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Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Star War Sex Parrot posted:

This only applies to the 2.5" mobile drives, FYI.
I may be mixing up HDD manufacturers, but wasn't it als WD who had external drives that encrypted the data with a random key on the usb to sata bridge by default, leaving you hosed if that board gets fried or a connector breaks off?

fakest edit: Google suggests WD Mybook stuff, even in relatively recent links.


vvvvvvv edit: Wouldn't mind so much if this was an advertised feature of a separate product line. Now you just don't know before you buy unless you Google pretty well.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Sep 16, 2014

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Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Greedish posted:

This isn't super PC specific, but I recently purchased 3 USB microphones to record podcasts with my friends and I can't seem to record all three at the same time on Audacity/Audition/anything. Is it not possible to use several inputs at once? Do I need a mixer and, if so, are there mixers that take USB input and not just XLR? Sorry if this is the wrong forum or thread.
Not really, maybe and definitely hell no. It was a really poor choice to get multiple usb mics for that. If you can still return them, I'd do that. Any solution that is going to sort of work with them is going to be elaborate and hacky.

Maybe check the Musician's Lounge as a more appropriate place for gear recommendations, stickied home recording thread or something.

There are some podcasting threads scattered around these forums, but the technical knowhow doesn't seem very high there at first glance.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Greedish posted:

edit 2: turns out Asio4All is a remarkable piece of software, and I can now record with multiple mics on multiple tracks with relatively low latency and great sound quality on Adobe Audition. Guess I didn't gently caress up as much as I thought.
Well, I'm glad to be wrong then. Wouldn't have thought to look in that direction.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



I think since Vista a non-quick format zero fills already.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

a full format also tests all sectors to see if they work.
Sorry if this is the dumbest question, but testing involves writing to it in this case, right?

And thanks for clearing that up. Full format is what I meant; a lot less confusing than what I called it.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Sir Unimaginative posted:

Because the Intel 7260 (now in desktop kits too!) is the best drat Wi-Fi card on the planet and it supports both Wireless-AC and Bluetooth 4.0
I'm not going to type it all out again, I'll just link you to a post I made earlier, outlining how my personal experience with the 7260 makes me disagreee very strongly with that statement.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

Your issues were caused by your router crashing under load. You didn't see the issue with other adapters because they weren't good enough to place the router under significant load. You likely would have seen similar behavior with other decent-quality Wireless-AC adapters.
That may be an adequate explanation for the case where the whole router was taken off the air. Router crash seems less plausible for the much more frequent cases where all other connected devices can keep on working without issue during the time the laptop with 7260 AC thinks there's a problem. Intense bluetooth traffic reliably murdering wifi speeds also cannot possibly have a lot to do with that either.

Swear to god that I understand that it gets recommended because likely it works well for a lot of people in a lot of settings and that I'd love to have an alternative explanation that allows me to fix it.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

I'm not saying Intel's drivers are perfect and you didn't encounter real issues, though I've had good experiences on the 7260-AC with both great and lovely routers, but it is pretty important to set reasonable expectations for the performance you'll get.
EDIT: Sorry, let me clean this up a bit.

I am complaining about sub-56k speeds. It's an actual, but probably rare issue.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the explanation and the patience. I wouldn't have thought of it otherwise, but with the way those combined radios apparently work, it probably makes sense to see if a separate bluetooth usb dongle makes any difference until I upgrade to 5GHz. Sorry for all the venting and if I want to discuss the issue any more I'll create a Haus thread, because I'm definitely cluttering up this space.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 7, 2014

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

In theory USB 3.0 ports should be functionally identical to USB 2.0 ports for USB 2.0 devices since the extra pins aren't even connected, but it does not actually work like that for some reason, plenty of people see issues with their mice and keyboards when using USB 3.0 ports.
From personal experience and internet chatter, add a variety of low-latency USB 2.0 audio devices to the list of things that won't necessarily work as they should on a USB 3.0 port.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



csidle posted:

I'm thinking of purchasing this to replace my mSATA. Will it slot right into the same connectors as my mSATA is on, or will I need to buy some sort of adapter?
http://www.bj-trading.dk/bjshop/default.asp?pv=MZ-7TE250BW&pn=SAMSUNG&vare=924971&f=edbp (Danish site)

e: Looks like it says that it's delivered with a SATA-600 interface, so I guess it's ok. I've ordered it now, but of course I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know if I've misunderstood something. Thanks a ton for the help.
The drive you linked is suitable to replace your regular harddrive.

