Euphoria

42 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

If u just want to test to see if they turn on and work for a few seconds then u can, a short burst dry wont be harmfull. If ur so concerned then simply wet the impellar.

 

Running dry is damaging when done for extended periods of time, heat and friction causes the damage, however a short burst ,especialy if wet, wont cause any damage.

-snip-

7

That's very good to know, thank you. I'll give this a try.

40 minutes ago, Enderman said:

No you can't test them without a top.

And why did you buy them used??

No, they are brand new, it just seems that the retailer has some morons working in their packing and shipping department.

17 minutes ago, Enderman said:

No.

 

And the pumps won't be dead.

"No"... what?

I know D5s are repurposed industrial pumps and are therefore *mostly bulletproof but the bright spark that shipped these put them in a large cardboard box together with nothing else, no foam, no scrunched paper, no packing peanuts, zero anything, and then shipped them over 3000km to me, so both pumps just bashed around against each other the whole time. When it arrived the box looked like it had been used as a football.

I need some ideas and advice, please. I received my lovely new EK D5 pumps a couple weeks ago, my pump tops should have arrived about the same time but were delayed a week or two... or seven or ten. I've now been told it will be another few weeks or longer before they get new stock.

My concern is I only have 72hrs left of my return window, so I need to test the pumps to make sure they're fine and working without issue, if not at the moment I can just get them replaced but if I wait until my tops arrive and then find out there's an issue or dead pump I have to RMA. They were shipped internationally in really poor packaging which arrived pretty banged up hence really needing to test them while I still have the return policy.

So, if anyone knows of a surefire way to test a D5 pump without a pump top installed, without running it dry, and without getting water inside the motor I would be extremely grateful.

I need two PCI-E riser cables for my wall mounted build I'm putting together over the winter. While searching for some I came across these from Phanteks - they are long, look decent, shielded, separated, and are about 40% cheaper compared to ones from Lian-Li that are known for being good quality. But the thing is I can't find reviews for them or at least my Google-Fu is letting me down.
My build is already massively over budget to the point that I might have to be put off until the latter part of this year if I can't keep the cost down, so these riser cables are extremely appealing but I don't want to end up with a noticeable drop in gaming FPS or erratic and inconsistent performance because of poor quality risers.

So, anyone have any knowledge or experience with these??

Try running DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) is Safe Mode (this is important) to wipe any and all data for any display driver that has been installed previously, once finished just then install the driver you want as normal.

It's common for drivers being installed over the top of older versions to cause issues.

@TRIB4555554
I've been looking at your threads and posts, dude seriously you need to learn how to use a forum! The people that use a forum, any forum, are Not your personal 24-hour tech support, people are not sitting at their computers 24/7 waiting for only you to post a question, people will help out if and when they can.

There is a thing called "Forum Etiquette" I suggest you Google it and read it. Demanding that people answer your questions immediately and tell you exactly what to do and/or buy, then getting angry, rude, and stamping your feet if that doesn't happen is a really quick way to get ignored by everyone or removed.
Post your question, give as much detail as possible, be clear and precise, then wait... you might get a reply with the correct answer in 1 minute, or you might have to wait 24-48 hours and then give the thread a little bump to give people another chance to see it. Asking a question and then whining you haven't got the answer you want within an hour, plus asking if the forum is dead and why are people not being helpful is a really silly thing to do.

It's like if your car breaks down in the middle of the road, you see a person walking down the street - if you called out: "Hey man, sorry to bother you but my car has broken down, could you please help me push the car off the road? I would really appreciate it, thank you." - the person is likely to say: "Sure, no problem" and help you.

But if you shout: "Oi, you! Get over here and help me now! Run faster" - that same person is either going to stick their middle finger up at you and laugh at your broken car, or they will come over to you but they will tell you to go @#$& yourself instead.

Chill out, buddy, I'm sure you will get the answers you want soon enough 

1 hour ago, Lathlaer said:

I don't feel like it impacts my experience that much because I don't sit too close to my monitor. I can't say for sure since I've never gamed on a flat ultrawide but I have mine mounted on the wall and I don't really need it to be curved in order to enhance my peripheral vision. It helps a bit but not by a large margin.

 

For someone who sits, say, 10-15 cm closer than me it might be more beneficial and noticable. 

Here is a reference pic to judge the distance:

 

1

Thank you, Lathlaer, that actually really does help me.

I've been doing some more reading up on ultrawide displays and came across something I hadn't actually considered, games that support that aspect ratio. Many people report that very few games have 21:9 support and even fewer have good implementation of it, many games I play in fact have very poor or no ultrawide support. Damn, I can't believe I didn't think of that.

How do you find the 21:9 support personally?

P.S. Very nice battle station you have there, clean and classy, I like it.

3 hours ago, Lathlaer said:

You are making the assumption that the price increase is solely due to panel curvature but this can be a result of numerous factors.

-Snip-

 

 

OK, that's a fair point I should have made it a little clearer, I just didn't want to waffle on and turn the post into a wall of text. I'll edit my post to reflect that and word it better.

