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

«‹›11 »

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Karl Sharks posted:

Just to make sure I don't fry anything, but if my wireless adapter says to plug it into a PCI Express x1 slot, but it's compatible with x16, it means it's perfectly fine to plug it into the x16 slot on my Z97? At first, the wildly different sizes threw me off, but just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything that would cause a problem.

What motherboard do you have and what slot are you wanting to connect it to? You can use the lower x16 (x4 electrical) slot just fine, but using either of the upper X16 (x8 electrical) slots will cut bandwidth to the videocard in half. The upper slots share 16 lanes from the CPU, so installing the second device cuts both slots to x8 each, and the lower slots have lanes from the chipset.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 18:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 04:38

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Karl Sharks posted:

It would be one of the lower two, listed as 16_2 or 16_3, the 16_1 slot has my video card already plugged in and takes up two spaces.

You didn't say what motherboard you have, but I'm going to assume 16_3 is the x4 slot so you can use that one. Using 16_2 would cut the videocard in 16_1 down to x8. That's not a BIG deal, people do it when setting up SLI normally, but why eat the performance loss if you don't have to?

# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 19:35

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

On modern systems (with TRIM support), a quick format will also completely erase an SSD after waiting a bit for the drive to garbage-collect. This is even true for newer USB flash drives. This also means that undeleting data is no longer possible on modern drives.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 02:15

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

VodeAndreas posted:

I'm planning a new build for before The Witcher 3 comes out and I'm just wondering if I can reuse my current triple channel RAM 3x 4GB in a regular dual channel board as 2x 4GB, it's good Corsair DDR3-1600 CAS9 so i'd like to keep it rather than pay more for effectively the same thing again.

In my head I can't think of any reason why I can't but figured I'd ask so I don't miss the obvious reason why not.

If it's rated for 1.50v then you can reuse two of the three modules. Keep in mind that 8GB isn't really a lot for a modern system and you can run into compatibility issues trying to mix-and-match four DIMMs, so do be prepared for eventually buying RAM down the road. You're fine to make-do with the RAM you have, just don't wait to upgrade until DDR3 is out of production and insanely expensive, drop in 16-32GB when prices tank so the system will be set for the rest of its life (similar to how I upgraded all of my DDR2 systems to 8GB before prices started their terminal climb).

# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 17:25

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Jolan posted:

Is there any way to force that SMART counter reset or to make sure it's got failing sectors that it's automatically trying to repair? Just want to be sure before I buy a new drive.

CDI says the disk is good. It's a WD Scorpio Blue, so none of those SeaGate shennanigans. Anything here that implies an issue that I've missed?

(It's partly in Dutch, but most info should be clear to you.)

In addition to the "Reported Uncorrectable Errors" that Factory Factory mentioned, the "G-Sense Error Rate" counter reports the drive has been dropped while operating. Put in a Samsung SSD and you should be good to go.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 19:58

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

program666 posted:

By the way, is the environment to run that tool still horribly specific? I have a linux and a windows partition on my 840 and I wanted to run the tool but I'm waiting for a better solution.

There is a version that runs within Windows as well as a bootable version for non-Windows systems.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 22:33

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

program666 posted:

I might be way off but as I remember you have to update the firmware and mess around with the file system of the OS right? And there is a step on the fix that copy windows files around to fix the files already present before the firmware update but none of that for other file systems right?

The tool updates the firmware to prevent the problem from recurring then restores performance on the drive. There was a firmware bug that prevented the drive from writing data that was calibrated for the DSP* step used when reading. This caused actual signal levels to drift significantly from what the DSP expected over time, causing reads to be slower. The firmware fix writes data correctly in the future, and the longer step afterwards does a block-level recalibration over the entire drive, restoring full performance.

*Advanced SSD controllers use Digital Signal Processing, where they change their expectations about the signals they should be looking for based on factors like the wear level of a cell and the age of the data it holds. This significantly improves both performance and lifespan, but requires a more complex controller and firmware to do the signal processing.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 22:48

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

program666 posted:

what I mean is, the data on the disk have to be re-written. The fix seems to support NTFS alright but I'm looking if there is any mention of ext4 support and I can't find anything, there is even a guy that had the same idea as me of erasing the files and copying them over from a backup to fix this. My linux partition has like 14 GB of data so it's probably easy enough to do.

