Euphoria

1 minute ago, hirusha.adikari said:

did you try using a sound card, amp, or a external sound card (usb)?? i had the same problem and it saved me!

No. I only have the onboard card and I don't have an amp yet.

I started a new job last night and had problems the whole time with getting my audio set up (great first impression). It's working now but I have a constant Hissing through my headphones when the mic is plugged in and if I talk loudly or tap the mic I can hear it clearly through the headphones. The issue is I've been into the Sound settings in W10 and disabled the Listen to this device setting and set the Boost to 0 and Mic level to 1 but it still does it.

Is there any other setting I'm missing that causes this, or is it completely normal and I've just never noticed it?

18 minutes ago, porina said:

May be obvious, if you go this route, pick a network that has good signal where you are.

Thanks, this was the first thing I checked. Sadly, there are zero networks with a good connection in this area which is why I want to get a router and not just a USB dongle, I'm hoping I can either get one with weatherproof exterior antenna or at least one I can put in my attic/loft to get the best connection possible.

Just now, WereCatf said:

Yes. By default, it'll simply choose the best connection it can get.

Great stuff, thanks again.

3 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Don't buy the cheapest thing you can find. Get one with two external antennas and which isn't powered off your USB-port.

You can't connect them to the same network anyways, unless your current router has dual-WAN functionality.

Depends entirely on the 4G-router. Many of them only use 4G for the Internet-connection and have no WAN-port at all. Also, even the ones that do also have a WAN-port are typically configurable in the settings as to which connection it should primarily use and which one should be the backup-connection.

 

As for a drop of connection: yes, if the router has to switch between the two, you'll see a temporary drop of connections.

That's extremely helpful, thank you.

That drop in connection is what's going to ruin me. At the moment we are experiencing anything from 2 to 30 connection outages a day, especially in the evenings which is when I will be working. So, if I can get a decent 4G router and a good connection I might be better to use the 4G as my primary and WAN as the backup as the 4G is going to have less outages.

One more question if I may; are they basically the same as a phone, i.e. if 4G it's available it will connect to 3G or EDGE?

I'm Googling, reading, and learning but can anyone help me out with a crash course bullet points into 4G routers and how they work, anything I need to know or look out for, dos and don'ts, please?
I lost my job during the first lockdown last year and struggled badly all year, I've finally got a new job and I start on Monday but my internet is extremely unreliable for the past month or two due to ongoing upgrades in the region, I'm terrified I'm going to lose this job as well before I can even start, so I need to get a 4G connection as a backup ASAP.

Questions I have so far:

1. Anything big dos and don'ts with them, things to look out for?
2. Is it best to have a separate 4G router to my normal WAN router? 
3. If I had one router for everything, do 4G routers auto switch to 4G if the WAN goes off? Or do I have to tell it to switch? Would there be a drop in connection?

Appreciate any help.

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Well take your phone and see how well the speed on 4g is. If it's bad it will be just as bad if you use the same provider.

It would be with a different provider. My phone provider is crap, I need to change really but I never SMS or call, everything is online now. It was probably over a year ago since I last texted or call someone not over VoIP.

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Assuming this is just poor reception, a proper 4G router (everything already built-in) usually performs far better as the antennas in dongles are tiny and they will not necessarily support the same speeds to begin with.

If its just an overloaded network, there's not really anything you can do.

This is extremely helpful, thank you. I've never had the need for this before so I wasn't fully aware 4G routers were a thing, I assumed there must be something like that, some sort of advanced dongle so to speak but I wasn't sure.
Great stuff, thank you.

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

First find a provider that offers decent signal in your area. Not all providers are created equal. For example my provider TMobile is know to have crappy rural coverage, while Verizon is known to have pretty good rural coverage. 
 

Second look for a 4G gateway with the ability to connect a external 4G antenna to it. There are many outdoor antennas to choose from. It will require some DYI. 

Sadly, they all say they have great coverage and technically they aren't lying... the issue is this great coverage is only if you're outside and located on the other side of the village which is atop a hill, then the signal is great but on this side I get 2-bars on GPRS/EDGE if I'm lucky. Other providers might be better, however, it won't be by much I bet.

The 4G router/gateway is very helpful, I will look into that.

Hi everyone, please bear with me here as I've never had or needed to use a mobile data dongle/adapter until this week.

