Sabarok

An electrician was the first person I spoke to. He said it was an issue with the grounding from the house itself and wasn't anything to worry about. Not only that, but everyone is so busy that it's a 2 month wait before they'll be able to return for other work I have them doing. The wiring going to my office is a brand new circuit that was installed a month ago

A few weeks ago I replaced my PC's 2.1 speakers. There is an electrical issue with my house causing the speakers to have a constant hum. I looked for speakers powered by USB, so I switched to a Creative Stage Air, but I'm not happy with it. Every morning, it's disconnected so I have to manually re-pair the speaker through the panel, which doesn't always work, and it always connects muted so I have to fix the volume, and it doesn't always stay connected. At 16" wide, it is the largest that could fit under my monitor because of how the monitor's legs are positioned. My requirements: Maximum of 16" in width for a sound bar. USB powered. Sounds better than the built-in speakers of an Asus ROG monitor. Doesn't disconnect from my PC

I am looking for a wired mouse with 4-6 programmable buttons easily accessed with small hands in a claw grip. I read the pinned thread and measured, and my hand's measurements are small. I once owned a Razer mouse with a recharge stand and an optional cable. I forgot to place it on the charger so frequently that I kept it plugged in all the time and never used the wireless feature, and haven't bought a wireless mouse since. I am currently using a SteelSeries Rival 500. It's been a fine mouse. While it has tons of buttons, only 4 of them are within easy reach with my small hands, so it's just barely met my requirements. My issue is that I bought the mouse 2 years ago, and the scroll wheel is having issues (it sometimes goes in the wrong direction. I know that it's a common issue, but none of the existing fixes or troubleshooting steps worked), so I'm looking to see if there are better options. Before this, I was using a Naga Hex. I loved it, even though the button placement would cause physical strain on my thumb. My main reason for replacing it was the sensor was bugged and would frequently place the mouse in the top-right corner where the close button was on a window just as I was clicking the button, closing whatever window I had open. I stuck with that one for many years, in spite of its sensor problem. Other than the Rival 500, the only other mouse I've seen that could meet my requirements is the Razer Trinity, where I can put a 7 button circle on there. I'd prefer 6, but I think I can manage 7. MMO mice have way too many buttons for me, and I'd never be able to remember that much and get use out of it. Worries about Razer's build quality is why I went with the Rival 500 two years ago instead of the Trinity, but the SteelSeries having an issue after the first year didn't impress me.

Budget (including currency): 500 CAD? Country: Canada Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: No games. Mostly for media and home office applications This one is for a friend of mine who has asked me for recommendations. The requirements are pretty low, and looking at Newegg, there are options under $200. I will be lending an old PC that's an i7-4770k, so we will be able to wait for some Christmas or post-Christmas sales. It would be good if the CPU doesn't feel like a noticeable downgrade. It would also be good if the case had space to install a SATA HDD. I have a spare 1 TB that I will be donating. I'm seeing a ton of options on newegg.ca, but I haven't been paying attention to which brands are good. It's going to someone with no technical knowledge and I won't be available for support, so I'm recommending a pre-built. Advice on what manufacturer to buy from would be very helpful. Suggestions on what CPUs to look for would also be appreciated. I know most hardware has a bang:buck on a bell curve, so spend too little and you get a fraction of what you could get by spending just a little more. What's a good price range for a reliable and responsive non-gaming desktop?

Am I seeing this right that this stores 50x the power? That's a big difference.

So what I'm hearing is that, instead of using my TV plugged into the UPS, I should use my chromebook (running off its battery, once I've safely turned everything else off). An outage that lasts more than a few minutes is something like a once-a-year thing, so I'm not going to go far in trying to be setup for that. It sounds like I might be able to get an hour of video streaming to my Chromebook on a UPS that's around $200, which would be a nice bonus. Thank you for helping to keep things realistic

That is useful info. I was hoping that since my Chromebook's battery can last 6 hours, that a bigger battery on a TV would also have a decent life span.

