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mom and dad fight a lot posted:You were not kidding. I'm falling down a pretty deep rabbit hole. This reminded me of front bay shenanigans we had to deal with at work at one point. We purchase our computers through a public tender and for some time a small local builder one them and built desktops from cheap parts from China. We weren't happy with their quality and would have preferred Dell/HP/Lenovo. So we added a new requirement for the tender, the desktop would have to have a built-in speaker since desktops from large OEMs had it but the small builder only had a motherboard beeper. They solved this problem by installing a speaker in the 3.5" front bay, routed the cable out through the PCI opening and plugged the cable to the motherboard output. This fulfilled the requirement and they kept winning for a long time until they gave up because of the RMA expenses. It was a pretty WTF experience when we received the first desktop with the new speaker.
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Jul 14, 2021 11:04
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Butterfly Valley posted:There's plenty of tech channels buying prebuilts and testing them at the moment and yes, actually, many of them do have huge problems. Anything from the almost standard badly matched or poor quality components, to inadequate cooling meaning the cpu will always be thermally throttled, to shoddy packing meaning the components literally rip themselves to pieces in transit. How is one supposed to survive if they are clueless about computers. Where do you start looking for the info and what is the minimum amount of research you need to get good results. Just now I did a Google search "good gaming computer". The first was a PCGamer article "The best gaming PC in 2021". You open the article and see the title picture, "Oh hey, isn't that the AlienWare Ryzen that Tech Jesus did the horror video just week a go". If the computer magazines are in on the scam the normal people have no chance. I just praise the lord that I have been a computer professional for two and half decades and computer hobbyist, dreamer and magazine reader for three and a half. Computers are so complicated and so important in most people's lifes that how can they go on living without at least this level of information. I shed a tear every time someone shows up that didn't know you need to unplug every secondary drive before installing Windows.
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Jul 28, 2021 02:30
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I am in search of a new ATX case and it turns out hanging the computer under the desk rules out the standard Fractal Design choices because the buttons and ports are at the top. What are the good case options with those at the front. I would also like to keep my DVD-drive for the occasional CD ripping, but I guess there are now cases that put the 5.25 bay at the bottom in the PSU tunnel, so time to give up on that.
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Aug 12, 2021 19:12
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:Please don’t do this. Should have bough Antec P180, which had a small plastic box inside for storing screws and such.
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Aug 27, 2021 09:49
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Lascivious Sloth posted:Okay, thanks, well recieved. I'll sort it out tomorrow and get a new PSU, and make sure it's grounded. Thank you You should probably take a pic of the case and PSU and post it here. Not being able to screw it in sounds like either the case or PSU is some weird form factor.
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Oct 9, 2021 23:04
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Lascivious Sloth posted:Oh god, I took off the side case and it's so dusty. Anyway I can't identify it from these pics, but yeah you can see how it isn't connected properly, sitting on the base of the case, and the holes in the back of the case don't match the available holes in the PSU (I tried many times screwing it in, jerry-rigging it etc.) It's a bit hard to say because of the dust, but it looks like the bottom of the case is bent. If that is the case and you can't straighten it, then for grounding reasons it should be enough to have one screw fastened. The case seems to have enough screw holes that the PSU can be attached in both orientations. In your case the fan should point up, I assume the case doesn't have air holes at the bottom. To help with the dust you you should see if it's possible to put air filters in front of the intake fans, and also have more intake fans than exhaust, including the PSU exhaust. This would provide positive pressure inside the case and prevent air and dust getting inside through random gaps.
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Oct 10, 2021 13:32
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I was almost ready to slam down 1100€ for a 3070 Ti, mainly just so I could play DCS World VR at more than 36 FPS. My current 1660 can never quite reach 45 FPS and I would need to stay above it, preferably above 60 FPS. GTA 5 that I've recently been playing run fine, unless I manage to get the VR mod working on it.
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Nov 22, 2021 10:17
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Rinkles posted:I'm not great at parsing the logs, but there were multiple errors related to the wifi module. Uninstalling the device and its drivers resulted in a much more reasonable boot time. Windows automatically reinstalls them, so any subsequent reboot after that was again a minute long (I tested it 3 times to be certain). Have you tried disabling wifi in Device Manager?
