Disqus - Latest Comments for christopher

Re: ZOTAC RTX 5090 12V-2×6 connector completely melts with below-recommended 850W PSU

Chris W. — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 22:40:23 -0000

40 series used 12VHPWR, 50 series uses 12V-2x6.

https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/explorer/diy-builder/power-supply-units/evolving-standards-12vhpwr-and-12v-2x6/?srsltid=AfmBOoooYHhYDU6DasvkB4MDyIVJHQRcFju3ZDYIct6RbYcnWyu4nBEL

Re: CableMod recalls 12VHPWR 1.0/1.1 angled adapters, users advised to stop using them immediately

Chris W. — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 11:42:16 -0000

I bought a 4090 recently and use the Corsair 12VHPWR cable which came with my PSU, no octopus or CableMod adapter needed. I made very sure it was firmly connected with no tension or pressure from odd angles, but I'm still a little nervous about it.

My POV is that of someone currently unaffected (using PSU OEM cable on an FE card). Nonetheless as my work involves a lot of maintenance of HEDT/editing workstations, I stay informed with the issues experienced with the 12VHPWR connector, the deeper dives into and root cause analyses courtesy of GN and others, and some of these third party solutions.

The steps CableMod have publicised, since the initial recall and launch of the first revised cables, do seem to be the morally correct things for them to be undertaking. I applaud them at least for admitting to this issue, and offering what looks like fairly generous coverage for those affected.

It'll hurt their bottom line, but it reinforces my opinion of them that they're a trustworthy business to support. I wish more companies stood by their after-sales and support as CM seem to be doing.

This whole issue is a useful demonstration in why blind faith in a product is sometimes unwise, why extra care and attention needs to be given when dealing with extremely high power delivery in any piece of equipment, and also perhaps a reminder that some innovations aren't necessarily useful. The 12VHPWR design always seemed inadequate and a little too fragile given the real-world use cases.

Re: What Is YouTube's 1080p Premium Resolution, and How Do You Use It?

Chris W. — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 22:27:17 -0000

I guess they'd argue that the VP9 codec has gone through perceptual ABX testing and looks sufficiently good, and the "premium" option costs more to offer so isn't served by default. I'm no Google fandroid, but I can understand the economics behind it. At least it's on offer, unlike higher bit rate streams on Netflix, Disney et al which were quietly dialed down during early pandemic days and AFAIK never restored.

Re: What Is YouTube's 1080p Premium Resolution, and How Do You Use It?

Chris W. — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 19:40:32 -0000

I'm in the UK and have YouTube Premium. I noticed a week or two ago that 1080p Premium tier became available simultaneously on desktop in Chrome and on Android 13. Stream ID is 356, VP9 ~4 Mbit instead of stream ID 248, VP9 ~1.7 Mbit.

Re: http://downdetector.co.uk/problems/now-tv

Chris W. — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 19:36:34 -0000

Well, Sky didn’t let themselves get hacked and leak all your personal and billing details to fraudsters, so at least there’s that…

Re: FIA stewards advise F1 rule change after Haas investigation

Chris W. — Sun, 12 Jun 2022 01:13:38 -0000

Was Alonso's off really fake? From the onboard where he neatly tapped the tecpro, it looked like his rear axle locked and his dash showed BBW FAIL just before he got the car stopped. The slithering into the runoff area was a precursor to that I think, wasn't it?

Re: Sony Xperia 1 III Audio review: A slow but steady evolution

Chris W. — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 22:01:16 -0000

Interesting you note audio artifacts. I've also noticed them over analogue and weirdly over Bluetooth using LDAC when playing quiet audio with a known good low noise floor in the source.
To me this confirms some underlying issue with how this phone is processing audio signals, because it's drastically reducing the signal to noise ratio and doing what sounds like significant 'bit crushing' - reducing the dynamic range to possibly as low as 10 or 12 bits. Below about 20% volume level, some quiet audio will completely disappear to digital silence! And low level source signals are mired in badly shaped digital noise, another indication of substandard dithering and noise shaping.

Really none of this should be happening. I can't tell if it's an issue with the Qualcomm chipset, a bug introduced into Android upstream or just really a really poor output gain algorithm destroying the sound quality. It's ridiculously simple to replicate the fault though.

Not impressed whatsoever given this is a £1200 flagship device from a brand which has always marketed on the importance of sound. If I was within my first week of ownership I'd be returning this handset. Now I'm holding out hope for Android 12 somehow fixing it...

Re: Unboxing of MANLI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti leaks out

Chris W. — Mon, 31 May 2021 22:52:39 -0000

Exodus also likes to crash or lock up at certain points when running top DX level requiring you to downgrade your graphics settings to work around the bugs which have never been fixed. And honestly, playing it on my 3080 at ultra settings on a 2K 165 Hz G-SYNC, I'm like... Meh there's not that much of a difference. I don't notice any obvious RT benefits, their shaders for non-RT already do a damn fine job.

And that's one of the issues - devs are still pushing the boundaries of shaders and light maps for the majority of gamers who don't have RT for years, and any major title now looks really good even at DX11 basic.

