|
The Wirecutter is a terrible affiliate marketing site, never trust it.
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2022 22:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 09:44 |
|
|
Everything on the first 5 pages of google search results is a terrible affiliate marketing site these days. E: although some of the writers for those sites really do care but they only have experience from the consumer-side so they just have some technical blind spots. A ways back I got a laptop reviewer to start checking serial numbers whenever he posted laptop sales, because the half the time the screens had different nits and refresh rates than the review models he got delivered. Dude just didn’t know and nobody wanted to pay for somebody with more experience. I am such a dork Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Sep 1, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2022 23:13
|
|
|
Criss-cross posted:The Wirecutter is a terrible affiliate marketing site, never trust it. Sure, but they do some research and post methodology, so it's a good base starting point usually.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2022 23:43
|
|
|
I just went for the first Brother printer that had its specific model number show up on two separate list sites It cost under $200 and the brand name (a) was rec'd ITT and (b) probably can't afford to buy off Wirecutter and RTings so it's worth a shot. Worst case every home printer eventually shits the bed anyway so it's not like this decision has a high ceiling loquacius fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Sep 2, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2022 12:47
|
|
|
if you're only printing black and white, legit check facebook market. people sell up on the basis they bought a colour one sometimes, and holy poo poo are lasers about infinitely more reliable than good old nozzles somehow. i left it in the corner of a room unused and untested for two years since we didn't do in person lessons, urgently needed to print something and couldn't find the original cords so had to go to my junk bag, and it printed absolutely perfect first time without so much as a blink. i was impressed.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2022 12:52
|
|
|
Criss-cross posted:The Wirecutter is a terrible affiliate marketing site, never trust it. This is always such a weird gotcha. They’ve always been upfront that they get paid on purchases made from the site (some of the sites they link to don’t even have an affiliate program) but they’re also one of a tiny handful of sites that actually purchase the products they review. Their reviews are quite in-depth and what they recommend is generally “good enough” for most people.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 01:25
|
|
|
My Brother colour laser L3230CDW was pretty cheap and has been great.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 02:35
|
|
|
Do you guys want to get brother tattoos y/n
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 04:43
|
|
|
Ever since I bought my monitor back in 2018, it's always had a weird issue. Sometimes when I boot up my PC, the monitor takes a sliver of screen from the middle and puts it to the far left of the monitor. I notice it if I move my mouse to the exact point where the middle has been taken out, I'll see my pointer become short and squat and the bit that's missing will be on the left. It's always been a quick fix by turning off the monitor then turning it back on again. Does anyone know why it has been doing this since day 1? Is it faulty? Obviously it's too late for me to do anything about now, but it is slightly annoying having to turn it off and on again.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 08:25
|
|
|
Qubee posted:Ever since I bought my monitor back in 2018, it's always had a weird issue. Sometimes when I boot up my PC, the monitor takes a sliver of screen from the middle and puts it to the far left of the monitor. I notice it if I move my mouse to the exact point where the middle has been taken out, I'll see my pointer become short and squat and the bit that's missing will be on the left. Have you tried another cable and/or cable type? I mean, does it do the same thing over Displayport and HDMI, and have you tried more than one cable of each type?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 09:04
|
|
|
FCKGW posted:Their reviews are quite in-depth and what they recommend is generally “good enough” for most people. I disagree. But they sure do write a lot.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 18:48
|
|
|
I'm looking for a cheap USB sound card to replace the old no-name I've been using with my headphones. I've just noticed that very quiet sounds have a little fuzz around them, like how old video game cinematics would fade out and the sound would get a little crackly as the volume went down. I've ruled out line noise and issues with the source sounds, this is something that only happens with this USB device, which is around 8 years old. I'm looking at a cheap Sound blaster Play 3 on Amazon for around 20 bucks. Recently I replaced a 10 year old Bluetooth dongle and the new one is way better, maybe I'll have a similar experience with a USB sound card?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 19:03