The tool doesn't care what filesystem you're running, it runs on the block level on the drive itself. You can tell by the fact that the system isn't really interactive while it runs.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 23:05

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Party Plane Jones posted:

Aside from running chkdsk and checking SMART values is there anything I can do to see if my external hardrive sustained damaged? Cause it took a swan dive 3 feet down onto carpet. Wasn't spun up but I'd like to make sure before I transfer all the files off of it.

If you have any files you care about on the drive copy them off immediately. Otherwise, rather than CHKDSK run the drive manufacturer's diagnostic. CHKDSK checks for software issues with your filesystem, it isn't any good for telling you how well the actual drive is working. Aside from that all you can do is check Crystal Disk Info periodically to see if any SMART errors have been generated during operation.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2015 02:07

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

kode54 posted:

Is it a sign of cheap hardware that I have this WD external 3 TB drive that has no way of checking SMART values whatsoever? It doesn't even support bad sector reallocation. I had to fill the drive up with small files, then stumble upon files containing bad sectors purely by luck, then move those files into a "!!!! Don't Delete This!" folder in the root directory.

It sounds like it's DOA from the factory, all drives support bad sector reallocation internally, no matter what they're plugged into, and you shouldn't see any bad sectors to remap anyway unless the drive is failing.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2015 11:25

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Factory Factory posted:

Intel NUC, add your own RAM and SSD.

This, a Core i5 NUC is an AMAZING little machine with good RAM and an SSD (you need to buy a WiFi card for Haswell NUCs but it's included on Broadwell models I believe). Note that the NUC knock-off machines from companies like Gigabyte and Zotac tend to be garbage. The lower-end NUCs with Core i3 or slower processors aren't really going to be mistaken for a real computer in the way you can an i5+ NUC.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2015 22:33

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Pilchenstein posted:

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to be asking in but I've got a spare monitor that I was wanting to connect as a second screen and only one of the dvi ports on my gfx card supports analog. Can I stick one of these in the hdmi port and have it work fine?

That looks like it would work, the spec sheet seems to indicate it's an Active adapter with a built-in DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) but it doesn't actually SAY that anywhere so I would be a bit cautious. A cheap pin adapter without a DAC built-in would not work.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 02:33

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Danger Man posted:

Thanks! Looks like a great option. It will turn out a little expensive though, but I can't get myself to buy the i3 version either.

I built an Intel NUC D4250WYKH (Core i5 4250U, 2.5" HDD support) for my mom with 8GB of G.Skill RAM and a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO, it worked out great. Bumping up from the i3 4010U version takes you from 1.7Ghz to 2.3Ghz(1.3+1.0) on the CPU, and from HD 4400 to HD 5000 on the graphics side. In my opinion Turbo is extremely important for performance on low-power CPUs like this, and the CPU will sit around max turbo for a as long as you want without the fan spinning up to annoying levels. If you get the i5 version you can also overclock it a bit

With a good SSD, RAM, and WiFi card you'll be CPU limited all the time, and the i3 4250U offers a much higher performance ceiling.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 03:02

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Martytoof posted:

Is there any kind of gadget that will turn a wired USB peripheral into a wireless USB peripheral? So:

Google searching "USB wireless" is pretty useless for exactly the reason you think it might be.

This exists as a standard and is called "Wireless USB", good loving lucking finding anything relevant via searches though as you've found. Here's an example of what you're looking for, it's $210 though, and sucks.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 03:29

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

spasticColon posted:

The PSU in my current system is now five years old so I was thinking about replacing it but it's a Corsair HX650 and it has a seven year warranty. I was going to just replace it but that would mean having to rewire my computer or at least get another HX650 and swap it out. It's currently powering a 2500K@4.2GHz, a single GTX660Ti, two hard drives and a SSD drive so I'm not taxing too much while gaming am I? Should I even be worried about it and if the Power Supply does indeed fail at some point will it take the rest of my system with it or is there a fail-safe built into it to prevent that from happening?

