HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

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Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Raymn posted:

Why can't I just throw more money at the problem to make it go away?!

You can! Just keep buying different drives, enclosures and computers until you've got a combination that works.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 17:26

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 16:21

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

all_purpose_cat_boy posted:

On the subject of sound cards:

My pc is hooked up to a tv over hdmi (via an amp) with 5.1 speakers. Picture and sound go out over hdmi, with sound from the onboard card. Would a separate sound card still send audio over hdmi or would it insist on using its own output?

Cheers

If you have multiple audio devices, the Windows sound settings will allow you to set any one of them as the default. There generally wouldn't be any insisting, maybe apart from what it picks as a default upon installation. Which you can easily change.

There wouldn't be much of a point getting a separate sound card if all your audio is going out over hdmi currently, because that's already hard bypassing all the garbage aspects of onboard sound anyway. It's barely, if at all, involved at this point.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2016 10:58

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

NihilCredo posted:

Is it somehow possible to connect the case's HD AUDIO connector to a USB amplifier?

Give us a link to the sort of product you consider to be a USB amplifier, so we can figure out why specifically the answer is going to be no.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2016 00:32

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Bloodly posted:

It was bought from a small shop that no longer exists, so warranty isn't a factor.

With very few, very specific exceptions, making use of a warranty involves you contacting the manufacturer directly. So I'd still check what Logitech can do for you. And even if the warranty is expired, if anyone can help you to one of those plasticky things, it's them. Couldn't hurt to ask, surely.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 11:37

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Orange Sunshine posted:

I bought windows 8, OEM version, and upgraded to windows 10 free.

If I get a new motherboard and CPU, am I going to have to buy windows again?

You can do a clean install of Windows 10 on new hardware using the Windows 8 key with the currently available install media and get a fresh new digital license (still, I think?). But it's an option Microsoft can retract at any time. Ditto for installing Windows 8 on new hardware, activating it with a phonecall to Microsoft (as has historically been possible with OEM licenses but not digital licenses) and upgrading through the disability loophole. You'd still be good for running Windows 8.1 if that loophole is closed though.

However if you tie your digital license for Windows 10 to a Microsoft account now, transfer to a new computer should be possible through the activation troubleshooter later. A change of motherboard as well as having a digital license (formerly know as digital entitlement aka what you get from the free upgrade) are explicitly mentioned there.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2017 15:42

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Fragrag posted:

So a power outage happened

And now my computer won't boot up. I just opened it up and I can't see or smell anything burnt. What's the next step to fixing my computer from here? I feel like ordering a new PSU but what do I do with my old one then? RMA it I guess, or return it? I really don't know how to use my consumer rights to its fullest here. I'm a EU citizen and the computer is barely four months old so I'm pretty sure everything is still under warranty.

You contact the retailer that sold you the computer. Sometimes you can work something out with them. Other times they have a deal with the manufacturer of the computer to deal with warranty stuff on their behalf. They will let you know what to do. This might involve sending in the whole computer, I don't know. You're not likely to have a claim to warranty on the psu directly due to it being an OEM part or something, but it's worth checking that out anyway.

I live in the same country you do, afaik. My expectation is that this will be covered, but it might involve you sending in the entire computer. You might need to pay shipping one way. Or you might have to ship the whole computer, with who pays the repair bill hanging in the balance, depending on their own troubleshooting.

If you want to gamble on it just being the psu and replace it yourself, that's on you.

Alereon posted:

Is not using surge protectors a European thing? They're universal in North America. The challenge here is telling people they don't need to use a $100 Monster-brand surge protector.

I've only ever heard of them on these forums.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2017 21:30

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Fragrag posted:

It's a self built computer so I think I might have a decent chance on claiming warranty on only the PSU

In that case, you definitely do.

Fragrag posted:

Belgium right?

A'pen

# ¿ Jan 30, 2017 21:59

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

FCKGW posted:

When I turn on the ceiling light in my office my Mac Pro wakes from sleep. It's plugged into a UPS. Why does it do this?

Spontaneously Emergent Home Automation

# ¿ Mar 29, 2017 20:30

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Geemer posted:

What's that even going to accomplish? The fast majority of hard drive failures are all-or-nothing type deals caused by physical wear.

I think the idea is to have the most impotant data on both drives in case one of them goes out. That's how I'm reading that.

# ¿ May 13, 2017 15:05

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Paul MaudDib posted:

My Blue Yeti seems to have croaked. It works for like a minute after a device opens it - but then you can't get any more audio output from it. I think I might try back up and try resetting and see if that clears up any potential driver/kernel issues. But assuming it's broken, how terrible an idea is it to just get a USB-XLR audio interface and a cheapish actual microphone for gaming?

