Anomnomnomaly

On 1/29/2020 at 5:42 PM, Kidplayer_666 said:

I’m a Portuguese and out of curiosity I want to know what you “foreigners” know about my country. Any feedback about it?

I'm probably going to come across as a complete a-hole here... But my only experience of Portuguese people is entirely negative... I know it's not a true reflection of the entire country but I can only base my 'actual' knowledge from my personal experience and that's not very good at all.

You see I had these obnoxious neighbours living above me... anything up to 5 of them living in a 1 bed flat, the older bloke was a drunk and obnoxious with it... his wife used to scream and shout... there were constant arguments and things breaking... they had 2 adult sons who were just as obnoxious and a few very young grandkids who were left to roam around unsupervised and caused damage to cars. We had a spate of car break ins at one point... I knew of at least 3 cars that had windows smashed... there's was one of them. They tried to blame me for it, and the old boy threatened me with a knife... he was then caught damaging my car and arrested... and finally their landlord decided to kick them out... and had to then spend 4months refurbishing the property due to the damage they'd done. They flooded my flat at least 4 times because they left shower hoses hanging over the bath with taps on, they broke their boiler and flooded my kitchen and I would be woken up several times a week in the middle of the night due to drunken screaming and breaking things.

So... I'd love to hear far more positive things about the people and the culture... but based of my personal experience... I can't say I'd ever consider visiting the country at all because of it... even though I know logically and rationally that it's not an actual true representation of the rest of it.

Calling yourself humble isn't humble it's arrogant and obnoxious.... and only idiots do it. 

and Drax. 

also.. I can't agree with the poll because agreeing with it actually means I disagree and vice versa. 

5 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

but does it actually run that high? All you've done is to let it go that high, not that it would do so.

So far I've only run unigine heaven, for an extended amount of time (about 40 mins) with everything turned up, ultra settings and Just ran a fresh benchmark with it to make sure... and noticed a tiny flicker on the other 2 monitors every now and again as I run 3x 27s. So I've just dialled it back 50hz on the mem and taken it back to 2050 on the core and will test it further.

I did find a quirk in the amd software vs afterburner though.  If I let the amd auto tune the card, it takes the core to 2100, but when it sets the vram auto clock to 1900 it gives a pale single colour screen on monitor 1 that you have to switch main monitors to another and back... but manually setting it doesn't... Still some bugs in the code obviously... and you can only auto tune one or the other it seems.. not both at the same time. But It does you a baseline for manual tuning in afterburner.

On the slightly lower clocks, temps are a lot lower, maxed out 75ºC and the heating was on... with a radiator just 6ft away from the system.

Obviously a lot more tweaking and testing will going on... and all of this is on air in a case that has plenty of decent fans but not fantastic front intakes so those corsair ML 140mm fans can get a little noisy... Got some mods for the front panel planned this weekend. 

I've had my 5700XT since around Sept last year, was rather impressed with it's performance but aware that the drivers were a little buggy... I didn't mess around with any overclocking because to be honest.. I was more than happy with the performance @ 1440p on my then 75hz monitors.

But I picked up a 144hz gaming monitor in the black friday sales... so I've decided it was time to try and push it harder.

I've done some testing using the built in tuning with AMD's own radeon software, and with afterburner just to see if there was a difference... and I can't find any.

So far my testing shows that I can push the 1750mhz core to 2139mhz and the 1700mhz memory to it's max limit of 1900mhz.

I'm kinda impressed and disappointed... I wasn't expecting that much of a boost on the core but I was expecting a little more from the memory... swings and roundabouts and all that... We all know ram clocking gets better gains than core.  But I'm kinda pleased so far and junction temps are solid in the 70's under load, hitting low 80's if ambient is higher (like when the heating is on).

I'll take that as win... considering I paid £325 for the card when it was supposed to be £399 and is normally closer to 420 or more... I got the XT for non XT money and given the 5600XT is around £350 in the UK at the moment (if you can even find one)... I'm laughing all the way to the bank.

4 hours ago, GameplayGam3r said:

Hi I just build a pc that contains ROG Crosshair VIII Hero x570 paired with AMD 9 3900, 32gb ram, 2 ssd, 2 hdd, 1 m2 . It doesn't read the ssd or hdd and also I can't boot my windows 10 from the cd-drive. How do I get to boot from it so I can install my OS? Also the qcode the board provides is A2. 