Reason I'm asking:

I'm starting a new job next week but my WAN connection has started being super slow and very unreliable recently. I emailed my ISP who told me they are doing region-wide upgrades for the next 12-18 months so I should expect frequent outages. Amazing timing!
I immediately looked for another ISP but it's this one or nothing as I'm in a rural area. So, I went to a store and picked up a 3G/4G dongle but I could barely even connect! When I managed to load a speed test I was getting a 10,000-40,000ms ping with a speed so slow it couldn't register, it just showed 0.00Mb/s. Of course, I immediately took it back to cancel it. I want to try with another network that supposedly has the best coverage in this country and some people have recommended.

Question(s):
Is there any possible way I can help or improve the signal on a mobile data dongle? Would the old improve your WIFI hack work by making a dish out of aluminum foil with the dongle placed in the middle? Or what about connecting it by a USB extension cable and putting the dongle outside the house in a waterproof box? Or same idea but in the attic/loft? Anything that could improve it?

Appreciate the help.

17 minutes ago, Airdragonz said:

If the signal becomes lost, assuming you only have one monitor, then the clocks could drop.

Ah right, yeah the core and mem clock will bounce up and down even if the monitor is still displaying or either monitor and I've tried with only one, but to be sure I just tried a different cable and port with no luck.
I will try a fresh OS install tomorrow as it's 3:00am and my brain is shot.

30 minutes ago, Airdragonz said:

You can try a different dp/hdmi port and cable on the card and monitor. If that doesn't work, try running something gpu intensive on a fresh install of windows or linux.

Could a bad port or cable cause the clock stability issue?

Hi everyone, I really need some help and advice please.

My system is old but still does what I need it to as I mostly play older games plus I do Not have the money to upgrade, the card is a Gigabyte G1 980Ti. I've been happily playing every night when suddenly tonight my fps is bouncing around like crazy; 150 to 30, 150 again, then 30, 150... I alt-tab out and checked Afterburner to find my core and memory clocks are spiking and throttling, jumping up and down every second or two; 1550MHz to 400MHz, back to 1550, 400 and repeat... Then it black-screened but the system was still on just my monitor kept searching for a connection. It's black or white-screened a few times since when I put it under heavy load.
Temps are fine according to Afterburner, under 50c and the fans are spinning but at low rpm because of the low temps.

I've tried everything I can think of over the past 4-hours but I can't fix it and I'm starting to worry my card has died, this would destroy me as gaming is pretty much the only outlet I have right now and I couldn't even buy an old second hand 600-series card right now after having to give up my job.

I've tried so far:

• Under-clocking the card
• Under-volting/power limit
• Using DDU in safe mode to uninstall everything Nvidia
• Installing 4 different drivers after uninstalling with DDU each time
• Tried different games and stress tests
• Removing the card and reseating it
• Thoroughly cleaning the card
• Cleaning the PCI-E slot
• Different PCI-E slot
• Different PSU cables in a different modular socket on the PSU
• Plugging the system into a different wall power socket
• Running off a UPS

The only other things I can think of are - striping the card to reapply TIM and thermal pads but I did that about 2-years ago and temps have always been fine, reinstalling Windows or doing a fresh install on another drive in case Windows is causing something, testing it on a different system and/or PSU but I don't have access to one as this is my only desktop and I recently emigrated so I don't know anyone here I could ask.
As said I really can't lose this card right now, so please any advice or ideas would be hugely appreciated. Thank you.

2 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

err, that isn't what inspectre does to my knowledge.

 

what it does is*disable* or enable the spectre patches.

 

which means you must have installed these (from Microsoft) otherwise inspectre doesn't really work.

 

someone please correct me if I'm wrong but that's how I recall it to work.

Sorry my bad, you are completely correct, I misunderstood when first reading it and forgot to edit my post.

2 hours ago, Pharr Carnell said:

Here's the thing...once you've done a new, fresh install, done all the updates and added the software you need....then THAT is the time to do a backup!! And to create a Restore disc...

So that next time the system shits itself, use the Restore disc you burnt when prompted to by the cloning software [I've used heaps of different softs over the years...once using only Acronis, then Aomei, Veeam and lately Macrium] - if I had to recommend just 1...then Veeam seems a better result when a restore is required, tho Macrium is very good in that you can create a clone from say,a 500GB drive to a smaller 250 GB drive]

 

Using this method, when Windows does crap itself...a restore can be as quick as 10 minutes...and you're right back where you started from...believe me; this is very sage advice!

 

 

Thank you very much for that info and advice.

Yes, that was my intention - do a fresh install on a new drive, update absolutely everything, install all drivers, apps, games etc, set everything how I want it... then do a backup.

But can you tell me any more info regarding my second question, please. Does it keep absolutely everything even app and game config/settings files, would everything be installed with all settings how I had them?
And I assume it's just the C:drive that gets imaged and restored, so games and apps I have installed on different drives would need to be reinstalled, correct?

