ROBOCRIPPLE

I'm looking for a stereo amp or receiver for my multi-display PC/console/TV setup with a single set of stereo speakers, with the following features: 4 or more inputs (RCA, Optical, 3.5mm, etc), preferably unlabeled as CD, etc. Connection to bookshelf/tower speakers, preferably via banana plugs. Connection to a sub-woofer. Headphone jack or alternative audio-out. Bonus: Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. Sub-$200 Canadian in price. Small in size, compared to an average receiver. I've been looking on Amazon and ebay for an amp or receiver, and most of those that I've found don't meet all of the criteria above. I like this one from Pyle for its small size and price, but it is a bit short on audio inputs. I like the feature set of this Sony receiver, but it is rather large and expensive, plus it is sold by a third-party vendor on Amazon. The reason I want an amp/receiver with at least 4 inputs is because I intend on connecting it to my primary gaming/streaming PC, TV via a DAC, consoles via an HDMI selector and HDMI audio extractor, and retro PCs and Folding PC via a KVM switch, and possibly a Bluetooth receiver or Chromecast Audio as well, and I would like a more simplified setup than the one I have now, with a unified audio setup across all devices. My consoles are connected to a separate display from the TV, and my TV is connected to my cable box and primary gaming/streaming PC along with another monitor. I may as well go for a small, cheap Stereo amp and pair it with a stereo audio switcher....I have a hard time finding a stereo audio switcher that can mix audio sources as well... Is there a stereo amp/receiver that fits my setup and is small and inexpensive? Thanks.

I have a large PC game backlog (Steam, GOG, Origin, Epic, itch.io) with a bunch of old-school games, dating up to the late-2000s, as well as a bunch of indie games that can run on a potato. I'm looking for an affordable, used or new laptop that can run those games so that I can play them while I'm out of the house for a long time (in the post-pandemic era, of course). I'm looking on eBay and I'm having a bit of trouble finding one that meets my criteria below. If anyone on the forum could help me, that would be great, thanks. Criteria: No more than $1000 Canadian Pesos. Can run games from 2009 and earlier at high-ultra settings at over 30 FPS, including Mass Effect 1. Maybe Crysis, as well? Can run most modern indie games, as well. Has either an Intel CPU with an NVIDIA/AMD/ATI GPU, or an AMD CPU/APU that supports 3DNow!. 8 GB of memory or higher. Bonus: Good battery life. (6-8 hours of gaming)

Maybe I don't really need a third retro PC... I've found a Socket 478 board that has AGP, PCI, and ISA slots, which might allow me to connect 3 floppy drives with an ISA card, but it's quite pricey and I don't know if it comes with an I/O shield. Is it a good board for DOS as well as Windows 98?

I may as well build a third PC with 2-3 floppy disk drives: a 5.25" drive, a 3.5" drive, and maybe a floppy USB emulator... Because it needs an old PSU that supports 3.3V-5V rails, I only really want to use it to rip 5.25" and 3.5" floppies into formats that can be used by floppy USB emulators. Maybe dual boot it with DOS and a very lightweight Linux distro made for ancient hardware such as Puppy Linux or maybe antiX. I could just stick with DOSBox on my modern gaming PC for playing DOS games; I like that I don't have to do much configuration, at least with the files that came with DOS games downloaded from GOG, plus I can rebind controls to different keys on the keyboard, mouse, or even the XBOX ONE controller, by using reWASD, and I can cheat games by using Cheat Engine, as well. I needed to use both apps for TES1 Arena. I'd prefer to rip floppies using external drives that are connected to my modern gaming PC via USB, but I can't find one that can read 5.25" floppies nor can I find an adapter for internal drives, hence the ancient PC build above.

Can I emulate 5.25" floppies on a floppy drive emulator such as this one? I tried that on a Windows 8.1 VM, using VMWare Workstation 15 Player, and I ran into the same problems with the black blobs in ME1.