Thank you for your help. 

 

Check if the board disables some of the SATA ports when you've got the M.2 slots in use... Found that out to my horror after building mine... was buried away in the manual and not mentioned in any of the marketing material on their website or anything like that.  Deceptive crap like that is why I'll never be buying a gigabyte product again.

I know that with my old RX580 (Also Sapphire) the temps on that got high and it would start to throttle at 81º... So I stripped it down and cleaned it up, applied new thermal paste and temps dropped roughly 11ºC... but it never caused that kind of problem.

What about the PSU... are you hitting it's limits with the new board/car combo?

Sadly with an odd issue like that which is hard to reproduce consistently... it's a question of swapping out and testing parts if you can... which isn't always possible.

6 hours ago, Yogi_DaBear221 said:

So I'm currently having the issue with my PC that after a bit of use sometimes its hours sometimes it is just a couple, where the monitors will stop showing picture, I can't turn the PC off without flipping the power switch. I can't hold down the power button, the reset button doesn't do anything, nothing works. Now I'd posted previously about my PSU making noise and I guess going out, but if that were the issue wouldn't all the power go on it? I also thought maybe it was from re-overclocking my Ryzen 2600 to 4.0Ghz on the new motherboard, so I brought it down to stock clock, and it was still doing it, now one thing it could also be, when we redid my cooler we just used what was on the CPU and the pump so could it be that we just need to reapply thermal paste? My temperatures are great, like I max at 40 Celcius with most games, I haven't tried it with Cinebench though. The other issue could be my GPU, which is a 4GBs Power Color Red Dragon RX580, because I had the same issue with my GTX 660Ti when it would get to hot or it wasn't getting enough airflow, but it, as far as I know, is getting great airflow.

 

This occured after we switched Motherboards, to my ASUS ROG Strix X470F

 

I have also gotten this screen a couple of times but of course instead its got my build on it and of course it had detected my keyboard.
 

What GPU... because I've had the exact same issue happen a few times since I upgraded to a Sapphire 5700XT... for no reason all the monitors turn off, sound still plays fine and the only way to get it back is a hard reboot.  It's happened in a couple of games and once on the desktop.  I've never had it boot into safe or recovery mode though... it just reboots as normal.

It's not happened for a few weeks and I've updated the drivers in the near year... which I why I was thinking it was AMD's buggy drivers.

On 1/25/2020 at 5:48 PM, Edgar R. Zakarian said:

i know that diesel won't ignite as easy with a spark, and I'm pretty sure that it won't even mix properly with petrol unless you really shake your ride?
Just curious, what kind of trouble could you foresee?

Diesel doesn't ignite at all, it's explodes under compression. Unlike petrol engines which compress a mix of fuel/air and uses a spark to explode it pushing the piston back down... a diesel engine use compression and a glow plug, so it's the upstroke of the piston that causes the explosion to push it back down... there's no spark involved.

Now as for miss fuelling... one way is fine and the other disastrous. Putting petrol in a diesel can cause serious problems and ruin an engine, but miss fuel a petrol engine normally means draining the tank, flushing the fuel system and replacing the fuel filter and you'll be good to go once more.

The BBC are now reporting it too.,, although they're are simply citing US media reports.

AMD went 4.0 for the prestige of being first... but I kinda think that Intel will bypass 4 for 5 as that's closer than most people think... It's not like the long gap between 3-4 when standards took so long to be agreed upon. 5 has already been agreed.

Why would anyone suggest a 2060 given the 5600XT is cheaper and smokes it?

9 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

There used to be this thing called Scroogle that I liked a lot.  It was google but with all the data mining stripped out.  Now there is startpage which does more or less the same thing.

or just use duckduckgo like all sensible people... and drop chrome and install firefox... I don't know why people still keep drinking from the rancid chrome/google/microsoft trough.

26 minutes ago, PeterFile said:

heres the thing... the ones included on most laptops won't cost you 250$ if you want to get something comparable. Ex a laptop keyboard vs even a budget mechanical keyboard usually is no competition. also keep in mind that if you buy a gaming laptop you will still need a mouse and probably headphones, unless you want to game using the trackpad. But yes, definitly do your research as a laptop on sale for a few hundred cheaper might tip the scales.

