Random Tech Questions you want answered.

I mean... that's an improvement. At this point you're getting into the "could be this, could be that" territory and for that old of a system... unless you're really interested in learning it's unlikely to be worth the trouble.

The next thing I'd do is, with the case open so I could watch and OHM running, put the system under some kind of heavy CPU load and see if the CPU fan ramps up with the increase in heat. If it doesn't, then it may be a bad fan (and hopefully not an issue with the motherboard). If it does ramp up... it might still be an issue with the fan, but I'd be heading to Google to get some better ideas.

Is that 70s while idle or 70s at load?

Have you also checked the temperatures in another utility? (I recommend HWINFO64)

*Legion* wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

What is the best way nowadays for cleaning dust out of the system? Figured if I'm going to be swapping the PSU out, I may as well give it all an extra good cleaning out too.

One of these. I will never not own one of these again.

A couple cans of compressed air are cheaper, but for the price of about 10 cans, it solves the problem forever. (Or at least as long as the motor lasts)

+1. I was going to recommend my trusty DataVac (which despite the name does not vacuum), but it's over $100 now (holy @#$%!). It's metal, which really helps as a heat sink for the motor, but there's no way it's worth the price difference for occasional use.

PurEvil wrote:

I mean... that's an improvement. At this point you're getting into the "could be this, could be that" territory and for that old of a system... unless you're really interested in learning it's unlikely to be worth the trouble.

The next thing I'd do is, with the case open so I could watch and OHM running, put the system under some kind of heavy CPU load and see if the CPU fan ramps up with the increase in heat. If it doesn't, then it may be a bad fan (and hopefully not an issue with the motherboard). If it does ramp up... it might still be an issue with the fan, but I'd be heading to Google to get some better ideas.

Yeah, I probably won’t mess with it too much more. At least, not anything that would require putting money into it.

LouZiffer wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

What is the best way nowadays for cleaning dust out of the system? Figured if I'm going to be swapping the PSU out, I may as well give it all an extra good cleaning out too.

One of these. I will never not own one of these again.

A couple cans of compressed air are cheaper, but for the price of about 10 cans, it solves the problem forever. (Or at least as long as the motor lasts)

+1. I was going to recommend my trusty DataVac (which despite the name does not vacuum), but it's over $100 now (holy @#$%!). It's metal, which really helps as a heat sink for the motor, but there's no way it's worth the price difference for occasional use.

Seems like Legion's is the way to go for longer-term then.

I've thought about getting a DataVac, but I've yet to run into a situation where I thought the X-Power was insufficient. Maybe if I ran the motor harder, used it in longer bursts to where heat buildup could become an issue. But using it like compressed air, running it 30 seconds to 2 minutes at a time... it's just been all I could expect.

Either way, having something like this is a dream, and I'll more often blast things clean with air because I have it on hand. Definitely beats going through cans of compressed air.

I was holding my DataVac just a minute ago, wondering if I could rig it onto a pole to blow out my soffits.... But I should probably buy an air compressor.
Edit: point is I love mine and made work buy me one so I could leave my personal one at home.

I'd recommend never getting a vacuum or blower that charges via USB. Cheap underpowered garbage.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I'd recommend never getting a vacuum or blower that charges via USB. Cheap underpowered garbage.

TOTES AGREE.

To work the way one might expect, you'd need a fairly expensive motor with a good chunky battery. It would also require more expensive electronic components to regulate the DC voltage because you're running the motor for potentially extended periods of time (otherwise that battery and everything hooked up to it are going to die an early death). The USB stuff is crap, because 5 volts could never charge a device which would be worth a damn.

USB-C at its highest voltage would provide a decent charge. At that point there are still better dedicated DC power supplies already which don't have to negotiate their voltage with other devices which might be plugged into them. You don't want to automatically feed 20 volts to some poor soul's phone because they plug it into your dedicated vacuum charger!

Question--any idea why my reported wi-fi connection speed drops when I begin a download? This happens around mid-way through the video below, once I start a speed test. It happens consistently, and I'm wondering if it's just Windows being Windows, or an actual issue with my wi-fi adapter that could have an impact on connection speeds.

My guess would be that there's another wireless network on a nearby channel.

I'm not sure if it works the same with the the 5GHz bands, but down on 2.4GHz, channels overlap, so that Channel 1 causes interference in channels 2 through 5, channel 6 interferes with 2 through 5 and 7 through 10, and 11 interferes with 7 through 10. (this is why you should only ever use channels 1, 6, and 11, because they don't interfere at all with one another.) Worse, when you're getting interference from an adjacent channel, it just looks like packet loss to your AP, meaning that retransmits rise sharply and speeds drop. If interfering APs are actually on the same channel, they can see each other and can use collision avoidance algorithms, typically improving results for both.