|
|
|
Just don't install the driver and you're golden. If you're in Europe, get a Sharkoon Gaming DAC Pro S.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 19:06
|
|
|
I feel like a total boomer now but I was using cheap headsets from Amazon for years which were serviceable. Bought an ANC wireless headset and now I feel like it’s one of the greatest things ever being able to mostly mute out the household sounds. I feel like these have existed for a while and I just never thought about it until I realized I needed it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 20:58
|
|
|
Criss-cross posted:Just don't install the driver and you're golden. If you're in Europe, get a Sharkoon Gaming DAC Pro S. Thanks. I'm in the US and the Sound Blaster is at $18, about what I'm looking to spend. infraboy posted:I feel like a total boomer now but I was using cheap headsets from Amazon for years which were serviceable. Bought an ANC wireless headset and now I feel like it’s one of the greatest things ever being able to mostly mute out the household sounds. I feel like these have existed for a while and I just never thought about it until I realized I needed it. Yeah, budget constraints have me at "serviceable" at this time too, and hopefully an under $20 expenditure will give me a little happiness bump. I'm used to most of my household noises (apartment life with a family and birds) or I'd go mad whatever the technology. Most of my headphone listening is late at night, so USB sound card married to cheapie headphones will do  .
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 21:20
|
|
|
A decent USB sound card is exactly why I came to this thread right now. Got some new in-ear monitors and while they sound great they're picking up all kinds of EMI buzz from the motherboard's crap headphone jack.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 21:56
|
|
|
super sweet best pal posted:A decent USB sound card is exactly why I came to this thread right now. Got some new in-ear monitors and while they sound great they're picking up all kinds of EMI buzz from the motherboard's crap headphone jack. Easy fix? The Apple USBC to headphone adapter that is $7. A more expensive fix? I’d ask the headphones thread as they give really good DAC recommendations https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3563521&perpage=40&pagenumber=1&noseen=1
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:10
|
|
|
I have a pretty good set of earbuds that have the same problem: they can pick up the hiss from almost anything including a smart phone which is where I use them the most. The solution I found was a $5 in-line volume control, crank the device volume way up then use the volume control to bring it back down to safe and comfortable levels which comes with an added side benefit of dramatically increasing the signal to noise ratio. Basically the hiss/noise is always at the same level regardless of the volume output of the device. So you use the volume control to make the hiss 5 times quieter (at which point it becomes completely inaudible) and then make the signal 5 times louder to compensate. Indiana_Krom fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Sep 3, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:12
|
|
|
MarcusSA posted:Easy fix? The Apple USBC to headphone adapter that is $7. Tons of complaints about the Apple adapter being too quiet, seems a bad recommendation. Indiana_Krom posted:I have a pretty good set of earbuds that have the same problem: they can pick up the hiss from almost anything including a smart phone which is where I use them the most. The solution I found was a $5 in-line volume control, crank the device volume way up then use the volume control to bring it back down to safe and comfortable levels which comes with an added side benefit of dramatically increasing the signal to noise ratio. That's why a louder USB soundcard is a good idea as well.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:22
|
|
|
Criss-cross posted:Tons of complaints about the Apple adapter being too quiet, seems a bad recommendation. I haven’t had that issue  it works great on my steam deck and does improve the sound quality. I’ve also never heard that before when people suggest it in the headphone thread
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:28
|
|
|
I went to nothing but Bluetooth headphones and earbuds years ago and haven't looked back. The initial cost might be a bit higher but the quality of life improvement has been worth it for me.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:29
|
|
|
MarcusSA posted:I haven’t had that issue
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:34
|
|
|
Llamadeus posted:It's probably due to people wanting to listen at ear-damaging volumes or something No, it depends on how high-impedance your headphones are and how low the audio of the content you're listening to is mixed. Expect low audio with the Apple adapter.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:42
|
|
|