Just checked and I was way out... a cheap 21" monitor can be had for £65 here, a cheap mouse & keyboard combo less than £20, cheap headphones with a mic, less than £20 and a set of speakers less than £20... so that's £125 or roughly $165 USD.  Now I specifically said 'basic' parts... not gamer parts, not comparable to laptop parts... so no IPS screens, no mechanical keyboards, no high dpi mouse, no 5.1 surround sound.

Which ever one provides the best performance for the value... which means factor in the cost of buying peripherals for a desktop vs having the inc with a laptop. You'll easily spend 200-250 on a basic monitor/mouse/keyboard + headpones or speakers. More if you want more gaming oriented ones. That takes away from the core system.

If peripherals weren't part of the equation... a desktop would obviously offer the better value/performance... but factoring in everything needed... it's a little closer and depends on needs/specs desired.

ranting about people ranting... oooookkkkkkkkkk

11 hours ago, SeanCallinan said:

Hello LTT people! 
I teach a series of IT certifications, but I would love your opinion on certifications! 
(I understand a lot of you will cry "NO NEED FOR CERTS, I HAVE EXPERIENCE!"...  )
That's okay...  but not COMMON.....    
Positive feedback would be awesome to relay to my classes!

Specific certs that are only valid for a specific piece of tech/software are a waste of time and money... Generalised qualifications are more valid... I've had specific certs for specific software and those have been worthless for 15yrs now... But the ones I have for other areas will never be. I was lucky... I never paid for the courses... But I know people who got conned into paying for courses (That I warned them were worthless) that would get them into the IT industry and wasted thousands on quals that weren't worth the paper they were written on... and now they' working in warehouses or driving a lorry because they're not qualified to do anything else.

It's like other areas here in the UK... you have to be qualified to do electrics, but you need a specific and expensive cert to sign of on electrical installs.  So all of those people I know who used to do electrical work and are more than qualified to do it... no longer will because they don't do it often enough to justify the expense of being certified each year to 'sign of and certify the works'...   the same applies for gas work... many a plumber will no longer work on certain types of central heating jobs because it requires a specific gas cert... or they simply do the plumbing side and then have a gas cert engineer in to do the rest.

You can't even do electrical work on your own house now without having it certified... or you won't be able to sell the house until it is.

I can understand the changes in the law, because people have died because of dodgy work being carried out by unqualified people... But getting the certifications is a ridiculous amount of money and unless you do it as a main job all year round... not worth the effort.

Depends on your country, search out the current prices and see how much it would cost to buy it all new now, and then factoring wear and tear use over the last 18 months or so... You'd be taking the piss if you asked more than 50-60%.

Some times you'll get a little better prices parting it out.. but selling a whole system complete is worth anything more.

edit:  Before any one suggests that asking more is acceptable because they're 'allegedly' new parts...  It's irrelevant. You are 'NOT' buying from a retailer you are buying second hand parts from a private seller and get 'none' of the consumer protections that come with buying 'new' parts. That alone means that any 'new' side of the argument is moot... I couldn't care less if it's still got factory seals in place... these can be faked and there are no guarantees that what you are getting is actually new.

1 hour ago, it_dont_work said:

A benq 22" 16:10 monitor, only a secondary these days, but its just the right res and size to read from. 

I've got a BenQ 22" 1080p 60hz LED monitor that I bought about 10yrs ago... Was using it right up until a couple of months ago as part of a triple monitor setup with 2x 27" Acer 75hz... Used it in portrait mode for displaying some websites that still insist on having tiny centre aligned columns only that fill perhaps 30% of the screen and increasing the scale only serves to make the header fill the whole damn screen. 

But I picked up a 144hz curved 27" as my main screen and shifted the other 2x 27" over to the left... So now it's redundant and I'll probably give it away to anyone who wants it. It's only got VGA and DVI inputs.

10 hours ago, Marbo said:

Yes, someone mentioned a 256mb sd card. I'm pretty sure if I searched long enough I'd find a 16mb one. 