I'm not certain that the modern 5GHz bands work the same way, but that's how I'd read your speed result there... that there's something hidden that's interfering, only detectable when the link is under load, and your AP is changing sync speeds to try to avoid the problem. If you can figure out what the other device is, you can probably change channels to either avoid it or to be on the same channel, so that the collision detection can work properly.

I really don't have much experience with anything past 11g, though, as I've largely abandoned wireless networking as insecure. This is old experience that I'm projecting forward to new hardware, and I could be very badly mistaken.

Not sure if it is still the best tool for the job but Kismet used to be a very solid tool for diagnosing wireless issues.

Thanks Malor and Rykin. Turns out I was using the generic win 10 driver for my wi-fi adapter. Once I installed Netgear's driver, it stopped dropping and download speeds actually stay more consistent. Derp on me for not trying that first...

EDIT - Solved. Make sure to check all your audio cables, folks. Leaving this here as a reminder to tick the most basic checklist items first.

OK, so this is odd.

The other day I went to record a podcast, plugged in my XLR to USB adaptor mic pre-amp as normal - and it wasnt' recognised by garageband. Didn't pick up any audio from the microphone.

Tried new cables, different mics, USB ports etc., tried using Logic, but ended up with same issue.

ORdered a new, entirely different, XLR to USB adaptor - and the same issue. Can't detect the microphone.

It's not the USB port because I've just updated the OS to High Sierra and used the USB port to back up to an external drive.

Can't see anything in Garageband settings. Can't see anything in the system preferences.

Any ideas? I've got not idea what to do.

Solved how though?

It was one of the XLR cables.

I use a microphone that's meant for radio studios and requires a lot of power. It uses three-pin XLR cables. I had one XLR cable going from the microphone into kind of signal booster and a second running from the signal booster into the USB converter, which then had a cable into the laptop.

I bought a new XLR cable, but must have only checked the old cable going from signal booster the laptop, *not* the mic into the signal booster.

I think so, anyway. Because later that old cable seemed to work, but I don't know if it was in a spotioj that meant any internal kinks or breaks were temporarily aligned or it was something else all along.

I see!! Thanks for explaining

Finally got a chance to replace that power supply this evening. Getting the old one out was horrible since there was some places in the case that I couldn't see under, so I didn't know what was connected where if anything under there. Turned out to just be fan connections and they had put a zip tie that complicated things, but I finally got everything out!

Slowly managed to find the right cables to get everything hooked back up and then tried booting it and the power supply came on and the monitor light blinked blue, but no fans at all were running except the power supply itself and the graphics card fan. So then I plugged the case fan into a different plug and those started working, but no motherboard fan. Then I messed around near the fan and found out a wire was preventing it from spinning and then they all worked!

The monitor was just blinking blue and staying dark and for some reason (and it was doing it before the power supply swap) it isn't coming in or out of sleep mode properly, so I have to fiddle with getting it shut down so that the monitor light turns yellow and then it will come on properly. Did that and then everything booted up and worked! YAY!

Definitely didn't just take an easy few minutes like it apparently does for some people, but then that's the usual case for me when I do something like this, but hopefully no more trouble with fans for a while!

Taking things slow and having a few false starts are expected. Way to persevere! Now you're more experienced than most PC owners.

Not sure if this is the best thread for this question, but I want to hook up my older consoles to my PC set-up. I understand that I need an RCA to VGA converter for the video to monitor. However, what do I need for audio? I have no speakers at the moment - just my regular PC headphones. Is it possible to put the audio through the PC or do I need an amplifier or something?

Personally I'd just grab one of these adapters. Hook the yellow to your VGA adapter for video, then just run the red/white audio separate. I mean, it's probably possible to run it through the PC, but I'd imagine it'd be more of a headache than it's worth. But then, I absolutely hate troubleshooting audio when I know there's a very easy hardware solution to avoid it altogether.

Since I had so much success with the power supply, I've decided to finally put more memory into my desktop, which should be extraordinarily easy by comparison!

It looks like I'll have to just replace my existing memory, though I'll likely just try to put both sets in at once and see what happens. I constantly run out of memory with 4GB these days, so I'll be going up to 8GB. (I can go up to 16GB with this motherboard, but will see how 8GB does first since I'll eventually want to replace the motherboard and then will likely need a whole different set of memory for that.)

