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

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Are there any difference between a USB3.0/USB 3.1 gen 1 compatible cable and one for USB 3.1 gen 2? All of the articles I've managed to google just talk about usb-c, but I'm wondering about type-a. I've ordered a couple of 1m extension cables that are listed as USB3.0 and I'm wondering what if the same cables would support 3.1gen2 should I eventually end up with a gen 2 device to pair with the two gen2 type-a ports on the back of my pc.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2018 17:32

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 08:49

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

ChiralCondensate posted:

Can you recommend a Solitaire program for Win10 that is exactly the same as Win7's?

You can copy the exe & dll from a win7 install but you need to edit the exe in a hex editor (or :filez:

and find a site that has done it for you, hopefully without malware...)
https://windows.gadgethacks.com/how-to/bring-back-microsofts-classic-no-bloat-games-windows-for-free-0166605/

# ¿ May 13, 2018 16:10

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Are you sure that it's gigabyte not gigabit? 1 gigabit/s is 125MB/s.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2018 23:43

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Eletriarnation posted:

My only remaining nitpick with the setup is that I'm still manually swapping 3.5mm cables to my speakers whenever I need sound from a different device. It's possible to route one source through the Line-In of another, but in addition to requiring the downstream to be always on this seriously reduces the volume on the upstream line and usually the audio quality as well. Just plugging everything into a splitter doesn't work if you have more than one live source at a time, so that's out too. The obvious solution is to use a stereo line mixer, but then I'd be paying $80 for mixer+cables and having to pay the power bill for another always-on device. Can't have everything, I guess.

You could use a set a speakers such as Edifer R1280 which have dual inputs � I use a set for sound from both my windows and Linux boxes.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2019 14:52

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Recommend me a good card reader.
Something that can do everything and will last for a while.

There's so many weird brands on Amazon I don't even know what I'm looking at.

I have a lexar that's worked pretty well for CF so I'm tempted to just get this guy:
https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-Multi-Card-25-USB-Reader/dp/B008VQ2YUY/ref=sr_1_33

But this also looks legit: https://www.amazon.com/Reader-GIKERSY-Memory-Adapter-Simultaneously/dp/B07L73GK7D/ref=sr_1_26

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Just a full sized SD and CF slot is fine. Mini/micro slot is just a perk in case I don't have an adapter handy.
It needs to be able to handle SDHC/XC/UC and CF cards.

About three years ago Lexar was shut down then a Chinese company came in and bought all the IP. Fortunately this doesn't seem to be the 'slap the premium Lexar branding on cheap poo poo' people thought might happen. They've even just announced a new card reader that's too new for reviews.
https://www.ephotozine.com/article/lexar-announces-new-professional-multi-card-3-in-1-reader-34711

A bunch of the Lexar people ended up forming Prograde Digital who are focusing on the high end. So their card reader options aren't the cheapest...
Amazon: CF+SD version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI_uMdvGvHY

# ¿ May 8, 2020 10:22

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I'm slowly in the process of converting my desktop into a something I can do all my work from, and having just acquired a headset so I can take work-calls from it, now I'm thinking about a camera for Zoom meetings and whatnot.

What should I be looking for, for something that's going to be better than your average grainy laptop webcam?

As mentioned, just about all video conferencing & streaming hardware (webcams, microphones, hdmi capture devices) are either on backorder or short supply. If you own a proper camera you can investigate if there's a way to do video over usb (it'll depend on the make & model). Otherwise use your phone, there are apps that will make it act like a webcam.

Also, brightly light yourself with some lamps. Also get a decent microphone and consider the room acoustics.

Because every kid wants to a 'game streamer' or ''Youtube star' there's an absolutely ton of channels/videos dedicated to the gear and setups. Be careful not to go down the rabbit hole where you suddenly lust after a microphone setup costing several hundred... (only to be saved by it all being out of stock...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rXsWPEZosQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJRzWgF9k9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61TcpH7RI_8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTx8kYwckg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf3bqgxn-2I

# ¿ May 10, 2020 08:01

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

I'd like to pick up a usb bluetooth dongle to pair with some headphones. Are there any particular brands that are recommend / don't have trash drivers, or it is safe to pick at random from the Amazon listings?