The apple dongle has a lower-than-standard output power, but I don't think it will have a problem driving most IEMs, which tend to be high-sensitivity, low-impedance. That's sort of what it's designed for.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2022 22:46
|
|
|
my internet connectivity has been sucking more and more lately, and I've done some troubleshooting and I'm pretty sure it's related to using my ISPs own DNS servers and those servers either sucking inadvertently or deliberately the problem is, while I can access the modem+router administrator interface, the option to set my own DNS server seems to be locked out, and searching forums indicates that the firmware (?) is really set this way, just as another gently caress You by the company as it provides its proprietary hardware. I could set a DNS at the device level, but even my wife is noticing the problems on her phone and work laptop and I don't want to go rooting around in either of those. I'm pretty sure the solution to this is to buy my own router, then connect the ISP's modem/router into my own router, and all my devices will connect to my own router, essentially using just the modem part of the modem/router - and the administrator firmware on the consumer-grade router should be more open, allowing me to set our connection to use my own DNS (OpenDNS? Google's DNS?) questions: - will I need to set the ISP's modem/router to bridge mode? if yes, at which point in the process do I set that? - what should I be looking for in a router? so far, I've got it down to: -- it should probably have enough ports to cover all of the devices that I've got wired into my current modem/router -- it should probably support both 2.4 and 5.0 ghz wi-fi -- anything else?
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 08:19
|
|
|
I'm far from a networking expert, but I have a personal router connected to an ISP modem/router hybrid, like how you want to set things up. For the first question, this isn't something I've ever had to do. I just connect the router via its WAN port to one of the ports on the modem (I'm not sure if it matters which). The ISP modem's wifi is still active but largely unused. The second question I'm not sure about. After suffering with a wide variety of turds over the years from linksys, tp-link, and netgear, I just got some overpriced Wi-Fi 6 router from Asus that had good reviews. (this thing, though it was a little cheaper when I got it.) There are routers that cost half as much that probably could've worked just well, so please don't take this as purchasing advice. (Though I'll say that this is the most rock-solid wireless router I've ever used by a pretty wide margin.) Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Sep 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 09:50
|
|
|
Another vote for Asus wifi routers, they have been rock solid for me up to gigabit speeds (only over the wire though, wifi tops out at ~500 mbits on most devices).
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 12:03
|
|
|
Qubee posted:Ever since I bought my monitor back in 2018, it's always had a weird issue. Sometimes when I boot up my PC, the monitor takes a sliver of screen from the middle and puts it to the far left of the monitor. I notice it if I move my mouse to the exact point where the middle has been taken out, I'll see my pointer become short and squat and the bit that's missing will be on the left. My two AOC AGON AG271QG monitors both do this, but it puts that strip of pixels on the right instead of the left. Doesn't happen very often, but the only fix is to power off then back on like you said. Someone told me years ago that you can get it fixed, but it's a firmware update and you have to send the monitor back to the factory. I never cared enough to look into it further as that was more work than I wanted to do.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 12:49
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:my internet connectivity has been sucking more and more lately, and I've done some troubleshooting and I'm pretty sure it's related to using my ISPs own DNS servers and those servers either sucking inadvertently or deliberately Might be worth stopping by the home networking thread but I'd post the same thing there. You can put your router behind your ISP's router and it will work for traffic getting out. It won't let you port forward traffic to your router unless you can either set the ISP router into bridge or passthrough mode, or bypass it entirely. It will depend on what ISP you have how that works. Fios and comcast run different kind of networks for example so it's easy to get your own modem and router for comcast, but harder to do for fios (especially if you have TV from them as well since the set top boxes talk to the combo modem/router over MoCA). Port forwarding and getting stuff through the external interface into your router in an incoming direction isn't a big deal in some situations but can be a problem with some video game consoles and other things that want that kind of access. For a router you want one with at least 2.4 and 5ghz AC wireless at a minimum. It's not hard to get this, it's been the norm for wifi routers