I keep finding weird things going on with my new PC. Today I was troubleshooting some game issues and turned off HDR in the Windows Display settings. The game started up fine, but when it quit, the desktop switched back to HDR. WTF?
On the bright side, figuring this out might help me figure out why my windows keep repositioning themselves at seemingly random times. Now I'm suspecting the monitor color profile (which I set up in HDR) might be the culprit? So confused.
Oh and the reason I was disabling HDR in the first place was that my TV started making a whining sound when I moved a certain way in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora. Strange things are afoot at the LG CX.
In the last week or so Outlook on my PC is generating 20gb temporary log files and not clearing them when it is closed down. I'd like them cleared on exit or moved to a different storage drive.
Has anyone heard of this?
I've a small SSD as my C: drive and this takes most of the available space, but loads of space on other internal drives.
The new outlook or "classic"? I have been using the new one on my work PC the past month or so and have noticed disk space usage ballooning and performance issues caused by it. Never thought to correlate the two.
I guess it's classic, part of my Office365 sub. It's definitely the log file increasing and not being cleared and also definitely only started in the last week or two.
I guess it's classic, part of my Office365 sub. It's definitely the log file increasing and not being cleared and also definitely only started in the last week or two.
Office 365 offers both versions.
New version:
Classic:
To see if it was causing my problems, I tried logging into outlook through a browser. It is pretty much the same as the app. Maybe that can work as a solution if you can't stop it from generating those log files.
"Turn logging on or off
If you don't turn off logging, the log files continue to increase in size. In Outlook, go to the File tab > Options > Advanced. Under Other, select or clear the Enable troubleshooting logging (requires restarting Outlook) check box."
Is that any use?
"Turn logging on or off
If you don't turn off logging, the log files continue to increase in size. In Outlook, go to the File tab > Options > Advanced. Under Other, select or clear the Enable troubleshooting logging (requires restarting Outlook) check box."Is that any use?
Thanks.
It was off, that was something I'd noticed. I've switched it on now and got a message about when I rebooted so will check tomorrow to see if anything has changed.
To see if it was causing my problems, I tried logging into outlook through a browser. It is pretty much the same as the app. Maybe that can work as a solution if you can't stop it from generating those log files.
Thanks, I can use the browser version but it does something strange with sent emails so I tend not to use it!
My current NAS setup is two 3TB external hard drives and 1 external 8 TB hard drive connected to my Raspberry Pi 5 via USB, where the content of the first 2 is rsync'd each night to the third one.
All of those hard drives are old and will probably need replacement relatively soon, and I would like to have them all in one enclosure connected to the Pi with USB3. I use it for file and media server, so performance is not a concern.
Anyone has a similar setup and has a brand they can recommend?
I want to upgrade the control setup for our projector PC. We have an old Windows wireless keyboard with touchpad and a wireless logitech trackball with a bad switch in the left button. It's adequate for watching movies and such but my son (11 YO) also uses it to play Roblox (and will likely play other games). He is used to the trackball but also plays games on the PS4. Is there such a thing as a good gaming controller/kb/mouse all in one? Recommendations on a better setup for couch gaming with a PC?
I want to upgrade the control setup for our projector PC. We have an old Windows wireless keyboard with touchpad and a wireless logitech trackball with a bad switch in the left button. It's adequate for watching movies and such but my son (11 YO) also uses it to play Roblox (and will likely play other games). He is used to the trackball but also plays games on the PS4. Is there such a thing as a good gaming controller/kb/mouse all in one? Recommendations on a better setup for couch gaming with a PC?
The answer to that used to be the Steam Controller, but they made the keyboard interface worse in order to make it consistent with the way game consoles handle text input with a controller. Also they haven't been in production in forever and the prices on the secondary market are getting pretty high.
I've liked the old Xbox "chat pad" controller attachment for text input, but it doesn't function on a Windows PC unless you're plugged in to USB.
Let us know if you find something. I'm driving my projector with an Xbox Series X at the moment, but a good PC input solution could change that.
My current NAS setup is two 3TB external hard drives and 1 external 8 TB hard drive connected to my Raspberry Pi 5 via USB, where the content of the first 2 is rsync'd each night to the third one.
All of those hard drives are old and will probably need replacement relatively soon, and I would like to have them all in one enclosure connected to the Pi with USB3. I use it for file and media server, so performance is not a concern.
Anyone has a similar setup and has a brand they can recommend?
My general recommendation for anything drive related is "do whatever storagereview.com says to do."
That said, the spinning rust market has not really changed much in quite a while, and their answer for long-running drives you want reasonable performance from and don't expect to be shut down very often is almost always one of:
- Western Digital Red Pro
- Western Digital Gold
- Seagate IronWolf Pro
I generally just go look up these three, pick the one that's the best price-per-gig at the time -- which is currently in the 20-22TB range!!! -- and I've never had any major issues. My synology has a mix of all three.