Re: Trump-Appointed Judge Rejects Lin Wood’s ‘Creative’ Election Lawsuit in Georgia

Chris W. — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:24:17 -0000

I'm not going to post link after link after link because frankly any nonpartisan fact-checking site or reputable news outlet (i.e., non-US) will gratuitously report and link to these verifiable debunkings. If you wish, I can link at least a dozen or so articles which thoroughly and concisely explain the various myths, falsehoods and plain wrong assertions by various Trump party and GOP individuals with vested interests.

I note that we are discussing this in the comments of an article about how a Trump-appointed judge dismissed, without-merit attempt at voter disenfranchisement with a half-baked attack on the United States' democratic process. To me that speaks volumes - he rightly adjudicated based on evidence and case facts, not the rhetoric and unfounded accusations being flung around.

Re: Trump-Appointed Judge Rejects Lin Wood’s ‘Creative’ Election Lawsuit in Georgia

Chris W. — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:16:06 -0000

The most cancerous behaviour I've observed has been DJT's attempts to stay in power at all costs, causing untold damage to democratic process and felling government departments and staff left, right and centre as he desperately attempts to control the narrative in his favour. His behaviour in the last year, and particularly so in the last month, is analogous to an actual cancer attempting to overcome the body's immune system - holding on to whatever vestige of existence he feels he has in his current position.

Irrespective of the man's politics or party affiliation, his behaviour throughout has generally been disgraceful, reprehensible at times, and certainly not becoming of the office of the President of the US. He's not unconventional, he's simply uncouth and uneducated. I'd say exactly the same for a Democrat, just as Clinton disgraced the office and was rightly impeached.

Re: Trump-Appointed Judge Rejects Lin Wood’s ‘Creative’ Election Lawsuit in Georgia

Chris W. — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:50:25 -0000

From a British person's perspective, this all seems incredibly childish and petulant. Objectively, in all respects, Biden won. All of the lofty theories and claims of election fraud, voter disenfranchisement and general funny business have been repeatedly disproved and thoroughly debunked by both sides of the media and numerous partisan AND nonpartisan groups. Republicans have also gone on the record siding with Biden as the legitimate winner of this election. The bunfighting needs to stop. It's bad enough in our own country, to see it magnified across the pond in such an outrageous fashion is borderline ridiculous.

Re: Robben Island Garrison Church - Poor maintenance aggravates the problem

Chris W. — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 22:11:59 -0000

I visited in summer 2017 and was pleased to see it looked in much better condition. Was the exterior replastered or just treated in problem spots and patched up?

Re: Group test: Nvidia Quadro, Titan and GeForce RTX GPUs

Chris W. — Sun, 23 Aug 2020 20:21:26 -0000

Appreciate your VERY detailed replies, the accursed Disqus notification system is broken beyond belief so I only became aware of them a couple of months later (!) but I'm pleased to report that your information came in very useful.

As you surmised, we're mostly a video edit, video graphics/animation and some C4D usage. In that respect the Quadros do well but in all other respects don't necessarily outperform GTX and RTX on the price:performance ratio. In the end it was decided for some systems to go RTX with a few Quadro RTX workstations for more demanding / multipurpose use where C4D and heavy memory utilisation was expected. Your article was very helpful for me during discussions about what to buy (and how much).

We're now slowly adopting UE with Viz 4, so meatier RTXes or Quadro RTXes I think will benefit us the most. I certainly think we'd probably stick with those over the RTX 3000 series which seem to require a PSU just for themselves..!

Re: Control Synology DSM Services via Terminal / SSH

Chris W. — Sun, 23 Aug 2020 20:10:48 -0000

Please note that double-dashes (i.e., "--") have been turned into 'en' dashes ("–") by WordPress. You need to type things like
synoservicecfg --list
(replacing every single dash with two double dashes); copying and pasting the command as displayed will show errors.

The author can fix this by wrapping the relevant portions in code or preformatted tags which will disable WordPress 'pretty printing'.

Re: Group test: Nvidia Quadro, Titan and GeForce RTX GPUs

Chris W. — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 14:03:51 -0000

An interesting, useful review and benchmark piece, thanks for putting it together. It's a shame you didn't include a previous gen card like a P4000 - still a fairly well deployed card. How would one of those bench against high-end GTX, RTX 2080 Ti and latest Quadro RTXs for things like Adobe Premiere/AE and C4D?

I do have a vested interest - at work we have a few Pascal Quadros in machines, they're all coming up to replacement time and difficult decisions need to be made about how much we spend on new GPUs. Unfortunately there's little interest in authorising purchases for the sake of benchmarking, particularly if the gains from the Pascal architecture don't justify the additional cost. Additional factors at play as well, things like a 'prequalified' build based on specs agreed by other parts of the business and a few other barriers to ad-hoc free hardware choice.

I'm aware of the Quadro's advantages like pre-binning, 10-bit colour (mostly a benefit for grading and WCG/HDR), more demanding double-precision compute, ECC and large capacity VRAM... We're neither a compute nor a CAD shop though. In the world of fast turnaround video editing and compositing where render times rule, the advantage of Quadro seems to me to be rapidly disappearing.

