Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Trippy]

Did you install a new video card driver recently?

[Hoax]

My dual monitor setup seems to have crapped out.  Booted up today and my main monitor was blank.  Swapped the DVI inputs and it came back but the other one is now blank.  I assume something has gone bad on my video card, but is there any other explanation for such a circumstance?

Well you've eliminated that either monitor is dead/bad so far. So next I'd want to eliminate that either cable is bad or that either DVI port is bad. If you can't find a physical culprit its time to start figuring out what is borked at the software layer.

So I'd take the monitor + cable combination that is working, then move that cable and that monitor to the other DVI port. See if it works. If not it sounds like the DVI port itself. Take a look at it maybe and see if seems loose or something?

I guess another relevant question might be if Windows is detecting both monitors in hardware manager?

[Abagadro]

Ya, the control panel had both of them in the configuration.  I didn't do a whole lot but for some reason I booted up today and they both worked again so it is some gremlin. I guess I'll just wait to see if it goes down again before doing much of anything.

Thanks for the help.


EDIT: Lol, okay was just doing normal stuff tonight and got an error message for some application with a bunch of strange numbers and then the one monitor quit.   Restarting doesn't fix it, but shutting down and then turning it on does.

[Lantyssa]

Sounds like driver corruption.  You may want to try reinstalling or updating your video drivers.

[Hoax]

Yeah I'd def fresh install the drivers for GPU and both Monitors at that point.

[Jimbo]

Do we have a stupid hackers thread? Had someone call me and say his name was Mark Jacobs, phone number 122 771 2352, and claim he was with Windows security. He wanted me to log in because my computer was hijacked and attacking other computers. I asked him how he got past the firewall, the spyware killers, and the anti-virus program. I said I don't believe you are really with windows and he hung up. Pretty crappy scam, Microsoft has so many of these calls that they squish one and another springs up.

[apocrypha]

Unfortunately they work on a lot of people. My uncle, in his 60s, total techno-phobe, got fleeced by one a couple of years ago. Got his bank account drained once they'd completely compromised his computer and all his details. The bank were really shitty about it too and he ended up a couple of grand out of pocket. He won't have a PC any more.

[Rendakor]

When I worked at Gamestop, every few months we would get an email about some poor employee who had just been fired because someone called and convinced them to empty out the registers and wire the money somewhere via Western Union. It's not even hacking, just social engineering.

[Azazel]

Which ad-blocker should I use for Chrome? Adblock Plus, Adblock, uBlock? Was running ABP and it unfortunately crippled PSN pages for me, so it got the boot. Since there are so many of the damned things out there, I thought I'd ask you guys.

[Goreschach]

Adblock

[Rendakor]

I know we had some discussion here a while back, but I can't be arsed to search for it.

What's the proper replacement for the Greatest Mouse of All Time (tm), the Logitech MX518? Need something for my laptop: wired, with a good dpi and a few side buttons but I don't need a numpad on there or anything super expensive.

[Trippy]

I think you meant the G5 but they don't make that one anymore either. I use the G502 now.

[MahrinSkel]

My G700 can function as a wired mouse (mine came with a cable that plugs in securely, molded to slot in so it looks like a wired mouse), and has better button placement than the G502, IMO. 4 thumb buttons, 4 index finger buttons, plus a DPI button on the middle finger.

Good compromise between bare bones and the insanity of something like the Nostromo.

--Dave

[Rendakor]

G502 looks good, thanks. I don't want to spend the extra cash on a wireless mouse I'll never unplug.

[Morat20]

Might be the wrong thread, but I'm gonna bite the bullet on a NAS or similar. Right now I've got a rather ad-hoc setup wherein my files are backed up via Mozy, some of my wife's files are (but only from her desktop, not her laptop), and none of my kid's are from either his laptop or tablet. I don't mind plugging it into my router, and plan to do all of the maintaince/setup stuff from my desktop. I anticipate 90% of the use will be from laptops and tablets.

Ideally, i want to set up a simple network share that I can partition off into segments (three private areas, a family area, and a wife/me only shared area). I'd really like it to be responsive enough for my wife or kid to do work on the share directly (working with files on the share, not syncing files to the share or manually backing them up). And since I already use Mozy, I'd like to be able to point Mozy at it and back it up remotely in case of total loss. (Fire, theft, angry person with an axe, whatever).

It's really about 50% storage to get crap off my desktop, and 50% "work areas for me, wife, kid" with simple and easy access control. I don't want my kid in my tax documents, for instance. :)

I'm pretty lazy, have no interest in building my own, so I'm basically stuck with canned solutions. I was glancing at the WD 6TB MyCloud Ex2, but I've got no real basis for comparison other than "price" and "reviews that may or may not be paid for".

