Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Baldrake]

So I was looking at the rewards points on my credit card, and realized I had enough points to get an HD TV and a PS3, and still have points over. So the TV's I'm looking at are small (30"). Conventional wisdom seems to be that getting 780p is fine for that size - that you can't tell the difference between that and 1080. But I'm really more interested in whether there is a downside to having that TV resolution for hookup to a 360 or PS3. I'm sure there are people here who have very strong opinions on this matter.

[schild]

Conventional wisdom seems to be that getting 780p is fine for that size - that you can't tell the difference between that and 1080.

I dare you to get a 780p tv. On that note, whoever says the difference between 1080p and 780p (or even 720p  ) is noticeable, period.

[Baldrake]

Yeah, here I'm sitting in an airport bored out of my skull and taking snark from schild. 

Anyway, had trouble parsing that last sentence - you're saying 720p is fine for connecting to a 360?

[schild]

I'm saying given the current prices of TV and the fact this is costing you FAKE MAGIC MONEY, get a 1080p tv if they offer it. There is a difference, it's noticeable and the only people that say there isn't have only seen shitty 1080p tvs.

What TVs are they offering?

[rattran]

I think at smaller sizes (up to 32") there's not a huge difference between the 720p and 1080p sets, but it is noticeable. It becomes dramatic at about 40" for me.

I'd get a 1080p just for clearest image on bluray, which is still the primary use of my ps3.

[Salamok]

I think the people saying there isn't much difference are arriving at their conclusion by comparing 720 media upscaled to 1080 to 1080 media played at 1080.  The results there are much closer in quality than plopping a 40" 1080 set down next to a 40" 720 set and making the comparison.

[Reg]

I've been having a problem with my USB ports lately. My motherboard is an old ASUS P4P800s with USB 2.0 ports. In the device manager it shows 4 USB 1 ports and a fifth USB 2.0 port - and this is apparently normal.  All of the ports are supposed to be fast even though some show as the older type.

Unfortunately, about 1/2 the time when I stick a memory stick reader in I get a message saying the USB port is slow and I should use a different port. Sometimes if I uninstall and detect the ports again it fixes itself, sometimes it takes a reboot. Sometimes both.

Has anyone had this problem and found a real fix for it so I don't have to dick around anymore?

[Engels]

uhm, I don't presume buying a new motherboard, cpu and ram (and probably video card) is an option, is it? Cuz that's some ancient hardware, bro.

As to how to fix that, I'd see if the motherboard manufacturer's site has any BIOS updates. It may be a known problem with the board.

[Reg]

Well, it works and so far it's let me play every game that I want to play. There's just no justification for an upgrade until then.

[Trippy]

I've been having a problem with my USB ports lately. My motherboard is an old ASUS P4P800s with USB 2.0 ports. In the device manager it shows 4 USB 1 ports and a fifth USB 2.0 port - and this is apparently normal.  All of the ports are supposed to be fast even though some show as the older type.

Unfortunately, about 1/2 the time when I stick a memory stick reader in I get a message saying the USB port is slow and I should use a different port. Sometimes if I uninstall and detect the ports again it fixes itself, sometimes it takes a reboot. Sometimes both.

Has anyone had this problem and found a real fix for it so I don't have to dick around anymore?

You could try sticking a powered USB 2.0 hub on the USB 2.0 port if you don't mind using up the extra electricity. I'm not sure a non-powered one would be enough to keep the 5th slot always in 2.0 mode but you could try that first if you can get one from a  place that has a good return policy.

[Baldrake]

I'm saying given the current prices of TV and the fact this is costing you FAKE MAGIC MONEY, get a 1080p tv if they offer it. There is a difference, it's noticeable and the only people that say there isn't have only seen shitty 1080p tvs.

What TVs are they offering?

The one I was looking at is a Samsung LN32A450. They do offer 1080p's, but they're much bigger TV's (and won't fit in the space we have), and are also double the cost.

[schild]

You didn't mention that you'd have to put money towards a 1080p tv or that you had limited space. >_>

[Viin]

The one I was looking at is a Samsung LN32A450. They do offer 1080p's, but they're much bigger TV's (and won't fit in the space we have), and are also double the cost.

