Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Strazos]

Maybe my 360 is too old, but it doesn't appear to have optical-out.

Fake-edit: Ah, seems I need to pick up a "HDMI Audio Adapter." 

[K9]

I need a wifi adaptor for my PC, there are tons on amazon but most seem to have pretty conflicting reviews. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for a good (preferably USB) adaptor for a Win7 PC?

[Sky]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704045

Thing is awesome imo. I pull around 1.2MB down through it. My old pc with onboard wifi pulled 750k down.

[Viin]

Does anyone have a lead on a mini receiver that can take 5.1 in and handle 3-5 speakers? Just looking for something to power some small L/C/R speakers and no other bells or whistles.

[Chimpy]

Does anyone have a lead on a mini receiver that can take 5.1 in and handle 3-5 speakers? Just looking for something to power some small L/C/R speakers and no other bells or whistles.

I think there are some links somewhere up-thread from like a year ago when someone asked about a similar thing. I know I did some digging at some point (have to run to work so can't search now).

[Viin]

Too bad you can't search a single thread. If you remember any keywords, let me know! Otherwise, I'll skim some pages of this monster ..

[K9]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704045

Thing is awesome imo. I pull around 1.2MB down through it. My old pc with onboard wifi pulled 750k down.

Cheers! I have ordered one of these.

[Venkman]

Very strange problem (for me anyway):

At least four nights a week between 6 and 8pm ET, there's a good chance Google.com will 404. At first I thought it was crashing. But after awhile I realized it was just me (at least within my circle). Trying to go to http://www.google.com in any browser just 404s. Meanwhile:

- I can tracert to google.com, so I don't think it's a DNS thing.
- I can go directly to the IP address (74.125.224.197 which I assume is some east coast base)
- I can use Google Mail, Docs, Blogspot and all other Google services I care about. I assume though this is because they're all located on different servers or VMs.

If I restart my computer, it's usually fine.

Any ideas?

[Trippy]

It's proibably a DNS thing or you've been hacked

google.com maps to many IP addresses so even if you try a single IP address that doesn't mean that's the IP address your browser was using. If you try a different browser that hasn't visited google.com in a while does it also give you a 404?

[Venkman]

Aaanndd, like clockwork, it's back. Next time it happens I'll try the different browsers thing again. Tonight I just did Chrome and IE9 (both cleared of everything).

If it's a hack, it's a very strange one :)

[Trippy]

It's common for malware to muck with the hosts file and/or DNS settings.

[Lantyssa]

Given the time frame, I would lean towards DNS issues.  Whomever you use is probably getting overloaded.  Do you have a second computer you can try from, or a laptop you can borrow for an evening?

[Chimpy]

Put in manual DNS servers and put 8.8.8.8 (google DNS) as your first one. Then put in the ones your ISP gives you (write them down first).

[Yegolev]

Shouldn't Google use 7.7.7.7?

I have a small problem that is irritating me.  I have some mp3 that my car doesn't recognize, and some mp3 that it does.  Not know much about audio, I am initially assuming it is an encoding issue.  Is there a simple way to determine the encoding of a mp3, and also to re-encode an mp3?  I'm sure there are tools for this but I don't have the time or energy to break open something fancy or complex.

[Viin]

Maybe some of those are too high of a bit-rate for your car's player? Could try converting them to a lower quality (smaller size) and see if that fixes it.

[Chimpy]

Are they VBR? I know some players don't support VBR.

[Yegolev]

I don't have the ability to answer these questions at this time.  I'll have to search for "mp3 converter for idiots".

[Sky]

I know my truck doesn't like it when I put a full disc mp3 playlist together. As long as I stick to burning audio CDs, it's great. I would also put my guesses along the lines of VBR or high bitrate (I use 192kbs VBR for compressed stuff).

[Der Helm]

I am looking for some easy, safe password managing software, I finally decided to take internet security a bit more seriously. Any recommendations ?

[Furiously]

Pencil paper safe.

[Hawkbit]

I tried Keepass, but found it simply too much to keep track of.  Yeah, I know that sounds dumb. 

I recently added two-step auth to Gmail, and that feels a bit safer overall.  Especially with Google docs being rolled into Drive soon-ish.

[Lantyssa]

I've been using Password Safe for several years now.

[Sky]

I tried Keepass, but found it simply too much to keep track of.  Yeah, I know that sounds dumb. 

I can't get over it sounding like keep ass. Since they spell it that way.

I, too, go for pencil paper safe method. I have a system for most of mine (avg 16-24 characters these days), so I can remember the majority.

[Severian]

Consider padding your passwords.

Which of the following two passwords is stronger, more secure, and more difficult to crack?

D0g.....................

PrXyc.N(n4k77#L!eVdAfp9

[Trippy]

Oh god it's Steve Gibson again

[Murgos]

I guess I've never gotten the entropy argument for passwords.  Sure single or even double words can be pretty easy to brute force but a short phrase of 16-24 letters with some some caps and some numbers and some special characters seems like it's just as hard as a string of all random alpha-numerics & special characters for a brute force attack to break.

There is just too many permutations even if you started with a simple phrase.

[Lantyssa]

It's dependent upon how the brute-force cracker is designed.  If it tries all of a subset of possibilities first (all lower, all caps, all symbols, all numbers), then having a password consisting of any single type means that particular program will stumble across it faster.

But cracking a password intelligently will look for ways to get around that.

[Murgos]

I am specifically talking about the subset of people who say that A5^Jfdsj*99Nqqq! is harder to break than D!dgyr34ndGymb(3 because the second has information embedded in it (being that it's derived from a portion of the poem Jabberwocky) and the first is just me banging on the key board.  I don't think any intelligent hacking algorithm could crack either one any faster than brute forcing all n trillion permutations.

Except that the second is almost trivial to remember for a human and the first would be nearly impossible.

[Yegolev]

Surely there is a Steve Gibson meme.

[Soln]

Need advice and confirmation: How do I conclusively tell if a GPU has melted?  I have a HIS IceQ Turbo Radeon HD 6950 that was not overclocked and was well ventilated.  It's maybe 9-10 months old.  Everything is black.  PC still passes the POST test fine, and from ear I think starts fully.  Nothing is displayed.  Cables fine.

Was playing Magic 2012 and nothing else.  Only other supporting evidence is 1) room was hotter than normal and 2) everything went black, and then fans kicked in faster than I've ever heard them before.  So, gone? 

[Sky]

Try the onboard video (cpu or mobo). You could try swapping in a known good gpu, but most don't have one around - if it's good, it's the gpu; if it's bad it's the slot. You could also try swapping the cable, or the monitor. Another thing I've seen a few times is the monitor being on the wrong input.

[Furiously]

You could also try smelling it.  Generally when electronics fry they forever have "that acrid smell".

[Soln]

Weird.  Next day it displayed fine.  I assume it's the CPU then that had a heart attack?   Either way, I'll look at getting after stock coolers for the GPU and the i5.  Thanks for the advice.

[Sky]

Hyper 212 for the cpu and I apparently won't shut up about Arctic Cooling's gpu coolers     And of course, get a tube of Arctic Silver, don't use whatever comes with.

[MisterNoisy]

Weird.  Next day it displayed fine.  I assume it's the CPU then that had a heart attack?   Either way, I'll look at getting after stock coolers for the GPU and the i5.  Thanks for the advice.

I can't recommend an aftermarket CPU cooler enough, but I'd use HWMonitor to see if your CPU/GPU are actually running hot before dropping serious coin on coolers - just leave it on in the background while you're gaming and check the max temps it records.