This is a regular sized SATA SSD with an mSATA drive lying on top of it, for size and connector comparison:

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

Bonus next day edit: Bluetooth High-speed was actually introduced in Bluetooth 3.0, not 4.0 like I said above. The reason impact could be very severe is that, for example, if you're running at nearly 100% utilization of the Bluetooth link, the adapter has nearly 0% of its time to devote to WiFi traffic, so you might get basically no throughput. I could see this getting even worse if the router is trying to send data (such as acknowledgement packets) while the adapter isn't listening because it's in Bluetooth mode. It doesn't take very many missed packets to completely gently caress throughput on TCP connections.
I'm only now seeing this edit over a month after the facts, because I've just bought a tiny usb bluetooth adapter and all problems with combining 2.4GHz wifi and bluetooth are completely gone. So I'm thinking it really was exactly as you describe it here. I also switched to a different modem/router I had lying around here and a bunch of the general wifi problems I had I'm going to have to ascribe to the old one overheating and starting to fail, because I'm not having them now. With that the case, I totally revoke my reservations about the Intel 7260 AC wifi chip.

I want to thank you again, Alereon, for pointing me in the right direction on the road to a cheap, practical solution and sorry for the whining earlier; I'm not happy with my laptop, but I shouldn't be making that anyone else's problem.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Artanis22 posted:

Hey guys, I just bought a new Laptop with a "matshita cd-mlt uj260af" DvD-drive. I need to region unlock it because i'm going to be in japan for 6 months.

I've seen some programs I can buy like "slysoft" but does anyone know something I can download that will take care of my problem. Or at least know 100% if buying one of these will definitely solve my problem.

Thanks.
SlySoft AnyDVD takes care of region/drm stuff by decoding it live in the backgound. Seems about right for what you're looking for.

zarg posted:

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 598 headphones, and I'd like to squeeze a bit more quality out of them despite being a total audio retard.

Currently I'm using onboard audio. What should I prioritize as an upgrade? Amp, soundcard, DAC, etc. Any specific recommendations on make/model are greatly appreciated.
I see Fiio stuff recommended fairly often here. They have DAC/heaphone amp combos for not too much money.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



You could definitely solder together an adapter cable with the mic completely disconnected. That wouldn't be hard after you've figured out what pin, tip or ring is what.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Stux posted:

I think you can also buy similar adaptors, a friend had an issue with headphones with inline controls introducing noise and pops into the signal and got one to stop it.
Shopping around and reading reviews for in ear headphones with a microphone gave me the impression there are multiple standards for the pinout, maybe? Especially if there's a button involved. There were multiple reviews mentioning oh, this doesn't work with my either iphone or android and things like that. Same thing for what the manufacturers put on the packaging. Like, on some it's suitable for iphone, on some it says for smartphone, all within the same brand.

I'm a bit hesitant to recommend just buying an adapter at random, if that's really the case.

E: This insanity:

Sleeve should be ground always, dickheads.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Dec 15, 2014

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Rukus posted:

Perusing that Seagate's manual suggested that it allowed for remote network access, which I understand it would be listening for remote connections outside the network. I think that's a bit different than a properly secured router that doesn't allow for remote connections (from the WAN port) to its admin page or shares. Though it's probably just as easy to disable it (hopefully).
You don't plug this thing straight into the phone line or the modem or whatever. Any traffic from the NAS is going to go through the router as well. If the router is properly secured, then the NAS won't get any WAN access if you don't want it to, no matter how the NAS itself is configured. Security-wise it's the same thing.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Smeef posted:

I found an old rear end PC of mine and want to see what's on the HD. I don't have a monitor that will work for it, so am wondering if I can pull the HD, put it in an external case, and connect it to my MacBook. The HD is a WD Caviar Blue, model # WD1600AAJB-00J3A0. Conversely, if there's an easier way to do this, I'm all ears.
Double check whether your TV doesn't have a vga in, maybe. Some do.

Not sure if I'd try to boot up the machine anyway, if I didn't find a monitor, just to check if the disk spins up. Because if not, why bother. A short push on the power button should bring it to a safe shutdown (or sleep or hibernation) after it has booted up completely.

It's a PATA drive, which makes it a shame to spend money on an enclosure for it. Instead, find a combination USB to PATA/SATA cable, which at least has a chance to see some different use later on in life. Should be cheaper than an enclosure to.

Other than that, a very reasonable plan. I am made to understand by Google that OSX might be able to read (but not write to) an NTFS partition.

red19fire posted:

Would it be easier to export the NAS contents to a separate drive and reformat it for Mac? And possibly make a separate partition for time machine/crash plan backups?
It doesn't need to be "reformatted for Mac" as the Synology OS (DSM) handles the drive at the filesystem level, but it might make sense to do it anyway and split it up into separate volumes so you can dedicate one to Time Machine. It's not said though that this will solve the problem setting up Time Machine you're running into now. Don't know what that is. You could ask about that in the NAS thread, for example.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Ape Agitator posted:

So as a general long term annoyance, my wireless Mouse and Keyboard will randomly misbehave.
I'm having exactly those types of problems with a Logitech keyboard/touchpad combo with unified (non-bluetooth) receiver and it always happens when there's something between transmitter/receiver or if the distance between them is too great or if they aren't oriented on the same plane. Which all can easily happen if the computer is at my tv and I'm on the couch with the keyboard on my lap, a couple of feet away.

