PC Tech Thread

Long story short:
I prob have an RX 570 4GB ITX Sapphire Pulse spare... anyone interested for £175?

Can I buy a new graphics card yet?

If anyones interested I have put my 570 on eBay... obvs I can do it cheaper for forum folks...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222656229585?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Are KVM switches still a thing? Or failing that, something that lets you input 4xHDMI or DVI and output 2x (2 PCs that run two monitors that I want running on the same monitors with an easy switch between them).

The only ones I can find seem to be extortionately expensive or VGA.

What ports do the monitors have and what outputs do you have on the PCs?

I used to have two laptops connected to my two monitors.

Laptop 1: VGA -> Monitor 1 VGA, HDMI -> Monitor 2 DVI (via HDMI->DVI adaptor)
Laptop 2: DVI -> Monitor 1 DVI, Display Port -> Monitor 2 DP

I'd rarely have both running at the same time, but if I was and needed to switch sources it was pretty simple to do by pressing buttons on the monitor(s).

Monitors just have DVI and VGA.

Laptop has display port and DVI. PC has HDMI or DVI. I guess I could get VGA adaptors for the laptop but, in my past experience, VGA quality is a bit crap. I suppose I could get a few cables and see how it looks.

Anything better than a Minix win10 for my downstairs telly box viewing?
It's reasonable price and spec.

And:
I have an old (6 years) pc, fairly big tower, fairly decent spec I think for 6 years ago (home business rather than gaming or video), wireless keyboard and mouse and stuff.
What would be a fair "take this off my hands" price for on here? Free?
Or is there somewhere that takes electronic donations?

Obvs I'd want the hard drive.

Bits and bobs for sale!
Will make a FS thread also but thought I would put this here in case anyone is interested. I have a fair few spare bits and bobs going, and the girlfriend is keen on me getting them out the flat as we've recently moved. Bits available below:

Corsair 600T Graphite Mid Tower Case - Black
Corsair GS800 PSU. This has a built in LED which you can change to either red, white or blue.
Coolermaster Hyper 212 Heatsink - I THINK this is the correct model but i'll have to check.
CD-R Drive
Rokkat ISKU keyboard.
A solid selection of fans from Corsair and BitFeenix, some of them LED, I'll have to double check exact models.
SATA Cables etc etc.

It's all decent stuff in good nick, I've just swapped out parts or upgraded and got a lot of spares.

£100 for the lot seems fair I think?
Cheers!

KVM is less popular partly because of better graphical remote access and virtualisation.

Can you not remote (VNC, RDP) into one machine from the other? It has to be said the money you might spend on adaptors and switches would have been better spent on monitors with more digital inputs.

Also, leave VGA in the 20th century where it belongs. It looks crap because the nice clean digital pixels from your GPU are being converted to analogue, distorted by interference in the cable, then converted back into slightly different digital pixels on your digital screen.

I've opted for the laptop using VGA and the PC DVI and buying a USB switcher for a tenner and will see how that works out.

I could have bought two HDMI switchers and a USB switcher for about £30 but I really wanted something that did all that in one box.

Searching my emails to see what the monitors are I found that I bought them 5 years ago so I guess may look at an upgrade sometime.

Why don't you just VNC or RDP into the laptop?

I've found in the past that there's issues with using VNC/RDP for graphics heavy stuff, the colour profiles don't seem right or you get driver issues. Saying that, using VGA will probably also be an issue.

I may give it a try, although it's mainly my girlfriend using the laptop so not quite sure she'll get the hang of it.

Any body shifting a decent spec laptop?

Cheapest place to get a legit win 10 license/image (download) right now?

I bought one off here about a year ago https://www.scdkey.com/software.html
Not sure how legit it is but it is still working fine now.

If it is just for testing/pissing about you can download the developer version from Microsoft which works for 90 days (but there is no way to convert that to a full licence).

It’s for rescuing a parent from numerous digital woes, so as legit as possible to keep things easy for me down the line. Will suck it up and go for MS store.

Ouch, pricey. The one I got from SCDKey is still working fine and updating a year down the line but there is always the possibility that it may eventually get caught up in a crackdown (although I suspect not after a year).

It looked like an unused OEM key that was sent to me which I believe is a bit of a grey area.

download a dodgy windows 8, install, then use the Windows 10 accessibility upgrade

Ah - fair enough if you are doing complex graphics stuff.

Coolermaster Hyper 212

Would be interested. Needs to fit an AM3 socket.

Got a GPU too? I have a problem with mine and a second would be useful for troubleshooting. Don't need anything particularly exotic, not for gaming.

I have my 570 on eBay if you're interested... maybe overkill if not gaming?

Yeah, I saw your post but it's a bit too £££ for what I need.

NO WOZZA.

After recommendations for either specific kit, or brands that offer a good price/quality balance.

Rather than backing-up my data to DVD, I'll be using a spare hard drive. So I need an external optical drive and a HD caddy.

The OD will be used to recover my existing back-ups, then likely gather dust except for occasionally ripping CD: USB 3.0 would be nice and I don't need Blu-Ray.

The caddy will get regular and continued use, so I'm happy to spend a bit more: USB 3.0 again and SATA.

TIA.