Random Tech Questions you want answered.

I went with the AIO cpu cooling system recommended here, and could not be happier. I've always had airflow issues with cases, in one way or another (not enough fans, dead spots, unreliable manufacturer fans), and we have dogs, so dust is a real concern. The AIO water cooler just needs to have the dust blown off the fan periodically. I tell it's running from the quiet but constant sound and the airflow at the top vents of the case, so failures should be easy to detect.

I'm really happy with it. And this is in an environment where I can clog a system filter in a few weeks of constant airflow. Air coolers were always a nightmare of tangled hair and dust to clean out.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

A couple of days ago my monitor decided it will no longer go into sleep mode when Windows 10 turns off the screen--instead it just turns off, which is extremely annoying because it won't wake up when I move the mouse/tap the keyboard. Any thought on what could have caused this change? Factors that may be involved:

- I recently installed the monitor on a VESA mount. When doing so I unplugged the video cable (HDMI > DVI) while the computer was on.

- Around the same time, my PS3 controller plugged into the PC suddenly decided to stop allowing Windows to shut the screen off. Unplugging the controller fixes this, but any time I plug it back in, this issue returns. From what I've read it's a USB problem that happens with game controllers

-Recently installed Windows updates

Monitor: LG 23EA63

Had something like this issue recently. The only USB item is the mouse, no controller. I had just installed the recent spate of Win10 updates. PC went to sleep, and ignored all attempts to wake it up. Tapping keys, moving the mouse, clicking the mouse, hitting the reset button and front power button, no response. I started thinking I had a dead motherboard. Finally, I hit the power switch on the back, the one on the PSU. That did the trick.

So, I went through and turned off all sleep mode settings, and stopped using the Sleep mode key on the keyboard.

Turned out my problem was Nvidia. Goodbye GeForce experience.

I have an ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO DDR3 2800 LGA 1150 motherboard. Instead of showing the POST image and text, it's showing this gibberish instead. If I restart it'll still show the gibberish, but I can hit enter and get to my normal desktop. Everything seems to be working alright otherwise. Any idea where I should start looking for a solution?

I would guess that it is unable to display the image during the power on self test and throwing that text up in its place. Can you get into the BIOS screen? If so there should be an option where you choose what to display during POST. If that doesn't work you might want to consider re-flashing the BIOS.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Turned out my problem was Nvidia. Goodbye GeForce experience.

I recently had to reinstall my Nvidia drivers as the latest push was randomly putting my monitor to sleep.

Does anyone know of a fix for not being able to control volume with usb headsets in Windows?

I have a Plantronics usb headset at work and when I am using it as the default device in Windows I cannot control the volume in Windows. All I can do is set the volume to 0 (muted) or 1-100. The range does not change raise or lower the volume though. It is always the same volume - which can then be independently controlled on the headset itself.

The problem is that the headset minimum volume is still quite high. I know this is a Windows issue because I have the same behavior when I plug my Sony Golds (drink!) into my pc at home as well. This issue never bothered me before with those because their lowest volume is quite low.

Any ideas? The internet is no help.

Does it break out into an analog headset jack at some point? If so, you could add inline volume controls.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Does it break out into an analog headset jack at some point? If so, you could add inline volume controls.

No it doesn’t. I should’ve wrote wireless usb headset.

I live in a DC row house that was built over 100 years ago and has a similar layout to the below layout's main and upper level (no lower level). The hallway to the kitchen and staircase are on the opposite side. Kitchen spans both the kitchen and patio in diagram. The router (2.4/5g 1000 gbit) is located in the top left part of the living room layout. Can't really move it. Bedroom 3 currently has poor to no working reception. I want to buy a wifi extender that preserves the router speed so bedroom 3 has good bandwidth/latency. From my understanding, these old houses have really poor reception through walls but the floors don't block much. I'm in master bedroom and my gaming ping and connection is perfect.

IMAGE(http://www.wheredoyoudwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/JM-216EmersonSt-FloorPlan-MLS-R1.jpg)

2 questions:

1. Can someone recommend a quality extender for the router? Does it matter if it is the same brand? It's some Verizon fios OOB router. I saw prices on Amazon in the 50-70 range and that seems fine.

2. Where should I place the extender? I'm thinking somewhere in the kitchen so it goes up through the ceiling into bedroom 3, and as an added bonus, out into the backyard.

You are better off disabling the WiFi in the Router and going with a mesh system. I like the Ubiquiti UniFi line but it’s a bit more complex to setup. The Eero line is really simple and easy to setup and works well.

I am making use of a TP-Link AC750 Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender to get a computer that doesn't have wifi connected to my network and it is working great. It doesn't care what brand your router is or anything like that and it was mostly simple to setup. It features an ethernet port so it can be used to bridge a wired and wireless network if you need to.

TheGameguru wrote:

You are better off disabling the WiFi in the Router and going with a mesh system. I like the Ubiquiti UniFi line but it’s a bit more complex to setup. The Eero line is really simple and easy to setup and works well.

/agree

I was at Zair's house in Sacramento this for the last 8 days and he's having an issue in his new house with WiFi. I use UniFi's in my house and have even gone down to just using a single UniFi LR ( Long Range ). It cover the whole 2300 sqft house and even the yard. I recommended a like solution for him.

I previously had 2 running as a mesh and it worked fine, but was overkill for what I needed. The 2 UniFi LRs and the one non-LR I have were all hand-me-downs from work after they switched to Merakis, so I didn't do any research since they were free.

Kit's parents have Eeros and have no issues with them. Neither they nor I set them up so I personally don't know how easy they are. As Guru said, the Unifis can be complicated to setup.

So, basically... what Guru said!

