Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Goreschach]

Got the new PC together (no POST errors, woo!) but my browser is doing something weird: whenever I visit certain pages (the f13 advanced search page in particular) the monitor dims. I've disabled Adaptive Brightness on startup according to a Google, but their other suggestion is to disable monitor dimming under Display in Advanced Power Settings and that option isn't there for me.

Edit: Fixed it by switching my HDTV to Game mode, which also got rid of the input lag I was about to whine about.

Edit 2: Now I'm noticing that images are like...grainy. Google seems to indicate that this is a problem when using an HDMI cable to hook up an HDTV as a monitor; I was using a VGA cable before with a VGA-DVI adapter and I assumed that the HDMI would be an upgrade. Is there a fix? I know we have a lot of people using TVs as monitors (hai2uSky) so hopefully someone knows what's up.

Edit 3: Switching from 1080p down to 1680x1050 fixed it.

Could be a few things. Does the tv have a PC input mode? Check to see if it does, maybe where you set it to game mode. Or somewhere else, it would depend on the model. And make sure your HDTV is actually 1080p and not 1080i.

[Rendakor]

There's no PC setting in where I found Game mode; there is a PC option in another menu but it's greyed out. Someone suggested I rename the HDMI input to PC HDMI to trick the monitor into thinking it's a PC and unlock said option, but no dice. The TV is in fact 1080p, plays 1080p fine on my PS4.

[Goreschach]

If that option was just 'PC', then try using the name PC or maybe PC DVI instead of PC HDMI.

The grayed out PC option is probably your best bet. Try and figure out why it's grayed out. Try plugging your hdmi cable into every hdmi plug on the tv. Sometimes they have more than one input, and certain settings are available on only one of them. For reasons. It may also only be available through a dvi input, if your tv happens to have one. If it does try just using a dvi-d cable and run the audio separately. At 1080p 60hz, the image quality will be equivalent.

edit: Oh, and was the PC option grayed out while you were running the vga/dvi adapter? Because dvi-i cables carry both digital and analog signals. The adapter won't actually convert a vga signal into digital. It just passes the analog through the dvi-i. If you were doing that while checking the pc option, then that might be why it was grayed out.

[Rendakor]

Renaming it to "PC" didn't work either, nor did the other HDMI ports. It doesn't have a DVI input (although it was advertised with one, it has an HDMI port that's labeled DVI ). I will try using the VGA cable and the adapter again tomorrow, or maybe direct VGA; I'm getting screen tearing too that wasn't there on the old system and VSync isn't fixing it.

[Chimpy]

If there is something labeled "PC" on the TV menu it is probably the D-sub connector on the back (VGA).

[Trippy]

You may need to fiddle with stuff on the PC end. E.g. if you are plugged in through the motherboard HDMI output you are going through the Intel integrated GPU and there's a separate Intel control panel you have fiddle with to make sure the port is outputting 1080p.

[Rendakor]

I'm plugged in through my GFX card, which is a GeForce 960. I've messed around in there a bit but nothing I changed seemed helpful.

[Trippy]

What's your TV?

[schild]

Let's assume everything below is totally legal.

Say I downloaded a movie off a newsgroup and it's not playing and it came with an EXE for a codec that I'm certainly not fucking installing. Does anyone know what codec these files are ACTUALLY using?

Decided to google it. Obnoxious.

[Trippy]

ffprobe which is part of ffmpeg will work. There are other tools as well with GUIs that will let you inspect media containers to see the codecs used inside.

[Rendakor]

This is my TV here: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sharp-42-class-42-diag--led-1080p-hdtv-black/5420123.p?id=1219128175218

Schild, you downloaded a video that came with an .EXE and you're surprised that it's not working? The CCCP handles almost all video/audio codecs these days anyway.

[Trippy]

Go to Menu -> Picture -> Advanced settings and make sure you have these settings:

View Mode: Normal
Overscan: Off
Active Backlight: Off
Motion Enhancement: Off
Color Temperature: Normal or Warm
Noise Reduction: Off
Active Contrast: Off

[schild]

nzbgeek has lifetime membership for $30.