Anyone got any recommendations?

[MahrinSkel]

I've been really happy with the Synology 215j I got based on the answers I got when I was asking that question in this thread. The apps on both the server side and on Android just *work*, in addition to supporting backups from other computers over the LAN, it can back up itself to offsite storage, mirror OneDrive/Dropbox/Google Drive in both directions, sync folders to your systems, and bypass network restrictions by relaying everything through their MYDS site (their version of virtual DNS forwarding, it also supports various forms of actual Dynamic DNS forwarding).

It will run hosts for Plex, DLNA, and its own media management (which is pretty good, mine is set up to serve my daughter's movies). I also have it configured so I can select torrents from my phone or tablet, automatically launch the DS Download android client, start the download, and after finishing move the files to the Cloud Drive folder where they will automatically sync to my laptop, all from a university network that is extremely hostile to file sharing (the DS 215j is at my ex-wife's). I've got a database, a web server, and PHP environment all running for light duty Dev work....

The list goes on, and all of this was *ridiculously* easy to set up. I installed a couple of cheap WD Green drives, then just accessed the manager for it from a web browser and it was easy point and click from there. All for under $200 (not counting the drives).

--Dave

[Trippy]

The EX2 is slow -- it would be better to get a WD MyCloud Mirror Gen 2 if you want one of the WD NAS units. The NAS benchmark that's probably most applicable for what you want to do with it is the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit (NASPT) Office Productivity benchmark which tests reading and writing small 1K and 4K files. If you scroll down to the Office Productivity benchmark on this page you can see that the EX2 is at the bottom while the MyCloud Mirror Gen 2 is at the top.

The Synology is a good option if you want something with much more functionality and the price is about the same as the Gen 2.

For Mozy my understanding is that you would need a Pro license if you wanted it to backup a network shared drive.

[Morat20]

The EX2 is slow -- it would be better to get a WD MyCloud Mirror Gen 2 if you want one of the WD NAS units. The NAS benchmark that's probably most applicable for what you want to do with it is the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit (NASPT) Office Productivity benchmark which tests reading and writing small 1K and 4K files. If you scroll down to the Office Productivity benchmark on this page you can see that the EX2 is at the bottom while the MyCloud Mirror Gen 2 is at the top.

The Synology is a good option if you want something with much more functionality and the price is about the same as the Gen 2.

For Mozy my understanding is that you would need a Pro license if you wanted it to backup a network shared drive.

Of course you do, because only businesses have NAS right? Ugh.

That's exactly the sort of advice I was looking for, though. Thanks!

What's the point of the USB 3.0 ports on the back? For an external drive for additional backup? (Actually not a bad idea....)

[Trippy]

Yes the USB port is used to add additional storage or as a backup drive for the contents of the internal drives. On the Synologies it can also be used to turn a USB printer it a network printer.

[MahrinSkel]

Oh, and for security controls the Synology is also fairly easy. My 7 year old's stuff is all set up with a different user ID, that only has permissions for the Synology media manager and the folders with her movies. It is literally not possible for her to delete anything (doesn't have the permissions) and she can't see the grownup movies even if she managed to figure out how to browse the folders.

--Dqve

[Merusk]

I suppose this one can go here, doesn't seem to warrant a big thread to discuss it, IMO.

So I've got a 7 year old NAS device and it only accepts (2) 1TB drives max. It's nearly full and I'm looking at upgrading. Thoughts on getting a (4) drive NAS vs. paying the $60 per year for Amazon cloud drive?
I'm looking for storage of Music, Photos and backup of my Movie rips. Any other services I should even be considering?

I'm still seriously considering a hardware-based solution because over-time it's more cost effective, unless the cloud is truly "Unlimited." I've gotten 7 years out of my NAS and it only cost me $120, so dropping $200 on another should last me nearly as long. The only risk I take is loss of a drive, which has yet to happen to me in 23 years of owning a PC. (I think I might be due)

[Chimpy]

A 4 drive NAS is going to run you a lot more than $200. Even the cheap ones are going to run you 2-300 without drives.

As far as just using a cloud provider or a NAS, there are pros and cons to each approach (and to a hybrid approach).

[Merusk]

Derp, I meant 2-bay. I'd been looking at 4 bay at Micorcenter this morning and debated that because the 4-bay QNAP was on sale for ~$270 in-store. 