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Dec 2, 2021 12:15
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Rinkles posted:I took pictures of the cooler plate when I first took off the cooler because I wanted to ask about repasting. But looking at the photo today, I noticed some marks along the sides. Go look at pictures of the motherboard at the manufacturer's website. There's probably enough of them from different angles that you can evaluate if there are anything the heat sink could touch. I would expect not, there should be design specifications for the heat sing manufacturer to follow that avoid that problem.
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Dec 8, 2021 04:11
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Laughing Zealot posted:Not sure where to ask this question but I feel like I saw it discussed here. Isn't there gonna be a point sooner rather than later that games are gonna require SSD to run properly on PC's, now that current gen consoles use them? Having a discussion with a friend and he maintains that the reason the new UE Matrix demo isn't on PC is because most users don't have SSD drive capability or something... Who cares if a SLI'd 3090 Tis with the fastest Intel CPU on the market can run a pretty demo. But if a puny Xbox can run that it's actually impressive.
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Dec 12, 2021 18:20
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Tyrsell posted:Windows 10 is cheaper to buy than Windows 11. Is there any reason to not just buy Windows 10 and upgrade it to Windows 11, considering Microsoft is offering a free update to everyone with Windows 10? The main thing is not to pay full price. You can still buy a Win 7 license from eBay or SA mart and use that with Win 10, probably with 11 too.
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Dec 28, 2021 00:16
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Xaris posted:My company wants to move most people to laptops and have a good workstation in the office that can be remote-desktop'd into to use some heavy duty and one-off engineering programs that require USB dongles (like some finite element modelling). I'm going to be leaving the company and they don't want me to built one by hand this time and they want to get something pre-built. Are you talking about Dell's consumer or business desktops? We haven't used OptiPlexes at work for ages, they haven't won a tender for a decade, but I don't see how Dell would have the leeway to be any worse than HP or Lenovo business desktops, and those have been perfectly decent for office use. Basically their only weakness is on the GPU side and if you don't need a powerful GPU there isn't much that a business class SFF computer with a 5 year next-business-day warranty doesn't provide. And at least in my organization getting a new computer has so much bureaucracy and delay that I wouldn't accept less than 5Y NBD.
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Jan 3, 2022 12:47
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CoolCab posted:ugh still it must have been designed to do that, what a huge increase in ewaste for a product that is in terms of the bleeding edge already completely redundant. On the other hand it reduces e-waste if the cooler stays with the old computer which can continue it's life. I'm not sure if I've ever reused a cooler, unless the motherboard has failed the computer goes for some other use. And even if there isn't any more use for the cooler it's not much of an e-waste. The fans can be reused as case coolers, a little bit of plastic and most of it is metal which can be readily recycled.
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Jan 3, 2022 15:54
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tehinternet posted:Second, my son’s computer is at another house most of the time and they have very hairy cats. I’ve just torn down his computer and removed an amazing amount of pet hair (the stock cooler was literally clogged with hair in an 18 month period). Is there a recommended case setup / case recommendation to deal with pets in a somewhat untidy house that isn’t vacuumed as often as it should be? The keywords are filters and positive air pressure. You must have more intake fans than exhaust, either in count or power. This will cause a higher pressure inside the case and excess air will leak out through any caps in the case, instead of leaking in and bringing dust with it. And all intake fans must have a good filter in front of them, preferably a filter that is easy to clean. i don't have specific case recommendation, but there are many that can fill this need. Usual setup is a case with two or three 14 or 12cm fans in the front panel with a front sized filter. PSU will have one exhaust fan and usually one fan at the back and potentially more fans at the top, but the intake fans are more important. Fractal Design cases are a usual recommendation, the Meshify series probably the most common. Modern cases don't often have a place for DVD drive, so if that is needed it will limit selection. 2.5" SSD drives usually go on the other side of the motherboard panel. 3.5" harddrives will also limit selection, but many cases will have a sideways spot for them behind the front fans.
