What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

  • Thread starter tlowr4
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I'm having a weird issue with my PC that I can't work out how to troubleshoot. I recently got an HDMI repeater because trying to get 4K at 60Hz with HDR across a 5 metre passive cable to my TV just wasn't working reliably, but it seemed to mess the picture up - suddenly with my TV set to 16:9 the edges of the screen were cropped off (i.e. it was suddenly overscanning), the colours didn't look right (but I think I've fixed that by resetting the picture settings) and - this is the worst bit - Windows 10's text anti-aliasing was completely broken.

First of all there was jagged text with a light halo around it which looked disgusting, but then I realised I was in 1080p so I changed the resolution to 4K, and now it's just jagged. I've got my scaling set quite low at125%, I think, but it's quite hard to read so I'll probably increase it. I've found two settings that seem to affect it but neither actually do anything; if you press the Windows key and type 'advanced' there's a setting in the option that comes up to toggle it there, or if you start to type 'anti aliasing' it comes up with another option. I've tried turning them both off, rebooting and turning them back on but beyond that I have no idea.

I wonder if the repeater isn't capable of replicating enough colours to display smoothed text properly? How would I test this? Edit: I just ran an Ezio monitor test and the gradients looked smooth as anything... So strange!
 
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As early as yesterday, I started researching Linux. I feel I want to maybe start a new sort of software journey as I was not as keen about Android TV having used the Google Nexus Player and Xiaomi Mi Box S set top Android boxes. I am somewhat looking at possibly getting a mini PC to equip or is equipped with Linux. So at this point, I am looking at moving on from trying to develop for or use Android TV to looking at maybe something else to keep me company with my TV monitor. Or maybe you could say I am looking to try something just as fun or more so than I have when using set top Android TV boxes. What I don't want to do is take any of my existing set top boxes and try to hack into them to install a build of Linux. I just want a separate unit apart from my usual PC usage.

I have no Linux experience prior to this post except for playing a few Linux games that could also be played on other platforms. At one point, I even entertained the thought of taking my former HP computer and installing some build of Linux, since I hear some people have taken older PCs and laptops and installed Linux on them. I don't know if it is possible if I could dual-boot my former PC's WinXP with some build of Linux. Then too, my former PC's sound card is basically toast, and there would be times that PC would make a loud whine after using some programs for a long amount of time. I know there are people here on GTPlanet who have much more Linux experience than I do. So if I do pull the trigger on getting into the Linux ecosystem, I'm sure I can get some solid advice from people here on GTP to help help get me on my way with Linux.
 
Anyone here who encountered a problem using office-based programs like Microsoft Office or WPS Office to access documents saved from another computer? Yesterday, after a recent auto-update of Windows 8 in my personal laptop, the programs suddenly hang or become unresponsive each time I try to do that but this wasn't the case for the files I saved by my own there, in which the program seemed to worked fine with and nothing happened like that prior to the auto-update. However, after disabling the 'Printer Spool' through the settings, the problem suddenly disappeared and I can now access the said documents again with no hassle whatsoever. Before that though, I thought some other circumstances were causing the problem but they weren't. I wonder why and how that one started to occur there.
 
Got tired of my desktop looking like a mess, so I decided to finally clean it up a bit and it looks much better now. I often underestimate how refreshing a clean desktop is.

While I was in a cleaning mood, I decided to do some much-needed cleaning on my 2TB portable hard drive. It's been very cluttery and unorganized for a long time now and has tons upon tons of redundant files taking up space, so it was about time I finally did something about it. Went through and deleted nearly 300GB worth of stuff, reorganized a bunch of folders and pretty much have been giving it a complete overhaul. Not quite done yet, but it is already MILES better than it was before and it's incredibly refreshing to see it this way. I went from having about 400GB left to 735GB, so that's progress! I'll probably try to finish later and maybe do some more reorganizing on my computer as well.
 
