The "Quick Questions that does not Deserve a Thread"...Thread. V3 - Hardware & Software

Does anyone know of some case fans with red LED's that aren't blinding but just kinda soft? I only need 2 fans to go on the front of my case so it'll match my keyboard a bit better.

Sorry to ask this question again, but are Asrock motherboards really as bad as people say? I'm on a budget, but i'm afraid to buy one of these motherboards because of what i've seen in forums and in reviews. This includes: Not being able to post, being shipped with bent pins, BIOS being really slow and dying within two-three months.

[QUOTE=Silverspar;38823457]Sorry to ask this question again, but are Asrock motherboards really as bad as people say? I'm on a budget, but i'm afraid to buy one of these motherboards because of what i've seen in forums and in reviews. This includes: Not being able to post, being shipped with bent pins, BIOS being really slow and dying within two-three months.[/QUOTE] Asrock boards are amazing, Silver, I understand that this is your first PC but chill the hell out. It's going to be fine, if anything is wrong just send it back.

[QUOTE=Silverspar;38823457]Sorry to ask this question again, but are Asrock motherboards really as bad as people say? I'm on a budget, but i'm afraid to buy one of these motherboards because of what i've seen in forums and in reviews. This includes: Not being able to post, being shipped with bent pins, BIOS being really slow and dying within two-three months.[/QUOTE] Where have you heard this from? ASRock is my preferred brand.

[QUOTE=Shadaez;38824010]Where have you heard this from? ASRock is my preferred brand.[/QUOTE] Newegg reviews and some posts on /r/buildapc.

[QUOTE=Silverspar;38824202]Newegg reviews and some posts on /r/buildapc.[/QUOTE] I recommend and prefer them because they're usually among the cheapest motherboards available, they look good, and they work. They may or may not be the best for overclocking (I don't really know, but that's what people say) but who cares if you get 100mhz less or whatever - and if you care that much about overclocking you shouldn't need build advice from people. [editline]13th December 2012[/editline] plus it's reddit and newegg reviews, they are awful

ASRock used to be shit, but the past few years they're one of the more reliable brands.

My laptop has been acting up a lot recently; opening folders take a few seconds to actually open, and everything just seems sluggish for some reason. Is there some sort of a diagnostic tool that I can use to find out what the problem is? I feel like it's an HDD problem.

[QUOTE=Flubadoo;38825010]My laptop has been acting up a lot recently; opening folders take a few seconds to actually open, and everything just seems sluggish for some reason. Is there some sort of a diagnostic tool that I can use to find out what the problem is? I feel like it's an HDD problem.[/QUOTE] Could be fragments? Ran a disk defrag recently? Side note, I wouldn't use the windows one. Get something like Defraggler (others may disagree). If that doesn't improve things, maybe running a S.M.A.R.T diagnosis may reveal some issues. Don't know how to go about that though, sadly. Right, I have a question/seeking advice/whatever. [QUOTE=KFrohman;38787274] I recently switched back to my AT A700's from a Turtle Beach X13, and since the former has no microphone I'm forced to use a Logitech desk mic (which is shit), or my webcam mic (which is even shittier). The desk mic appears to accentuate the vocal range too much. Whilst I understand that vocals tend to fall between 100-300, the microphone has too much in the 300-500 range. Reducing said range in an EQ on a DAW makes for a more pleasurable listening experience, however this cannot be practical. Furthermore, when yelling whilst playing games (imaging turning a corner into a safe room in L4D2 and being faced with a tank), it clips FAR too easily and too much - a problem that wasn't prevalent on my headset with built in mic. As for the webcam mic, I'm not even gonna try it. 16kHz sample rate over 44.1/48kHz as reported by windows, go figure. Ideally, I'd like a mic that I can rig to my headphones (like the labtec modification). Failing that, a desk mic that actually does what it suggests (noise cancelling. Sure, Logitech) and isn't one to suffer from such silly issues. Clip on mics are sorta an option I suppose, my only concern is it picking up close-sounding ruffles of it brushing against clothing and such. In all cases, they must have a mute function (and preferably one that works and isn't less reliable than a software mute). So, any suggestions? Also I looked at the modmic but that hasn't got a mute switch (not until next year) and has to come in from the states which means I'll most likely get shafted at customs and royal mail.[/QUOTE] tl;dr I need a new desk mic that's decent, or a mic I can jerry-rig to my headphones. Must also have mute switch. Budget: £25-£30