for around 10 years.. Maybe go for Wifi 6 if you want to try a little futureproofing but it's used in few things at the moment and there's potentially another radio band coming down the pipe later so it's not an absolute necessity. TP-Link archers have been a "good enough and cheap" recommendation in the thread for a while but you need to figure out what bandwidth package you're buying because they're not going to handle gigabit. ASUS make some nice routers and I've personally had good luck with them but ASUS is one of those companies that makes good hardware but if you have a problem and need to RMA it will take forever and be a painful process. As for when to set it up, you'd want to hook your router up to the ISP's one, get your local devices working through it, then turn on bridge mode or bypass or whatever your ISP calls it. This will usually cause the ISP combo unit to spend 90 seconds and do a reboot and change addressing. Before the changeover the external/WAN interface on your new router will be using a DHCP address from the old LAN pool from the ISP router. After the changeover it may still get some kind of local-looking address but it will start getting all traffic incoming to your modem directly to its WAN interface. The worst that might be required is a reboot of your new router after the ISP router has done its changeover so that the new router can pick up the new IP address it's been given. That all said, it's possible that your issue isn't only DNS but some kind of packet loss on your network that's affecting multiple things. I can't be sure and you'd have to do some testing by checking your ability to use sites via IP address instead of name to see if there's improvement. You can also add DNS servers to your computer's networking directly and see if that helps. If you're in windows you have to get past the useless settings screen by going into Settings, network and internet, then click ethernet or wifi (whichever you're dealing with), then hit adapter properties on the right. Then you can right click what you're using and go to properties for that adapter, pick Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) from the list, hit Properties on that, then you can leave the Obtain an IP address automatically checked, but change Obtain DNS server address automatically to manual and input the DNS servers you'd like to try. I often just use google's at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for testing. For long term use you can use whatever you want, or even set up a pi-hole for a whole LAN adblock via DNS lists which is nice. It's definitely weird that your ISP won't let you change settings on the router combo unit but some of them are becoming more locked down. I know the new xfinity gateways from comcast are hateful little things that require you to get a phone app to do any advanced config to them beyond putting them in bypass mode which is absurd.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 12:52
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:my internet connectivity has been sucking more and more lately, and I've done some troubleshooting and I'm pretty sure it's related to using my ISPs own DNS servers and those servers either sucking inadvertently or deliberately I also recommend the home networking thread, but if you just want help here (or when you’re over there) I recommend posting your router model and ISP. DNS is a good guess if sites load slow. Have you tried changing your DNS On your local device and did it make a huge difference?
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 15:38
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:my internet connectivity has been sucking more and more lately, and I've done some troubleshooting and I'm pretty sure it's related to using my ISPs own DNS servers and those servers either sucking inadvertently or deliberately Yeah, ideally if you have your router 's WAN port connected to a LAN port on the ISP's router and everything else behind your router you'll want to use bridge or DMZ mode on the ISP router. This avoids a double-NAT situation which can cause issues with some services. If you have the option to not use the ISP router at all that's also good, but I know AT&T among others require it for authenticating the connection and of course that's not an option if the same unit is also a cable/DSL modem or ONT. Another option would be to disable DHCP on your ISP's router and then set up your own DHCP server pointing at DNS servers of your choice. The DHCP server could be another router with the LAN port connected to your ISP router's LAN port or a standalone server like the one built into Pi-hole. This is what I do - I use the router I got from AT&T for routing/NAT, but its wireless radios and DHCP are disabled. I have a couple of APs for Wi-Fi and my managed switch runs the DHCP server. This option allows you to still use the LAN ports on your ISP's router. I wouldn't worry about the number of ports on your router though, as switches are cheap. If you were going to buy a standalone wireless router I'd try to get something with Wi-Fi 6 (which is pretty much always going to be dual-band) and OpenWRT support, since that's a pretty good indication that it will have a full feature set and ongoing updates. Netgear's WAX202 was recently on sale for $30, is $52 right now on Amazon, and has a commit adding support to the next release which I didn't have any issues installing. The stock firmware seemed fine, I just wanted something more customizable. If you don't care about OpenWRT support this $40 refurb Linksys also worked great for me. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Sep 6, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 16:51