JohnBM01
As early as yesterday, I started researching Linux. I feel I want to maybe start a new sort of software journey as I was not as keen about Android TV having used the Google Nexus Player and Xiaomi Mi Box S set top Android boxes. I am somewhat looking at possibly getting a mini PC to equip or is equipped with Linux. So at this point, I am looking at moving on from trying to develop for or use Android TV to looking at maybe something else to keep me company with my TV monitor. Or maybe you could say I am looking to try something just as fun or more so than I have when using set top Android TV boxes. What I don't want to do is take any of my existing set top boxes and try to hack into them to install a build of Linux. I just want a separate unit apart from my usual PC usage.

I have no Linux experience prior to this post except for playing a few Linux games that could also be played on other platforms. At one point, I even entertained the thought of taking my former HP computer and installing some build of Linux, since I hear some people have taken older PCs and laptops and installed Linux on them. I don't know if it is possible if I could dual-boot my former PC's WinXP with some build of Linux. Then too, my former PC's sound card is basically toast, and there would be times that PC would make a loud whine after using some programs for a long amount of time. I know there are people here on GTPlanet who have much more Linux experience than I do. So if I do pull the trigger on getting into the Linux ecosystem, I'm sure I can get some solid advice from people here on GTP to help help get me on my way with Linux.
Click to expand...

Try the linux masterminds thread. Installing Linux is easier than installing windows these days, so if you're apprehensive, put yourself at ease.
 
Bought used B450 Tomahawk board for $88 and a Ryzen 5 2600 for $128 and installed them today.
IMG_20190912_143943.jpg

My old b350 board and 1200 will both be going to my mother since her laptop is near death.
 
Set up a horrible second monitor. An old non hd Sanyo tv that’s been in my garage for years, connected via hdmi. Will be used for Xbox, discord and maybe some tutorial pages while gaming.
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Well, I don't know if my activity of today qualifies as a computer activity, but I did a few CNC carvings on my beloved and funny little machine, The Snapmaker.

It's one of the first weeks since I own this machine (January 2018) I'm discovering the CNC tool head and before I got started, I bought some acrylic paint at a DIY store.

Then I needed a piece of wood, found it in the kitchen (very useful space along our fridge to stack some scrap) and because I already tested the 3D text option in the Snapmaker software, I wanted to try out the vector option.

So I used one of the Livery editor folders and found a small GT planet logo = bingo.

It's really small, but in the end I can blow up the planet part of the logo onto coasters for example.

After the carving was done, used some white acrylic paint to fill it up and now have to wait some hours (tomorrow evening) to sand it down

IMG_20191003_192458

IMG_20191003_192458


IMG_20191003_192746

IMG_20191003_192746


IMG_20191003_192920

IMG_20191003_192920


Will upload the result this weekend hopefully and maybe also one or more GT planet coasters :D
 
Sometimes I can be such a moron. I only just realized... like just now... that hibernation is useful for desktops in addition to laptops. I now have my desktop hibernate. What the actual... why am I just now realizing this?
 
Danoff
Sometimes I can be such a moron. I only just realized... like just now... that hibernation is useful for desktops in addition to laptops. I now have my desktop hibernate. What the actual... why am I just now realizing this?
Click to expand...
Don't feel bad, it took me a few years before I even thought about trying to run a laptop plugged into the wall without a battery. Now, that's about the only way I use mine and I rarely use my battery anymore.
 
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Upgraded my second monitor to a 24 inch vizio smart tv. Can be a second monitor and also have it hooked up to my Xbox on the second hdmi. If I want I can just use it to watch Netflix and hulu from bed as well. Yes, it is held up on one side by a stack of books and boxes and I really can’t move the laptop over to the right, as it’s my primary keyboard. I really need a better desk, but this one I got was a good price, free from the side of the road
 
Yesterday, I moved the directory to my copy of GTR2 to my 1-terabyte drive. I went from 5 GB left on my main hard drive to a whopping 36 GB left on my main hard drive! I didn't realize I had this much in GB for GTR2! Most of it was from mods and from developing skins for GTR2 mods. I sometimes don't know what weighs down my PC to where I can only generate so much I can remove to acquire more space on my main hard drive. Even after I do the Disk Cleanup thing, I still see there is a lot of space still being used up. I grew a bit more concerned after installing another program (DaVinci Resolve 16). By that time, I had about 8 GB left on my main hard drive to go down to 5 GB. The install program itself was over 1 GB! So I did the install work from the 1TB hard drive. Moral of the story- free up hard disk when you can for whatever reason.
 
