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Tech Whine Like a baby thread

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Aug 6, 2017#1

DarkAudit

More complainy than the Random Crap thread. Post your little frustrations here.

I have an 120 GB Intel 510 SSD i bought in 2011 as I was assembling this PC. I paid ~$320 for it. Today I went down the components aisle at my local Best Buy. A 120GB SanDisk SSD was under $60. Even a 240GB was under $80. :cry:

Aug 6, 2017#2

PatrThom

Don't ever buy any technology because you expect it is going to go up in value.
I bought my 512 SSD in 2015 for just under $200 ($187.92).
...huh, they're going for $229 now.

...yay?

--Patrick

Aug 8, 2017#3

Squidleybits

I try not to look at flyers and sales after I buy a big ticket item because it can be pretty depressing. Back when I got my good camera, I went to Future Shop and I negotiated a deal on it from the guy we had just bought all of our appliances from and I still haven't seen it on sale for that good of a price all these years later. That's the only thing though. Everything else drops like the next day. The next hour maybe

Aug 11, 2017#4

DarkAudit

I took that first surplus optiplex and installed Gentoo with full disk incryption as a "because I can" exercise. Now all I'm doing with it is compiling Chromium updates every other day.

Aug 15, 2017#5

fade

In my experience, Gentoo isn't worth the compile time. Unless you took the time to craft the compile flags for your machine instead of just straight up using "emerge" with no flags, then it's exactly equivalent to an x86 RPM anyway. Except you have to wait for the build.

Aug 15, 2017#6

Eriol

fade said:
In my experience, Gentoo isn't worth the compile time. Unless you took the time to craft the compile flags for your machine instead of just straight up using "emerge" with no flags, then it's exactly equivalent to an x86 RPM anyway. Except you have to wait for the build.

I'm surprised they don't try and detect your processor and change the build flags appropriately. You'd think that wouldn't be THAT hard. An absolute BITCH to test, but possible I'd think.

Aug 15, 2017#7

DarkAudit

Eriol said:
I'm surprised they don't try and detect your processor and change the build flags appropriately. You'd think that wouldn't be THAT hard. An absolute BITCH to test, but possible I'd think.

That's what things like march=native are for. There's also a tool to detect what use flags your particular processor uses. I found that one when I wanted to build Plasma and emerge complained to no end about what wasn't set right.

And then once I decided Plasma sucked, I ditched it, cleaned out the debris it left behind, and installed XFCE instead.

Aug 15, 2017#8

fade

Yeah, but the other thing is that the efficiency of most of those core packages even with the processor-specific flags on is not really going to be significant compared to a release (O2) build anyway.

I mean, it's a fun exercise. But I wouldn't do it more than once.

Aug 15, 2017#9

DarkAudit

fade said:
Yeah, but the other thing is that the efficiency of most of those core packages even with the processor-specific flags on is not really going to be significant compared to a release (O2) build anyway.

I mean, it's a fun exercise. But I wouldn't do it more than once.

That's all that box is right now, an exercise in "because I can." It's not even the tertiary PC in the house. I've got the 2500K box in the bedroom as the "main," this hackintosh in the living room (mainly for movies on the TV and to keep the cats company during the day,) and my laptop. All come before the Gentoo box.

And that doesn't count the PC I built for mom. Since chances of her overcoming home are practically nil, it's going to languish unused from here on out. And finally the i3 from the last surplus Optiplex I bought for it's PSU. that CPU needs somewhere to go. Although the i7 in the hackintosh would get first pick of any motherboard I managed to scrounge up.

Aug 23, 2017#10

figmentPez

I wish there were a way to tell my phone "your battery is old, 15% is the new zero."

Aug 23, 2017#11

strawman

figmentPez said:
I wish there were a way to tell my phone "your battery is old, 15% is the new zero."

Android, I presume?

Aug 23, 2017#12

figmentPez

stienman said:
Android, I presume?

Yes.

Aug 23, 2017#13

PatrThom

You can run them out slowly over and over and it will get better at estimating, but this takes time and patience.

--Patrick

Aug 23, 2017#14

strawman

PatrThom said:
You can run them out slowly over and over and it will get better at estimating, but this takes time and patience.

--Patrick

That works for iOS, but I haven't seen android do a good job of it.

Aug 23, 2017#15

figmentPez

stienman said:
That works for iOS, but I haven't seen android do a good job of it.

My version of Android certainly doesn't take history into account beyond the usage since last full charge.

Aug 23, 2017#16

PatrThom

stienman said:
That works for iOS, but I haven't seen android do a good job of it.

Yeah, well saving a voicemail in iOS is trivially easy, too.
I figured the success of this method was a function of battery chemistry (equalizing the cells, maybe?), not the OS.

--Patrick

Aug 23, 2017#17

strawman

PatrThom said:
Yeah, well saving a voicemail in iOS is trivially easy, too.
I figured the success of this method was a function of battery chemistry (equalizing the cells, maybe?), not the OS.

--Patrick

Apple has a really, really good battery algorithm. They've clearly put significant engineering into it, and it Just Works. However, as you suggest, it has a lot to do with the specific exact hardware, including the battery, charging circuitry, and power conversion circuitry. Buy a dodgy replacement battery and you may find your phone's power bar inaccurate. One of the many reasons Apple doesn't make it easy to replace the battery - and the main reason you rarely have to replace the battery.

Android requires the hardware manufacturers to provide drivers to deal with the hardware differences, and the hardware manufacturers simply follow industry practices. It's good enough, but there's a lot more they could do and don't, and since it's a close integration with the hardware google can only make recommendations, they can't write everyone else's drivers.

I expect the google designed devices to be better about this, but I don't know.

Aug 24, 2017#18

Dei

I guess that must be a recent thing, because the main reason I switched away from Apple is because I always got terrible batteries.

Aug 24, 2017#19

strawman

Dei said:
I guess that must be a recent thing, because the main reason I switched away from Apple is because I always got terrible batteries.

I'm sure usage patterns play into this. I charge my phone every night whether it needs it or not, and my iPhone 3GS I got and used years ago is still going strong on its original battery. Same with the iPads, MacBook, and the various other iPhones I've used through the years. Only rarely do I allow them to go below 50% charge when I'm their primary user.

My wife charges her phone intermittently and only when it needs it, and rarely gives it a full charge - always just enough to keep it going. I've had to replace her batteries occasionally.

Lithium prefers staying charged, so if your phone spends a lot of its life below 50% then it's unlikely that you'll get your full life (800+ charge cycles) out of your battery. If you routinely hit 10-20% then you should simply plan on replacing your battery yearly - and this goes for both iPhone and android.

That said, this is anecdotal and I know people who've kept their phones charged just as I have and still need replacements. Other patterns of usage must be at play here.

As it is my iPhone 6+ is three years old, lasts me all day, and I still rarely go below 50%.

So while we tease @GasBandit about his fear of low battery, my guess is he gets great battery life and rarely replaces his battery before he replaces his phone.

Aug 24, 2017#20

PatrThom

Word is, if you want the absolute maximum lifespan from your lithium rechargeable battery, you keep it between 20%-80% for its entire life. This is what satellites/probes/etc are designed to do, since changing their batteries is impractical or downright impossible, so lifespan is prioritized over runtime.

--Patrick

Aug 24, 2017#21

strawman

PatrThom said:
Word is, if you want the absolute maximum lifespan from your lithium rechargeable battery, you keep it between 20%-80% for its entire life. This is what satellites/probes/etc are designed to do, since changing their batteries is impractical or downright impossible, so lifespan is prioritized over runtime.

--Patrick

Yes, and in fact Apple devices will report fully charged before the actual battery maximum capacity is actually reached. They'll continue to charge but much more slowly to reduce heat damage, and because it's only another 5-10% anyway.

Up until that point they do the fastest bulk charge the charger permits (up to 2.1A on current iOS devices) because that's what the consumer wants.

In theory charging with a slower charger will increase battery life. Fast bulk charging isn't particularly destructive, and o don't know that the difference is significant enough to care about, but my understanding is that it does make a difference.

I use a 2.1A charger in all cases, though, and if the iPhone 8 has the option of faster charging I'll probably use it, I don't think the difference is big enough to give up fast charging.

Aug 24, 2017#22

PatrThom

stienman said:
if the iPhone 8 has the option of faster charging I'll probably use it, I don't think the difference is big enough to give up fast charging.

...this is only relevant if you have an iPhone 8 WHAT ARE YOU HIDING.

--Patrick

Aug 24, 2017#23

strawman

Haha, I wish. My phone is hitting the three year mark, so I'm probably going to upgrade this year.

The rumors of a $1,200 price tag, though... oof.

Maybe I should put that towards a sawstop instead, it'd be like a gift of the magi otherwise. I may be able to afford the phone, but without fingers it's useless...

Aug 24, 2017#24

PatrThom

I feel ya. I'm still on my 5, waiting to see what happens since even though there are rumors galore, Cupertino is still maintaining radio silence.

--Patrick

Aug 24, 2017#25

strawman

Aug 30, 2017#26

Gared

Windows decided it absolutely had to update Sunday night, so it rebooted my computer. Since then, Chrome has decided that all of my most frequently visited sites thumbnails need to be reset to sites I haven't visited regularly in months. Why did you get rid of the option to pin thumbnails to the start page, you fuckers?!

Aug 31, 2017#27

Dei

Last night my computer rebooted itself saying there was a surge in the power supply. It started back up again fine and since it was late I said I would look at it in the morning. Can't even get it to turn on now. I haven't had this computer for a year yet so I'm pretty annoyed.

Aug 31, 2017#28

PatrThom

...how would it know there was a surge in the PSU? Computers usually can't tell that sort of thing (unless you're using one of those fancy-schmancy "smart" power supplies).

--Patrick

Aug 31, 2017#29

Dei

PatrThom said:
...how would it know there was a surge in the PSU? Computers usually can't tell that sort of thing (unless you're using one of those fancy-schmancy "smart" power supplies).

--Patrick

Aug 31, 2017#30

strawman

Interesting! I hadn't heard of this feature Asus is adding to their boards. A quick google suggests that it may not be very helpful, and a lot of people simply turn surge detection/protection off.

That said, a new power supply is cheap so it's probably worth replacing it just in case.

Aug 31, 2017#31

Dei

stienman said:
Interesting! I hadn't heard of this feature Asus is adding to their boards. A quick google suggests that it may not be very helpful, and a lot of people simply turn surge detection/protection off.

That said, a new power supply is cheap so it's probably worth replacing it just in case.

Well, when my husband gets home from work tonight we're going to swap his power supply into my PC to see if it boots. Clearly something is wrong in there since 6 hours later the PC won't power on any more.

Aug 31, 2017#32

PatrThom

Hopefully this doesn't end up being the board's fault. Usually this means SOMEbody's caps are failing, but without inspection you wouldn't know if it was the board or the PSU. Or both.

--Patrick

Aug 31, 2017#33

Dei

PatrThom said:
Hopefully this doesn't end up being the board's fault. Usually this means SOMEbody's caps are failing, but without inspection you wouldn't know if it was the board or the PSU. Or both.

--Patrick

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Aug 31, 2017#34

Dei

So my power supply was dead as a doornail. For the lols we unplugged everything from it, then plugged things back in one at a time and flicked the power between each one and it just came back to life with no indication that anything was ever wrong. My husband is now having fits about this. He's leaving everything open until it either randomly dies again or he can bring home the power supply tester tomorrow.

Aug 31, 2017#35

PatrThom

Dei said:
So my power supply was dead as a doornail. For the lols we unplugged everything from it, then plugged things back in one at a time and flicked the power between each one and it just came back to life with no indication that anything was ever wrong. My husband is now having fits about this. He's leaving everything open until it either randomly dies again or he can bring home the power supply tester tomorrow.

Maybe you need to get one of these power supplies.

--Patrick

Sep 5, 2017#36

figmentPez

I sure am glad this isn't my TV... and I hope it doesn't become normal for this to happen in the future:

"New Remote Required" An update to the TV broke compatibility with the remote control it came with. WTF?

Sep 5, 2017#37

Bubble181

figmentPez said:
I sure am glad this isn't my TV... and I hope it doesn't become normal for this to happen in the future:

"New Remote Required" An update to the TV broke compatibility with the remote control it came with. WTF?

If you look further down, though, the TV still works perfectly as before in all ways that it used to work. It's only for some specific new options that you need the new remote....And they'll send it to you free of charge.

Sep 5, 2017#38

Eriol

Bubble181 said:
If you look further down, though, the TV still works perfectly as before in all ways that it used to work. It's only for some specific new options that you need the new remote....And they'll send it to you free of charge.

I'm OK with it because they'll send it to you free, but I agree that it's getting sketchy.

Sep 5, 2017#39

PatrThom

I'm still not happy with the idea of my TV needing updates in the first place.
Mainly, I'm not happy with the TV people putting another computer between my source and the TV and then using their computer to limit what I can do with my source.

--Patrick

Sep 21, 2017#40

jwhouk

Welp, because of that little igdkmd64.sys issue, I essentially had to reset Windows X to out-of-the-box (which it never was for me). That means a whole bunch of my programs got trashed because of course that's what Microsoft thinks you want to have happen. And, sadly, it meant that my copies of Office 2013 are now toast - and, oh, by the way, I also lost all of my e-mails since 2012.

Sep 21, 2017#41

drifter

Should have heeded the immortal words of Terius Gray and "Back that thang up."

Sep 21, 2017#42

bhamv3

I find it annoying to have to hunt down an up-to-date version of the audio codec every time MX Player updates on my phone.

Sep 21, 2017#43

jwhouk

drifter said:
Should have heeded the immortal words of Terius Gray and "Back that thang up."

That's just it - I thought I HAD BACKED it all up.

Sep 29, 2017#44

Gared

This really, truly is a whine... tomorrow I have to cancel a Comcast account. I tried over the phone already, but all I was able to do was get to customer retention to try to smooth sell me into keeping my Comcast service for an area where they don't provide service. I know better than to put up with that bullshit, so tomorrow I will take the equipment back to the local Comcast store and they will cancel my account. If they do not cancel my account, I imagine I'll join the legion of other customers forced to take to social media to shame them into acting like decent people.

Sep 29, 2017#45

PatrThom

See if you can't get them to sign something or put it on paper, too...in case they ever dispute exactly what day you canceled.

--Patrick

Sep 29, 2017#46

Gared

PatrThom said:
See if you can't get them to sign something or put it on paper, too...in case they ever dispute exactly what day you canceled.

--Patrick

The other reason for going in. They can't "the check is in the mail" you if you're standing in front of them requesting a print-out.

Sep 29, 2017#47

GasBandit

My dashcam stopped working. Pruveeo doesn't answer its support 800 number or its support e-mail.

:mad:

Well, I guess that's the risk you take when you buy a $35 dashcam.

Sep 29, 2017#48

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
My dashcam stopped working. Pruveeo doesn't answer its support 800 number or its support e-mail.

Well, I guess that's the risk you take when you buy a $35 dashcam.

Noooooooo you were probably over your cold now too ahhhhhhhhhh

--Patrick

Oct 1, 2017#49

Squidleybits

Did dude screw up my screen protector last night? It looks like there is something stuck under it in the middle of the picture there and a little chip out of it nearby.

Oct 1, 2017#50

Gared

Gared said:
The other reason for going in. They can't "the check is in the mail" you if you're standing in front of them requesting a print-out.

Aaaaand it didn't work. They had a long wait time at the office, seeing as how only one person was helping people and one person was taking peoples' names and putting them in the queue.

Oct 1, 2017#51

GasBandit

GasBandit said:
My dashcam stopped working. Pruveeo doesn't answer its support 800 number or its support e-mail.

Well, I guess that's the risk you take when you buy a $35 dashcam.

Their support finally answered their e-mail, and they're shipping me a replacement. That's good!

My UPS just died and I lost power in the middle of a stream. That's bad.

Oct 1, 2017#52

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Their support finally answered their e-mail, and they're shipping me a replacement. That's good!
My UPS just died and I lost power in the middle of a stream. That's bad.

Time for a new battery pack? Or are you going to upgrade the whole UPS to something PFC- and sine wave-compatible?

--Patrick

Oct 1, 2017#53

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Time for a new battery pack? Or are you going to upgrade the whole UPS to something PFC- and sine wave-compatible?

--Patrick

Getting a more powerful one, and not the cheapest Cyberpower piece-o-shit they have. Glad I have amazon prime now and shipping is free, batteries are heavy.

Oct 2, 2017#54

Gared

Have to replace my keyboard and mouse due to a serious water spill. This will be my family's 4th DeathAdder in a year.

- or -

¥Havcer to+9ui ererp
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Oct 4, 2017#55

DarkAudit

I installed Gentoo on the spare Optiplex as a "because I can" exercise. Now I'm at "why bother?" I haven't updated it in weeks, and because it's low on memory, the 4GB swap can't handle some updates without manually adding temporary swap space. And even then, a Chromium update can last up to 12 hours.

It's just... there. Not doing anything the other systems aren't doing better. A different distro wouldn't make much of a difference.

Oct 4, 2017#56

PatrThom

What are you doing that 8GB is not enough??? (assuming 4GB RAM + 4GB swap).

--Patrick

Oct 4, 2017#57

strawman

PatrThom said:
What are you doing that 8GB is not enough??? (assuming 4GB RAM + 4GB swap).

--Patrick

The problem isn't "what can't it do" the problem is "it has no purpose, and updating it is pointless, and given updates are painful, why bother?"

I expect if he had a need for the machine (maybe start playing around with firewalls, proxies, or servers) then he'd configure the OS differently to match the machine's capabilities and his needs.

But he has no needs for this machine to fulfill. It's just there, eating power and, occasionally, time.

Oct 4, 2017#58

PatrThom

Yeah it's an Optiplex, so it's not like he could even mine with it.

--Patrick

Oct 4, 2017#59

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Yeah it's an Optiplex, so it's not like he could even mine with it.

--Patrick

A SFF Optiplex at that, so mining is definitely out.

The Chromium compile likes to eat all the available RAM and swap space, then demand more.

Oct 7, 2017#60

DarkAudit

So upgrading my phone broke the mobile banking app. Trying to enroll the device gave a "device id not found" error. When tech support had me delete the app and then try to log in to the web site, I tried the security question option because the phone numbers for the one-time code were outdated. No security questions were available.

And the people who would take care of correcting the old phone numbers are out of the office until TUESDAY because of the holiday. So the only way of checking my balance is the old fashioned way of actually going to the bank and using the ATM.

Oct 7, 2017#61

PatrThom

Upgrading to a new phone will also really mess up some kinds of OTP or password apps you might have installed, too. Many of them require the old phone do something to release/unenroll the account/app/device before it can be moved to a new phone, and many people don't keep their contact info up to date, meaning they also don't have a second way in to reset their access.

--Patrick

Oct 7, 2017#62

Ravenpoe

Gared said:
Have to replace my keyboard and mouse due to a serious water spill. This will be my family's 4th DeathAdder in a year.

- or -

¥Havcer to+9ui ererp
3jklacver m,.*y]6 l
3jkery]6buio+9aerdf a-ndf m,.*uio+9ser fduio+9er t+9uio a serr9uio+s waterr spio+9ul
3jkjkl.h
3m,.* T¥uio+9s wo+9uijkl
3l
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Man, don't buy razor peripherals. They're overpriced and shit quality when it comes to durability.

Oct 7, 2017#63

Gared

Ravenpoe said:
Man, don't buy razor peripherals. They're overpriced and shit quality when it comes to durability.

They're the only comfortable mouse I've found, and I really can't blame them for bong water getting into the bottom of the mouse.

Oct 10, 2017#64

fade

stienman said:
The problem isn't "what can't it do" the problem is "it has no purpose, and updating it is pointless, and given updates are painful, why bother?"

I expect if he had a need for the machine (maybe start playing around with firewalls, proxies, or servers) then he'd configure the OS differently to match the machine's capabilities and his needs.

But he has no needs for this machine to fulfill. It's just there, eating power and, occasionally, time.

Yeah, I picked up some old Dells from work for free. Played with them for a while and realized I had no use for them whatsoever. So I installed Linux Mint and gave them to Goodwill's computer donations (they have a separate, special storefront for PC donations here in houston).

Oct 10, 2017#65

drawn_inward

Our Roku is acting glitchier every day. Apps crash, the unit crashes, apps are sluggish, etc. I think it's time for an upgrade or platform change. I am think the Fire is a nice option. I'd like to make an HTPC, but I don't have the cash or the time right now. I also want to set up a media server, but I need to invest some $ for that too.

Oct 10, 2017#66

Tinwhistler

Weird. I've only ever had like 3 crashes on my rokus. I have 4 in the house. 3 of them are Roku 3's, and one of them is a Roku 4.

That said, I mostly use it for Plex, and I use handbrake to convert my video files into roku-friendly formats.

Oct 11, 2017#67

GasBandit

You should not be allowed to put "PC Input!" in big bold letters on the outside of a TV's box if the only inputs the TV actually has are HDMI :mad:

Guess I'll shell out 8 bucks for a converter. Can't be arsed to haul the damn thing back to the store after I got it unpacked and everything.

I'm really making good use of the free shipping from Amazon Prime this year...

Oct 11, 2017#68

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
You should not be allowed to put "PC Input!" in big bold letters on the outside of a TV's box if the only inputs the TV actually has are HDMI
Guess I'll shell out 8 bucks for a converter. Can't be arsed to haul the damn thing back to the store after I got it unpacked and everything.
I'm really making good use of the free shipping from Amazon Prime this year...

At least you should be able to get by with just a passive converter, assuming your PC has either DVI or DisplayPort.

--Patrick

Oct 11, 2017#69

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
At least you should be able to get by with just a passive converter, assuming your PC has either DVI or DisplayPort.

--Patrick

Nope. VGA. But a converter is only 8 bucks off amazon.

Oct 12, 2017#70

drawn_inward

Tinwhistler said:
Weird. I've only ever had like 3 crashes on my rokus. I have 4 in the house. 3 of them are Roku 3's, and one of them is a Roku 4.

That said, I mostly use it for Plex, and I use handbrake to convert my video files into roku-friendly formats.

It's a Roku 2. It has been fairly reliable (since 2012ish) until about 6 months ago. Not bad I guess. I don't think I will get another one though. Unless I find a great deal.