It has, as of today, already been worth every penny.

[Rendakor]

Go to Menu -> Picture -> Advanced settings and make sure you have these settings:

View Mode: Normal
Overscan: Off
Active Backlight: Off
Motion Enhancement: Off
Color Temperature: Normal or Warm
Noise Reduction: Off
Active Contrast: Off

My View Mode is set to Wide because normal squishes everything and puts big black bars on either side of my screen. Other settings have been set that way the whole time.

[Trippy]

If you see black bars with PC input via HDMI on the Normal setting your PC is not outputting 16:9 video.

[Rendakor]

Hmm, I guess the black bars thing was happening at 1680x1050 in Normal but it doesn't happen at 1080p. Pictures still look strange and grainy in 1080p though, even with it set to Normal.

[Trippy]

Post a picture.

[Rendakor]

Post a picture.

Had to take them with my phone.
1080p:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kq21f4atfwmzpf5/2015-04-13%2023.42.56.jpg?dl=0
1680x1050:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fekrgobfcr4mqm4/2015-04-13%2023.43.31.jpg?dl=0

[schild]

How do I extract a series of files ending in .x01 - .xwhatever.

Weird ass Not Rars all up in my grill.

7Zip will chew through anything.

[Trippy]

View something with more text on PC and compare with same page on PS4 in its browser. At this point though I would say your TV just isn't very good.

[Goreschach]

I checked the manual for your tv model. Chimpy was right, the PC option is referring to a vga input on the back of the tv.

Hmm, I guess the black bars thing was happening at 1680x1050 in Normal but it doesn't happen at 1080p. Pictures still look strange and grainy in 1080p though, even with it set to Normal.

Yeah, 1680x1050 is 1.6, you'll get bars on a 1.78 ratio display. That's unrelated. Lets try a few more things. The reviews look good, and mention the picture being sharp, so I doubt it's just the tv being crap. Turn CeC off. Set the view mode to normal. And check the borders of the tv display to make sure there isn't still some kind of overscan going on. If the edges of the screen are getting chopped off, or you have extra border around the edges, then you still have some kind of overscan going on.

Before you do anything else, be sure to upgrade your gpu drivers to whatever is current.

Run an hdmi cable from the gpu to an hdmi port on the tv. If you have a dvi/hdmi converter, connect your gpu on a dvi port and your tv on the hdmi port labelled dvi. This may be necessary later, if these changes don't work.

Right click and go to the nvidia control panel.

First off, go to 'view HDCP status' and make sure that's not broken. It'd a content protection thing, and if something isn't getting recognised correctly, it might be doing something stupid.

Go to 'set up digital audio' and disable everything. Apparently sometimes audio over hdmi can futz with the chroma subsampling to reduce bandwidth and your tv might not like that.

Then go to 'change resolution'. Be sure the gpu is actually set to 1920x1080. Supposedly your tv can handle 120hz. Go ahead and try 120 if it isn't already set there, but just set the gpu to 60hz for now.

Next, go to 'adjust desktop size and position'. Under the 'size' tab, disable desktop resizing. Go to the 'scaling' tab and set perform scaling on GPU and check override.

If none of this did anything, then my best guess is it's an edid problem. Go to 'Adjust desktop color settings'. Do you have an option to change the color format and/or chroma subsampling? Try all possible combinations of 4:4:4 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 chroma and RGB/YCrCb. If this doesn't work, or you can't adjust the color settings manually, then the only other thing I can think of would be to manually edit a custom GPU output profile.

[Rendakor]

I've tried most of your suggestions with no luck. However, the color format refuses to change. I have RGB and YCbCr444 as options, but trying to switch from RGB to YCbCr doesn't work. I change the selection in the dropdown menu, the screen goes black for a second then comes back looking identical with RGB still selected. I don't have a separate section for chroma.