Since that's a good, efficient power supply I wouldn't replace it if you aren't having problems. If it was lower quality, lower efficiency, or more heavily loaded then replacing it might make sense.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2015 20:26

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

lollybo posted:

My Seasonic X650 is nearly silent in the hybrid semi-passive mode, but it gets a little on the warm side. The fan doesn't seem to kick even when gaming. When I turn it on the normal setting it runs cooler- but is noticeably louder. Am I shortening the lifespan of my PSU by running it in passive mode?

That power supply is rated at 50C (120F), so it really shouldn't be an issue. If your case has poor ventilation without the aid of the power supply exhaust fan you might want to check into that though.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2015 20:49

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Gibfender posted:

So I need to remove my heat sink to clear some dust buildup out of it. Do I need to clean off and reapply thermal paste or can I just stick it back on as is?

If you need to remove the heatsink you always need to clean and re-apply thermal paste. The idea is that when you clamp the heatsink and CPU together, the force squishes the thermal paste out except for the microscopically thin layer that fills the tiny imperfections in the metal surface between them. If you remove and reinstall the heatsink, at best it won't be in the exact same position and there won't be enough thermal paste. At worst dust could have been introduced, or the old thermal paste may have begun to break down or harden.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2015 23:16

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Ledgy posted:

After struggling 2 hours with a crappy WiFi repeater, I'm seriously considering buying a PLC adaptor.
Are these any good ? I might have already bought 2.

You're talking about Power-Line Ethernet, right? is just like WiFi, the advertised link speed is a theoretical maximum that will never be achieved, and your actual experience can range from "good enough" to "unusable" depending on conditions and the quality of the hardware you choose. Like WiFi, if you buy expensive equipment it can work pretty well, but cheaper hardware won't work for poo poo. Also like WiFi, it's heavily dependent on site-specific conditions, for WiFi thats how congested your 2.4Ghz band is, for Power-Line Ethernet it depends on your circuit configuration and what other devices are connected.

In general it makes a lot more sense in most cases when you need better WiFi performance to just upgrade to a better WiFi router (and adapters if needed). A high-end dual+-stream Wireless-AC router will improve performance and range for all devices, especially good Wireless-N or -AC adapters.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 20:50

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Party Plane Jones posted:

If you're running Intel processors use RealTemp.

Sadly this hasn't been updated in a few years and doesn't reliably support processors past Ivy Bridge. CoreTemp is malware now (there's a malware-free ZIP under "More Downloads..." but if you have a security program you likely can't even load the site), so there's limited options for CPU temp monitoring programs that won't just throw garbage uncalibrated data at the user.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2015 17:37

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

ZenMaster posted:

Yeah, agreed, probably not, it's fairly small.

Can I enable QoS on the default firmware and just priorities the tablet MAC address?

Nope, you need to replace the routers with ones that will work in this application. That doesn't have to be high-end enterprise routers, but a cheap router that barely works for a home connection with handful of devices simply can't possibly work in this environment.

The easiest fix is to replace the garbage TP-LINK router with a decent dual-band model, and make sure both routers in the building are using widely separated channels. Having dual bands means the newer devices are all going to jump onto the clear 5Ghz band, leaving older and crappier devices on the now MUCH less congested 2.4Ghz band. This might be enough to fix the issue on its own.

A guest network makes it so users can't see other devices on the network for security and wouldn't help performance at all. Similarly, MAC address prioritization affects Internet bandwidth usage and does not directly affect radio or router CPU congestion, which are the actual issues you're encountering. If you some users hogging the bandwidth QoS could help, but it doesn't help when there's too many users for the bandwidth to go around.

Edit: you could also move the TP-Link router to the location where you need access for only a handful of devices and make it the private router, and use the better Netgear dual-band router in the sanctuary or whatever as the public-access router. Note that the TP-Link router may not be fast enough to route traffic for everyone, however.