I have a slightly older version of that TV, it's a great set. Not too big but not at all small. Crisp pictures, looks awesome with DirecTV HD. Get a Harmony remote to go with it. :)

[Mrbloodworth]

YEah, thanks for the advice, but i have already done that part lol, right now i am trying to get the overall price down. As far as video card, i had already chosen This one. (I currently use this on my new machine i bought about 2 months ago)

I may just list the whole machine as a public wish list, and let you guys go over it to make sure i'm not buying stupid things. But, what i was thinking is, buy the dual core, and upgrade it later (the slot allows for it)


EDIT: I need to figure out how to make it public, lol.

OK! it finally posted as public.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=13007347

Thoughts, comments, recommendations ETC....

[Trippy]

OK! it finally posted as public.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=13007347

Thoughts, comments, recommendations ETC....

Get a DVD burner. Make sure you get a fan for hard drive cage -- that rotated cage really sucks for air flow. For power supply I would recommend something more along the lines of this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103940

[Engels]

Thoughts, comments, recommendations ETC....

uhm...pink?

[Trippy]

uhm...pink?

Now, what i need is a decent CPU for my girls machine, something that will allow her to play games like LOTRO and WAR...and what ever else, she doesn't ever have a want to play anything as intensive as oblivion ETC..

[Engels]

fine. destroy my hopes that Mr. Bloodworth was secretly female, bringing our total count of women on this board to, uhm, what, 4? 5?

<shakes fist>

[Murgos]

That build is pretty close to my current setup.  I've been able to play everything I've wanted with it and generally at max settings.

[Mrbloodworth]

Seems i need to choose a new Vid card, as that one is out of stock. I don't pay attention enough to know if its been discontinued or if they are just out. Maybe i can find a cheaper one =)

[Lantyssa]

fine. destroy my hopes that Mr. Bloodworth was secretly female, bringing our total count of women on this board to, uhm, what, 4? 5?

<shakes fist>

Seven regulars and semi-regulars, if I'm not forgetting anyone, plus another half-dozen or so less frequent posters.

We can double that once some daughters get old enough to post here.  (Could be many more, but I'm assuming any sensible parent will be blocking the f13 domain until they're like, thirty.)

[Engels]

children historically will not touch a parent's hobby with a ten foot pole, on account of how uncool it is. F13 daughters will in all likelihood end up in the SA forum, or maybe even FoH.

[Mrbloodworth]

fine. destroy my hopes that Mr. Bloodworth was secretly female, bringing our total count of women on this board to, uhm, what, 4? 5?

<shakes fist>

I will not cyber with you, stop PMing me!





 

OK! it finally posted as public.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=13007347

Thoughts, comments, recommendations ETC....

Get a DVD burner. Make sure you get a fan for hard drive cage -- that rotated cage really sucks for air flow. For power supply I would recommend something more along the lines of this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103940

Fan for hard drive cage?

How about this one? Seems to just take a HD bay.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119010

[Miasma]

children historically will not touch a parent's hobby with a ten foot pole, on account of how uncool it is. F13 daughters will in all likelihood end up in the SA forum, or maybe even FoH.

Call it a vice instead of a hobby then warn them never to come here, they will register in droves.

[SurfD]

Been having some issues with one of my harddrive partitions recently.

It is slow transferring files internally on the drive, and PC performance often begins to chug during intensive file activity on the drive.  For example, it took me almost 3 hours to run the installer for the current WoW patch, and the installer failed after that, where as after i copied the WoW directory to a partition on a different drive everything went smoothly, and install was done in less then 20 minutes.

Also, after checking the system log, I noticed that i am getting a large amount of the following entry, flagged as a "Warning":

'An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.'

Wondering if anyone with experience in HD diagnostics might be able to tell me if this is an indication of imminent harddisk failure, or if it might be related to drivers, or possibly just that specific partition.  It only seems to occur on that partition.

If you need any other info, let me know what to look for and i will dig it up.

[Trippy]

Get a utility that can display the SMART stats on your hard drives.

What's the actual Error ID reported in the log?

Do you have an anti-virus program running?

How much RAM do you have on your machine?

What's the Page File Usage history like on your machine?

Where's the Page File located?

Is it a fixed size or allowed to dynamically adjust itself?

[apocrypha]

I've got a new one.

AVG (free, 8.0) won't update on this PC any more. It connects fine, pops up box with update details, I click "update" and it starts, then receives 0 bytes from the update server. If I go to the AVG webpage and try to manually download the updates the same thing happens - firefox just won't get a single byte from their servers.

