Modern Computing Discussion

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Yesterday I decided to open up my PC to see if it needed cleaning, fortunately it didn't, but since it was already open, I decided to conduct a little experiment by removing 16 of the 32 gigs of RAM to see if there was any appreciable difference... I didn't notice any.  So I plugged the memory back in and went on my merry way, but this brings up a question to you guys who've upgraded your PC's...  Did you notice any difference when you doubled your memory?  If so, under what conditions?

[RickR]

3 minutes ago, - Ω - said:

Yesterday I decided to open up my PC to see if it needed cleaning, fortunately it didn't, but since it was already open, I decided to conduct a little experiment by removing 16 of the 32 gigs of RAM to see if there was any appreciable difference... I didn't notice any.  So I plugged the memory back in and went on my merry way, but this brings up a question to you guys who've upgraded your PC's...  Did you notice any difference when you doubled your memory?  If so, under what conditions?

Well, in my work, that move from 16 to 32 GB was hugely helpful.  But that included running a bunch of development environments (Eclipse, SQL Server, Microsoft .NET, etc). 

On my home PC, that 32 GB that I have serves no useful purpose.  I've noticed a speed jump on laptops when you go from 4 to 8 GB.  But I'm not sure if that's due to more memory or the fact that with two sticks, it runs in the "dual" 128 bit mode. 

 

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28 minutes ago, RickR said:

Well, in my work, that move from 16 to 32 GB was hugely helpful.  But that included running a bunch of development environments (Eclipse, SQL Server, Microsoft .NET, etc). 

On my home PC, that 32 GB that I have serves no useful purpose.  I've noticed a speed jump on laptops when you go from 4 to 8 GB.  But I'm not sure if that's due to more memory or the fact that with two sticks, it runs in the "dual" 128 bit mode. 

 

Interesting.  I'm curious, is there some sort of "memory speed test" program out there a person could run on their PC?

[RickR]

The "userbenchmark.com" mentioned in the "old school PC benchmarks" thread does give memory speed scores if you look at the detailed results. 

 

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11 minutes ago, RickR said:

The "userbenchmark.com" mentioned in the "old school PC benchmarks" thread does give memory speed scores if you look at the detailed results. 

 

Yeah, if I'm reading this right, there is not much difference between 16 & 32 speed wise?

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by - Ω -

[RickR]

Well, that's really not what they are measuring.  They are measuring the raw speed of whatever memory you have by reading in blocks of various sizes.  On your system, if you only had 16GB, that 32GB latency would be higher.  But that's not a great real world test. 

Things would get more interesting if you tried a CPU-intensive gaming benchmark.  Some games love more memory (and memory with faster timings). 

 

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1 minute ago, RickR said:

Well, that's really not what they are measuring.  They are measuring the raw speed of whatever memory you have by reading in blocks of various sizes.  On your system, if you only had 16GB, that 32GB latency would be higher.  But that's not a great real world test. 

Things would get more interesting if you tried a CPU-intensive gaming benchmark.  Some games love more memory (and memory with faster timings). 

 

Ahh, I don't really have much on the way of PC games on my computer with the exception of a couple of "classic" steam programs.  Most of my intensive processing is done with video.

[RickR]

6 minutes ago, - Ω - said:

Ahh, I don't really have much on the way of PC games on my computer with the exception of a couple of "classic" steam programs.  Most of my intensive processing is done with video.

Maybe that's a test you can try.  Encode the same video with 16 GB vs 32 GB and time it.  I'll bet there will be a difference.

 

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12 minutes ago, RickR said:

Maybe that's a test you can try.  Encode the same video with 16 GB vs 32 GB and time it.  I'll bet there will be a difference.

 

Yeah, I could, but I'd have to open it up again... ☹️

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Since there is no "Modern Computing Discussion Forum" here (yet) on the site, I thought I'd post my question here.

The setup to the question:  I rotate two Western Digital 25A3 8TB hard drives between my PC and the RPi 4 I have running KODI in another room.  I use two drives in case something happens to one drive I will not lose all my videos.  I also have a rather dog slow Passport 259F that's only 3TB for program, documentation and still photo backups.  Now here's the problem, the Internal drives on the PC, the main drive is a Toshiba Xg5 NVMe PCIe M.2 that is fast as hell, but two small to cram a lot of programs on, so I'm using a rather small Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB drive for programs that I don't use on a daily basis, but I want to augment the internal storage with something fast and of a decent size... to grow into.

<< THIS HARD DRIVE >> seems like a viable option, but knowing that some of you guys here are true experts, I thought I'd ask for some advice/input/alternative(s).  Thanks.

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... okay I figured this topic would be the best place to ask this question.

My Logitech M705 mouse is nearing end of useful life.  The left button often makes multiple clicks, the side button is easily triggered and messes with windows and/or tabs and the center scroll wheel isn't as smooth as it used to be and is also painful to use.  So, does anyone have a suggestion for my next mouse?  I know you all use computers, so if you have a mouse that you think is simply wonderful, I'd love to hear about it.

[RickR]

9 minutes ago, - Ω - said:

... okay I figured this topic would be the best place to ask this question.

My Logitech M705 mouse is nearing end of useful life.  The left button often makes multiple clicks, the side button is easily triggered and messes with windows and/or tabs and the center scroll wheel isn't as smooth as it used to be and is also painful to use.  So, does anyone have a suggestion for my next mouse?  I know you all use computers, so if you have a mouse that you think is simply wonderful, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm using the Logitech M650.  I like it very much for these reasons:

• The sides are severely indented and have rubber grips.  That makes it easy to hold and move, and the side buttons are very out of the way.
• It is bluetooth, saving me a USB port on my tiny PC.
• It is very inexpensive. 