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Jan 9, 2022 15:57
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Action-Bastard posted:Actually the PC they have now is one of those slim workstations. We were talking about doing a ship of theseus on it and swapping out absolutely everything but keeping the case. Are those compatible with other mobos? They probably often use BTX standard, but it will be too hard to find such motherboard and make sure it's compatible with the current case, starting from the PSU connector. Those OEM machines may be non-standard in all kinds of ways. Just buy a similar used office PC.
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Jan 15, 2022 21:31
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smenj posted:Thanks for the help with this - I'm nearly back up and running barring a couple of issues. If anyone has any idea how to resolve these, that'd be great. So I've copied over my old Program Files directories, and most stuff works if I launch it, since it's all in the same place it was before, and my boot drive is still labelled C, etc. Few issues remain, though. For example, even though those programs are in the correct places on my C drive, and work if I launch them, Windows doesn't seems to realise those programs are 'installed'. For example, Steam works, the icon's on my desktop, launching it runs Steam, and there's no bugs. However it's not in the 'Apps & Features' list within Windows, which will make uninstalling it troublesome if I ever need to do that. This also means that I can't assign those programs as defaults for any file types without reinstalling them. I don't think copying Program Files is worth the effort, some things probably won't work and you may break something. Doing fresh installs is quick and easy, and you get the latest versions at the same time. What you want to copy are the personal settings for the programs, usually under C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData.
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Jan 31, 2022 01:53
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Crayvex posted:I am not feeling any issues with the CPU right now other than an anxiety that it could be limiting me somehow. I can get a GTX 3070 TI card for 1,200 right now. The biggest change I’ve made is connecting this PC to my 4K television. (I have given up on buying a PS5 in Switzerland. I refuse to pay 200% markup!) I just have the resolution set at 1080P and 120 MHZ refresh rate. It actually looks beautiful. I hope you realize the 3070 Ti also has an effective 200% markup. It's a bit more powerful than the non-Ti which was originally released at $500.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:12
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My computer from three generations back went to my parents. Two gens back became a file server for myself, and my previous one will go to my niece to play Minecraft.
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Feb 13, 2022 17:20
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CoolCab posted:right but the 3600 is even cheaper afaik and would perform basically identically in this config, right? honestly i'm mostly just offended that they didn't even pair it with a motherboard which could hook an additional monitor up, or use it for troubleshooting or basically get any functionality out of it at all. Are you a fool? 3600 is over 2000 less than 5600G, why would anyone buy that.
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Feb 15, 2022 00:05
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Something definitely isn't right with your RAM, 8 gigabytes of "Hardware Reserved" is way too much. My puny laptop with 8GB of memory has 125MB reserved and my powerful desktop with 32GB has 86MB reserved. These articles may provide solutions. SOLVED: Windows 10 Won’t Use Full RAM Half of RAM 'Hardware Reserved'
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Mar 5, 2022 15:24
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Grand Fromage posted:Is there any reason not to map hard drives to A and B now that those aren't being reserved for disk drives anymore? Is there still legacy code that's going to complain about it? I don't know about actual drives, but I've had my NAS homedrive mapped to B: for about two decades and I've never had issues with it.
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Mar 11, 2022 00:16
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Floppychop posted:It's been a long while since I've built a new system, and even then it was starting completely fresh. I hope you mean solid state drive when you talk about hard drives. A spinning hard drive should not be used for Windows install nowadays. DVDs aren't normally used for installs nowadays, USB drives are better and more convenient and it's best to use Media Creation Toold to build a fresh install drive if there's been a few months since you've last built it.
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Apr 18, 2022 23:41
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Yeah, it's basically impossible to have a truly dust-free system. You're going to want to take a duster to your computer every so often no matter what, and the amount of filtration just determines how long you can wait between dustings. It's not impossible, but it would require better filters than cases normally have. Years ago we decommissioned a Pentium computer at work that had been in use for about a decade, and we were surprised how clean it was inside. The case had a single fan, an intake at the PSU with a foam filter. The problem is how to get enough air through that kind of filter for a powerful computer. It might need more area than a case front can provide.
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Jun 3, 2022 00:26
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Nodosaur posted:I guess I could understand that. That being said, I legit do need a new computer, as my old one is probably dead. If you need a computer and don't have money, then the practical option is a used office PC from eBay or liquidation company, Dell Optiplex, HP EliteDesk, or similar. But those aren't useful for gaming.
