The computer and electronics super geek thread

[Valkyrie addict]

hmm....nice

I was checking newegg.com for some prices and parts

What do you guys think of the AMD Phenom II X4 Black 512kb L2 x 6MB cache, I know the difference is like 20 bucks, which is nothing, but is there a noticeable performance between the 3.2Ghz 955 and 3.4Ghz 965??? I'm mostly asking cause you may overclock this things to get a small boost and I could rather go for the 3.2Ghz that would seem more stable

and what is today standards on vidcards for top of the line?

I pretty much got stuck on the times when the GeForce 8800GTS was the sh!t running Crysis like half a decade ago :lol: :lol:

Edited August 2, 2010 by Valkyrie addict

[azrael]

What do you guys think of the AMD Phenom II X4 Black 512kb L2 x 6MB cache, I know the difference is like 20 bucks, which is nothing, but is there a noticeable performance between the 3.2Ghz 955 and 3.4Ghz 965??? I'm mostly asking cause you may overclock this things to get a small boost and I could rather go for the 3.2Ghz that would seem more stable

Depending on the benchmark, the Phenom II X4 955 might seem a better bang for the buck at stock settings instead of the 965. They seem good enough to take on a quad-core Core 2. I'd save the money and spend it on the video card.

and what is today standards on vidcards for top of the line?

ATI seems to be doing much better than Nvidia these days. If you like Nvidia, I'd suggest the GTX 460 as a good bang-for-buck gaming card. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 is a very good feature mid-range card with HDMI, but a 4870 or a GTX 260 would be a better performer. The best ATI card out there is the 5870 (or any of the 5800s) but that would would be 1/2-3/4 the cost of your initial budget so I probably won't look at those.

[Valkyrie addict]

Thanks Azrael

I was curious, is it better to end up hooking up the pc to the TV with the VGA or HDMI input??

[VT 1010]

Thanks Azrael

I was curious, is it better to end up hooking up the pc to the TV with the VGA or HDMI input??

Go with HDMI.

[CoryHolmes]

So I took my desktop into the Geek Squad for answer and they told me that my HDD was totally borked and needed to be thrown over the balcony. It was more expensive than I wanted to pay, but it's better than not having a desktop. And I came thiiiiiiiiiiis close to just buying a whole new box

Thanks for all the help before, people.

[mikeszekely]

So I took my desktop into the Geek Squad for answer and they told me that my HDD was totally borked and needed to be thrown over the balcony. It was more expensive than I wanted to pay, but it's better than not having a desktop. And I came thiiiiiiiiiiis close to just buying a whole new box

Thanks for all the help before, people.

How much was "more expensive than you wanted to pay"? I have an inherent mistrust of the Geek Squad. I'm curious how they came to that diagnosis, anyway.

No offense, Chewie. I'm not saying all the black ties at all the Best Buys in the land are shady, but the ones at my local BB have a penchant for assuming that the people they talk to don't have a clue and that they can just make up whatever bullshit they want. Probably works for them 99% of the time, but then they go trying it on me.

Edited August 4, 2010 by mikeszekely

[CoryHolmes]

How much was "more expensive than you wanted to pay"? I have an inherent mistrust of the Geek Squad. I'm curious how they came to that diagnosis, anyway.

No offense, Chewie. I'm not saying all the black ties at all the Best Buys in the land are shady, but the ones at my local BB have a penchant for assuming that the people they talk to don't have a clue and that they can just make up whatever bullshit they want. Probably works for them 99% of the time, but then they go trying it on me.

You pretty much hit on the head. I'm a Zentradi when it comes to computers; I can only use them. I went with the full Diagnostic/Repair/AV Installation because it was long over due. I had been running without AV since I bought the box and it was time. I paid $250 for the DRA and $100 for a 1 TB drive. Still cheaper than a whole new 'box, though.

[mikeszekely]

You pretty much hit on the head. I'm a Zentradi when it comes to computers; I can only use them. I went with the full Diagnostic/Repair/AV Installation because it was long over due. I had been running without AV since I bought the box and it was time. I paid $250 for the DRA and $100 for a 1 TB drive. Still cheaper than a whole new 'box, though.

That still seems a bit much. I know Staples advertises $70 diagnostics. If they came to the same bad hard drive conclusion, you probably could have just bought the new drive, installed it yourself, then reinstalled Windows yourself.

Then again, if you're not comfortable doing that much yourself, you'd wind up paying Staples something like $50 to install the drive and $100 to reinstall Windows (assuming you had your restore discs). So I guess that's about the same.