Skip to the questions at the bottom if you don't want to read all my waffle  

Hi everyone, I need some help and info regarding OS backups and images, but please (ELI5) explain like I'm 5yo as my knowledge is very poor on this subject. I'm a little ashamed to say that after more than 2 decades of being a techy PC nerd/enthusiast, I've never actually done any OS backups, imaging, or even learned much about it. I'm hoping with Googling, reading, and some nice kind people on the forum I can fix that.

Explanation / Me waffling:

My understanding over the years of OS backups and system images, please correct me if this is wrong, has been that it's like cloning a drive; it works most of the time and can get you out of a pinch but a fresh install is much better. Sort of a duct tape approach; it will mostly seal the hole but the damage will still be there underneath and could cause leaks.
Because of this I never bothered with OS backups as I always thought if my OS was FUBAR I'll just format and do a fresh install, once every few years is no big deal, but now I live in a very rural and remote area so I now experience a huge number of power blackouts that have caused OS corruption and data loss, even with a UPS it got so much work from the constant voltage drops and blackouts it died after 14-months. Therefore, now doing a fresh install every time is getting old and tedious really fast, it usually takes me over a week to get everything set back up exactly how I want it again, so I think system imaging would be a better option now.

Questions:

1. Is my understand of OS backups & system imaging correct - that it's like plastering over the cracks, the cracks (corrupted OS files) are still there and could cause problems or performance loss? Or am I completely wrong and system images are effectively the same as doing a fresh OS install? In other words, if my OS gets corrupted or in some way broken, will restoring from an image fix everything and the system is back to the day I did the fresh install, or is it a temp fix to get the system back up and running for a while until I have the time to do a format and fresh OS install?
    
2. What are the limitations of a backup/image? If I restore from a backup is it just the OS so I still have reinstall all my apps, games, programs on the main C:drive or is everything on the OS drive exactly as it was, nothing needs reinstalling? Will I need to set up all my apps; configs, settings... like they were freshly installed or is it a total and complete carbon copy, so everything will be exactly how it was, no need to do anything, just restore and go?
    
3. To create a full comprehensive system backup/image, do I just use Windows built-in thingy, is there some free third-party app that most people use, or do I really need a decent paid app if I want it done properly?
    
4. Do backups/images always work? If my OS gets Fubar'ed by a blackout during critical MS updates, will a restore definitely fix the corrupt/missing OS files, or does a backup sometimes not resolve the issues if it's serious, so a format and fresh install is required?
    
5. How should I set things up? I currently have my OS drive with drivers, main frequently used apps, but all games, save game locations, personal files, media, and everything else on separate drives. Is this fine to keep doing it or if I want to create a full backup and Not have to redownload and reinstall everything, do I need to put everything on the main OS drive? If I kept my games on a separate drive, I assume after restoring from a backup I would have to reinstall all the games?
    
6. What are the best practises for OS backups and images, anything I should know at all, advice from experiences on things to watch out for?

I think that's about all the questions I have for now, I'll get to Googling and watching some newbie videos on it, but any and all info would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

So, I found (was told about) this app, InSpectre.

[Edit] It's a tiny self-contained app that can disable and enable the Spectre and Meltdown patches, so if your system performance takes a hit after installing the patches you can disable them to improve performance.
The creator of the app is Steve Gibson - software engineer. He's a well known and respected software engineer who hosted the Security Now podcast and runs GRC for those who don't know the name.

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

Snerk...

 

It seems every new update breaks/deletes something important.

Comes from having no QA dept any more.

But don't mind me, I despise Win10 and flatly refuse to use it.

I'm one of those smug bastards that uses Windows 9.

 

But in all seriousness, the rapid pace of Windows versions, or point updates, (I think they are on 200-4 currently) pretty much guarantees you need to keep pace or risk the latest and greatest feature (or worse yet, support) not being on your system.

 

It's the Apple plan, "We support only to the last point release...upgrade or suffer"

 

 

I completely understand. When Windows 10 first released and all the spyware data mining crap came to light, I also flat out refused to updowngrade to it. I stayed on Windows 7 as 8 was a bust, I had a beautiful ISO for 7 that I had stripped clean of crap over nearly 10 years. I stayed with it until 2018 when a game forced my hand, I was looking forward to playing this game since it was rumored to be in the making, I finally bought it and couldn't even install it as it required some system features and code that was introduced in Windows 8.
I spent literally weeks trying to find a work around, considered a dual boot just for this one game, tried bribing Bill Gates to mod my copy of Windows but his security just asked me to leave, bit rude if you ask me, but nothing worked. So, I bit the bullet and decided to move to Windows 10. My first experiences I must say were actually really good, once I'd spent 10-hours removing/disabling the CIA and/or lizard people spyware, it was bloated and slow compared to Windows 7 but still it seemed pretty good... that lasted about 6-months, then I stupidly installed some updates and everything went to 5h!t.

