Off Topic Thread V2.0

EoinHef · 01-02-2015 4:20am

Luck100 wrote: »

Apparently AMD is cutting the price on the 290x. I get the feeling they are trying to push excess stock out the door before the 3xx series launches. They have an ad making of the GTX 970 4GB issue, but not sure why you would cut your price when the competitor just stubbed his toe. Unless you smell a chance to push some stock before the 3xx series drops the hammer on the 290/290x. Just like the 970/980 crushed the values on 780/780ti for NVidia.

Ive zero problem with AMD having a little joke at Nvidias expense. Nvidia would do exactly the same in there position. A few internet jokes are fine imo.
Id agree they may want to push the 290(x's),but tbh unless you want DX12,DSR,MFAA and some other benefits of owning an Nvidia card the 290(x) is really a better option for now imo. I went 970 as i have a 750W psu and i reckon i would have had to up that to 850-1000W for CF 290X's. As is i could probably run tri 970 sli on a 750W:)

Hows 970 sli going for you btw?

Id imagine,i know you have a 1440p monitor and have overclocked your cards,that you just set games to ultra @1440p and get great framerates. Depending on game SLI support obviously.

I see your on OC.net and have read your posts there regarding overclocking 970's in SLI. And from what i read there 970 SLI is very impressive at 1440p.

TerrorFirmer · 01-02-2015 4:29am

I actually agree, in that the limitations of the 970, realistically, are fairly trivial. Comparatively speaking, the 290 is a better card in light of recent revelations, but really, for the most part, the limitation of the 970's ability to address vram past 3.5gb won't be an issue for, I'd say, 90% of people who bought that card - yet, a huge amount of overall buyers will return cards based on the media storm. And that's a disaster for Nvidia. Particularly for example. benchmarks using Advanced Warfare - a game that has neither the complexity nor requirement of innumerable more advanced games, yet for whatever reason, swallows up vram - all the more fuelling the panic about the GTX970.

Don't get me wrong, Nvidia are in the wrong here, but I think the reaction far outstrips the reality.

Having said that, I've always been of the belief that the 290 was the better option vs the 970 based simply on price; it's only reinforced by his latest hullabaloo.

I think considering the scandal over the 970, the high price of the 980, and the under-whelming price to performance ratio of the 960 at its current price, Nvidia are suddenly in world of trouble - AMD can scarcely believe their luck.

glynf · 01-02-2015 1:08pm

Lets hope Nvidia get a rude awakening form this whole episode. The pricing on their higher spec. cards over the last two generations has become stupidly expensive. If AMD start trouncing them in sales around the 290 vs. 970 mark, surely they will have to re-evaluate the price point vs. performance of their cards.

With any luck the 980ti will come out at the 550-600 mark, and not for Titan money:)

marco_polo · 01-02-2015 2:34pm

Hi guys don't want to cross post but I know there are a few network knowledeable folks around here that mighn't frequent the broadband forum.

Have a thread over there about a upc internet connection issue that has me stumped, if anyone has any idea I'd be glad to hear them over there

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057372511/1

Ta in advance

Luck100 · 01-02-2015 4:52pm

EoinHef wrote: »

Ive zero problem with AMD having a little joke at Nvidias expense. Nvidia would do exactly the same in there position. A few internet jokes are fine imo.
Id agree they may want to push the 290(x's),but tbh unless you want DX12,DSR,MFAA and some other benefits of owning an Nvidia card the 290(x) is really a better option for now imo. I went 970 as i have a 750W psu and i reckon i would have had to up that to 850-1000W for CF 290X's. As is i could probably run tri 970 sli on a 750W:)

Hows 970 sli going for you btw?

Id imagine,i know you have a 1440p monitor and have overclocked your cards,that you just set games to ultra @1440p and get great framerates. Depending on game SLI support obviously.

I see your on OC.net and have read your posts there regarding overclocking 970's in SLI. And from what i read there 970 SLI is very impressive at 1440p.

Yep, 970 SLI is a blast allright. Basically pump everything up to ultra and go have fun. Some slightly older games like Serious Sam 3 I was running with DSR at 5K resolution no problem. The controversy over the memory architecture misinformation is really overblown in my opinion.