I'd send you the extra LR and the non-LR to use as a Mesh, but both of my LRs have a weird thing where after a couple months, the one I have plugged in will just stop connecting to the network. No amount of rebooting, unplugging, etc. fixes it. What I do is unplug it, plug the other one in, and that one works. After a couple months when it happens again, I swap them again and the one that previously wouldn't connect connects just fine. They are now configured exactly the same so our wifi devices connect just fine. It's very odd, but these were old when I got them and I've had them for quite a while so I don't knock them for it. I've never update the firmware that I remember, either. So, I need the two LRs to back each other up and the single non-LR wouldn't do you any good. Unless you do end up buying UniFis and want an extra one, in which case you can have it.

-BEP

It's time for a router upgrade. I'm looking at this one:

Netgear (R7000-100PAS) Nighthawk AC1900 Dual Band WiFi Router.

I game and my wife streams a lot of TV. I currently use an Access Point for my wireless, but I may switch back to using the router if the one I buy has the range for the whole house. We have a lot of wireless devices.

I'd appreciate opinions on a router purchase. The house is about 2300sqft and 2 level. The router will be upstairs right in the middle of the floor. I'm not sure what else is important for a new router. Let me know if you need more info. I need to keep it sub-$200.

I would prefer 8 ports instead of 4, but I can live with 4 and continue to use the small switch I have here if I need to. The Netgear above only has 4.

Thanks,
-BEP

I have this same router in a similar setup (~2400 sq ft house, 3 levels if you count the basement, router on the ground floor). It works great, and I get good speeds over wifi (my basement computer gets ~80Mbps over a USB 3.0 wireless AC adapter), never a problem with streaming, playing games, downloads, etc., and I haven't noticed any slow or dead spots at any point of my house.

I have an R7000 and an R7800. They're both very good. I have the R7800 acting as the router and access point for the house, and then the R7000 as a separate access point for my detached office (which the R7800's signal does reach fine, but since it's my work space, I want full wifi signal strength in there).

Either device could easily cover the 2-level house and still reach the casita fine if I had to knock it down to only one device, but since I have them both, I've put them both to use.

Thanks for the input, you 2.

Ordering.

-BEP

Anybody using the Android Messages for web feature Google just released? I finally got it rolled out to me today, but it keeps losing the connection to my phone in spite of my PC and my phone both being connected to the same wifi network.

Middcore wrote:

Anybody using the Android Messages for web feature Google just released? I finally got it rolled out to me today, but it keeps losing the connection to my phone in spite of my PC and my phone both being connected to the same wifi network.

Still using Hangouts on my Pixel, so no. Nice to see they finally replicated the features they already had in their previous software.

I've moved to Signal for most things, and it tends to keep the desktop and phone apps in sync.

Just revisiting this thread, but doesn't mesh have latency issues?

I just recently fixed a problem I had with updating windows 10. Apparently my computer hadn't had a successful update since Nov 2017. Worse yet my updates were taking hours and then failing. When they failed I would get a empty desktop which freaked me out. However, at least windows would always restore the previous session before the update.

So I fixed this on accident. What I did is I open my laptop to check the progress of the update. I have tv and another monitor hooked up to my laptop so I always have the laptop closed. However, during updates the progress is only shown on the laptop.

Well after I did that the update took maybe 40 seconds instead of hours and everything seems to be working correctly. I had a long term blue tooth problem that has been fixed also. So leaving the laptop open fixed my updating problems. Sometimes I hate PCs.

My neighbor bought a mini projector from a pawn shop up the street. He got it for projecting movies for the boys and his son's Xbox. Only problem is it came with an old iPod connector only and not the VGA adaptor. It is a propritary input so I need to find a 3M VC05w adapter for him.

3M MP225
VC05W

Anyone help me get a line on one of these or knows a good cable shopping site?

Have you tried calling the manufacturer? I've had good luck with buying replacement cables for obscure ports directly from the source.

Skiptron wrote:

Have you tried calling the manufacturer? I've had good luck with buying replacement cables for obscure ports directly from the source.

I guess he returned the projector worried it wouldn't work. I was ready to call 3M, thankfully local here but afraid it was a discontinued product with a proprietary port, an idiotic thing to do.

So, the replacement PC I bought last year now is also broke with this. Unfortunately I didn't make any recovery media and I don't have originals as it was Win7. What options do I have? I thought maybe I could download something from MS and then validate with my software key, but it seems like you'd have to run a program on a PC you already have for that and my nearby friends all have Macs ( )

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/1l0u1hl.jpg)

From what I know you need to download either windows from someone else's PC onto a USB or see what you can do in recovery environment. I'll let someone else chime in. Sorry to hear.

Some manufacturers will place a recovery partition that you can use. It’s worth a try to see if that is present. In some cases you can even fully recover back to factory from that partition.

Outside of that you are looking at trying to get a download usb copy of Windows 10 and you can try a repair or in place upgrade.

Sound troubles... I've got really old speakers for my PC, like maybe 20 years old? They're by a company called labtec who don't exist any more as far as I can tell. Anyway, I'm only getting sound out of my left speaker now... nothing from the right speaker or sub woofer, and no amount of fiddling with balance settings and drivers is doing the trick.

I actually only noticed when playing Skyrim recently - I could only hear the NPC's if I was standing to one side of them.

There are lights on the two quiet speakers, which is the reason I've fiddled with the settings for so long - they must be getting power. But is it likely they're just too old for Windows 10 or something? I've no idea how long they haven't been working for, obviously most of the games I play don't use stereo. So, it could be a very recent thing, or could be they just haven't worked since I went to Windows 10.

Any suggestions much appreciated!

They might have just died.. if the audio cable to them from the PC is replaceable I would try that. Otherwise try some other source and see if it does the same thing.. something that has a line out even a smartphone (lol that's old)