 

Also hdd, I've got a few in a draw that I've replaced over the years ranging from 40gb to 160gb. Would be interesting to go though them and see what's on them, if anything. 

I've still got some IDE hard drives kicking around in drawers, not to mention a KVM switch that I used to use about 17-18yrs ago. including all of thee cables... but it's only for PS2 mouse/keyboard and VGA video

Almost any cpu these days can do 4k without any issues... but if you are going to be doing any transcoding on the fly... then obviously the better cpu you can have helps... But my HTPC is running an AMD FX8350 @ 4.4ghz on all 8 cores and is fine.

I've actually got a spare AM3+ board 4GB ram and quad core 4.2ghz CPU that I keep meaning to flog. It's been sat in a box for the last 12 months waiting for a new owner.

nVidia Shield TV Pro... the 2017 model is about £150 now and the newer 2019 Pro version is £199... don;t go for the cheaper tube shaped one... it's got a lot of issues and most people tend to think it's garbage.

I've got 2 of them.. both a 17 and 19 Pro... the onboard storage is only 16GB so grab a little flash drive.. I picked up a couple of 128GB samsung ones that are really small... and use those as internal storage.

It comes preinstalled with netflix and prime... and you can add kodi and a few plugins if you want to go that way... check out reddit r/shieldandroidtv or something like that.

There are cheaper android tv boxes... but to be honest... they're kinda garbage... they'll be advertised as having more storage or more ram... but none of them get any updates to android and a lot of them have the shitty rockchip chipset which is worthless.

If you want a proper HTPC, then just buy some second hand parts and build a cheap system... fill it with hard drives and install 'emby'... avoid plex... I know a lot of people use it and like it... but they've turned it into a massive data harvest app that monitors and reports back on what you do with it... at this moment... emby isn't doing that... and what plex does poorly, emby does very well and vice versa... so it's personal choice really.

I'm kinda meh with most of the videos they post... some of the 'presenters' are a little annoying to me and most of the humour is childish and not suited to grown adults... and I mean the presenters/writers making them... not the audience. It's kinda like making a dad joke that even thee rest of the dads think is lame. 

I kinda miss the old days where there was more of a sense of fun, I miss some of the old staff presenting videos and I wish the decent ones they do currently have would be allowed to make more.

But occasionally... in amongst all of the useless/pointless/stupid videos... there's a little gem that is very enjoyable.

Maybe I'm just getting a little cynical and jaded... maybe seeing a never ending stream of 'look at the great free shit I've been given and is going into my house' videos has turned me against the channel... Maybe it's that they no longer seem to have any understanding of the actual real world cost/value of things... why else do they keep gushing over the latest crap from razer, when they keep complaining about how bad the durability is... because they get it all for free, so don't give a crap about anything that the rest of us has to consider... like dropping a couple thousand on a laptop that is gonna break in 12-18 months, and having to deal with the shitty support... whilst they just get given the next version every 12 months so who cares if it breaks... we'll still gush over how great the shitty quality is.

So I don't think I take them for granted... I think I just see through the bullshit now. Out of all of the YT tech channels I follow... the only one I give any real credence to is J2C... The rest come across as entitled and privileged more than they don't.

1 hour ago, NineEyeRon said:

Pretty much replaced everything in the last three years. Only my wired ancient Xbox controller is still with me, had that for a long time.

 

I keep seeing people mentioning stuff and realising... oh yeah... I've got one of those too.  Xbox 360 type controller that I bought way back in 2010, still works perfectly to this day.

Excited to be getting this in a couple of days... had it on order for almost a year. I've read the book... I downloaded the e-book as I have with all of the others in the series... and I buy the paperback as soon as it comes out. They sit on my shelf and will never actually be read... But I love this series and I do believe in supporting the author/artist and I'm not a 'total' freeloader.     But there's no way I'm waiting almost a year to read the damn book, and I prefer a physical copy of books and refuse to buy digital copies that could be removed at the whim of the the store like MS did last year.

I've also just remember that I have 2 peripherals that I've had since the early 2000's.  An MS multimedia keyboard Model 1.0A that's currently attached to my mediaserver, and the original MS 5 button intellimouse that's currently being used on my mums PC after her wireless mouse started acting up. Both of those have to be around 17-18yrs old and working perfectly.