# ¿ May 23, 2020 09:34

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

So apparently Logitech's quality control has absolutely poo poo the bed in the last couple years or so, and I'm probably going to be returning the second set of speakers in a row. Where should I be looking for some modestly priced, reliable computer speakers?

There's a PC Speaker thread over in Gadgets. I'm more than happy with my Edifier R1280T.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2020 10:06

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

There's also Kdenlive, Openshot and Shortcut; three opensource video editors.

Sound tends to be the last element of video people think about but it's probably the most important. People won't sit through a high grade excellent looking video if they can't understand what is being said (or there's annoying wind noises, etc).

Are you planning for the videos to all be 'in a studio' style (ie. in a room in your house) or on-location videos where you out and about in the world? This might be better covered by moving over to The Dorkroom.

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Aug 4, 2020

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 09:33

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Shibawanko posted:

just in my house, i'll probably put up a couple of semi-transparent partitions that i have lying around and create a "cubicle" in a larger room from which to record. sound is a good point though, i guess something like this wouldn't be enough: https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/1282573/trust-gxt-232-mantis-streaming-microphone.html ? would i be looking more at something like this maybe: https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/1336392/hyperx-quadcast.html ? all of these have good reviews but since i know nothing about this kind of stuff it's hard to gauge. i'd like to do all of this on a budget but still get decent equipment in case i want to make a habit out of it

Being a Youtuber or Twitch streamer is all the rage these days so there's no end of Youtube channels that will walk you through gear and techniques.

The microphones you linked to are both intended for connecting to a PC and recording while sat/stood near the microphone. If you want to maximise the quality of in-camera audio then you want something like a Shotgun or lav mic setup (Rode are a popular brand). (But the Sony Handycam you linked to doesn't seem to have a microphone input). Either will work, it depends on what your final target is and what workflow you want to get there.

Can you post a Youtube link for a video that is similar in feel to what you want to deliver as your end product?

edit: also what subjects and what style of content (eg science experiments on a desk, you in front of a physical whiteboard, virtual whiteboard/powerpoint presentations, etc.)

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Aug 4, 2020

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 12:17

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Shibawanko posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-sqGZNdPzg this guy has good instructional videos, i'd like to do something similar but in reverse: english lessons for a japanese audience in japanese, but maybe some other stuff too

just me at a desk with a quiet background teaching stuff, i imagine i'd just overlay/splice tables and slides with explanations. id want a very calm sort of style

That doesn't look too demanding. A lot of YouTube is focused on using DSLRs or mirrorless cameras for video because the superior quality. However something like a Sony Handycam is going to be easier to use for someone interested in the end result not the process (plus the value of world class cinematography is going to somewhat lost on an education video). The screen on the Handycam also rotates to point forward so it can be used to monitor yourself. Audio-wise, I'd pick a Handycam that has an audio input jack but hold off on buying a microphone. Record a few using the onboard mic until you have a feel for your recording process and whether a studio mic (like the one you linked to), a shotgun mic or lapel/lav mic will work best for your situation. You also want light. Lots of light. Neewer video panel lights seem to be popular and not too expensive at the lower end.

One option is to throw in a USB HDMI capture device. This would let you stream direct to your PC. Using OBS Studio you could then do live compositing of your camera and whatever teaching aids. OBS is best known for being used by YouTubers and Twitch Streamers but it's equally at home being used to record locally.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 20:11

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

When powerline adaptors were first introduced, there was a lot of push-back from HAM radio operators because they cause interface over a broad range of frequencies. Perhaps Fame Douglas is in to a bit of Ham?

https://www.ban-plt.org.uk/

# ¿ Aug 9, 2020 15:10

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Is there such a thing as a PCI-e card that can add more SATA ports? Would such a thing bottleneck against the 1x slot bandwidth?

