E-Chat Quick Question Thread

[Homer Thompson]

Thanks for this Mr X, much appreciated. I'm guessing something like this would work? https://www.argos.co.uk/product/5585575?clickSR=slp:term:powerline:2:6:1
Sorry for the additional question - so, my son is in one bedroom going tonto at the lag whilst on his Xbox. He needs a wired connex. In the other bedroom, my wee girl is moaning because Unspeakable on youtube on her ipad is laggy. She needs better wifi as opposed to wired.
Will I need to buy two of the above, so that i've got three pieces of kit?

Yes, something like that would work.

You're also right you would need one plug at the router and one in each bedroom.

You might be able to buy the WiFi extender one separately rather than buy two of those packs and have an extra. Just make sure you get the same model number

[mozam76]

1 hour ago, Mr X said:

Yes, something like that would work.

You're also right you would need one plug at the router and one in each bedroom.

You might be able to buy the WiFi extender one separately rather than buy two of those packs and have an extra. Just make sure you get the same model number

Brilliant, thanks very much!

[GiGi]

Virgins routers are just a gubbins mess. Great speed on ethernet. Crappy wifi about even my small flat.

[BFTD]

How come everyone seems to be out of entry-level all-in-one inkjet printers just now? Brexit throttling imports, or high sales from everybody working from home?

[Homer Thompson]

How come everyone seems to be out of entry-level all-in-one inkjet printers just now? Brexit throttling imports, or high sales from everybody working from home?

The latter probably. Same reason some desks and chairs are in short supply too

[UpInTheAyr]

Virgins routers are just a gubbins mess. Great speed on ethernet. Crappy wifi about even my small flat.

After my extensive research into this it seems to be largely solved by buying your own router and putting the hub into modem mode or connecting a mesh system around your place

[Romeo]

Buying RAM there 2 are different speeds but the 3600MHz has slightly higher latency. 18 v16. I'm inclined to go for the 3600, anybody any more clued up on it?

@Mr X

Corsair VENGEANCELPX16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 3600 (Pc4-28800) C181.35V Desktop Memory - Black: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz C16 XMP 2.0 High Performance Desktop Memory Kit, Black: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

eta rest of build in Ryzen 5 160 3gb, b450m MB

Edited February 16, 2021 by Romeo

[Homer Thompson]

Buying RAM there 2 are different speeds but the 3600MHz has slightly higher latency. 18 v16. I'm inclined to go for the 3600, anybody any more clued up on it?
[mention=1702]Mr X[/mention]
Corsair VENGEANCELPX16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 3600 (Pc4-28800) C181.35V Desktop Memory - Black: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz C16 XMP 2.0 High Performance Desktop Memory Kit, Black: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
 
eta rest of build in Ryzen 5 160 3gb, b450m MB

I read an article that said anything over 3200 is a waste of time, although I can't remember why! So unless there's no, or very little, price difference I would go for the 3200

[UpInTheAyr]

Would a Cat6 ethernet cable make any difference in speed to my over 10 year old desktop? It is connected to my Virgin 3 hub atm with the old ethernet cable I used for my BT hub, assume it's just a standard cable. Getting about 70 Mbps at the moment with it but can/suppose to be getting up to 200 Mbps, can get that speed over WiFi on my Pixel 4A.

wondered if it's worth getting a Cat6 to improve speed or would my ancient desktop harware make that irrelevant.

[Homer Thompson]

Would a Cat6 ethernet cable make any difference in speed to my over 10 year old desktop? It is connected to my Virgin 3 hub atm with the old ethernet cable I used for my BT hub, assume it's just a standard cable. Getting about 70 Mbps at the moment with it but can/suppose to be getting up to 200 Mbps, can get that speed over WiFi on my Pixel 4A.
wondered if it's worth getting a Cat6 to improve speed or would my ancient desktop harware make that irrelevant.

Depend on the hardware in the PC!

If it's got an old 100mb network card then a new cable isn't going to make much difference, if any.

Gigabit network cards are cheap as chips though and that will make a difference - although you'll probably still need the new cable too.

[UpInTheAyr]

Depend on the hardware in the PC!

If it's got an old 100mb network card then a new cable isn't going to make much difference, if any.

Gigabit network cards are cheap as chips though and that will make a difference - although you'll probably still need the new cable too.

Yeah the hardware is probably antiquated shit. Was enough of a problem just getting Windows 10 installed on it because of how past it it was.

It's needing binned soon any road.

[Homer Thompson]

For anyone looking to move away from Lastpass because of their pricing change or just looking for a password manager in general, I highly recommend Bitwarden

Its open source, free to use and has basically the same functionality as Lastpass, including multi device sync, web extensions and iphone and Android apps

[jamamafegan]

Does anyone have a mac and use a bluetooth mouse with it? I just bought a non-apple bluetooth mouse and I'm having connection issues. Mouse randomly loses connection and doesn't work or starts to lag. Already tried to "reset the bluetooth module" but that hasn't worked.

[DA Baracus]

My work laptop that was Windows 7 had to be swapped for one with Windows 10.

Windows 10 insists that all USBs are encrypted with Bitlocker or must remain read only.

