Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Lantyssa]

Try RealTemp.  It reports GPU as well as CPU temps for my NVidia.

[Sky]

EVGA has a decent utility, not sure if it's for their cards only or what. I was using something else with the 8800, but since I got the 460 I've been ok with the EVGA one.

[SnakeCharmer]

EVGA Precision.  Works for any nvidia based card.

[Rasix]

If you have a MSI card, their Afterburner software monitors temps quite nicely. Integrates with my G15 keyboard as well.

[Strazos]

Anyone know what the default font was in Firefox 3? Upgraded to 4 today, and the font has changed...somehow. It's subtle, but not as easy on the eyes as previously.

[Rasix]

Times New Roman

[Salamok]

Decent PCI video card that Win XP and Win 7 (w/aero) compatable?  I want to add a 3rd monitor to my work machine and this crappy dell doesn't seem to have a large enough PCIe slot for a 2nd vid card but it does have 3 old school PCI slots avail.

edit: not for gaming so basically looking for the cheapest reliable card that will support aero at 1280x1024.

[Engels]

New egg filtered search results r ur fren.

[Sky]

I really miss newegg's filter power when I'm on just about any other retail site.

[Salamok]

New egg filtered search results r ur fren.

I suppose, but pricing and the probable need to upgrade the PSU has me thinking about an eyefinity card.

Either solution says a 400w PSU is required but the PCI would be a card in addition to the existing card vs eyefinity being a replacement for the existing card.  Anyone have experience with using a triple+ monitor setup with eyefinity?

edit: another alternative - do the cards that have vga+dvi+hdmi allow for triple monitors?  A bit wary since the stock Dell implementation I have now disables the DVI if I enable the display port.

[Amarr HM]

I'm trying to tether XBOX live using my Android phone I can connect no problem but I'm getting an error, it says nat type set to strict which means I can connect but connecting to other hosts doesn't work 90% of the time.  Can my provider fix this or do I need to Root the phone to get around this issue?

Btw: I have managed to play a few games of FIFA, but getting a game started takes forever I keep losing connection to host.

[Chimpy]

The NAT issues are most likely with the phone and how it handles routing traffic to hosts going through it, not with your provider.

[Yegolev]

I mentioned some crashes in one or two other threads.  During Torchlight and Dead Space.  I tried something on the advice of a friend, didn't think it would work but it did: I disconnected the new bluray drive.  Just now my only question is: WTF?  DRM?

[Yegolev]

CentOS comes on eight CDs.  How much of that do I immediately need?  Eventually all of it if I'm going whole-hog into RHEL, but immediately I would expect to only need the first disc to do an installation.  Confirm?

[Salamok]

CentOS comes on eight CDs.  How much of that do I immediately need?  Eventually all of it if I'm going whole-hog into RHEL, but immediately I would expect to only need the first disc to do an installation.  Confirm?

Seriously doubt that.  I haven't installed CentOS but the other distros I have tried have all required multiple disks (not 8 but more than 1) for fairly standard install options. 

[Yegolev]

Alright, I was hoping to save some time and effort here.

[Chimpy]

The CentOS 8 disk multiple ISO thing is supposed to install the base OS without X off of the first CD. That being said, I could not get the fucking thing to work (hell it would not even "verify" the first ISO when I tried to install it that way). I ended up just installing bit torrent on one of the machines in the office and grabbing the DVD iso so I could actually get it to install when I built a VM with it a couple months ago.

YMMV

[Yegolev]

Eh, I considered that but... torrenting.  We shall see.  I'm still in RMA Hell as far as computer parts are concerned, will be shipping my i5 CPU to Intel this week.

[Strazos]

So what sort of video card tuning programs are in vogue right now? Specifically, I'm just looking to "fix" my fan settings for my GTX260, as it seems the fans never budge from 40%. I was getting some weird graphics performance in ME3 (artifacting, I think) and I think it may have been the cooling. Case exhaust is still below room temperature, but who knows.

[fuser]

CentOS comes on eight CDs.  How much of that do I immediately need?  Eventually all of it if I'm going whole-hog into RHEL, but immediately I would expect to only need the first disc to do an installation.  Confirm?

If you unselect everything from the group package selection on install and ONLY choose"base" (under the advanced package selection choice) you can install from one CD. It allows you to bootstrap servers and YUM install/update everything else.