Danger781 · 01-02-2015 7:32pm

EoinHef wrote: »

@Danger781
My advise to you is go get the cards and get them into your rig. Test a few games and see how you get on. Id bet my house after seeing the performance you will not want to send them back. Just my opinion,but dont write them off before you try them. As long a 4K is not an immediate concern i reckon you be fine for a long time @1440p anyway.

I think that's exactly what I'll do. Bought direct from Amazon anyway, so if there is any issue down the line I can return them. They're still in parcel motel, but I'll be collecting them in a few minutes and then installing them later this evening.

deejer · 02-02-2015 12:43pm

raspberry pi 2

Been thinking of picking one of these up for a while but never actually went about getting one. Read about this today and just picked one up there now.

Looks promising. Especially the Windows bit for me anyway.

Tinder Surprise · 02-02-2015 12:57pm

first quick performance tests look impressive

.youtube.com/watch?v=pZz8MW3DSqA

Serephucus · 02-02-2015 1:05pm

Looks like a very nice little computer. I have a first-gen unit that I tried running XBMC on, but it was a bit on the slow side navigating the UI (playback was fine). Might well pick one of these up.

Baked.noodle · 02-02-2015 1:10pm

Raptr security update: Please reset your password

Posted in Raptr and one other community
Maintaining the highest level of security around your Raptr account information is of the utmost importance to us, so we're very sorry to inform you that some Raptr user data may have been recently compromised in an attack similar to hacking activities that have targeted other high-profile sites and services such as Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network.

User names, email addresses, password hashes, and some first and last names may have been accessed. This means that although the passwords are hashed, users with weak passwords are vulnerable to unauthorized access. It's important to note that our two-factor authentication system used for redeeming Raptr Reward Points ensures that even if your Raptr account was among those compromised, the points you've earned as a Raptr member are protected.

Although the potential risk to Raptr users is pretty minimal, we urge you to access any accounts on other sites and services in which you use the same login and password associated with your Raptr account and change the related password(s) immediately.

Reset your password at your earliest convenience in order to help safeguard your Raptr account. In doing so, we strongly advise you to use a password that is reasonably complex and not associated with another site/service account.

>>RESET YOUR PASSWORD HERE<<

We're extremely sorry about this situation and are committed to further improving account security going forward.

Sincerely,

Dennis Fong
Founder & CEO, Raptr

Don't use it myself.

pleasant Co. · 02-02-2015 2:34pm

deejer wrote: »

raspberry pi 2

Been thinking of picking one of these up for a while but never actually went about getting one. Read about this today and just picked one up there now.

Looks promising. Especially the Windows bit for me anyway.

Yeah, I'd quite like to pick up something like this for my nefarious activities (watching streams of tennis events not broadcast over here, or on cable) but flash is such a killer, wonder how it'd do on the Rpi2?

Gbear · 02-02-2015 6:00pm

I just spotted on the LifeProTips reddit that you can control click tabs in Chrome to move groups of tabs around instead of having to rearrange them one at a time.

This changes everything.

Danger781 · 02-02-2015 10:07pm

How do I enable SLI?

With Crossfire it was enable / disable, simple as.

Danger781 · 02-02-2015 10:14pm

I went with Maxmise 3D performance, assume that was correct

glynf · 02-02-2015 10:19pm

That's the one, congrats on the new cards. are you running surround?

Danger781 · 02-02-2015 10:31pm

glynf wrote: »

That's the one, congrats on the new cards. are you running surround?

Cheers

And no, I use my main 1440p monitor for browsing, gaming, etc.

Then I have a 32" 1080p TV to my right so I can sit on the couch for watching series / movies

TerrorFirmer · 02-02-2015 11:19pm

Just found a 6870 X2 for sale online.

Never knew such a card existed! Not even based on any AMD reference design which is very unusual.

So that's what I learned today...

deejer · 03-02-2015 9:35pm

Sat down this evening and looked at everything thats online in the house. There are 18 devices connected to my home network. 9 wired and 9 wireless. Now some are used more than others and a couple of them are probably not used much at all but i didn't realise it was that many.

Its probably higher that average (for those outside the B&U forum) but it shows how much I value my internet connect I think (All 3Mb of it)

Calibos · 03-02-2015 11:43pm

A tear ran down my cheek after reading that. You poor thing!!

3mbit ?? Jaysus!!

Currently connected to my Asus Router:

3x Desktops
2x Laptops
7x Smartphones
6x XBMC media player HTPC's
2x Tablets
2x NAS devices

Switching from 120mbit to 240mbit (UPC) in the next day or two.