Oct 13, 2017#71

GasBandit

I'm a goddamn idjit. I bought an HDMI to VGA converter, when I needed a VGA to HDMI converter. /headdesk.

Oct 13, 2017#72

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I'm a goddamn idjit. I bought an HDMI to VGA converter, when I needed a VGA to HDMI converter. /headdesk.

I even asked!
Also I find it extremely hard to believe you are using a 1060 that doesn't have DP/HDMI out...unless you are using a separate computer for the TV?

--Patrick

Oct 13, 2017#73

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
I even asked!
Also I find it extremely hard to believe you are using a 1060 that doesn't have DP/HDMI out...unless you are using a separate computer for the TV?

--Patrick

Yeah, my media PC is an older, smaller box.

Oct 14, 2017#74

GasBandit

ARGH

One of my external hard drives just died. Just lost over a TB of porn >_<

Oct 14, 2017#75

GasBandit

Well, the good news is most of it was included in a backup I made 4 months ago to another drive (that I then unplugged and put away in a cabinet). So I guess it could be worse. And I guess if I can't tell what's missing, that means it wasn't all that important, right?

Oct 14, 2017#76

PatrThom

How much of it did you have backed up in the NSFW forum?

—Patrick

Oct 14, 2017#77

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
How much of it did you have backed up in the NSFW forum?

—Patrick

Heh, none. I should also say porn wasn't the ONLY thing on that drive. There were also personal files going back more than 25 years. Thank goodness those were in the backup as well. Basically, I would only lost some things I've gotten in since June... and as I don't really remember getting anything worth backing up in that time period. At least not that would have been stored on that drive - TV shows, movies, etc were on a different drive. I've made sure to update that backup as well, now. Just in case.

Oct 17, 2017#78

Gared

Finally managed to get the Comcast account closed. Unfortunately, it required a two person team of callers. And one angry shouty phone call.

Oct 17, 2017#79

PatrThom

They're just trying to gauge your commitment to ending your commitment.

--Patrick

Oct 18, 2017#80

GasBandit

Yay, finally got my VGA to HDMI converter working!

Boot up the living room media pc -

"This copy of windows needs to be registered before you can continue."

What? I already did that... fine... let's... *click*

"Windows has already been registered. Click OK to exit."

Well, that was easy. *Click*

(Windows exits back to login screen).

Uhhh.. *clicks username*

"This copy of windows needs to be registered before you can continue."

*huff* Well, this is irritating, but I should be able to fix this by rebooting into safe mode with command prompt.

*clicks reboot, starts hitting F8*

TV/HDMI converter: UNSUPPORTED RESOLUTION

Nov 17, 2017#81

GasBandit

Firefox 57 has caused my work computer to hard lock TWICE today.

Nov 17, 2017#82

figmentPez

GasBandit said:
Firefox 57 has caused my work computer to hard lock TWICE today.

It hasn't been that bad for me, but it hasn't been the promised improvement, either. It's got just as many memory leaks as the last version.

Nov 17, 2017#83

Gared

figmentPez said:
It hasn't been that bad for me, but it hasn't been the promised improvement, either. It's got just as many memory leaks as the last version.

Yep. Doesn't load anything any faster. Doesn't support a bunch of people's favorite add-ons. Still full of memory leaks. Still a crummy, bloated mess of a browser. I swear it's almost less useful than Edge.

Nov 25, 2017#84

PatrThom

Argh why can't I find 4k televisions that are 32in or smaller?

--Patrick

Nov 25, 2017#85

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Argh why can't I find 4k televisions that are 32in or smaller?

--Patrick

Because the word for what you're looking for is 4k monitor.

Nov 25, 2017#86

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Because the word for what you're looking for is 4k monitor.

Those didn't have speakers! (and remotes, and additional more traditional inputs for video sources).
Also yes I know that everyone is likely going to have to buy their AV HDTV gear all over again when we switch to ATSC in 2021 or so (even though it will allow broadcasters to know how many people are watching and who/where they are), but that's why I thought I'd be able to find something cheap now.

--Patrick

Dec 2, 2017#87

Dei

The cooling system in my PC broke down. *cry*

Dec 2, 2017#88

Ravenpoe

Dei said:
The cooling system in my PC broke down. *cry*

Water pump?

Dec 2, 2017#89

Dei

Ravenpoe said:
Water pump?

Yep.

Dec 2, 2017#90

Dei

Currently pulling CPU fan out of an old computer in the hopes that it will work as a stopgap for now. I'm not overclocking anything, so it might work.

Dec 3, 2017#91

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
Water pump?

That's what it usually is. Either that or a fitting leak.

--Patrick

Dec 3, 2017#92

Dei

The old CPU fan is doing a passable job. Enough to keep my computer usable until Tuesday at least.

Dec 3, 2017#93

Ravenpoe

This is why I run strictly air-cooled systems. I'm running a pretty beefy machine, moderately overclocked, and heat isn't an issue.

Dec 3, 2017#94

PatrThom

I long ago vowed that if I ever went liquid, I was going to use mineral oil instead of normal coolant, because they always eventually leak. ALWAYS.

--Patrick

Dec 3, 2017#95

GasBandit

Heh, I also told her when it happened, it's been my experience that liquid cooling solutions are always more trouble than they're worth.

Dec 3, 2017#96

Dei

CPU fans are so noisy though. D:

Dec 3, 2017#97

GasBandit

Dei said:
CPU fans are so noisy though. D:

Mine's not. I can't even tell when the damn thing is on or off, until I move the mouse. Of course, I've got a nice case... it has like 5 case fans in it but is still silent as the grave.

Dec 3, 2017#98

Dei

GasBandit said:
Mine's not. I can't even tell when the damn thing is on or off, until I move the mouse. Of course, I've got a nice case... it has like 5 case fans in it but is still silent as the grave.

To be fair, I'm using an old fan from an old computer that only sort of fits right. I just want to whine more.

Dec 3, 2017#99

PatrThom

Dei said:
To be fair, I'm using an old fan from an old computer that only sort of fits right. I just want to whine more.

My Phenom's CPU fan whines enough for you and any two other people.

--Patrick

Dec 4, 2017#100

Eriol

Dei said:
CPU fans are so noisy though. D:

I think you need this company: https://www.bequiet.com/en

Dec 5, 2017#101

Bones

I love my closed loop system, so nice.

Dec 5, 2017#102

PatrThom

Bones said:
I love my closed loop system, so nice.

May it stay that way longer than I expect.

--Patrick

Dec 6, 2017#103

Bones

PatrThom said:
May it stay that way longer than I expect.

--Patrick

I'm not sure why you felt the need to make a smartass remark? need more time with thumpers mother?

Dec 6, 2017#104

PatrThom

Bones said:
I'm not sure why you felt the need to make a smartass remark? need more time with thumpers mother?

No, I genuinely want your closed loop system to outlast my expectations. I want to hear you get all up in my face about how it's been going strong for almost a decade, about how you were able to overclock it almost a full 10% above spec, all without any problem whatsoever so TAKE THAT you ECU one-eyed faithless Internet nobody. I'd love to be wrong about this.

--Patrick

Dec 6, 2017#105

Bones

PatrThom said:
No, I genuinely want your closed loop system to outlast my expectations. I want to hear you get all up in my face about how it's been going strong for almost a decade, about how you were able to overclock it almost a full 10% above spec, all without any problem whatsoever so TAKE THAT you ECU one-eyed faithless Internet nobody. I'd love to be wrong about this.

--Patrick

oh ok...
well I only need it to last a few years before I cycle my hardware. the cooling system is not meant to last forever and its folly to assume any system like this would last more than a few years of heavy use without repair or replacement.

Dec 18, 2017#106

DarkAudit

Ever since the Fall Creators Update, my laptop would randomly reboot once a day without warning. I'd finally pinned it down to the display driver, but what I didn't realize until just a day or so ago was Windows was constantly reverting back to the original driver that shipped with the machine. I found a registry hack that disabled Windows Update from doing driver updates and reinstalled the current Radeon drivers, so we'll see what happens from here.

Dec 18, 2017#107

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Ever since the Fall Creators Update, my laptop would randomly reboot once a day without warning. I'd finally pinned it down to the display driver, but what I didn't realize until just a day or so ago was Windows was constantly reverting back to the original driver that shipped with the machine. I found a registry hack that disabled Windows Update from doing driver updates and reinstalled the current Radeon drivers, so we'll see what happens from here.

I had something similar happen. I updated to the current 17.12 Radeon “Adrenalin” drivers in order to resolve the constant Overwatch hangs, after which I updated the AMD chipset drivers (because they also needed it) and then Overwatch kept hanging and I couldn’t enable Chill. Discovered that after updating my chipset drivers, WinX had “helpfully” reverted me back to 17.7.2 even though I had removed every trace of the old driver from my machine prior to the 17.12 install.

—Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#108

DarkAudit

Clearing out the AMD folder the driver install uses fixed the reboot issue, but the driver still got rolled back. Grr...

It's not happening on the desktop. Next attempt will be to remove the hp support assistant and see what that does.

Dec 19, 2017#109

PatrThom

Yeah, when I said I had removed every trace, I meant EVERY trace.
Nope. WinX still went and got it from somewhere online and installed it anyway.

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#110

Gared

Yeah, I've had three crashes since Saturday when Windows (finally) updated after telling me for a week that it was going to restart outside of high-usage hours. In each case, the error message has been "attempted execute of no execute memory," which a quick Googling tells me is the result of an outdated or bad driver. I'd love to know which one it is, because I haven't added any new hardware to this machine since... 2015?

Eta: Given past performance issues, I'm going to go ahead and guess that Windows is repeatedly reverting my WiFi adapter's driver to a previous version.

Dec 19, 2017#111

Dave

Mine has rebooted itself and then gone back to previous install due to failure. Then it tries to update again. I actually like windows 10, but come on, man.

Dec 19, 2017#112

PatrThom

Dave said:
Mine has rebooted itself and then gone back to previous install due to failure. Then it tries to update again. I actually like windows 10, but come on, man.

See? You should've stuck with Windows 9.99999999999[...]

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2017#113

GasBandit

We've got a sweet deal here where we are trading space on our broadcast tower for internet access to one of the local wireless internet companies.

Our owner keeps trying to kill the goose that lays golden eggs by trying to figure out if there's a way we can squeeze them for money on top of that. This guy is a small operator, with razor thin margins. If the owner tries to demand money, the ISP is gonna walk away. And that will hurt us a lot here.

Jan 3, 2018#114

figmentPez

Amazon Prime isn't playing in HD for me anymore, and it's just giving me a generic error message about how everything needs to be HDCP compliant. It used to work, so I don't know what's failed. Maybe my monitor doesn't support the latest version of HDCP. Fucking bullshit.

Jan 3, 2018#115

Bones

figmentPez said:
Amazon Prime isn't playing in HD for me anymore, and it's just giving me a generic error message about how everything needs to be HDCP compliant. It used to work, so I don't know what's failed. Maybe my monitor doesn't support the latest version of HDCP. Fucking bullshit.

check your connections, im not joking, I had issues with HDCP for 6 months before I checked that one of my cables was slightly loose, it drove me nuts!

Jan 3, 2018#116

figmentPez

Bones said:
check your connections, im not joking, I had issues with HDCP for 6 months before I checked that one of my cables was slightly loose, it drove me nuts!

After a restart it worked.

Jan 3, 2018#117

GasBandit

HDCP makes me want to tear off people's skin using only my eyeteeth. Fuckin copyright gestapo that does absolutely nothing to stop actual piracy, just treats paying customers like felons. Put em all in an extruder and make asshole paste.

Jan 3, 2018#118

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
HDCP makes me want to tear off people's skin using only my eyeteeth. Fuckin copyright gestapo that does absolutely nothing to stop actual piracy, just treats paying customers like felons. Put em all in an extruder and make asshole paste.

You sound more and more like George Carlin every day.
And yes, once every DRM gets broken like two weeks after it is introduced, they should be like, "Welp guess that's a really dumb idea."

--Patrick

Jan 27, 2018#119

DarkAudit

I swapped the hackintosh and the primary desktop as a test run for when I move the PC to the new place and hook up to the Roku TV. Connected to a 40" Samsung SmarTV via HDMI or HDMI through a DVI adapter, both work fine. The hackintosh connected to the HDMI port of the upstairs LG monitor does not. Not even the Dell startup screen which should have nothing to do with the OS installed. I tested with my laptop through the HDMI port, and that worked fine.

Thoughts?

Jan 27, 2018#120

strawman

What video ports does the hackintosh sport? Is there a video port on the motherboard? Does the video card have several ports?

Check the other ports on the LG - it's possible that the different HDMI ports run older or newer versions of HDMI, which can sometimes cause incompatibility problems.

Check the HDMI cable - are you using the same one between the two TVS? MArginal HDMI cables will work in one situation and won't work in others.

Jan 27, 2018#121

DarkAudit

stienman said:
Check the HDMI cable - are you using the same one between the two TVS? MArginal HDMI cables will work in one situation and won't work in others.

That did it. Swapped HDMI cables and the hackintosh is back in business.

Thanks.

Jan 27, 2018#122

Gared

It's baaaaaaaaaack.... I've been forced to reboot my computer seven times today. Each and every time, Windows rolls back my Nvidia driver to a non-functional Microsoft driver, and something else happens which causes MalwareBytes to seem to think that Windows is attacking it, because Real Time protection warnings start popping off and the RAM consumption hits 2.5GB or higher. Is there any distro of linux that's actually useful? I'm so fucking fed up with this Microsoft bullshit.

Jan 27, 2018#123

PatrThom

Gared said:
Is there any distro of linux that's actually useful?

In order to properly answer this question, you will need to detail everything you need to use your computer for, and then narrow your search to only those distros that can do all of those things.

—Patrick

Jan 27, 2018#124

Gared

PatrThom said:
In order to properly answer this question, you will need to detail everything you need to use your computer for, and then narrow your search to only those distros that can do all of those things.

—Patrick

Yeah... therein lies the problem, I suppose. Actually, the biggest issue is probably going to be game/Steam compatibility - but since I can barely play Steam games now, because Windows keeps uninstalling my video card driver and giving me one that doesn't support DirectX 9.0x and Direct3D <shrug>. All I realistically need a computer to be able to do is browse the internet with multiple tabs open at a time; run a word processor and spreadsheet app (doesn't need to be word and excel, just compatible), and support paint.net or something similar and notepad++ or similar. And Steam. Right now I can play Steam games, but I cannot have my actual Nvidia drivers.

Edit: Or, I suppose I could look around for a copy of Windows 7 that fell off the back of someone's 3D printed truck and Microsoft could censored my censored.

Jan 27, 2018#125

GasBandit

I recommend windows 7. I'm still using it at home and work and have dodged SO many issues because of it.

Jan 27, 2018#126

PatrThom

Gared said:
giving me one that doesn't support DirectX 9.0x and Direct3D

GasBandit said:
I recommend windows 7. I'm still using it at home and work and have dodged SO many issues because of it.

AMD was having the same problems with DX9 and such. But their v18.1.1 drivers say they have fixed things so DX9/D3D work again (I haven't personally tested yet).
HOWEVER the new drivers are only available for Win7 and WinX, it's almost like Microsoft and everyone else want to forget Win8/8.1 even exist, and if you're not running 7 they expect you to go straight to 10.

--Patrick

Jan 27, 2018#127

Bones

I cant figure it out, I havent had any of these problems -_-

Jan 27, 2018#128

DarkAudit

I’ll try to install the new amd drivers and see if they get rolled back like the others.

What’s really annoying about it is the sudden and unannounced rebooting when it messes with the video driver. Only happens once per session, but there’s no predicting it during normal use.

Jan 27, 2018#129

Gared

That's the thing that got me. I didn't start having this problem when I rebooted my computer. I had to start rebooting my computer because this started happening. I was in the middle of a game (a boring one, to be sure, but a game), when everything just froze completely, Malwarebytes started eating RAM like it was going out of style (seriously, it had hit 3.6GB by the time I killed it). The only way I was able to end the cycle of madness was to

Physically disconnect my computer from the internet connection in my house.
Reboot.
Get into Task Manager as quickly as possible - this was no small task given everything that launches on startup.
Kill Superfetch (which has been disabled) and "Malwarebytes service" (which causes the protection center to prompt me to turn real time protection back on)
Reconnect to the internet.
Monitor immediately goes to black screen with revolving circle of dots, then comes back to my desktop background five or ten minutes later with an error message that my driver crashed.
Check device manager, and sure enough, the driver installed for my 750 Ti card is from Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher.
Open GeForce Experience and reinstall the latest Game Ready driver. Final step of installation requires me to reboot.
Goto step 2.

Eventually I gave up trying to reinstall the appropriate drivers for my hardware, and have just settled for having really shitty graphics in all of my games.

Jan 28, 2018#130

PatrThom

This is the point where I'd start uninstalling things. Malwarebytes, do a clean sweep and remove of all NVIDIA drivers, etc, then see if it still happens. If not, start adding 'em back in one at a time.

Tedious, though.

--Patrick

Jan 28, 2018#131

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
This is the point where I'd start uninstalling things. Malwarebytes, do a clean sweep and remove of all NVIDIA drivers, etc, then see if it still happens. If not, start adding 'em back in one at a time.

Tedious, though.

--Patrick

I may just do a fresh install back to out of the box on the laptop and start over.

Jan 28, 2018#132

Gared

Ah ha! MWB pushed an update yesterday that broke their software. There's a correction out now, but boy did they fuck up.

Jan 28, 2018#133

Gared

Gared said:
Ah ha! MWB pushed an update yesterday that broke their software. There's a correction out now, but boy did they fuck up.

Actually, it looks like this could be a really bad one on MB's part. They have an updated patch out now that will correct the issue, but part of the software they were patching yesterday was apparently the Web Protection portion, and it cut off access to the internet for any computer on a 172.x.x.x IP range. There are a lot of really angry IT managers in the forums over there talking about how they got to spend their Saturdays driving to PCs' physical locations to uninstall MB so they could connect to the internet again.

Jan 30, 2018#134

PatrThom

Been having the occasional boot failure or Destiny reporting a corrupt file (1 or 2 times ea/mo) and last night finally isolated this to what is most likely bad RAM. One quick trip to memtest.org later, and yep, it’s RAM. Now I’m gonna have to isolate which stick is bad (assuming they aren’t BOTH bad) and run on half my RAM (“only” 8GB) until I do the RMA thing with a stick of memory I just bought 2 years ago.

—Patrick

Jan 30, 2018#135

strawman

It used to be much easier to discover which stick is bad before dual and triple channel memory.

Consider putting them both in the same channel and doing memtest, that should help you figure out which one is bad, if it's not both.

But if they're the same part from the same batch, chances are good they're both marginal, and you'd be better off replacing both.

Jan 30, 2018#136

PatrThom

stienman said:
It used to be much easier to discover which stick is bad before dual and triple channel memory.
Consider putting them both in the same channel and doing memtest, that should help you figure out which one is bad, if it's not both.
But if they're the same part from the same batch, chances are good they're both marginal, and you'd be better off replacing both.

They’re already on the same channel, and it looks like only the lower region is bad, and memtest86+ shows which slot is which region, so I might already know, but since there are only two sticks it’s not like I can’t remove one and rerun the test one more time. If it passes, it’s the one I removed. If it fails, then I have to swap sticks and run a third time to make sure they aren’t both failing.
They ARE both the same part, but I don’t know if they’re from the same batch. They’re top-tier memory, though (Corsair), so I expect the company will stand behind them. We’ll find out when I contact them tomorrow, though.

Failing everything else, I have 6 4GB and 2 8GB sticks I can “borrow” from another computer I’m not using to get by if I need to.

—Patrick

Jan 30, 2018#137

PatrThom

Weird.

So I've pulled one stick for testing, and while running a single stick, my RAM transfer speed has doubled...from 4.1GB/s to 8.1GB/s. And it doesn't matter whether I use the good stick or the bad stick, it's still 8GB/s. Huh.

Well, at least now I know which stick is the bad one.

--Patrick

Jan 30, 2018#138

PatrThom

Even weirder, the RAM is actually running at a slower speed than stock, yet the transfer rate is still double.
And I thought I understood computers. Hah!

--Patrick

Jan 30, 2018#139

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
Even weirder, the RAM is actually running at a slower speed than stock, yet the transfer rate is still double.
And I thought I understood computers. Hah!

I was about to wonder if it was your northbridge that was having trouble, not the RAM. Then I remembered that motherboards don't have north and south chips anymore. Are memory controllers built into the processor now? I haven't kept up on the details.

Jan 30, 2018#140

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
Are memory controllers built into the processor now?

Yes. And my board DOES have a south bridge, because it originally came out in 2009.

--Patrick

Jan 31, 2018#141

Gared

Does it feel like your computer slows down after spending an extended time watching YouTube? Well, that could have something to do with YouTube serving ads that allow cryptocurrency miners to use your system resources to mine for them.

Jan 31, 2018#142

GasBandit

Gared said:
Does it feel like your computer slows down after spending an extended time watching YouTube? Well, that could have something to do with YouTube serving ads that allow cryptocurrency miners to use your system resources to mine for them.

Yet another example of how ad blockers are just required self defense, these days.

Jan 31, 2018#143

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
Yet another example of how ad blockers are just required self defense, these days.

And sites that block me for using ad blockers make me want to spend extra at their competition out of spite.

Jan 31, 2018#144

GasBandit

DarkAudit said:
And sites that block me for using ad blockers make me want to spend extra at their competition out of spite.

Try AdNauseam. It fools the websites into thinking you're loading and clicking the ads. It even works on Forbes, which as Pez says below, is one of the worst offenders.

Jan 31, 2018#145

figmentPez

DarkAudit said:
And sites that block me for using ad blockers make me want to spend extra at their competition out of spite.

You mean like Forbes... which serves up malware in its ads? I can't find the article I read recently on it, but basically it said that sites that try to prevent you from viewing them without ad blockers are the most likely to have ads that contain malware.

Jan 31, 2018#146

strawman

GasBandit said:
Try AdNauseam. It fools the websites into thinking you're loading and clicking the ads.

Does it run the javascript from the ad? If so, it still puts you at risk for malware and coin mining ads.

Jan 31, 2018#147

GasBandit

stienman said:
Does it run the javascript from the ad? If so, it still puts you at risk for malware and coin mining ads.