To add a little info: the cheapest curved monitor I can find is the same panel type, same refresh, same adaptive framerate tech, same response times, almost exactly the same... except the curved monitor is a cheap'o brand and the non-curved sub £300 monitor is Samsung, work that out haha. I read the description maybe 20 times thinking it was a mistake and must be 2560x1080, but nope, it's just a promo offer for a month.

If I may ask you specifically, in your opinion how much do you think the curve impacts your gaming experience? Is it a nice feature to have but nothing amazing or a huge improvement to games?

Hey everyone, I've been in the market for a 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor for a few months now, gaming would be the primary use.

My budget isn't huge so the prices have held me back so far as the cheapest curved display I can find (excluding the Korean panels on eBay) is around £600 and that was a basic model: 60Hz, VA panel, no speakers or G-Sync and a fair cheap/budget brand.

However, today I found a Flat Samsung 34" 3440x1440 monitor on Amazon for just £290! I read the description about 20 times, literally spent 90 minutes researching it thinking it was a typo or mistake. Of course, for that price it's very basic - no G-Sync, no high refresh rate, no speakers, and of course no curve - but at half the price of the cheapest curved display and Samsung brand, is curved really that amazing?

My question: to anyone that has used/owned a curved and flat ultrawide monitor, what is your opinion on the curve - is curved worth the extra price, is it hugely more immersive or just a little bit or none at all, was a flat panel hard to see in your peripheral vision, pros, cons... what is your opinion?? I would really appreciate any feedback from people that have used both types.

Samsung LS34J550WQUXEN 34-Inch 3440x1440 21:9 LED Monitor £289.99

It's also a pre-order as the monitor officially releases in the UK on November 5th, so you can pre-order it now for that price and still have 2 weeks to think/change your mind. A pretty sweet deal.

Under £300 for a 3440x1440 (21:9) ultrawide, even the cheap Korean monitors on eBay are more than £300.

It is a basic model though, only 60Hz (apparently overclockable to 75-80Hz but not confirmed), not curved, no G-Sync or speakers, but still for that price it's hard to beat.

Sorry for the delayed reply, stupid life and responsibilities getting in the way of nerdy stuff.

I appreciate the responses and big thank you to voiha, I'll give that a try as soon as I can. I think that might be the same way I did it before which seemed to work fine until I installed 1 frickin' update.

Hey everyone, so I need a bit of help with completely disabling Windows 10 updates so that the updater doesn't even look for updates, it doesn't run, it doesn't do anything unless I click check for updates?

When I upgr downgraded to Windows 10 on my main 2 systems I used a guide (I couldn't find it again) to do a registry edit that 100% disabled the updater, that seemed to work great and I had no issues with W10 for the first year, I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it and wondered what people were talking about with it being so broken. Then came a major update, the 1803 update, so for the first time in over a year I clicked check for updates, look them over to see what they were for and installed them... which is where all my problems started. Since that update everything went downhill - all my little changes and tweaks got wiped/reset, Windows would just update itself, all the data-mining crap was enabled again, BSODs started happening, crashes, sluggish performance, random massive performance hitches, apps/games not running... etc - I should have known better this is Microsoft after all, and yes I did try rolling back but it true Microsoft style the backup point was MIA, gone, nowhere to be seen.

Fast forward to now and here comes the next big update and here we go again, Microsoft is at it again now with deleting everyone important data, *slow clap. This has sealed it for me, in a few weeks when my new hardware and parts arrive for my man cave renovation I will be wiping and doing a fresh OS install of the previous version to 1803 and I will Not be updating either system unless I see a massive unanimous "This update is completely fine and safe" from the enthusiast community.

So for now, and for when I reinstall I would like some help with the best way to 100% completely and utterly disable Windows 10 updater, please??

[Second Update]

I posted a direct reply to a TomsHW forum mod that had directly posted @myusername explaining why he thinks I should stay and not delete my account and data.
So I took the time to explain my reasoning behind it and how I felt, I thought I'd done a good job, I wasn't rude or argumentative at all, this was the post:

And... it was instantly deleted by the mod Mousemonkey with the message: (the same mod by the way that has deleted most of my posts recently)

"Okay, we get it you want your account deleted and I'm sure someone will get around to it at some point. No need for off topic walls of text, any more will just be deleted."
So this is Tom's Hardware now, a few mods are still cool and will try to engage in polite conversation with members, you take the time to reply and another mod comes along and says "F**k you! Everything you post, even polite helpful things I will instantly delete because we disagree about something and because I can."

[Edit] and he deleted all replies asking why my post and everyone else's has been deleted. Haha, he seems to be on a personal mission to delete everything that doesn't suit his narrative.

[Update] My thread and all posts on every thread from the past few days have been deleted by TomsHW mods this morning and I received another official warning about my conduct. Apparently, asking if TomsHW UK is independent of TomsHW US is against the forum rules and guidelines, literally, that is what they said, even though I posted in Forum Discussion/Feedback section, haha what a joke.