[Chewie]

How much was "more expensive than you wanted to pay"? I have an inherent mistrust of the Geek Squad. I'm curious how they came to that diagnosis, anyway.

No offense, Chewie. I'm not saying all the black ties at all the Best Buys in the land are shady, but the ones at my local BB have a penchant for assuming that the people they talk to don't have a clue and that they can just make up whatever bullshit they want. Probably works for them 99% of the time, but then they go trying it on me.

None taken at all.

There are two stores where I live. One in Modesto, and one basically on the outskirts on the other side of town in a town called Riverbank. I work at the one in Riverbank and we've had to report the Modesto store more than once for bad practices to our HQ. We used to get stories all day long about how people would go in there and ask a question, then come to us and ask the same question only to be told something completely different and a lot less expensive. I stopped shopping at the Modesto store long before I ever worked at the other. I'll be one of the first to admit BBYs prices aren't all that great, but where I live they are down right cheap compared to the two computer stores we have in town.

It all depends on who you get and what you want. Most of the time a quick diagnostic/fix won't cost anything because it'll bandaid the existing issue, we'll give suggestions and it most likely sells a new system because of the cost of parts and repairs. If they do an in-depth scan and find a bunch of stuff using our software, we won't offer the quick fix because it won't work. We give them a list of what needs to be fixed. Again, usually sells a new system because of repair costs and parts.

I don't know that exact name of the diagnostic program we use but BBY also owns a tech firm stationed back east somewhere that remotely does a lot of our work for us to save time as well.

Your fears aren't unwarranted, but we're not all bad and the reality is, if we don't do it, someone else will and usually not as good and without the guarantees.

Edited August 4, 2010 by Chewie

[Hiriyu]

None taken at all.

There are two stores where I live. One in Modesto, and one basically on the outskirts on the other side of town in a town called Riverbank. I work at the one in Riverbank and we've had to report the Modesto store more than once for bad practices to our HQ. We used to get stories all day long about how people would go in there and ask a question, then come to us and ask the same question only to be told something completely different and a lot less expensive. I stopped shopping at the Modesto store long before I ever worked at the other. I'll be one of the first to admit BBYs prices aren't all that great, but where I live they are down right cheap compared to the two computer stores we have in town.

It all depends on who you get and what you want. Most of the time a quick diagnostic/fix won't cost anything because it'll bandaid the existing issue, we'll give suggestions and it most likely sells a new system because of the cost of parts and repairs. If they do an in-depth scan and find a bunch of stuff using our software, we won't offer the quick fix because it won't work. We give them a list of what needs to be fixed. Again, usually sells a new system because of repair costs and parts.

I don't know that exact name of the diagnostic program we use but BBY also owns a tech firm stationed back east somewhere that remotely does a lot of our work for us to save time as well.

Your fears aren't unwarranted, but we're not all bad and the reality is, if we don't do it, someone else will and usually not as good and without the guarantees.

My nephew is a Geek (in the proprietary sense), and I agree with Chewie in that the service you receive is proportional to the tech and managerial talent existent at whatever location you sample. That said, and not wanting to stomp all over my nephew's profession, the Zentrans among us are really much better off in general finding their very own non-professional geek (in the non-proprietary sense) to help out with their PC maintenance and repair. Most real-life computer geeks will do basic operations at no little or no cost - maybe feed them a $20 or a 12er of beer to keep them happy. The real trick is to find a local geek willing to help. There otta be a central databse of willing computer nerds... Lord knows, I've done more than my share.

[Chewie]

When getting someone local you need to be careful. There are a lot of people who seem like they know a lot (IE, some of the people I've worked with) and there are people who actually know their poo. The Zentrans as you are calling yourselves trust people that sound like they know what they are talking about WAY too easily. I do understand it's hard to find the ones who do.

I don't know how many people I get every single day who heard from some high school kid, who is a friend of a friend of a friends, cousin's, brother's nephew taking 1st year computers that they should never, ever pay or really even use anti-virus protection, that limewire is amazing, that because they've never heard of Asus it must be terrible and a dual core just means you're paying more.

When I work on the side I charge no less than $40 an hour just to be competitive with the local "professionals" and to give people a sense of paying for a service. I can't tell you how much business I lost because people didn't trust someone who did it for lunch or for "so much less than <insert shop name here>.

I give everyone the option of checking elsewhere before they pay for anything from us. We have two other computers stores/shops in Modesto besides the two BBYs and a couple Staples. Some don't come back, most do. One of the biggest things I can say about BBY that we'll be here at least a few more years down the road and in that time we'll continue to be able to back up what we service.

It's just finding the right store to get taken care of properly.