I have an iPod classic that I have always added downloads to on an old PC that runs Windows XP. This PC was only ever connected once to the internet to download iTunes. That was years ago and it has never been connected to the internet since (I use it for old games and iTunes). All music I add to my iPod had been done with this old PC. Amazon downloads were put on a USB and then downloaded to the old PC. From there they were just imported to the (offline) iTunes library and then added to the iPod via the cable. CDs were imported to the library via a disc drive that connects with another USB cable (you can get CDs for less than a quid online, so it's cheap).

The issue here is that the USBs drives, once encrypted with Bitlocker, cannot be read on Windows XP, and USB drives cannot be written to on Windows 10 without being encrypted with Bitlocker.

I have recently bought a few albums and individual songs on Amazon, but now I have no way of getting them on to my old XP PC.

I fear that downloading iTunes on the laptop, if it will even let me (it's a work laptop), will wipe everything that is already on the iPod. Thousands of songs on it were added via CD.

Any idea what I can do here to get the tunes over to the old PC?

Edited March 20, 2021 by DA Baracus

[Homer Thompson]

My work laptop that was Windows 7 had to be swapped for one with Windows 10.
Windows 10 insists that all USBs are encrypted with Bitlocker or must remain read only.
I have an iPod classic that I have always added downloads to on an old PC that runs Windows XP. This PC was only ever connected once to the internet to download iTunes. That was years ago and it has never been connected to the internet since (I use it for old games and iTunes). All music I add to my iPod had been done with this old PC. Amazon downloads were put on a USB and then downloaded to the old PC. From there they were just imported to the (offline) iTunes library and then added to the iPod via the cable. CDs were imported to the library via a disc drive that connects with another USB cable (you can get CDs for less than a quid online, so it's cheap).
The issue here is that the USBs drives, once encrypted with Bitlocker, cannot be read on Windows XP, and USB drives cannot be written to on Windows 10 without being encrypted with Bitlocker.
I have recently bought a few albums and individual songs on Amazon, but now I have no way of getting them on to my old XP PC.
I fear that downloading iTunes on the laptop, if it will even let me (it's a work laptop), will wipe everything that is already on the iPod. Thousands of songs on it were added via CD.
Any idea what I can do here to get the tunes over to the old PC?

Can't you log into amazon on the old pc and download the songs there?

[DA Baracus]

2 hours ago, Mr X said:

12 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

My work laptop that was Windows 7 had to be swapped for one with Windows 10.
Windows 10 insists that all USBs are encrypted with Bitlocker or must remain read only.
I have an iPod classic that I have always added downloads to on an old PC that runs Windows XP. This PC was only ever connected once to the internet to download iTunes. That was years ago and it has never been connected to the internet since (I use it for old games and iTunes). All music I add to my iPod had been done with this old PC. Amazon downloads were put on a USB and then downloaded to the old PC. From there they were just imported to the (offline) iTunes library and then added to the iPod via the cable. CDs were imported to the library via a disc drive that connects with another USB cable (you can get CDs for less than a quid online, so it's cheap).
The issue here is that the USBs drives, once encrypted with Bitlocker, cannot be read on Windows XP, and USB drives cannot be written to on Windows 10 without being encrypted with Bitlocker.
I have recently bought a few albums and individual songs on Amazon, but now I have no way of getting them on to my old XP PC.
I fear that downloading iTunes on the laptop, if it will even let me (it's a work laptop), will wipe everything that is already on the iPod. Thousands of songs on it were added via CD.
Any idea what I can do here to get the tunes over to the old PC?

Can't you log into amazon on the old pc and download the songs there?

No, it isn't connected to the internet and I worry that the anti virus stuff it has won't be up to the job given how long ago it was connected! Plus I don't think I have a cable to connect it.

[Homer Thompson]

No, it isn't connected to the internet and I worry that the anti virus stuff it has won't be up to the job given how long ago it was connected! Plus I don't think I have a cable to connect it.

You could burn to CD on the new pc but that's seems like a major faff.

A network drive on one machine that the other could access would work but that needs a network cable for the old pc

[Quiet Riot]

On 21/03/2021 at 11:31, DA Baracus said:

No, it isn't connected to the internet and I worry that the anti virus stuff it has won't be up to the job given how long ago it was connected! Plus I don't think I have a cable to connect it.

Do you use the XP PC for anything else?  If not, does it matter if it is briefly exposed to a bit of malware?  Especially if you are disconnecting it after?

Otherwise can you upload the music files to a cloud service like Google Drive then download them from there?  Even if it;s to a different machine then you can use a USB from there?

Edited March 27, 2021 by Quiet Riot

[Miguel Sanchez]

My PC is turning on and as far as I can tell is powering up everything as normal - fan spinning, makes the same noises as normal, etc. But it's not registering any hardware. My monitor isn't getting a signal and my mouse isn't lighting up. Anay ideas?

[Homer Thompson]

8 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

My PC is turning on and as far as I can tell is powering up everything as normal - fan spinning, makes the same noises as normal, etc. But it's not registering any hardware. My monitor isn't getting a signal and my mouse isn't lighting up. Anay ideas?

Have you got multiple displays? Mine boots up to hdmi even when it isnt on before switching to display port when windows loads.

Try getting into the BIOS when the PC boots up or hitting F8 to see if the boot menu comes up.