Alereon fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Feb 17, 2015

# ¿ Feb 17, 2015 19:55

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

If you are not trying to hide your data from the NSA, use BitLocker if you have a version of Windows that supports it. It has the lowest performance impact and doesn't hurt SSD lifespan, and TrueCrypt is conceded broken.

Keep in mind though that most people care more about being able to recover data from failed harddrives and corrupted Windows installations than keeping it out of the hands of people that might steal their computer. If your data is more important than that, encryption is a good choice.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 22:49

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Is there any certifying agency for surge suppressors? (The wall-plug kind, not the whole-house kind.) How do you determine what a reputable surge-suppressor manufacturer is? Or does it matter? This is for a gaming PC, and solely for the purpose of having a fuse blow rather than expensive hardware.

Not really. The actual protection hardware inside a surge protector is cheap, so it just comes down to whether a surge protector is real or fake (no protection hardware inside), and a company that makes fake surge protectors will happily fake any regulatory or industry logos. I'd suggest getting a surge protector from a major US brand like APC, and I think it's worth paying a BIT extra for a model that has "protection working" and "building wiring fault" indicators. Otherwise there's the risk that you could plug your stuff into an ungrounded outlet and not get any surge protection (and perhaps experience other issues). You don't need to go crazy on a high-end model though, spending more isn't going to get you meaningfully better protection.

RedTonic posted:

Any recs for a decent UPS? I guess I'm with Arsenic Lupin here. Not sure what brand is good/not selling overpriced "magic."

My (3 years old?) CyberPower 550SL just poo poo the bed a few minutes ago. The voltage was 100-140, the wattage 330. More than enough to meet my needs. Unfortunately, the batteries all died apparently simultaneously, and as a result no power is available through those outlets at all.

I don't overclock or run more than one desktop off the block, just occasionally charge a laptop, so I don't require anything super awesome.

CyperPower is actually a good brand these days. Modern computers require a UPS with "true sine wave output"*, which the more established brands like APC only include on their most expensive models. CyberPower has a line of consumer models specifically designed around this feature. Here's an 850VA/510W model for $117.95 at Newegg. That's more than you need, but provides room to grow and longer runtime in the event you do have a power outage. Capacity scales pretty well with price for anyone reading this who needs a more capable unit.

*Modern computers and electronics use power supplies with Active Power Factor Correction (PFC), these models no longer have a voltage switch and usually happily run on anything between 90-250V. Active PFC monitors the shape of the incoming AC waveform to keep load steady. The blocky shape of the modified/approximated waveform from cheaper UPS models makes the power supply draw power in brief, large pulses. This can cause overloads in the UPS or reduce UPS and power supply lifespan, as well as harming efficiency.

This universal voltage capability of modern power supplies also makes UPS protection less relevant these days, as even wild swings of the input voltage are still within your power supply's nominal input range. A UPS is still helpful if your power goes out frequently and you don't want to risk data loss or potential drive corruption, but you no longer need the voltage regulation they provide.

Black is what the sine wave should be, red is what you get from a cheap UPS, blue is the stepped square wave from SUPER cheap inverters.

Alereon fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Feb 21, 2015

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 19:12

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

RedTonic posted:

And I also want to point out that 3 prong ungrounded outlets are more common than one would expect. With the exception of GFCI outlets (the ones you see near sinks, generally), every apartment and house I've lived in has had ungrounded 3-prong outlets. Sometimes every single outlet was, in fact, ungrounded. I've had power supplies in various desktops get blown out thanks to this issue. (Happily, the power supplies all did their duty and nothing else took a hit.) Getting the wiring fault indicator is worthwhile!

Happy to help! Yeah, when I moved into the house I'm renting my APC surge protector warned me that only the outlets on the interior walls were grounded, that was a helpful time-saver.

Arsenic Lupin posted:

(I also hadn't realized that suppressors wear out in a non-dramatic way. We definitely had a couple of power outages in the last year, so I'm replacing a crucial one.)

