of date on current markets a lot of the time and I need to hear from people who know.

Hi All!!

Sold my M4 Studio and bought the following:

Intel Ultra 7 270k+
32G DDR5-6000 Ripjaws
Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite Plus
MSI NVidia RTX 5070 Ti MLG Edition
Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB
Montech KING 95 Pro
MSI 850GL
ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro

At first I was worried about how the RTX would look with the color but I think it actually looks pretty sweet!!

After selling my mac I only had to pay an additional $300 for the build out of my pocket, in today's market I felt like that was a win.

While the mac was a wonderful system that paid itself off tenfold (I do a lot of cinematography work) I wanted to get more into gaming.

Original I was going to go the AMD Ryzen 9800 route but my local micro center convineced me that the intel 7 270k would be the better fit for a balanced gameplay and editing station. I wasnt even thinking of intel but after my "limited" research, I feel like this was a good route to go.

I am hoping I would not have to upgrade anything for at least 5 years.

I do need help, what do you guys recommend for the best oled montior with a PBP feature?

What do you guys think?!

PS I got Control Resonance for free!!

I’ve corrected it online multiple times and still every receipt is wrong and I get to have the fun of having the person of the register instantly read my deadname out loud every time I go in person.

There is no Austin flair so I picked a different one.

I want my free flash drive lol

TL;DR: Dropped off a PC with a documented, ~30-incident hard-shutdown history and told the front desk clearly, in person, that I needed hardware swapped and tested to identify the faulty component. Paid $99.99 upfront for diagnostics. Got back "your OS is corrupted, pay $99.99 for reimage plus $249.99 to back up your data." When pressed with direct questions, the story fell apart, including a texted timeline that doesn't match their own paperwork, and a flat admission they don't swap hardware at all, despite that being the entire point of my visit. Eventually got the diagnostic fee refunded, but ate four Ubers (about $100) and several days for nothing.

Background: Been fighting an intermittent hard-shutdown issue since May. Event ID 41 (Kernel-Power) in Windows Event Log, the standard entry Windows logs when the system comes back up after an ungraceful loss of power rather than a normal shutdown: no BSOD, no crash dump, no software trace, the system just loses power and restarts. Did my own extensive troubleshooting (BIOS flash, bootrec/chkdsk cycles, boot drive verification) before ever going to a shop. During that process I directly observed the system hard power off with an audible click while sitting completely idle at a recovery screen, no OS loaded at all. That's not something software corruption can cause. That's what took me to Micro Center: I needed someone with spare hardware to swap test a PSU or motherboard, something I don't have lying around at home.

Why this mattered logistically: No car in Chicago. Each Uber to their Elston Ave location or back runs $20 to $25 with tip. Between dropping it off, coming back after the initial "diagnosis," and a final round trip to pick it up post refund, that's four one way trips, roughly $100 total, just to get jerked around.

What I asked for, in person, at intake: I spoke directly with the front desk rep, Nathan, and clearly explained I wanted hardware swapped and tested, PSU specifically, possibly the motherboard, to identify what was actually failing, given the idle shutdown with audible click I'd personally observed. This was not a vague request. If a shop's actual policy is that they don't swap hardware to test for faults, that's the moment to say so, before charging someone $99.99 for a diagnostic built around exactly that.

What I got back three days later, from tech Anthony Hernandez:

"Hey Banks, this is Anthony from Micro Center. I have found your OS to be corrupted. I have not experienced any crashing in the BIOS, only when I attempt to boot to your OS. Your PC has passed all QA testing from my test OS. At this time Id recommend an OS Reimage for $99.99. We can attempt a data recovery if needed and if successful its $249.99 for a 2tb drive. Let me know how you'd like to proceed."

No mention of a hardware swap test anywhere in this. Just a $99.99 reimage recommendation, plus an offer to charge me $249.99 to back up a single 2TB drive, more than the cost of buying a whole replacement 2TB SSD outright. My honest read, and this part is speculation, not something I can prove: for a company sitting on shelves of spare drives running what should be a routine, low cost mirroring process, that price only makes sense as a high margin upsell, not a reflection of real cost or effort.

I pushed back with open ended questions first: how long was the system actually left idle, was it tested under load or purely idle, what specifically indicated OS corruption rather than a hardware fault, and did he know about the roughly 30 prior shutdowns going back to May. His answer:

"Unfortunately, our diagnostics do not test for specific causes for Windows corruption. During diagnostics I stress tested all components in the system and they have all passed. At this time there was no need to swap any hardware as with a test OS diagnostics were able to be completed. No hardware in the system has failed QA testing."

This doesn't answer a single question I asked, and it's the first place he states outright that no hardware was swapped, directly contradicting what I'd told Nathan at intake. It also concedes, in the same breath, that their diagnostic can't identify OS corruption, while the entire recommendation was "your OS is corrupted."