If you go with the defaults you need like 1/3/4 or something like that, and that changes if you choose a GUI setup.

[Engels]

So what sort of video card tuning programs are in vogue right now? Specifically, I'm just looking to "fix" my fan settings for my GTX260, as it seems the fans never budge from 40%. I was getting some weird graphics performance in ME3 (artifacting, I think) and I think it may have been the cooling. Case exhaust is still below room temperature, but who knows.

Your first step is to download RealTemp. Run the RealTempGT executable has a GPU heat monitor. Play a game or two and then see what the temperature is. Also look up the temp thresholds for the GPU. I'm guessing if you're hitting the low 90s, that's normal, but above that, you have an issue. That's a speculative guess.

[Strazos]

Actually, it appears the issues were specific to one or two rooms - as soon as I left the room, the problem went away. The room was Anderson's on the Citadel.

I have a monitor gadget running, and sometimes when I alt-tab out in the middle of a game, I see the GPU temps in the 50s or 60s. For reference, the GPU is current at 41c, PCB at 34c, more-or-less idle.

[Engels]

GPUs have way higher heat tolerance than CPUs, so your temps are actually very very good. You may simply have such a good ventilation system or the games your playing are so light on your GPU that the fan just isn't kicking in. I know mine doesn't even start to thrum at all till I get past 80C.

[Strazos]

Well, it's a 895mb (heh, oddball memory) GTX260, which wasn't even top of the line when I build the system, and I play with settings fairly well-cranked.

The card itself exhausts a bit, and that has felt pretty warm before, but you're probably right. I was concerned since when I was poking around online, I'd heard plenty of people say that the drivers suck in a way since they never adjust the fan.

[Sheepherder]

Well, it's a 895mb (heh, oddball memory) GTX260, which wasn't even top of the line when I build the system, and I play with settings fairly well-cranked.

Doesn't mean anything.  Tolerances on cards are sloppy, old technology can run hot or cold compared to the latest and greatest, and the way a component performs under stress is seemingly never linear.

[Sky]

Took me 3 8800GTXs until I got one with properly installed memory heatsinks.

[Yegolev]

I made some HTML and I have some links to files for download.  A .ODC and a .XLSX, both of which work fine in Firefox but in IE8 the .ODC shows up as XML (I think) and the .XLSX comes across as a .ZIP.  This is annoying and I'm not suspecting the Apache server since it works as expected in Firefox.  So, are my IE8 MIME types fucked?  What do I do?

[Trippy]

Don't use OpenOffice?

[Yegolev]

Corporate Apache server, corporate workstations.  WinXP+MS Office 2010.  I'm hoping it's a IE8 problem and not a httpd problem.

[fuser]

I'd say just migrate to IE9 because it fixes the issue but your all WindowsXP

Ran into it before and it's an aggravating issue, hopefully you can push a fix out via group policies. Try changing the setting under the security settings -> misc ->  Open files based on content not file extension. Make sure you modify the correct zone too or add your site to the trusted sites and modify that zone.

[Salamok]

Are you linking directly to a file on the server or are you linking to a download script?  If you use a download script you can modify the headers and force the file to download/save instead of attempting to open it.

[Yegolev]

A quick google on it indicated that I can modify the headers, but I didn't want to do that.  I also have nothing to do with the rumored Win7 rollout, or group policies, or even any inclination to open a RFC to restart the Apache app.

So I added a note saying if there is a problem downloading the file, use Firefox or email me for a copy.

[Vision]

Has anyone built their own computer overseas before? More specifically Japan? My job there starts in August and it will be the first time in a while I have a legitimate cash flow to spend on a PC. The problem is I'm on Kyushu, so going to Akihabara and getting parts a la carte isn't really an option (if I wanted to do that anyway). Are there any vendors that are good on shipping overseas, or even within Japan? I don't know if using Newegg is a great idea incase I need to RMA something and send it back.

Just looking for input, thanks.

[Trippy]

Order the parts from amazon.co.jp?

These days I buy most of my computer components from Amazon (US) cause I don't have to pay sales taxes like I do with Newegg and 2 day shipping is free for me (Amazon Prime).

[Vision]

I'm looking to see if I can RMA through amazon, or if it makes me sent it back to each vendor.
I could imagine that being a problem.