I'm not 100% on this, because the dev faq is a skosh deep for my casual blood, but the way I understand it, the sandbox only keeps static image ads in its "collection," and discards video/animated/dynamically generated ads. It doesn't actually load or run embedded code in ads, it just downloads the data, and then depends on the html tag/iframe for instructions on how to report the ad "clicked." If the info is in the ad's JS, then it doesn't, because it discards any ad that is not a static image as soon as it is downloaded (and it only keeps the images so it can build you a smug mosaic cloud of all the ads you didn't have to see, thanks to it). At least that is my understanding.

May 11, 2018#148

Gared

And now the stripping out of unnecessary junk begins. And the turning off of Windows' oh-so-helpful attempts to be helpful. Like the stupid game overlay that constantly popped up whenever I launched a game and told me to "hit <camera icon> to take a screenshot" or "press <rewind button> to see what you just did!" Ok, first, I just did whatever it was I just did. Why would I need to immediately rewind and see what I did? Secondly, you wanna know what I did? I logged in! Oooo... pretty video of someone logging in!

Also, Windows absolutely refused to allow me to use a password to secure my computer. I had no choice but to set a PIN. It really wanted me to use a unique four-digit numerical PIN, but I turned on alphanumeric mode and made my PIN 'fuckyou'. So, if anyone is ever at my place, and they need to get into my computer, the super-secret, ultra-secure seven letter PIN that totally won't be as guessable as an 11 character alphanumeric string with special characters thrown in, is fuckyou.

May 11, 2018#149

PatrThom

Gared said:
Windows absolutely refused to allow me to use a password to secure my computer.

It's there. They hide it, but it's there. You CAN set up Windows without having to create an online Microsoft account, just like you can set up a Macintosh without having to create an Apple ID, but both of them make it non-obvious how to do so, because they would prefer that you did.

--Patrick

May 11, 2018#150

Gared

PatrThom said:
It's there. They hide it, but it's there. You CAN set up Windows without having to create an online Microsoft account, just like you can set up a Macintosh without having to create an Apple ID, but both of them make it non-obvious how to do so, because they would prefer that you did.

--Patrick

If there was a way to prevent it from requiring a PIN at install, they hid it deep. Even when I chose "not now," or "cancel" the only thing it would do is go back to that same screen again - a keypad with no numbers on it and "Would you like to set a PIN now?"

May 11, 2018#151

Gared

Gared said:
If there was a way to prevent it from requiring a PIN at install, they hid it deep. Even when I chose "not now," or "cancel" the only thing it would do is go back to that same screen again - a keypad with no numbers on it and "Would you like to set a PIN now?"

Of course, it also refused to allow me to use the keyboard or mouse to select options during setup - preferring instead that I apparently shout at Cortana with no microphone, because it absolutely refused to believe that this is a desktop computer and not a phone or tablet.

May 11, 2018#152

Gared

And it keeps choking on my Razer DeathAdder drivers. Every 60 to 90 seconds I lose pointing ability, a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) cursor shows up in whatever I'm doing, and I get the device disconnected/device reconnected bloop in my ears. It's a pointing device, Microsoft. It's the very basis of Windows. How can you be flubbing this so hard?!

May 11, 2018#153

GasBandit

I'm tired of trying to figure out how to get IIS to play nice... I'm just gonna download Fenix.

May 11, 2018#154

PatrThom

Gared said:
If there was a way to prevent it from requiring a PIN at install, they hid it deep.

They did:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-create-a-local-user-or-administrator-account
The same steps apply during initial setup, they just don’t tell you that because of course they want you to sign up with a telemetry-gathering, usage-tracking Microsoft account.

GasBandit said:
I'm tired of trying to figure out how to get IIS to play nice... I'm just gonna download Fenix.

Probably for the best. IIS isn’t exactly known for being very secure.

—Patrick

May 11, 2018#155

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Probably for the best. IIS isn’t exactly known for being very secure.

It was for a purely internal website/wiki, so security wasn't a huge issue, but god damn did they want to obfuscate everything. I like it better when shit just works.

May 11, 2018#156

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I like it better when shit just works.

Heh. That is a phrase I do not normally associate with Microsoft. Some other company, maybe, but not Microsoft.

—Patrick

May 11, 2018#157

Gared

PatrThom said:
They did:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-create-a-local-user-or-administrator-account
The same steps apply during initial setup, they just don’t tell you that because of course they want you to sign up with a telemetry-gathering, usage-tracking Microsoft account.

Probably for the best. IIS isn’t exactly known for being very secure.

—Patrick

The part that I like most is that I already have a Microsoft account. I set it up when I worked there. It's secure as all hell and when it comes time to pick passwords, my general process is:

1. Go to Random.org/use dice and generate random numbers until you have 4 unique integers. These are going to be numeric and special characters for the password.
2. Also on Random.org, flip a coin four times. If the toss comes up heads, the integer stays a number, if it's tails, it becomes the special character version of that key.
3. Grab a dictionary. Pick two more random numbers (between 1 and how many pages your dictionary has). These two numbers are the page numbers for the alpha values in your password.
4. Go to those pages and pick two words that will combine into at least 10 characters. Salt the hell out of them with your random numbers/special characters and assorted capitalizations.

So please Microsoft, please tell me that pissing me off until I just set an angry curse as a password is more secure than, for instance, "3blUe&ro$lLeR8" where I generated 3, 5, 4, 8 - the 5 and 4 came up tails, and found blue and roller, then capitalized random letters. These words mean nothing to me. The numbers are completely insignificant to me in every way. They aren't a birthday, or a locker combo I had in elementary school, or part of a phone number. Blue isn't my favorite color, or my pet's name, or a street I lived on, and roller is just a six letter word that fills out the requirement for ten letters. You cannot social engineer this password out of me, it's unique to whichever site I generate it for, and then it gets written down until I can commit it to memory, and then burned. But no, I'm sure, 4 digits (and it wouldn't let me repeat numbers or use 1234, so they're self-limiting combinations to boot) or up to seven alphanumeric characters is sooooo much more secure. Hell, you want to take the human element out even more? Instead of using a dictionary and choosing words, go to a website with Captcha and use the two phrases that generate.

May 12, 2018#158

Gared

It would also be nice if Microsoft weren't running a massive botnet and using my computer as part of it.

Yep... you can now set a bandwidth limit for how much Microsoft will use your PC to distribute Windows and Microsoft App store upgrades to other people's machines over the internet. You cannot, however, limit how much your PC downloads from other PCs on the internet, unrelated to you or yours. Sure hope every other person keeps their computer as secure as I keep mine.

May 12, 2018#159

Ravenpoe

Gared said:
It would also be nice if Microsoft weren't running a massive botnet and using my computer as part of it.

View attachment 26808

Yep... you can now set a bandwidth limit for how much Microsoft will use your PC to distribute Windows and Microsoft App store upgrades to other people's machines over the internet. You cannot, however, limit how much your PC downloads from other PCs on the internet, unrelated to you or yours. Sure hope every other person keeps their computer as secure as I keep mine.

Previously this option only pertained to other computers connected to your network, allowing one download of an update to be distributed across all machines over Ethernet. They've now gone into randos over the internet?

May 12, 2018#160

PatrThom

Gared said:
It would also be nice if Microsoft weren't running a massive botnet and using my computer as part of it.

Microsoft thanks you for Doing Your Part(tm) and helping them keep distribution costs down.

Ravenpoe said:
Previously this option only pertained to other computers connected to your network, allowing one download of an update to be distributed across all machines over Ethernet. They've now gone into randos over the internet?

Remember the mantra: “torrenting is illegal...except when we do it.”

—Patrick

May 12, 2018#161

Gared

PatrThom said:
Microsoft thanks you for Doing Your Part(tm) and helping them keep distribution costs down.

Remember the mantra: “torrenting is illegal...except when we do it.”

—Patrick

Exactly, why should they pay for their CDN, when they can get the populace to use their bandwidth and eat up their bills (since you can't even force it to accept that you're on a metered connection any more, it just knows if you're lying). I'm actually, for the first time ever, considering unplugging my computer from the router every night.

May 16, 2018#162

jwhouk

And now it's time to play "Will It Update?" Starring Windows 10 version 1833!

May 16, 2018#163

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
And now it's time to play "Will It Update?" Starring Windows 10 version 1833!

Not if you're using an Intel 600-series SSD, it won't.

--Patrick

May 16, 2018#164

jwhouk

...So how can I tell that's what's causing the incompatibility?

EDIT: NM - it's not an Intel 600-series SSD. It's a Seagate ST1000DM003-9YN162 SATA drive.

May 16, 2018#165

Gared

Well, my mouse problem continues. And my keyboard problem only seems to act up while the mouse is acting up, so I did a little more digging through device manager and it looks like Windows is puking on everything that's connected to USB 3.0, and just keeps reinstalling HID compatible controllers over and over again trying to fix it. Anyone know how to troubleshoot a USB 3.0 compatibility issue in 1803?

May 16, 2018#166

PatrThom

Start by finding out who made your USB3 controller?
Alternatively, disconnect everything from USB3, see if it keeps happening.

--Patrick

May 16, 2018#167

Gared

PatrThom said:
Start by finding out who made your USB3 controller?
Alternatively, disconnect everything from USB3, see if it keeps happening.

--Patrick

I'm not entirely certain that there are any non-USB 3.0 ports on this board. There are a butt-load of USB ports on the back of my monitor, though.

May 16, 2018#168

PatrThom

Gared said:
I'm not entirely certain that there are any non-USB 3.0 ports on this board.

There should be, even if it means going through a header.

--Patrick

May 17, 2018#169

Gared

PatrThom said:
There should be, even if it means going through a header.

--Patrick

Huzzah! The 2.0 header is up by the lone remaining serial port, and the mouse and keyboard seem to be working flawlessly now! The external drive that's connected via USB 3 doesn't seem to be having any issues, thankfully, but every hour or so when the mouse and keyboard are connected, windows re-enables 8 separate HID compliant entries in the Device Manager and the mouse goes to shite. Tom's Hardware and others tell me that simply disabling the devices instead of uninstalling them will make it so Windows can't reinstall/re-enable them, but they are wrong.

May 17, 2018#170

jwhouk

It's still hanging when I try to update. I'm gonna have to get an 8GB USB drive and flash the installer on to it, coz the DVR drive ain't liking the ISO thing.

May 18, 2018#171

jwhouk

And that didn't work. It only allows a clean install from the USB drive.

Welp. Let's see if I got it fixed enough where it wants to install...

May 18, 2018#172

jwhouk

And, of course, it freezes at the 75% mark with a black screen and a frozen cursor.

SIGH.

May 19, 2018#173

jwhouk

Imma gonna just see if this tech store in downtown Mesa can do anything with it. If it's a RAM issue, I'm just gonna scream, though.

May 19, 2018#174

PatrThom

If you have another computer and another USB, you can test that yourself before making the trip.

—Patrick

May 19, 2018#175

jwhouk

Only other one I have is the wife's laptop, which I don't know if it's on 1709 or not.

May 19, 2018#176

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
Only other one I have is the wife's laptop, which I don't know if it's on 1709 or not.

Doesn’t matter. Just need it long enough to load memtest onto a USB so you can use it to test your RAM.

—Patrick

May 19, 2018#177

jwhouk

Interesting... I downloaded MemTest64 and ran it through a couple of loops - but before the first loop, I may have found the problem.

Because I'm a cheapskate, I only upgraded my memory to 14 GB - keeping a single 2 GB RAM chip in slot 2 while 0, 1, and 3 all got 4 GB chips.

I wonder if WinTen gets confuzzled by this set up?

May 19, 2018#178

PatrThom

I don't know which board you have, but boards can get upset if both modules in a channel are of different sizes/speeds/manufacturers.

--Patrick

May 20, 2018#179

jwhouk

Speccy says it's a Gateway DX4870 Intel Sandy Bridge P75/B75 04.

May 20, 2018#180

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
Speccy says it's a Gateway DX4870 Intel Sandy Bridge P75/B75 04.

So far all I’ve been able to tell is that your motherboard is made by Acer, model# IPIMB-AR, and appears to be the same motherboard used in Acer computers models M1935 and M3985. I can find pictures galore online, but nobody seems to have a service guide (publicly) accessible.

Absent any official docs, to test it I would take two of whatever sticks you have that are identical and mount them in the two blue slots, then run memtest. If that passes, move them over to the two black slots and test again. If that passes, then you know those two sticks and your board are working correctly.

When you are using an odd number of ram sticks OR when they are not all identical, there IS a specific arrangement you need to use, but without some kind of docs/diagram there’s no way to know for sure whether your board follows the usual order or whether Acer decided to go off-book for some reason.

Moral of the story, always try to use identical speed/mfr/size RAM modules across all populated slots.

—Patrick

May 20, 2018#181

PatrThom

Ok, here is the best I can tell, Assuming Acer DOES follow the same slot layout as everyone else (I checked against other Gigabyte and ASRock B75-based boards), you should install memory modules in the following order, based on distance from the CPU:

[CPU]——[4th]-[2nd]-[3rd]-[1st]

Additionally, the largest modules should be installed first, so in your case it would end up as CPU—2444, assuming it’s gonna work at all. If it does NOT work (and your computer DID pass the earlier set of memtest testing) then I would actually recommend putting the 2 identical modules like CPU—o4o4 (o=open) and running with just 8GB until you can find a place that can sell you a pair of (used?) modules exactly the same model/mfr/spd as the two you already have installed for a full 16.

—Patrick

May 20, 2018#182

PatrThom

UPDATE: Some boards want an install order of CPU-3142 (reversed) instead of CPU-4231, so GRAAHYMMV.

—Patrick

May 21, 2018#183

Gared

Yeah, thankfully I didn't have to worry about it, and probably won't ever have to worry about it, but if I want 32GB of RAM in this thing, it's not as simple as installing four 8G sticks of RAM. I can only use all four slots if the RAM speed is significantly slower than the 2667 that I bought, so if I want RAM at a decent frequency I'm limited to one or two sticks.

May 21, 2018#184

PatrThom

Gared said:
Yeah, thankfully I didn't have to worry about it, and probably won't ever have to worry about it, but if I want 32GB of RAM in this thing, it's not as simple as installing four 8G sticks of RAM. I can only use all four slots if the RAM speed is significantly slower than the 2667 that I bought, so if I want RAM at a decent frequency I'm limited to one or two sticks.

It's actually pretty common that you can get higher RAM speeds if you have less modules installed (something about reducing the load on the memory controller), which is why it's best to check your motherboard manual ahead of time to know the maximum memory it can support. It's better to buy 2x8GB right away (even at a slightly higher cost) and wait and leave the two other slots open than it is to buy 4x4GB "for now" and then have to basically throw it away later when you want to upgrade past 16GB.

Fortunately, RAM speed has very little impact on actual gameplay and/or most things, so the only real reason to get specialized hi-speed memory is if you know ahead of time that upping your RAM speed will make an actual, measurable difference. Otherwise, you're better off saving money and getting something slower (and larger!) with your cash.

--Patrick

May 21, 2018#185

jwhouk

In addition to the RAM issue, I'm now experiencing (again) the igdkmd64.sys "system thread exception not handled" issue. Which points to my graphics card.

Yeeeah.

May 21, 2018#186

PatrThom

Did you actually rule out the RAM yet? Would be good to know if it’s a conglomeration of separate issues, and memtest is text-mode, so it shouldn’t stress your GPU while it’s running.

—Patrick

May 21, 2018#187

jwhouk

I think the igdkmd64.sys issue is the same one I had last summer... Oy vey, I just moved to freakin' ARIZONA...

May 22, 2018#188

Gared

Good job Comcast, just broadcast all those passwords and SSIDs for the whole world to see, why don't ya? I don't exactly feel a lot better about being on Spectrum, since I have no guarantee that their wifi routers aren't just as poorly provisioned as Comcast's. If only that new Linksys router I picked up a couple years back didn't require my old iPhone to sign in and didn't have that "smart" technology as a requirement.

May 22, 2018#189

Denbrought

Gared said:
Good job Comcast, just broadcast all those passwords and SSIDs for the whole world to see, why don't ya? I don't exactly feel a lot better about being on Spectrum, since I have no guarantee that their wifi routers aren't just as poorly provisioned as Comcast's. If only that new Linksys router I picked up a couple years back didn't require my old iPhone to sign in and didn't have that "smart" technology as a requirement.

Seems like this only affects people that rent their router from Comcast, so I should be unaffected. Own the modem and router, since they paid for themselves in under a year. They charge for paper bills (or rather, give a paperless discount), and none of their e-mails to me have included the full subscriber # (last 4 digits at most), so you'd need to compromise my Comcast account (in which case you can do far worse than get my subscriber #).

May 22, 2018#190

ncts_dodge_man

This is one of the reasons why I don't use the wifi of the provider - the primary reason is that I would change providers, I'd have to re-set everything with the new WiFi info - with owning my own wifi router, I just have to plop everything in place. I'd own my own modem, but right now I'm leasing it for free from Spectrum, so it doesn't cost me anything to use theirs.

May 24, 2018#191

Gared

My Chromecast bit the dust this week sometime. I've been running it pretty much nonstop for two years straight, so I'm not really upset that it died, but the replacement process is turning out to be a bit... interesting. Go on Google store to buy a new Chromecast, choose standard (free) shipping because the date they gave for that is June 1 - 2, or I could pay $12 to get it here May 31 - June 1, or I could pay $15 to get it here May 29 - May 31. I'm not going to pay 1/3 the price of the device in shipping just to get it maybe three days earlier, so screw it. Then I finish checkout and it tells me that my device won't likely arrive until the middle of June. Oh, and it's being mailed to me from a location almost eight whole hours away, by bus.

May 24, 2018#192

GasBandit

Who would have thought that it was Empyrion that got me more viewers on twitch than any previous game? I've had two streams now that had 10 viewers for measurable amounts of time, and average viewership of 3 across the board! Aaaand that's how I discovered that the requirement for becoming an affiliate of "3 average viewers" is not just a bar to be met in one video, but an average you must maintain for an entire month. Doh. You gotta stream at least 7 days out of 30, totalling more than 8 hours, and have over 50 followers... I got all that. But 3 average viewers on every single stream is gonna be tough. I'm not exactly SovietWomble here

May 24, 2018#193

PatrThom

SovietWomble puts much more effort into his videos than you do. Also, he has a cast of regular characters. He’s like a video game version of a morning radio talk show host & crew.

—Patrick

May 24, 2018#194

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
SovietWomble puts much more effort into his videos than you do. Also, he has a cast of regular characters. He’s like a video game version of a morning radio talk show host & crew.

—Patrick

Well, yes, I was using him as an example of that exactly. For example, if I'd said regards to a radio show, "I'm not exactly Rush Limbaugh here," it'd have meant the same thing.

That aside, I may not put as much effort into all my youtube videos, but I certainly put as much, or even more, effort into my twitch streams

He wouldn't even PLAY Vermintide because he saw "UGH IT USES LOOTBOXES" and gave it a hard pass without actually looking at how they work, just wrote it off as co-op overwatch with swords.

May 24, 2018#195

Gared

Keep Dave around for the comedy that the two of you fire off of each other non-stop and Aislynn and I around for the shot-to-the-back-of-the-head hijinks and you should have a good start.

May 24, 2018#196

GasBandit

Gared said:
Keep Dave around for the comedy that the two of you fire off of each other non-stop and Aislynn and I around for the shot-to-the-back-of-the-head hijinks and you should have a good start.

Maybe I need to get a Commissar hat.

May 24, 2018#197

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Maybe I need to get a Commissar hat.

Make sure it has a bulls-eye on it.

—Patrick

May 28, 2018#198

PatrThom

Gared said:
Well, my mouse problem continues. And my keyboard problem only seems to act up while the mouse is acting up, so I did a little more digging through device manager and it looks like Windows is puking on everything that's connected to USB 3.0, and just keeps reinstalling HID compatible controllers over and over again trying to fix it. Anyone know how to troubleshoot a USB 3.0 compatibility issue in 1803?

After noticing that my keyboard has also decided to start rebooting itself more or less exactly every 15min, I found this article, and am trying what it says:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2900614/some-usb-devices-do-not-recharge-in-windows-8-1

--Patrick

May 28, 2018#199

Gared

PatrThom said:
After noticing that my keyboard has also decided to start rebooting itself more or less exactly every 15min, I found this article, and am trying what it says:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2900614/some-usb-devices-do-not-recharge-in-windows-8-1

--Patrick

Well, crap. Now I don't know whether my issue was solved by switching to the USB 2.0 ports from 3.0 or by disabling all of the power savings crap that Microsoft wanted to put on this computer that it thinks is a really, really big handheld device.

May 28, 2018#200

PatrThom

Eh, the registry change doesn't appear to be making any difference for me, sooo...oh well.

--Patrick

May 30, 2018#201

GasBandit

AGH, I just checked on colocation service through a guy I know... they charge $50/mo per U, and my server is 2U... Spending $100/mo kind of would defeat the purpose of having bought my own server in the first place! Guess it's going in the closet after all.

May 30, 2018#202

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
AGH, I just checked on colocation service through a guy I know... they charge $50/mo per U, and my server is 2U... Spending $100/mo kind of would defeat the purpose of having bought my own server in the first place! Guess it's going in the closet after all.

I want a server "out there" for various reasons, too...but every time I check pricing (to buy, to colo, to share, whatever), my wallet just says, "Nope!" and does that cartoon wounded dog yipe-ing thing while it runs away.

--Patrick

May 30, 2018#203

Denbrought

PatrThom said:
I want a server "out there" for various reasons, too...but every time I check pricing (to buy, to colo, to share, whatever), my wallet just says, "Nope!" and does that cartoon wounded dog yipe-ing thing while it runs away.

--Patrick

How much space/power/bandwidth do you need? It can be pretty affordable nowadays. My Scaleway VC1S does what I need for my hobby stuff, and costs me slightly less than $5/mo:

Jun 1, 2018#204

GasBandit

Figures. My new router is supposed to get here today, so like magic, my old router suddenly starts functioning normally again. Mindful of all the "all your routers are now russian spambots" pieces in the news over the last few weeks, I gave it a thorough going-over, and it seems perfectly fine. Ah well, now I have a spare.

I'm wondering if I was getting DDOS'd.

Jun 1, 2018#205

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I'm wondering if I was getting DDOS'd.

Wasn’t me!
...though if I haven’t already said, I’m speccing out a (hideously overbuilt) pfsense box to mitigate that sort of thing (and the Russian thing) at least until the final death of IPV4.