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Jun 16, 2022 13:04
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Cao Ni Ma posted:Time to unisntall all my games and put them there I guess. I assume many of them are Steam games, so can't you just move them.
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Jul 16, 2022 17:48
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:I put an NF-A14 in one of the top fan slots, and barely any air gets through the combination of this mess the metal mesh that sits on top of it, even at 100% fan speed lmao Two decades ago I dremeled the fan meshes of my case. It makes me sad to see something like this.
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Aug 4, 2022 20:05
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I've been using the below keyboard since spring, and with the "home row mod" I have really learned to appreciate how little I have to move my fingers around. It actually has made me annoyed about how far I have to move them to reach the numbers. I'm starting to understand the appeal of 40%, if I just had the brain capacity. Of course I could simulate a 40% on my keyboard and I have considered adding numbers to the "QWERTY" row. But even if I have gotten the hang of my current layout I would have throw away much of the training and start from scratch. People keep glamouring for numpad and of course I have it. Just press down on J to activate layer 2 and I can find numpad in the BQZÅ quadrant. A problem is that I need it so seldom I keep forgetting it's existence.
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Sep 5, 2022 00:49
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CoolCab posted:why is there a car key? WHY ARE THERE SEVERAL CAR KEYS That's really just a practical necessity. You have a pile of keycaps and a keyboard which needs several different sized keys to cover multitude of functions. You probably don't have keys with correct size and function. Like that green 1.25 size Shift-key on the left, which should be a 1.5 like the Tab-key, but that's the best I could do. Or the red champagne glasses on the right, another shift, just didn't have any greens left. Funny thing, I never use either of those keys. I have Shift on the N and I keys, why would I stretch my pinkies if I want caps. And the 2.0 sized green shift on the left thumb cluster, that's actually Space. Didn't have any better key for that spot. The car keys in the middle. Surprisingly standard key cap sets don't actually have suitable logos that mean "switch to layer X", so something random goes there.
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Sep 5, 2022 01:33
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Rinkles posted:i don't think i've seen a dual mouse setup before. It was the simplest solution for spreading the load on my carpal tunnels, been doing it for maybe a decade at this point. Nowadays I slightly prefer the left hand outside gaming. The split keyboard is the latest step, next would be turning them vertical but requires buildging some kind of stands.
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Sep 5, 2022 07:43
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Ash Rose posted:Hey, so I built my current computer roughly 2 years ago during peak supply shortage/crypto-rear end in a top hat helltimes and settled for a GTX 1650 Super, I just bought a new monitor so I can do a dual-monitor setup and it got me thinking it might be time to get a better one now that the rug got pulled out from those dorks, is there anything less than $500 that would be a meaningful increase, should I even bother? I think you should take a longer time frame in to consideration. It sounds like you limited your monitor purchase because of your low powered GPU, and now you are limiting your GPU purchase because of your low resolution monitor. How long would it take you to save the $250 for a 1440p 144Hz monitor and would you want one of them? If the Dell is a recent purchase you might even consider returning it. It's best to purchase GPU and monitor at the same time since they largely go hand in hand.
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Sep 11, 2022 18:17
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Harik posted:However g.skill does have a website that verifies their parts on individual motherboards, so I found the F4-3200C16D-16GTZKW 2x8 kit in stock for $65. Cheapest ram is $50 so worth the premium for a hopefully-working setup. Most better memory producers have websites listing compatible memory for different motherboard models.
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Oct 18, 2022 08:55
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Bouchehog posted:Stupid question but I have a nighthawk R9000 which has a 10gb LAN SFP+ port. I'm looking to do a new build and I can see that a number of Z690 and Z790 boards come with on board RJ45 10gb ports (e.g.Gigabyte Z790 AORUS MASTER). Is there any reason why I shouldn't just grab one of those boards and use a SFP+ to RJ45 converter to get my 10GB speeds? I've got two Cat 6e cables in place. (In practice I'd be limited anyway as nothing else on my network can talk that fast at present but I will be sorting that out soon as well.) That should work, but make sure to choose a module that is compatible with your NETGEAR. Problem is the spec sheet for R9000 doesn't specify which SFP+ modules it supports. NETGEAR sells the AXM765v2 transceiver, also sold by the fs.com website, but they say it's compatible with "M4250, M4300, and M4500 Managed Switches", no mention of the R9000. Pilfered Pallbearers posted:What exactly is the point of the SFP+ module? I’m not super familiar but unsure. SFP+ is the preferred connector technology for 10gb over straight RJ45. My understanding is the significantly lower latency is the biggest reason. SFP also provides flexibility with the cabling. Get NICs and switches with SFP+ ports and then choose the cabling that suits your situation. Copper Direct Attach Cables for few meter long runs or within a rack. For longer runs you may choose SR-mode fiber optic modules, for even longer you use LR-mode modules.
