NeoKronos

Hello all I'm looking to purchase a USB wireless adapter to work in conjunction with my laptop's built in wifi. Preferably one with an external boosted antenna. Ie. I'll use the internal wifi where signals are strong, and plug in the USB one if I get a weak signal/drop signal. Laptop is the Lenovo y510p. I know I could replace the wifi card after flashing the bios, but I have a feeling the antennae in the shell are badly placed, especially within a metal chassis. Any ideas?

IMO either of Seagate and WD are absolutely fine, provided you have adequate, clean, power supplied to them. Therefore just buy whatever's on sale for good price. That being said, the current WD 2.5" passport drives have a major issue. They provide only a straight usb cable. ONLY USE IT IF YOU HAVE A USB 3.0 PORT AND YOUR USB 3.0 DRIVERS ARE INSTALLED. If you use it on a usb 2.0 plug, usb 2.0 only carries ~700-800 mA of current. Hard drives are designed for 1200-1300 mA. While the drive may work, this low power chokes your drive and weakens its lifespan. I had a 2.5" drive for over 3 years functioning just fine, no noise no glitches. UNTIL I went and put it into a cheap external enclosure. The enclosure worked, but everytime I detached it, you could hear the drive head cut out with a distinctive whine. This did not happen in the notebook I took the drive out of, that very day. 3 weeks after, the drive failed. I have 3 Seagate barracuda's still going strong after 4 years, 1 dead after a single year. For WD, I've had numerous WD greens die on me. Still have 2 WD very old greens going strong. I've got a WD black still going also. My theory is, it's not the drive. It's the motors supplied to the manufacturers. They die by batches, not as series. Specifically, I believe that when power is abruptly cut to the motors, and this is repeated often, it wears out the response of the motor such that it eventually dies. This happens a lot with the usb powered ones. There just isn't enough clean constant power.

I concur with not upgrading cooling for a GTX 780. The Nvidia cooler is sufficient for noise and even overclocking as it is. However, a sound card is also not recommended unless you have a (ballparked) $150 or more invested in sound equipment, whether it be speakers or headphones. You simply cannot hear the difference from today's built in sound chips to external chips. UNLESS, you listen to a lot of heavily distorted instruments such as electric guitars or violins, as they tend to overload the sound bandwidth of integrated chips and cause nasty distortion. OR, you need to output to a dedicated subwoofer. No motherboard chips properly handle LFE channel separation or crossover settings for subwoofers. At least from those that I've seen.

A suggestion for the ram. If you can find G. Skill Trident X's you could reach 2400 MHz for about the same price and 32 gb capacity. They also match the colour of your mobo. Btw, LONG LIVE LUCY.

Hello all Although the answer may be obvious, since a majority of setups are built around Scythe Gentle Typhoons, Noctua P14 P12 F12, or Noiseblockers, I'm still interested to see what fans you guys use in your setups, air and water cooled alike. Additionally, I'd like to break down your responses into categories: -fans for best air circulation flat out -fans for best pressure -fans for best noise Since not everybody is aiming towards the same goal in their cooling setup. Personally, I currently keep my system at Idle ~37°. With only 2 fans running at 520 rpm each. It's quiet. Hopefully we can make a good information base for others looking for high performance/quiet/efficient cooling setups.

IMO Dell's colour reproduction is slightly more accurate, IF you're in a very bright environment because it's a matte screen. Dell's response rate is horrible. It's perfectly fine if you're working on art production or watching videos. They're prone to input lag and tearing if you're planning to game on it. (I compared when I brought my gaming laptop to a friend's place to try his Dell 27" ultrasharp. Could not respond in the same speed in games as on the laptop's screen.) The glass glossy finish on Apple's screen will accentuate colour in any environment, but not in bright areas because that will glare like no tomorrow. Likewise, by virtue of that glass finish, it's also not giving you true colours unless you do extensive calibration.

From what I've seen above 20", $99-150 -------- Benq G2250. 22", 5ms, 1080p, not amazing colours, but not bad colours either. Decent contrast in standard mode, about 50° viewing angle before losing brightness. $150-200 ------ Asus VE247/VS248. 23.6, 24", 2 ms g to g. $200 ------------ Asus VN247. 24". 1cm edge bezel all around. 1080p. 1 ms g to g. Around 80° viewing until I saw some brightness loss. I was quite impressed actually. All of the above offer 1080p, with 5 ms or below response time. In the same price range, I couldn't find an Acer, LG, Viewsonic, Samsung, AOC, nor HP with similar viewing range before it started getting really dark in areas, or didn't keep up in speed. However, Samsung, LG, and HP have very nice screens above the $200 mark.

Hello all In the past projectors have poor resolution and refresh timings to cope with multimedia such as HD video or high end gaming unless you dish out heaps of cash $$. I'm happy to report to you guys at Tech|Inferno that projectors have caught up with 1080p and have visually minimal screen/input lag. I found several projectors ranged between $600-1000 that can throw up a 80-100" screen for games/entertainment rooms in 1080p. I started a thread here maybe to share setup ideas with other users considering to use a media room projector for their computer, or owners to discuss usage and issues with projectors. "I don't always throw lan parties... but when I do, I give you 1080p Battlefield at 120 inches." ________________________________________________________________ Running Asus PA238Q, Benq XL2720T, Benq 5920 HD projector from GTX Titan. Regards, NeoKronos

I disagree. IMO, if you're running or planning to run 120 Hz the pixel clock on other LCD types just doesn't keep up with the frame timings from a high end gpu, especially if you're considering PLS/IPS. Of course, assuming the panel is running off a high end gpu which would be necessary to push the 120 Hz in the first place. For example, assuming the manufacturer isn't lying about their GtoG timings, TN's usually report 1-2 ms on 120+ Hz panels, while IPS panels usually report 5-11 ms on their 120+ Hz panels. If 1000 ms / 120 Hz = 8.333 and IPS hover around 8 ms ideally, then it wouldn't be worth the trade for better image quality if it's going to interfere with frame timing. Therefore personally I only consider TN panels for 120+ Hz gaming. Take IPS with a grain of salt.

Regarding hydro copper coolers, IMO it's much better value to purchase an aftermarket gpu block. I'm not knocking EVGA, they're fantastic cards, but the cost of $150 for that water block doesn't make much sense, especially if you can buy GTX 7xx water blocks for about $100-120. Especially if you're already a water cooling customer.