DezGalbie

There's a lot of things being said about points which I am not making in the slightest. I'm not saying that this driver issue is only LMG's problem. I'm not saying that AMD and LMG do not have some kind of partnership (although if I was to describe it I probably wouldn't do it that way). I'm also not dismissing Linus's complaint. He's right to complain. I would too. I am only disagreeing with one very specific point. The point where it was said that AMD are forcing LMG staff to work this weekend. That is clearly untrue. That's a decision for LMG management to make. They were put in a tough spot where they had to decide between coming in over the weekend to redo videos and gaining the income/exposure/all the other stuff that comes with being at the forefront of a big tech launch and giving the staff the weekend off, waiting until Monday to redo their videos, and a gaining a little bump in staff morale. That's a choice. It's a choice made by LMG, not AMD.

Oh, no. I get that completely. AMD's driver fuck-up has required that videos be redone and it means more work. It's just that that point is entirely irrelevant to the question of who is forcing them to come in and redo their videos over the weekend instead of leaving it to Monday? Let's grant that AMD have fucked up their drivers. We could even assume that AMD have fucked up another dozen random things with regard to this launch which have made things difficult for tech-tubers and requires videos to be remade. But how does that mean they are forcing the staff at LMG to come in over the weekend? AMD do not decide who works when at LMG. The decision makers at LMG decide who at LMG works when in order to run the business to their best of their ability. If LMG management wanted to, they could have given their staff the weekend off and redone the videos on Monday and/or Tuesday, couldn't they? Now, I understand that they don't want to do that because it will put their content behind dozens of other tech-tubers, but that's not the same as AMD forcing them, is it? That is LMG recognising that it would be of great benefit to the business to bring staff in over the weekend instead of waiting and letting your competitors steal a march on you. To then paint that decision as "AMD are forcing us" rather than "Sorry, guys, but we need you to work this weekend. It's just too important to wait." is childish at best. It's not a popular decision to have to make on behalf of your staff, but it makes sense, and I'm sure that most of the staff there understand it. Just own it. The professional folk put in that situation will respect that honesty and personal responsibility more anyway.

I remember a JayzTwoCents video where he did a similar thing. He wasn't sure if it was the motherboard or CPU which was dead in a specific system which was behaving similarly to yours. He had pushed the overclock a bit on it and killed it. He swapped out the CPU for his deceased dad's CPU (he had kept a hold of his dad's system for sentimental value, I guess). He ended up killing his dad's CPU as well. It seems like his overclocking broke something in the power delivery on the board, which then took out the original CPU. And, of course, because the power delivery on the board is now broken it also took out the next CPU he put in to test. It's a scary thought when buying a motherboard used that this kind of thing can be lurking out there just waiting to screw you over. You have my sympathies!

Well who is it that's actually forcing them to come in on the weekend to get it done? Does AMD have authority over LMG when it comes to LMG shift patterns/rotas? Pretty sure the decision makers at LMG (whoever it would be to make the ultimate call on who has to come in to work and when) can make the call to leave this work until Monday. The argument against this would presumably be something like - "Oh, but we can't because all the other tech-tubers will have the updated reviews out before us and we'll get less views, exposure etc". True, if you leave it until Monday then you are giving up that strategic advantage to your fellow tech-tubers. But that's a business call. To be made by LMG. Nobody is forcing them, they can decide whether to give staff the weekend off or to stay on the cutting edge of tech news and product launches. Make the call however you see fit for your business in terms of balancing business need and staff morale, but, for the love of God, take some responsibility for the decision. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Being convinced of your preference to do a thing by recognising an undesirable consequence of not doing the thing does not necessarily equate to being forced to do the thing. I'm sure your reasonable members of staff will accept the business need in this situation and man-up and get it done anyway. Working a weekend every now and again isn't the end of the world.