—Patrick

Jun 1, 2018#206

GasBandit

Whups, spoke too soon, it's doing the thing again. Replacement ahoy!

Jun 17, 2018#207

DarkAudit

The wifi in my half of the building peaks at ~20Mbps down/12 up. That's another issue which is being addressed above my level. In my room, the speed drops to ~10Mbps down at the desktop PC no matter which USB port I plug the wifi stick into. I picked up some 6ft USB extension cables, and strung three of them together to have the stick closer to the door. I'm able to get close to the full bandwidth that way... for about half an hour. Then the stick disconnects and cannot find an access point until I physically disconnect and then reconnect it. At the desktop ports, the connection is more or less stable for as long as I'm using it.

I haven't yet tried removing any of the cables in the chain to see if one has gotten flakey. I'm thinking the setup just isn't viable and I should seek other options until the new access points arrive.

Jun 17, 2018#208

Gared

DarkAudit said:
The wifi in my half of the building peaks at ~20Mbps down/12 up. That's another issue which is being addressed above my level. In my room, the speed drops to ~10Mbps down at the desktop PC no matter which USB port I plug the wifi stick into. I picked up some 6ft USB extension cables, and strung three of them together to have the stick closer to the door. I'm able to get close to the full bandwidth that way... for about half an hour. Then the stick disconnects and cannot find an access point until I physically disconnect and then reconnect it. At the desktop ports, the connection is more or less stable for as long as I'm using it.

I haven't yet tried removing any of the cables in the chain to see if one has gotten flakey. I'm thinking the setup just isn't viable and I should seek other options until the new access points arrive.

I've only tried this once, and it didn't work for me, but that was because none of the people at the hotel could give me any of the connection's data - but have you considered plugging in a wi-fi router near the door and using it as a wifi bridge and connect your computer via ethernet cables?

Jun 17, 2018#209

DarkAudit

Gared said:
I've only tried this once, and it didn't work for me, but that was because none of the people at the hotel could give me any of the connection's data - but have you considered plugging in a wi-fi router near the door and using it as a wifi bridge and connect your computer via ethernet cables?

I'm not sure if that would work, because I need a web browser to complete the connection. PCs, tablets, and phones can handle that. I had to have the GM call in to the service provider to get my blu ray player connected because it couldn't connect the regular way.

Jun 17, 2018#210

Gared

As for a whine of my own - my cable internet was suspended this morning due to an overdue balance. Easy enough to fix, just log in to the provider's site (since that's the only place they'll let you connect) and pay the... what do you mean security certificate error?! OK, i'll use my cell phone. Security certificate error. Aislynn's phone - security certificate error. OK, I'll call the number on the router that says "For help, call Spectrum at 1-888-438-2427." Call them, get the "Thank you for calling Spectrum, this call will be monitored for quality assurance purposes," and then instead of anything about Spectrum it immediately went to an ad for Senior Assisted Living, then an ad for AT&T/DirectTV, then an ad for addiction counseling, then an ad for meeting sexy singles in my area, and then I hung up. Then I went and got the bill and was finally able to find an actual Spectrum phone number that would work without an internet connection.

Jun 17, 2018#211

PatrThom

Hey @DarkAudit, USB extension cables are not meant to be used that way. USB is only 5V, so it has trouble pushing over long distances (more than 10 feet/3meters) without a powered hub to help repeat the signal. Also, when using anything that requires a high- or super-speed USB connection (i.e., any USB 2 or 3 connection), the longer cables vastly increase the chance of data transmission corruption due to increased EMI...which could result in your disconnects.

—Patrick

Jun 17, 2018#212

ncts_dodge_man

Places I've worked at before that needed long USB lengths use powered USB to Ethernet back to USB connections - there isn't a guarantee that it would work for a WiFi connection. It's not a cheap solution, but it's the only way around the length issues.

Jun 17, 2018#213

figmentPez

DarkAudit said:
The wifi in my half of the building peaks at ~20Mbps down/12 up. That's another issue which is being addressed above my level. In my room, the speed drops to ~10Mbps down at the desktop PC no matter which USB port I plug the wifi stick into. I picked up some 6ft USB extension cables, and strung three of them together to have the stick closer to the door. I'm able to get close to the full bandwidth that way... for about half an hour. Then the stick disconnects and cannot find an access point until I physically disconnect and then reconnect it. At the desktop ports, the connection is more or less stable for as long as I'm using it.

I haven't yet tried removing any of the cables in the chain to see if one has gotten flakey. I'm thinking the setup just isn't viable and I should seek other options until the new access points arrive.

Have you considered something like building a parabolic reflector out of aluminum foil?

Jun 17, 2018#214

evilmike

figmentPez said:
Have you considered something like building a parabolic reflector out of aluminum foil?

Good idea -- a cantenna!

Jun 26, 2018#215

DarkAudit

Well, duh. Here I was bitching up a storm about Crunchyroll streams always choking no matter how fast my connection was, and here I am with the cache still set to the default 100KB.

Turned that way up, and it's mostly fixed now. Still freezes every once in a while, but PEBKAC indeed.

Jun 29, 2018#216

GasBandit

Well. It seems our wireless access point control software (Ubiquiti Unifi) decided to ERASE ALL ITS OWN DATA. No asking, no nothing... just went in to check some settings and got the "let's start setting up your network!" wizard. All gone.

So. If you use Ubiquiti stuff... frequent fucking backups.

Jun 29, 2018#217

ncts_dodge_man

GasBandit said:
So. If you use computer stuff... frequent fucking backups.

It honestly doesn't matter what brand you use - always back up and in multiple places.

Jul 11, 2018#218

Yoshimickster

My computer keeps saying random USB devices are malfunctioning, but when I restart they're fine. Is this a problem I should worry about? Because it keeps happening.

Jul 11, 2018#219

Gared

Yoshimickster said:
My computer keeps saying random USB devices are malfunctioning, but when I restart they're fine. Is this a problem I should worry about? Because it keeps happening.

If it's Windows 10 and you're trying to use USB 3.0, you could have an issue if you're on the Spring Creator's Update (build 1833). The only "solution" I was able to find was to switch back to the USB 2.0 slots on my motherboard.

Aug 27, 2018#220

Eriol

My main computer died in the middle of playing No Man's Sky. Like it just went down. No explanation. I unplugged it, and it's not the cable or something simple like that.

It won't even POST.

Spoiler of specs (from late 2012) :

These are from my purchase order, so I know they're accurate.

Seasonic M12II 520W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX PFC 80+ Bronze Modular Connectors 6PIN PCI-E 120MM Fan
Corsair Vengeance Blue CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit (bought another kit to bring to 16GB total later)
Antec P280 XL-ATX Tower Case Black 3X5.25 2X2.5 6X3.5IN 2X120MM Top 1X120MM Rear Front USB3.0 No PSU
ASUS P8Z77-V Lk ATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA3 SLI DVI HDMI DP USB3.0 Motherboard
Intel Core i5 3470 Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.2GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail
EVGA GTX 960 (bought later)

There's a little light in the bottom-right of the mobo which according to the manual, says it means that it's in standby. But holding the power button on the top does absolutely nothing (and neither does shorting the two pins that's connected to with a screwdriver, which the FAQ from ASUS actually suggests!). The best I can tell all the connection are there that are supposed to be (it hadn't been moved or anything like that recently). I have not yet gone to the point of actually disconnecting all the stuff inside (since it should theoretically "run" minimally with only mobo, cpu, ram, and PSU) to see if one of them is the problem.

Suggestions?

Aug 27, 2018#221

PatrThom

Eriol said:
disconnecting all the stuff inside (since it should theoretically "run" minimally with only mobo, cpu, ram, and PSU) to see if one of them is the problem.

Suggestions?

You’re already there.

—Patrick

Aug 27, 2018#222

Gared

After that, I'm afraid it's usually check all of the capacitors and see which one, if any, has let its magic blue smoke escape.

Aug 27, 2018#223

PatrThom

If it’s still getting trickle power (the light on the board) then I suspect PSU or MLB, and looking for swollen/blown caps is an easy enough thing to do without too much disassembly.

—Patrick

Aug 28, 2018#224

Eriol

PatrThom said:
If it’s still getting trickle power (the light on the board) then I suspect PSU or MLB, and looking for swollen/blown caps is an easy enough thing to do without too much disassembly.

PSU = Power Supply Unit
MLB = ?

And honestly, I don't have the time to tinker, nor the components to "swap out" to see if one of them fixes it. I have no way of correctly diagnosing a bum power supply for instance. I'm taking it to a small local shop that does this kind of thing and I've bought from before (minor stuff, never repairs). They don't charge too much, and they have a reasonable maximum charge. It's worth it IMO.

Aug 28, 2018#225

PatrThom

MLB = Main Logic Board.

Troubleshooting this kind of issue usually requires reducing the computer to as minimum a configuration as possible and then adding parts back in until the suspect part is isolated.

So reduce the computer to just the CPU/HSF (HeatSink/Fan), one single stick of RAM, the MLB, the PSU, and the case (no GPU yet) and even though you won't be able to see anything because no GPU, you would still be able to tell if the fan keeps spinning (i.e., the computer stays on). Then you add the GPU and monitor back in and see what you can see (hopefully a BIOS/EFI screen or "no system found" alert since HDD/SSD are still disconnected). Then continue the add-in process.

--Patrick

Aug 28, 2018#226

Eriol

PatrThom said:
MLB = Main Logic Board.

Do you mean the Motherboard? Just checking

As for the rest, it doesn't need a GPU (the mobo has output from the CPU's graphics), but the repair guy suspects the PSU as the culprit. We'll see how it turns out. I'm hoping that's it, as that's swappable easily.

Aug 28, 2018#227

GasBandit

It smells like a PSU issue to me, too.

Aug 28, 2018#228

Gared

Something tells me that I should be very glad our house wasn't built any earlier than 1980 - and that something is how badly this one is already wired for phone and cable. In our living room, against the outer wall, is a baseboard heater. One length of coax cable comes up from downstairs from each side of that heater. One is connected to the outside world, the other is not. The coax in the bedrooms and downstairs are all apparently tied to the one that isn't connected to the outside world. There are also three separate inbound phone lines to this house. One goes downstairs and might be connected elsewhere in the house. One goes upstairs and might be connected elsewhere in the house. The third was apparently an intercom line only, and the only place we can find a jack for it is outside on the deck - where you would normally find an electrical outlet. There are no electrical outlets on that deck. Also, we've discovered a small satellite dish on top of the house, but we're not sure which service it used to belong to, or which sets of cable it may have been feeding. Hopefully I can find ends of all of these and tie them all together with the appropriate patch panels and avoid just having 83 splitters joining various random bits of coax throughout the walls.

Aug 28, 2018#229

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Do you mean the Motherboard? Just checking

Main Logic Board/Logic Board/System Board/Motherboard/Mainboard - these are all names for the same thing.

GasBandit said:
It smells like a PSU issue to me, too.

The symptoms strongly suggest a failed PSU, but there is also the possibility that this could be the motherboard not returning/respecting a valid PWR_OK signal.
It is possible to "hotwire" a PSU to quick-n-dirty test it by shorting this line to the 5V rail, as shown here:

This is not a guarantee that the PSU is working properly, but if you do this and the PSU does not fire up, then it is a guarantee that the PSU is not working.

Gared said:
Something tells me that I should be very glad our house wasn't built any earlier than 1980 - and that something is how badly this one is already wired for phone and cable. In our living room, against the outer wall, is a baseboard heater. One length of coax cable comes up from downstairs from each side of that heater. One is connected to the outside world, the other is not. The coax in the bedrooms and downstairs are all apparently tied to the one that isn't connected to the outside world. There are also three separate inbound phone lines to this house. One goes downstairs and might be connected elsewhere in the house. One goes upstairs and might be connected elsewhere in the house. The third was apparently an intercom line only, and the only place we can find a jack for it is outside on the deck - where you would normally find an electrical outlet. There are no electrical outlets on that deck. Also, we've discovered a small satellite dish on top of the house, but we're not sure which service it used to belong to, or which sets of cable it may have been feeding. Hopefully I can find ends of all of these and tie them all together with the appropriate patch panels and avoid just having 83 splitters joining various random bits of coax throughout the walls.

Multiple-family dwellings FTW!

--Patrick

Aug 28, 2018#230

Gared

PatrThom said:
Multiple-family dwellings FTW!

--Patrick

Only, as far as we can tell, it never was.

Aug 31, 2018#231

Eriol

Update on my woes: back up and running. Took it to the shop, and he'd seen a "flash" when trying to power it up. Apparently there was arcing happening somewhere on the video card. Took that out, got a "detected weird power stuff" from the BIOS (though the BIOS also says that if there's been a power outage), so for safety's sake replaced the PSU as well as the video card. Runs w/o a video card if needed (that type of Mobo/CPU it can do that) so we were fairly sure it was ONLY the video card that was the problem, but you never know, so new PSU as well just to be 100% safe.

So, could have been much worse. Could have been just the PSU, but wasn't, sadly. The old PSU is probably still OK, I'll keep it around as a "test PSU" for the future.

Aug 31, 2018#232

GasBandit

I got a new laptop, it arrived yesterday.

I haven't even installed any updates yet, and I'm already irritated at Windows 10. It only sees ONE of my network shares on my main PC. The least important one. Also, cortana refuses to do anything useful unless I sign in with a microsoft account. Which fuuuuuck that.

Almost makes me want to return it, and go back to using my creaky 11-year-old laptop that can barely run Left 4 Dead and cooks my lap like a george foreman grill under any kind of load.

Aug 31, 2018#233

Gared

GasBandit said:
I got a new laptop, it arrived yesterday.

I haven't even installed any updates yet, and I'm already irritated at Windows 10. It only sees ONE of my network shares on my main PC. The least important one. Also, cortana refuses to do anything useful unless I sign in with a microsoft account. Which fuuuuuck that.

Almost makes me want to return it, and go back to using my creaky 11-year-old laptop that can barely run Left 4 Dead and cooks my lap like a george foreman grill under any kind of load.

I feel like I've stepped out of a cryo-chamber after a really long, terrible dream about how bad Windows 10 is, and how useless it is with their always connected garbage, to run smack dab into a real-life example of it. Dude, didn't you hear us bitching about this? What in the world convinced you to go out and buy a Windows 10 laptop? And, please, please tell me it's at least Win10 Pro, and not one of the neutered Home editions.

Aug 31, 2018#234

GasBandit

Gared said:
I feel like I've stepped out of a cryo-chamber after a really long, terrible dream about how bad Windows 10 is, and how useless it is with their always connected garbage, to run smack dab into a real-life example of it. Dude, didn't you hear us bitching about this? What in the world convinced you to go out and buy a Windows 10 laptop? And, please, please tell me it's at least Win10 Pro, and not one of the neutered Home editions.

It is 10 pro, yes. And it's because I can't GET a windows 7 laptop anymore, and my old one finally just "literally can't even" anymore - it's from 2007 and even then it wasn't top of the line. It's always had a problem where it overheats and locks up (in fact, Dei and Terrik can tell you about the time I fell asleep on the couch and it literally burned a 4 inch long blister on my leg), and it's just been getting worse and worse. I need a laptop for my trip next week, though, so I had to bite the bullet and get one.

After this trip is over, I might experiment with loading ubuntu on it. Or I might not. We'll see.

Aug 31, 2018#235

PatrThom

Microsoft is very clear about how things will be going forward.
You will choose a computer based on its specs, or build it yourself to your liking.
And then you will install WinX on it.
And then Microsoft will take possession of your hardware, and thank you for your generous donation.

Sales of new licenses of any version of Widows earlier than WinX ended Oct2016, so the only way to get Win8.1 or earlier now is through the secondhand market, and those people are of course smelling the opportunity and pricing accordingly.
Microsoft also only supports installation of Win8.1 or earlier on Intel 6xxx-series (Skylake)/AMD AM3+-series (Bulldozer/Piledriver) and earlier processors. So if your computer was assembled with parts from 2016 or later, there is a reasonable chance WinX may be your only choice.
Also Win7 final date is 2020 so if you ARE going to do it, you’d better do it before then.

—Patrick

Aug 31, 2018#236

GasBandit

Yeah, unfortunately it's an i7-7700HQ (Kaby Lake), so I don't think win 7 will install on it, even though I've got a spare OEM copy sitting here that I had intended to install on my server (before I successfully cracked Win Server 2016 enterprise on it

)

Aug 31, 2018#237

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
it's an i7-7700HQ (Kaby Lake), so I don't think win 7 will install on it

Just tryin’ to spare you the pain.

—Patrick

Aug 31, 2018#238

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Just tryin’ to spare you the pain.

—Patrick

Apparently there's a haxor way around it to get it to install, but after that, I worry about drivers.

Aug 31, 2018#239

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Apparently there's a haxor way around it to get it to install, but after that, I worry about drivers.

There IS, but again, if you do that then that’s on you.

—Patrick

Sep 7, 2018#240

figmentPez

The latest version of Messages for Android has added a dark mode. :thumbsup:

It also removed the option to choose what color each contact is. So now all my conversations have different colors than they did, and a lot of them have the same color.

Sep 9, 2018#241

Gared

Did you know it's possible to catch a Twitter suspension in less than 12 hours, without posting a single tweet? It is. I don't know why, since I combed through the stupid link they sent me to their rules and quite obviously didn't violate any of them, but within 12 hours of creating a new Twitter account, verifying the email address, choosing two accounts to follow, and logging out (without sending or liking a single tweet, mind you); my account was suspended.

Sep 9, 2018#242

Ravenpoe

Gared said:
Did you know it's possible to catch a Twitter suspension in less than 12 hours, without posting a single tweet? It is. I don't know why, since I combed through the stupid link they sent me to their rules and quite obviously didn't violate any of them, but within 12 hours of creating a new Twitter account, verifying the email address, choosing two accounts to follow, and logging out (without sending or liking a single tweet, mind you); my account was suspended.

Was your handle @totallynotarussianbot?

Sep 9, 2018#243

Gared

Ravenpoe said:
Was your handle @totallynotarussianbot?

Damn, how'd you guess?

Sep 12, 2018#244

Dei

Inbox is officially getting the axe in March, and I'm pissed because it so much cleaner and nicer than Gmail IMO.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17848500/google-inbox-shut-down-sunset-snooze-email-march-2019

Sep 12, 2018#245

figmentPez

Dei said:
Inbox is officially getting the axe in March, and I'm pissed because it so much cleaner and nicer than Gmail IMO.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17848500/google-inbox-shut-down-sunset-snooze-email-march-2019

WTF? I always assumed that eventually Inbox would become the standard. Good grief.

Sep 15, 2018#246

Gruebeard

Dei said:
Inbox is officially getting the axe in March, and I'm pissed because it so much cleaner and nicer than Gmail IMO.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17848500/google-inbox-shut-down-sunset-snooze-email-march-2019

Well danggit.

Neat little factoid: I think I started using Inbox at your recommedation.

Oct 6, 2018#247

figmentPez

ARGH! Make your product names easy to search for you imbeciles! I'm looking at you 8bitdo! "SN30 Pro+" REALLY? Did you even think about how hard it is to get a search engine to search for a +? Holy crap, just getting Amazon to only show Pro models was hard enough. Stop naming ALL your controllers some variation of 30! N30, SN30, N30 Pro, SN30 Pro... And that's not getting into how 8bitdo hasn't changed names for newer hardware revisions! Good controllers, absolutely shit marketing.

I'm also looking at you LG (and a lot of other phone makers). The "X Charge" Really? Do you know how hard it is to search for technical issues about a phone when the results keep wanting to sell me phone chargers for every single LG model in existence? Even when I put "X Charge" in quotes!

Oct 7, 2018#248

Gared

I am appalled - appalled, I say! - at the complete and utter lack of coverage around here to the dangerous - no, DEADLY! - threat that is coming to cities across America right now. Not a single story has been posted talking about these disastrous new death-towers that Big Corporation wants to install in our fair cities and small towns. Why, these apocalyptic devices beam dangerous electromagnetic particle waves all throughout an area; damaging the health not just of people who feel the effects, but also of people who don't even feel any effects at all! And that's why we have to ban 5G cell service! Who's with me?!

What, no one?

...Oh.

Fucking yokals around here.

Oct 7, 2018#249

Bones

Gared said:
I am appalled - appalled, I say! - at the complete and utter lack of coverage around here to the dangerous - no, DEADLY! - threat that is coming to cities across America right now. Not a single story has been posted talking about these disastrous new death-towers that Big Corporation wants to install in our fair cities and small towns. Why, these apocalyptic devices beam dangerous electromagnetic particle waves all throughout an area; damaging the health not just of people who feel the effects, but also of people who don't even feel any effects at all! And that's why we have to ban 5G cell service! Who's with me?!

What, no one?

...Oh.

Fucking yokals around here.

when people tell me that EMF radiation is killing them etc. I ask them how willing they are to live without electricity and they always clam up. NOW THERE CAN BE EMF RADIATION THAT IS DANGEROUS, but its not from signal sources, well not in the distances they are at. I bet @GasBandit can tell you how nasty it can be to get close to a running fm transmitter.

Oct 7, 2018#250

GasBandit

Bones said:
when people tell me that EMF radiation is killing them etc. I ask them how willing they are to live without electricity and they always clam up. NOW THERE CAN BE EMF RADIATION THAT IS DANGEROUS, but its not from signal sources, well not in the distances they are at. I bet @GasBandit can tell you how nasty it can be to get close to a running fm transmitter.

It only makes you feel woozy the first time. After that, you can do neat things like clean up audio signals just by holding the cable in your hands.

Oct 16, 2018#251

Gared

Man, you would've thought that a big name software company like Microsoft would've planned ahead better, smdh. Can you believe that after all this time with computers in every home and business, there's still nothing you can do when you fill one except buy another?

...Yeah. @Aislynn's work computer is full, and there's nothing helpdesk can do for her except put her on a list to buy a new one. Hard drive's full, gotta get a new machine. You really woulda thought Microsoft woulda put in a delete function or something.

Oct 16, 2018#252

PatrThom

Gared said:
Hard drive's full, gotta get a new machine. You really woulda thought Microsoft woulda put in a delete function or something.

You know, I’ll bet if you could come up with something that was like another computer, but didn’t have the computer part in it, just the storage part, there might be some money to be made there.