Anyway, I'm dribbling on so I'll shut up. Thanks for the info and advice, appreciate it.

1 hour ago, Applefreak said:

When you google it, there is a list of KB updates for those patches, you can remove them after the fact if you like. The ones already baked into the newer updates don't seem to decrease performance much or at all. Not updating the OS makes you more vulnerable to other attacks like common viruses and malware.

AFAIK the patches have been optimized and the decrease in performance has been mostly mitigated at this point.

As for gaming performance, the current version does perform equally as good as the previous one. I have not compared them that far back though.

That's awesome, thank you. I didn't know the specific MD/Spec exploit patches could be removed, I assumed they would be hard-coded in. That is very helpful if I do notice a big hit to performance. I do understand what you mean by leaving me vulnerable, I normally would always stay fairly up to date, well, once an update has been out a while and tested so I know it won't brick my system, but as that system is literally only turned on when I want to game and only connects to Steam to DL game files, no work, no browsing, nothing, I took the risk to avoid the potential drop in performance.

Really appreciate that info, thanks.

40 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Makes no difference really. But if you want the one with the least spyware baked in, LTSB/LTSC (unsure which is more current) it's got most of the bullshit removed.

If you want to be brave and try it, Windows 10 embedded , supposed to be an ultra-stripped down, no BS baked in, super lean OS.

Whether it makes any difference for gaming, remains to be seen

Oops, I didn't mean to say "best version for for gaming" I just meant which version is the current newest that isn't broken and won't cause my PC to implode and/or delete my dog.
Thanks for the info though, when I upgrade and do a fresh install I will look into those as I used to love my old stripped out bare-bones Windows 7 build.

P.S. Oh, one more thing - is there a current Best version of Windows 10 to be on for gaming? I haven't kept up to date with the versions so I don't know which ones were the broken updates that caused all of the deleting files and instability problems.

Hi everyone, I'm looking for some insight, info, and experience regarding the Meltdown and Spectre Windows 10 updates.

I'm still running an old gaming system as nothing has blown me away with how amazing it is as yet, although the rumored 4000 series Ryzen and RTX cards look like that could change, but we will see. Anyway, I'm still running a 3770k OC @4.9GHz, 16GB 2133MHz, and a GTX 1080 with a decent OC too.

Because of the potential huge drop in performance that was being reported when the Meltdown and Spectre patches were being rolled out, I disabled Win 10 auto-update permanently using a registry edit and I've stayed on version 1803 from April 2018 as I didn't want to take a huge hit to performance which might have forced me to upgrade when I didn't want to yet. I'm incredibly glad I did wait after hearing all the nightmares people were having with the updates in late 2018 to 2019.
 

Well, with a potential full system upgrade likely coming at the end of the year, I figured I should update and get used to the new Windows 10 features, but before I do that I wanted to find out IF these huge performance drops did materialise or if it was blown out of proportion. I've found some videos and benchmarks of people testing the pre-patch versions vs the post-patch versions but that's with new modern hardware, I can't find any real testing done on older systems so I thought I would ask to see if people here had seen or read something about it, or if people had first hand experience themselves after updating?

Any and all info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I've never experienced this before so I'm at a loss. The issue is 2 specific apps, important monitoring apps, are being auto closed by the OS (Windows 10) when my system switches to battery power.
It's not like the OS is closing everything that requires a lot of processing and/or power draw because games and stress tests continue running, it's just these 2 apps that run in the background and barely take up any processing power at all and no other background apps close, it's only these 2.

So, does anyone know of a way to set apps as a priority or something similar so they don't get closed automatically?

[Solved] After 5-6 days of messing around, dozens of posts on different platforms and forums, even contacting Micro$oft support (Haha, I'll get a reply next year), I suddenly noticed a greyed out box in Task Scheduler: "Stop if system switches to battery power", but it's unchecked and greyed out because it's connected to a master option above "Only start task if the system is on AC power".
Now, this is grey out and unchecked so it wouldn't make any difference if I checked both boxes, then immediately unchecked them again and saved, that would possibly fix the issue because that wouldn't make any sense at all... so of course it fixed it.

Why? Because Windows 10, that's why.

[Solved. Never mind, I found the answers eventually around other forums and from asking different manufacturers of UPS.]