[QUOTE=KFrohman;38825754]Could be fragments? Ran a disk defrag recently? Side note, I wouldn't use the windows one. Get something like Defraggler (others may disagree). If that doesn't improve things, maybe running a S.M.A.R.T diagnosis may reveal some issues. Don't know how to go about that though, sadly. Right, I have a question/seeking advice/whatever. tl;dr I need a new desk mic that's decent, or a mic I can jerry-rig to my headphones. Must also have mute switch. Budget: £25-£30[/QUOTE] I could sell you a Blue Snowball mic for £30. No mute switch though :< [editline]14th December 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Silverspar;38821260]My mother wants a tablet, she's currently thinking about the Kindle Fire HD but i've heard that the Android OS on Kindles are limited. Is the Kindle Fire a good choice or is there a better $200 tablet?[/QUOTE] Nexus 7 bra

I know this is a stupid question, and I should know better, but is it still too late to bite the bullet with Ivy Bridge? My current POS LGA 775 mobo is dying and has been on its last legs for a while now. Once in a while it fails POST while also lacking standard features at the time it was made (SMART, USB boot ...etc). It's literally impossible do to any form of hardware maintenance/troubleshooting without tons of nightmarish workarounds, especially since I scavenge what little I can find to do it. I can still gain some form of usable functionally with a few workarounds though. Will waiting patiently for Haswell within the next few months somehow make it worthwhile despite the small performance increase over Ivy Bridge? I'm strongly willing to bet it isn't but I really like to confirm it before I do anything with my own money.

Haswell is going to be tock, so It'll probably be a decent performance increase. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock[/url]

Would an i3 3220 and a 7950 be enough for emulating PS2 and Wii games or should i get an i5?

A toaster has enough power to emulate ps2 / wii games.

[QUOTE=alien_guy;38828964]A toaster has enough power to emulate ps2 / wii games.[/QUOTE] I don't know about Wii, but my old Core 2 Duo couldn't handle PCSX2 - stuff ran at about half speed. PS2 emulation is rather tricky, apparently. I feel like an i3 might be cutting it a bit close, depending on which i3 it is. A high-clocked SB/IB i3 would probably suffice, but a low-end one or an older Nehalem/Westmere one might not be enough.

[QUOTE=Makol;38821943]Dedicating a card to physx is pointless.[/QUOTE] How so? It's taking a whole process off of the main gpu and putting it on another. Does the fact that it handles a part of the rendering on another gpu just slow things down because it's not SLI/Crossfire? Or do you mean that barley anything uses Physx so doing won't benefit me at all. I have to be missing something here. I'm just trying to do something with the 460, I'm not going to sell it because it's nice to have a backup, but I like to try and use everything I have.

[QUOTE=Mighty Cow;38831275]How so? It's taking a whole process off of the main gpu and putting it on another. Does the fact that it handles a part of the rendering on another gpu just slow things down because it's not SLI/Crossfire? Or do you mean that barley anything uses Physx so doing won't benefit me at all. I have to be missing something here.[/QUOTE] Unless you are using exactly the same card / just below it in the same generation, then the older physx decicated card will bottleneck the main one so you actually get more performance by just using the main card by itself.

[QUOTE=Noss;38826884]I could sell you a Blue Snowball mic for £30. No mute switch though :< [/QUOTE] Tempted, will get back to you, however since my post, I've come into having an extra £80 to my name, so I'm looking at Yeti's. Unfortunately, they've shot up in price to £115 whereas back in March they were £80. Cheapest is £90 at fucking PC World.