Serephucus · 03-02-2015 11:50pm

Yeah, all that on 3Mb is kind of nuts. I don't think I could manage that without going nuts. :P

Mine:
2x desktops (wired, wireless)
1x server (wired)
1x phone signal over ethernet yoke (wired)
4x laptops
4x smartphones
1x tablet
1x chromecast

ED E · 03-02-2015 11:57pm

We're not too bad I dont think.

UPC 120 via WNDR3800:
4x switches
2x APs
3x Desktops (one with double nics)
1x Old home server
1x Home server (triple nic)
1x Blade Server (testing only, dual nic)
1x NAS Drive
1x Chromecast
1x Netbook
1x Ultrabook
3x Laptops
5x phones

We've binned a few old boxes over the last few months.

Serephucus wrote: »

1x phone signal over ethernet yoke (wired)

You're talking about an ATA

Serephucus · 04-02-2015 12:06am

ED E wrote: »

You're talking about an ATA

Yes, that!

I might actually see if I can convince my parents to move to a VOIP solution, as that's what they're basically on at the moment (serious signal problems in our house).

Even just Skype credit or something... Has anyone looked at VOIP for home use?

ED E · 04-02-2015 12:20am

Talk to MrG on the VOIP subforum, he's a wealth of knowledge. There are quite a few options, and if they have data on their phones you can have the same number ring at home and on the mobile at once.

Headshot · 04-02-2015 12:35am

Softphone is the way to go

the_syco · 04-02-2015 1:07am

Serephucus wrote: »

I might actually see if I can convince my parents to move to a VOIP solution, as that's what they're basically on at the moment (serious signal problems in our house).

They Vodafone?

Baked.noodle · 04-02-2015 1:32am

30Mb/s UPC

2 Desktops: one wireless, one wired using home plugs.
Laptop: wireless,
Original Xbox: wired,
Raspberry Pi: wired.
Printer: wired
At least 3 smartphones and a tablet: wireless.

Serephucus · 04-02-2015 1:54am

the_syco wrote: »

They Vodafone?

That's what they have at the minute, and ideally I'd like to move them to something better/cheaper. Will give Softphone a look though, I'd heard of it before. Cheers Headshot.

the_syco · 04-02-2015 3:06am

Connected to meh Eircom modem;
85mb Devolo Homeplug.
Eircom Devolo Homeplug (faster, but not the model).

The latter is used to connect to my Tronsmart Prometheus, and laptops & phones in the house. The former is for when I'm working in the shed, and need tunes from youtube.

Two desktop machines.
Printer.

I remember my 3meg line; I only had a ping of 10 on Irish servers :pac:

Probably going to fling the modem at a wall in the next few months, as it keeps randomly disconnecting internets, the printer, phones. Not my games, though. Internet could be offline for the house, and I'd still be happily playing meh Battlefield.

deejer · 04-02-2015 9:50am

Calibos wrote: »

A tear ran down my cheek after reading that. You poor thing!!

3mbit ?? Jaysus!!

Well thats what I get for living in the sticks. Haven't they changed the definition of what classifies as broadband in the US to a minimum of 25Mb download and I am a long way off getting that. Hopefully in the next few years I will have caught up to the current average.

Only the two of us and the small fella in the house though so able to manage with what we have. Streaming actually operates ok.

EoinHef · 04-02-2015 6:26pm

SSD space started decreasing rapidly on me the last week or 2 without me installing any major games or programs,couldnt explain it. Had a bit of time today to have a look and see if i could see what was causing it. I had 40+|GBs free a few weeks ago and by today i had 9.7GB

Only major change i made was installing a few windows updates in a batch of about 10 from the optional updates,all installed no problem.

I still have pagefile and hibernation activated(8GB RAM) so that + OS and a few various programs accounted for about 55GB's of space. That all looked good but i couldnt figure out where was the other 55GB gone with only 9 left. Turns out system protection was allocating over 50% of disk space to back up and restore points:eek:

I set its maximum allocation back to about 25% and recovered a good chunk of space but found it strange it could have used nearly 40GB in a few weeks?
Anybody any ideas why that would jump so quickly?
I have restores/backups to run every now and then but dont understand how usage of disk space of it got so high in such a short space of time

Serephucus · 04-02-2015 6:46pm

Download Scanner, and have a look at your C drive. When you mouse over locations, you'll the the path up the top. Something I had taking up a craptonne of space on my SSD recently was Afterburner recording video on me. Apparently I had bound the "start recording video" hotkey to the same one as "show OSD" (for FPS). Chewed up 60GB on me pretty quick. :P

Gbear · 04-02-2015 7:05pm

EoinHef wrote: »

SSD space started decreasing rapidly on me the last week or 2 without me installing any major games or programs,couldnt explain it. Had a bit of time today to have a look and see if i could see what was causing it. I had 40+|GBs free a few weeks ago and by today i had 9.7GB

Only major change i made was installing a few windows updates in a batch of about 10 from the optional updates,all installed no problem.