[Goreschach]

I've tried most of your suggestions with no luck. However, the color format refuses to change. I have RGB and YCbCr444 as options, but trying to switch from RGB to YCbCr doesn't work. I change the selection in the dropdown menu, the screen goes black for a second then comes back looking identical with RGB still selected. I don't have a separate section for chroma.

*shrug* Checked a thread that said your model tv should support 4:4:4, so subsampling shouldn't be the cause of the image problems. You might try going into the tv's settings and turning sharpness all the way down. Sometimes tv's use a sharp filter that can look really bad on high frequency data like text. Probably not the solution, but it's worth trying.

It might be a problem with EDID. That's supposed to let these things talk to each other and tell them what their specifications are so they can send the right stuff. But hd standards are a huge clusterfuck and they just don't work sometimes. Like your gpu will see a tv, and it'll do processing to talk to a tv, and your tv will see a pc, and do processing to talk to a pc at the same time. Or neither will. If you haven't already, I'd try pluggin a dvi to hdmi adapter into your gpu. Sometimes dvi is just better behaved. But if that doesn't work, then short of ugly stuff like manually editing custom configurations you'll probably just be out of luck. Sorry.

If that's the case, you'll probably get the best quality from using a dvi to vga adapter on the gpu, and running a good vga cable to the pc in port on the back of the tv. Then select the PC option on the tv, which should no longer be grayed out. You may have to fiddle with some timing settings on the tv and/or nvidia control panel, but it's just analog so it should work once everything is set up right.

[apocrypha]

Got an odd problem that's stumping me.

I have a small server here that I run headless, using Remote Desktop to connect to it. It's running the Windows 10 technical preview (which I'm really liking, as an aside). On Saturday our router died so I switched to an old one that I had lying around while waiting for a replacement. Now all of a sudden Remote Desktop won't work, just won't connect, as if the server isn't there. I can access it's shared files & folders over the network fine and plugging a monitor & mouse into it all looks OK. No permissions or settings have changed at all, just the router. I can still do Remote Desktop connection to the other PCs in the house just fine.

I've ordered a cheap DVI monitor switch as a stop-gap solution but I'd much rather have RDP working again. Anyone got any ideas what might have gone wrong?

[Trippy]

Does RDC see the computer but it doesn't accept the credentials?

[apocrypha]

Nope, doesn't see it at all. I can see the PC in Explorer though.

[Trippy]

Make sure the "allow remote connections" setting (wherever it is in Windows 10) is still enabled.

[apocrypha]

Yep, checked that. Also checked the user permissions are set right, tried deleting the connection entry on the PC that's trying to connect and recreated it. Checked the IP address hasn't changed. Tried using the IP directly instead of the server name.

[Chimpy]

Go into the windows firewall settings. In properties, turn on logging of dropped packets. Then try to connect to it and see if traffic to port 3389 shows up.

That'll tell you if the traffic is getting through to the machine but getting dropped.

[apocrypha]

OK, took me some time to work out how to turn the packet logging on

Nothing showing in the log file when I try to connect, so it looks like it's not reaching the server at all.

[Engels]

Windows 7 and above has two security levels of RDP, one that only works with Windows 7 and above, which is the one on by default. Check to see if the 'less secure' option is selected or if you are using the Win7+ one. Try the less secure one; I don't know if the 'new' RDP protocol uses a new port or what's up with that, but it may be blocked by your older router.

[Chimpy]

If he is connecting via Ethernet inside his house, the router should not be doing anything to the traffic. At least I have never heard of a consumer grade device that does layer3 filtering on the internal switch. And I would expect 137/445 to be blocked before 3389 since those are more vulnerable.

But stranger things have happened.

[apocrypha]

Hmm, can't find that option Engels.

A minor fly in the ointment is that I can't remember the old router admin password so I can't dick about with it checking ports etc.

[Engels]

This spot here:

[apocrypha]

Aha! That wasn't actually it, but in poking around in settings on the server I discovered that windows 10 had decided it was on a public network when the router changed and therefore the firewall was blocking RDP.

Sorted. Thanks for the help everyone