—Patrick

Oct 16, 2018#253

Gared

PatrThom said:
You know, I’ll bet if you could come up with something that was like another computer, but didn’t have the computer part in it, just the storage part, there might be some money to be made there.

—Patrick

Pssh. Like humanity has time for that. Wait... what do you mean you have a spare 2TB external drive just waiting to be hooked up? Nope... have to get a new computer, can't do anything with that. You should just send it back.

Nov 1, 2018#254

Gared

And, now I have a spare 2TB drive and @Aislynn has a working laptop (which the company has been sitting on for three months and still decided to ship UPS Ground from Massachusetts to Oregon despite her being unable to work for 2 weeks while it slowly wandered across the country).

Meanwhile, I started noticing within the last week or so that I was getting an inordinate amount of emails from Credit Karma for my credit monitoring service. Now every day they wanted me to log in and "verify" that some account was mine, or "verify" some new account info. The first issue, of course, is that there's no way to notify Credit Karma that you have verified the voracity of the account info once you've logged in - so really, it's just a way to get you to keep logging in and looking at their recommendations, since that's the first screen it always takes you to. This led me to go change my communication settings, so as to unsubscribe from their notifications - simple solution to a simple problem, right? Well, it was. But, while I was there, since one of the things CK keeps emailing me about is password strength and account security, and since it had been a while since I'd updated that particular password, I decided to update it to a new, strong password - one of those random jumbles that Google's password system generates these days, I'm consolidating my risk by consolidating my information with one of the tech giants, even though I don't like everything they're doing these days. CK wouldn't accept the password. It wasn't a strong password. Strong passwords are 8 to 13 characters long, contain at least one uppercase letter, a number, and a symbol. My Google generated password didn't fit that because it didn't have a symbol. Except... it did. The only issue was that it was too long for their system, because they're using decade(?) old encryption technology. Unfortunately, once it failed to accept the new password from Google, it then started to refuse every new combination of password I attempted, no matter how closely I followed their password rules.

The real kicker was, you can't call CK to get assistance. They don't provide phone support. They truly believe that email communication is more efficient, more customer friendly, and all around better. So, here's our web-form, where you can ask us questions about these six categories of topics. Don't want to talk to us about one of those? Either try to force your issue into one of these categories and risk it being deleted by the first rep who sees it for not fitting their queue, or just don't bother.

So, now I no longer have an insecure CK account. Because I no longer have a CK account.

Nov 7, 2018#255

sixpackshaker

I thought my gaming PC would be good enough to run Fallout 76. Even though it plays FO4 at max settings, it does not meet the minimum requirements for 76.

I guess it will be another Bethesda game that I don't get to play while new.

Nov 7, 2018#256

Dave

Fallout 76 minimum specifications:

CPU: Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz / AMD Ryzen 3 1300X 3.5 GHz or equivalent
Memory: 8GB
OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
Graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB/AMD Radeon R9 285 2GB or equivalent
Storage: 60GB of free disk space

My CPU is a little low - I have an i7-4770 3.4 GHz. I have all the rest. Except the want or drive to play the game.

Nov 7, 2018#257

GasBandit

There is not reason on earth why that game would require an i7 4790. I've got an i5 4670 and there's not a game out there I can't play, most at 60fps or better. Those are just some bullshit specs.

But I wasn't planning to play 76 either, and frankly I'm surprised anybody is.

Nov 7, 2018#258

sixpackshaker

It is weird that my processor is actually powerful for an old gaming rig. But I guess the architecture is a bit old.

Nov 7, 2018#259

PatrThom

Requiring an i7-4790 is oddly specific. That's from the Haswell family of desktop processors, of which there were quite a few, plus a couple more if you include the two more overclock-friendly "Devil's Canyon" models that were released later. All the processors in that family support the same instruction set, the same features, etc. There's no really significant architectural difference between them except for the # of cores and the clock speed, so I find it odd that they're essentially saying, "Yes, you can use an older processor, so long as it is the very topmost model." I mean, if only the absolute topmost model from that family meets their requirements for the "minimum," they why include that CPU family at all?

sixpackshaker said:
It is weird that my processor is actually powerful for an old gaming rig. But I guess the architecture is a bit old.

There wasn't really much of any significant speed improvement to speak about (for gaming) since the 2xxx ("Sandy Bridge") series until we finally got to the 5xxx ("Broadwell") series, and even then it was more about "If you have anything older than 2xxx then 5xxx is a good value," but it really took until 2017's 8xxx ("Cannon Lake") series before Intel finally produced something that could be deemed a "worthy successor."

--Patrick

Nov 7, 2018#260

sixpackshaker

I have a weird 6 core AMD processor. That is 4 or more years old.

Nov 7, 2018#261

Eriol

I have an I5-3470 that still does just great. I've upgraded the video card twice (once voluntarily, once not), and put in an SSD. I always had a monster amount of RAM from running VMs for work at a time. @PatrThom 's post above explains why it still does just fine.

Nov 7, 2018#262

PatrThom

sixpackshaker said:
I have a weird 6 core AMD processor. That is 4 or more years old.

Aren't we both using the same CPU? Mine's a 1090t from 2010.

--Patrick

Nov 15, 2018#263

Eriol

This is BEYOND sad: Japan's cybersecurity minister has never used computer

I'm glad that at least a good amount of their parliament is outraged at this.

Nov 15, 2018#264

PatrThom

On the one hand, there’s the idea that he’ll have a fresh perspective, no preconceived notions, etc.
On the other hand, :eek:

—Patrick

Nov 15, 2018#265

GasBandit

He's never been hacked, right?

Besides, have you seen Belgium's health minister?

Nov 15, 2018#266

Gruebeard

GasBandit said:
He's never been hacked, right?

Besides, have you seen Belgium's health minister?

Or America's President?

Seriously, though, very few politicians are experts in the fields they wind up presiding over.

Nov 18, 2018#267

Cog

I needed to add some data to our system from another department and I gave them an excel template to fill. They sent me 58 excel files with a row of data each.

Nov 19, 2018#268

GasBandit

The keyboard on my new laptop won't work

At first I thought it was a "dammit windows 10 update screwed me again" thing, but it won't even work in bios. Sigh. I guess it's good that it's still under warranty, but what a hassle.

Nov 21, 2018#269

PatrThom

Due to the volatile RAM market, I've finally been able to acquire all 96GB of that ECC RAM I wanted not for the $450 it would've cost me back in the Summer (6x16GB@~$80ea less volume discount, though that's still way better than the places listing them for $130ea), but instead for about half that much (~$230).
But I acquired it from a few different vendors (3 separate pairs), and if I'd shopped around prior to jumping at the first transaction I could've gotten all 6 for $30-35ea and probably saved an extra $50. Oh well.

But that's not my rant.
See, I want to qualify all this RAM before the return period expires, in case any of the modules are bad...

...Do you know how long it's going to take to qualify 96GB of RAM? TWELVE TO FIFTEEN HOURS THAT'S HOW LONG RRRRGGH.

--Patrick

Nov 21, 2018#270

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
Due to the volatile RAM market

Hmm, or maybe DDR3 prices are (finally) falling because of this?

Potentially disastrous Rowhammer variant "ECCploit" can bypass ECC protections

--Patrick

Nov 21, 2018#271

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
TWELVE TO FIFTEEN HOURS

My mistake. That's for one pass. I ordered up 4 passes. :Leyla:

--Patrick

Nov 26, 2018#272

GasBandit

That Cyber Monday feeling when you have 4 4 gig ram sticks in your computer, so even at reduced prices, going from 16 to 32 will run you about 200 bucks and means the old ram goes completely to waste >_<

Nov 26, 2018#273

Bubble181

GasBandit said:
That Cyber Monday feeling when you have 4 4 gig ram sticks in your computer, so even at reduced prices, going from 16 to 32 will run you about 200 bucks and means the old ram goes completely to waste >_<

I have 2x 4GB in my gaming pc and...Well, Shadow of War is the first game where I'm actually feeling it at all. And even so, mostly just in the loading times. OK, for streaming and stuff it makes sense, but I can't even justifiy upgrading ot 16GB right now :confused:

Nov 26, 2018#274

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
That Cyber Monday feeling when you have 4 4 gig ram sticks in your computer, so even at reduced prices, going from 16 to 32 will run you about 200 bucks and means the old ram goes completely to waste >_<

Whenever possible, I advocate 2x8 > 4x4 for just that reason.

—Patrick

Nov 26, 2018#275

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Whenever possible, I advocate 2x8 > 4x4 for just that reason.

—Patrick

Well, in my defense, when I got this machine put together in 2013, it started out with 2x4. I later added two more fours.

Nov 26, 2018#276

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Well, in my defense, when I got this machine put together in 2013, it started out with 2x4. I later added two more fours.

My main PC lived with 2x8 for > 5 years until the occasional flaking got unacceptably frequent at which point I discovered that my board really wasn’t designed with 8GB modules in mind, and nobody still made modules using those older DRAM chips that did work, so I ended up having to go with 4x4 even though I heard that can increase latency. Unbeknownst to me, the incompatibility with the 8GB modules had been forcing it to downclock to 1066, but the 4x4 was able to run at the full 1333 so it ended up being a wash.

As a side note, just last night I discovered I have had “Core unlock” enabled in BIOS all this time (i.e., the last EIGHT YEARS), which is a feature designed to unlock the “extra” cores on CPUs that are really just bigger CPUs but with some cores disabled. Well, when you do this, it turns out your CPU temp sensor breaks and just reports a flat 0C/32F no matter what the actual temp might be, which confuses the heck out of turbo core/fans/etc and is probably the reason I was never able to overclock the thing more than a few hundred MHz. D’oh!

—Patrick

Nov 26, 2018#277

GasBandit

How in the shit do I not have any SATA cables in this entire cable-festooned house?!

Nov 26, 2018#278

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
How in the shit do I not have any SATA cables in this entire cable-festooned house?!

How did you not buy yourself a bouquet of them after the last time?

—Patrick

Nov 26, 2018#279

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
How did you not buy yourself a bouquet of them after the last time?

—Patrick

That was four years ago, I know for a fact I got more sata cables since then.

Nov 26, 2018#280

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
That was four years ago, I know for a fact I got more sata cables since then.

Yes well unless you are mistaking them for Twizzlers in your sleep, you would think you would notice once you start running low.

—Patrick

Nov 26, 2018#281

Dave

How the FUCK did you remember that?!?

Nov 26, 2018#282

PatrThom

Dave said:
How the FUCK did you remember that?!?

Uh...it sounded remarkably similar to the last one?

I mean, there's precedent.

--Patrick

Nov 27, 2018#283

GasBandit

GasBandit said:
How in the shit do I not have any SATA cables in this entire cable-festooned house?!

And of course. I'd taken them to the office and forgot I'd left them there.

Nov 27, 2018#284

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
And of course. I'd taken them to the office and forgot I'd left them there.

I’ll set a four-year timer, just in case.

—Patrick

Nov 27, 2018#285

DarkAudit

I'm getting an itch to build a new system to replace this 2500K box I've been running for nearly 8 years. But why? Other than seeing all those pretty benchmark numbers what purpose does it serve beyond shoving a nicely working system into the background? Besides, food > new GPU.

And that doesn't even count the i7 Dell that used to be my hackintosh. It's been gathering dust ever since the move for lack of a linux-compatible wifi stick.

Nov 27, 2018#286

Dei

DarkAudit said:
I'm getting an itch to build a new system to replace this 2500K box I've been running for nearly 8 years. But why? Other than seeing all those pretty benchmark numbers what purpose does it serve beyond shoving a nicely working system into the background? Besides, food > new GPU.

And that doesn't even count the i7 Dell that used to be my hackintosh. It's been gathering dust ever since the move for lack of a linux-compatible wifi stick.

Do you actually use a PC for anything besides streaming anime?

Nov 27, 2018#287

DarkAudit

Dei said:
Do you actually use a PC for anything besides streaming anime?

Good point. The only game I'm playing even occasionally these days is WoW, and the setup now does just fine. No reason to go for 4K when the TV I use as a monitor only goes to 1080p.

Nov 27, 2018#288

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
what purpose does [a new box] serve beyond shoving a nicely working system into the background?

As always, depends on what you want to do with it.
You can build a newer system equivalent in computing power to your 2500k that uses only 1/3 the electricity--less, really, since you would save even more power thanks to the additional advances in SSD and GPU technology. Also, it would be 4k capable, if you're into that.

--Patrick

Dec 11, 2018#289

DarkAudit

i3wm looks like the FOTM for linux desktops these days. Let's check out some configs. Hey, a full tutorial on how to customize with all the needed settings posted to github!

Wait, why isn't anything working? I've got all the settings adjusted for my directories and everything.

Oh. The videos and config files were posted in 2015. Upstream either changed all the syntax or flat out broke shit since then. Evening wasted.

Dec 14, 2018#290

DarkAudit

A story I found an hour after I did just that...

https://www.techspot.com/news/77846-microsoft-admits-non-insiders-beta-testing-windows-updates.html

tl;dr: Don't press that Check for Updates button.

Dec 15, 2018#291

Null

I may have found a solution to migrating stuff over. Buying an external Hard Drive. We'll see.

Dec 15, 2018#292

Null

For context: Dell Inspiron 660 desktops REALLY don't want you swapping shit out. The hard drive is screwed into a bracket, where one of the screws is essentially inaccessible, and the bracket is riveted to the case. You'd need to permanently damage the case to take the hard drive out. So removing the old hard drive and plugging it into the new unit isn't really feasible. That's why I spent the last of the Xmas money on a 4TB external HD. It was on sale for $109.99 at best buy, apparently they're usually like $199.99.

Dec 15, 2018#293

PatrThom

Null said:
I may have found a solution to migrating stuff over. Buying an external Hard Drive. We'll see.

Whatever happens, if you get it to where you can see the files, grab them. Don’t ask questions, just GRAB AND MOVE as if it might be the last chance you get. Because sometimes, it is.

Null said:
Dell Inspiron 660 desktops REALLY don't want you swapping shit out.

Most office computers are made to be easily swapped out quickly by IT staff IF you know ahead of time what it is you have to do. Here, check this out:

—Patrick

Dec 20, 2018#294

DarkAudit

My dual-slot Black X dock died months ago, leaving me a spare USB3 cable. That doesn't fit in the single-slot BlackX. Meaning the WD/SanDisk branded cloning software won't recognize the drive as one of theirs. Off I then go searching for free cloning software that isn't a crippleware demo. Found EaseUS ToDo. It did the job, but beware of the "system clone" option. It backed up my Windows 10 setup, but that's it. The repair partition was missing. So I decided the hell with it. I haven't done a clean install since I bought the machine, so I guess now is a good time to start over. Nothing lost since I have the original HDD with everything on it right here.

Dec 20, 2018#295

PatrThom

Every now and then, ya just gotta bite down and do it.

--Patrick

Dec 27, 2018#296

DarkAudit

The Chrome on the reset laptop has run into the Establishing Secure Connection bug. It never did that on the previous install or on the desktop. Quickly opening Edge for a moment breaks the seal, but I shouldn't have to do that. Messing around with Crypto items in the registry? I REALLY shouldn't have to do that.

Dec 29, 2018#297

DarkAudit

More whines.

That BlackX dock? Works great with eSATA. Too bad it's dead tech. Just like that firewire port that was on my old Athlon 2500+ system. The other connection is USB... 2.0. The dual dock is 3.0, but died just as the warranty expired. Looks like I'm going to be busy consolidating and curating old files in preparation for the new build.

Dec 29, 2018#298

figmentPez

DarkAudit said:
More whines.

That BlackX dock? Works great with eSATA. Too bad it's dead tech. Just like that firewire port that was on my old Athlon 2500+ system. The other connection is USB... 2.0. The dual dock is 3.0, but died just as the warranty expired. Looks like I'm going to be busy consolidating and curating old files in preparation for the new build.

Can't you just add an eSATA port to the back of your computer with a <$10 cable/bracket?

Dec 29, 2018#299

DarkAudit

figmentPez said:
Can't you just add an eSATA port to the back of your computer with a <$10 cable/bracket?

Or I could do that.

Still need to curate my porn, though.

Jan 6, 2019#300

figmentPez

My (10 year old) monitor has developed an issue:

Not the greatest photo, but that's not glare on the screen it's a single column of red pixels that goes about 85% of the way up the screen. Started as flickery and intermittent a couple days ago, now it's solid red, all the time. It's definitely the monitor, since it shows up both when using my computer, and when switching over to the monitor's HDMI input with the signal coming from a Blu-ray player.

I really don't want to have to shop for a monitor right now, so I might just live with it for as long as possible. Among the issues I want to avoid:
- My desk perfectly fits my 21.5" monitor. It's a weird desk with shelves on either size of the monitor, so a 23"+ monitor would not fit in the same position. I might be able to set it closer to my face, in front of the shelves, but I dunno....
- Since my parents are supporting me I'd feel a lot of pressure to get the cheapest reasonable option. I lucked out in getting a decent refurbished desktop, but I'm worried my luck will not hold out again. I've been burned before by trying to go too cheap. My parents have been burned, too, but they've never seemed to learn their lesson, especially when it comes to tech. They think all tech fails "as soon as the warranty runs out" anyway.
- I like that this monitor has both DVI and HDMI inputs. Most cheap monitors, if not all, are not going to let me have my computer and my Blu-ray player connected at the same time.
- I don't really want to figure out how cheap a monitor has to be before the image quality annoys me. My monitor isn't all that amazing (Asus VH222H, $175 ten years ago) and it's okay, but my TV is bad enough that it annoys me (I've never been able to get the color/gamma adjusted right). It would irk me every day if I were stuck with a monitor as bad as my TV.

Plus, I'm sick with some sort of cold/flu right now, and I just don't want to be thinking much at all.

That said, I'm glad that what I consider decent has come down drastically in price over the years. I remember splurging to get a 17" Trinitron monitor for my first PC, and later spending like $400+ for a 19" IBM monitor with a Trinitron tube (weighed ~60lbs). Anything less than 85Hz was headache inducing, and I'm so glad the days of worrying about screen geometry are gone (well, if you're not using a projector).

Jan 6, 2019#301

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
My desk perfectly fits my 21.5" monitor. It's a weird desk with shelves on either size of the monitor, so a 23"+ monitor would not fit in the same position. I might be able to set it closer to my face, in front of the shelves, but I dunno...

I feel your pain. Our entertainment center has a center spot that JUST fits a 32in television. We just upgraded to 4k-capable stuff, but is there such a thing as a 32in 4k television? Nope. You can get 4k-capable monitors in 32in. Heck, you can get 4k-capable monitors in 21in. But the TV industry is apparently all, "4k TV under 40in? What kind of strange deviant person wants a 4k television that doesn't cover at least half an entire wall?"

:waves:

--Patrick

Jan 6, 2019#302

Bones

PatrThom said:
I feel your pain. Our entertainment center has a center spot that JUST fits a 32in television. We just upgraded to 4k-capable stuff, but is there such a thing as a 32in 4k television? Nope. You can get 4k-capable monitors in 32in. Heck, you can get 4k-capable monitors in 21in. But the TV industry is apparently all, "4k TV under 40in? What kind of strange deviant person wants a 4k television that doesn't cover at least half an entire wall?"

--Patrick

same problem, custom built home theater unit was built before LCD/LED took off, so now i have to get rid of it if I want 4k for the space. i dont use the damn thing so it stays with a high end panasonic crt from 15 years ago.

Jan 6, 2019#303

GasBandit

If you want the same exact monitor for space concerns, Ebay's probably the way to go. Just make sure the seller has high reputation. Asus makes good monitors, I've owned several over the years (my secondary monitor at home right now is an Asus VW226TL), so if it were me, I wouldn't feel too antsy about grabbing this preowned one for $99 for example.

Jan 6, 2019#304

PatrThom

I’ve only ever had a problem with one ASUS monitor which developed a cloudy “halo,” but it was within the warranty period and the only reason it was not resolved was because it was my father’s monitor and I could never get him to set up the RMA. It always had that cloud, but it still lasted almost 10 years.

—Patrick

Jan 6, 2019#305

figmentPez

GasBandit said:
If you want the same exact monitor for space concerns, Ebay's probably the way to go. Just make sure the seller has high reputation. Asus makes good monitors, I've owned several over the years (my secondary monitor at home right now is an Asus VW226TL), so if it were me, I wouldn't feel too antsy about grabbing this preowned one for $99 for example.

Doesn't seem like a good deal to spend $100 on a ten year old used monitor when I could get a new monitor for the same price.

Jan 7, 2019#306

GasBandit

figmentPez said:
Doesn't seem like a good deal to spend $100 on a ten year old used monitor when I could get a new monitor for the same price.

That's true. It's just the best option if you need a certain specific outdated monitor. If you can make a newer one work, all the better (And you can probably get a new 21.5" for less, as long as you don't mind Acer or Lenovo, which can be a crap shoot).

Jan 14, 2019#307

fade

You know what bugs me? When some new version of tech comes out and the tech/IT/dev media acts like it's the first of its kind when it is not. Like Facebook, for example. Why does everyone act like this was some genius first move on the board? There were popular commercial alternatives, and before that, there were local network versions (e.g. CDE's catalog). Docker is one that comes to mind now. Virtual environments are nothing new...they go back to the very early days of unix. I mean, it's a nice application of virtualenvs, and it deserves praise, but it's not the first, and a lot of the stuff I read treats it like it's some earth-shattering new discovery. Or I'm taking a Julia tutorial, and the official tutorial acts like Julia is the first programming language to come up with polymorphism. They don't call it that. They call it "multiple dispatch", but it's just polymorphism. Maybe it's just the tutorial author (who on the previous page had admitted no knowledge of C, which Julia can call out to natively like Fortran). Again, don't get me wrong, Julia is a nice language (if you're unfamiliar, it's basically "fast python for math and science nerds who like Matlab"), that definitely fills a niche.

Feb 10, 2019#308

DarkAudit

Thought I'd hit a nice stable 4.1Ghz overclock. 1.3500v and made it through 4 hours of AIDA64 and about a 20 minute run in Zuldazar in WoW at near-max settings.

Then I ran OCCT, and it barfed after a mere 7 minutes. Bumped to 4.0Ghz and 1.3375v and trying again. As of this writing, it's passed the 35 minute mark and counting.