I actually own two of them.  One on my desktop, one for a laptop. 

Edited October 25 by RickR

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4 minutes ago, RickR said:

I'm using the Logitech M650.  I like it very much for these reasons:

• The sides are severely indented and have rubber grips.  That makes it easy to hold and move, and the side buttons ar very out of the way.
• It is bluetooth, saving me a USB port on my tiny PC.
• It is very inexpensive. 

I actually own two of them.  On on my desktop, one for a laptop. 

 

Thanks, I'll go check it out on Amazon.

-- EDIT --

It looks a lot like my M705, but without the switch behind the wheel to go from free wheeling to stepped.

Edited October 25 by - Ω -
Update

[RickR]

My wife has the M705 (a gift from one of the children).  I think that one is ok.  The ergonomic shape isn't my favorite, and it's a bit too heavy with the four batteries.  I agree that the side buttons get pushed on accident.  The sides are indented, but it's slippery rubber.  It's a nice mouse, but takes some getting used to. 

[MaximumRD]

I say this knowing full well that I'm likely the odd duck here. So what else is new 🤣🤷 I am simply answering what I personally use but I am not suggesting or necessarily recommending it. It's great for the right person obviously me, but I love my Logitech m570 trackball. People either love or hate trackballs that's not for me to decide however, I have found it's the type of thing people either love or hate and originally I would have thought no way but after getting used to it, it is my peripheral of choice for desktop use and great to illiminate carpal tunnel syndrome also interestingly enough you'll see in the image here an old iPhone 6 😃it is used for nothing else except I use a little app called "remote mouse" which by connecting through the Wi-Fi of my router recognizes my desktop (the USB is connected only to supply power since the battery drains fast) and thus allows this old otherwise pretty much useless iPhone to be used as an amazing touchpad! just as you would have on any laptop, this is also quite useful to me as I am very adept at using touchpads since I do a lot on laptops. 

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25 minutes ago, RickR said:

My wife has the M705 (a gift from one of the children).  I think that one is ok.  The ergonomic shape isn't my favorite, and it's a bit too heavy with the four batteries.  I agree that the side buttons get pushed on accident.  The sides are indented, but it's slippery rubber.  It's a nice mouse, but takes some getting used to. 

Yeah, the shape has gotten painful for me, I have tendonitis and arthritis, so design is going to factor in BIG-TIME on my selection.  Mine only takes two AA batteries though. 

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9 minutes ago, MaximumRD said:

I say this knowing full well that I'm likely the odd duck here. So what else is new 🤣🤷 I am simply answering what I personally use but I am not suggesting or necessarily recommending it. It's great for the right person obviously me, but I love my Logitech m570 trackball. People either love or hate trackballs that's not for me to decide however, I have found it's the type of thing people either love or hate and originally I would have thought no way but after getting used to it, it is my peripheral of choice for desktop use and great to illiminate carpal tunnel syndrome also interestingly enough you'll see in the image here an old iPhone 6 😃it is used for nothing else except I use a little app called "remote mouse" which by connecting through the Wi-Fi of my router recognizes my desktop (the USB is connected only to supply power since the battery drains fast) and thus allows this old otherwise pretty much useless iPhone to be used as an amazing touchpad! just as you would have on any laptop, this is also quite useful to me as I am very adept at using touchpads since I do a lot on laptops. 

 

 

Yeah, a trackball at that angle would be sheer physical torture for me.  I try to use my thumbs as little as possible.

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When looink up the M650 mouse that @RickR suggested, I came across this... 

 

... it looks like a great place to lay the thumb and the heel of the mouse is rubberized as well.  The wheel looks further away from the heel on the M650 & M705 as well which looks like it would be easier on my index finger.

[MaximumRD]

3 minutes ago, - Ω - said:

 

Yeah, a trackball at that angle would be sheer physical torture for me.  I try to use my thumbs as little as possible.

Fair enough, I totally get that. Again being the odd one, as it turns out, though you and I suspect most would use their thumb on the trackball I am left-handed, as well I have fairly large hands so my thumb is never used sitting to the right of the buttons, my index finger clicks the buttons and scrolls the wheel while my middle and next finger manipulate the trackball.  

 

8 minutes ago, - Ω - said:

When looink up the M650 mouse that @RickR suggested, I came across this... 

 

... it looks like a great place to lay the thumb and the heel of the mouse is rubberized as well.  The wheel looks further away from the heel on the M650 & M705 as well which looks like it would be easier on my index finger.

That's a cool looking mouse. 

[RickR]

The shapes are very different.  M705 on the left, M650 on the right. 

 

Edited October 26 by RickR

[RickR]

Maybe go to Office Depot or some other store that has a lot of mice out on display that you can touch and feel to pick just the right one. 

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20 minutes ago, RickR said:

Maybe go to Office Depot or some other store that has a lot of mice out on display that you can touch and feel to pick just the right one. 

That is a VERY good idea.  Sadly both the Office Max and Office Depot have shut down here in Longview.  There is still a Staples in Chehalis, I'll probably drop by on Saturday when I go up to Centralia to visit my Mom in the nursing home.

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38 minutes ago, MaximumRD said:

That's a cool looking mouse. 

I think so too, but it reminds me a little of the Shuttle craft used in V.

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After reading the reviews and seeing the rating, I figured why not just click the button and get it over with.  It should arrive Saturday.

I'll let you guys know what I think after it arrives.

[Smell Dawg]

10 hours ago, - Ω - said:

After reading the reviews and seeing the rating, I figured why not just click the button and get it over with.  It should arrive Saturday.

I'll let you guys know what I think after it arrives.

I purchased a MX Master 2S model for home office a few years ago - ended up buying another one for work office, too.  Never been more happy with a mouse!  They comfortably fit "adult hands", too!