The Techno-Bleg Thread

[Painboy]

I think I'm going to spring for that Samsung PCIe SSD. That thing is screaming fast compared to everything else I see. The m.2 SATA WD 500gb does read/write at 545/525. The Samsung PCIe 500gb does read/write at 3,500/3,200. Zoiks. Now my budget is off tho.

I remember a guy from a tech forum who said after getting one that Windows launched "disturbingly fast" when he turned on his computer. Even with SSDs there is an expectation of a certain amount of boot time. The PCIe drives just crush that apparently.

[JasonL]

I heart the Corsair Carbide series case.

[Dangerman]

It's pretty nice, but only because it's a rip off of the best Fractal cases, lol. Decent features, maybe pricey at $170?

If you want case reviews, GamersNexus on YouTube does the best, reviewing ease of use, cooling performance, and construction in depth. I'd recommend searching their channel for a review of any case before you hit BUY. At least you'll know literally everything there is to know about the unit before it arrives.

[JasonL]

Welp it's ordered. Did not do the corsair carbide but the NZXT H500 case. EVGA RTX 2070 super XC 8G, Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6GHz. Monster Samsung 500gb PCIe SSD, 2Tb seagate secondary, corsair 650 modular PSU. Corsair Vengeance ddr4/3200 memory 2x8. I'm okay with it.

[Dangerman]

That's gonna be sweet!

[JasonL]

I did the thing I always do, talk myself into one additional round of upgrades than my initial price would support, so price higher than I wanted but it's pretty nice.

[Painboy]

Welp it's ordered. Did not do the corsair carbide but the NZXT H500 case. EVGA RTX 2070 super XC 8G, Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6GHz. Monster Samsung 500gb PCIe SSD, 2Tb seagate secondary, corsair 650 modular PSU. Corsair Vengeance ddr4/3200 memory 2x8. I'm okay with it.

I broke down and grabbed the Samsung PCIe SSD too.

[Dangerman]

I did the thing I always do, talk myself into one additional round of upgrades than my initial price would support, so price higher than I wanted but it's pretty nice.

There only place I could say you paid more than you needed to was the Ryzen X vs. non X. But it could be a good value down the road.

[JasonL]

Ok so got a tplink WiFi extender and after some annoyance (WPS easy device set up has failed every time I’ve ever tried to use it in my life) I got the thing running. I have good coverage now but by way of adding additional EXTENDED versions of my existing network - as in when I go to certain zones I can change networks to the new extended versions and get good coverage, but I kinda wanted devices to use strongest signal without having to pick networks within the house. Is that a thing?

[Highway]

I'm not an expert, but you might have to go to a mesh network for that if you can't do a wired connection between your second wireless access point (WAP) and the main router. If you could get a wired network between the two, then you could should be able to put two WAP on the same network (i.e. the secondary WAP and the main router) following this set of bullet points from here:

To extend your home network:

Connect two access points to the same network

Make sure that there is only 1 DHCP server

Use the same wireless network name (SSID) for both AP's

Use the same password and encryption settings for both AP's

Enjoy!

[JD]

I'm not really an expert on this either, but the instructions Shem posts sound correct to me. Wifi implementations assume that a given SSID is one network, which could have multiple access points. So as long as the two APs have the same SSID (and same other settings), a client device will assume it can move between them, in a way that it wouldn't assume it can move between different SSIDs.

[JasonL]

It’s also slow af.

[dbcooper]

Any recommendations on usb to display port/hdmi adapters? 4k60 is a must.

[nicole]

Ok so got a tplink WiFi extender and after some annoyance (WPS easy device set up has failed every time I’ve ever tried to use it in my life) I got the thing running. I have good coverage now but by way of adding additional EXTENDED versions of my existing network - as in when I go to certain zones I can change networks to the new extended versions and get good coverage, but I kinda wanted devices to use strongest signal without having to pick networks within the house. Is that a thing?

Huh, our setup is extender but just one network throughout. (We haven’t set up the mesh network yet lol.)

[JasonL]

I'm disabling the extender. It's too slow. I thought it would divide average 90 speed to 45, but it seems to take average 90 speed and magically convert it to 2.5.

