PC Tech Thread

North Americans love such lofty claims.

I hear they're the best at them

best in the world

in America means "we've never been anywhere else"

I need a really basic laptop for Trainerroad and Zwift. Ideally under £300. Any ideas please?

It will need to have a USB port and I can only seem to get an ANT+ signal out of my trainer these days.

Could you not just get an Apple TV?

My trainer is crammed into the corner of a bedroom and frequently has to be moved so I really appreciate the portability of a laptop.

Fair enough. You’re probably goi g to struggle to get anything that will last for that budget. Maybe try to get something open box or 2nd hand but good?

Chromebook which lets you run Android apps - both are available on Android.

You'd need to check that Chromebooks work with ANT+ USB sticks mind.

Hmmmm. Is something like this going to shit itself quickly?

1 Attachment

Apparently not…

https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/running-tr-on-a-chromebook/2281/2

It might struggle to even run zwift. Got a link?

Comes closer to 350, but how about iPad and something that can rebroadcast the ANT+ as Bluetooth?
4iiii Viiiiva HRM can act as an ANT+ to bluetooth bridge

I'd plump for that over a budget laptop. I've got a NUC connected to a TV but prefer iPad Pro and I'll do Airplay if I want it on the TV.

And you can run TrainerRoad and Zwift at the same time on it (or at least, I can with a KickR as it lets you control the resistance separately from it reporting the power - not sure how it works with other turbos)

The consensus seems to be that I can’t get away with spending as little as £300 for Zwift.

What is the cheapest laptop that will run it comfortably?

Sometimes I like to use Trainerroad and AFAIK doing so on an iPad won’t allow me to minimise the bar and watch YouTube in the background.

Split screen is maybe the best you can do, or having it hover over YouTube.
Screenshot from my iPad…

1 Attachment

Maybe a second hand macbook air

Absolute cheapest may be to get a £100 monitor and a second hand apple TV 4th gen. Not as neat as a laptop but possible.

Or actually I'd look second hand. You basically just want something with a dedicated graphics card
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195013604061?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Cxjtf0GIRHK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=Q7R7mhz4RKi&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=WHATS_APP

You definitely don't need a dedicated graphics card. I've run it on a couple of 5+ year old second hand ThinkPads with Intel integrated graphics absolutely fine.

Edit: just checked and I currently have an X260 with an i3-6100U and Intel HD520 graphics, 1080p screen. Probably from CEX. Graphics almost indistinguishable from when I used it on my full-on desktop.

I do remember that Zwift have dropped support for older Intel graphics though, so you might want a bit of future-proofing.

Edit- this is all about Zwift, don't know about TR.

Edit- this is all about Zwift, don't know about TR.

TR should run on a calculator, it's just Zwift that's slow.

Could always run TR on a phone if you have the Ant->Bluetooth bridge

"Follina"

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2022/05­/31/mysterious-follina-zero-day-hole-in-­office-what-to-do/

You might want to remove HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ms-msdt if you have Office shit installed.

Refurbished laptops are great value:

For example this is a great laptop for the money. No dedicated graphics card, but specs and durability is superb for not much cash.

https://itzoo.co.uk/collections/cheap-laptops-tablets/products/refurbished-lenovo-t470s-laptop-i5-7300u-2-8gb-256gb-windows-10

They have some other ones with dedicated graphics.

Bit of a long shot, but thought it was worth asking.

My folks laptop, a Lenovo IdeaPad U330 Touch, won't turn on. I guess it's around 2015 now.

Is there anything that can be done easily to get the file (and even longer shot repair)?

A quick search shows that there can be a problem with it going into hibernation and not coming out.

It's got an unbuilt battery. I've tryed the manual discharge(?).

I've tried a charger I know works and the info light shows the laptop is charging.

I think they need to take it to a shop to get the HDD removed and copied. But thought it was worth asking in case anyone had any other ideas.

Cheers.

Ps is there a way to get the windows license code/key off it at the same time?

I guess a follow up, that classic, what laptop as a replacement?

Would have to be new and Windows. I assume they want another ultrabook style/size so any cheaper sub£1k recommendations would be good, probably £500-750.

Other than Apple is there a manufacturer with good aftersales?

Cheers

in the last week my pc has slowed
slow loading some pages, not all. it will load a website perfectly fast but then when i click on another page in said website it takes 10 seconds to load ? rather than just jumping immediately like it used to ?
is there any way i can look at the processes behind the scenes or run a diagnostics on the pc to see if anything is causing these problems ?
task manager doesn't really show anything obvious ( i am not a computer expert so may not be looking at the right thing ? )

one thing i noticed was an upgrade to my cloudflare warp and 1.1.1.1 didn't load fully and stopped midway through the process as it tried to load a new version ? could that have any effect ? should i uninstall and try and re unstall the whole thing ?

any tips to speed things up a bit

You could take it to a shop but it should be pretty easy to find a manual or video to help you open it up and take the drive out yourself. Looks like it'll be an (old) standard 2.5" HDD. Then copy contents somewhere using a USB-SATA adaptor. And next time have a backup...

It's probably not worth the hassle/cost of commercial repair.

Not sure about Windows keys for that age of machine. Why do you need it anyway?