I still have pagefile and hibernation activated(8GB RAM) so that + OS and a few various programs accounted for about 55GB's of space. That all looked good but i couldnt figure out where was the other 55GB gone with only 9 left. Turns out system protection was allocating over 50% of disk space to back up and restore points:eek:

I set its maximum allocation back to about 25% and recovered a good chunk of space but found it strange it could have used nearly 40GB in a few weeks?
Anybody any ideas why that would jump so quickly?
I have restores/backups to run every now and then but dont understand how usage of disk space of it got so high in such a short space of time

I noticed something similar recently - my computer started crashing after having at least 15GB free on my SSD the previous day.

As it turned out, there was a bug in one of the mods I installed for Civ 5 that created a 14.5GB cache file in my documents folder.

Deleted that and the mod and that solved it.

I've noticed it being a bigger problem on older machines in the past - the computer gets stuck into some sort of loop, usually when downloading an update, and you end up finding some random folder when you drill down into it being filled with 57GB of rubbish.

EoinHef · 04-02-2015 7:19pm

First thing i checked was shadow play,fraps and AB recording save directories. Was nothing in any of them. It was system protection taking up all the space with hidden restores. Back ups are save to a second HDD so it was just restore points taking up over 50GB! I just dont understand how it could go from using a minimal amout a few weeks ago to using over half the disk space in such a short amount of time

That program has a really nice,neat interface cheers man. Doesnt display the restore points on the C: though. Used a few programs now and tried from inside windows but these files just are not visible,even with hidden files and folders on. 50GB of restore points alone seems ridiculous to me.

Baked.noodle · 04-02-2015 11:37pm

Ya, I found system restore gobbled up loads of space on my SSD. I used to scan my SSD with SpaceMonger trying to work out what was happening but the unscanable space just kept getting bigger and bigger as time passed. I couldn't make sense of it but I eventually found if you go into System Properties you can delete all the restore points. It keeps the latest one so you don't need to create a new restore point. I got back about 15 Gigs of space.

zarquon · 05-02-2015 12:21am

Use a utility like winderstat to create a graphical hierarchy of your SSD and you can easily see what is taking space and delete as necessary. It's also useful to use an application like CCLeaner which is good at doing automatic cleaning of redundant and temp files.

Gumbi · 05-02-2015 1:11am

I'm looking into getting some home plugs for my desktop, but I'm pretty sure my socket upstairs is on a different circuit than the ones in the room with the router. I'm guessing this means I can't use the home plugs?

Serephucus · 05-02-2015 1:13am

Depends. Honestly I'm not sure what works and doesn't, technically speaking. I'm pretty sure parts of our house are on two different circuits, and I tried, and got about 20Mb. I've since moved them closer (new ISP means new router location) and now get around 100Mb/s.

If you know someone who has them, see if you can try them out. If not, order from Amazon for a hassle free return.

Baked.noodle · 05-02-2015 1:26am

I think as long as the signal doesn't have to pass out through the fuse box you should be ok. I'm using them and though I'm not 100% certain how the place is wired, I asked the guy who worked on the electrics how it was set up and he said the wiring downstairs and upstairs are connected via the fuse box. Modem downstairs, PC upstairs. I got my homeplugs, discounted, in PC World so I could take them back if it didn't work out, but they are fine. One thing to consider is interference. The signal can drop for loads of reasons and it can be quite infuriating trying to work out why. I managed to minimize interference just by swapping the plugs (same socket) I used to power the surge protector (PC) and the home plug. I figure the PC is now no longer between the the homeplug network. It isn't perfect, but I get full speed and it will probably tide me over until I get next gen wireless. They are a crappy Netgear model that claim to be 500 Mb/s but only have "fast" ethernet ports which limits the max speed to 100 Mb/s but I don't care as I get all the speed I'll need for a while, and only cost me 27 Euro and were defiantly worth it.