Budget (including currency): No more than CAD 1000 Country: Canada Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: One PC for Windows 98 and DOS, another for Windows XP, both for retro gaming. Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): Pentium 4 LGA 775 for Win98/DOS, Intel Xeon LGA 1155 for WinXP, both systems with modern 80 PLUS PSUs. I have a lot of games in my GOG and Steam backlog, some of which are retro PC games from the 90s up to the late-2000s. I've been playing games from the 2000s in the past few months, namely Mass Effect 1, TES4 Oblivion, Dead Space 1, and Assassin's Creed 1. I expected them all to run at very high frame rates (over 60 fps) and look their best on my modern gaming PC, which is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 2600 CPU and NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti GPU, but I was not entirely correct; ME1 runs and looks like crap on my machine, and at some points the characters turn into big black blobs, which I had to work around to resolve. As it turns out, the shadows in those parts of the game require either an Intel CPU or an older AMD CPU that supports 3DNow!, which Ryzen processors lack. That is why I want to build a Windows XP/Vista gaming PC, and maybe another for Windows 9x and DOS games... I wish I have some old parts and systems laying around, especially at this time when online orders are delayed for valid reasons, but I don't. I was a kid/teen during the 90s and 2000s who wasn't really into PC gaming, and my family disposes of old electronics that they don't use, anymore. I only got into PC gaming in the mid-2010s, and while I'm not a big fan of PC building mainly due to the frustrations that come with it, I like the reward that comes from it. I ordered something from Amazon.ca, a couple of weeks ago, and they haven't started shipping, yet. I'm not so sure about other online marketplaces such as Newegg and eBay. I may as well wait until the pandemic comes to an end, or at least when conditions improve... I've been doing some digging on the Internet, researching which parts are compatible with Windows 98 and XP and perform really well at the games of their times. I'd like to have the least number of PCs for retro gaming: one PC for all of 2000s gaming, and another for DOS gaming and Windows 9x-era gaming. For my Windows XP build, I plan on using an Intel Xeon CPU that has a high clock speed (2.4GHz or higher) that is compatible with Windows XP, and my GTX 960 card that I have laying around, which does have drivers for WinXP. I have a spare 16GB kit of DDR3 memory, which I may be able to use with the XP build. As for the Win98 PC, I plan on using a Pentium 4 CPU with 3GHz or higher clock speed, along with an AGP video card, PCI sound card, 512MB of DDR memory, IDE CD drive, a 120GB SSD, and a floppy drive USB emulator. Maybe I'll add a SATA DVD drive and PCI/PCIe sound card in the WinXP build, as well... For the cases, I don't really want one of those cheap, edgy-looking cases, generic black/silver cases from the 2000s, or the beige/yellow cases from the 90s; I want the cleaner styles from the 2010s, one with at least 2 optical drive bays and one floppy drive bay for the Win98 system, and another with at least one optical drive bay and good airflow for the WinXP system. For the power supplies, I have a fairly old Rosewill 600W 80 PLUS Bronze PSU that has a 20-24-pin splitter on the motherboard plug, so I'd like to use that for my Win98 system, and, of course, I want to buy another 80 PLUS PSU for the WinXP system; nowadays, I don't feel comfortable using non-80-PLUS-compliant PSUs... I also don't want to pay much for parts off eBay. I'd like to get as much price/performance for both builds, running the games of their times at max settings over 60fps. If you have any recommendations or corrections, let me know.

Posting over a year later, and I can confirm that the cable works. I can control the case and AIO lighting in iCUE. Here are some pictures showing proof; I couldn't get similar effects on AURA or the controls built into the case.

I have a 1TB 3.5-inch hard drive that I'd like to use with my PS2 slim and Wii (for loading games from). I have a Chinese external hard drive enclosure that connects via USB-B 3.0 and eSATA, which requires its own power adapter, which supplies 12V. But, I'm looking for one that can be powered from a USB-A charging port, which often outputs at 5V and 1-2A. I have a hard time finding one. All of the other 3.5-in. hard drive enclosures that I looked at online require 12V power adapters. I like the Vantec USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C external hard drive enclosure, which can be powered from a 5V power plug so that I may be able to power it from a USB-A charging port with the right cable, but it works only for 2.5-in. hard drives and SSDs. I am aware of the fact that Y-adapters exist for most 2.5-in. hard drive enclosures, but I've had bad luck with 2.5-in. hard drive enclosures in the past... I have some spare 2.5-in. hard drives laying around, but they have only 160-250GB of capacity, which may be fine for the number of games that I want to play... Does a 3.5-in. hard drive enclosure that can be powered from a common (5V 2A) USB-A charging port exist?

I reinstalled Windows on my system. It was the only way to get all of the RGB working, again. But at the same time, I switched AIOs with the Deepcool CASTLE 360EX. Before that, the lighting in the Kraken X62 stopped turning on, so I RMA'd it. I did not try my new one out on my system.

