PC Tech Thread

my pc is wired and i have a mesh system so hoping that it will manage ok

I was hoping for something a bit lower budget :o

HDMI cable?

Your TV probably has some kind of DLNA player that you could use but I suspect it wouldn't have the grunt for 4k streaming. Even with mesh your network may struggle too.

I'm in the Nvidia shield camp too. Not a cheap option though.

what ever you end up using, make sure you get a new enough HDMI cable. I spent an age trying to work out why the PC I have connected to my parents TV wouldnt do 4k and it turned out to be the fact that the cable wasn't HDMI 2.0

I had similar with a random old HDMI cable. My new laptop would only do 4K @ 30Hz, couldn't get it to do 4K @ 60Hz.

Bought a nice new HDMI 2.0 cable, went to plug it in and found that the current cable wasn't plugged into the one port marked "4K 60p" on the back of the monitor but just one of the unmarked HDMI ports. Even the random old cable did 4K @ 60Hz when plugged into the right port.

But having a spare HDMI 2.0 cable isn't a bad thing.

I'm sure it has been asked and answered, but my UTFS-fu is weak beyond seeing the question, so please accept my apologies.

Where/ what should I be looking at for a small (12" or so) laptop, the heaviest lifting will be Lightroom. I'd like SD card reader and HDMI out, but both can be achieved with a plug in hub if needed.

Not sure what sort of budget I should expect, is £500 unreasonable?

Could easily pick up a well spec'd thinkpad x series from eBay for that

A bit bigger than 12"but light and quiet:
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/43374-chuwi-larkbook/
I have an older fanless Celeron Laptop and it's fine with Lightroom on holidays.

Cheers, will have a look

bigger isn't a deal breaker really.
Worth checking out, cheers!

Thinkpads are my go-to recommendation, but if you don't like them then Dell XPS 13s are pretty decent for that sort of money

MS Teams - is there a quick way to go to a certain date range in a chat?

ie. we discussed backup requirements for something in Dec 2019 and I can see individual comments if I search for terms discussed but it won't flesh out the whole chat. Is there a quick way to jump back to Dec 2019? I can't find it.

I'm running an Odroid C4 running CoreElec (Kodi 18). Handles all the 4ks/HVEC/10bit etc.. no problem but I use gig ethernet cable rather than wifi.

HDR is coming in the next Kodi 19 release. I almost jumped to Nvidia Shield until I saw the pre-release Kodi 19 has everything I'm missing

$50 / 57quid ...

nice - this is a bit closer to what I was hoping for. I think before deciding, i will investigate running ethernet to my TV area. I have a basement/subfloor which makes that part easy, but getting a cable up from below without fucking anything up might be tricky. Homeplug might be a compromise I guess.

Thanks for the advice about the cable @spotter

I have a PC running as a NAS and emby server. It lives in a little alcove in my living room and has been getting louder. It's starting to get on my nerves. I'm pretty sure the bulk of the noise is the psu. Can any recommend a cheap quiet one. I he entire pc cost me about 120 quid with some cash back so Im finding it hard to stomach that much again for a psu which claims to be silent.

I have one of these in my Plex server which is silent https://www.scan.co.uk/products/300w-silverstone-sfx-series-st30sf-v20-80plus-bronze-fully-wired-single-rail-25a-plus12v-1x92mm-quie (don't know if it's v1 or v2).

TBF, get an air duster and give the thing a clean.

They get louder because they're dusty and the fans have to work harder to keep it cool.

You may solve your problem by just dusting it.

Although the bearings in the PSU fan may well have gone. PSUs are not designed to be opened, so in that case you would need to replace the PSU.

I've given it a vacuum recently and it didn't really make any difference. Do you think a dust blast will make much difference?

It's been on pretty much 24/7 for years.

My case uses a standard size PSU. Good to hear that the ones claiming to be silent are though.

Turn it off, open it up (the enclosure, not the PSU), and have a look. If there's dust on everything, it needs cleaning.

Vacuuming isn't great at dislodging dust from fans etc. once it's caked on. It does OK for cleaning mesh filters, but that's it.

You should also reduce dust ingress by making sure there are filters on the case's air inlets. Especially in front of intake fans. I bought some dust filter material on eBay or somewhere and lined the front panels of my servers. I've heard of tights being used.

Mine's in a standard micro atx case (this one https://www.scan.co.uk/products/fractal-design-core-1300-black-micro-atx-mini-tower-case-w-o-psu-(std-atx) ). Think it has brackets to fit both.

Excellent cheers.

Everyone else telling me not to throw money at this problem seems very un-lfgss. Ill give it a proper clean and see if it resolves the problem before getting the credit card out.

Hi guys, struggling to find reputable 2x8GB DDR3 1333mhz PC3 RAM online. Any recommendations?