I'm sure it is cheap and from China. But obviously I don't think it's crap or I wouldn't bother with the effort of trying to find more. The problem is, with different branding/design, how do I know that any similar pen is the same inside? There will be other pens with different branding which are the same internally most likely, yeah, but there will also be just as many pens which are similar externally and different internally. That's why I ask about this * exact * pen. Not just similar. Without a lead on the exact pen my only option is to buy a shitload of similar pens and test them all, which is pretty expensive, time-consuming, wasteful, and not even guaranteed to be successful. I was hoping I could find a stock of cheap pens which are actually surprisingly pretty nice to write with but I guess I'll have to give up on that dream and just pay through the nose for good branded pens. By the time I buy a load of random cheap similar pens and test them it will have been easier and cheaper to just buy the more expensive pens in the first place.

My motherboard is the B350 Mortar Arctic from MSI which has an "Optical S/PDIF OUT connector". Is that the one we would be looking for? The PC is connected to the TV via HDMI. Are these audio optical connectors all a standard size? Like, if I was to go and buy a soundbar which is advertised as coming with an optical cable, would it be guaranteed to fit? Or do I need to be make sure of which particular cable and connector it is on the unit?

Thanks for your input. So for this, would I be connecting the soundbar to the PC that's running Plex through the TV? Or would I be connecting it to the TV itself? And is there any more setup after that? Or does the PC just recognise that there is now a soundbar and adjusts accordingly? Sorry, I really have zero experience with this stuff.

As long as the benchmarks coming out aren't complete fantasy, then 3rd gen Ryzen does seem to blow away the 9900K. I mean, when you look at both performance and price:performance together. In terms of performance alone, 9900K won't be completely blown away, but it will be at least a little slower, and at a significantly higher cost.

@_Syn_ Great. That all sounds promising then. I'll need to sit down and check these things out. Probably won't have a chance until next week though. I'm working 12hr shifts for the next 4 days and I never have time for tinkering or watching stuff when the work schedule is like that. Thanks

Hmm. I find it hard to answer that. Because it sometimes sounds a little muffled. But I would say that mostly the issue is that the dialogue is just way too quiet compared to the rest of the audio. But this is only on some video files. Others are fine. Well I almost always use Plex for my movies. I don't specifically see an option in there to disable 5.1. Would that option be in my TV menu? Or would it be turned off using the Realtek software on the PC which is running Plex and is connected to the TV? I just had another thought. If I was to buy just a single extra speaker, would I be able to connect this to the PC or TV, use this for just dialogue, and adjust the volume of that one independently of the TV speakers to get the balance right? Or is that stupid?

Is the centre speaker the one which handles the dialogue then? Or does it vary?

I know pretty much nothing about audio setups, so please be gentle with me and be prepared to get the crayons out to draw me the bigger picture if there's something I'm missing! I've always just used the (presumably) pretty crappy included internal speakers on my TV since I bought it around 9ish years ago. I've mostly just been happy enough with that. But I find myself getting more and more annoyed when I try to watch a movie and get that kind of experience where you can't make out the dialogue, so you turn the volume way up, but then all the other sounds are way too loud and you still can't quite make out most of the dialogue. I remembered reading somewhere online that this is caused by playing video files with 5.1 sound through a non-5.1 audio setup (such as the internal speakers on my TV). Is this true? If it is true, then does that mean I should get a 5.1 speaker setup and it will fix the problem? If so, will any 5.1 speaker setup do? It really doesn't need to be top of the line or anything. As long as I can hear the dialogue at a reasonable volume, I don't really care too much about audio quality.

Was it like a chain pound shop which might have a branch local to me?

Unless you really, absolutely, need the portability of the laptop then I would say it's an easy choice - the 1080 and the 3600.

Yeah, there will be lots of similar ones out there available from lots of places but, ironically, not through the link you provided. Lol. Apparently those are out of stock. And they're described as glitter ink. I don't think my fragile masculinity could handle glitter ink. Probably not suitable for professional use either. But does anyone know where I can find more of the same kind I have in my pictures though (not just similar)?