I just installed Windows 10 using the image from the installation media tool and installed the drivers from those files. Everything's working on it except the cameras, but I don't care much about the cameras, anyways. Thanks!

I've had a Cube Mix Plus tablet for a few years, now. I've installed Ubuntu Linux on it, but some of the hardware is not properly supported on the OS (stylus and screen rotation), plus some other problems like not connecting to the Internet via a dd-wrt-configured wireless ethernet bridge and USB-C dongle. So, I want to put it back on Windows 10. I used the Windows installation media tool to install Windows 10. Though it did leave the language in English, it could not find some of the drivers for things like Bluetooth off the Internet. I could not even find the drivers on my own. So, I decided to use the backup image (WINPE) supplied by the manufacturer. Once installed, all of the proper hardware drivers are installed, but the problem is that the language is in Chinese, and I don't know much Chinese. If it is in a language that also uses Latin characters such as French, Spanish or German, I would have a better time navigating the OS than if it is in a language that does not, such as Chinese, Japanese, Russian or Arabic. Yes, I know how to change the language in the settings, once it is fully configured, but in this case it is not, and pops up a Sysprep window in Chinese in startup. If I start that, the Windows 10 initial configuration is in Chinese. How do I change the language of the Sysprep or the whole backup image to English? The backup image does come with language folders, English included. I have a hard time finding a solution on the Internet. Thanks.

Hello? Does an external GPU box or adapter that plugs into the PCIe 16x slot instead of Thunderbolt 3 exist? I still couldn't find one anywhere that isn't a mining adapter...

I'd like to try to get my mom and dad into PC gaming, during this coronavirus pandemic. I have a lot of games in my GOG library (mostly oldies and indies) that I'd like to install in their computers. My dad uses a Dell laptop from 2014 that has an AMD RADEON discreet GPU and Xubuntu 18.04 as the OS, and I think I have quite a few Linux-compatible games in my GOG library, so I think he should be good. Mom, however, uses a Dell Optiplex 960 Full Tower computer with Windows 10, but with no graphics card pre-installed. The Optiplex doesn't offer much in expandability. It has only 4 SATA power plugs, all of which are occupied (I have installed an SSD and USB 3.0 card alongside the pre-installed HDD and DVD drive). The only spare graphics cards that I have require PCI-E power plugs, which this computer lacks. I also have a 2x Molex to PCI-E power plug adapter, but this computer also lacks Molex plugs. Because of some parts of the computer that I'm not familiar with, I don't know about replacing the PSU... This computer does have a PCIe 16x slot, but that and the PCI and PCIe 1x slots are flipped upside-down and this one is placed at the top and has no other PCI bracket above it, so I can't fit any of my graphics cards, either, which require 2 brackets. So, I thought about getting an external GPU box that can be plugged into a PCIe 16x slot and attached to a single PCI bracket. I do know that external GPU boxes do exist, but only for laptops with Thunderbolt 3. Do such boxes exist for computers like the Dell Optiplex, which connect to the computer's PCIe 16x slot and has its own power supply which powers the graphics card? I have a really hard time finding one, myself. Thanks.

That makes sense, especially during this time of the coronavirus pandemic. Most of the projects that my CPU (FX-8350) has been working on are 14329 (Coronavirus Project: Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19-causing virus) protease - potential drug target). I'm not very familiar with Linux, so how do I post a log? Thank you, LTT community, for helping me with this.

I did just that (in /etc/fahclient/config.xml), except replaced <gpu v='false'/> with <gpu v='true'/>. Was that right? FAH does detect the GPU, I haven't got it to work on a project (status = ready), and it's been hours since I turned it on.

The computer that I'm using for Folding@Home is running Linux Mint and has a GTX 960. I want to use that GPU for Folding@Home, but for some reason, it's not letting me. I'm using the latest Nvidia driver compatible for the GPU (440). I tried adding the GPU in FAHControl by doing it this way: but I end up with this error message All I can contribute is my CPU. But I want to contribute my GTX 960, because I've heard that projects get done much faster on GPUs than they do on CPUs. I do not understand why this must be. Is there a proper way to use my GPU for Folding@Home on Linux? If so, how?

I was able to get a hold of one personnel on the Live Chat, and he told me that it is fine; "Up to 3-4 pixels are common." "Any more than 4 pixels is eligible for a repair." I should have purchased an in-store product replacement plan when I purchased the monitor... I guess I'll have to live with this pixel until I actually manage to fix it or upgrade to a newer, better (and hopefully cheaper) monitor in the next 2-5 years.

