Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[apocrypha]

It's a kit, so total 6 gb, but really three sticks of 2 gb each.  Thus the 6 (3x2).

Yep, this :)

The new 12gb kit just arrived, so I've plugged them in (after 10 fruitless minutes of trying to get them in the wrong way round). Only 12Gb is showing though, the original 6Gb kit isn't appearing any more.

I'm not overly bothered if I can't make both sets work together but it'd be nice. Any ideas what I can try to make it happen?

[Lantyssa]

It's possible the board doesn't support the full 18 gb, or the order needs to be switched, or gods know what.

Do the sticks register in BIOS?  Memory isn't something I futz around with in great detail, so I can't offer much more without doing some serious research.

[apocrypha]

Nah the BIOS is only picking up 12Gb. TBH I really am not concerned, 12Gb is plenty, Minecraft is using all it possibly can now ;)  I was just wondering if there was something obvious, but I cba to futz with it.

[Yegolev]

Only suggestion is to check your MB manual.  BIOS is complicated these days.

[Trippy]

May have to manually set the memory speed and timings.

[apocrypha]

I had a poke around in the BIOS timings section. Got confused. Backed away. 12Gb is fine.   

[Yegolev]

May have to manually set the memory speed and timings.

Looking back, seems he is mixing clock speeds; 1333MHz old, 1066MHz new.

[apocrypha]

Looking back, seems he is mixing clock speeds; 1333MHz old, 1066MHz new.

Other way round, didn't notice until I'd ordered.

[Yegolev]

Dusty pic shows 1333MHz?

[apocrypha]

Sorry, yeah, the new stuff is 1600Mhz. Also it's less dusty in there now. Slightly.

[Sky]

Any particular suggestions on a wifi adapter for a PC?

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

Been on my machine for a couple years now and I like it.

[lamaros]

Is a mechanical keyboard that great?

[Trippy]

They are generally more durable than keyboards with cheap ass dome switches and some people like the feel of certain mechanical switches.

[Jeff Kelly]

Is a mechanical keyboard that great?

Depends on if you use them or if someone in the same room as you uses them. The build quality is usually better and some users prefer the more "heavy" and mechanical action. They are fucking obnoxious though because they are generally much louder.

[Salamok]

Is a mechanical keyboard that great?

Depends on if you use them or if someone in the same room as you uses them. The build quality is usually better and some users prefer the more "heavy" and mechanical action. They are fucking obnoxious though because they are generally much louder.

Lol basically my feelings exactly, I loved my old school mechanicals (enough to have a small stash of spares) the wife however banned them from the house about 10 years ago.

[MahrinSkel]

Anybody messed around with triple-monitor setups for gaming? Where you take three identical resolution flat panels and configure them to work like a single (really wide) monitor?

I'm currently debating between getting 3 cheap monitors (probably 4:3), 2 1080p (match my current laptop screen), or just saying "screw it" and springing for the 21:9 2560x1080 ultrawidescreen. The first is cheapest and would put the least strain on my video card (I would probably get 1024x768), the second is easier but is pushing a hell of a lot of pixels, and the third is pricy (starting around $400) but only 28% more pixels and as easy as just plugging it in.

Just finding that I *really* need better peripheral vision in MWO. Anyone out there already tried any of these? Better yet, more than one and can tell me how they actually compare?

--Dave

[Engels]

No experience but off the top of my head it occurs to me that finding 4:3 aspect ratio monitors is gonna be a pain. Also, monitors that old probably have thick bezels that would cut down on immersion.

[Hawkbit]

Our old house still is mostly made of lath and plaster, and we've got a few obstructions in the house that are preventing a solid wireless signal from making it upstairs.  I'm thinking about wiring the house up for the TV and the upstairs computers.  I'm currently looking at running from the modem to a 4 port wireless router, then from that router to the TV area and three other PCs in various areas of the house. 

Should I invest in Cat6 at this point?

How do I handle the TV area, which has three devices (PS3, Wii, something extra)?  Do I run three dedicated lines up there, or can I use a switch in the TV area to split a single line to the three devices?

Any recommendations on setup and/or gear for this are welcomed!

[Trippy]

A switch is fine.

[Chimpy]

Should I invest in Cat6 at this point?

To go with Cat6 vs Cat5e really comes down to price more than anything for home wiring, if you can get Cat6 for close to the same price you might as well go with Cat6. Cat5e will get you gigabit ethernet and is somewhat easier to work with. In a house you are not going to run into the crosstalk situations you would run into in a typical structured cabling setup where a large number of cables are running parallel in close proximity that Cat6 is really designed to mitigate so your performance difference is probably not even going to be noticable.

I went with Cat5e when I wired my house after I bought it mainly because I could get it in a siamese cable with RG-6Q coax for cheap. (Got a 300' roll for like 120 bucks when I bought it). I have everything running to an 8-port patch panel and coax splitter attached to the wall in my furnace closet. I have a trendnet 5 port gigabit switch on my TV stand that all my entertainment devices plug into. Each room has a single wall plate with a cable jack and an ethernet port on it.

Overall I spent about 250 bucks and about 10 hours pulling wire to get it all set up but it is definitely worth it.

[Viin]

Did you look at/try the power line Ethernet adapters? In theory, you could plug one in by your main router, add a Cat 5 between the router and adapter, put another wall adapter upstairs, plug another wifi router (bridge mode) into that adapter. Not sure how well they work - I have a pair but haven't tried them out yet.