Glad I could help! In theory the MOVs should fail by becoming more sensitive and eventually shorting to ground upstream of your devices, popping a fuse in the surge protector and harmlessly cutting power. However, it is possible for a MOV to fail catastrophically and keep the load connected, and MOVs may not be the only component in your surge protector (others become less sensitive with age), so I definitely wouldn't advocate continuing to use surge protectors until they fail. Replace them if they've blocked a surge, or after 5 years or so just to be safe. I mean we all know people who've used the same surge protectors for 10+ years without issues, but definitely don't be that guy who uses an old Chinese piece of crap with a flickery power light and thinks his poo poo won't blow up if a tree branch falls on the power lines.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2015 14:59

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Germstore posted:

My HTPC wouldn't boot because the SSD was not showing up at all. It's a new build and had been running fine for a week. I unplugged and replugged the data cable, and made sure both ends of the power cable were secure. It then booted fine. Is there a most likely culprit in this type of situation? The cables all seemed secure before I reseated them.

What SSD and motherboard?

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 03:04

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Surgeon General posted:

Yes. It's a PNY that I bought at Fry's. It wasn't from some shady ebay seller.

And I did all this through wifi.

In the future I'd strongly recommend that you only buy flash memory products sold under the brand of a flash memory manufacturer, such as SanDisk or Samsung. Memory cards already use the lowest grade of flash memory, products sold by a second-tier manufacturer undergo even more limited validation than those a manufacturer was willing to attach their brand to.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 19:26

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Schroeder91 posted:

I'll wait and check out the stock. I was looking at the Cougar case fans, and reviews seem to point to them being quiet and moving good air, so if I replace fans I may just got for those and skip LED. I was thinking white or red LED but I don't think anything inside the case will be those colors.

There really isn't a significant difference between case fans at similar rpm to justify replacing them, if you want lower noise levels just turn down the fan speeds using your motherboard fan speed control (or low noise adapters). There are some differences, but it's more of a last 10% thing when it comes to noise so not generally worth changing fans that don't have bad motors or bearings. There are much more significant differences when it comes to radiator and heatsink fans, as the amount of pressure generated by the design of the fan blades is extremely important to the amount of air that is actually moved at a given noise level.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 02:19

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

ufarn posted:

Best wireless adapter for a 80/30 connection on a ASUS P7P55D-E P55 S-1156 ATX motherboard?

Intel Wireless-AC 7260 Desktop kit, a bundle of the laptop and a desktop slot adapter with antenna kit. This is the best option for desktops, and the version without the desktop adapter is excellent for laptops as well.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2015 23:02

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Germstore posted:

About a week ago I posted:

Today the PC won't even post. I switched out the PSU, still wouldn't post. Switched out the ram for a stick from my other machine. It boots to desktop fine. But then I try other combinations, just one of the sticks, then the other, and sometimes it posts sometimes it doesn't even if it booted with that stick before. Then I put in the stick from the desktop that originally works, and it won't post. Am I correct in thinking it can't be anything besides the motherboard? Should I switch out the SSD to be sure?

Edit: I switched out the SSD, and then it booted, but I restarted and it didn't boot again. Why would it boot occassionally?

Have you tried running Memtest86+ to verify it actually can pass diagnostics with the RAM you're using? If so, update the motherboard BIOS and clear the CMOS via the jumper on the board.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 18:13

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Wilford Cutlery posted:

What's the current go-to for thermal interface material? My laptop's C2D is getting hot and noisy even with dust blown out so it's time for a fresh coat.

Also, are thermal pads still a thing? Any good ones out there?

Gelid Solutions GC Extreme is currently the best thermal paste that isn't based on some exotic and dangerous liquid metal formulation. It's completely electrically non-conductive so a safer choice than metal-bearing pastes like Arctic Silver, in addition to offering higher performance. That said, the difference in performance between the best pastes and cheap white (zinc oxide in silicone oil) thermal paste is relatively small when correctly applied, and it is harder to correctly apply higher performance thermal pastes. Note that because the performance differences between thermal pastes are generally smaller than the margin of error in thermal tests, you pretty much have to look at a LOT of results and average them out to really get a good handle on how thermal pastes compare to eachother.