I tried the warmed cloth method, and it didn't work for me. I don't know what I'm doing wrong; I moistened the lint-free microfiber cloth, warmed it in the microwave, held it with ribber gloves, and rubbed it against the pixel, when it was on or off, for up to 10 seconds. I can't find a YouTube video or directions on the Internet on how to do this method properly or on a QLED display. I tried sending a support ticket on Samsung Canada's website, and it didn't go through; I ended up with an error message, a bunch of confirmation emails, and 0 support tickets for the product according to the website. I tried getting a Live Chat, only to end up with an error message saying that it is offline and it closed. I think it's because the staff on the website are off for the holiday season. Perhaps I'll need to wait until the week after New Year's before trying to contact them, again...

It's a hot pixel. Invisible in bright, complex images, but visible in darker and simpler images. I hear they can't be fixed by software such as PixelHealer; they only really fix stuck pixels 50% of the time. I'd really like a replacement monitor, but I find them to be often out of stock in most stores, and the places where I have to send for RMA are often out of the country where I live. Canada is not a country where specialized careers like manufacturing or computer hardware repairs exist. In fact, it's one of the many brain drain countries of the world, with the only exceptions that I know of being the US, Japan, South Korea, and China.

You mean this is a problem that I can't fix myself? Bummer... What kind of a pixel is it, anyway? How do I RMA it? I went to the website and registered my monitor and entered its S/N, but it didn't yield any results about its warranty status. I ordered it from Memory Express, here in Canada.

I recently purchased a Samsung CRG9 monitor. Everything is working on it, except for one pixel. I'm not sure it's a dead pixel, hot pixel, or stuck pixel. It doesn't seem to fit the description of either of them, except maybe a hot pixel. Every time I put a dark window/background over it, such as a Dark Mode reddit page, it pops up, and when I move that window off it with my orange wallpaper, or switch to a lighter tab in the web browser it's disappeared; just a matching orange/white pixel. I tried PixelHealer on the pixel for an hour and it did help a bit, but the pixel is still there. The pixel even appears in the flashing box that I have set up. What kind of pixel is it, and how do I fix it? Thanks.

I'm looking to turn my cheap Intel NUC (BOXNUC6CAYH) into an HTPC, running a desktop Linux distro, not a distro that is made specifically for HTPCs (such as OpenELEC). Mainly, because I want to use it with adblock software and VPN service. Thing is, I don't have any spare SSDs laying around, but I have plenty of laptop-sized HDDs. After booting Windows off an SSD for years, I would never want to go back to HDDs for Windows. I've used Ubuntu in the past and I really like the clean, bloat-less boot and log-in of the OS, so I may as well give that another go for booting off a hard drive. Sure, it may not be very fast, but at least it is perfectly usable after log-in. Still, I would like a faster boot and log-in, if possible. Which Linux distro would you recommend which: is low on system resources, has a graphical user interface like Ubuntu, boots as quickly off a hard drive as Windows 10 off an SSD, is compatible with Firefox or Chrome, which are compatible with adblock software, I can install proprietary drivers with ease, to eliminate screen-tearing, and I can use with a VPN service such as NordVPN, even without the app.

I sent my Kraken back to NZXT for RMA, and have replaced it with a Gamerstorm Castle 360EX. I was still having issues with AURA, so I reinstalled Windows. AURA is working properly, again. Maybe reinstalling Windows will fix the freezing issue with the Kraken, as well? I don't know; haven't tried it.

I've been looking at this monitor. This is the second time that I've seen it at $700 Canadian off MSRP, while it is at MSRP at the Samsung Store. I'd like to buy it at the Samsung store, but it is unavailable at the Canadian store, currently and during the Back to School sale, when it was $500 Canadian off. I'm not sure that I'd want to buy it at Amazon for over $1000 Canadian... Is this a good, legit deal? Or should I wait for Black Friday/Boxing Day? Or just get a good, cheaper alternative? I'd like the DisplayHDR1000 and 32:9 aspect ratio that this display offers, but I'm mostly looking for a display that has a response time of 4ms or less, a refresh rate of 100Hz or higher, an ultrawide aspect ratio, a resolution of 1440p or higher, and, most importantly, FreeSync or G-Sync compatibility.

I came home from elementary school to watch TV and I saw it on almost every TV channel. That made me realize it was that serious. And I lived in Canada, back then.