PC Tech Thread

I will ask and report back to everyone. I bet if Scan does it, everyone else does it too. So far, exepct for prices, everything else sounds very similar, like T&C and repair turnaround time etc...

I don't need the assembly photos, truth be told, I wouldn't really know what am I looking at anyway...

By the way, neither Scan nor OCUK would overclock the Ryzen 3900x, both said there is no point and would make it far too hot...

Have you monitored CPU temp? CPU-Z should be able to help. Some motherboards will force a shut down if the processor reaches 90 degrees.

Thanks; I'm going to do that. Seems like it could be the issue.

Has anyone seen any good deals on full-size wireless keyboards?

Not too fussed about mechanical.

Budget ~£20

Cheers.

So customer service from Overclockers so far is better. Managed to get a full quote today after a polite phone call and managed to speak to the person who deals with custom builds.

He explained in details to be why they advise against overcloking AMD cpu and explained some other things I didn’t ask for.

So we will see if the rest of the ordering process is as smooth as this initial impression.

Having said that, I think both Scan and Overclockers have the same issue of single point of failure whereby if you want to buy something that can’t be checked out from their websites, it is pretty much a 1 person department that deals with you.

Anyway, looks like I should be ordering my machine tomorrow and hopefully I’ll get it at some point next week.

Wish me luck!

One of the hard drives in my server seems to have died (not that surprising as it's 10 years old). The stuff wasn't backed up, it was mainly rips and downloads and backing up would have been more hassle than re-acquiring the stuff I wanted.

The issue is that I don't actually know what was on that drive (the machine has 6 drives in it). To avoid that in the future I'd like to do a weekly log file listing all of the files on the various hard drives.

Any suggestions on the best way to do this? I could do it with Excel (when you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail) but can't help but feel there's a better solution. The machine is Windows so something on there would be my preference but I also have a linux machine that has access to the drives so could use that.

Not sure if it's deprecated in recentish windows but take a look at the tree command on the command line. You can pipe output to a text file.

tree /whateveroptionsyouwant > filelist.txt

https://web.csulb.edu/~murdock/tree.html

Oh, forgot to say...if you wanted to run on each drive and append to the same text file you can use >> to append rather than overwrite.

@aggi You need tree /f if you want to list files as well as folders

You're too helpful. I thought that by using pseudo code and linking to the documentation, Aggi would read about all of the options. :P

All two of the options

Cheers both. That's given me a nice batch file to run each week.

How do you schedule your batch files? Since AT became deprecated, I've mostly been building on Linux so have no idea how to schedule tasks on windows now.

Sorry for spoiling your teaching strategy, but my day has been so dull I felt the need to achieve something.

I am currently parked alongside all the other IT contractors at the back of a Premier Inn restaurant, so as not to depress the tourists. We are all middle-aged males, each on their own table for two with a phone as surrogate partner.

But probably only one has managed to book two rooms by mistake, and is going to have to pay for one of them out of their own pocket.

Task Scheduler on Windows, @Stonehedge

The Get-Item, Get-ChildItem and Get-ChildItem -Recurse commands in PowerShell could also help with this.

Can’t remember if I have asked this before or if someone else has but please do enlighten me (again). Thoughts on ultra wide monitor vs dual monitors setup? I am debating between the 2 options and currently more keen on the ultra wide option but I have never used one so what are the negatives?

Two monitors are better in situations where you want reference images etc on a separate screen. Much less alt-tabbing back and forth. Also means you can watch netflix while you're supposed to be concentrating on other stuff.

Other than games I don't think there's much software which is specifically designed to take advantage of 21:9 displays, although there may be benefits with applications that allow you to customise the interface.

Obvious option is two 16:9 monitors separated by an ultrawide...

8560x1440 :)

Yes, two things that turned me away from a single ultra wide monitor:-
a) they usually cost more than twice what a double monitor setup would be
b) you couldn't watch a video in "full screen" mode as it would attempt to span both monitors

I use dual 23" Dell Ultrasharp monitors at home ('scuse the mess) although this setup is coming up for 4 years old:-

1 Attachment

Well, who wouldn’t want your setup? 🤓

I had this dilemma, then realised for the price of one ultrawide I could have 3 27", so now have 2 side by side and one on top of the right hand one (this is used for email and instant messaging). I use a little bit of software called Divvy, which allows you to set up zones on your screen and then use shortcuts to send windows to those zones, means I always have perfectly tessellating windows which makes me happy.

Another dangerous viewer off the ... no, wait ...

Yes, two things that turned me away from a single ultra wide monitor:-
...
b) you couldn't watch a video in "full screen" mode as it would attempt to span both monitors

I don't understand this

I bought a new one for 3d work recently (which I think is your field?) and ended up going with a QHD 32" (not ultra wide) with one little one for emails and extra windows. As a side, I've just been in Hayes Davidson's offices and a few of them were using the same set up, albeit with the smaller one in portrait so it matched better with larger one.

b) you couldn't watch a video in "full screen" mode as it would attempt to span both monitors

I don't understand this

Sorry, mixed up brain.

you couldn't watch a video in "full screen" mode as it would attempt to span the whole ultra wide monitor.

(At least in days of old) you couldn't full screen something like Youtube and be able to do anything on the rest of the monitor (with the spare space). With two separate monitors when you full screen something it only takes up one that monitor, you can continue to work (or full screen something else) on the other monitor as in my pic above.