Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Strazos]

So speaking of monitors, my ViewSonic appears to be crapping out. The display routed to my TV is fine, I've replaced the cable, so I think that only leaves the monitor that is a number of years old.

Any suggestions? I'd rather hang somewhere around the $250 range or so. Used primarily for gaming and web browsing, no video or image editing to consider.

[Sheepherder]

I'd find a Dell model that you like, find out who the OEM was, and buy that model.  Fuck Dell and their marvelous selection of rebranded monitors.

[Strazos]

Where do you even go to look at Dell monitors?

[Chimpy]

Where do you even go to look at Dell monitors?

Best Buy and a few other stores sell some models now. But other than that, the UltraSharps are really good (and usually price competitive with equal quality displays).

[Sheepherder]

I like Dell branded monitors.  I'm looking at one right now.  But shit like this means I'm not buying another Dell, even if they claim to have mended their ways. [/herfderf]

For reference.

[Strazos]

...Wat?

[SnakeCharmer]

Yeah, I'm scratching my head at that one too

[fuser]

He's referencing in the power supply pin-outs that dell use to do. It was common in their pre Intel Core based computers to have a totally messed up connection. The Dell 24pins are pinned out differently vs a standard ATX/BTX 20+4 yet the molex is keyed the same so you'd probably break things by using a standard PSU. 3rd parties even started making ATX -> Dell converters.

But yea totally weird for a conversation on monitors, comparing a 7+ year old PSU practice.

[Sheepherder]

Yeah, I'm saying that Dell's business practices have historically been shitty.  Do with that information what you like.

[Chimpy]

Yeah, I'm saying that Dell's business practices have historically been shitty.  Do with that information what you like.

You buy a computer from any large OEM (Dell, Lenovo, HP, Acer) and you are going to get stuff that is proprietary. Just open up a damn Dell case with all the weird mounting brackets etc and it is obvious they are doing stuff that is not interchangeable with off the shelf homebuilder stuff. Half of them put the board in on the opposite side so add-on cards don't fit the same too. It is the S.O.P. going back since the beginning of the computer industry.

[Sheepherder]

Proprietary isn't the issue as long as it isn't particularly egregious.  Booby trapping your own machines is.

[SnakeCharmer]

Any recommended blu ray burning software?

[fuser]

Proprietary isn't the issue as long as it isn't particularly egregious.  Booby trapping your own machines is.

Dell desktop line has been pretty standard now for the past 5 years. At work I deal with quite a few of their desktop lines and the only custom parts in the last while are the case/motherboards/bios. They shifted to using a BTX layout at the time of the P4 to combat heat inside the chassis and there's no way an ATX motherboard will fix inside their case. Recently most of the systems are headed to a pure ATX layout, take a look at the mainstream Inspiron / Vostro / XPS lines. The last truly custom part on a mainstream midtower consumer computer is the case which has the molded I/O shield.

If your going to hold a grudge against Dell for the PSU practice you have to lump HP/Compaq and almost any OEM because they all did custom power supplies. Early to mid 2000 Dell wised up and decided to go standard ATX high efficiency and reliable PSU's.

[Engels]

Seriously. An 11 year old grudge for the PSU issues of yesteryear seems a poor decision. There are other, valid reasons not to get a dell, but they are the same reasons not to get any prefab OEM brand.

As to Dell monitors, in particular the ultrasharps, is it really a matter of figuring out who makes the panel and seeing what other brands use that panel? I know that its the case with some TN stuff, but I do wonder if the IPS stuff is available elsewhere, at a lower price.

[Sheepherder]

Seriously. An 11 year old grudge for the PSU issues of yesteryear seems a poor decision.

Given that the ATX connector that is not an ATX connector cost me a PSU and a motherboard I'd say I made the right call.

[Strazos]

So what are the key things one should be looking for in a new gaming monitor? Looking to buy a 22"-24", color quality doesn't need to be super duper fantastic with great view angle consistency. I haven't bought a monitor retail in about 10 years, so not really sure what makes a monitor good or decent, or when enough is enough?

[Sheepherder]

Go to a store and look at some monitors.  For certain you should try and get a look at a comparable IPS and TN panel side-by-side.

Buy something you're comfortable looking at (size-wise) if it's sitting on your desk.  These days resolution should be 1980x1080.  Response time and contrast are often cooked numbers and therefore of dubious use as a point of comparison.

[Engels]

Its somewhat true that the numbers can be 'bent' to seem more favorable, particularly in regards to response times and view angle.

Strazos, I'd look at Asus and Samsung for good gaming monitors. Since color fidelity, photo and video are not your top priority, you have essentially taken away the top three things that make monitors expensive. Now that that's out of the way, go look at monitors in stores, read new egg reviews on them for such things as dead pixel reports and other manufacturing problems.

[Strazos]

Went and looked at Best Buy today (which sucked by the way, the placards didn't tell much), which was not terribly informative, especially since video was mostly not running at all. However, figured out that Samsung, LG, and Asus looked the best.

Pretty much narrowed down to these three:

(not seen in-person) http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-9334
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-049&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001378

Anyone have any particular thoughts or experiences with any of these?

