PC Tech Thread

Anyone need a soundcard? Might have a couple of Creative Sound Blaster Z PCIe sound cards available. Need to see if I've actually been invoiced for either of them yet.

Depends on your setup but the two are quite linked - you can often get horrible audio interference related to what's happening graphically. Are you running a standard minijack cable out of the sound ports or sending audio over HDMI?
A stutter is more likely to be caused on the graphics side as it's so much more information. I would update graphics drivers if you haven't already and try Asio4all on the audio side if it's still happening. Oh and if it's a laptop, do you get the same thing happening on just battery?

Yeah updates all done, minijack, desktop. Was thinking of trying one of those cheap USB audio cards, would that use its own driver? Sounds quality doesn't have to be amazing.

Win 10 Fall Creators update is now available.

https://www.howtogeek.com/306610/whats-new-in-windows-10s-fall-creators-update/

It trashed my PC at home. Upgrade went fine, everything ran, but any file you created you could not access/read/delete/modify. It would claim you didn't have permission, and that you needed permission of user "XXX" where XXX was the damn user I was logged in as.

Trying to reset the permissions, and takeown didn't work either. icacls failed too.
Gave up and rolled back

Odd. No problems like that with mine at the moment.

Is there any limit, will network performance degrade, if I daisychain a load of switches (just bog-standard D-Link, Netgear, etc unmanaged ones).

Planned network will go

Router -> 8 port switch -> 4 port switch - > 4 port switch -> 4 port switch

Will there be any issue with the stuff plugged into the switch at the end? Cheers

Dunno about the theory, but I didn't have much luck in that respect recently. Previous setup was:

Router > 8 port switch > 15m ethernet cable > PC

Bought a Synology NAS thing and needed an extra network port at the PC end, so got a 5 port switch (both Netgear). Internet connection went to shit, even when the NAS wasn't doing anything. Seemed similar to DNS issues in that web pages either took ages to load or failed to completely. Streaming was also pretty unusable, and this is on a 150Mb connection.

Ended up putting the NAS in the living room connected directly to the router and ditched the extra switch. All been fine again since.

Network woes. Surface can read files on PC via wifi but not via ethernet. Both devices surface and dock) allowed in media sharing options on PC (I assume so anyway, two Surface devices show up, but don't have any more details). Surface asks for network credentials when trying to access a file (but not on wifi).

Selling an EVGA 1060 6GB for £200 if anyones interested...

What's the difference between consumer and server spec gear?

We need a new desktop for the department, I've just suggested a top of the range i7 desktop.

IT have suggested a pricier rack-mounted option with Xeon processor (that looking at benchmarks is a similar power to the i7) that will probably be at least double the price if not more. (It comes out of our IT budget.)

The computer isn't going to be used that heavily, it will probably be idle 90% of the time but when used will be hitting the processor 100%.

Is the server spec worth the extra money in general? Cheers

Low end servers are basically the same as desktops.
It's only when you start needing redundant power supplies, hard disks, multiple CPUs or you need a dozen servers in the same rack that it starts making sense to spend extra. Or if you already have loads of servers of a similar spec and you need to be able to more easily manage things.
But if it's just a one off and it'll sit under a desk somewhere then you could probably get away with the desktop.

If it's not going in a server room then definitely get the desktop.

Some server spec machines have insanely loud fans that are hideous in an office environment.

As @duncs says, how important is the machine. If you need to rely on it then server spec things tend to have better warranty/replacement care than random desktop boxes.

Cheers. If we go with the server option it will be in a rack in a cupboard somewhere so that shouldn't be an issue.

The machine isn't going to be that critical, it's basically a backup to provide some extra grunt when the laptops we normally use are struggling.

Did you ask them why they spec'd a rackmount server? Could it because it's more physically secure than under a desk? Or...

The computer isn't going to be used that heavily, it will probably be idle 90% of the time

Is it possible they are planning to use it for other purposes the rest of the time, perhaps by virtualising your desktop alongside other environments?

To be honest I suspect it's because one was fitted in a cupboard on my floor for the department next to us last month and they just think they may as well do the same for us with some of the space in there.

Anyone seen any laptop deals yet? Looking at this Dell for £680 but black friday is feeling shady as fuck.

8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8550U Processor (8MB Cache, up to 4.0 GHz)
8GB DDR4 2400MHz
128G SSD + 1TB HDD
AMD Radeon 530 Graphics with 4GB GDDR5

Will 128gb soon feel like too little you reckon?

It also has a 1TB spinner? So no worries if you manage your storage correctly.

But software has to be on the ssd for the benefit no?

Oh aye, but you'd need A LOT of software to fill up 128GB.

Been looking at laptops too today. Got a link to that one?

New range of Intel mobile chips looks very decent actually. Significantly quicker than the last gen, and the i5-8xxx's should be fast too as they have the same number of cores as i7, it's only the clock speed that's different.

Sure, it's this one. 15% off with the code at checkout - http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptop-and-2-in-1-pcs/inspiron-15-5000/spd/inspiron-15-5570-laptop/cn57006

Saying that, this is £126 more and seems quite a bit better, processor and graphics card wise - http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptop-and-2-in-1-pcs/inspiron-15-5000-gaming-series/spd/inspiron-15-5577-gaming-laptop/cn557702

Full neckbeard design though

I've got a laptop where the battery catch is broken. Is there any downside to gluing the battery in place (other than the obvious downside of it being difficult to remove)?

Tape it in place, surely?

Or some kind of reversible glue?

could you get one of those clip on laptop shells and slightly pad it under the battery to firmly set it in place.