[QUOTE=Silverspar;38828868]Would an i3 3220 and a 7950 be enough for emulating PS2 and Wii games or should i get an i5?[/QUOTE] I don't know. But what I do know is my rig has trouble trying to run Metroid Prime, even Windwaker gets jumpy sometimes just because emulation is so inefficient. I've got an i5-3550 and a 660 ti. [editline]14th December 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=alien_guy;38831325]Unless you are using exactly the same card / just below it in the same generation, then the older physx decicated card will bottleneck the main one so you actually get more performance by just using the main card by itself.[/QUOTE] I guess that makes sense. I just figured because the 460 is handling only Physx It wouldn't have trouble keeping up.

[QUOTE=KFrohman;38831366]Tempted, will get back to you, however since my post, I've come into having an extra £80 to my name, so I'm looking at Yeti's. Unfortunately, they've shot up in price to £115 whereas back in March they were £80. Cheapest is £90 at fucking PC World.[/QUOTE] I really wouldn't drop £80 on a mic unless you're planning on making a lot of money from it. I've heard that the [URL="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samson-Mic-Clip-USB-Microphone/dp/B001R76D42"]Samson Go[/URL] mic has excellent quality, and it is only £40. [editline]14th December 2012[/editline] You do have to be really careful with these high quality mics though, they tend to be extremely sensitive to background noise. I found myself unable to use mine as when I had it set up it faced the window, and as my house is next to a road you could hear the cars going by.

Does there exist a VGA to DVI/Mini HDMI adapter?, my Dell monitor only supports VGA and my new card only supports the two inputs i listed. Edit: would this work? [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119465[/url]

[QUOTE=Silverspar;38837753]Does there exist a VGA to DVI/Mini HDMI adapter?, my Dell monitor only supports VGA.[/QUOTE] Almost literally [I]billions:[/I] [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814999201R[/url]

[QUOTE=Silverspar;38837753]Does there exist a VGA to DVI/Mini HDMI adapter?, my Dell monitor only supports VGA and my new card only supports the two inputs i listed.[/QUOTE] Your new card most likely came with the adapter, I've never seen one that didn't.

[QUOTE=Silverspar;38828868]Would an i3 3220 and a 7950 be enough for emulating PS2 and Wii games or should i get an i5?[/QUOTE] i say get an i5 just to be on the safe side PCSX2 is a performance hog apparently.

Anybody know of an HDMI capture card that you can use as a capture device (aka with VLC)? I don't want to drop $100+ on one to find out I can only use the shitty software it comes with and nothing else...

[QUOTE=Smoot;38838495]Anybody know of an HDMI capture card that you can use as a capture device (aka with VLC)? I don't want to drop $100+ on one to find out I can only use the shitty software it comes with and nothing else...[/QUOTE] I've always liked AverMedia's cards: [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100049[/url] The ones I've used aren't locked down to their software, and even if this one happens to be, their software's pretty solid.

About 3 days after I've installed a Corsair TX650 V2 power supply, I've noticed a humming noise that breaks up. Like a 3-5 second low hum--some lasting as much as 10 seconds--followed by short one second hums with a split second of silence in between. I've looked at the fan while the computer was on and the sound starts to happen as the fan slows down to stop. When the fan speeds up again the sound is not present. What I want to know is if I should RMA it or if it's harmless. The sound doesn't bother me too much so if it won't hurt the power supply I can live with it.

Will any 20-pin PSU work with a 24-pin motherboard if you have an adapter? provided it's powerful enough of course.

Would any of you consider a notebook cooler essential? I was about to buy one but it would take a shitload of space in my backpack.

I have a problem with the office 2013 preview. Whenever it's installed, searchfilterhost.exe will occasionally use up all the ram and pagefile. It's happened on two computers, one of them on either Windows 7 and now Windows 8.