One interesting thing, it appears the Cool n' Quiet power saving feature (comparable to Intel's Speedstep) didn't properly kick in until I lowered the voltage to 1.3375v. At 1.3500v, the CPU stayed pegged at max clock.

Feb 12, 2019#309

DarkAudit

Somehow (probably related to the OC testing lockups) both Photos and the Microsoft Store got hit with the "invalid value for registry" error. And of course the recommendations from Microsoft were either years obsolete thanks to changes in the software, or insultingly obvious to even a 5 year old. Eventually I was directed to try a "repair reinstall" that keeps apps and files. That worked to get Photos working, but not the store. A little more digging found how to remove the store outright via Powershell. I'll try putting it back after work.

Feb 22, 2019#310

David

My 2TB storage drive I bought not 6 months ago up and died after causing some massive issues with my desktop's startup and shutdown times. After some dead cables, a DOA motherboard, a short-lived SSD and some other crap, I feel lately like anything I buy at Fry's has a 50/50 shot of being utter garbage.

Feb 22, 2019#311

PatrThom

Are you sure that store wasn't previously a Harbor Freight?

--Patrick

Mar 2, 2019#312

jwhouk

Finally broke down and bought a Thrustmaster Ferrari Challenge Wheel for PC, so I can play BeamNG.drive properly (i.e., without the keyboard).

Guess what error comes up when I try to launch the game on Steam?

Our engine could not initialize a valid DX10/11 device.
It is possible that your hardware does not meet the minimum requirements.
Please contact our support team.

Mar 3, 2019#313

jwhouk

On second viewing, it appears that BeamNG decided to stop supporting DirectX 10.x cards. Guess what my OBGC maxes out at.

Mar 3, 2019#314

PatrThom

That's...unusual, since DX11 support has been around since (the majority of) the AMD Radeon 5xxx/GeForce GTX 4xx generation.

--Patrick

Mar 3, 2019#315

jwhouk

I don't have a graphics card...

Mar 3, 2019#316

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
I don't have a graphics card...

I mean... you do, even if it's integrated.
But you can pick up something like a GT710 for < $35 if you want DX11 minimum and have a slot available.

--Patrick

Mar 3, 2019#317

jwhouk

I think the GTX 750 Ti is probably my option, but unfortunately I have a few other big-ticket items I'm going to have to worry about over the next few months before I could even consider a graphics card.

That, of course, means BeamNG.drive is UselessWare on my Steam account until then.

Mar 3, 2019#318

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
I think the GTX 750 Ti is probably my option, but unfortunately I have a few other big-ticket items I'm going to have to worry about over the next few months

Wow, you weren't kidding.

...and that's not even for the Ti version. But hey, at least the shipping is free.

--Patrick

Mar 3, 2019#319

jwhouk

YOWTCH. That's not what I saw...

Mar 3, 2019#320

PatrThom

Yeah, I know it's just another example of the auto-listing Amazon bots getting a little too price-happy (as often happens), but COME ON that's ridiculous to the point of "SOME sort of limiter should've kicked in by now!"

--Patrick

Mar 4, 2019#321

Tinwhistler

PatrThom said:
Yeah, I know it's just another example of the auto-listing Amazon bots getting a little too price-happy (as often happens), but COME ON that's ridiculous to the point of "SOME sort of limiter should've kicked in by now!"

--Patrick

You'd think. But you'd be wrong.

I once took one of my books offline for 24 hours because I fixed a few typos, an it takes about that long for amazon's systems to review and get everything back online.

By the time the book came back online, the automated bots worked themselves up to a frenzy and one of them was offering the paperback version of my book for $16,000

Mar 4, 2019#322

PatrThom

Well, whatever the market will bear, and all that, right?

—Patrick

Mar 14, 2019#323

GasBandit

The latest update to google hangouts removed the function to set notification sounds individually by conversation.

I know it's pointless to gripe at them since they're shutting down Hangouts anyway in october, but I'm mystified as to why they would go through the effort to remove features piecemeal between now and then.

Mar 14, 2019#324

Dei

GasBandit said:
The latest update to google hangouts removed the function to set notification sounds individually by conversation.

I know it's pointless to gripe at them since they're shutting down Hangouts anyway in october, but I'm mystified as to why they would go through the effort to remove features piecemeal between now and then.

They aren't getting rid of it as much as they are rebranding it for the millionth time.

Mar 14, 2019#325

GasBandit

Dei said:
They aren't getting rid of it as much as they are rebranding it for the millionth time.

Right now the "rebranded" version is only available to gsuite users (paid business clients)... so until we hear otherwise, it's as good as going away.

I'm still pissed they decided to put extra effort into removing a feature.

Mar 22, 2019#326

General Specific

Supposed to have gotten a new rack in this week so we could setup my location as a backup data recovery site, but the delivery company says that I told them to deliver it today. I certainly said no such thing and never even spoke to them about delivery. I did notice my name in nice big letters on the side, so I'm thinking they had a snafu and used my name to cover their asses. I think this because they said that they had talked to "Matthew" when anyone who speaks to me for 3 seconds knows I prefer to be called Matt.

I'm kinda pissed off about this, but I'm also not high enough up the ladder to really complain about it.

Mar 22, 2019#327

DarkAudit

For @GasBandit, A Complete List of Every Product Google Killed Off.

May 4, 2019#328

mikerc

Welp, looks like my PC is borked. For a while now I've had a recurring issue where on the login screen Windows is registering phantom keypresses like a key is being held down. Naturally this makes it impossible to type in my password & log on.

It's not a problem with the actual board itself as I have tried with different keyboards & it makes no difference. I had a workaround for a while in that if I swapped my keyboard into a different usb port before switching my PC on the problem didn't occur, so I just switched between 2 ports. Now that doesn't work anymore.

Pressing every key on the board to try & force Windows to detect a key release doesn't work. Booting up with no keyboard attached doesn't work - it still detects the keypresses. Booting into safe mode doesn't fix it. Wiping & reinstalling windows? Doesn't. Fucking. Fix it.

I give up. I have no idea what to try next & I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. Maybe tomorrow will bring some new ideas.

May 4, 2019#329

PatrThom

If you have no keyboard installed, you shouldn't have keypresses.
Disconnect all peripherals, ALL OF THEM (check every USB and PS/2 port! for dongles, etc), even your Internet connection, no wifi, no Bluetooth, nothing, just a power cord, the tower, and the monitor, and see if it continues. If it does, try a different monitor (a TV over HDMI, maybe?) to rule out the monitor, too. The suspicion is that something (Internet, USB accessory) is somehow passing keystrokes, either by accident or by malice, and if it goes away with only a monitor connected, then you start looking for nasties. If it does keep doing keystrokes with only monitor and box connected, try booting to a Linux LiveCD/DVD to rule out the Windows installation itself. If you boot to a different monitor and a LiveCD and it is still passing keystrokes, then it's something inside your computer, either a hardware bug or one of your internal cards.

--Patrick

May 5, 2019#330

mikerc

Woo, back on my PC! Thanks @PatrThom - it was an old bluetooth dongle for a keyboard I don't even have anymore but forgot to remove the dongle from the back of my case. No idea where it was picking signals up from, but it's been binned now anyway.

May 5, 2019#331

PatrThom

I can only imagine your face when you found it, too. “OH COME ONNN!!!”

At least it wasn’t an RGB keyboard dongle, right, @DarkAudit ?

—Patrick

May 18, 2019#332

Bones

so powerdvd(the predominate physical media software for computers) just updated with a ton of new features(incrementally too btw, FUCKERS!) the upgrade price is 50 bucks and the feature thats killing me is screen ratio scaling for HD/UHD/4K/8K media(something thats been impossible due to how you cant modify the signal on blu-rays once they are transmitted) Ive been getting a lot of older anime on blu-ray that was shot 4:3 and its kind of annoying to see the bars again after 20 years but vertical this time.

May 18, 2019#333

GasBandit

Bones said:
so powerdvd(the predominate physical media software for computers) just updated with a ton of new features(incrementally too btw, FUCKERS!) the upgrade price is 50 bucks and the feature thats killing me is screen ratio scaling for HD/UHD/4K/8K media(something thats been impossible due to how you cant modify the signal on blu-rays once they are transmitted) Ive been getting a lot of older anime on blu-ray that was shot 4:3 and its kind of annoying to see the bars again after 20 years but vertical this time.

Gimme a couple months, I'm sure a copy will fall off a truck. Right now all I'm seeing is v18 though, not 19.

May 18, 2019#334

Bones

GasBandit said:
Gimme a couple months, I'm sure a copy will fall off a truck. Right now all I'm seeing is v18 though, not 19.

19 came out this month, so it will be awhile. I am buying it, I just wanted to whine about it :3

May 18, 2019#335

PatrThom

Oh that's right, this means I have to upside-down all my rants in the tech thread, too. :mad:

--Patrick

May 19, 2019#336

Bones

PatrThom said:
Oh that's right, this means I have to upside-down all my rants in the tech thread, too.

--Patrick

What now?

May 19, 2019#337

GasBandit

Bones said:
What now?

He's been putting his rants in the whine thread and his whines in the rant thread... in both places.

Jun 12, 2019#338

DarkAudit

Once upon a time, there was a music tagging app called TuneUp. It was supposed to run alongside iTunes and automagically fingerprint your music and correctly sort and fix your tags.

Only it didn't. For starters, it was a memory hog, and a large library would bring the thing to it's knees. A click could take minutes to register... if you were lucky. And then there were the tags. It liked to sort artists by first name. So a Frank Zappa would show up in the F's. That is, IF it managed to get the tags right. Which it often didn't. Other times it would tag an album from obscure ROW releases that 98% of us would never have seen.

Lastly, the damage to the folder structure when you download your tracks back off the cloud. A multi-artist compilation might have individual folders for each artist. Or different folders for variations on an artist's name. "And" or "&," for example.

I've long since switched to Musicbrainz.org's Picard tagger. A more robust database, and held to much higher standards for its entries. For the first time in years, I'm retagging and more importantly RESORTING my library. Finally, everything will be where it's supposed to be. OR as close as I can get to it.

TuneUp has revised it's app and is relaunching it, but when something like Picard exists for free, why would anyone pay money for that hot garbage?

Jun 14, 2019#339

DarkAudit

TIL Microsoft Store apps do not play nice with addons compared to their standalone counterparts. I found this out when trying to convert some FLAC files to AAC with Foobar2000. First, Foobar2000's codec pack that contains the AAC and LAME encoders wouldn't install when I had the Microsoft store version of Foobar2000 installed. Went to their own installer and all was well.

UNTIL...

Every time I tried to convert a file, error code 2 came up. At first, I thought it was a problem with a bad encoder per their forum. But no. It was the Store version of iTunes. The encoder didn't like that version. So I uninstalled the store version and reluctantly go to Apple directly for theirs. Conversions to AAC now go off flawlessly.

Jun 16, 2019#340

Ravenpoe

I've never once used an app off the Microsoft store. Don't trust it, I'll install my own programs thank you

Jun 16, 2019#341

GasBandit

If I ever get something from the microsoft store, shoot me. It's not really me, it's a pod person.

Jun 16, 2019#342

figmentPez

I use the Netflix app from the Windows store, because it was either that or use Edge to get 1080p video.

Jun 17, 2019#343

Far

Game pass was $1 so I tried Crackdown 3(shit) and intended to try Sea of Theives but my time ran out.

That's all I've ever got off it

Jun 23, 2019#344

PatrThom

AAHHHH forgot I was never supposed to register a .us domain name and grabbed one on sale AAHHHH
Canceled it after 4 days, hopefully not too much damage done.

EDIT (for @figmentPez and others): The .us domain is one of the TLDs that prohibits proxy admin registration, meaning that for that brief period, my personal address/phone/email were visible for all to see. I must've gotten 20 spam phone calls on the 20th alone, not counting all the emails offering to design my brand new website for me, etc.

--Patrick

Jul 5, 2019#345

jwhouk

TIL changing your Google Password is death if you own a Chromebook.

Jul 17, 2019#346

Bones

so apparently windows ten will shit itself every time it tries to sleep as long as it needs to update. it showed being all up to date but i randomly noticed the new "I REALLY NEED TO REBOOT TO FINISH UPDATING" yellow dot on the power button in the task bar and thought, wtf ill give it a try. yeah now everything turns off automatically again. well i never cease to be amazed! this is the kind of shit that @PatrThom always gives me ribbings for lol.

Jul 17, 2019#347

PatrThom

Heh I doubt I would've ribbed you about it. For one thing, I've never noticed the dot you mention.
Though that might be on newer hardware. My computer only tells me about updates a dozen or so times/year, after they've finally made sure it won't brick my machine.

Before year's end, this machine is going to go back to Win7 anyway, but not until I have the contents backed up AND am on my way to building its NVMe-powered, UEFI-based, WinX-native replacement.

--Patrick

Jul 18, 2019#348

ncts_dodge_man

The yellow dot is something that started appearing in newer builds of 10 - it didn't used to pop up. I didn't see it until I updated to 1903.

My whine for the day is in finding out that when you turn MFA for Office 365, when setting up Outlook, the prompt after the MFA prompt is for an app password - yet it doesn't look any different than for a normal password. Spent all of work yesterday trying to figure out a user's issue (after they turned on MFA for most of the users) and found a link today that explained that and that fixed it. As a note: the user was in our sales department and was on our Citrix environment (which I am primarily a Citrix support engineer) - nobody else below me figured it out and I was thinking it was a Citrix issue since it came to me... First major time for me to troubleshoot Office 365 with MFA.

Jul 18, 2019#349

PatrThom

ncts_dodge_man said:
The yellow dot is something that started appearing in newer builds of 10 - it didn't used to pop up. I didn't see it until I updated to 1903.

Ah, that explains it. I’m one of those people whose update has probably been delayed due to 1903’s incompatibility with older AMD RAID drivers. I’m probably going to have to upgrade to more recent drivers before I’ll be allowed to upgrade...IF the newer drivers work properly with my “ancient” 880G chipset. And I’m not even going to make that attempt until after I’ve backed up my system.

—Patrick

Aug 30, 2019#350

PatrThom

Weird.
I mean, I get that there are probably Windows updates that never got installed pending restarts, but so many?

--Patrick

Aug 30, 2019#351

Dave

He might be having the same issues as me. This last Windows update fucked my system something good. I'm reading that several people are having boot issues since the update.

Aug 30, 2019#352

GasBandit

Garedicus said:
I decided a few weeks ago to save even more electricity that we usually do at night, and actually turn my PC off at night, since I have an SSD and startup takes less than a minute. The first morning I had to boot twice to get to Windows. The second morning took three boots. The third took four. I no longer turn the computer off at night.

Never shut down.
Never reboot.
NEVER.

Aug 30, 2019#353

Dei

GasBandit said:
Never shut down.
Never reboot.
NEVER.

I read this in Tim Allen's voice.

Aug 30, 2019#354

PatrThom

I hear about all this stuff, but have yet to experience it.
...though, like I said, I still haven't updated to 1903 yet (still on 1809) since I haven't offloaded all of my stuff onto the NAS, since the three drive trays I need to finish the NAS project apparently have to be mined directly from the perilous and nigh-abandoned 5-1/4in valley region of China and won't be arriving until the middle of next month.
...at which point I'll be rolling back to Win7 anyway for this machine, sooo...

--Patrick

Aug 30, 2019#355

GasBandit

I still run windows 7 mostly at home, but my work laptop has experienced driver issues once over these last 4 months to merit 4+ hours of teeth grinding and reinstallation.

I try to combat most of this by putting the laptop to sleep instead of shutting down, and putting it to sleep every time I leave it. And having it automatically go to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity.

A sleeping laptop doesn't update/apply updates/reboot after updating.

Aug 31, 2019#356

jwhouk

O&O ShutUp10 still works very nicely for me, @Garedicus

Sep 2, 2019#357

jwhouk

Welp. Cox took a dump about an hour or so ago. All three services are down and I have no ‘net other than going on Verizon.

Sep 2, 2019#358

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
Welp. Cox took a dump about an hour or so ago. All three services are down and I have no ‘net other than going on Verizon.

Huh.
Never realized that Cox Communications was a sister company of Auto Trader, Kelly Blue Book, etc.

--Patrick

Sep 2, 2019#359

jwhouk

TIL.

Sep 3, 2019#360

Bubble181

I'm the complete opposite...I shut my PC off every day, more than once if I go down to eat something or whatever. Sleep/hibernate/powersave/whatever modes have crashed my PC far too often for me to rely on them. And, you know, I'm European so I actually think power consumption matters

But anyway, my PC automatically boots up and installs updates somewhere in the middle of the night. I usually don't notice, sometimes I may need to wait at start-up. The only issue I have every time is that for some reason Windows thinks I need to log on using my Microsoft account...While I very deliberately have my PC set to only allow local users to log on. And now it insisted on creating a local PIN to log on, "so much easier"...Yeah, and it's also a 4-digit code to replace my 16-letter-and-symbol password, you dipshits.

Sep 3, 2019#361

PatrThom

I have a Microsoft account.
I have a computer running WinX.
Neither one knows about the other, and never will.
Shhhh...

--Patrick

Sep 4, 2019#362

GasBandit

One of my hard drives just crapped out.

It's the one that has all my MMD stuff on it >_<

Sep 12, 2019#363

Frank

Cool. My pc crashed. Reboots fine or so I thought but now it grinds to halt on signing into Windows. Can't do anything once I'm in. Can't even reboot it. I have literally no idea what's wrong.

Good timing too. Couldn't afford to replace anything if I needed to anyway.

Sep 12, 2019#364

Frank

Well, that was a miserable 2 hours. Couldn't even fucking start it into safe mode or repair or roll anything back because....reasons? Windows 10 decided my Microsoft account password wasn't correct, despite the fact that I could sign in from my phone just fine with it. Refused to let me do fucking anything. EXTREMELY frustrating. I had to drive to a friend's house to use their laptop to make a USB installation key.

Get to stare at this now until I manage to get shit back to how I had it.

All I have left is Steam because it was installed on my game drive.

Congrats on being my first bookmark HF.

Sep 12, 2019#365

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
Well, that was a miserable 2 hours. Couldn't even fucking start it into safe mode or repair or roll anything back because....reasons? Windows 10 decided my Microsoft account password wasn't correct, despite the fact that I could sign in from my phone just fine with it. Refused to let me do fucking anything. EXTREMELY frustrating. I had to drive to a friend's house to use their laptop to make a USB installation key.

Get to stare at this now until I manage to get shit back to how I had it.

View attachment 32193

All I have left is Steam because it was installed on my game drive.

Congrats on being my first bookmark HF.

If you can avoid it, never sign in with a microsoft account again.

Ain't no one putting that bad mojo on my machine.

Sep 12, 2019#366

Bubble181

Ravenpoe said:
If you can avoid it, never sign in with a microsoft account again.

Ain't no one putting that bad mojo on my machine.

Win10 no longer allows anything else. It's completely ridiculous from a security standpoint.

Sep 12, 2019#367

Ravenpoe

Bubble181 said:
Win10 no longer allows anything else. It's completely ridiculous from a security standpoint.

I don't have a Microsoft account on my machine, just a user account. I'm on the latest version as well. It's really stupid that once you sign in with a Microsoft account you are forced to use it, and during installation it makes it appear like you need one, but you can choose not to create one and just use a local account instead.

Sep 12, 2019#368

Bubble181

Ravenpoe said:
I don't have a Microsoft account on my machine, just a user account. I'm on the latest version as well. It's really stupid that once you sign in with a Microsoft account you are forced to use it, and during installation it makes it appear like you need one, but you can choose not to create one and just use a local account instead.

One of the last updates forced me. And I do mean - forced. Local account was connected to MS account and he then refused to log me on with my local PW.

Sep 12, 2019#369

PatrThom

Frank said:
Windows 10 decided my Microsoft account password wasn't correct, despite the fact that I could sign in from my phone just fine with it.

Just want to remind everyone that this is a possible symptom of date/time being wrong, so before hulking out, duck into the BIOS real quick and make sure the date/time are correct (and that your LAN is enabled!), then try again.

Bubble181 said:
Win10 no longer allows anything else. It's completely ridiculous from a security standpoint.

I probably haven't done a clean install of WinX since 1803 or so, but I remember the option to create a local account was still there, you just had to click your way through a bunch of scary-looking security warnings to get there. And then during the setup you had to confirm you really didn't want to sign in about a frillion more times.
Apple, as tied-together as they want you to be, also used to allow you to link your user and iCloud accounts/passwords, but since Spring of 2016 they walked it back and won't even let you try any more, ostensibly because allowing you to have the same password everywhere is a big fat security hole.

--Patrick

Sep 12, 2019#370

sixpackshaker

Now I feel bad about being mad at whoever set up my Mom's Win10 install. She forgot her PIN (I've never seen a PIN on a PC before.) and she forgot her google password. I was just planning on hitting her pc with a password crack I have. Then realized that since it is tied to MS and google, there was nothing I could do.

Sep 12, 2019#371

Frank

PatrThom said:
Just want to remind everyone that this is a possible symptom of date/time being wrong, so before hulking out, duck into the BIOS real quick and make sure the date/time are correct (and that your LAN is enabled!), then try again.

I probably haven't done a clean install of WinX since 1803 or so, but I remember the option to create a local account was still there, you just had to click your way through a bunch of scary-looking security warnings to get there. And then during the setup you had to confirm you really didn't want to sign in about a frillion more times.
Apple, as tied-together as they want you to be, also used to allow you to link your user and iCloud accounts/passwords, but since Spring of 2016 they walked it back and won't even let you try any more, ostensibly because allowing you to have the same password everywhere is a big fat security hole.

--Patrick

The bios time was fine. I was in there quite a bit trying to figure out a way to boot into safe mode.

Sep 13, 2019#372

Frank

Jesus Christ. I was beginning to lose my mind. My PC since the reinstall had become a barely stable mess with everything crashing constantly. I was worried that something had been damaged in that ultra-crash.

So I finally pop into my bios aaaaaand apparently at some point without realizing I had turned on "SUPER GAME MODE TURBO BOOST ULTRA DELUXE CHAMPION EDITION" mode on my mobo, overclocking the fucking shit out of my processor. Woops.

Sep 13, 2019#373

PatrThom

I need 5 drives for my NAS project.
I bought 6 (a baker's half-dozen?).
One was OOB failure, so I sent it back to be replaced.
NAS project underway.
One of my 5 drives started failing about 23hours in (8 bad sectors, 1500 pending/weak).
Replacement is still not back yet.
NAS project back on hold. Again.