Went into damage control due to loop failure.

By the looks of it.
The Anti-vortex foam insert dissolved and must have caused a blockage which caused a pipe to pop off.
IMG_20191101_170810.jpg
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I also decided to delid my CPU during the rebuild
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I recently moved back in with my parents temporarily and goodness me is their home network a complete mess. First of all, their house is a reasonable width and depth but has five floors, most of the walls and floors are thick concrete and a couple of rooms have a mysterious Faraday cage effect, naturally there's no LAN cabling anywhere and running it would be difficult because the walls are a mix of cavity insulation where there's drywall, a gap then concrete behind and solid concrete, even in the same wall, so it's hard to predict where you can run cable through the wall and where you can't.

So they've got the router their ISP gave them (which, to be fair, seems reasonably good) in the room where the primary incoming phone line is, which is tucked away in the northwest corner of the middle floor, and one tiny 802.11ac repeater in the middle of the floor up from that. The result is their WiFi doesn't reach most of the house and the AP with the best coverage is running at half the maximum bandwidth. To make things worse, my dad set the repeater up so it has a different SSID to the router so devices are reluctant to switch between them, but both devices are set to the same channel so they compete with one another (I've only just realised this myself).

While I'm here I plan to:
  • Just get rid of the repeater because I think they're a bad solution,
  • Get some more Homeplug powerline ethernet adaptors (my dad has one pair already to get a wired connection in his office, which is in the basement) to connect some 802.11ac routers running in AP mode in the middle of the top, middle and basement floors, i.e. basically every other level of the stairwell that runs through the centre of the house,
  • Make sure the APs are on different channels so they aren't competing with one another but have the same SSID and passwords so that devices can roam between them,
  • Attempt to find a route for wired LAN to run from where the main router is to the basement and install a switch (he was eyeing up the 8-port gigabit switch I brought with me for all my stuff (PC, PS3, PS4, TV, etc.) as I've set up shop in the room where the router is...)
Any other recommendations for kit, solutions or tips to get the best out of the kit we have, please?
 
neema_t
I recently moved back in with my parents temporarily and goodness me is their home network a complete mess. First of all, their house is a reasonable width and depth but has five floors, most of the walls and floors are thick concrete and a couple of rooms have a mysterious Faraday cage effect, naturally there's no LAN cabling anywhere and running it would be difficult because the walls are a mix of cavity insulation where there's drywall, a gap then concrete behind and solid concrete, even in the same wall, so it's hard to predict where you can run cable through the wall and where you can't.

So they've got the router their ISP gave them (which, to be fair, seems reasonably good) in the room where the primary incoming phone line is, which is tucked away in the northwest corner of the middle floor, and one tiny 802.11ac repeater in the middle of the floor up from that. The result is their WiFi doesn't reach most of the house and the AP with the best coverage is running at half the maximum bandwidth. To make things worse, my dad set the repeater up so it has a different SSID to the router so devices are reluctant to switch between them, but both devices are set to the same channel so they compete with one another (I've only just realised this myself).

While I'm here I plan to:
  • Just get rid of the repeater because I think they're a bad solution,
  • Get some more Homeplug powerline ethernet adaptors (my dad has one pair already to get a wired connection in his office, which is in the basement) to connect some 802.11ac routers running in AP mode in the middle of the top, middle and basement floors, i.e. basically every other level of the stairwell that runs through the centre of the house,
  • Make sure the APs are on different channels so they aren't competing with one another but have the same SSID and passwords so that devices can roam between them,
  • Attempt to find a route for wired LAN to run from where the main router is to the basement and install a switch (he was eyeing up the 8-port gigabit switch I brought with me for all my stuff (PC, PS3, PS4, TV, etc.) as I've set up shop in the room where the router is...)
Any other recommendations for kit, solutions or tips to get the best out of the kit we have, please?
Click to expand...