PurEvil wrote:

Personally I'd just grab one of these adapters. Hook the yellow to your VGA adapter for video, then just run the red/white audio separate. I mean, it's probably possible to run it through the PC, but I'd imagine it'd be more of a headache than it's worth. But then, I absolutely hate troubleshooting audio when I know there's a very easy hardware solution to avoid it altogether.

Not quite the right adapter there. You would need female RCA to female 3.5mm so you can plug-in speakers or headphones.

bekkilyn wrote:

Since I had so much success with the power supply, I've decided to finally put more memory into my desktop, which should be extraordinarily easy by comparison!

It looks like I'll have to just replace my existing memory, though I'll likely just try to put both sets in at once and see what happens. I constantly run out of memory with 4GB these days, so I'll be going up to 8GB. (I can go up to 16GB with this motherboard, but will see how 8GB does first since I'll eventually want to replace the motherboard and then will likely need a whole different set of memory for that.)

What is your current memory configuration? How many slots and how many sticks and what size? Also what memory standard (DDR3 or DDR4)?

Rykin wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

Personally I'd just grab one of these adapters. Hook the yellow to your VGA adapter for video, then just run the red/white audio separate. I mean, it's probably possible to run it through the PC, but I'd imagine it'd be more of a headache than it's worth. But then, I absolutely hate troubleshooting audio when I know there's a very easy hardware solution to avoid it altogether.

Not quite the right adapter there. You would need female RCA to female 3.5mm so you can plug-in speakers or headphones.

I was thinking of plugging mine directly into the console, but that works too.

PurEvil wrote:
Rykin wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

Personally I'd just grab one of these adapters. Hook the yellow to your VGA adapter for video, then just run the red/white audio separate. I mean, it's probably possible to run it through the PC, but I'd imagine it'd be more of a headache than it's worth. But then, I absolutely hate troubleshooting audio when I know there's a very easy hardware solution to avoid it altogether.

Not quite the right adapter there. You would need female RCA to female 3.5mm so you can plug-in speakers or headphones.

I was thinking of plugging mine directly into the console, but that works too.

Depends on the console. Most of mine are Nintendo (SNES and N64) consoles that use a proprietary multi-out into component cable so that is the sort of adapter you need in that setup.

halfwaywrong wrote:

Not sure if this is the best thread for this question, but I want to hook up my older consoles to my PC set-up. I understand that I need an RCA to VGA converter for the video to monitor. However, what do I need for audio? I have no speakers at the moment - just my regular PC headphones. Is it possible to put the audio through the PC or do I need an amplifier or something?

So with one of the adapters mentioned above you would need some form of headphone amplifier as well otherwise you would probably get very low volume and have no volume control unless you are using headphone with an inline volume control.

Fair point. It's been forever since I hooked up a console older than a Wii, and while I own one of those replicated Sega Genesis consoles (the classic consoles with games pre-loaded) those tend to have RCA jacks.

Rykin wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

Since I had so much success with the power supply, I've decided to finally put more memory into my desktop, which should be extraordinarily easy by comparison!

It looks like I'll have to just replace my existing memory, though I'll likely just try to put both sets in at once and see what happens. I constantly run out of memory with 4GB these days, so I'll be going up to 8GB. (I can go up to 16GB with this motherboard, but will see how 8GB does first since I'll eventually want to replace the motherboard and then will likely need a whole different set of memory for that.)

What is your current memory configuration? How many slots and how many sticks and what size? Also what memory standard (DDR3 or DDR4)?

I have four slots and currently have two sticks of 2GB each. I've ordered two sticks of 4GB each. It's currently DDR3 and I've ordered DDR3.

This is what I have on order since these were on the list of the memory guaranteed to work with my motherboard:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...

I've read that having both my current and the new memory installed may or may not work. Some say it won't and I've heard others say it might and will just use whatever speed is slowest, so I may try it both ways and see what happens.

Rykin wrote:
halfwaywrong wrote:

Not sure if this is the best thread for this question, but I want to hook up my older consoles to my PC set-up. I understand that I need an RCA to VGA converter for the video to monitor. However, what do I need for audio? I have no speakers at the moment - just my regular PC headphones. Is it possible to put the audio through the PC or do I need an amplifier or something?

So with one of the adapters mentioned above you would need some form of headphone amplifier as well otherwise you would probably get very low volume and have no volume control unless you are using headphone with an inline volume control.

Does your PC have audio-in RCA sockets on the back? Seems that would be the easiest to just pipe the audio in there. Dunno if that might result in laggy audio, but seems like it would be the easiest first thing to try if you got it.