Also, these drives usually have surprisingly long warranties since they're meant for datacenter use, you can generally get at least one round of RMAs before they go out of support, either free or sometimes a small ($10-ish) fee if you want them to send you the new one before you send the old one back.
I did not know that website, thanks for the link! I will take a look. I'm also looking at the various brands for the hard drive enclosures... Ideally I would like to get one with 4 bays.
Ranger's reccs are solid, but with quality comes cost.
I have a 4-bay NAS and a 2-bay NAS (I started with a 2-bay, then just kept it when I upgraded to a 4-bay).
Both are QNAP. In the 4-bay I have shucked Western Digital drives. The era of shucking has kind of ended, hard drive manufacturers have caught on and now the drives you get are a lot more variable.
But the drives I'm running are 8TB HG Ultrastar HE10s, going strong four years now and so far, so good.
In the 2-bay I have 12TB WD Red Plus drives. WD Red Pros have a longer warranty and are technically rated for higher workloads, but I don't think most home users are going to really be stressing those limits either way.
Red Plus drives are still "CMR" (there was a hubbub awhile back because HDD manufacturers weren't making it clear which drives are SMR and which are CMR. SMR is "shingled", basically data layers overlap and that's generally fine for desktop use but not great for NAS use).
Unless you're really a power user, most folks would probably still be fine with WD Red Plus, regular IronWolf, or Barracuda Pros (regular Barracudas are sometimes SMR).
Even the site Ranger mentions still speaks well of the regular Ironwolf and WD Red drives (since the review is older, what it refers to as WD Red would be a WD Red Plus these days).
It might help to try and gauge how much space you think you'll need, then estimate capacity from there, and shop around.
The DataHoarder folks seem to recommend https://serverpartdeals.com/ a lot, and I am considering buying some refurbished Barracuda Pro or HGST Ultrastar drives for my next upgrade from there. Used drives, but they still offer a warranty, so if one fails in a 4-drive setup that should give me decent wiggle room to replace it. Certain models of the "manufacturer refurbished" drives have a 2-year warranty.
For some reason on their eBay shop they're offering a 5-year seller warranty on refurbished Seagate Barracuda Pro drives, and I have to admit that's pretty tempting...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/296318603249
Granted, that does all depend on your tolerance for risk. Used is used! But upgrading my 4-bay so that I have ~30TB of storage for about $400 total instead of $300 per drive changes my math and risk tolerance a bit.
If you have some old HDDs you want to dispose of, and you don't want to roll the dice on refurbished drives, you can get a 15% off coupon from Western Digital if you send in some drives:
https://www.westerndigital.com/company/programs/easy-recycle
It's pretty easy to do, they even provide a shipping label. That's how I purchased the drives I'm using in the 2-bay right now.
One caveat is the coupon is only for regular priced drives, you can't stack them with a sale. So if you shop around on Amazon or NewEgg, you might find the same drives for less than WD sells them direct for, even with 15% off. But it's still a handy way to dispose of HDDs safely, IMO.
If you're shopping around for a 4-bay NAS, the two QNAPs I have are basically the older versions of The Wirecutter's reccs:
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-network-attached-storage/
I like Lon Siedman's reviews as well, he talks a lot of NAS stuff:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCZHp4d1HnIux8V0yIZTUNT8nW8htpOVF&feature=shared
And there's also nascompares:
https://www.youtube.com/@nascompares/videos
If you just need an enclosure, I've had a Mediasonic ProRAID for 4 years and no issues so far (knock on wood). This is the newer/USB-C version of what I have:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KY73BNQ
But if your Pi is handling the NAS/RAID stuff, maybe you don't need something with hardware RAID:
Ooh, serverpartdeals.com is a good tip, I'll keep that one in my back pocket for next time. And yeah, in my case I have a Synology, if a drive goes out for a little bit I'm fine I can just pop a new one in, so I'm probably cool with refurbs as long as they've got the good warranty.
Does anyone have the best way to hook up wii controllers to PC? I've tried a couple ways but they just seem to complicated or don't work. Is the dolphin emulator a viable option if I don't want to play games on dolphin and just use it for the controllers?
Anybody have any opinions on cheap laptops (ideally in the $300 to $500 range)? I planning on taking some classes that require a Windows laptop. Basically wondering if there are specific brands to avoid.
Where are you shopping around?
Below $500 is heavily get what you pay for territory, IMO. Even within reliable brands there's going to be a range of quality.
Like Thinkpads are pretty solid, but Lenovo also makes IdeaPads.
XPS 13s are pretty solid computers, but Dell also makes Inspirons.
Acer makes a variety in that price range.
