PC Tech Thread

Well they did say it's not supported on Win7 even a few years back, and it was a huge fucking faff (including support staff sending me driver files under the counter to make it work etc) so I'm not optimistic I'll be able to bodge it into playing with Windows 10.

Will likely do as @persona_non_grata suggested and just use this thing as dedicated scanning machine from next year on with a "fresh" Win7.

Again thanks everybody for your feedback, I appreciate it.

That does sound like a right ballache.

I'd like to understand why their software is so poorly supported tbh.

Please don't get me started.
The software itself is such a shitshow, even the recent versions feel like you're time-warped to the nineties and the programmer was a sadist cunt.
The thing is though if you can be bothered to deal with it, adjust everything just right, and the stars align, then the quality you can get out of your negatives is really good.
Also there have not been a lot of alternatives, and nobody is really developing 35mm scanners and software in this day and age so you're kinda stuck if you still want to go this route.

Anyone fancy an rx 5700xt for cheap? Bought with amazon vouchers and I’m returning it, but £300 in cash may be more appealing.

This isn't exactly helpful, but two of our work PCs had a memory issue similar to yours. For some reason all of the RAM was instantly used up - which is a fucker as you then can't work out what's wrong or do any of the obvious starting points.

Ultimately we couldn't find a solution and ended up replacing one and using a live OS on the other. Our best guess was some sort of virus, so if you can I'd try and reinstall W7?

Worth checking if TRIM is enabled on the SSD. If not could explain where memory is going.

RAM and storage are two different things.

I just wanted to double check

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-x570-aorus-elite-amd-x570-am4-ddr4-pcie-40-dual-m2-2-way-crossfire-intel-gbe-usb-32-gen2-a

Will this motherboard work with 4 X 16GM ram? Currently I am only interested in 32GB but I want to be able to expand to 64GB in the future if required.

Also, I just spotted on the specs, it says it doesn't support water cooled. This literally just mean no water coolers at all for the build, does it?

Also, I just spotted on the specs, it says it doesn't support water cooled.

Does it say that on Scan? This seemed very unlikely to me so I just looked at the page for the MB on GB's website and if you scroll down to the 'Smart Fan 5' section it says "4 fan/water pump connectors":
https://www.gigabyte.com/uk/Motherboard/X570-AORUS-ELITE-rev-10#kf

Spec page on there also says

4 x DDR4 DIMM sockets supporting up to 128 GB (32 GB single DIMM capacity) of system memory

Always look at the manufacturer's page for motherboard info :)

Will do from now on coz I also spotted another inconsistency from the Scan page... 😬

The specs on the Scan page list the max RAM as 4x32GB.

As for the cooling, it's the board itself which isn't watercooled. Unlike - for example - this one: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-IX-EXTREME/

So I’d need fan cooling for the motherboard and then water cooling for the rest of the tower?

It’s been forever since I had a PC... 😬

You never need water cooling.

Cross post from here:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/14956847/

I'm trying to use a laptop as my music client. I've done this for years with various second hand / end of life laptops. I have two semi dead ancient ThinkPads, got annoyed with trying to use a laptop with a dead screen so bought a second hand Dell Latitude off eBay. The laptop appears to work fine, but when it's plugged into the charger, it won't recognise the DAC.

Other USB devices work fine (I've tried a phone and a mouse).

I've just swapped in my partner's Asus laptop and that's playing music fine.

Is there anything I can try to resolve the USB issue before I write off yet another laptop? I've updated all the drivers, run various scans including the Dell utility but it hasn't fixed the problem.

Did you try a liveUSB of Ubuntu or similar to see if it was a Wndows issue?

DAC requires a Windows driver so that may not work.

Ok, new problem.

Decided to set up M's laptop to do music duties, as a temporary measure.

The files are on a NAS. I can see the NAS on the network from this laptop. But can I access it? F*ck no.

I've tried everything I can think of in firewall, network, sharing etc.

I know it used to work on this laptop cos I set up a folder for M to back stuff up to on the NAS.

I'm running out of steam. Can't think of what to look at next.

Edit - windows 10 home laptop. Bitdefender security. Buffalo linkstation NAS.

What are SSD prices doing at the moment? I really want this (because it's shiny and expensive):

https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/external-drives/g-technology-g-speed-shuttle-thunderbolt-3-ssd#0G10458

But 16TB, when configured in RAID 10, is just too small for us and I can't see a 32TB version anywhere (I suspect it's 10k plus which doesn't thrill me as much as a nice anamorphic lens might).

Is there a resource to see if costs are plateauing? Could I easily buy an 8TB version and replace drives with larger capacity SSDs to bring it up to 32TB+ and avoid the G-tech tax?

(I'm not sold on RAID 10 but it's our main storage and I want it both reliable and fast so that seems best bet?)

Use case is video production connected to one edit bay - we have a small NAS for shared network stuff and simpler edits.

We have 2 sets of duplicates of the raw footage from our current RAID broken down into single 1TB volumes by project and then compressed duplicates stored in the cloud. It's not ideal but it's worked for 5 years so I'll stick with it for now. But I would like an upgrade from the current thunderbolt 2 and spinning disks situation which triggers me every time I see dust floating through the air.

I've turned firewall off altogether. Still can't access NAS.

Ok, found some meaningless setting in control panel / Programs / windows features / SMB 1.0 client enable that has fixed it.

Just reminded myself why I intensely dislike every Windows OS since XP.

My surface pro is on the limit with the modeling I'm doing. So could do with something better.

Seems I can get Dell xps 13" 10th ge i7 16gb ram 512gb storage for 1200, which seems great.

Are xps okay? Could I do better?

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-notebooks-and-2-in-1-laptops/new-xps-13/spd/xps-13-7390-laptop/cnx73922

XPS are meant to be good according to all the reviews, one of the best of that type of laptop.

Saying that, I've actually been using a Dell Vostro with exactly the same spec this week and although it feels fast it doesn't feel that fast (borne out by benchmarks) compared to the desktop we use that cost about the same price.

I don't know what the modelling you're doing is but if it's CPU intensive I'd be tempted to get a desktop and RDP into it rather than try and keep up with laptops.

Can't vouch for whether they will be suitable for your use case but I can confirm that the current generation of XPS 13 go like shit off a stick and are really well made. As @aggi says, they really are among the best laptops of their type around.