No need for routers in AP mode, just go AP directly (these are Ubiquiti):

3950278


Routers tend to not create the best wifi signals, these guys will get the job done - I have 2 in my house and I shut down the wireless on my router because it was less reliable. One route for wired LAN is outside the house. You could run internet cabling through a conduit to the roof and come in from the top - that would at least get the top floor situated.

Another option is to go with a mesh network like google nest:

https://gizmodo.com/google-nest-wifi-is-all-the-router-most-people-need-1839612246
 
@Danoff Probably should've mentioned there's zero budget for this and my dad has some routers going spare, but I'll take a look.

I think I might've found a route for a cable to get into the riser that runs from the basement and probably to the loft but my dad's been in Italy on business all week so I can't really do anything without him. Getting a cable outside to go up to the roof would probably be quite easy too so if that route doesn't work out we could probably go up, into a switch and down the riser through the house (if the riser goes all the way up).

Thanks for the reply, something to think about!
 
Using an old router as an AP is what I done.
It works well.
Between the main modem router and the AP router.
The whole house has coverage.
 
Mostly this weekend, I have introduced myself to X3D. I grew curious of it as I was watching a video featuring an interesting method of modeling a Minecraft character by taking a skin and making it 3D. I visited some websites that had embedded applets of Minecraft character skins properly modeled and wondered how I could make my own graphics. I do not want to make my own embedded Minecraft model to be viewed online, but I had this as an interesting idea for perhaps as a web page project. So when I was looking around online, I learned of X3D. X3D is the successor of VRML. I wanted to try to learn X3D to possibly make that dream of a we applet viewing a virtual model come true. Nothing fancy comes to mind, because I want to make a model all out of cubes- just like Minecraft models.

I know only so much from my brief learning of X3D, but I feel I could make something once I felt I have a grasp on using and utilizing X3D. I also will keep trying to learn how to develop an online app similar to some of those Minecraft skin viewers online that have the fully rendered bodies with the skins.
 
I've felt recently that my PC has been getting low on space, mainly because of this:

drives.png

So I did this:

upload_2020-1-9_22-37-42.png


This massively triggers my OCD though because I've now got one 500GB 960 Evo (SW20), two 500GB 850 Evos (AE86 and KPGC10) and now a 1TB 860 Qvo. I feel like I need my SATA drives to all be 860 Qvos now. Anyway, 1.5TB to 2.5TB isn't bad, now I just have to fill it with games. I think I'll start by migrating the biggest ones off my existing drives.

Also, this is as close as I'll ever come to owning a garage full of JDM sports cars.
 
neema_t
I've felt recently that my PC has been getting low on space, mainly because of this:

View attachment 880502
So I did this:

View attachment 880503

This massively triggers my OCD though because I've now got one 500GB 960 Evo (SW20), two 500GB 850 Evos (AE86 and KPGC10) and now a 1TB 860 Qvo. I feel like I need my SATA drives to all be 860 Qvos now. Anyway, 1.5TB to 2.5TB isn't bad, now I just have to fill it with games. I think I'll start by migrating the biggest ones off my existing drives.

Also, this is as close as I'll ever come to owning a garage full of JDM sports cars.
Click to expand...
A friend of mine names his the same way with track names instead :lol:
 
Swagger897
A friend of mine names his the same way with track names instead :lol:
Click to expand...

It's a good system! There's no shortage of chassis codes or track names. Although chassis codes do make drive labels almost completely pointless because I can't remember which is which.
 
This past week, I've finally decided to build myself a gaming computer. I've built some regular pc for others, but I think this would be the first for just myself. Went with a Ryzen 9 3900x, with the Wraith Prizm, for the time being, paired with a MSI Geforce 2070 Super, and a Asus 570 Prime Pro Motherboard. Two 8GB 3200mhz Corsair Vengeance sticks, and a 1TB Sabrent NVME Gen 4, all in a NZXT H510 case with a Corsair 850w PSU. Eventually I want to get an AIO Cooler, but would like to get a monitor first, to replace my Sharp Roku TV.

Now my Sim rig setup, can dabble on the PC side of things now, instead of just the PS4 and Xbox.

20200110_192752030_iOS.jpg


20200110_202339071_iOS.jpg
 

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