A usb mic is just a mic with a usb audio interface built in. The computer and software won't know any different and provided you go with mic with a similar quality, sensitivity, directionality and noise floor, there shouldn't really be any difference to you either.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 11:16

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Paul MaudDib posted:

I am hoping for a similar jump in durability with my mic - that maybe professional-ish audio gear will be built a little better and isn't going to crap out on me like throwaway consumer crap.

I think at $100 total spend, I wouldn't be supremely confident in this. Add another $50-100 and it's quite reasonably feasible.

There's a home recording thread and an audio interface thread in the musician's lounge subforum and there's a podcaster thread somewhere else I'm sure. I think you're better off asking around anywhere there.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 13:19

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Hold The Ashes posted:

Can anyone help me out and tell me if it even has an m.2 slot for an SSD, or if it's SATA 3 or what?

Regular 2.5" SATA3 drive bottom left here. If there is a second drive in the laptop, it would be in the optical disc drive caddy and also be a 2.5" drive. There's no slot for drives in card form.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 00:50

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Some googling tells me these discs should probably present themselves as regular dvds. I honestly don't remember what explorer should do in that situation, but I'd give Handbrake a shot to see if it can make something of the contents. After cleaning the discs and whatnot.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2018 15:33

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

The hard drive is in a caddy. You need to get the caddy out if you want to remove the drive from it. This requires unscrewing the four screws roughly in the corners around it.

Get yourself some screwdriver set for electronics. It's not a bad thing to have around the house. Needn't be expensive.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 01:57

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

C-Euro posted:

I have a cheap-o mini screwdriver set already and it doesn't work lol. These screws are really small!

Yeah, some of these sets stop at PH1 and you most likely need PH0 or PH00 for this particular job. That's what to look out for, should you be ok with buying something for this.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 12:58

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

You can also still just do a Windows 10 clean install on a new drive with a Windows 7/8.1 key. No need to go through cloning or upgrading an old install you don't care about.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2018 19:25

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Most receivers will switch between audio sources, not mix them. Simple passive switch boxes exist as well for that purpose, if all you're dealing with is analog signals.

A cheap, small mixer would need to be powered and would likely be noisy as gently caress. It would also tend to have lots of features you wouldn't need (microphone inputs, equalizer, confusing layout) and would generally advertize its capabilites in number of mono channels. All this would cost you at least 4 to 10 times what the switch does.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2018 14:00

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

The empty slot was for an optional sim card slot/3G module, it is mini pci-e, not msata or m.2.

edit vvvv Yeah, that's the sane thing to do, especially with a device that old and underpowered by today's standards.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Feb 3, 2019

# ¿ Feb 3, 2019 21:52

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Atomizer posted:

Also, USB3 came out over 10 years ago, so I'd be surprised if your laptop doesn't have at least 1 USB3 port.

Be surprised, I guess!

The thing is eight years old and was built to deliver a decent value netbook successor under $500 at the time. No premium features like usb3 on this bad boy.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2019 14:04

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

In many cases the microphone input on these small dongles is mono. And if it's really just a mic in and not a mic/line in combo jack, sound quality may suffer in the signal to noise ratio bringing a line level signal in there.

Using the Scarlett should be perfect though.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 10:57

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

That's a receiver and you want a transmitter. Combo devices where you can switch between either exist.

I have this transmitter.

Please note that Bluetooth has terrible latency in general, that in this specific use case can't be compensated for. That's why it's great that that transmitter supports "apt-x low latency". This reduces latency to mostly bearable (for most people), but only if the connected headphones also explicitly support this!

Non-Bluetooth wireless headphones still exist as a niche for this reason. E: ie. for use with tv

# ¿ May 12, 2019 19:40

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Lambert posted:

I'd say they're way more than a niche when it comes to PC usage - Bluetooth has terrible voice quality, in addition to all the latency problems.

In my estimation these generally come with USB dongles rather than the analog input required here. There is a niche of headphones made for watching TV with, which is what I'm talking about.

# ¿ May 12, 2019 20:04

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Eletriarnation posted:

It's a good idea, but I actually already have dual input speakers - the problem is that I have three different inputs to switch between, not two.

You mentioned a mixer earlier, so I assumed you wanted to mix. But if you're good with switching, why not get a switch.

I've got one very similar to the one linked and it's stupid hard to find for a reasonable price. But then there also is a glut of these slightly more hideous ones (you can just not connect anything to the video connector).

These are passive and don't require power.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2019 16:48

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

How old is the motherboard? Got any bulging capacitors on there?