SATA tops out at 600MB/s. You can compare PCIe speeds at Wikipedia. I think most reasonably modern motherboards should have at least PCIE 2.0 and that has around 500MB/s per lane so will bottleneck a SSD slightly but not a hard-drive. It's only going to be a serious bottleneck if you want to saturate multiple SSDs simultaneously off the same expansion card. If you can pair a PCIE 3.0 card and slot then that doubles the bandwidth.

If you want a lot of extra SATA ports with good performance then common method is using old server cards that can found at reasonable costs. Something like a H220 HBA (Host Bus adaptor) will allow up to 8 SATA drives and it's 3.0 x8 interface has up to 8GB/s of bandwidth to share. Most consumer motherboards probably don't have a spare x8 slot (unless you want to drop the GPU down from x16 to x8) but a x4 slot will still have more bandwidth than people probably need.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2020 13:13

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

fishhooked posted:

Anyone have a recommendation for a tablet? Will be primarily using it to stream movies. Prefer non iOS, limited bloatware, and good battery life

Didn't see any thread so apologies if I missed it

One of the Amazon Fire HD lineup especially if you can get one when they on sale. It lacks a decent app store unless you want to sideload the google one but for web browsing and Netflix, it punches well above it's pricing.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2020 16:01

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

If you happen to own a proper camera with HDMI output, you can grab one of these to turn it in to a streaming camera:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capture-St...05342352&sr=8-3

They're a cheap generic make that popped up earlier in the year and they get good reviews considering their bargain bin price. That said, don't discount your phone; if it's a higher end android or any iphone, it'll probably have a better sensor than nearly any webcam. (Webcams having got stuck in a cheap niche, where anyone who wants to spent higher amounts tends to go the camera+hdmi capture route, making more expensive webcams a tough sell).

And as Space Gopher says, lights, lights and more lights.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2020 10:22

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Spacegrass posted:

I just ordered an Amazon Fire HD 8 Tablet. Was this a mistake? (I was drunk) I need a tablet to watch shows, surf the net and listen to music. Should I cancel the order and get an Android tablet?

I've never had a tablet in my life and this is all new to me.

I find mine fine for browsing the web, reading PDFs, Youtube, Netflix and Amazon Prime. By default doesn't come with the Google App store so the selection of apps is non-existent but you can sideload the store.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2021 00:10

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Spacegrass posted:

Can you listen to mp3s without getting a bunch of ads? I ordered it on ebay, not sure if it's unlocked without ads. Lesson learned, I suppose.

I've never loaded any mp3s on so I don't know. I got mine in a sale and it was cheap enough I just paid the fee to remove adverts. Plus I run a pi-hole at home so I tend to have a low advert experience anyway. Worst case you should be able to side-load the ad-free music player of your choice.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2021 13:37

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkAxvmP2dTw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daS5RHVAl2U

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jan 5, 2021

# ¿ Jan 5, 2021 00:46

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

me your dad posted:

Also, one of the drives has a jumper on that small set of pins. What does that jumper do?

You used to be able to have two drives on a PATA cable. The jumpers are a hang-over from the early days when you had to pre-set which was the primary one and which one was the secondary. Eventually you didn't need to do that and the computer could auto detect the order.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2021 22:09

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

LRADIKAL posted:

Don't remove the jumpers. They are probably on the auto select pins, which you want.

I suspect most drives have the CS mode jumper position the same as not having a jumper installed.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2021 22:59

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

pmchem posted:

My boomer parents need a new desktop PC to replace a very, very old Dell. The plan is to get them another Dell and a 27" screen to go with it. Use case is basically general web surfing and spreadsheets, plus some light photo/video archiving.