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Nov 9, 2022 01:41
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Velius posted:I'm also curious if I can get away with a smaller form factor for the case as well in conjunction with the video card, because his room is smaller. Any suggestions would be appreciated. You should figure out if you can do an innovative placement with the computer to avoid limiting your case choices. For example my computer is hanging under the desk, so it's pretty irrelevant how huge my case is.
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Nov 19, 2022 16:29
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I think the CPU is a valid choice, but you need to rethink the motherboard and GPU. Nowadays the rule of thumb might be something like "the CPU should cost twice as much as the motherboard and the GPU three or four times as much as the motherboard".
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Nov 20, 2022 17:41
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Butterfly Valley posted:Nope, it uses WiFi. You need a fairly specific setup to make it work well though, namely you need to dedicate your 5Ghz channel solely to stream to your Quest, have your PC connected to your router via ethernet, and be in the same room as the router. You can setup a separate router as an access point for the Quest and locate it where it's good for VR, that's what I did.
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Nov 21, 2022 04:19
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CordlessPen posted:Isn't the protruding bits of heat pipes at the top kind of a big deal to speed up condensation? Why would there be any condensation? The heatsink and the pipes are always hotter than the air passing through them.
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Nov 21, 2022 23:24
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eviltastic posted:I've been asked to line up hardware for a new office PC for a small business office, and I'd like to do that while stuff is on sale for black friday/cyber monday. I have gamer brain from planning out a nice home gaming PC, and I could use some help figuring out what's reasonable for a basic office work machine. This is my opportunity to spend a little extra to avoid some cheapo Dell/HP unit that is going to have weird compromises, but if a prebuilt is where I actually need to be looking I can deal with that. Will they be building it themselves and who will do the diagnostics and repairs when a component breaks? Small business is probably more flexible about it. But as an IT employee in a large organization our standard has been to purchase business desktops with 5 year next-business-day warranties (Lenovo ThinkStation/HP Elitedesk/Dell Optiplex). That way when something breaks a single call or webform is often all it takes to have it fixed within days. No need to figure out whose budget pays for the replacement, which dealer we have a contract with, or wait delivery times. Since they don't need a GPU you've already avoided the biggest problem with business desktops. They are built with custom components and have compromises, but nothing that matters for office use. You won't be replacing or upgrading them except maybe RAM and SSD, and those probably use standard components.
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Nov 24, 2022 02:38
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CaptainSarcastic posted:You could also use the memory compatibility checker on a memory vendor site - I want to say Corsair has a decent one? One of them does, anyway. Last time I checked at least Corsair, Crucial and Kingston had them.
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Dec 15, 2022 10:03
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SadBag posted:Ok, follow up question. I believe that my parents PC is worse than the PC I'm getting. Is their Windows 10 install (they bought the DVD back in 2020) cool with me moving their hard drive to the better PC, or is Win10 locked to their current machine? What OS was installed on the PC you are receiving? Maybe Win 10 is already activated on it. And there are always the Windows keys from SA-mart
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Dec 20, 2022 19:55
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Roundboy posted:Did I misread or is it true that efficiently ratings are only relevant when you run the PSU at near max power No. Searching for PSU efficiency curves seem to show that generally PSUs are most efficient around 50% load. On higher loads the efficiency drops slightly and in light loads the efficiency drops sharply. Seems like you would want to choose a PSU that would run at 20% load while idling, and if your computer idles at low load and it spends more timing idling, then you would want a higher rated PSU.
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Dec 26, 2022 13:47
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