It's also been roughly 40 hours since I requested my account to be deleted but it's still active, maybe they're overwhelmed with the numbers of account deletion requests.

P.S. It's funny, a TomsHW forum mod created a "How to delete your TomsHW account"  thread very recently, it's almost like someone knew about the article and thought: I better prepare in advance.
 

I started a thread on TomsHW UK yesterday morning asking the mods/staff if the UK site was independent like TomsHW.de or could we be seeing nonsense like this "Just Buy It" article on the UK site soon? I didn't think that was rude or unfair, I wasn't asking staff to comment their own opinions regarding the paid Nvidia advert *cough I mean unbias article that might get them into trouble, it was merely a; do you operate like TomsHW DE or are you managed by the US side of the company?
 

I just thought the first thing that happened was funny and showing the start of what was to come. I received an official warning for profanity for my single use of "bs" and my post was edited by the mods - I used the abbreviation "bs" as I thought that was more suitable and shouldn't offend anyone, especially as I've seen it used thousands of times on the site with no issues over the years, but apparently, that's worthy of an official warning now.

Anyway, then it started. A few members began posting their own opinions on this article, no one was flaming, no one was swearing, no wild unsubstantiated accusations, or anything hostile/rude, just simply - "I think it's rubbish and if the editor-in-chief is putting this out, then TomsHW is done for me." - Stuff like that, just civil opinions and thoughts.

Sure enough, the posts started disappearing, being deleted by the mods.

Long story short, after asking some mods/staff directly and not receiving any responses, except seeing more posts disappearing, I requested my account to be deleted. 6 years of recommending people to the site, trusting what they put out as unbias (as much as someone can be) and consumer orientated, hundreds upon hundreds of posts, getting to know(ish) some forum mods, dozens of their award badge thingies... gone with one insane, brain-dead article/paid ad.

Tom's Hardware, for me at least, is now the tech website equivalent of the Daily Mail - write any old crap for clicks, views, and of course... paychecks.

Awesome, thank you Lurick. I used to use Digitalriver but last I checked they were shut down some years ago, since then I hadn't found a reliable source.

Appreciate it, cheers for the help.

Hi everyone. I would like to know if it's possible to download a Windows 10 ISO that is not updated to the (broken, annoying, FUBAR... sorry I'll stop) spring creators update, 1803?

Rant about Micro$oft and Windows 10 incoming - skip the spoiler if you don't want to read yet another person whining and moaning about it

Rant over - I just needed to vent a little as this 1803 has caused me so many issues. And no, sadly I can't just rollback the update because good ol' Micro$oft managed to corrupt the restore point, so I'm stuck with it.

Back on topic - I've searched around but I can only find the Media Creation Tool on the MS site which if I remember correctly downloads all the latest updates, or some rando site that definitely isn't going to give me lots of free malware and viruses.
Anyone know if it's possible??

1 minute ago, VegetableStu said:

do you have an example page with said link? I'm suspecting it's the site itself designed to do that via javascript

Gleam is one main site that springs to mind - middle and right clicking are disabled.

3 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

strange, that used to be an adjustable setting. does middle-clicking on a link automatically bring you to the new tab?

Yes, middle-clicking does open a new tab and doesn't auto switch to it, but on many sites that doesn't work - either the site disallows alt-clicks or if the link triggers something on the site it won't work either.

19 minutes ago, wONKEyeYEs said:

Install FireFox.

Haha. I switched from FF when it stopped being good and/or working properly about 12-18 months ago.

24 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

when I open a new tab it doesnt automatically switch me to the new tab. 

When you click to open a new tab or when you click a link that opens in a new tab?

Because Chrome by default switches to a new tab if it's opened by a link.

Hi, I'm trying to find how I can stop Chrome from auto switching to new tabs that are opened when clicking a link.
I've read a few posts on here and other forums about disabling "Focus existing tab on open" in Chrome://flags but these posts are a few years old and that option seems to have been renamed or removed.

Also, middle mouse click, right click open tab, and Ctrl-click do not work on many sites, so I need to find the permanent off switch for it. I enter a lot of competitions, mainly for free games and such, plus I enter these for myself, my youngest, and my nephew so I have to click multiple dozens of links each time, so switching every single time is very frustrating.

So, does anyone know the current way to stop auto switching to new tabs, please?

Thank you.

EUREKA!! I have found the issue. Damn this is a huge weight off my mind, I was starting to think it was either my PSU dying or worse, my GPU that was failing.

The Fix:
The most simple of things... reseating the GPU, that's it. I can't narrow it down to an exact thing because obviously reseating the card meant doing a few things, but it was either: the PCI connection to the mobo or the VGA power cables from the PSU - I'm 99% sure it was the PCI connection, no idea why or how it suddenly started causing an issue but it's the only logical explanation as the VGA power cables were plugged in correctly.
Maybe some magic fairy dust had worked its way in there and was causing a short, I dunno.

My blood pressure is slowly returning to normal
Now to make up for all that lost gaming time.