[David Hingtgen]

Ok, am I doing something wrong or what? I finally tried Firefox. And IMHO, it sucks. It loads much slower, every site is slower, and it loves to "pause" all the time while loading sites/pages. It has frozen more in the past 2 days than IE has in the past 2 years. However, MSIE 7 is now so old, not all sites work well with it. But I intend to continue using IE7 as my primary, and Firefox only when needed. (IE 8 sucks, hate it, and IE 9 requires Vista/7)

For being so raved about, I have yet to see what's so great about Firefox. Just to type this post, I had to wait about 20 secs for "read Macrossworld.com" and "gathering data from Macrossworld.com". While IE 7 takes about 0.25 secs to load everything...

(annoyingly, the last big MW update doesn't work well with IE7, but IE7 is so much faster I intend to keep using it for MW)

[VF-19]

Have you tried Chrome? I gave it a shot a while back, and while it wasn't my cup of tea, it wasn't bad either.

[eugimon]

Chrome rules. it's fast and light.

[mikeszekely]

Ok, am I doing something wrong or what? I finally tried Firefox. And IMHO, it sucks. It loads much slower, every site is slower, and it loves to "pause" all the time while loading sites/pages. It has frozen more in the past 2 days than IE has in the past 2 years. However, MSIE 7 is now so old, not all sites work well with it. But I intend to continue using IE7 as my primary, and Firefox only when needed. (IE 8 sucks, hate it, and IE 9 requires Vista/7)

For being so raved about, I have yet to see what's so great about Firefox. Just to type this post, I had to wait about 20 secs for "read Macrossworld.com" and "gathering data from Macrossworld.com". While IE 7 takes about 0.25 secs to load everything...

(annoyingly, the last big MW update doesn't work well with IE7, but IE7 is so much faster I intend to keep using it for MW)

Because I don't have any of the problems you seem to be having with Firefox. Are you using any add-ons? You're system, IIRC, was pretty similar to mine spec-wise. But there's got to be something going on besides the fact that I'm using Windows 7 and you're still using XP.

In any case, I think Firefox's popularity is mostly because it's very customizable and very tweakable, but it never wins in any browser speed contests. The disparity isn't usually as bad as you're experiencing, though.

Chrome rules. it's fast and light.

Yeah, and I especially love the way it sends data about my browsing habits back to Google.

Seriously, I know Chrome is fast. Safari's been pretty fast too, and they're both built on Web-kit. But I have a deep mistrust of Google that's 5% mistrust of any company as big as Google, 20% the fact that they really do collect a lot of data on users of their services, and 75% the unconditional love that so many on the internet seem to have for them.

Edited August 7, 2010 by mikeszekely

[eugimon]

Because I don't have any of the problems you seem to be having with Firefox.

Yeah, and I especially love the way it sends data about my browsing habits back to Google.

you can turn off the reporting function, it's an option, just like how windows wants to report back to mommasoft.

and if you're talking about how Chrome's address bar and search bar are the same thing, it's no different from using the search box on IE or firefox.

Edited August 7, 2010 by eugimon

[mikeszekely]

you can turn off the reporting function, it's an option, just like how windows wants to report back to mommasoft.

It's good to know if I ever decide to dump Firefox... and Opera.

[eugimon]

It's good to know if I ever decide to dump Firefox... and Opera.

If you want a clean, fast browser that doesn't have a bunch of bloat, than give Chrome a try.

It has some very nice UI features like being able to re-organize tabs, drag tabs out to form new instances or drag a tab from one instance to another. You can also kill each separate instance of chrome without dragging down all the open tabs.

[David Hingtgen]

Ironically, Firefox froze for about 30 secs when I brought up the list of add-ons. Currently installed:

NoSquint (disabled)

Customize menus (because otherwise right-clicking brings up like 20-30 options)

RightClick (disabled)

Searchbar autosizer (because my searches are usually more than 10 characters long)

Firefox just likes to "freeze" a lot. Sometimes 2 secs, sometimes 20-30. But it does, and often. And even when it doesn't--every site loads slower than with MSIE. It's especially noticeable in forums, where I swear it "grabs 3 posts, waits for you to scroll down, then grabs 3 more, and repeats"--it's like it loads one post at a time, as needed.

I run my PC as stripped down as possible--if I don't need it, my PC doesn't load it. I have disabled many of Windows' default "services" etc. There's not many things to interfere with. My anti-virus is currently Avast 5.

Really, I wonder if hosts/adblocking etc are causing an issue--Firefox seems to like to "keep trying" to get something that's blocked--like ads! My hosts file has quite a few ad-sites listed, but it sometimes seems like Firefox is trying to still connect, and delaying loading the rest of the page because of it---whereas as IE simply "skips" those sites.

