Computer Advice please

Discussion in 'Yellow Pages' started by StuBoy, Jan 3, 2018.

  1. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    I suspected it might. Would be good to get an update though!
     
  2. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Thats about the only drawback with them.

    Mine turned up in tbe case box, with air bags around that in a bigger box. When it arrived I opened it up to check no cards had been dislodged before plugging in. None had but I was impressed how they'd routed the cables etc. They do take care of their builds. Think they use DPD as well to deliver.

    I'vd had about 4 or 5 mates buy from them, all impressed.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2018
  3. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    So today is the day. At some point it will arrive, I wait with baited breath.
     
    hornmeister likes this.
  4. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Nice one.

    Mine was delivered to work. I heard a crash outside, said to my colleague I hope that's not my new Pc and 5 secs latter the door buzzed.
    PC delivered with a big hole in the outer box where Mr UPS had dropped it on the steps.
    Luckily it was so well packaged there was no damage.

    Hopefully you've got a decent delivery slot and not one of those can be up to 9pm jobs.:D
     
  5. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    It's arrived and working ok! Only one issue, it seems I can't activate my Windows Pro for some reason...
     
  6. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    Well re-entering the product key seems to have worked so false alarm!
     
    hornmeister likes this.
  7. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Yep I had a bit of a runaround installing Office for my dad. Didn't like the code a couple of times.

    So if the net is a bit slow tonight it's because you're re-downloading all that porn?
     
  8. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    You still download it??
     
  9. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Make sure you get yourself a good, free AV product ASAP before you get anything crap on your system. Keep that new baby pristine.
     
  10. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn First Team

  11. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn First Team

    I got the "Going for 18.04 LTS - why not?" splash screen and went for it - it's really, really nice and my old bag of bones is really shaking it's thang.... It's really got some nice features.
     
  12. Stevohorn

    Stevohorn Watching Grass Grow

    I havent a clue what most of you are on about but it all sounds jolly interesting :)
     
  13. hornetgags

    hornetgags McMuff's lovechild

    Haven't read the whole thread but...

    giphy34.gif
     
  14. PhilippineOrn

    PhilippineOrn First Team

  15. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    I have reasonable spec machine for personal/business use, but not superfast for gaining, etc. The problem is I keep getting a video lag behind audio that steadily increases. It happens whether I use Chrome, Firefox or Edge. Refresh, and it is Ok, but them starts lagging again.

    I have 4 monitors as I do some trading, but the delay happens even when I only use one monitor.

    Plenty of RAM, SSD, fast wired broadband, Windows 10 and a motherboard, audio and video devices that I've had for some years with no probs.

    Sometimes, it is OK though, it is OK, even though I have made no changes?

    Currently, I'm trying to watch the news, and JC and BJ's voices are completely out of sinc with their mouths. It's almost like I can't believe a word they say.

    Any ideas?
     
  16. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Update firmware and drivers for your graphics.

    Multimonitor systems can be a bit picky. How many graphics cards are you using?
    I have a 3 screen setup. One card for each with the motherboard graphics handling the 3rd.
     
  17. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Thanks, I think I checked that, but I'll do it again. I have a graphics card working two, and the board working the other two. But I replaced the HD with an SSD in June, completely re-installed Windows 10, getting rid of 3 years of accumulated rubbish, and it was fine until about late August, and I can't track down any changes or updates I made since then. It's weird.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  18. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Hmmm unlikely to be drivers and stuff then.

    Fire up task manager when you next see the problem and have a look at what's running. Maybe there's a program hogging your system resources. Runnign a Youtube video shouldn't take more than about 50% of one of your CPU usage graphs.

    There might also be options for hardware acceleration in your graphics cars control panels, might be worth trying that switched off/on.

    Another thing. when I update my computer for some reason it wants to turn SLI back on. That's the system which joins to graphics cards together to share processing (I have 2 identical ones). fine for gaming but causes a right ballache when you're driving different screens. I think that's in the device properties for the card or in the settings of the software that came with.
     
  19. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    Yeah what meister said earlier ZZ, make sure all your drivers are up-to-date, but I'm sure you've covered all that off. That is about the limit of my technical expertise!

    My PC is still going strong, the liquid cooling was pretty good when it was hot the last two summers actually. Amazed at how cool it remained.

    In other news, I'm pondering on buying a MacBook for when I'm on the move. I have one for work and I think I'm slowly being converted. Anyone got thoughts on that, are they worth getting for domestic use? Quite pricey.
     
  20. Halfwayline

    Halfwayline Reservist

    Computer Advice required as well (and didn't want to start a new thread)

    I have an old laptop that I retained from my old firm. It's an HP EliteBook. Want to give it to my gf but you have to login using my company password. Obviously I have no idea what that is....anyway of bypassing that? I've tried pressing F8 repeatedly on start up to get to boot drive but that doesn't seem to work

    Any other ideas?
     
  21. nornironhorn

    nornironhorn Administrator Staff Member

    I used one in my last job and in terms of coding it is hard to beat. For personal use it wouldn't be worth the money unless you are doing development work.

