SpaceJellyDonut

Thanks a lot for answering, I just wanted to make sure before I buy it.

Hi, I'm not sure in what forum to post this so seeing as a UPS is a sort of power supply I'm posting here. I live in South Africa and the country has scheduled blackouts to the grid they call "load shedding" because the national power provider and government are incompetent. Now it's really hot here in the evenings and when the power goes out on account of load shedding we can't run the aircon or fans. I'm looking to buy a UPS to run a 30cm fan for about 2-3 hours. I tried doing a bit of research but I'm a little lost as I can't seem to find a reliable source on how big of a UPS I would need for this. The fan we have is just a little 30cm pedestal fan what draws (it says on the back) 25W at 230V (Our country's grid is 230 volt as I understand it). I saw a UPS at a local store that says it's a 2400VA/1440W Modified Sinewave Inverter. Would this be enough to run the fan for 2-3 hours? I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong place and I know it has nothing to do with computers but I don't know where else to ask.

Thanks for all the great replies! @Gorgon I haven't overclocked the GPU no I just left it on default settings, I never saw the CPU (Ryzen 3 2200G) go near 100% usage but I might be mistaken on how all of this works so idk. I'm planning on replacing the CPU with the new Ryzen 3000 series when it comes out so if it is the CPU holding the GPU back I'll know in a few months I guess. I'll try overclocking and increasing the power limit to see if it picks up, I just assumed it would run close to its TDP out of the box. I mean a whole 60W under the rated TDP is a bit much? @jonnyGURU I thought their name looked familiar, now that you mention it I remember seeing the name and logo when going through the drives section of an online pc parts store here in South Africa I never made the connection for some reason. Is 384W on the 12V rail not enough for a 180W TDP card? Or does it work differently than I understand? Also when using both the 6pin connectors are they supposed to increase the total amps? I see that each of the 12V rails has 20 amps, so when I use both at the same time is it then the same as 1 x 40amp rail? And both their wattage combined as well? In any case I think I will replace the PSU afterall I just wanted to make sure I wasn't spending money in the wrong place. I thought maybe the GPU might be broken but seeing as the PSU is more than 8-9 years old it seems like a more likely culprit. And even if it isn't, from what I can gather around the internet it seems like a bad idea to pair computer parts with a dodgy PSU. Thanks again for the help!

Hi guys, I recently got a new gpu, it's a XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition 8GB card. The card is a great step up from my previous GPU (GTX 750TI) but something's been bothering me, when looking at MSI Afterburner the maximum amount of watts I've seen the card use has been somewhere around 120W and that has only been very briefly. With most demanding games I've played (The Division 2, Devil May Cry 5, Middle Earth: Shadow of War) at maximum of close to maximum details so I know the card should be pushed to its limits. My problem is I know the RX580 is a 180W TDP GPU, so should it not be using close to that number? I've seen videos of RX570's using in the neighborhood of 150W. I'm not an expert in how these things work so I might be horribly mistaken about all of this, I mean my RX580 is performing a lot better than my previous card but if it's not using all of its horses then I'm not getting my money's worth. I suspect it might have something to do with my power supply, I've had it for about 8-9 years I think (I got it out of my mom's old pc I didn't buy it myself), I can't find any information about it online, the only information I have is the details on the power supply itself. I'm linking that information below. The PSU has 2x6 pin connectors that I'm using for the GPU, my RX580 only has 1x8pin connector but luckily it came with a 2xfemale 6pin to 1xmale 8pin adapter. So both of my PSU's 6 pins are connected to my GPU. The thing that I'm worried about is I can't find any information on my PSU on the internet, I don't know if it has any efficiency rating or if it is a good brand? Or that it might be going bad? Maybe one of the 6 pin connectors isn't working? My previous GTX750ti ran fine but that was only a 75W card. :/ Before I run out and spend money on a PSU I first wanted to find out if I'm mistaken about all of this? Sorry for the long post I just wanted to share as much information as I can to help you. Thanks in advance!

So using the car engine analogy, revving the engine up to a maximum of 8000 RPM while being in neutral would be like a CPU running at maximum frequency but none of the clock cycles are being used to process anything? When I was pondering this subject I would never have thought about the actual clock cycles each being its own thing that can be used. Thanks a lot for the clarification, if someone ever asks me about this subject at least now I'll be of some use however little.

Hi, I'm looking for an explanation on what happens when a CPU is at different percentages of use at maximum clock speeds. So I understand that a CPU can increase it's clock speed to process information more quickly. But what happens when a CPU is at its maximum frequency (let's say 3.6 GHz) and it can't go any higher, where its usage is at either 50% or 100%. If the CPU cannot increase its speed any more, how is it processing more or less information but staying at the same frequency? So as an example, I could be running a certain game where the CPU is at 3.6 GHz (its maximum speed) but the usage says that each core's usage is between 30%-50%, now I fire up another game that requires more processing power where the CPU is still at its maximum frequency (3.6 GHz) but now each core's usage is between 80%-100%. What is happening inside the processor that its able to increase the amount of processing done while still being at the same speed? Sorry if the question doesn't make any sense, I'm not sure how to ask it differently.

