THE COMPUTER THREAD

[Variety of Cells]

Oooo lovely. When I am forced to get another GPU I’ll switch my CPU radiator to vent out the top like that, and then have my GPU vent out the front. Because my next GPU will definitely be water cooled from the get go. Water cooling my cpu is almost overkill. But I could really use it to push my GPU farther.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Oooo lovely. When I am forced to get another GPU I’ll switch my CPU radiator to vent out the top like that, and then have my GPU vent out the front. Because my next GPU will definitely be water cooled from the get go. Water cooling my cpu is almost overkill. But I could really use it to push my GPU farther.

I almost got one of the hybrid water cooled an fan cooled GPU cards because I could have placed it where the 120mm fan on the back is, but I went with the 3 fan windforce design, even under full load it never gets past 60°C and is so quiet you can only hear it if doing a benchmark with no sound track.  If you don't have the space so need a short card but want max cooling the hybrid ones are pretty good, the ram and voltage regulators need to be cooled on GPUs so if you want to go full water cooled you need to get a custom water block that covers all the chips and not just the graphics processor, the hybrid ones air cool the memory and water cool the processor.

I guess I'm one of the low percentage of people that can hear the motherboard doing the super fast power adjustments that are done when C states are enabled, after disabling them I no longer hear the fast crackly noises when doing anything with the mouse.  I still hear a little noise but it is much less after disabling C states.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I saw a video with someone using the fan and RGB ports on their graphics card so I looked at mine and it has the ports.

So just for the hell of it I took a quick trip to Microcenter and picked up a PWM fan and a bargain bin short strip of RGB LEDs.

Now the fan on the back is linked to the graphics card and is off when idle but exhausts air when the graphics card fans are running.

The little strip of LEDs can be set independently of the GPU but I have them the same, so the card and case cycle the rainbow.

Cool little upgrades for less than $25.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Just when I thought I was out......

I thought I could live with the faint crackling noise but I just couldn't take it anymore.  Imagine if every time you moved the mouse or scrolled a page there was someone 100 feet away crushing tinfoil, timed with your movements....

So I made a makeshift stethoscope and went hunting for exactly where the sound was coming from, turns out it was the power supply.  So, ordered a new power supply and all the coil whine and crackling sounds are gone, and I can turn C-states back on (not that they save all that much power but why not save a little).

Also went into the fan profiles in the bios and set the top fan to turn off when the CPU was below 35, and went with silent mode on the front and side fans.  Now when browsing the web or reading stuff it's hard to tell if the PC is on it's so quiet.

Got a white PSU with white cables, so the little bit of RGB lighting I have has something to reflect off of.

[Variety of Cells]

So I’m watching more movies in bed with my computer, and it has been bugging me that content has been streaming at SD quality when I have a 2k monitor. Was able to fix it for Netflix by downloading the Netflix application instead of using my browser. But amazon refuses to stream in HD because I’m using a dvi cable instead of hdmi, which I guess has some anti piracy protection in it that amazon requires.

I’ve been wanting a new monitor for a bit so I prepared myself to drop a good hunk of cash on a real nice OLED monitor. Except... they don’t exist yet. And the only ones that might exist anytime soon will start at 40”, which would be ridiculous for my setup (and wouldn’t fit on my articulating arms). 

I was left with two options: wait like three years for what I want to hopefully exist, or buy a cheaper but still good monitor to use in the meantime.  I went with the latter. This is what I picked up. 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16824014485

A good price for what it does. Rock Paper Shotgun gave it a good review, best bang for your buck monitor. Which is what I was looking for. Hopefully it works well. I should get it sometime this week I think. 

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 I guess that's not a bad price for a 4K monitor, still, it just seems a bit high for a 27 inch monitor.  TN panels are fine for video but not the best for editing photos.   You can get them OK for photo editing but when editing you have to use the same viewing angle as when you set it up.

 I almost went with 4K when I got my monitor last year but I'm glad I went to the store and looked at them, the icons were so tiny on a 4K monitor I went with 1440p instead, going with lower resolution got me a VA panel instead of TN.  Would have liked to get an IPS monitor but those are a bit expensive and have slower response times. 