Neogaf really brings out the difference between IE and Firefox--especially in the ad category. They flat-out simply don't appear on IE, but Firefox seems to try hard to get ads that are blocked, brings up ads IE doesn't even seems to be aware exists, and does the "load posts 3 at a time" thing.

[mikeszekely]

If you want a clean, fast browser that doesn't have a bunch of bloat, than give Chrome a try.

It has some very nice UI features like being able to re-organize tabs, drag tabs out to form new instances or drag a tab from one instance to another. You can also kill each separate instance of chrome without dragging down all the open tabs.

I did try Chrome, when it was shiny and new. I didn't care for it, and I haven't seen anything that's changed since then to compel me to try it again. Is it compatible with Xmarks? Maybe I'll try it on the laptop.

Really, I wonder if hosts/adblocking etc are causing an issue--Firefox seems to like to "keep trying" to get something that's blocked--like ads! My hosts file has quite a few ad-sites listed, but it sometimes seems like Firefox is trying to still connect, and delaying loading the rest of the page because of it---whereas as IE simply "skips" those sites.

Neogaf really brings out the difference between IE and Firefox--especially in the ad category. They flat-out simply don't appear on IE, but Firefox seems to try hard to get ads that are blocked, brings up ads IE doesn't even seems to be aware exists, and does the "load posts 3 at a time" thing.

Maybe. I don't bother with any extensions that block ads or other scripts, because it seems like they're always blocking something I don't want blocked. Well, except for Flash Killer, which I have set not to kill any Flash objects unless I click the button. Other than that, I'm just running Download Statusbar, DownloadHelper, and Invisible Hand.

[David Hingtgen]

Well, I tried removing "offending" ad sites from my hosts file etc, and it seems to make little difference. Firefox just seems to "interpret" ads different or something. And it sure doesn't explain the delays at MW and other sites, with no ads.

Boeing's front page was a huge difference. From having nothing at all cached, IE needed 6 seconds to have the page displayed/done, with 2 more secs to get their fancy flash intro finished.

Firefox took over 20 secs just to get past a blank white screen.

[eugimon]

Well, I tried removing "offending" ad sites from my hosts file etc, and it seems to make little difference. Firefox just seems to "interpret" ads different or something. And it sure doesn't explain the delays at MW and other sites, with no ads.

Boeing's front page was a huge difference. From having nothing at all cached, IE needed 6 seconds to have the page displayed/done, with 2 more secs to get their fancy flash intro finished.

Firefox took over 20 secs just to get past a blank white screen.

dude, my ipad can render that page faster than that.

[shiroikaze]

Did a reinstall help? Is Firefox using up more RAM and CPU resources than it should?

It has some very nice UI features like being able to re-organize tabs, drag tabs out to form new instances or drag a tab from one instance to another.

Actually, Firefox can do that too, Just not as cleanly and smoothly as Chrome.

[David Hingtgen]

Re-loaded Boeing.com front page, presuming it's cached:

IE7: 3 secs for "main" stuff, 4 secs for everything.

Firefox: 13 secs for main stuff, 15 secs for everything. About 10 secs of that was "transferring data from Boeing.com". Seriously, 10 secs to analyze something that should mostly be cached?

Firefox takes from 70 to 200 megs of RAM. IE 7 very similar.

[shiroikaze]

In the previous page, Azrael brought up that it could be the profile. Have you tried making a new one?

Edited August 7, 2010 by shiroikaze

[azrael]

Well, I tried removing "offending" ad sites from my hosts file etc, and it seems to make little difference. Firefox just seems to "interpret" ads different or something. And it sure doesn't explain the delays at MW and other sites, with no ads.

Boeing's front page was a huge difference. From having nothing at all cached, IE needed 6 seconds to have the page displayed/done, with 2 more secs to get their fancy flash intro finished.

Firefox took over 20 secs just to get past a blank white screen.

I loaded Boeing's page in Firefox in about 9-10 seconds with nothing cached. Chrome loaded it in about 11 seconds.

Re-loaded Boeing.com front page, presuming it's cached:

IE7: 3 secs for "main" stuff, 4 secs for everything.

Firefox: 13 secs for main stuff, 15 secs for everything. About 10 secs of that was "transferring data from Boeing.com". Seriously, 10 secs to analyze something that should mostly be cached?

Reloading from cache with Firefox was about 3 seconds.

There are tweaks you can make to Firefox's about:config to hopefully speed it up. You might want to try some of those.