Gumbi · 05-02-2015 1:37am

Thanks, it seems if they are all on the same fuse box it's OK, unfortunately, my house has 2 fuse boxes, the second is for the extension, where my PC is. I'll have to check to be sure, but I'm pretty sure they are on different fuse boxes.

I sometimes get a shaky wifi signal, as being in the extension means I'm behind a solid concrete wall, so sometimes the wifi signal hangs for a few seconds which is frustrating when playing a game. It should also help my download speeds to a bit I think. I might be able to put the receiving home plug in a plug around the corner and wire the ethernet cable from that into my PC.

Thanks for your help!

Serephucus · 05-02-2015 1:39am

I take it a massive ethernet cable isn't an option?

Gumbi · 05-02-2015 1:47am

Serephucus wrote: »

I take it a massive ethernet cable isn't an option?

Nope. It would have to be 10+m and cross over floors.

I think I've figured it out though. I can feed a 3m ethernet cables around the corner ro get accessto the receiving home plug. A 1.89pound 3m ethernet cable is aavailable from amazon and rated highly, is an ethernet cable something you can cheap out on like this? I imagine it's a simple piece of equipment right? (I've wired them in college, I should know this :P).

Baked.noodle · 05-02-2015 1:48am

I picked up a 5m Cat5e in Euro Giant for 1.50. Can't go wrong

Serephucus · 05-02-2015 1:52am

Yeah, whatever's cheap is fine.

Gumbi · 05-02-2015 1:59am

Cable bought this (could have got cheaper, but this was an add-on item, too lazy to go into town

). And of course the home plug itself Homeplug

Baked.noodle · 05-02-2015 2:02am

Cool. Hope they work out. Just make sure the plug isn't too close to the floor or you might have a problem wiring them up.

Gumbi · 05-02-2015 2:04am

Baked.noodle wrote: »

Cool. Hope they work out. Just make sure the plug isn't too close to the floor or you might have a problem wiring them up.

Good point! As it happens this plug is the one directly in front of you on the wall and you reach the top of the stairs, handy for the hoover etc. It's conveniently raised a good 4 inches off the ground so there should be no issues there.

marco_polo · 05-02-2015 2:38am

Gumbi wrote: »

Cable bought this (could have got cheaper, but this was an add-on item, too lazy to go into town ). And of course the home plug itself Homeplug

Sounds like its too late but just FYI there are only 10/100 ports on the pa441 kit as I rather annoyingly found out after a UPC upgrade to 120 Mbps

, as my set of those can only knock out about 90 Mbps in adjacent rooms. Just pointing it out as you are getting it for a desktop.

Very solid and well priced set apart from that and not really a huge deal if its for WiFi or something, as faster sets are quite a good bit dearer and its not like higher rated rated ones are exactly orders of magnitude better in real world performance especially over a reasonable distance.

Robert ninja · 05-02-2015 2:47am

Just ordered 2 extra dual link DVI cables. One for my sister so she can actually dual-screen her PC setup instead of using that fancy new monitor just for 360 games... and one for myself @ 3m long so I can once again turn my main monitor vertical when I want to read comics for a while

Also am going to buy a Dualshock 4 controller since my DS3 broke for literally no reason. Was sitting on my desk and hadn't used it for weeks. Fire up Killer Is Dead and it doesn't turn on. Sad face. Couldn't find a single store in town that sells any console hardware... just tesco and their overpriced games... and doritos. Anyone know where I can get a decent price for a DS4 online? I have parcel motel but I still can't seem to find a reasonable price for one. Also need warranty on it... I'm afraid I'll have bad enough luck to get one of the batches with the sticks having rapidly deteriorating rubber.

Squaredude · 05-02-2015 12:38pm

I have zero will power. My monitor was acting up (bit of discoloration)and decided to hold off until it got to be unusable,I lasted 2 days.This should arrive within the next few hours:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00LBZLIXG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1423135767&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=asus+rog+swift+pg278q&dpPl=1&dpID=41Ms95qjr-L&ref=plSrch

Gumbi · 05-02-2015 12:39pm

Anyone interested in an i7 4790k? Am selling mine, it's a few months old (3 maybe? I can check though). It can overclock above average to 4.7ghz at 1.32volts.

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