For extreme performance there's CoolLaboratory Liquid Pro (CLP), which is literally a liquid metal alloy (Gallium-based I think). The downsides are its high electrical conductivity and tendency to bead up and get places it shouldn't like Mercury, the fact that it will immediately dissolve aluminum so you have to be careful about what metals you let it touch, and the difficulty of applying and cleaning it. There's another option called CoolLaboratory Liquid Ultra (CLU) with slightly higher performance and supposedly easier application, but it's not recommended because it solidifies with time.

Don't use ever thermal pads unless you're cooling components that can't be touched directly, like the pads that cover the irregular VRM area on videocards. If you don't need to fill space or prevent electrical contact just use non-conductive thermal paste. I'm not sure on good thermal pad choices if you do need to replace pads.

Alereon fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Mar 21, 2015

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 17:34

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Space Gopher posted:

Raidmax power supplies are garbage, and running a hot video card like a 280X on one is asking for trouble. It may or may not be the source of your problem, but it'd be a good idea to shop for a replacement no matter what. Remember, anybody can print a sticker that has a big wattage number on it, and there are a lot of bottom-feeders in the PSU market that count on the fact that most people won't ever load the unit to anywhere near its rated specs.

If it's not your power supply, it's your motherboard.

I think it's pretty likely to be the power supply, as it's very old (2011) and thus not compatible with modern CPUs, and it was rather low-quality at launch. The power supply and motherboard are the foundation of a good system and not really the right place to cut corners.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 21:02

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

FaustianQ posted:

Seeking advice on stepping into watercooling for fun and I'm dead set on my future build being ITX, so watercooling might be necessary. I still have my old C2Q system, and to get some experience I was scouring for a watercooler that works on LGA775 and LGA1150. Is the Nepton 140XL a good choice? or should I look elsewhere? Is there a better one, or since I already have my Noctua for my 4690k, forget about trying to use it in another system and go cheap?

Just don't go watercooling, you'll get better performance and lower noise with air cooling. You can get lower-profile coolers for smaller systems if needed that still offer pretty decent performance. At the end of the day heatpipes are just so much better at moving heat than a pump that watercooling rarely makes sense.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 16:37

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

FaustianQ posted:

So I was toying around with a super old Kentsfield build (ASrock775i65) and was a bit confounded after setting it up, that it wouldn't even post - everything would spin up, but no sounds nor visual feed. So I pulled the RAM and put in a 512MB test piece and it suddenly boots up, but will always BSOD just before hitting Win7 login screen. Is this a combination of bad board and bad RAM? I thought Win 7 would still boot with 512.

Try running Memtest86+ to see if it passes memory diagnostics, but yeah that sounds like an old dead motherboard.

quote:

Also, I've decided to dedicate my Yorkfield build to folding, as I've got an offer for 50$ for 2 GTX285s. According to Toms, 285s are still okay for gaming, but is there a better solution under 100$ for folding? I'm new but eager, not sure what I need.

Pick up a used AMD Radeon 7970. The GTX 285s are some of the oldest cards still supported for folding and will be deprecated soon, they also use a LOT of power for the meager performance they offer. Two GTX 285s gets you ~2.1 TFLOPs for ~400W, a 7970 gets you ~3.8 TFLOPs for 250W, has double-precision floating point capabilities, and will be supported for far longer. You can also game with it capably if you want to! Even a slightly lower-end AMD card would offer the same advantages, just don't get anything too old.

Flipperwaldt posted:

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

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

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

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

Alereon fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Apr 3, 2015

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 18:08

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

FaustianQ posted:

I can get a single 6950, that should work right? I'm seeing 2.25 TFLOPs which isn't a 7970 by any measure but does seem better than the 285s, although I'm guessing gaming performance will be worse because SLI 285s can brute force it.