--Patrick

Sep 13, 2019#374

Bubble181

PatrThom said:
I need 5 drives for my NAS project.
I bought 6 (a baker's half-dozen?).
One was OOB failure, so I sent it back to be replaced.
NAS project underway.
One of my 5 drives started failing about 23hours in (8 bad sectors, 1500 pending/weak).
Replacement is still not back yet.
NAS project back on hold. Again.

--Patrick

...I'm pretty sure 6 is just a regular old half dozen. A baker's half dozen would be 6.5

Sep 13, 2019#375

PatrThom

Bubble181 said:
...I'm pretty sure 6 is just a regular old half dozen. A baker's half dozen would be 6.5

Half a hard drive is of no use to me, so INT(bakerdozen/2)=6.
I bought a 7th from Amazon. It should be here Tue, which is sooner than #6's replacement is supposed to arrive, so I guess I'll just have a spare.

--Patrick

Sep 13, 2019#376

GasBandit

A baker's X just means one more than customary, the extra being "to eat on the way home."

So a baker's half-dozen would be 7.

A baker's gross would be 145.

Sep 13, 2019#377

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
A baker's X just means one more than customary, the extra being "to eat on the way home."

I'm not going to eat an extra drive. The magnets are bad for your intestines.

Also how's this for today's news?

Eh, it's not like anyone uses those, right?

The way things are going, @Garedicus might want to look into Debian 10 "Buster" as an alternative, assuming you consider finding working wifi drivers less of a hassle than Windows.

--Patrick

Sep 14, 2019#378

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Debian

Debian lost me with the whole IceWeasel fiasco. Taking Free Software into Lawful Stupid territory. I'm an Arch/Gentoo/Ubuntu guy from now on.

Sep 14, 2019#379

DarkAudit

@PatrThom Debeian declared Firefox non-free over their trademarked logos and replaced it with their own version they named IceWeasel.

Sep 14, 2019#380

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
@PatrThom Debeian declared Firefox non-free over their trademarked logos and replaced it with their own version they named IceWeasel.

That part, I knew. But I didn't know it was solely due to the registered marks.

--Patrick

Sep 14, 2019#381

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
That part, I knew. But I didn't know it was solely due to the registered marks.

--Patrick

Gentoo does something a bit less obnoxious. You have to set a flag to compile with the regular branding.

Sep 17, 2019#382

Bubble181

"Not having a microphone hooked up to your computer" does wonders in shutting Cortana up.

Sep 17, 2019#383

GasBandit

Bubble181 said:
"Not having a microphone hooked up to your computer" does wonders in shutting Cortana up.

Not an option with most laptops these days, and if you're gaming online with people, they will expect you to have a mic, if not a full blown gaming headset (to avoid far end echo).

Sep 18, 2019#384

Bubble181

GasBandit said:
Not an option with most laptops these days, and if you're gaming online with people, they will expect you to have a mic, if not a full blown gaming headset (to avoid far end echo).

Is this a multiplayer issue I'm too antisocial to understand?
*insert meme picture here*

Sep 18, 2019#385

Bubble181

Garedicus said:
Ha! Last time I installed Windows, it asked me to rotate my device 90 degrees to test the screen resolution in portrait mode... y'know, because I routinely rotate my computer monitor 90 degrees. Once upon a time their download service was supposed to check what type of device you had and serve you only the appropriate download for that device type - looks like they've gone one-size-fits-all instead.

Wasn't that Win 8.0? Never had that sort of issue with 10. 8.0 wit hthe big bold buttons for ease of use on tablets and smartphones, same look for desktops 'cause FU....Ah yes.

Sep 18, 2019#386

PatrThom

Garedicus said:
Ha! Last time I installed Windows, it asked me to rotate my device 90 degrees to test the screen resolution in portrait mode... y'know, because I routinely rotate my computer monitor 90 degrees. Once upon a time their download service was supposed to check what type of device you had and serve you only the appropriate download for that device type - looks like they've gone one-size-fits-all instead.

I get that with ads on websites all the time now. Oh, your screen resolution is < 1080? Please rotate your device...

--Patrick

Sep 21, 2019#387

GasBandit

Uuuuggh Android 10 is DEVOURING my pixel's battery.

Sep 21, 2019#388

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Uuuuggh Android 10 is DEVOURING my pixel's battery.

Android 10—The Ars Technica Review

Clear your schedule: this is our longest Android review ever.

--Patrick

Sep 21, 2019#389

GasBandit

Whoa. I switched over to Dark mode and added a couple restrictions to prevent certain ad-supported free apps from running in the background, and suddenly my battery has remained at 70% for about 4 hours.

Sep 24, 2019#390

GasBandit

Garedicus said:
Well, it took them an extra 8 months, but it looks like Google has finally removed the flags from Chrome that allowed me to disable the third-party app lock-out from the ChromeCast device - aka, the workaround for getting VideoStream to continue to cast from a desktop. Guess it's time to get my shit together with that Plex server and Sonarr and such and switch down to HDMI 3.

That's odd... I just double checked on my laptop (which is using videostream just like a desktop)... and I'm still able to send to my chromecast. I never had to set any flags in chrome to begin with, though...

Sep 24, 2019#391

GasBandit

Garedicus said:
I can cast from tabs just fine, or if I have a playlist set up I can use the play button next to one of the titles on the list and get that to connect, but I can't just choose a random movie from a drive and get it to play. The file popup comes up, I choose a file, VS connects and the "Loading" screen comes up, but the app never starts playing the actual file so the ChromeCast side just sits on "buffering," continually. If I then click on the cast button in the upper right-hand corner, it will ask me which ChromeCast I want to cast it to again, then try to connect again, and then the whole thing just jams up and dies.

Edit: Oh, and playlists stop after two titles again, even if one of those titles is 28 seconds of opening theme song and the second episode is 15 minutes long.

That's absolutely bizarre. I just double checked I had the latest version of chrome, and I do... and it continues to work as usual. Is your desktop on a wireless connection, perhaps? There's a tool that helps if that's the case...
https://github.com/videostream/VideostreamPortFix/releases

Sep 24, 2019#392

GasBandit

Hrm, that's very odd.. I have the latest version of chrome, but I don't get the "rounded corners" thing. I still get the sharp corners.

...but it tells me I'm on the latest version...

Are you using the chrome app launcher, or the app menu within chrome itself?

Sep 24, 2019#393

Dei

Garedicus said:
Whichever one drops down from the vertical ellipsis in the upper right-hand corner. We get the same menu, it's not much of a curve, but it came out around the time of all of the "controversy" over them changing the top corners of tabs to rounded corners.

Edit: I should clarify, that's what I use when I want to cast Amazon Prime content, because I'm casting the tab. I have VideoStream Premium as an app on my Windows Taskbar, and Netflix just lets me hit the cast button on the Netflix playback control bar and cast from there.

Can't you just stream Amazon Prime straight to the Chromecast from the app again now?

Sep 24, 2019#394

GasBandit

Garedicus said:
VideoStream Premium as an app on my Windows Taskbar

I've read other people having problems doing it this way. Try this instead -

Instead of launching it from the taskbar, have chrome open a new tab, then hit the "apps" shortcut on the bookmark bar. Videostream for chrome should show up in the list it creates on the new tab, and see if launching it from there behaves better.

Sep 24, 2019#395

GasBandit

Garedicus said:
I don't have an Apps shortcut on my bookmark bar, it just starts with bookmarks, nor can I seem to find any option to enable one. As far as I remember, there's never been an Apps shortcut up there.

hrm. Try navigating to chrome://apps

or maybe right click an empty portion of the bookmarks bar and see if the second-to-last opion is apps shortcut.

Sep 26, 2019#396

GasBandit

I had planned to put my server in the closet of my computer room to help isolate the noise. This plan has backfired. Being shut into a closet means the server warms up that closet PDQ, and the fans get louder and louder and louder as it cools itself with progressively warmer and warmer air. Pretty soon, it can be heard anywhere in the house.

Plan B is to move it out of the closet and sit it on top of a big metal filing cabinet next to the closet. I'm hoping it acts as a sort of extended heat sink, meaning the server won't need to run its fans very hard to stay cool. It'll still be audible in the computer room, which is something I was trying to avoid, but it'll be way less audible than now, in the closet!

Sep 26, 2019#397

PatrThom

Could you mount it vertically? Then you'll conscript physics to help you out, as well as making it significantly more difficult for Nibbles to occupy it.

Or you could replace the closet door with some sort of vented baffle so air can get in the bottom and out the top, but sound cannot.

--Patrick

Sep 26, 2019#398

Fun Size

Our entire work network is out. I'm working from home, but it's also the VPN network. So...I'm watching C.H.U.D. Because why not?

Sep 26, 2019#399

PatrThom

Ah, that brings back memories.
...of people talking to each other in school about a movie I never got to see (because I wasn't allowed to see R-rated movies by myself at the time).

--Patrick

Oct 31, 2019#400

jwhouk

Welp, DVD/CD-RW drive is kaput. Every time I've tried to use it to read a CD or burn one, it's making that weird noise that says "ANTIQUE TECHNOLOGY!"

Nov 3, 2019#401

GasBandit

My primary platter drive has been in the process of dying for a month or so, but I didn't really have time to properly address it. Last night it finally gave up the ghost. I'm thankful I managed to rescue my HFA2 stuff before it was too late, along with a couple other things, but I've now found I've lost a few things I didn't think of in time - my super-modded skyrim install is gone, and so is my unity development environment and my model ripping tools and my MMD installation. These are all things I can get again, but it will be a pain in the ass to reinstall and set up how I like them... and in the meantime, that means I can't make any more avatars for Beat Saber or VRChat, I can't make any more HFA-based youtube videos, and of course I can't play my customized skyrim (probably ever again, because my save games require the exact combination of mods I was using when they were saved).

It's a real bummer.

Nov 3, 2019#402

Ravenpoe

jwhouk said:
Welp, DVD/CD-RW drive is kaput. Every time I've tried to use it to read a CD or burn one, it's making that weird noise that says "ANTIQUE TECHNOLOGY!"

None of my pcs even have optical drives anymore.

Nov 3, 2019#403

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
None of my pcs even have optical drives anymore.

None of the ones I've built/bought since 2013 do, either (though I keep an external around for ripping).

--Patrick

Nov 3, 2019#404

Bones

Ravenpoe said:
None of my pcs even have optical drives anymore.

I have to many drives to talk about in polite company....

Nov 3, 2019#405

Ravenpoe

Bones said:
I have to many drives to talk about in polite company....

Yeah but you're also a super weeb

Nov 3, 2019#406

Bones

Ravenpoe said:
Yeah but you're also a super weeb

hey look, what a man and his ultra HD blu-ray drive do in their own home is their own business!

Nov 3, 2019#407

PatrThom

Bones said:
I have to many drives to talk about in polite company....

That's why I built a NAS.
Soon I will have everything in one place instead of scattered amongst a bunch of bare drives. And then I can get rid of the bare drives. Or sell them, or something.

--Patrick

Nov 3, 2019#408

Zappit

Been working on a paper all day on my laptop, and walked away for a couple hours. I come back, and Windows is running a massive update I kept pushing back. Because apparently it will run it automatically.

Well played, Microsoft. And fuck you.

Seriously, this update screwed up my tower PC, my sister’s laptop, and now it’s coming for mine.

Nov 3, 2019#409

Ravenpoe

Zappit said:
Been working on a paper all day on my laptop, and walked away for a couple hours. I come back, and Windows is running a massive update I kept pushing back. Because apparently it will run it automatically.

Well played, Microsoft. And fuck you.

Seriously, this update screwed up my tower PC, my sister’s laptop, and now it’s coming for mine.

I updated my laptop to try the stupid Xbox game pass for outer worlds... Boy what a mistake that was.

Nov 3, 2019#410

Zappit

In my sister’s, it screwed up her login stuff and she had to redo her pin. Also, Norton stopped working, and she had to run the remove and reinstall tool.

The PC failed to update and got stuck in that damn loop.

Nov 25, 2019#411

PatrThom

Finally started on my router build tonight. The last few parts to arrive have been sitting around for weeks. Heck, I bought the CPU back in June...of 2018.
The 8GB of ECC RAM I thought I had...isn't. So now I gotta make do w/ a different ECC 4GB stick until I resolve that.
The SFX power supply I bought already came with a SFX to ATX adapter included, which means I didn't have to spend an extra $14 after all. Oh well.

--Patrick

Dec 1, 2019#412

PatrThom

So now that the holiday delays are over, the router box is finally built and is now undergoing overnight MemTest86 burn-in testing before I try to start configuring it tomorrow to be our new edge router.
It sports 32GB ECC RAM, a 120GB SSD RAID-1, a Xeon E3-1275L v3 processor, eight 10/100/1000Base-T ports for me to divvy up, and even a 9th one for OOB IPMI management.
So why is this a whine?
The router box may be using only its integrated Intel VGA graphics, but it has twice as much RAM, 30x the HDD speed, and a 70% faster CPU than my current gaming rig, yet all of that fits within a power budget less than one third that of my gaming rig.
It's not fair.

--Patrick

Dec 1, 2019#413

GasBandit

I bought a 24 port gigabit switch to wire up the house for ethernet, and to prepare for putting in some security cameras.

I forgot to buy the PoE version >_< ah well, I guess this is only 50 more bucks and the cameras can get by on 100 mbit.

Dec 15, 2019#414

PatrThom

Decided to back up my Steam library to external today.
Guess I won't be using my computer for anything else for the next 6-10hrs...

--Patrick

Dec 15, 2019#415

GasBandit

I am on the road in Dallas this week! Good thing I have my plex server all ready to go. Oh wait, I'm having trouble... well, I'll just VNC in and adjust WAIT NO DON'T DISABLE THE NETWORK INTERF-==-T4#%#@#!

Dec 16, 2019#416

PatrThom

And that was the last the Plex server heard of Gasbandit (until he gets home to reenable it, that is).

—Patrick

Dec 18, 2019#417

PatrThom

Ugh.
Installing WinXP from scratch in this day and age is an absolute slog. I couldn't even start without downloading the Ethernet driver on another computer and walking it over, but seems Intel removed it from their site during the great November purge, so I had to hunt all over archive.org until I found an old capture that still had it. And once I got the vendor drivers installed and lit up, I still had to install SP3 before I could get started on the something like 250+ additional updates released afterwards. Did I also mention that Microsoft's update servers will refuse to talk to computers running XP until they've received certain key security updates? So you can't get any updates until you get the updates that enable your computer to get the other updates, but there's no list showing which order they have to run and now it's something like 8hrs later.
I'm so looking forward to finishing this thing so I can go to bed and rest up before I get started on installing Win7 ~~tomorrow~~ later today.

--Patrick

Dec 18, 2019#418

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Ugh.
Installing WinXP from scratch in this day and age is an absolute slog. I couldn't even start without downloading the Ethernet driver on another computer and walking it over, but seems Intel removed it from their site during the great November purge, so I had to hunt all over archive.org until I found an old capture that still had it. And once I got the vendor drivers installed and lit up, I still had to install SP3 before I could get started on the something like 250+ additional updates released afterwards. Did I also mention that Microsoft's update servers will refuse to talk to computers running XP until they've received certain key security updates? So you can't get any updates until you get the updates that enable your computer to get the other updates, but there's no list showing which order they have to run and now it's something like 8hrs later.
I'm so looking forward to finishing this thing so I can go to bed and rest up before I get started on installing Win7 ~~tomorrow~~ later today.

--Patrick

WHY!?

Dec 18, 2019#419

GasBandit

I'm on the road for work this week, in Dallas. I'm sharing a hotel room with the install tech for the job we're on.

He started running a 101 degree fever last night.

So I look forward to not having any techs to reterminate cable or fix rack builds at work today, and coming home to risking infection tonight. And all I can do is hope he gets well enough to come in to work tomorrow or else this job isn't gonna get done on time.

Dec 18, 2019#420

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
WHY!?

Because I'm finally moving my main system from a 1TB SATA II boot to a 2TB SATA III boot?

--Patrick

Dec 18, 2019#421

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Because I'm finally moving my main system from a 1TB SATA II boot to a 2TB SATA III boot?

--Patrick

That doesn't explain why you're installing XP. Especially if you're going to turn right around and install Win7 over top if it.

Dec 18, 2019#422

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
That doesn't explain why you're installing XP. Especially if you're going to turn right around and install Win7 over top if it.

Ah, you might think my 7 is "upgrade-only" but that's not the case. It's because the 1TB was dual-boot XP/7x64, so the 2TB will be, too. Basically when I'm done it'll be the same system but with a HDD that's double the size and double the speed.

--Patrick

Dec 18, 2019#423

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Ah, you might think my 7 is "upgrade-only" but that's not the case. It's because the 1TB was dual-boot XP/7x64, so the 2TB will be, too. Basically when I'm done it'll be the same system but with a HDD that's double the size and double the speed.

--Patrick

Why is XP on there at all? 7 I can understand a bit, but XP? No.

Dec 18, 2019#424

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Why is XP on there at all? 7 I can understand a bit, but XP? No.

Retro gaming, more lax DRM, compatibility with some older hardware...basically I want to keep a working XP environment around for the eight times a year I need it.

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2019#425

Bubble181

Aren't modern PCs powerful enough to just plain emulate XP completely? The amount of new hardware not supported anymore would seem to be high

Dec 19, 2019#426

PatrThom

Bubble181 said:
Aren't modern PCs powerful enough to just plain emulate XP completely? The amount of new hardware not supported anymore would seem to be high

Yes, with limitations. Virtual Machines (VMs) can run XP just fine, but the environment they emulate isn’t usually capable of properly emulating anything that talks more-or-less directly to hardware — mainly things like graphics (DX9). So while I do have XP Mode installed within the Win7 partition to handle boring stuff like Word (the download page for XP Mode calls out that it is specifically meant for “productivity apps”) or most older 16-bit apps*, it will fail miserably if I try to play any game that requires 3D graphics or I run something that needs to talk directly to the sound card or USB port.

As far as emulating something “completely,” we’ve had instruction-level emulation for a while now, but transistor-level emulation is a MUCH more complicated beast.

—Patrick
*Fun fact: even though an app may be 32-bit, sometimes that app’s installer is only 16-bit, leading to a “But it was working fine until I tried to reinstall it!” situation.

Mar 21, 2020#427

David

Can't get Windows 10 to stop randomly losing window focus on whatever I'm doing. I've googled it, uninstalled things and ended non-essential processes, but still getting annoyed by text fields losing focus mid-type. Some games are utterly unplayable because the full screen will be booted out within 10 minutes or the keyboard/controller changes focus at a critical moment. About ready to try a complete SSD format and reinstall of windows.

Mar 21, 2020#428

PatrThom

David said:
Can't get Windows 10 to stop randomly losing window focus on whatever I'm doing.

It's not just WinX. I'm running Win7 and occasionally run into it as well. My keyboard input will occasionally be redirected to some other app. I don't know why it happens. I assume it's related to things like game overlays and such.

--Patrick

Mar 21, 2020#429

Ravenpoe

David said:
Can't get Windows 10 to stop randomly losing window focus on whatever I'm doing. I've googled it, uninstalled things and ended non-essential processes, but still getting annoyed by text fields losing focus mid-type. Some games are utterly unplayable because the full screen will be booted out within 10 minutes or the keyboard/controller changes focus at a critical moment. About ready to try a complete SSD format and reinstall of windows.

Try unplugging all other devices to make sure it's not some rogue driver problem putting in phantom inputs. That was the problem I had when Winx decided to randomly update the driver for my flight stick to a different, wrong driver

Mar 22, 2020#430

DarkAudit

I want to connect the linux box to the apartment network to take advantage of that sweet speed. But it's an old Ivy Bridge-era i7. So the ethernet is just 10/100. And the USB wifi dongle I was using is a mere 2.5GHz n. Tops out at 300Mbps. Sigh.

Mar 22, 2020#431

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
But it's an old Ivy Bridge-era i7. So the ethernet is just 10/100.

Gigabit Ethernet has been widely available since the Pentium 4 days. If it only has Fast Ethernet, that's because the board maker chose to cheap out on that.

EDIT: Does it have room for expansion?

--Patrick

Apr 3, 2020#432

PatrThom

Dangit, I need new headphones.
My current set (Steelseries Siberia 350) work just fine, the sound quality is good and the mic quality is good enough, but the construction is just awful. The suspension headband peeled apart after only 3-4 months' use, and the insulation on the USB cable itself is shredding and coming apart in multiple places worse than an iPhone charging cord. I've had to mummify it in multiple spots with vinyl electrical tape just to keep it together, especially the last few inches leading up to where they join the cans themselves. Would not rebuy, and they've been discontinued anyway.

--Patrick

Apr 3, 2020#433

GasBandit

May 6, 2020#434

figmentPez

I hate how the Google Play store will tell you that apps aren't compatible with your device, but won't say what system requirements you don't meet.

May 7, 2020#435

David

figmentPez said:
I hate how the Google Play store will tell you that apps aren't compatible with your device, but won't say what system requirements you don't meet.

When I had an old cheap phone, I was finding the store simply refused to display an app that I knew should be there but turned out I wasn't compatible with. I'd search specifically for it and nothing would come up like it wouldn't exist. It took me a while to figure out what was happening and I wasn't going insane. Thanks for the gaslighting, Google.

May 7, 2020#436

figmentPez

David said:
When I had an old cheap phone, I was finding the store simply refused to display an app that I knew should be there but turned out I wasn't compatible with. I'd search specifically for it and nothing would come up like it wouldn't exist. It took me a while to figure out what was happening and I wasn't going insane. Thanks for the gaslighting, Google.

It still does that. I can't search for the app on my phone.

May 11, 2020#437

PatrThom

Intel Ready with 144-layer 3D NAND On its Own

The 144-layer 3D NAND flash chip by Intel can handle up to four bits per cell (QLC), and can be configured to function as TLC or SLC, at lower densities. Intel will launch its first SSD based on this 144-layer QLC NAND flash chip, codenamed "Keystone Harbor," later this year. Development is underway at Intel for PLC (5 bits per cell) technology, which should drive up densities by 25 percent.