Saw this on my dad's desktop too and the solution there was to put the receiver in a front usb port. Or have a 1 ft usb extension cord, so you can put the receiver flat on the desk, pointed straight at the keyboard/mouse, preferably within line of sight. Actually, just line of sight does a lot, making the other criteria irrelevant within the distances you can have on a desk.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



peter gabriel posted:

I think, he just wants to push a button and go.

I didn't even consider a Go Pro, thanks man, this looks great: Edit: Just noticed this has no rear LCD screen to view vids so is no good
Zoom makes some great little cameras, like th Q2HD. Though to be fair, most compact cameras these days will record great 720p video too. I recommend one with a dedicated microphone input, however.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



22 Eargesplitten posted:

I just got a refurbished T430. When I plug in or unplug the power cable, the screen goes black for a second. Any idea of what it could be? I'd hate to have to send it back after I just got it, but I don't want to let a problem sit until the warranty expires.
First thing I'd check is whether it's in some modus that it might think a second monitor is connected. I think fn+f7 maybe. Or if you have a vga monitor, connect it and then make sure it's set to laptop monitor only with that keycombo.

Then I'd make sure I was on the latest video drivers (beta if there is a dGPU).

Though if it's related to either, it's completely innocent anyway. Might still be something else though.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



I have a male USB A to micro USB cable. One end goes into a charger, the other end goes into the on-the-go compatible USB 2 port on my Windows tablet. This works fine.

However, it is pretty short, like 2 Ft or something. I thought I'd be smart and just add a cheap USB A male to USB A female cable (aka an extension lead) between the charger and the original cable. This doesn't work well. The tablet still charges, but it takes an extraordinary long time. Couldn't get a full charge overnight with the tablet off.

I measured the extension lead through before I used it because it was cheap and I didn't trust it and every of the four pins connects through to the corresponding pin at the other end and nothing else. I don't understand what more there is to it. Apart from just a longer charging cable, what am I missing?

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

USB extension cords are meant for data, not charging, the wire isn't thick enough gauge to carry enough current. Cables meant for charging use thicker-gauge wire and are shorter for exactly this reason. If you get a single longer charging cable and don't try to use an extension that will likely work well enough, Monoprice likely has the cable you need and they specify things like the wire thickness so you know what you're getting. Here's a 10 foot example using 24AWG for power..
Hm, ok. Time to go shopping (monoprice doesn't deliver here).

Thanks for the explanation and the examples.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Strip the case bare and put an Intel NUC inside with some velcro.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Doubt you'd find a driver for a modern OS for it too.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

Consider an Intel Compute Stick, they're $150 and come with all hardware and a Windows license. You get an absolute max of 1080p (can't even drive 1200p monitors) but if that's all you need it seems like a killer deal.
Bizarre, my tablet uses the same SOC and has a 1920x1200 screen and can have an additional 1080p screen connected to the micro hdmi port. Pity I lost my adapter cable or I'd see how handles decoding video in that setup.

I guess for the stick, even with the micro fan, there's simply not enough surface to cool the thing. Maybe?

e: Or it's a limit of however they did the hdmi

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Alereon posted:

SATA data cables are like $1 from any store that sells computer parts, it's a normal hard drive so your computer will be compatible, just connect a SATA power cable from the power supply to the new drive. That should be the same type of power cable your current drive uses, and there should be extras, or at least extra plugs on the cable you currently use.
In addition to that, if there's still a dvd drive in that computer, no harm in temporarily using the cables from that to check if the drive still works (disconnect and reconnect with the power off).

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



FCKGW posted:

You're probably thinking of Self-encrypting Drives (SED).
No no no no no. That's maybe the technology behind it and it could be sold as a feature if the drive were actually locked. The drives he's talking about encrypt and decrypt without user interaction. If you lose the drive, the one who finds it just has to connect the drive through usb and can then read the data.

The only time it actually comes to light that the drive was actually secretly encrypted is when the usb controller fails in some way. It's completely undocumented as far as marketing material or supplied flyers/help files goes and is found in some of the most basic of WD consumer external drives.