|
|
|
hello knowledgeable hardware goons- i have an old hard drive with a windows 7 install that i just got access to again via one of those external SATA to USB converters - and it works and all the data seems to be there! that's great! however, because of permissions, file structures, etc. not all of the data is accessible. in fact most of what I need from it isn't. i understand obviously that it's possible to boot from an external drive but i have some worries. primarily: 1) if I boot from the external drive on my current machine (a brand new laptop) and something goes horribly wrong, does it have the potential to brick / otherwise permanently damage my existing machine? 2) will it even be possible to boot the old HDD "as it was" on my new laptop? that is to say - if I boot from it, will it load up Windows 7 with my old user account and I'll be off to the races? or does it not work like that? basically just trying to figure out the best way to get access to all that stuff now that I've verified that at least it turns on and all the files seem to be there when looking at it as an external drive on a new machine with a new OS thanks
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 17:20
|
|
|
Whistling rear end in a top hat posted:hello knowledgeable hardware goons- A lot of Windows 7 installs were done with legacy bios instead of UEFI so you might have to screw around to get it to boot. Also your windows 7 install won't have drivers for a lot of modern hardware so it might not work properly. File permissions can be overridden so there's no issue there, just take ownership of the stuff you need. It should prompt you to do it but here's a little article with the process: https://www.howtogeek.com/301768/how-to-take-ownership-of-files-and-folders-in-windows/ File locations are just finding the stuff on the disk. For example if you're looking for something that was in My Documents it's going to be in <Drive letter>:\Users\<account name>\My Documents\. If you don't see it there you can check the Public user or other user account directories if you have them in there. Depending on what you're looking for there may be stuff in the Program Data directory which is hidden by default. In windows 10, in file explorer, you can click on the View ribbon and Options on the right and select "change folder and search options", then go to the View tab then set it like this so you'll see any hidden folders as kind of lightly colored (specifically the show hidden files/folders/drives choice and possibly hide protected system files if you need that): 
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2022 20:21
|
|
|
Rexxed posted:A lot of Windows 7 installs were done with legacy bios instead of UEFI so you might have to screw around to get it to boot. Also your windows 7 install won't have drivers for a lot of modern hardware so it might not work properly. Thanks for your response. Yeah I was actually able to gain access to all the user locked files, it just took a really long time so I thought it wasn't working When you say screw around, what exactly might I need to do? I'm mostly okay if I can't get it to boot in OS mode from the old HDD, but what about my concern that trying to do so might screw up my current machine? Any chance of that or good way to mitigate it? Some kind of sandbox or vm or something? Thanks again -- there doesn't seem to be any definitive source of information out there about how this should be done so I'm relying on those who maybe have done this a few times before
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2022 12:09
|
|
|
Whistling rear end in a top hat posted:Thanks for your response. Yeah I was actually able to gain access to all the user locked files, it just took a really long time so I thought it wasn't working I'd avoid if you can. You'll have to turn on legacy boot and turn off secure boot if you're on a UEFI machine to get it to boot from the old hard disk, and then point it to that disk in the BIOS as the first drive to look at. There may be other steps. Then, you'll have to undo all of that later. Also if it didn't work you couldn't be certain if it was that there was an issue with a BIOS setting or because Windows 7 has no driver support for your new laptop and will just crash while trying to load. I had to put Windows 7 on a Dell XPS with an i7-3770 which is from 2013 or so a few years ago when a PC died and a client needed it, and it was a huge pain in the rear end even doing a new install because the drivers for most of it weren't on the windows 7 installer since it was released in 2009 and update support ended in 2020, so