# ¿ Sep 3, 2019 19:38

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Unmature posted:

I can't find a tutorial that talks to me like I'm as dumb as I actually am.

I have this mixer: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-61...ps%2C198&sr=8-2

And these mics: https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Techni...ps%2C210&sr=8-4

How do I make them record in Audacity or Reaper?

Someone might talk you through it in this thread.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2019 17:08

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I want to extend HDMI for about 25 yards over cat5 from my satellite receiver to a bedroom TV. For the foreseeable future the signal's only going to be 720p and picture quality isn't extremely critical as long as it's somewhat reasonable. I don't want to spend (the apparently required) hundreds on a wireless solution that may not work at all in my concrete building.

Can I just buy any HDMI-to-cat5 transmitter/receiver pair from Amazon that promises to do as much and expect it to work decently, or is the whole concept a secret dark art that never quite goes right?

Can anyone speak from experience? Or direct me somewhere where I should ask about this.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2019 19:53

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I was looking at these, because of the passthrough at the source, so I can have one TV near the satellite receiver and the other one in the bedroom.

It's comforting to a degree that something in the same price category works fine over regular old cat5, thanks.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2019 20:55

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Tbqh I hope as much.

God, I hate how sellers on Amazon now group vaguely related items together under one heading like that. As if a HDMI switch, splitter and extender are different sizes or colors of the same thing. Makes average review score absolutely meaningless.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2019 22:09

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Flipperwaldt posted:

I was looking at these, because of the passthrough at the source, so I can have one TV near the satellite receiver and the other one in the bedroom.

I want to follow up and state that this HDMI extender over cat5 works as advertised. I had to re crimp an RJ45 jack I had done badly earlier, which worked fine for internet, but not for this, but now it's absolutely fine.

One of the dip switches on it won't stay in the on position, but it seems like the whole signal equalisation thing isn't important at all once you've got decent electrical continuity.

Edit: eh, if I set the eq to 0, sometimes the audio doesn't come through when changing channels. Works fine with te cable length appropriate medium setting. I guess I'm lucky I don't need the maximum 50m setting or I'd have to send it back for that wonky dip switch.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Sep 27, 2019

# ¿ Sep 27, 2019 12:38

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Hipster_Doofus posted:

Magical jellybean keyfinder.

This one had malware in the installer at some point. Have not had problems with Belarc Adviser.

I'd just recommend Nirsoft Produkey, but Microsoft has decided it's a "hacking tool" and needs to be blocked.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2019 23:56

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Hipster_Doofus posted:

Well fuckin hell, that's rather alarming. Nirsoft's stuff is amazing though. Can the block be overridden?

It's blocked by defender. You can make exceptions in defender, but just... don't. Just use Belarc Adviser.

Magical jellybean keyfinder being compromised is years ago, when it was all the rage to suddenly pack installers of free programs with browser toolbars and poo poo, which turned malicious really fast in general and inspired the creation of Ninite iirc to check and uncheck the right checkboxes on install. That doesn't seem as prevalent these days. I've honestly not checked up on it since.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2019 13:53

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Sininu posted:

It's small yeah, but I prefer the one on the first where I can place the bulk elsewhere so it won't block other sockets on the power strip.

Last year I made a number of one foot extension cords in order to never have to worry about that again.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2020 01:11

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Look in the diy subforum.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2020 21:56

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

If the drive is not old, I'd check the warranty situation.

# ¿ May 26, 2020 01:20

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

bitprophet posted:

Am I missing some product line here or am I doomed to choose between these three worlds (manual fiddling, poor audio switchery, or overpay and overdongle)?

Rolls MX41b?

edit: pardon me, I didn't see the two outputs requirement. You'd need some additional switch for that

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Jun 18, 2020

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 23:55

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

In my experience, if the receiver is plugged in the back of the computer it might be flaky. If you use a USB extension cable to put it in line of sight, range gets way better.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2020 17:42

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Sometimes the Windows installer is lovely enough to put some sort of boot partition on the wrong drive, if you have more than one drive connected during the install. So try booting with all drives connected. If that works, there's a fix for it, I think.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2020 23:57

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Gyshall posted:

If there is a better thread to post this in please let me know! I know this isn't exactly short

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2801557

# ¿ Aug 29, 2020 02:05

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Most cameras will provide a decent image if you provide enough lighting, from multiple angles, so you don't have hard shadows. Bypass lovely acoustics by mic'ing up close (eg with a lavalier mic).

# ¿ Nov 14, 2020 01:07

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 16:21

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I quite like having a hardware volume knob. It sees a lot of use.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2020 21:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

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