Speeding up Firefox the right way

A handful of Firefox tweaks that will double your browser speed

Chrome is a nice fast and somewhat light browser, but I find its customization to be dreadfully lacking. Simple things like clearing the cache/history/cookies on exit has to be done with an extension or be stuck in viewing in Incognito-mode ("Porn"-mode/Privacy mode/whatever you wanna call it). Adblocking extensions only block it from view, not block from loading. I switched to Chrome as my secondary browser over Opera. That's my $0.02.

[David Hingtgen]

Ok, did as many of those tweaks as I could (some don't seem present in the latest version of Firefox).

Firefox seemed to tie IE for Boeing.com re-load, and BBC.co.uk non-cached. (BBC is 17 secs, yeesh)

Still---I had to mod/tweak just to match IE's fairly default settings? (I've made a zillion changes to IE, but 99% are for security/ads, not speed)

PS---is there a way to disable recent history, or have it clear it automatically? I can only find the "automatically delete ALL history when browser is closed" option. I like history---I just don't want it to always show my past 10 sites to anyone who might look over my shoulder or something.

Oh, one more thing---if the cursor is over a video, the mouse wheel no longer scrolls. This is annoying---if I'm using the mouse wheel, I want it to scroll, period--encountering an unexpected embedded video instantly stops my scrolling. Workaround/fix?

[azrael]

Ok, did as many of those tweaks as I could (some don't seem present in the latest version of Firefox).

Firefox seemed to tie IE for Boeing.com re-load, and BBC.co.uk non-cached. (BBC is 17 secs, yeesh)

Only did 6 seconds in Firefox for me. :

PS---is there a way to disable recent history, or have it clear it automatically? I can only find the "automatically delete ALL history when browser is closed" option. I like history---I just don't want it to always show my past 10 sites to anyone who might look over my shoulder or something.

You can set the location bar (URL field) to only show your bookmarks instead of your history. Tools->Options->Privacy. Look for "Location Bar" and change "When using location bar, suggest:" to something besides "History" or "History and Bookmarks".

[David Hingtgen]

Are you sure you loaded everything at BBC? It'll look fairly "complete" at 6 secs. But there's more to come, if you keep waiting.

[azrael]

Are you sure you loaded everything at BBC? It'll look fairly "complete" at 6 secs. But there's more to come, if you keep waiting.

Yep. This is with AdBlock+, NoScript (blocking quantserve.com and doubleclick.net), a tweaked Firefox, and a modified host file for additional blocking (from here). Chrome finished loading a second faster.

On my laptop, Firefox (w/ AdBlock Plus) took 10~11 seconds to load BBC. Safari took about ~16 seconds to load due to loading an ad. And with the Firefox tweeks, I shaved off about 3 seconds.

[David Hingtgen]

Took 7+ seconds to load this forum's main page, before coming to this thread. Seriously, MW should never take more than like 2 secs, if that.

Really, that's the annoying thing. Fine 5 times in a row, then takes 10 times longer the next.

Observation: if the computer has been sleeping, idling, or just about anything else (like browsing another tab for 10 mins)--Firefox always seems to be really slow the first time you ask it to do anything again. It's like Firefox itself (or even just a single tab) "goes to sleep" whenever it's not being used, and spends a lot of time "waking up".

[azrael]

Took 7+ seconds to load this forum's main page, before coming to this thread. Seriously, MW should never take more than like 2 secs, if that.

Really, that's the annoying thing. Fine 5 times in a row, then takes 10 times longer the next.

Maybe it's your ISP??? Doing a traceroute, it I get to BBC in 16 hops. MW only takes me 14 hops.

Open a Command Prompt. Type in (without quotations) "tracert bbc.co.uk" and it should trace where it goes to get to BBC.

[David Hingtgen]

13 hops, but the first one always times out.

[David Hingtgen]

Gah, 9 secs to load the forum's main page. WTF? IE is like 1.1 secs.

[emajnthis]

So i confirmed something a few weeks ago that i had been sorta curious about. I've had Verizon FiOS for over 3 years and for the first time in three years my cable TV died. The internet worked just fine, but tv crapped out, so i decided to troubleshoot since i have all of the equipment needed to test coax ethernet and fiber. I always assumed that the whole "fiber to your door" thing was just marketing, i figured that it ran to a fiber backbone but ultimately they just pulled copper from the CO to your door like everyone else does, but after tracing it all back, it really does come in as terminated SC fiber into the smartbox on the back of the house. I work with fiber on a daily basis at work and it's not an easy thing to deploy, for once, i was pretty impressed with Verizon's infrastructure and the fact that they're marketing was actually telling the truth.