[Dangerman]

Any recommendations on usb to display port/hdmi adapters? 4k60 is a must.

I think you need to look carefully at the specs because only later iterations of those standards will actually handle 4k60. I don't know what the top end of USB 4.0 can do for throughput.

[dhex]

so it's early but android 10 seems pretty good. device is much faster.

biggest issue for me is that signal is using like 4.6gb of storage on my phone. the hell?

[JD]

Android 10 seems pretty good overall but:
- the lock screen behavior is unpredictable. Sometimes I have to swipe about ten times before it will bring up and keep up the PIN pad.
- the "predictive menu" of apps that the phone thinks you might want to launch used to be great, and now it's pretty crap.

[Warren]

Android 10 seems pretty good overall but:
- the lock screen behavior is unpredictable. Sometimes I have to swipe about ten times before it will bring up and keep up the PIN pad.
- the "predictive menu" of apps that the phone thinks you might want to launch used to be great, and now it's pretty crap.

Something similar happened with my father's iPhone. After he updated the OS, the VoiceOver feature would randomly set itself.

[Highway]

I would imagine that the app prediction got reset, and will take a while to repopulate. I haven't seen the lock screen issue in pixel 3, I just use fingerprint.

[Dangerman]

My pixel 3 is doing fine, except Pocket Casts now hiccups and pauses unexpectedly sometimes. Lock screen is fine, although I also use the fingerprint reader 9 out of 10 times.

[JD]

I would imagine that the app prediction got reset, and will take a while to repopulate. I haven't seen the lock screen issue in pixel 3, I just use fingerprint.

The lock thing seems better lately, although I may have just learned the very specific way that it wants to be stroked. App prediction has not gotten any better - it's been weeks and it's still pretty crap. It used to be really good at learning things like how I usually launch Pandora around 7:30 to 8 in the morning when I'm at the gym, or how I launch Spotify around 9 am, etc., but now it's much more like "what were the last four apps you launched"

[Highway]

Looking at new computers for my wife and I, using the justification of 'it's been 4 years since we got new computers, and we need to get Windows 10". Looking at this build:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jyrH8M

Ryzen 5 3600, eVGA GTX2060 are the main parts. I was looking at the 2070Super, but most of what we do is play WoW. Really no other games. And we're going to be playing at 1080p. I was also looking at a Ryzen7 3700, but it really doesn't seem like a big increase in performance for another 130+ dollars.

I love the Fractal Design Define R4 that I have from my last build, but realize I haven't used the optical drive more than a couple times, including the OS install. So why add another 8 inches to the case for a whole rack of drive bays? And I love how quiet the computer I have is.

Any thoughts? One thing to note is that I'm putting my wife's computer in her current case (because it fits in a place she likes it), so that's why the Scythe Katana cooler vs something taller. The Kotetsu on these old computers barely fit in there, and I don't want to have to worry about that. Might switch that up on the one for me for an even better one, but don't know. Trying to keep the price down.

[Dangerman]

Looks good to me. I think that R5 3600 is good, and the next step would be the -X before jumping to the 3700 in any case.

The 2060 might be Overkill for 1080p. I was just forced to upgrade my GTX 970 because over of the fans went bad, and I picked up a GTX 1660 Super. Easily 50-75% performance uplift at 1440p, and it's supposed to be able to max out 1080p (which I believe). So you might be able to save a few bucks, but I might check benchmarks to be sure.

Make sure you have decent, fast, RAM because Ryzen performance is very memory dependant and you should see a difference with higher clocks.

I love my R4 too, but there are smaller ATX cases on the market. Just make sure they are fat enough to accommodate the height of a big air cooler if that's the way you go.

[thoreau]

I've decided that after sitting out the whole tablet thing for a decade I should get one.

Here's what I from a tablet:
1) Write things with a stylus and convert these documents to a .pdf, so that I can easily store and share notes and equations, or connect to a projector and show equations as I write them.
2) Annotate .pdfs with a stylus, so that I can grade.
3) The usual email, browsing, etc.
4) As little bloat-ware as I can get away with.
5) A reasonable battery life.
6) A reasonable price tag.
7) Not an iPad. (I will never be able to think of myself as an Apple Guy. Astronomers and education researchers all use Apple, so I don't.)