    I always found it mildly amusing seeing people with MacBooks at uni and only using them for MS Excel (or the mac equivalent) and Word Docs. Could've saved enough money to go on a holiday and bought a laptop that would've done those tasks to the same level.
     
  22. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    Sounds like you need to try and format it from the boot menu or BIOS, but I'm not 100% sure on how you would do that. I think I have actually done it before a long time ago but can't remember. Have you looked online for articles on that? I'm sure someone here will know too.
     
  23. Hornet4ever

    Hornet4ever WFC Forums Last Man Standing Winner 2018/2019

    Take it into a one man band computer shop, there is one near Watford High Street station opposite that big hiking shop in the weird blue building.

    They will have the software that can overwrite the password.

    Or assuming you acquired the laptop by legit means, why not speak to the IT dept at the old company?
     
    Halfwayline likes this.
  24. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Thanks for your help.

    It hasn't solved it though, I think I'll probably have to take it in somewhere.
     
    hornmeister likes this.
  25. reids

    reids First Team

    You'll need to reinstall Windows over the top. Create a bootable windows 10 CD/DVD, change the BIOS to boot off the CD drive and you should be home and dry.
     
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  26. Hornet4ever

    Hornet4ever WFC Forums Last Man Standing Winner 2018/2019

    While we are here does anyone else suffer from 'Installation.club' malware pop ups? Can't get rid of it.
     
  27. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    If it's legit the best thing to do is get the password.

    If the password is in BIOS you're screwed because you won't be able to reflash or change the boot order without accessing it.
    Otherwise as @reids says if it's just an OS password then you need to boot from a USB stick or disk and reformat the HD and reinstall Windows.
     
  28. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    No but then I don't visit specialist porn sites.:cool:
     
  29. Halfwayline

    Halfwayline Reservist

    you lost me on reinstall! Think I may take the advice of taking it to a computer store as I’d have no idea how to do what you suggest but thank you anyway
     
  30. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn First Team

    Umbongo it and keep it for 'rivers' and to download 'stuff'.

    Download wubi for an old version of ubuntu that then will upgrade to a newer version. ISTR wubi can also partition your hard drive for a 50-50 windows/linux choice of OS.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
    Halfwayline likes this.
  31. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn First Team

    Use the trial version of this?
     
  32. El distraído

    El distraído Johnny Foreigner

    Hi everyone.

    Anyone had any experience of using the new Macs with the M1 chips? They've been getting excellent reviews online.

    I'm looking at upgrading my MacBook Pro (early 2105) to either a MacBook Pro M1 or a MacBook Air M1 (both 13-inch). Normally I wouldn't consider the latter, but it's been getting such good reviews that it seems difficult to justify the jump in price to the MacBook Pro M1.

    I should also point out that I've been using Macs for a decade or so and am a happy customer. Mac is also industry standard in the design world. For these reasons, I wouldn't consider switching back to Windows.

    Initially, I'll be using this laptop for a rigorous UX Design course I've enrolled in. After the first month of said course, I found that my current model served me well but I noticed the fans running at full capacity sometimes. This affected the amount of time it took to export files and suchlike.

    Considering that on the next part of the course, I'll be using a greater variety of design programmes than before, and having them run simultaneously, now seems like the right time to upgrade.

    I'll also be pursuing a career change into this design field upon graduation so I definitely would see this upgrade as an investment and not just a purchase for this course and this course only.

    Any advice/suggestions as to which model I go for are welcome.
     
  33. I don't know much about Macs, but if your running meaty design software I imagine you want a separate GPU, and if you're intending to multitask plenty of RAM...
     
  34. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    I bought a MacBook Pro M1 and it arrived a few weeks back. Long story short - it's great.

    Battery life is great, even when doing arduous video editing tasks (which has always been a strain on whatever I've used) and the speed on the new Apple silicon is actually incredible - even if all the apps aren't optimised for it yet. Lightroom is and it opens instantly, hopefully the shape of things to come with Premiere and Audition.

    I did get the upgraded Ram and a bigger HD so it's not quite as light as I expected but it's still really portable.

    There's some rumours flying around about bigger screened versions coming this year but I don't think it'd have the same portability with the bigger screen. Depends on how much you need that for work.

    That being said, a lot of the reviews say there's not a lot of difference between the Air and the Pro - but the Air doesn't have a fan meaning it will never push as hard as the Pro in resource intensive tasks. Obviously with video editing, it made sense to get the Pro, I'd imagine with UX, it'd be similarly intensive.
     
  35. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Would have to slightly disagree with this. It's stranglehold isn't what it once was, and new generation designers, (I've got one in the family), are moving to less expensive alternatives that have the power to run Adobe and other design apps online, (not necessarily Windows devices). My company deals with many design houses and not that long ago we needed to keep up with our Mac qualifications to be able to support them fully, but I see they report many more Windows problems these days.

    What I do love about the Macs is their reliability and longevity, exactly where Microsoft falls down. Trouble is the convenience costs a fair bit more. My youngest daughter who's currently at Uni is absolutely in love with hers and I never have to "fix" it like I did with her older sisters Windows laptop, on a weekly basis!
     
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