You had me at whole different computer! Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks so much for the replies! He wouldn't be open to learning anything new so linux is out. I think I'm going to get an SSD, even if it improves just a little he will be happy. I can always put the SSD in a new laptop if he eventually buys one.

Hi guys! So my dad bought a laptop a while back for about $260(R3500) in South Africa. The thing has always been extremely slow so I tried recently to see what could be the main cause. I saw that it has a Intel Celeron N2830 cpu that has two cores. Both of which nearly always run above 50% load and when you do little things like switch between programs or opening up a browser they shoot to 100% while you're waiting for whatever to happen. I'm almost certain the cause is the processor seeing that the laptop has 8gb DDR3 memory and a 500gb hdd that is 90% free. I was thinking of getting him an SSD for his laptop, seeing as he doesn't have enough money or want to buy another laptop. My question is if you guys think it's going to make any real world difference? Seeing as the processor is so slow? He uses his laptop for work so he really gets frustrated with it being so slow. I should mention that the work he does on the laptop is Web Browsing and Emails mainly. The laptop takes forever to startup and to open up programs like Incredimail and Google Chrome. The hdd that he has currently is just a generic 500gb 5400rpm 2.5inch laptop hdd. Thanks in advance!

Hey guys! So i have an old D-link 150Mbps PCI adapter in my pc that has a full 100% signal strength and 150Mbps connection about 70% of the time i use it. The other 30% of the time i use it, it goes down to between 1 Mbps and at most 30 Mbps. The times it does that i can basically not use the internet which i need for work, every page just keeps loading forever or timing out. The adapter is a pretty old one that i got out of a box at a internship i had last year (i did get permission), and it only has one antenna. Could the adapter be showing it's age or is it just getting bad reception because of the one antenna? The router it connects to is pretty close so I'm almost positive it's not the one antenna's fault. And my phone which i use at the same spot always gets 100% signal and never does this. What would you guys recommend? I can either get a higher gain antenna with a extender cable which i can then put on my desk instead of having it under the desk where it is now? My local computer shop also has a 300 Mbps TP-Link PCI Adapter card with two antenna as well as a a few USB adapters(I'm not sure about their signal strength though as they have internal antenna?). Any suggestions?

Hey guys! So i have a 4mbs ADSL internet connection, a 9 year old Billion 54mbs Wireless G ADSL router with 2 Antenna as well as a pretty big single story house(so no upstairs). Internet performs as expected when only one person is using the wifi, when 2 or more people use the wifi the internet speed is a lot slower(to be expected). Also even if one person is on the wifi the moment i go more than basically 8m fromt the room the router is in the signal strength decreases a lot as well. There are parts of the house the furthest from the router that nobody can connect to at all(places we are frequently in). Now i'm planning to upgrade our internet to a 10mbs ADSL connection and when i do i'm wondering what to do about our wifi, we don't do any streaming or file transfers on the wifi, only use it for internet. I can either get a newer Wireless N300 router (2 antenna) and then replace it's factory antenna with 10dbi omni antennas for better range, or i can buy a slightly more expensive Asus Wireless N600 router (3 antenna). Now i'm not a wireless wizard so i'm not sure which will be best. Any suggestions?

From 22nm to 14nm means that the transistors on the cpu die are closer together, this is better for power consumption and heat ouput. On mobile cpu's this is not gonna make a huge difference. The Core i5 cpu however does have Intel Turbo boost technology which means that it can boost the clock speed of the processor when needed. And also the i5 has a newer and better iGPU (Onboard graphics) which is going to last you a little longer performance wise. So basically it depends on how much 100 euros means to you, if it were me and i knew i'm not going to be buying a new laptop anytime soon then i would rather spend a little more for something that's going to last me a little longer. But that's entirely up to you

Hey guys! Keep getting this error and i've tried everything i could think of, any ideas? public class ResultButtonClass : MainWindow { public void ResultButtonMethod() { Variables variables = new Variables(); //Call variables variables.mathMode = MathMode.Text; variables.value1 = Convert.ToDouble(Value1.Text); <--- Error pops up here variables.value2 = Convert.ToDouble(Value2.Text); if (variables.mathMode == "Add") { variables.result = variables.value1 + variables.value2; ResultBox.Text = Convert.ToString(variables.result); } else if (variables.mathMode == "Subtract") { variables.result = variables.value1 - variables.value2; ResultBox.Text = Convert.ToString(variables.result); } else if (variables.mathMode == "Multiply") { variables.result = variables.value1 * variables.value2; ResultBox.Text = Convert.ToString(variables.result); } else if (variables.mathMode == "Devide") { variables.result = variables.value1 / variables.value2; ResultBox.Text = Convert.ToString(variables.result); }

When i upgraded from my old Athlon X2 250 3.0GHz dual core to my slightly less old Core i5 2300 Quad Core 2.8GHz the difference in everyday tasks is unnoticable, but the difference in gaming is like night and day. So it depends on what you're going to do with your rig.

Thanks a lot guys! I learn something new everyday on LinusTech Cheers!