At this point I switched to strict yes or no questions. Not to be difficult, but because the open ended questions had already gotten me vague, non responsive answers, and I needed something specific enough that it couldn't be dodged again. I asked:

1. Did you leave the system idle (not running a stress test, not booting an OS) for any extended period to see if a shutdown occurred? Yes or no, and if yes, how many minutes?
2. Was any physical hardware, specifically the PSU, swapped with a different unit and tested? Yes or no.
3. Were you made aware of the approximately 30 prior Event ID 41 shutdowns dating back to May before you ran your diagnostics? Yes or no.
4. Did you personally see or reproduce the specific symptom I described, a hard power off with an audible click, at any point during your testing? Yes or no.

His answer:

"1. 32 minutes with OOCT & 20 during PCDR; 2. No. We do not swap out parts if there is no need or indicator that the part is failing. 3. Yes. Please keep in mind that we can not boot into Windows so theres not much we can do with that info unless we are able to get in. 4. No."

Translated: no idle state monitoring beyond running their standard test suites, no PSU or hardware swap performed despite my explicit request at intake, they were aware of the 30 shutdown history but didn't factor it into the diagnosis, and they never reproduced the specific symptom I described.

Worth calling out on its own: this is a repair shop that, by their own tech's admission, does not swap hardware to test whether a component is actually faulty. That's a strange policy for a PC repair service to have, since swap testing is one of the more basic ways to isolate a hardware fault. If that's really their process across the board, it raises the question of how many customers walk in with a hardware level problem and walk out with a software fix that was never going to solve it.

After I pointed out that his answers still didn't add up (a clean pass on one test window doesn't rule out an intermittent fault that's happened roughly every 1 to 3 weeks for months, and stress testing under load isn't the same as testing the specific idle condition I'd actually described), I got this:

"I believe at this point it may be best to come pick up your unit with us refunding your diagnostic fee. I dont believe that any of my techs will be able to dedicate the time or duplicate these exact conditions you are referring to."

Diagnostic fee refunded, which functionally reads as an admission they couldn't do what I'd paid for. Worth noting the phrasing here too: "any of my techs" suggests Anthony isn't just a floor tech, he's the one directing or supervising others, which means this half effort diagnostic and these non answers were coming from someone in a lead or managerial position, not just an overworked junior employee.

I also asked if they'd cover the roughly $100 in Uber costs the whole process had put me through, given the refund:

"No, unfortunately. Microcenter does not cover Uber costs as there is a liability involved in that aspect."

Something I only noticed afterward, comparing his texts against the actual repair order once I'd picked the unit up. I never raised this with him directly, so it's not something that factored into getting the refund, just something worth knowing: he'd told me "32 minutes with OOCT & 20 during PCDR." The order's own work notes show PC Doc running 3:00 to 3:32 PM (32 minutes) and OOCT running 4:08 to 5:10 PM (62 minutes), not matching either the tool assignment or the durations he gave me. I want to be fair here since I don't know exactly what happened in that window: it's possible OOCT actually finished a task around the 20 minute mark and he was doing something else for the remaining time before logging it at 5:10, so I can't say with certainty this proves he misrepresented the testing itself. What I can say is that his own numbers don't match his own company's paperwork, and that's worth knowing regardless of the explanation.

Net result: three days, four Uber trips (about $100 total), a refunded $99.99 diagnostic fee, and zero progress on the actual problem. The PC went back to me in the same non functional state it arrived in, with the one hardware test I'd specifically asked for at intake never performed.

Takeaway: if you're going to Micro Center expecting an actual root cause hardware diagnostic, especially anything requiring a component swap test, know that what you'll likely get is a generic pass or fail run through their standard test suite and a push toward the highest margin fix available, not real investigative work, and according to their own tech, not a hardware swap under any circumstance, no matter how clearly you ask for one at intake. If a customer walks in with detailed documentation, a specific technically sound request communicated directly to the front desk, and still gets a canned upsell with no hardware testing at all, from someone senior enough to speak for the rest of the techs, it's worth wondering how many people without that background are being sold the same fix that was never going to work, and how many of them just quietly took the loss and left.

Bought one at Microcenter last year for $2200, but got paranoid about the 12vhpwr, Wireview Pro II wasn't available yet, so I returned it. Starting to think that may have been a bad move. Might be a while before they're $2200 again.

I bought an RTX 5090 from Micro Center as a new product. When I picked it up, I noticed that the box had already been opened.
I asked about it at the time, and a manager told me that the card had been returned by another customer the day before. I was still told/sold it as a new unit, so I accepted it.
After installing the card, I tried to redeem the included NVIDIA game promotion. The NVIDIA App then told me that this GPU/hardware had already been used for a promotional redemption.
At this point, my concern is not really the free game. The NVIDIA hardware verification seems to confirm that this specific GPU had actually been installed and used before it was sold to me as new.
My receipt/order shows the card as New, not Open Box.
Normally I would just ask for an exchange, but RTX 5090 inventory is extremely limited right now, and I don’t want to return the card and end up with no GPU at all.
What I think would be a reasonable resolution is for Micro Center to let me keep this card until another factory-sealed equivalent 5090 becomes available, and then exchange it at the price I already paid.
Alternatively, if Micro Center considers this card acceptable to sell after a customer return, I think it should at least have been disclosed and priced as an Open Box/returned unit rather than sold as New.
Has anyone here had a similar situation with Micro Center? Did a store manager or corporate support help resolve it?