Synology was $219 for a 2-bay drive and I've got some 1TB HDDs lying about from the office since we moved to SSDs and the boss was just going to toss them. I'd be getting another 2tb for the price of 4 years of Amazon, and not having to worry about having files snooped in one of the Government's "let us just browse for a few hours" boredom runs.  OR surprise subpoenas because I'd uploaded a ripped movie I'm not allowed to; which is all of them.

4 bay is tempting but only if I look at seriously ripping all our DVDs to digital storage.

[Chimpy]

I would grab a 2 bay Synology, then buy two 3, 4, or 6TB NAS drives (WD Red, etc.) and mirror them. Total cost would still be around $400 depending on drive size. Synology has the best operating software/features of all the NAS devices I have had exposure to.

[Trippy]

Synology and QNAP are about the same and both are very good. I have a couple of 2-bay Synologies (213j and 215j) and am setting up a 4-bay QNAP (TS-431+) that I got on sale. With a 2-bay I would recommend mirroring (RAID 1) which means you only get half the total disk capacity as usable storage. With a 4-bay you can go to RAID 5 which gives you 3/4 of the total disk capacity as usable storage.

[Mandella]

I guess my "solution" of piling a bunch of old drives together along with a hub and some fifteen dollar USB adapters plugged into an old broken screened laptop is right out then?

 

Cheap and it sorta works!

[Rendakor]

So I'd been having screen tearing issues since I built this PC early last year. Finally figured out that turning on Win 7 Aero's window transparency fixes it...but it looks awful and I hate it. A shitty UI is better than screen tearing, but does anyone know if there's a workaround I'm missing?

[Trippy]

Enable transparency but drag the color intensity slider all the right effectively making things opaque again?

[Rendakor]

It's like 90% opaque but I guess it'll do. I don't really like being alt-tabbed out of a game and seeing it move behind my web browser.

[Merusk]

Synology and QNAP are about the same and both are very good. I have a couple of 2-bay Synologies (213j and 215j) and am setting up a 4-bay QNAP (TS-431+) that I got on sale. With a 2-bay I would recommend mirroring (RAID 1) which means you only get half the total disk capacity as usable storage. With a 4-bay you can go to RAID 5 which gives you 3/4 of the total disk capacity as usable storage.

Thanks, I was leaning towards the qNAP. I'm not concerned with RAID arrays, anything REALLY crucial like family photos I cna't replace go onto the Cloud for free (yay prime, found that feature while researching)

I guess my "solution" of piling a bunch of old drives together along with a hub and some fifteen dollar USB adapters plugged into an old broken screened laptop is right out then?

 

Cheap and it sorta works!

I considered doing this wiht an old PC, reformatting it and installing Linux to run the drives. However the machines I have draw so much more power than a device that I decided against it.



Anyway - current issue.  Something's up with my graphics card that I'm getting intermittent screen black-outs. This only has started happening in the last 3 months and the connections are all solid and working as far as I can tell. It occurs any time the card is under load and I move about, jostling the floor and case. I think the problem is the Nvidia card is very large and unsupported, so when it's running it heats up and is flexing, losing connection in the PCI slot.  I can see some visible flex in the card itself that lends weight to this theory. I can't think of anything else it might be, either. (It's an Nvidia 760 if I remember right)

Any Non-jury-rigged solutions for graphics card support? Otherwise I'm going with the old popsicle sticks and paperclips method to see if that fixes things.

[Trippy]

Is this in a tower case? If so try putting the case on its side so the card is upright to see if that helps.

[Merusk]

It is a tower, yeah. Good idea, though I'll want to dismount the HDD and lay it flat since it's a physical drive, correct? I always thought it was a bad idea to mount those vertically.

[Trippy]

In the very old days you weren't supposed to change the orientation of the drive after it was formatted. These days it doesn't matter what orientation the drive is in as long as it's 90 degrees (and even that's not really mandatory) and you can change the orientation after formatting.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21533&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Edit: "on the side" positioning:

WDC NAS


PS4



"On the end" positioning:

USB drive dock


Apple Time Capsule (hard drive inside)

[Viin]

How would changing the orientation of the video card help? Just because it might be flexing?

[Trippy]

In many cases the case PCI(e) slot openings aren't aligned properly with the motherboard PCI(e) slots and a number of potentially bad things can happen. One is the card doesn't sit down all the way into the slot. I.e. the case slots are slightly higher than what the motherboard expects so the card is partially "suspended" above the slot. Another problem is openings and "floor" of the case where the motherboard is screwed into aren't at exactly 90 degrees and when you screw the card into the slot opening the end of the card furthest from the slot opening pops up out of the slot. The reverse can also be true where the end closest to the slot opening sticks up out of the slot.

If the above is true resting the case so the card is vertical let's gravity do some of the work in keeping the card in the slot.