With distilled water, be aware, there’s a massive fakes Issue on places like Amazon where it’s just tap water. If you can, it’s probably best to get somewhere like Halfords or b&q if you’re able to.
I use this one off amazon and vouch for it
https://amzn.eu/d/a7BxPDx
If any of what was said makes you feel “put off” you’re definitely not at a point where a custom system is a good idea. All that was highlighted are basic maintenance steps.
14700k is affected, all the way down to the 65w parts are confirmed affected which includes entry level i5’s, non-k parts as well, but even then Intel have said that the BIOS update has to be applied to ANY 13th and 14th Gen CPU's as they can't be certain if other parts are affected...
I’m not familiar with control center on that model related to battery management, may be worth giving PCS a quick call to run it past them, they’re open now.
There are some 3rd party options if control center doesn’t offer that functionality...
BIOS has no effect on warranty unless you're overclocking (this is nothing to do with any overclocking).
Armoury Crate is pretty terrible, even though it's made by Asus themselves, it's known to conflict with iCue so you never want both installed at the same time.
Worth fully uninstalling Armoury Crate with the official uninstaller:
https://www.asus.com/supportonly/armoury%20crate/helpdesk_download/
You may need to disable it in the BIOS too otherwise it automatically reinstalls on boot
https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1043788/
Then we'll do some more...
Cool, just checking you had the AGESA 1.0.0.7c patch on your BIOS version which you do so that's fine.
And windows defender definitely the best AV on windows.
Have you updated the corsair firmware in iCue for all components?
Do you have Asus Armoury Crate installed?
Last of Us Part One is down to £25
The digital deluxe version is down to £30, normally on it's own the upgrade to the deluxe version from the standard is £30 on it's own. That gets you earlier access to some crafting abilities and quicker gun reload skills, quicker healing time and things like...
Branded laptops are very different to custom chassis in that they have licensing agreements with 3rd parties whereas custom chassis don't, so you'd either need to get one custom made, or search google for the chassis model number (which is on the label on the underside) along with "shell case"...
I'm a similar fanboy, love all their stuff, was a Crash fan back in the Playstation 1 days, Last Of Us and Uncharted I do think will go down in history in the top 20 games of all time.