If you were looking for a daily driver that would be your primary device and had a higher budget, I'd probably suggest shooting for above IdeaPad/Inspiron/Acer type stuff. But I also think any of those would still get the job done if you have realistic expectations for the price. It may help to think of how much processing power/RAM/SSD size you want, then check reviews for any particular model you're thinking about.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-laptop-under-500/#best-windows-laptops-under-500
Sometimes the Lenovo and Dell Outlet shops have decent deals on refurbished laptops:
https://www.dell.com/en-us/dfh/lp/outlet
https://www.lenovo.com/us/outletus/en/
Like this seems decent at the top of your price range:
Seems like a lower end Thinkpad model (not an OG Thinkpad):
If you meet the income qualifications, I've bought computers from these folks before and they were decent:
They're a non-profit that refurbishes computers, so they have requirements you be below a certain income level or work for a non-profit. (I was purchasing laptops for a local group.)
https://www.pcsforpeople.org/eligibility/
You do have to prove you're eligible:
Documentation of current enrollment in an income-based government assistance program OR documentation of current household income (under 200% of the federal poverty level or 60% of area median income)
200% federal poverty would be less than $30,000, but that second one can be pretty generous depending on your area. Like for me the "area median income" is $87,000, and I definitely do not make that much, ha. 60% of that would mean $52,000 or less. Which is more than I currently make, and I like to think I'm finally earning a living wage.
https://pcsrefurbished.com/sales/categorySales.aspx?categoryID=4
You might also check if your local library has a laptop program, they might let you check one out for a class.
The problem with reviews that all of them review assuming a level of usage far above what I need. I'm going to be turning this on to run whatever software it is that they need to be on Windows (presumably LabView, their Mac versions were always terrible and, at least when I used to use it, you couldn't VIs made using the Windows version) and never for anything else. I need a review site that will tell me whether or not the thing will fall apart within two years or not.
Reading between the lines a bit - do you already have a Mac (laptop)? If so, could you just run Windows in a VM on your Mac?
I don't have enough free storage to meet the minimum listed space requirement so I would need to run it off of an external drive. Would also need to constantly have dongles with me since my MacBook on has USB-C ports. How well does a virtual machine handle peripherals?
To clarify, I'm not looking to go cheap on this because I can't afford it. I'm being cheap because I won't care about this machine outside of this purpose.
Your budget is plenty for getting a late T4x0 series Thinkpad and maxing out its capacity, or a T14 Gen 1. The Fn and Ctrl keys will even be in the same place as on a Mac.
Anything that's under $500 new I wouldn't bet money on whether it will fall apart after two years, regardless of brand or model.
Like if you go to a Best Buy and actually type on a few, and give them a heft, you'll see that they often feel cheap. You get what you pay for.
So rather than cheap brands or models to avoid, getting something higher end that's used like Kurrelgyre suggested is probably better.
I literally have a six year old XPS 13 that's in relatively good shape sitting right next to me. The battery could use replacing, and the rubber coating has started to degrade, but otherwise in surprisingly good condition.
I think the T and X series Thinkpads have metal/reinforced frames, so they're pretty sturdy.
Alright, sounds like the refurb market will be the way to go.
Now, that leads to another question which isn't really a tech question. Do people think the prices of refurbs are going to go up if/when the prices on imports go nuts? I don't actually need this until August but I was going to buy as soon as possible to avoid getting gouged due to morons.
Oof. That's a hard one. I did buy a PSU and SSD, and I'm thinking about getting a GPU because of similar fears (but I've held off.)
If it does happen, and people buy more used/refurbished devices, it could end up like the car situation where used car prices are just wacky right now.
But right now it just seems like we're rolling the dice. I ended up holding off on the GPU because prices just haven't decreased as much as I hoped (Black Friday and Christmas "sales" have been awful this year). If it happens, I'll spend more time on my backlog than new games, I guess!
If you find someone willing to make a confident prediction with some analysis behind it, I'd be curious to read it too! 
Alright, sounds like the refurb market will be the way to go.
Now, that leads to another question which isn't really a tech question. Do people think the prices of refurbs are going to go up if/when the prices on imports go nuts? I don't actually need this until August but I was going to buy as soon as possible to avoid getting gouged due to morons.
I went ahead and pulled the trigger on one of the new Mac Minis, not because I need it, but because I expect I will need to replace my MacBook Pro for editing before things stabilize and that's what I can afford to spend hedging that bet...
I believe that the refurb/used market will be hit even harder than the regular, as everyone tries to get to the deals on reasonable gear before they are marked up for the duration (and longer). Caveat emptor.
So I’ve been having an issue with a relatively new ASUS ROG 14 laptop. For the last couple of weeks, without fail, any time the screen wakes up from idle (I.e., opening up the laptop lid or moving the mouse after the screen has idled), the screen will come on normally for a few seconds, then flash, everything turns purple, and then slowly fades to black from the center of the screen out.
The computer itself is still functioning normally in the background, it’s just that the screen is out.
A hard reset solves the issue until the next time the screen idles.
My guess is there’s something weird going on with how power is being restored to the gpu that’s causing it to crash after idling, but I have no idea how I would go about resolving it. If anyone has any thoughts before i start opening up a warranty claim id love to hear them!
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