And it's totally hosed up that they do that.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



VirtualStranger posted:

I guess I'll just have to avoid any drive that advertises "hardware encryption" as a feature.
One that advertises hardware encryption will possibly at least have the benefit of making your data inaccessible to third parties. The problem is with drives where it isn't advertised and happens without being a user accessible feature at all. You absolutely wouldn't know. But I've only heard of WD doing it so far. You can obviously also buy your own regular bare drive and put it into an enclosure.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Try the home recording or the small questions thread in the musician's lounge or the pimp your podcast thread in rapidly going deaf.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Pretty sure you can whip something up in AutoHotkey or AutoIT that intercepts those keys and feeds back a non repeating version or whatever.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



In Windows (I'm assuming) you should be able to make another device the default audio output with the Cintiq connected. This is a setting that should stick too.

This is done from the popup you get from right clicking the speaker icon in the system tray and selecting Playback devices.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



I recently found out that on some laptops the hdmi out may not be driven by the dGPU but exclusively by the onboard Intel video. How do I find out if this is the case for me? I'm not sure how to google that.

Lenovo E540, Windows 8.1, i7-4702MQ with Intel HD Graphics 4600 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M. Device manager reports driver version for the latter as 9.18.13.4475, if that matters at all.

Or is there some test I could do? Going on reduced fan noise alone isn't very exact.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Those seem like good suggestions. I think I've got a lead on the oculus rift thing, so that's all going to work out fine, I'm sure.

I figured I could look into temperature monitoring software as well, since that's actually closer to what I care about, rather than which part of the laptop is really doing the work. If the temps are ok, I really couldn't give much of a gently caress otherwise.

Thanks guys.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Clanpot Shake posted:

I didn't see a home theater thread so I guess this is the place to ask this. I've got an Onkyo receiver (TX-NR616 to be precise) that has been on the fritz. A chip that controlled the sound for HDMI burnt out (I was getting video with no sound), which is apparently a known issue with this model and Onkyo serviced it for free. Worked fine for about 2 months until last night. Now I'm not getting anything on HDMI input. It only happened last night so I haven't called Onkyo yet, but I'm wondering if anyone else has had this issue and what they did about it. If this thing is going to poo poo the bed every month from now on I'd almost rather buy a new receiver.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3384469
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2389259

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Piriform Recuva isn't as advanced as all the paid software, but if it can't recover your files, a good bunch of them were probably going to be damaged anyway.

Note that you will need to recover files to another drive.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



I bought a bare 3TB drive and it turns out all my usb-to-sata bridges/enclosures are too old to cope with drives larger than 2TB properly. That means: none of them allow me to format the drive in its full capacity, even as gpt. With the drive formatted in another computer, some of the enclosures will report the full 3TB to Windows, but when connected directly to the usb port of my Synology NAS, it thinks the drive isn't formatted.

I borrowed another enclosure that's new enough to have usb 3 and it mostly functions right, but it will randomly crap out during backup operations, to the point that I haven't succeeded yet in copying over the 1.5TB that it's supposed to contain a duplicate of. Now I see that the included documentation also mentions drives "up to 2TB". Also it's a cheap piece of poo poo anyway.

SMART reports on the drive (WD Blue) are squeaky clean.

I think I need a new bridge/enclosure. At least as a step in the troubleshooting. Are there good brands for this, or specific models that merit a recommendation? Or chipset brands?

That some things work with Windows and not the particular brand of Linux that Synology has, sort of scares me. No way I'm gonna find that laid out in the specs. But maybe that's just my old bridges being old and lovely?

Anyway, usb-to-sata bridge. For drives over 2TB. That works with Synology's DSM. That properly knows sleep modes. That passes through SMART values. Ideally available on amazon.de, that'd be amazing. Preferably the letterbox type thing you can just vertically slot the drive into, but that isn't essential. Can anyone point me in the right direction, because I'm lost at how to shop for this? Thanks in advance for any input.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



^^^^ Also good

Grimtooth posted:

I need a macro that takes the newest file in a folder and makes a link to it in a different folder. I don't need anyone to program this for me or help with that (though that'd be awesome) as much as I'd like to know if anyone knows what macro program, if any, can even handle this?
It'll be more programming and less recording a macro, but AutoIt should be very acommodating to small jobs like this.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Paul MaudDib posted:

Do you still get free activation if you install from scratch?
Yes, if you enter your 7 or 8 key during the install. Or if it's on hardware where you've done the upgrade on before.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Geoj posted:

Did this change? I thought you pushed the upgrade from 7/8 to 10, and then if you clean install 10 it activates based on your hardware signature, not your 7/8 key.
This did change in november, yes.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Geemer posted:

Even mayonnaise performs reasonably well.
Fascinating. I take it there are reasons I don't see that recommended too often though.

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Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Rookoo posted:

Where's the best place to go to get (4K) TV reccomendations? The monitor/display megathread doesn't seem to really discuss TVs. I'm in the UK if that effects anything.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3523461

I guess.

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