All 5 of the other PC's and laptops in this house update fine. What I've been doing is manually downloading the updates on PC no.2 and putting them on the NAS and then updating this PC from there, but that's a pain in the arse with daily updates.

I've tried disabling my firewall (Sunbelt personal one) and I've looked in my hosts file but that's as far as my technical knowledge gets. I've searched t'web but not come up with anything.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Trippy]

Do an nslookup and tracert on the machine that's working and not working and compare.

If they are the same download something like wget or curl and try to grab the download URL from the command prompt.

[apocrypha]

OK, they're different!

PC that works:

Code:

C:\Documents and Settings\granny>nslookup downloadfree.avg.com
Server:  SpeedTouch.lan
Address:  10.0.0.138

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    a913.g.akamai.net
Addresses:  77.67.20.155, 77.67.20.163
Aliases:  downloadfree.avg.com, downloadfree.avg.com.edgesuite.net


C:\Documents and Settings\granny>tracert downloadfree.avg.com

Tracing route to a913.g.akamai.net [77.67.20.155]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  SpeedTouch.lan [10.0.0.138]
  2   502 ms   449 ms    39 ms  213.130.147.49
  3    84 ms    38 ms    39 ms  bdr5.lon-th1.as8401.net [195.82.97.237]
  4    36 ms    38 ms    37 ms  ge-4-1-4-0.lon10.ip.tiscali.net [213.200.78.229]

  5    57 ms    54 ms    44 ms  xe-2-0-0.par70.ip.tiscali.net [89.149.186.161]
  6   283 ms   287 ms   145 ms  77.67.20.155

Trace complete.

PC that doesn't work:

Code:

C:\Documents and Settings\user>nslookup downloadfree.avg.com
Server:  dnscache0.eng.net
Address:  213.130.128.32

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    a913.g.akamai.net
Addresses:  84.53.177.11, 84.53.177.32
Aliases:  downloadfree.avg.com, downloadfree.avg.com.edgesuite.net


C:\Documents and Settings\user>tracert downloadfree.avg.com

Tracing route to a913.g.akamai.net [84.53.177.32]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.0.0.138
  2   262 ms    36 ms    35 ms  213.130.147.49
  3   176 ms   262 ms   116 ms  bdr5.lon-th1.as8401.net [195.82.97.237]
  4    37 ms    36 ms    39 ms  gi9-7.mpd01.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [149.6.3.5]

  5   106 ms    57 ms   245 ms  gig3-3-ies1.ldt.cw.net [208.175.240.29]
  6   181 ms   225 ms   225 ms  xe-11-0-0.xcr1.lsw.cw.net [195.2.25.29]
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
...repeated for 30 hops.

What the hell is going on? Some kind of DNS issue?

[Yegolev]

I'll suggest you have all of your machines use the same DNS server, preferably the one that the working machine is using.

Personally I use OpenDNS instead of my ISP DNS, but I cannot recall why I switched.

[apocrypha]

How do I make that happen? I've never knowingly dicked about with DNS settings on any of them and don't really understand why they seem to be using different ones!

[Yegolev]

On the PC you can change DNS settings in the TCP/IP properties for your ethernet connection.  You will have a similar section on your router, if you are using one.  I'm not at home right now, but I believe my setup is for my router to use the OpenDNS IPs and my PC does also, but I might have my router doing DNS for my PC.  Can't recall.  In your case, though, I'd check Network Connections -> right-click your ethernet -> Properties, choose TCP/IP, click Properties, etc.

[Tige]

I'm configuring a new laptop.

Any advantage or trinkets that make it worth going for Vista 64 over the 32 bit version?

[Yegolev]

It's 64-bit, that's enough of a trinket if you ask me.

[apocrypha]

On the PC you can change DNS settings in the TCP/IP properties for your ethernet connection.  You will have a similar section on your router, if you are using one.  I'm not at home right now, but I believe my setup is for my router to use the OpenDNS IPs and my PC does also, but I might have my router doing DNS for my PC.  Can't recall.  In your case, though, I'd check Network Connections -> right-click your ethernet -> Properties, choose TCP/IP, click Properties, etc.

Cool, thanks, will go and try that next time I can get upstairs.