[Viin]

Personally, I'd go with the Dell. They generally make a higher quality monitor than I typically run into.

[Engels]

Eh, used to be true, but we've recently got a slew of 16:9 aspect ratio 20" monitors that are really really cheap looking, even for TN monitors. Ghastly viewing angles. I'm talking about color washout at a mere weave or bob of your head. This particular monitor, according to the reviews posted, seems to be one of those.

I'd honestly go for the ASUS, based on the newegg reviews. Asus is primarily a gaming brand, and those are its target audience.

[Strazos]

Since the Asus can take DVI and HDMI, is there any difference between using a DVI-DVI cable from the video card, or is there an advantage with DVI-HDMI?

[Engels]

HDMI is for teh TV. As in, you can plug in your Playstation/XBox/Wii into it as if it were an actual TV!

DVI is for teh 'puter. You are probably thinking of a DisplayPort output, which looks like HDMI, but ain't, and is now appearing more and more frequently on video cards.

[Strazos]

No, I meant what I typed. My video card has 2 DVI outputs, but also came with a DVI-HDMI cable, which I use for the TV right now. Wasn't sure if it made any difference whatsoever.

[Sheepherder]

If your monitor has speakers the HDMI can sometimes also supply sound.  I'm not sure exactly how that works.  Otherwise, no difference.

[Strazos]

Went with the Asus as some weird issues came up with the Samsung reviews. Hopefully I can has pretty monitor soon.

[Rendakor]

I recall having this problem at one point during the RC, but I can't recall what I did to fix it.

some things to try from a different forum:

1) Unselect cleartype
2)
   - Click Start Orb > right-click computer > click properties
   - On the left pane click Advanced system settings
   - Under performance click Settings
   - Check mark Smooth edges of screen fonts
   - Click OK > click OK

3) Change all fonts sizes and types to tahoma and Trebuchet MS (XP style).

Edit: Another thread at AnandTech says to just disable 'smooth edges of screen fonts'
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=333998

Quoting this from forever ago just to say thanks. I had a similar issue to what Lantyssa was having (and remember reading about it months ago), and #2 fixed it.

Edit: Or at least, it fixed the issue in Firefox.

To elaborate: since building a new computer and upgrading to Win7 for the first time, fonts on everything look like shit. They're blurry and really hard to read. F13 was the worst, but Viin's suggestion there seems to have fixed Firefox. WoW, however, is another matter; chat and menus are basically illegible. Color seems to be a factor; the green of guild chat isn't too bad, but reds are godawful. I took a pic with my cellphone:

[Azazel]

Since switching to Win7 on my new machine, I've found that I can no longer view MKV files using Media Player, and stuff like MP4 doesn't work either. I've googled, but I'd rather get advice on which codec to download from here.

[MuffinMan]

I had the same issue too so I switched back to VLC. I'm not really sure why I ever switched away in the first place, most likely laziness.

[fuser]

Ran into an issue that a friend bought a GTX 460(mainstream) video card and he's hitting CPU bottleneck in video games. I was kinda shocked to see how bad it was in-person but here's a graph of a GTX 280 to illustrate the effects.

[Strazos]

Where exactly are you seeing this bottleneck? Seems like the graph illustrates that slower CPUs = less performance, which makes sense.

[Chimpy]

No, I meant what I typed. My video card has 2 DVI outputs, but also came with a DVI-HDMI cable, which I use for the TV right now. Wasn't sure if it made any difference whatsoever.

HDMI is effectively DVI + Audio in the same connector (though the spec has changed and that is not entirely true anymore). If your monitor has a DVI in, and your computer has a DVI out, you should use that.

Number one rule of thumb for any cabling that carries a signal of any sort: the fewer connections you have to make the better, if you don't need an adapter don't use one. Every connection has the potential to introduce both signal loss and interference and is one more possible point of failure.

[Lantyssa]

Ran into an issue that a friend bought a GTX 460(mainstream) video card and he's hitting CPU bottleneck in video games. I was kinda shocked to see how bad it was in-person but here's a graph of a GTX 280 to illustrate the effects.

I'd believe it.  Unless you're really pushing resolution, or the graphics routines aren't well optimized, then graphics cards are far past what you need these days, and CPU does become the main limiter.  At least your friend has a good card for when he updates the rest of the system.

[fuser]

Where exactly are you seeing this bottleneck? Seems like the graph illustrates that slower CPUs = less performance, which makes sense.

The game started stuttering like there was a lag. The resolution increased slightly (1680x1050) but the detail still wasn't able to be cranked. Monitoring the system with process explorer we could see the CPU hitting 75-90% usage. Pulled the card out and dropped it into my q6600 and it was preforming fine.

[MisterNoisy]

HDMI is effectively DVI + Audio in the same connector (though the spec has changed and that is not entirely true anymore). If your monitor has a DVI in, and your computer has a DVI out, you should use that.

Number one rule of thumb for any cabling that carries a signal of any sort: the fewer connections you have to make the better, if you don't need an adapter don't use one. Every connection has the potential to introduce both signal loss and interference and is one more possible point of failure.

Interesting thing I found out recently - DVI from most modern video cards carries the audio signal when used with a DVI to HDMI dongle and an HDMI cable.  Nifty.