I'm thinking of getting a UPS for my home setup. This is what I'm planning on plugging into it: Synology DS220j (12.5W while being accessed according to the website) My 65" TV Sony X900H (I couldn't find power usage specs for it) A cable modem (Technicolor TC4350) Wifi Router (Netgear R6350) The last few outages I've had have been very brief. So brief that my PC was able to stay up and not reboot, but it did reset my modem, and I had to wait several minutes before I could get back online (and it happened during a meeting while I was talking). I want to have my network gear plugged in for that reason. If an outage does last longer, having my TV and NAS plugged in and able to watch videos for a few hours would be really cool. A friend of mine who also has a Synology DS220 said he was able to plug it in via USB so the NAS would safely shut down when the UPS ran low. Having that support would be cool. There's also the potential of plugging in some idle consoles. I remember the PS3 in particular being rather fussy if it don't get shut down properly, but it wouldn't be to play them during an outage (I expect that would drain the UPS quite quickly). I've never bought a UPS before, so I don't know what to look for. Looking at Newegg, I see a lot of options in the $100-$300 CAD range, and I feel like that's an appropriate budget for what I think my requirements are. By comparison, if I were to get a UPS for my gaming PC (5950x w/ GTX 3080, 850W PSU) & gaming monitor (1440p 100hz), with the requirement that it be able to last maybe 15 minutes, just enough to make sure I can safely close down whatever game I'm playing, what would I be looking to get? I already have surge protectors on all my devices (APC P11U2). Would I plug the surge protector into the UPS, plug the UPS into the surge protector, or remove the surge protector from the equation and have my devices plugged into the UPS that's plugged into the wall?

Thank you both for your comments. I have just placed my order and it should arrive by next week

My planned usage case: Media server streaming video to 2 devices at a time, with support for downloading torrents via rss through ExpressVPN. Synology & Videostation sounds perfect for this, as the intended devices will be either android or windows PC, Download station supports RSS, and ExpressVPN has instructions on how to connect with Synology. I'm thinking of getting the DS220j with a single 6TB Ironwolf. This would give me a spare bay for future upgrades if I manage to max out the 6TB. I'm not concerned with RAID as what will be on the devices will be replaceable. For anything irreplaceable, my PC has 7TB and a cloud backup subscription, but it's connected to the network wirelessly, and it's not the greatest connection. The NAS would go in the living room and have a wired connection to my TV (android), and a wired connection to my wifi router, which should make for a better streaming experience to android phones than trying to do it from my PC. I've tried Plex and wasn't happy with the experience.

I'm currently using the Logitech Z313 (2.1). I've had them for about 12 years or so, and I've been happy with them. I also used to use really cheap speakers in the 90s that I thought were "just fine" and when I bought a Logitech 4.1 system, that's when I realized what the difference is. I don't know what I don't know, so I have no idea if I'm missing out on a better experience. My usage: Almost entirely (offline) gaming. Headphones aren't an option (I know there are a lot of fantastic headphone options that would likely get me better audio, I don't want to wear them). I'm not looking for surround or anything that's going to take up a lot of space. I don't need loud volume. I tend to be on the low end of volume, so being able to stay crisp and clear at low levels is important. I do like that the Z313 has a separate volume control that I can put in an easier to reach spot than my speakers. Budget: I haven't set one. I don't think my use case calls for mid to high end equipment. I think as the price goes beyond $200-300 CAD, it enters a realm of quality/performance higher than I would have a use for. These would be used in an MSI motherboard whose audio specs say Realtek ALC1200 Codec. It's been over a decade since I bought these, and I have no idea what advances have been made since then and if my Z313 are worth replacing with something newer. On a similar topic, I've been upgrading my living room setup and I have a new TV on the way (Sony X900H). This one would be used for console gaming (the PS5 when it becomes available to buy), but also streaming TV & movies (such as Netflix). Given that I would still be on the lower-side of the volume level, would I gain much by looking into a soundbar? My living room setup doesn't really have a spot to place a subwoofer on the ground, so it would be only the bar. And if anyone is wondering why I went from 4.1 to 2.1, I didn't have good placement for the rear speakers (and it was annoying dealing with all the extra wires), so when a cat chewed through my subwoofer wire requiring a replacement, I went for a set that needed less space.

My local computer store in rural Canada said they're expecting to hear news from their supplier on Monday of a shipment arriving during the week

AMD's website for the 5950x says 3200Mhz, so that's what I bought (it arrived today). I can't speak to how well it'll do since I haven't been able to buy the CPU itself yet.

Newegg sold out faster than I realized they were up, so I went to my local retailer (they're a chain big enough to have several locations), and they didn't even have it in their inventory system. I was told they'd arrive next week. I'm really curious at how the supply will be on Newegg.

I am also in the same boat, putting together a 5000 series PC. My 3080 is on backorder, and the 5800 XT looked like a good alternative. I also have a GSync monitor (an expensive one I bought over the summer, so I won't be replacing it anytime soon). The performance boost for combining a 5000 series CPU with 6000 series GPU was interesting, but then I realized that the combo bonus is what's allowing the 6000 series to match with NVIDIA. If they're both going to perform the same, I might as well get the one that my monitor's variable refresh supports, which is NVIDIA's. If not for already owning a Gsync monitor, I'd be preparing to switch to Radeon and looking for benchmarks & availability for the final decision. As it stands, I'm sticking with NVIDIA this round because of gsync.