I could possibly kill two birds with one stone here by getting them a Dell "All-in-one" PC. For example,
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/desktop-computers/inspiron-27-7000-black-all-in-one-with-bipod-stand/spd/inspiron-27-7700-aio/na7700ejxlh
(not picking this particular model, but just linking for those who don't know what they are)

But, I've never bought/used an all-in-one PC before. I'm somewhat skeptical about having the screen be part of the PC, for repairability reasons. But I guess with the cost savings, they could get an extended warranty (heh).

Has anyone here bought or serviced a Dell All-in-one, and if so, what are your opinions on them?

edit: hmm apparently even the 27" AIO screens are only FHD (1080p), so, forget it

Consider a (refurb) SFF or MFF Optiplex. Pick one that isn't an anaemic dual core then chuck in a memory & SSD upgrade as required.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2021 12:02

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

A less janky solution would be to just use a USB PCIe expansion card with the desired header connection.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 19:36

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

That said, PCIe cards with Type-E header connections seem to be rare....

Found one (but not sure where it's actually for sale):

https://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.detail.tpl&no=181&type=Card%20Reader/Hub&type_sub=USB%20Hub&model=AK-PCCU3-06

A 3.0 pcie card with an adaptor to type-e might be easier to find and still deliver decent speeds.

https://www.startech.com/en-gb/cards-adapters/pexusb3s2ei

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 5, 2021

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 19:51

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

The market for webcams isn't great. The segment is stuck between people using built-in devices,just wanting cheap over anything else, and those wanting quality using high end cameras combined with HDMI capture devices. For that budget you could look at the Elgato Facecam. Also look at the RAZER KIYO PRO, or something by Avermedia.

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Dec 29, 2021

# ¿ Dec 29, 2021 16:43

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

I'd look on Youtube for reviews. eg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAnD1cV9ANI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MNjNw_OxEE

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Dec 29, 2021

# ¿ Dec 29, 2021 18:02

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Whizzing Wizard posted:

Will I lose any performance if I put a SSD in a USB enclosure?

Specifically looking at this one:

One thing to look out for is UAS (also labelled as UASP) in regards to the USB enclosure. It's a better protocol that was introduced with USB3 but, given the dumpster fire that is the USB standard body, isn't mandatory. I believe support is far from universal and it's not always clearly labelled if enclosures and ports support it (frankly, if an ensure doesn't list it, I'd assume it doesn't)

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/uasp-makes-raspberry-pi-4-disk-io-50-faster

edit: Deltaco on their website only list their MAP-K104 enclosure as having UASP. The fact they do list it against one is evidence it's not supported on their other models, such as the one you listed.

edit 2: A couple of examples that do have UASP, no recommendation implied.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Enclosure-External-Housing-Laptop/dp/B07D2BHVBD/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sabrent-Custodia-Ottimizzato-Supporto-EC-UASP/dp/B00OJ3UJ2S
https://www.startech.com/en-gb/hdd/s2510bmu33

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jan 7, 2022

# ¿ Jan 7, 2022 19:15

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

What spec was their old laptop?

For general stuff, I'd be tempted to suggest a refurb Dell micro firm factor optiplex, i5 not i3, and chucking in memory upgrade and large ssd. It wouldn't be my first choice for video editing, but if they don't want a large pc and a laptop is the old benchmark...

# ¿ Jan 19, 2022 13:00

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

loopsheloop posted:

I have a 1 TB SSD installed and I just got another (better) 1 TB SSD. My mobo has 2 SSD slots. What's the easiest way for me to transfer my windows install over to the new drive and use that as my primary?

I used the free version of Macrium Reflect to clone my disk and had no issues.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2022 23:13

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

I recently added bluetooth via an Edimax BT-8500 plus a usb extension cable to move it away from any possible usb3 interference. No performance issues and although I use it on window, I always appreciate their hardware tends to have good Linux compatibility because they don't do odd things with their implementations.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2022 19:08

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

What monitor connection? Dvi/hmdi/dp?

# ¿ Dec 12, 2022 18:37

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 08:49

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

I believe DP KVMs have remained stubbornly expensive, so hdmi will be the way to go. Can't comment on particular models.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2022 20:42

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