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The Tech Help Thread

Discussion in 'Technical Board' started by rei, Oct 19, 2009.

  1. Binary

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    The biggest cause of that is a solder joint or wire breaking loose inside the laptop, typically right at the point where you plug it in.

    You're sure it's actually not taking a charge? Ignoring what the computer tells you - the battery itself doesn't accumulate more charge if you leave it plugged in for a few hours?
     
  2. jdoogie

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    No, it's definitely not accumulating a charge. At this point it's pretty much holding steady at 11%, even after leaving it charged in for most of the day.
     
  3. Binary

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    Is the bottom of the laptop or the battery getting excessively hot?

    It wouldn't hurt to try another battery just in case you got a dud. The most common failure for those power connectors is that they stop working entirely.

    The MagSafe connector that Apple uses is really an outstandingly thoughtful way to charge the battery, and not just because it detaches before yanking your laptop off the counter, but also because it has almost no way for the expensive internal components to wear and break. Not that I'm advocating to buy a MacBook, just sayin' I hope other manufacturers move towards a similar connector.
     
  4. Nettdata

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    On some laptops you have a means of resetting the subsystem that is responsible for charging the battery.

    For instance, on a MacBook, it's called "Zapping the PRAM".

    That system basically learns what 100% charge looks like, and holds it there. Sometimes it gets confused, and either thinks 11% is fully charged, or is actually fully charged but shows 11%.

    If you can't find a way to do the equivalent of zapping the PRAM on your laptop, then try unplugging it from the wall, and run it on battery until it dies. Then charge it back up, and do it again. That can sometimes help re-calibrate the system.

    And you could have a bad battery... try using another battery and see if that works. Most laptop batteries will go to shit after about 2 years.
     
  5. Flat_Rate

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    So I had an old desktop that I installed a MSI video card in and hooked it up to my TV via HDMI, now I get video and sound but playing files via VLC the video quality just sucks. I played a 720p ripped file and it was even worse, very pixelated and the color was off.

    I used to use a Boxee box to play files and the video quality was great, I figured a tower with a decent video card would produce the same result. What am I missing?

    I don't see any driver to tweak settings with, the goal was to install XBMC but I am not going to if the video quality can't be improved.
     
  6. Jimmy James

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    According to Boxee's wiki, it looks like it was able to upscale the video you were watching. You're watching the file with no filters or anything applied. VLC has a bunch of filters you can apply to the video. You may also want to look into ffdshow as a codec.
     
  7. Jimmy James

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    I've spent a couple of hours googling, but I can't seem to find any usable information on screen mirroring with a Windows 8.1 desktop. I have a Samsung 50" 4K TV (this one) that I want to cast to. Both TV and desktop are on the same network, but separate rooms. The desktop is headless but accessible via TeamViewer and RDP.

    What do I need in order to get my desktop to output to my TV? The goal is to be able to use my desktop to do some gaming and web surfing. I'm getting to the point where I feel like I need to run a cable through a wall, which ideally I wouldn't need to do.
     
  8. toytoy88

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    Ok, this is really fucking weird. As far as I know this is the only site it happens on. After I type a post, PM, or rep comment the site suddenly goes to comic sans font. I did a couple posts from work and it doesn't do it there.

    I honestly thought something was recently coded into the site just to fuck with us, but I guess not. I'm using Firefox 36.0.1 on Win 8.

    Also, as soon as I close the tab and come back on the site everything is back to normal.

    Any ideas what the hell?
     
  9. Nettdata

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    That's pretty fucking hilarious... I'm not sure I want to look into and fix that.
     
  10. toytoy88

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    Alone in the dark, drooling on himself

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    Yes, it's quite fucking funny.

    And I just learned something new. If I back out of my recent posting, everything is still normal and remains normal no matter how many threads I check.

    But if I continue forward after posting, everything is comic sans.

    Goddamnit.

    Well, at least now I have something to do tonight.
     
  11. Nettdata

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    Sometimes you have to appreciate the guile of those Best Korean hackers...
     
  12. Binary

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    How's the quality of the static desktop? High resolution? Are you sure you have your desktop set at the same native resolution as your television?

    It sounds to me like your desktop's resolution is set wrong and the television is upscaling a bad signal.

    The television will upscale, the video card will upscale, your DVD player will upscale... really, the difference now between various upscalers is not significant. There shouldn't need to be a filter to make a video look halfway decent, it really sounds like there's a resolution mismatch somewhere.
     
  13. Binary

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    If you want true screen mirroring, especially for gaming, the best solution is really a wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver which isn't very cheap. This is especially true for 4k. Most of the wireless screen mirroring technologies introduce some latency into the mix.

    Samsung TVs are generally compatible with Miracast, though, so you can try that. Not sure how to enable it on your TV - most Samsung TVs call it "AllCast." Here's the instructions for the Windows side:

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... n-miracast
     
  14. Jimmy James

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    Yeah, that's what I sort of figured. Thanks for looking into it.
     
  15. Flat_Rate

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    It's fixed, I am an idiot. I installed the card and then booted the machine wrongly assuming the drivers would install automatically. Installed the latest driver and everything is working properly now.

    On to XBMC
     
  16. TheFarSide

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    Just a random question, why am I unable to change my safe search settings in Bing, Google? When I select no filters it immediately reverts to strict. How do I search with no filters?

    Boobs and stuff, you know.
     
  17. Bundy Bear

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    Question for the Tech Heads. How hard is it to set up your own VPN and is it worth doing?
     
  18. whathasbeenseen

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    Its super easy as long as you have access to your router and can follow some basic instructions. As for worth doing, that depends on what you want it for. Can you elaborate a little bit?
     
  19. Bundy Bear

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    Just using it for torrenting really.
     
  20. whathasbeenseen

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    Anyone have success with utilizing SharePoint as an internal wiki? Considering this but my fear is that I'll put in a bunch of work for something that won't get used or that is better utilized with CTRL + F and a PDF.