Hold up, I gotta push back a little. I've had the exact opposite experience with ASUS laptops. Borrowed a friend's Vivobook once and the fan sounded like a jet engine taking off after 20 minutes of basic web browsing. That thing ran hot enough to cook an egg on. Plus the build quality felt kind of flimsy compared to my old Dell, like the screen hinge was already getting loose after a few months. And that bloatware argument cuts both ways - Dell's gotten way better about it lately, my last one came pretty clean out of the box. Your mileage may vary though, I know a lot of people swear by ASUS for the price point.

Yeah that 20 foot rule really opened my eyes too, it's wild how many problems come from the duct layout.

Wait, didn't Dave just vent about a different thing first though?

Doesn't surprise me one bit. Paper just works when everything else gets in the way.

Yeah, you're right about the untwisting thing @jamiew83. I've seen guys strip back way too much and leave like an inch of untwisted wire, then wonder why their run drops packets. On a 200 footer the pair twist is what keeps the signal clean. Pass-through plugs have their place for quick patches but I still grab standard ones for long runs.