I think a 6950 leaves you in the same boat in terms of having a near-deprecated card, as it's 5 years old already. A Radeon HD 7000-series card uses an architecture that is similar to current generations so it will probably be supported for at least a couple more years. I just picked up a used 7970 Ghz Edition for $120, that was a sweet deal but even a 7870 will be faster than 6950 with lower power usage and longer support. I'd think SLI GTX 285s would actually work rather pooly for gaming due to the poor SLI scaling on older cards and the small amount of VRAM per-card (SLI doesn't help you get around VRAM limitations).

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 01:14

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

suddenlyissoon posted:

HWMonitor & Corsair Link. Like I said, it was only in Cities that I saw that sort of temperature range and I've read of others just having their CPU's destroyed by it. It basically had all cores/threads at 80-100% for like 2 hours.

80C is totally normal for an upper-end CPU temperature and is not harmful at all. If it gets to this temperature quickly that indicates your waterblock mounting or thermal paste application was poor so you have poor thermal contact. If it takes awhile you might need to tune fan arrangement or speeds. You'd probably have better luck in the Overclocking Megathread. It wouldn't hurt to remove your waterblock and look at the thermal paste imprint, you have to clean and reapply the paste but that will tell you how good it actually went last time, in terms of both how well the paste spread, any bubbles, and if the mounting pressure was high enough.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2015 19:20

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

redstormpopcorn posted:

https://www.backblaze.com/hard-drive.html

For what it's worth, Backblaze posted an updated article yesterday that seems to confirm Seagate's extremely high failure rates are due to inherent defects in the drives themselves, likely not anything to do with the Backblaze system or their practice of "shucking" external drives. Shucked and non-shucked Seagate drives failed at the same rate, and shucked external drives from other brands didn't fail more than internals.

They aren't seeing the same high failure rates with the latest models so far, but frankly after this many years of problematic Seagate models and their bad SMART reporting compared to other manufacturers, no one should be buying Seagate products.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2015 00:21

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Ciaphas posted:

I've got two DDR3-1600 4gb sticks in dual channel, but I'll be goddamned if I remember any other stats about them (timing, etc). Do these timings or whatever have to match if I buy two more 4gb sticks for the other dual channel slots, or will they all just time themselves to the worst performer?

Timings don't have to match, but four sticks that are not matching (in terms of being a matched set sold by the manufacturer) may or may not work together. Heck, even when installing 4 DIMMs in a matched set you sometimes need to lower the memory clock.

Alereon fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Apr 17, 2015

# ¿ Apr 17, 2015 01:23

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Ciaphas posted:

If I can figure out the timings, speed, and CAS latency (Speccy will tell me that, right?), I can buy RAM from whatever brand and it doesn't matter, right?

Basically I want to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB without having to buy two 8GB sticks, is all.

(ed: just so I'm clear, I'm at work for a few hours so I can't check)

Sorry, to clarify this might work, but you can't expect it to without needing to back off on memory speed and timings and perhaps even boost the voltage slightly. The memory controller needs all the modules installed to match precisely, which doesn't have anything to with the speeds and timings they are rated for, but the electrical characteristics of the chips and the PCBs they are mounted on. Even using four identical DIMMs versus two often requires backing off on speed and timings, since you now have two DIMMs connected to each channel, rather than only one.

For the best chance of success I would get the same brand of RAM you currently have, and a similar model if they're still available and decent. If you are using crappy RAM throw this out the window and just get some good G.Skill stuff. if your RAM is particularly old I would just replace it outright, RAM suffers age-related failures at a similar rate to harddrives, meaning it gets less reliable with age. This isn't a huge deal so if you have two decent 4GB sticks that are only a couple years old I wouldn't worry about it. Finally if you have some slower DDR3-1333 (or god forbid 1066) paired with a decent Intel CPU I would consider replacing it with two sticks of faster RAM if supported.

Ciaphas posted:

Euughh. I'm going to be paying almost double what I should be just for the sake of peace of mind, aren't I.