[MartyS (Gromit)]

But amazon refuses to stream in HD because I’m using a dvi cable instead of hdmi, which I guess has some anti piracy protection in it that amazon requires.

That's exactly what it is, most of the streaming services will only work over HDMI or display port because of the security protocols used.  I'm kind of surprised the Netflix app would work over DVI, I thought all those apps went with HDCP years ago.  It's why services drop support for older devices and the apps go away on TVs and blu-ray players, as they have updated HDCP over the years new hardware and firmware are required.

[RVR II]

I was left with two options: wait like three years for what I want to hopefully exist, or buy a cheaper but still good monitor to use in the meantime.  I went with the latter. This is what I picked up. 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16824014485

A good price for what it does. Rock Paper Shotgun gave it a good review, best bang for your buck monitor. Which is what I was looking for. Hopefully it works well. I should get it sometime this week I think.

The reviews don't seem too convincing but maybe it'll work for what you're looking for.

[Variety of Cells]

I was left with two options: wait like three years for what I want to hopefully exist, or buy a cheaper but still good monitor to use in the meantime.  I went with the latter. This is what I picked up. 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16824014485

A good price for what it does. Rock Paper Shotgun gave it a good review, best bang for your buck monitor. Which is what I was looking for. Hopefully it works well. I should get it sometime this week I think.

The reviews don't seem too convincing but maybe it'll work for what you're looking for.

Indeed.  I was going off of a good review from Rock Paper Shotgun, who I generally trust for these things.  Generally.  Plus, there were only 4 reviews on newegg, and one of them was 1 star because of the stand, which I will not be using. 

I guess that's not a bad price for a 4K monitor, still, it just seems a bit high for a 27 inch monitor.  TN panels are fine for video but not the best for editing photos.   You can get them OK for photo editing but when editing you have to use the same viewing angle as when you set it up.

 I almost went with 4K when I got my monitor last year but I'm glad I went to the store and looked at them, the icons were so tiny on a 4K monitor I went with 1440p instead, going with lower resolution got me a VA panel instead of TN.  Would have liked to get an IPS monitor but those are a bit expensive and have slower response times. 

I'm going to be using it mostly for movies and gaming, which is why I went with response time over a few other features.  Should be able to make the colors look pretty good with nvidia control panel.  And I will probably have the desktop resolution set to 1440, and only bump it to 4k for certain games (that my computer can handle) and movies. 

[MartyS (Gromit)]

And I will probably have the desktop resolution set to 1440, and only bump it to 4k for certain games (that my computer can handle) and movies.

I never think of that these days because for a long time after LCD panels first came out they always looked terrible if you didn't run them at the native resolution.  I suppose that is no longer a problem with new displays.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Here's a picture of my white PSU in the black case:

[Darth Geek]

Here's a picture of my white PSU in the black case:

It looks like there's an ice rink on the Borg ship.

[Johnny Unusual]

Here's a picture of my white PSU in the black case:

This is the closest a computer has looked to Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin.

[RVR II]

Anybody else having keyboard issues?
My Logitec wireless keyboard and mouse on 2 of my computers were working fine yesterday and then this morning the keyboards won't work at all but the mouse works just fine
I'm having to use a couple of old Dell USB wired keyboards to type this.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

We had some equipment at work have issues with USB dongles after a recent windows update, seems windows went and changed something with the way the ports are assigned.

So, after putting fresh batteries in the keyboards unplug the dongle, wait a little while for windows to see that it's gone, then plug it back in.  Actually it would probably work best to plug it into a different port, just to be certain it sees it as a new USB device and sets it up as if it was new. 

That's the only thing I can think of to try.

I switched to wired keyboard and mouse years ago, mostly to stop eating batteries but also because I got sick of keyboards wearing out and all the higher quality ones are wired.

Anybody else having keyboard issues?
My Logitec wireless keyboard and mouse on 2 of my computers were working fine yesterday and then this morning the keyboards won't work at all but the mouse works just fine
I'm having to use a couple of old Dell USB wired keyboards to type this.