Hi everyone, due to a huge number of power outages I've purchased my first UPS. This is the UPS: Legrand Keor SP 2000VA (1200w) - it's entry level nothing special, but the reviews were good, price was reasonable, I've owned Legrand products and never had issues with anything, and it can power my rig for long enough.

My questions and concerns:

1. Got the answer to this from another UPS manufacturer; Apparently this buzzing noise is from the transformer/s and is perfectly normal unless it's an inconsistent sound; like buzzing louder then getting quiet then loud again, or a crackling sound.
   With the batteries fully charged, all connected devices and the UPS itself powered off the UPS continues to buzz until I unplug it from the wall. I've checked the fans inside the UPS and they're not spinning so it's not them.
   Is this normal for some UPS? I've never owned any electrical device that still buzzes when it's completely off.
    
2. Found the answer to this from asking on other forums; this is normal as internal components still have power running through them even when nothing is being powered, it basically means it's poised and ready to go all the time, they don't go into standby. The temp can vary from UPS to UPS, but as long as it's only warm to touch and not hot or giving off any burning or nasty smells, it's fine. Also, the batteries need to stay under 35-40c or decay will be increased and replacements will be required more frequently.
   While plugged into mains power, the batteries are fully charged, and no devices plugged into the UPS the top of it is still quite toasty (I would say roughly 35-40c), it's definitely not hot but my cat wants to make a home on top of it, put it that way.
   Again, is this normal even when it's not in use or charging?
    
3. Found the answer to this; UPS should not be unplugged or power cycled regularly, they're designed to be on 24/7 so frequent cycles like unplugging them every night will reduce the batteries life span.
   Once the batteries show 100% full according to Windows and the UPS software, if I switch off the UPS and all devices, disconnect everything from the mains, leave it for 2-3 hours then turn it on again the batteries read around 90% full. So, if this is correct the batteries lost -10% charge in just a few hours while doing absolutely nothing.
   Is this Windows and the UPS software being derpy or a normal battery/UPS thing?
    
4. Found the answer to this too; apparently UPS should always be connected directly to a mains outlet and never through a extension or multiple socket adapter. But a longer IEC C13 cable can be used if needed as long as the cable is high quality and the correct gauge.
   The final thing is a sort of setup question - at the moment my work area is in our bedroom until I finish renovating the room that will be the office. My question is for a month or two would it be safe and OK to plug the UPS power cable into a multiple socket extension cable that has its own surge protector built in?
   With the temporary setup being in our bedroom and the UPS giving off a buzz it's annoying during the night so I have to unplug it from the wall, but getting to it is a major hassle so I want to run an extension from another outlet that I can get to more easily to unplug it at night. I just wondered if having the UPS drawing its power through an extension cable with it's own surge protector might cause issues?

I think that's all my questions at the moment.

Thanks, appreciate any input.

On 7/2/2019 at 5:55 PM, YedZed said:

You can get power extensions that eliminate this issue right?

Also, maybe consider what Linus does with his personal rig, having the PC far away with one or two thunderbolt connections for everything.

On 7/2/2019 at 5:59 PM, myselfolli said:

That'd be an option, yeah.

 

I'd opt for shorter cable runs or thunderbolt connections, although that'd probably be somewhat pricey

I've had a bit of a (re)measure and worked the numbers, I think with some rerouting I can get the extensions down to 2.5m plus the length of the device cable.

Also, Thunderbolt isn't an option sadly, not until my next platform update.

Thanks, I appreciate the info.

Recently on the WAN Show, I can't remember if it was the latest episode or not, Linus very briefly mentioned: "USB extension cables causing issues, or being very problematic" it was something like that, I can't find where here said it now.

When he said this I didn't pay any attention to it my brain didn't click, until today when it just occurred to me that I've been a PC enthusiast for the best part of 20 years but somehow I've never actually had to use a simple USB extension cable for anything mission critical, I'm sure I've used one or two on some little things; USB powered speakers or something like that, but never anything important like a mouse or KB used for gaming.
So this now has me a little concerned because I was just about to order half a dozen 3m or 5m USB 3.0 extension cables as I'm currently building a wall mounted rig so the system will be quite far away from my desk.

Are USB extension cables really a pain in the butt and I've somehow never heard this over the years? Do they add significant latency now since 3.0+ or something else?

I would be using 3 or 5 meters cables for a G502 mouse, mechanical keyboard, powered USB hub, and a few other non-important things.

27 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Did you not buy them directly from EK?

No, very few retailers/companies ship to the country I recently emigrated to, or if they do the shipping costs are normally more than the item is worth, so I'm limited on where I can buy things.