So much for "Our Promise..."

[themunchkinman]

First and foremost, this is NOT a complaint. Only an incident report that I feel should be made public, a commentary that should be available according to the promise made for "freedom of speech."

From the main Tech Inferno page:

Our Promise

The T|I Promise: Very little oversight, freedom of speech, build a knowledgeable community and absolutely no corporate control.

I submit a post inquiring whether or not there are third-party links to the tools to modify the bios... and I incur an "infraction" for complaining that I cannot download and "circumventing forum rules."

My statement regarding it being 'difficult to make 5 quality posts' was only with respect to making them in time to have a solution for my issue, and I had already resolved to abide by the system in the meantime.

I have been working to post genuine quality posts to assist those that I can, beginning with a response to an inquiry about thermal compounds.

I sincerely want to give more than I get, and show appreciation for those who contribute. But it looks like I am not really free to express myself. I even was considering paying to become an elite member and donating to the cause for the laptop upgrade. I am questioning that decision now. But I guess that is the response desired from someone who's handle is "angerthosenear."

Let's see if you have the courage to approve this post.

Here is what earned me the infraction:

Good Evening,

I came here because of attempting to upgrade my wireless card and getting the "unauthorized..." error after restarting.

I've been running through the thread to search for an alternative download location, since my system is hamstrung, and I will likely not get five "quality" posts in the short-term.

Does anyone have links to these on a third-party host?

Thanks.

(It seems my initial impression about the difficulty was true)

[angerthosenear]

@themunchkinman

1. Posts in Off-Topic are totally fine, no mod approval here. Also doesn't count toward post count. Of course things that completely violate rules are deleted, mod action taken.

You know about the 5 post thing which is good! Most don't.

However, asking for things to be hosted elsewhere is against the rules. It's a combination of bullet point 2 and 3 under the 'Minimum Post Requirements' section in the rules. I'll contact an admin to make this point a bit more clear.

2. I've been approving your other posts, they are completely fine. Just the one was against rules.

3. And don't worry, I have nothing against you making this thread or the other post in a related topic linking to this thread (I approved that post too btw). I'm 3rd on the rung in the ladder here (super moderator and admin are the higher tier ranks). I try to take as neutral a stance as possible on anything, only giving infractions/warnings against posts / people that go against the rules. Ideally, everyone on the mod team would make the same decisions on post approval to have full sense of uniformity across the forum. Some are more strict than others however; which is fine, having varying opinions.

Hope that cleared it up somewhat. Lemme know if you have any more questions, it would have to be in this thread. Can't PM until you get the 5 posts.

[themunchkinman]

I appreciate your candor, and moderation.

(And my request was not to ask someone to host them with a third-party, but if it was already there, especially since some downloads are already available to guests, and I was not sure if there was a problem with the system)

BTW... I was trying to reply on the shout-box.

Active vs. Passive on the Display-port adapters.

Active adapters essentially have an on-board converter that creates a clean, proper signal for the intended destination.

To go from Digital (DisplayPort) to Analog (VGA), a DAC is required, which essentially makes it active. The difference in price is often the quality of the chipset.

The better adapters reduce the lag-time in the conversion, and thus may be considered not only a converter but have hardware acceleration for the conversion.

Passive adapters work when the signal stays digital (DP to DVI or DP to HDMI) because the signal is essentially compatible and thus the conversion is just a pinout.

Active digital adapters have a DDC chip that performs the action described initially.

I hope this helps.

[Khenglish]

I appreciate your candor, and moderation.

(And my request was not to ask someone to host them with a third-party, but if it was already there, especially since some downloads are already available to guests, and I was not sure if there was a problem with the system)

BTW... I was trying to reply on the shout-box.

Active vs. Passive on the Display-port adapters.

Active adapters essentially have an on-board converter that creates a clean, proper signal for the intended destination.

To go from Digital (DisplayPort) to Analog (VGA), a DAC is required, which essentially makes it active. The difference in price is often the quality of the chipset.

The better adapters reduce the lag-time in the conversion, and thus may be considered not only a converter but have hardware acceleration for the conversion.

Passive adapters work when the signal stays digital (DP to DVI or DP to HDMI) because the signal is essentially compatible and thus the conversion is just a pinout.

Active digital adapters have a DDC chip that performs the action described initially.

I hope this helps.

The main difference I saw was "passive" adapters do not generate a clock for VGA or DVI. Apparently sometimes this works, but it's much more likely to work when getting an "active" adapter that generates the clock. Yes "active" and "passive" require a DAC which does make both technically active. It's weird.

[angerthosenear]

@themunchkinman

Usually most mod stuff is made by the people who made the thread. People like svl7 and Prema do a LOT of BIOS / vBIOS work. And usually it is only hosted here. Sorry for the confusion in that regard.

---

Ah, so I wasn't completely crazy. I knew how passive ones are totally fine for DP -> other digital sources. And the who DP -> VGA by use of a DAC. I was more confused about how a passive DP -> VGA even works. I know it doesn't work on all devices, but for the ones that do, is there a DAC built into the device itself allowing for analogue out? That's where my confusion crops up.

Thanks for the reply!

---

Khenglish ninja post::

The main difference I saw was "passive" adapters do not generate a clock for VGA or DVI. Apparently sometimes this works, but it's much more likely to work when getting an "active" adapter that generates the clock. Yes "active" and "passive" require a DAC which does make both technically active. It's weird.

Right.................... I think I'm just going to plug the thing in and smile that it works instead of thinking of the magic in the converter box.

[themunchkinman]

Yeah, it's goofy.

The bigger problem is that some graphics cards and other display port interfaces essentially trunk internally, the same way that DVI connections can carry analog and digital at the same time through different pins. Some adapters with display port support encoding an analog signal in the digital and the adapter simply decodes it back out. Then you introduce thunderbolt on Apples (and now some others) where storage data, video data, and network data are all pulled through the same pipe and the end-point pulls out just what it needs (kind of like VLAN).

I often tend to be the same way, digging into detailed explanations and have to force myself to stop in situations where it's not broken.