I had to spend a bunch of time downloading them and installing them and loading them during install. Yours would probably just not work if the new machine is from the last 5 years or so. Windows 7 doesn't support Intel CPUs beyond the 8th gen or Ryzen at all and while there's some workarounds for it they're generally drivers to add to an install CD and not to modify an existing install that won't boot. It's going to be a pain if you just want to boot it up to look around. Anyway, it wouldn't damage your current disk to try to boot another OS as long as you don't try to install another OS onto it or change the bootloader on the drive. You pick what disk to boot from in the BIOS. If you want to ensure compatibility and have the fewest problems, I'd definitely consider running your old install as a VM on your new machine. You can get a copy of https://www.virtualbox.org/ and install it on your system, then use a P2V converter to convert the physical disk to a virtual datastore and add it to virtualbox. There's other contenders like VMWare's desktop hypervisor, too. Here's a little article that describes a few ways to try it with different utilities. It won't be too bad and you'll be able to boot up your old system in a window if you get it working but you'll need some space for the virtual disk which will be a large file on the drive which is the size of however much stuff was on your old disk. I haven't had to P2V anything in a couple of years so I'm deferring to this guy's description: https://www.sysprobs.com/physical-virtual-virtualbox-virtualbox-p2v
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2022 12:30
|
|
|
Qubee posted:Ever since I bought my monitor back in 2018, it's always had a weird issue. Sometimes when I boot up my PC, the monitor takes a sliver of screen from the middle and puts it to the far left of the monitor. I notice it if I move my mouse to the exact point where the middle has been taken out, I'll see my pointer become short and squat and the bit that's missing will be on the left. My dell high-refresh gsync monitor does the exact same thing. I noticed the line out of the middle but never looked at the sides, and sure enough the line of pixels is over there on the right when it happened today. Interesting how this issue crosses brands, I wonder what the commonality is or if it's a software bug.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2022 02:51
|
|
|
CloFan posted:My dell high-refresh gsync monitor does the exact same thing. I noticed the line out of the middle but never looked at the sides, and sure enough the line of pixels is over there on the right when it happened today. Interesting how this issue crosses brands, I wonder what the commonality is or if it's a software bug. You know what else crosses brands? The panels themselves. Unless Dell makes their own panels (ultrasharp?).
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2022 03:17
|
|
|
The XB271HU uses the M270DAN02.6 panel from AU Optronics. Dell definitely does not make their own panels. Only Samsung and LG do, kinda, though technically not even them (Samsung Display and LG Display are separate entities from the rest of their corporate families because chaebols are weird). Anyway, I don't know of any dell monitors that use that panel. It could be a quirk of some other display hardware used. There's a lot of components that are shared across brands, not just panels. Scalers, controllers, g-sync modules, etc. Sometimes these come with the panels, sometimes they don't.
Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Sep 8, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2022 09:41
|
|
|
Is staples.com a marketplace or w/e where random people can sell poo poo or is staples.com just staples selling stuff? they have some poo poo in stock with reasonably respectable shipping speeds and didn't see any kind of indication that it was a marketplace type deal, but its also strange poo poo that i didnt think they'd actually have.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2022 03:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 09:44 |
|
|
Korean Boomhauer posted:Is staples.com a marketplace or w/e where random people can sell poo poo or is staples.com just staples selling stuff? they have some poo poo in stock with reasonably respectable shipping speeds and didn't see any kind of indication that it was a marketplace type deal, but its also strange poo poo that i didnt think they'd actually have. It's been a couple of years since I bought from them but as far as I know everything they sell comes from staples and their warehouses. Some stuff on the website isn't available in store but I've bought computer stuff and random things like coffee from them before (because I just drink cheap folgers and theirs was $5 a container now and then). One nice thing is that there's often $25 off $150 coupons around. They had one in the last promotional email I got from them. I think the new discount codes are account specific, though, since people used to regularly sell the mailed out ones that were 25 off 100 for a couple of bucks on ebay.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2022 07:10
|
|