[Hawkbit]

My buddy had pretty good success with his.  It's a good idea to try out, and cheaper than running cable.  My only concern was that the electrical in this old house is not in great shape.  We've got only a small panel and it's running knob+tube, romex and armored cable all out of it.  I don't know how adding that power line adapter would affect the electrical and I'm not sure I want to test it.  Good idea, though.

Current plan is to pay off the $9k we just put into the new sewer line by summer, then do the electrical after. 

[apocrypha]

I can vouch for the powerline networking stuff, it's really good. Our house is 110 years old with 1m thick walls that kill wifi dead. Our wiring is a mish-mash of 40 year old fuck-knows-what-regulations-applied stuff and recently redone sections. We got a couple of powerline adapters and they're great.

Only problem area is what we call the workshop, which is a separate building with it's own consumer unit, basically on a completely different main from the house.

[Yegolev]

I have two breaker panels in my house and so I basically got lucky in finding two electrical outlets on the same bar which were in places I needed them.  My upstairs office is using it to connect two PCs to the downstairs router nest.

[Engels]

I'm in the market for a 24 or 27 inch monitor that's good for gaming yet has IPS quality viewing angles and color gamut. I know that Asus is coming out with an expensive 10 bit IPS 5 ms  response time monitor in the next month or so, but I'm gonna poke here if anyone has a had a good buy recently.

[CaptainNapkin]

Are you folks with powerline all using the NetGear stuff or a different brand? Been wanting to try this, hate running wire.

[Trippy]

I'm in the market for a 24 or 27 inch monitor that's good for gaming yet has IPS quality viewing angles and color gamut. I know that Asus is coming out with an expensive 10 bit IPS 5 ms  response time monitor in the next month or so, but I'm gonna poke here if anyone has a had a good buy recently.

I use two different 27" 1080p IPS displays -- the ASUS VG27AH and the Dell S2740L. For me both work fine for gaming. I like the display quality of the Dell slightly better (e.g. the Dell has a more uniform brightness) but the Dell has a super reflective surface cause it's so glossy and has no AG coating. Both are also 6-bit panels.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_s2740l.htm

[apocrypha]

Are you folks with powerline all using the NetGear stuff or a different brand? Been wanting to try this, hate running wire.

Mine are TP-Link because they were affordable. Have had no problems at all with them. I've got a friend who's got Netgear ones that he also says work great.

[Engels]

I use two different 27" 1080p IPS displays -- the ASUS VG27AH and the Dell S2740L. For me both work fine for gaming. I like the display quality of the Dell slightly better (e.g. the Dell has a more uniform brightness) but the Dell has a super reflective surface cause it's so glossy and has no AG coating. Both are also 6-bit panels.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_s2740l.htm

Thanks for the reply Trippy. Unfortunately, we like matt rather than gloss so that Dell, although it looks great in just about every regard, would get an immediate veto from the missus. That said, Dells are looking more and more like a good direction to go in. I know they don't have that gaming 'panache' that Asus does, but they do seem to pay attention to 'old fashioned' values such as color.

[Yegolev]

Forgot to note that I am using ZyXEL powerline networking.

[Chimpy]

I use two different 27" 1080p IPS displays -- the ASUS VG27AH and the Dell S2740L. For me both work fine for gaming. I like the display quality of the Dell slightly better (e.g. the Dell has a more uniform brightness) but the Dell has a super reflective surface cause it's so glossy and has no AG coating. Both are also 6-bit panels.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_s2740l.htm

Thanks for the reply Trippy. Unfortunately, we like matt rather than gloss so that Dell, although it looks great in just about every regard, would get an immediate veto from the missus. That said, Dells are looking more and more like a good direction to go in. I know they don't have that gaming 'panache' that Asus does, but they do seem to pay attention to 'old fashioned' values such as color.

I am not a big fan of 16:9 but they bought me two U2414H monitors at work and they are nice. They have no bezel except about 3/8" at the bottom so dual monitors is pretty seamless. Looks like they just released a 16:10 version, the U2415 which looks to be similar in terms of bezel size.

I know people who have the slightly older U2412H monitors and love them for just about everything, gaming included.

[MahrinSkel]

Well, I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I think I'm going to go with a 29" ultra-wide (same vertical measurement as a 22", but 1/3 wider, 2560x1080) and soundbar. In addition to the question of whether my 870m can push 6 megapixels, I'd be trying to integrate three different interfaces (with all the associated frame sync issues). Triple monitor is just too unwieldy an assembly to try and match with a laptop, and a "display" six times as wide as it is tall is probably just a little too much peripheral vision.

--Dave

[Hawkbit]

Any recommendations on mouse and keyboard?  I have some Amazon credit and was hoping to upgrade my $11 keyboard and this shitty G400s I bought recently.  Torn between that and a new monitor after reading about folks getting some 27" ones above.

[Abagadro]

Asked this in the build thread but probably should have gone here:

So it turns out my router is throttling my internet speed.  Any recommendations for a good wireless router?

[Chimpy]

Asked this in the build thread but probably should have gone here:

So it turns out my router is throttling my internet speed.  Any recommendations for a good wireless router?

Apple Airport base stations are really nice. Never heard any complaints about them but they are more expensive than others.