No.
Stop it.
QLC was slow/fragile enough, thanks, but now you want to halve its resilience and speed yet again for a measly 25% capacity increase? Yeah it might mean you have to go with a 2280 or 22110 format instead of a nice, compact 2240 or 2260, but so what? Storage is already shitty enough, stop making it even shittier!

--Patrick

May 14, 2020#438

bhamv3

Both CTRL keys on my keyboard have stopped responding.

It might be a hardware issue. Though if it is, it's rather curious that the only two keys that died were the CTRL keys on both sides. So I'm more inclined to think it's a software issue, except I can't think of any possible cause. Also, I've gone through all the software fixes I can find, such as updating drivers or even deleting drivers, but no luck.

Anyway, keyboards aren't exactly expensive so I'm just going to get a new one and see if that fixes it. But it's annoying.

UPDATE: New keyboard works, so I guess it was a hardware issue after all. Still odd though.

May 15, 2020#439

jwhouk

If you frequently use both CTRL keys on your keyboard (most likely for copy-pasting), it wouldn't be unusual for both to conk out at the same time.

May 15, 2020#440

Fun Size

Also, were you at the time so excited? Like, you just couldn't hide it?

May 24, 2020#441

David

David said:
Can't get Windows 10 to stop randomly losing window focus on whatever I'm doing. I've googled it, uninstalled things and ended non-essential processes, but still getting annoyed by text fields losing focus mid-type. Some games are utterly unplayable because the full screen will be booted out within 10 minutes or the keyboard/controller changes focus at a critical moment. About ready to try a complete SSD format and reinstall of windows.

Just gonna update that it DID turn out to be a problem from an input device. My Huion drawing screen was the source. Everything is fine again if I unplug the USB connector that allows input for the pen and just use it as a normal monitor when I'm not drawing. Gonna see if I can find some kind of external USB switch to simply flip it on and off, but eventually I'm probably going to upgrade to a full sized Wacom Cintiq.

May 24, 2020#442

PatrThom

David said:
My Huion drawing screen was the source.

We got a lower-end model for our son. It will keep popping up the accessibility keyboard without prompting. Win10 keeps thinking, "Oh, you're a tablet? Let me get that for you..."

--Patrick

May 26, 2020#443

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
My UPS just died and I lost power in the middle of a stream. That's bad.

My UPS that feeds the main router (an ancient APC BackUPS) just died in the middle of a boss battle. That's bad.
Yay for Prime shipping I guess. For now we run direct from the wall by the seat of our pants. And I have to do the boss battle all over again. Waaahhhhh...

--Patrick

Jun 2, 2020#444

PatrThom

New UPS installed upstairs, old UPS moved downstairs to the routers. Might as well put the fresh one on the larger load, right? They're both the same model...sorta.
Old model: Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD
New model: Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCDa
I couldn't find any real difference between the specs except for the weight and some ports, and CP has removed the older manual from their site. Whatever, if the power goes out now, our Internet will stay up for at least 2-3 hours now instead of the previous UPS's mere 15min.

BUT I'm here today to rant about my mouse. The left button has started doing the thing where it will sometimes double-click, and there are times when left-clicking it will click and then release even though I'm still holding down the button. Ah well. It was a renewed/open-box item when I bought it, and it has been four years, soooo I guess it's finally time for a new one.

...but the shipping might take a week! Waaahhh...

--Patrick

Jun 3, 2020#445

Bubble181

PatrThom said:
New UPS installed upstairs, old UPS moved downstairs to the routers. Might as well put the fresh one on the larger load, right? They're both the same model...sorta.
Old model: Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD
New model: Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCDa
I couldn't find any real difference between the specs except for the weight and some ports, and CP has removed the older manual from their site. Whatever, if the power goes out now, our Internet will stay up for at least 2-3 hours now instead of the previous UPS's mere 15min.

BUT I'm here today to rant about my mouse. The left button has started doing the thing where it will sometimes double-click, and there are times when left-clicking it will click and then release even though I'm still holding down the button. Ah well. It was a renewed/open-box item when I bought it, and it has been four years, soooo I guess it's finally time for a new one.

...but the shipping might take a week! Waaahhh...

--Patrick

Guaranteed for 60 million clicks? What, they expect you to buy a new mouse every D3 season?

Jun 3, 2020#446

figmentPez

Jun 3, 2020#447

PatrThom

Bubble181 said:
Guaranteed for 60 million clicks? What, they expect you to buy a new mouse every D3 season?

Just once each expansion.

--Patrick

Jun 4, 2020#448

GasBandit

Had a fiber breakage in my neighborhood. No internet until moments ago. I was jonesing!

Jun 5, 2020#449

GasBandit

TIL that, in crestron-land, a serial/analog wave pulse can only be told its duration in logic waves, and not in seconds. It won't throw an error if you feed it "60s" instead of "1d", but if you actually ever want that output signal to go back to low, you have to set the duration to 1d and then put it through a retriggerable one-shot set to 60 seconds.

If only I had learned that BEFORE I had programmed a bunch of rooms the wrong way >_<

Jun 5, 2020#450

PatrThom

Mmm, delicious errata.

--Patrick

Jun 8, 2020#451

Gared

I am apparently a giant dumbass (in this context) and have route deleted the first step of my routing table, to replace it with my VPN's first routing step, which I then turned off, and now am throttling the fuck out of myself. Can anybody help rebuild the routing table for a Spectrum account? So far I've:

route add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 <192.168.1.1> (Spectrum's gateway)

That gave me a first routing step of:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 <my IP> 60

Then, I went into services.msc and re-started Wired AutoConfig.svc, because it was stopped.

Now I have an almost functional internet connection, except that it still doesn't recognize that I'm on a LAN connection, doesn't know that I'm connected to Spectrum, and is slow as fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Also, I'm pretty sure IPv6 is still turned off. And I still can't get Seedboxes.cc's VPN to successfully establish a VPN connection. I never get VPN interface info in my routing table interface info anymore, and it used to be interface 4. The Metric values on my connection are all different from Aislynn's computer, which hasn't had any of its routing table mucked with.

If I promise never to do something this stupid without researching again, can someone help me out here? This sucks.

Jun 8, 2020#452

PatrThom

Gared said:
can someone help me out here? This sucks.

Couldn't find anything that wasn't just "reboot your machines."
But this article has a printout from what I assume is a default routing table, might help you get back to the default if you can't restart?

--Patrick

Jun 8, 2020#453

Gared

PatrThom said:
Couldn't find anything that wasn't just "reboot your machines."
But this article has a printout from what I assume is a default routing table, might help you get back to the default if you can't restart?

--Patrick

Oh, I've restarted plenty. I've even shut down, walked away for a minute or two, come back, and powered up from "scratch." It just hasn't done me any good. I think I'm mostly OK now aside from my connection still not knowing that the name of the network is supposed to be "SpectrumWifie0-5G" instead of "Network Connection," but that's a step up from "unknown ethernet connection, no internet access." I'm wondering if I can "route change" all of my entries and just change the metric scores to match the ones on Aislynn's machine, by I'd hate to screw myself over even more, because it looks like those values determine the speed of the connection, and you can accidentally throttle yourself down to, for example, Metric 60 (which I have right now) which determines the speed for IPv4 transport and sets it to greater than or equal to 10Mb but less than 20Mb, according to this chart of IPv4 Metric Values from Microsoft Support.

Jun 8, 2020#454

PatrThom

The only time I've ever messed with stuff that even remotely looks like what you're doing, I was having to telnet into my router to change the max number of simultaneous open connections. I've never had to edit the routing table beyond the exercises I did for my certifications ages ago, and now when I want to do that kind of stuff I just do it at the router level.

--Patrick

Jun 8, 2020#455

Gared

PatrThom said:
The only time I've ever messed with stuff that even remotely looks like what you're doing, I was having to telnet into my router to change the max number of simultaneous open connections. I've never had to edit the routing table beyond the exercises I did for my certifications ages ago, and now when I want to do that kind of stuff I just do it at the router level.

--Patrick

Yeah, in the future if I want to make sure I'm not leaking any traffic around my VPN or TOR, I'll just buy a raspberry pi 4 and set up TorBox and use that for when I'm not browsing the brightest sectors of the net. I've also re-installed the driver for my ethernet card. I'm pretty much just beating my head against Google's search results at this point, hoping that something will stick and wishing I'd never messed with these settings. I even read the directions and then stupidly did exactly what they said not to do, because I didn't understand them clearly enough.

Jun 8, 2020#456

PatrThom

Gared said:
Yeah, in the future if I want to make sure I'm not leaking any traffic around my VPN or TOR, I'll just buy a raspberry pi 4 and set up TorBox

...like I said, stuff I prefer to do at the router level.

Gared said:
I even read the directions and then stupidly did exactly what they said not to do, because I didn't understand them clearly enough.

I have an Ethernet card like that. Bricked it when I tried to flash the wrong firmware. Oops.

--Patrick

Jun 8, 2020#457

Gared

As it turns out, I have all kinds of missing info in my config file, as reported by netsh> dump. Like, IPv6 really is still disabled. Most of the settings from the IPv4 interface are gone. My default Interface is currently reporting as (Kernel Debug) instead of its name. It's just a big ol' mess. So, tomorrow, I'm going to try one more thing (exporting Aislynn's config, changing the IP to my own, and doing a netsh import), and if that doesn't work I guess I'll just reset to factory settings and never mess with these settings again.

Jun 9, 2020#458

Gared

Gared said:
As it turns out, I have all kinds of missing info in my config file, as reported by netsh> dump. Like, IPv6 really is still disabled. Most of the settings from the IPv4 interface are gone. My default Interface is currently reporting as (Kernel Debug) instead of its name. It's just a big ol' mess. So, tomorrow, I'm going to try one more thing (exporting Aislynn's config, changing the IP to my own, and doing a netsh import), and if that doesn't work I guess I'll just reset to factory settings and never mess with these settings again.

I uh... I done goofed. So, apparently, Google has tracked my activity across the VPN networks recently and has decided that I'm suspicious enough to warrant them formally reviewing my most recent password reset request, and they'll get back to me within 3-5 business days. If they don't decided to let me back in, that's literally all of my emails, all of the emails in my backup account, all of my passwords (I can't log back in to Chrome to retrieve my passwords), and, while the Windows 10 reset did fix the internet problems AND save my documents and downloads, I've misplaced the text file with the keys to my KeyPass account. So I am just altogether FUBAR.

Jun 9, 2020#459

PatrThom

Stop elevating this to the level of a sitcom, Gared3!

--Patrick

Jun 9, 2020#460

Gared

PatrThom said:
Stop elevating this to the level of a sitcom, Gared3!

--Patrick

At this point, I'm probably just going to buy an email domain and be done with it. I don't want to be giving Google (or anyone else) this much control over my entire computer experience. I literally clicked one button on my secondary profile and lost everything. And, while it was a spectacular confluence of events, both needing to reset Windows 10 and having Google stop remembering passwords in the same week is insane.

Jun 9, 2020#461

Tinwhistler

NewGared said:
At this point, I'm probably just going to buy an email domain and be done with it.

I made that decision like 20 years ago. I've never used gmail for anything, until forced to by WGU. I don't use my google or facebook account to log into any sites that require accounts. I keep track of all of it myself. It's a pain, but if I fuck something up, I have no one to blame but myself

Jun 9, 2020#462

Gared

Well, I've managed to recover some of my accounts. I managed to find my main gmail password, but all of the passwords and keys that were saved to that account were deleted, apparently, when I accidentally changed my default google account to my backup account by trying to turn on backup and sync. I say again, no company should have this much control over my life. I knew it was out of control, but this is ridonkulous.

Jun 10, 2020#463

bhamv3

NewGared said:
I uh... I done goofed. So, apparently, Google has tracked my activity across the VPN networks recently and has decided that I'm suspicious enough to warrant them formally reviewing my most recent password reset request, and they'll get back to me within 3-5 business days. If they don't decided to let me back in, that's literally all of my emails, all of the emails in my backup account, all of my passwords (I can't log back in to Chrome to retrieve my passwords), and, while the Windows 10 reset did fix the internet problems AND save my documents and downloads, I've misplaced the text file with the keys to my KeyPass account. So I am just altogether FUBAR.

I'm sorry, I know this must be frustrating for you, but this right here elevates your situation from "sucky" to "hilarious".

Jun 10, 2020#464

PatrThom

Well I certainly hope you’ve learned your lesson about keeping all of your eggs in someone else’s basket, young man.

As for the rest of ye, remember...this could happen to YOU!

—Patrick

Jun 10, 2020#465

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
As for the rest of ye, remember...this could happen to YOU!

I couldn't make half of this stuff happen if I TRIED.

Jun 10, 2020#466

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
I couldn't make half of this stuff happen if I TRIED.

See if Gared can help you.

—Patrick

Jun 10, 2020#467

Gared

PatrThom said:
See if Gared can help you.

—Patrick

See, the first step is to be stoned out of your goddamn gourd.

bhamv3 said:
I'm sorry, I know this must be frustrating for you, but this right here elevates your situation from "sucky" to "hilarious".

Dude, it was hilarious. I've recovered both of the gmail accounts now because I found a spot where I'd written down the password for one of them, so now I can at least use password recovery options for the rest of my accounts, I just have to go through one by one and find out which accounts lost their passwords. I'm sure bill paying time is going to be spectacularly fun this month and next.

Jun 22, 2020#468

bhamv3

My headphones for my phone broke. I bought a new set of headphones. They suck. Everything sounds muffled and distant and undetailed.

Are headphones the kind of thing where you have to pay extra for good quality?

Jun 22, 2020#469

Squidleybits

bhamv3 said:
My headphones for my phone broke. I bought a new set of headphones. They suck. Everything sounds muffled and distant and undetailed.

Are headphones the kind of thing where you have to pay extra for good quality?

I’m not a huge headphone expert, but for most things I believe that you get what you pay for. I have bought many cheap sets of headphones at the airport on work trips and have hated them. I invested in a good pair this weekend and I really hope they’re better. I also bought a dongle so I can use them for my Switch.

Jun 22, 2020#470

DarkAudit

bhamv3 said:
My headphones for my phone broke. I bought a new set of headphones. They suck. Everything sounds muffled and distant and undetailed.

Are headphones the kind of thing where you have to pay extra for good quality?

Kinda, yeah. Are/were they actual headphones, or were they earbuds?

Jun 22, 2020#471

bhamv3

DarkAudit said:
Kinda, yeah. Are/were they actual headphones, or were they earbuds?

Earbuds.

Jun 22, 2020#472

Gared

Everything I've seen in the past three years worth of searching for decent headphones has lead me to believe that if you want good headphones, you need to be prepared to pay at least $70US. Sadly, I still haven't found a good pair of headphones for my phone - bluetooth or otherwise.

Jun 22, 2020#473

PatrThom

Like @Gared says, if you want a pair of buds with good enough sound that you'd be willing to untangle them instead of just pitching them and buying another pair, you're likely going to spend north of $50 for that kind of fidelity.

--Patrick

Jun 22, 2020#474

DarkAudit

Gared said:
Sadly, I still haven't found a good pair of headphones for my phone - bluetooth or otherwise

How many years have I been saying the answer is always M50 now? I has a sad.

Jun 22, 2020#475

drifter

bhamv3 said:
My headphones for my phone broke. I bought a new set of headphones. They suck. Everything sounds muffled and distant and undetailed.

Are headphones the kind of thing where you have to pay extra for good quality?

VE Monks are supposed to sound quite good for really cheap. I have tried various KZ IEMs, they're not spectacular but they're pretty good for a decent price, like $25-40. Not the most durable things though, a bit hit and miss.

Jun 22, 2020#476

Gared

DarkAudit said:
How many years have I been saying the answer is always M50 now? I has a sad.

Don't has a sad - I don't have a phone headset because I prioritized my computer headset and bought a $70 Corsair wireless set.

Jun 22, 2020#477

Bubble181

I'm not saying price is always equal to quality, but yeah, good ear pieces cost.
I'm personally a fan of the Trekz Aftershockz, but it really depends on use case - their sound cancelling is literally non-existant (as in, they're deliberately intended not to cancel noise, so you can use them in traffic, or still talk to colleagues with them in)L

Jun 22, 2020#478

Squidleybits

I know that I’m not talking quite the same thing, but how does my oldest trash her gaming headset so frequently? I had one that I used for years and it lived through being sat on by me a few times.

Jun 22, 2020#479

Bones

I have had the same wireless headphones for like a decade, will probably have the m50's for a long time(unless i replace them with something better?) and just finally got a pair of earbuds I really love(samsung galaxy buds+).

Jun 22, 2020#480

DarkAudit

Gared said:
Don't has a sad - I don't have a phone headset because I prioritized my computer headset and bought a $70 Corsair wireless set.

I paid $159 for my M50s... in 2011. The M50x is around $230 today. An add-on mic for either one is another $50 or so.

Jun 22, 2020#481

Bones

DarkAudit said:
I paid $159 for my M50s... in 2011. The M50x is around $230 today. An add-on mic for either one is another $50 or so.

uh DA, i paid like 150 for mine 2 months ago. they were not on sale....

Jun 22, 2020#482

DarkAudit

Bones said:
uh DA, i paid like 150 for mine 2 months ago. they were not on sale....

Those were the prices Amazon gave me when I checked at work. Now it's giving me ~$170 at home. Weird.

Jun 30, 2020#483

jwhouk

I absolutely HATE printers that refuse to print because one of your color ink cartridges is "below usable levels" and won't print a grayscale document because of "quality concerns".

Jun 30, 2020#484

Squidleybits

Which translates to their bottom line concerns.

Jul 11, 2020#485

Gared

I hate the UI on my new phone, and I'm so god damn sick of typing my PIN in because I accidentally brushed my hand against the button on the side that I might take all lock screen security off the damn thing.

Jul 17, 2020#486

PatrThom

Kid's computer wouldn't start up tonight for game time. It was working fine yesterday. All the built-in hardware tests pass, issue persists with GPU and USB peripherals removed, so likely software, but since I can't get it to boot, I also can't roll it back/check for issues/do selective startup. I also can't get it to boot to an external Windows 10 install USB. BIOS update from USB was successful, at least. Internet says lotsa people have been having trouble with the WinX-2004 update, am wondering if that's what's going on.

Been troubleshooting this thing now almost 6hrs (4.5 of which were hardware tests). Need to get it back up and running for school next month. Don't want to buy a replacement right now.

--Patrick

Jul 17, 2020#487

PatrThom

CMOS was low but not too low, replaced it anyway. Even with HDD disconnected, still won't boot even to WinX-1709 USB installer. Have not tried DVD-based boot cuz I'm too impatient to burn a disc right now. Will try tomorrow with EVERYTHING non-essential unplugged, but I gotta be to work in 4hrs and should probably get at least a little sleep before then. Emphasis on "little."

--Patrick

Jul 22, 2020#488

Gared

DarkAudit said:
How many years have I been saying the answer is always M50 now? I has a sad.

anywhere I can get my hands on a couple of these without the month- to 2-month lead time currently on Amazon?

Jul 22, 2020#489

DarkAudit

Gared said:
anywhere I can get my hands on a couple of these without the month- to 2-month lead time currently on Amazon?

A lot of other stores have them. Guitar Center for one.

Jul 23, 2020#490

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
Kid's computer wouldn't start up tonight for game time.[...] Need to get it back up and running for school next month. Don't want to buy a replacement right now.

Can get to BIOS and on-board diagnostics but can't get it to boot even if the only things in the box are the PSU, the CPU, the MLB, and one stick of RAM. I am currently shopping for a replacement.

Poor little Inspiron 3650. It endured so much.

EDIT: I think we paid something like $300 when I bought it originally, but now the exact same model is being sold for anywhere from $500-$800? WTF? Is having a valid Win7 license key really that valuable right now? Sheesh!

EDIT2: Fortunately the place I got the first one still had one just like it left for only $25 more than they sold it to me back in 2017. So yay should be able to just move over RAM and HDD and it'll be like nothing ever happened. On the other hand, ouch, my wallet.

--Patrick

Jul 23, 2020#491

Gared

PatrThom said:
Is having a valid Win7 license key really that valuable right now? Sheesh!

--Patrick

YES

Jul 23, 2020#492

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
the place I got the first one still had one just like it left for only $25 more than they sold it to me back in 2017. So yay should be able to just move over RAM and HDD and it'll be like nothing ever happened. On the other hand, ouch, my wallet.

Since tomorrow is payday, I may have also ordered a processor upgrade on eBay so I can upgrade the new one from dual-core to quad-core once it arrives.

...help me...

--Patrick

Aug 8, 2020#493

PatrThom

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhh

--Patrick

Nov 5, 2020#494

figmentPez

I'm getting really sick of Netflix spitting back an error most of the time I try to start playback again after pausing the video. I have to restart my browser in order to get it playing again, and sometimes restart my computer.

Nov 10, 2020#495

GasBandit

Man, TechReport used to be so good. Now it's a bare skeleton of what it used to be. Not even any more seasonal system guides, nor links to the ones of previous years.

Nov 10, 2020#496

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Man, TechReport used to be so good. Now it's a bare skeleton of what it used to be. Not even any more seasonal system guides, nor links to the ones of previous years.

Their home base is actually located maybe 10mi from where I work, and it’s down to what’s basically a one-man operation these days. I, too, am sad to see their COVID-hastened decline. Soon they will join the likes of Sharkey’s Extreme and Xbit Labs in the history books.

—Patrick

Nov 12, 2020#497

Squidleybits

I got a sexy new gaming headset that has both a usb connection and a regular headphone one. Ideally, one uses the usb one to allow for surround sound and colour changing. (I loved the idea of pink glowing headphones lol). They don’t work at all with the usb cord. With the headphone cord, and the volume cranked, I get a faint tinny sound. Grrr. It took ages to get anything.

Not cool for an expensive headset. Piece of %#}€€£¥¥?!

Nov 12, 2020#498

PatrThom

Squidleybits said:
With the headphone cord, and the volume cranked, I get a faint tinny sound. Grrr.

With USB, they may require audio drivers and switching your output to be the headphones instead of the onboard audio.
With the headphone cord, there may be batteries that need charging in order to power the headphones? USB can provide power, headphone cord cannot.

--Patrick

Nov 16, 2020#499

GasBandit

Man, I got an android update last weekend, and ever since my battery drain rate has almost doubled.

Nov 16, 2020#500

PatrThom

Even after the customary 2-day “settle down” period?

—Patrick

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