If your current RAM is decent enough just get two more decent sticks, update your motherboard BIOS before you install them, and pray to a heathen god (Yahweh cannot help you here). If your current RAM is old and kinda sucks just get 2x8GB of the fastest G.Skill* your board will potentially take (prolly DDR3-2133, at least 1866), since it's like a $5 difference between slow RAM and fast RAM.

*You don't have to get G.Skill but I like them.

This kinda turned into Parts Picking Megathread territory, nobody tell SWSP or movax and we won't get in trouble!

Alereon fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Apr 17, 2015

# ¿ Apr 17, 2015 01:46

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

LingeringDoubt posted:

I've got a question about USB hubs. I've recently purchased a Thrustmaster HOTAS so I can pretend to be a pilot while I surf porn (like real pilots do) along with a set of rudder pedals. I've run into something that I should have anticipated but didn't, and that's a shortage of USB ports.

Right now I have four USB 3.0 ports, and four USB 2.0 ports, provided by my motherboard and case. I've been eyeballing some 6 and 7 port USB 3.0 hubs, but the advertising blurb on them all speaks about their ability to charge devices. I'm not concerned about charging things, I want low latency communication with my peripherals. I seem to remember having problems with my headset if it isn't plugged into a USB 3.0 port, but how necessary is USB 3.0 for something like a joystick? Is there any difference at all beside price and aesthetics between the various hubs on the market?

USB 2.0 is 480 megabits per second, even with overhead that's easily 30MB/sec, which is more than enough for nearly anything. Based on a quick Google USB hubs seem to add much less than 1 millisecond of latency, though I'm sure there exists some hub that is worse, your average generic Chinese hub should be just fine. Like most simple devices you'll see a reliability curve where the cheapest devices don't work for poo poo, slightly more expensive devices work great, and paying any more than that doesn't get you much more. I'd get a Rosewill hub from Newegg that has a lot of sales and 4-5 eggs, it's hard to go wrong considering the price.

Make sure you plug your hub into a USB port provided by the chipset, not one of the additional USB 3.0 controllers. That's one of the biggest factors for compatibility, the ASMedia controller just isn't going to work quite as well as either USB 2.0 or 3.0 ports provided by the chipsets. Some devices (like mice and keyboards) sometimes prefer USB 2.0 ports for some reason, even though USB 3.0 ports should be completely backwards compatible, the extra SuperSpeed pins would just not be connected. It could be computer voodoo, but it works if you believe it does.

Alereon fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Apr 17, 2015

# ¿ Apr 17, 2015 02:12

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Ciaphas posted:

Okay, one more question before I decide what to do tomorrow. I'm home now, and Speccy identifies my RAM (both sticks) as this Patriot stick--CAS 11, PC3-12800 (DDR3 1600 [800mhz {why the gently caress are there three different nomenclatures for memory speed }]). For CAS, lower is better, and 11 is kind of poo poo, right? Does it make a huge difference?

(ed: for reference, I have an Asus B85M-E motherboard and an i5 4570)

Here's an article about memory performance scaling on Haswell you'll find useful, if a bit detailed. Overall you seem to take about a 5% performance penalty compared to faster RAM, as it's more of a situation where your RAM just has to be fast enough not to bottleneck. There are some outliers like data compression/decompression (WinRAR) and the game Thief (the new one) where memory bandwidth is extremely important, you can get up to a 30% boost from faster RAM. Expect more like 5% generally. You need at least DDR3-1600 to avoid dropped frames when watching HD video in situations where frames are being copied between the CPU and graphics card for processing prior to playback.

Duke Chin posted:

Hah, poo poo, whoops, too late.

Even BackBlaze's numbers show their current Seagate drives are doing fine, it's just that Seagate keeps doing poo poo like this, and I'd definitely prefer to own a HDD that tells me when it is dying via SMART error logs so I can get my data off rather than trying to conceal it so it dies outside the warranty period.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2015 18:35

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 04:38

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Flipperwaldt posted:

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

Don't touch the computer and plug an Intel Compute Stick in behind the monitor. _{No the NUC is definitely a much better device, I just think it's so cute.}

# ¿ Apr 19, 2015 23:25

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

«‹›11 »