It's why me and a couple of colleagues keep on discussing RTX vs. GTX vs. Quadro, but unfortunately none of us have been able to real world evaluate the three. Render times, particularly with CUDA accelerated effects, are a driver for our decision.

And for people who might be considering second-hand Pascal cards - if those are available for reasonable prices vs. latest RTX Quadros or 2080 Ti, might Pascal Quadros still be worth considering if they can hold their own in a world where multi-core CPU performance is a primary factor for some scenarios?

Re: The logon attempt failed error while connecting Remote Desktop

Chris W. — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 08:13:35 -0000

Reported for spam across Disqus.

Re: Strongswan IKEv2 split/full tunnel VPN on Alpine Linux VM on Synology Diskstation

Chris W. — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 08:35:24 -0000

On my new Alpine install (November 2019) I also needed to "pkg add gmp-dev" before doing ./configure so the GMP prerequisite passed. I also had to remove the commented FARC and DHCP lines entirely from the multiline command otherwise ash choked on them. Very useful guide, I'm still attempting to get strongswan to do exactly what I want but I learned some useful stuff about Alpine in the process.

Re: How Does the Disney Empire Strike Back Against Space Piracy? - by Jenny Priestley

Chris W. — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 10:44:27 -0000

This seems like a poor decision to me. People are already accustomed to varying catalogues across service territories; Netflix is a prominent 'offender' with this - though the range overall is still compelling enough to keep people subscribing. Granted there's some geoip evasion which happens despite their work to detect and curb it - though at least those customers are still paying subs while trying to evade the restrictions.

Disney not launching worldwide simultaneously is a surprising mistake, despite the inevitable complaints about missing high profile titles at launch. They could have even subsidised the subscription for the first 3/6 months to offset these complaints to 'lock in' people as customers. As the catalogue increased, so could the price.

By not launching before Christmas they'll also miss out on a significant amount of business for families who might want to sign up to enjoy D+ catalogue in the holidays, or gift an annual subscription to a relative.

I expect that a staggered worldwide launch will be reason enough for a notable percentage of potential customers to not bother subscribing once D+ has launched in their region. By then, they'll have become accustomed to pirating the shows instead.

I worry also that for some younger potential customers, lack of service for their region will effectively make the case for habitual piracy, resulting in them cancelling any other subscriptions they might have as they'd rather keep the money they're already paying. At that point, the industry's lost that customer and we're back to square one.

Perhaps Disney don't actually care enough about European customer base to launch with a subset of content, but they will definitely take note when pirated D+ content affects global income. On balance, I think they should have launched globally and perservered through the initial complaints. I'm definitely missing being able to watch The Mandalorian, all that Star Wars catalogue and classic Disney films over Christmas.

Re: GB o2

Chris W. — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 11:05:49 -0000

No second SIM on different network?

Re: GB o2

Chris W. — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 11:05:22 -0000

In this thread: millions of people suddenly remember what it was like in the 1990s without constantly connected fondleslabs. Millennials get to experience it for the first time. Landline usage spikes to ten-year high; BT rejoice while quietly slipping an envelope of £50 notes to an O2 exec...

If you rely on mobile connectivity for business, and it's that important, get a second SIM on a completely different network (not just an MVNO on the same network). You'll have to pay for (at least) dual redundancy to have guaranteed service. I have a spare SIM from a different provider for a small monthly fee, just in case something like this happens. (And it has in the past)

All consumer services are best-effort, no SLA guarantees - you get what you pay for so frankly stop complaining. It's hugely inconvenient but it's pretty cheap. If you want 100% guaranteed service, prepare to pay megabucks.

Re: GB o2

Chris W. — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 11:01:13 -0000

it's all non-ionising, you've been blanketed by the same kind of radiation since birth thanks to TV and radio, mobile is no different (and is actually radically lower power). Get a grip.

Re: Huawei (stupidly) uses DSLR pics to advertise the Nova 3's camera

Chris W. — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 20:29:52 -0000

I wonder if it was the same agency who worked on the Nokia 920 launch campaign? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/...

Re: Typeform breach: what happened and is my data safe?

Chris W. — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 06:34:54 -0000

A means by which customers can see exactly how much of their info (specifically, what) was compromised would be beneficial.

Re: A Chef's Knife Forged From Ice Is the Perfect Disposable Cutlery

Chris W. — Tue, 15 May 2018 09:42:06 -0000

Water softening effect. It's a bit of bunkum, particularly given Japan's water is so soft to begin with anyway - but this guy's sharpening skills are superhuman. His patience is legendary...

Re: Salford Weather | Personal Weather Station: ISLFSALF2 by Wunderground.com | Weather Underground

Chris W. — Mon, 09 Apr 2018 09:45:04 -0000

This PWS appears to be reporting 4-6 degrees celcius over actual temperature (at least today, 9th of April). Other PWS in the locality report between 14 and 16 current temps while this PWS reports 21! Is direct sunlight skewing its thermometer?