Random Technology Questions

[sivispacem]

Plus, you should have a legit anti keylogger software. I'm not sure if TDSSKiller has anti-keylogger feature but it's always good to have one.

TDSS is anti-rootkit and bootkit. Most good antivirus programmes will detect keylogging aspects of trojans. That said, the keylogger itself isn't usually the problem, it's the module that it uses to communicate with a C&C server and send the logs.

[WHAT!?]

Plus, you should have a legit anti keylogger software. I'm not sure if TDSSKiller has anti-keylogger feature but it's always good to have one.

TDSS is anti-rootkit and bootkit. Most good antivirus programmes will detect keylogging aspects of trojans. That said, the keylogger itself isn't usually the problem, it's the module that it uses to communicate with a C&C server and send the logs.

...and that module would be detectable by Malwarebyte's/Security Essentials?

 

I'm fairly ignorant to how a lot of viruses work. I'm pretty decent at figuring out physical problems with PC's... but I have never been that well read in the software/information protection department (beyond setup a good password, change it often and don't click on weird sh*t). That said, again this is the first time I have had an issue with protecting information.

 

Is my little mantra not good enough anymore? Is there anything I'm not doing that I should be?

[sivispacem]

I would personally avoid MSE. Up until about 3 months ago it was great but it now has serious issues with zero-day threats (that is new malware for which full signatures aren't available)- for instance it can't pick up newer versions of things like ZeroAccess. Of the free products, Avast! has the best hit-rate with current threats.

 

A good antivirus programme should be able to stop a trojan delivering things like key-loggers. Basically they should be able to identify the MD5 or SHA hash of a dangerous file and block it before it can unpack and activate. They do this by comparing a bank of signatures in a database format with existing processes, internet traffic, and executable files. You can see, therefore, how harmful a programme with a poor database of threats can be.

 

Avoid phishing emails, warez and crack sites, do all your banking on a browser boot cd (basically a pared down operating system and internet browser on a cd, which you boot from instead of the operating system which means there is no chance of malware stealing credentials as the operating system never boots) and keep software up to date and all will be fine.

Edited December 4, 2012 by sivispacem

[Evil.Tim]

I just switched to a new ISP and Speedtest.net gives me results of up to 100mbit/s, but my torrents are slower than ever. They don't go over 250kB/s, even when there's only one of them downloading and there's no other internet activity going on. The biggest possibility is that my new ISP is slowing the torrents down, but I'm wondering if there are any other possible problems that could be causing this? I've tried several servers on Speedtest.net and they all give me similar results, so I'm pretty sure that my speed is fine, it's only the torrents giving me trouble.

[friendly luggage]

Have you done port forwarding on your router? Find out what port the torrent program uses and then forward that port.

[Zxirius.]

 

The biggest possibility is that my new ISP is slowing the torrents down, but I'm wondering if there are any other possible problems that could be causing this?

This is becoming more popular with ISPs every year. If opening the port(s) wasn't your problem, then try torrenting at different times of the day to see if your ISP only throttles you during busy hours. If it seems to be the same slow speed at all times of the day (even late at night), then the best solution for you is usenet ...

[AndyGanteks]

K, i wanna buy a new video card, currently i got 9400 GT Nvidia...how is this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814102882 compared to 9400 GT?

 

And how would IV, Far Cry 3, Skyrim, BF3 run on it, aka the latest games?

[yoječ]

Honestly - not much of an upgrade. it's barely better.

[AndyGanteks]

Hmm, any recommendations then for some video cards up to 60-70 $ that could b ea decent or solid improvement over 9400 GT? I don't need some very high end ones, but as long as it's noticeably better then 9400 GT it's good.

[Zxirius.]

The card you linked to isn't exactly a gaming card, and the card you had wasn't much of one either. Honestly, a Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, GTS, or GTX would pull off better performance than your 9400GT considering it was built for gaming performance. It was the best card of it's generation.

 

For ATi, look for anything X660+ and Nvidia X60+ (newer gens are three digits instead of four for Nvidia) if you are looking for cards built for gaming performance. "X" being the absent numbers according to generation.

 

Honestly, 5670+ ATi and Nvidia GeForce 260+ would probably be your best bet for a budget gaming card, but they may still be more expensive than you are willing to pay (assuming that's USD). If you are willing to spend $80 minimum and are open to spending up toward $120 max, you'd be in good shape for those cards.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, if you're still using a 9400GT your entire rig may be very outdated now, and your lack of performance could be much more than a simple outdated GPU.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Zxirius

[Evil.Tim]

Have you done port forwarding on your router? Find out what port the torrent program uses and then forward that port.

I just did some port forwarding for uTorrent and now when I start a torrent download, the speed almost immediately jumps to a great 3-4MB/s, but then it goes back to about 200KB/s in under a minute and it stays there for good. Before the port forwarding, the speed wouldn't go over 250KB/s for any amount of time. Something is still very wrong here. Looks like my ISP is capping my torrent speed as soon s it goes over a certain limit. Downloading through a browser works just fine, though.

[Zxirius.]

Yes, if you're getting a burst of 4MB/s and then drop drastically to a slower steady speed like you describe, then you're getting intentionally throttled. Perhaps discuss this with your ISP, but chances are they throttle torrents globally and will not make any changes for you. Just remember, it's their network and they have the right to limit you if they please. Like I said before, your best bet is usenet providers (Google it).

[sivispacem]

Numerous providers interfere with peer-to-peer traffic by throttling based on signatures, headers and other defining characteristics, in order to limit the bandwidth given to people using BitTorrent protocols. That's probably why port forwarding is having no (or very limited) effect. The only way around this is to use one of the various anonymised, onion-routed and/or SSL encrypted BitTorrent clients to counteract traffic shaping, but all of these increase network demand and therefore result in slower speeds- onion routing in particular. I doubt there's much you can do.

[The Killa]

Right, so I'm looking to overclock my GTX 560. Had it for a while but looking to squeeze a bit more out of it until I upgrade.

 

Thing is I have no f*cking idea where to start. So does anyone have a guide, or can tell me as to how exactly to overclock? Tried a few google searches but mostly found articles from 2008~ and I have no idea if it's too dated or isn't optimal anymore.

[Remix]

I've got a super dumb question for you all. I'm wanting to purchase a second monitor for my iMac but have no idea what monitor is compatible or what cord I would need. Does anyone know?

 

If it helps at all my iMac is 21.5" released in mid 2011.

 

Cheers!

Edited December 5, 2012 by Remix

[Finn 7 five 11]

^ What Ports do you have on the back? Hdmi? Dvi? VGA? Optical? We don't necessarilyall have imacs so it's hard to know.

You might not be able to get a second monitor knowing how apple likes to do things.

 

Edit: according to the specifications it has a mini display port with support for dvi, so you need a mini d to dvi cable and a monitor with dvi obviously, which is pretty much all new monitors, however you won't have sound.

 

The only thing is I see the mini dvi in the specs, but not on the actual imac.

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs/

 

The joys of Apples "superior" inflexible products.

Edited December 5, 2012 by finn4life

[winme05]

1.My mobo has one CNR slot which I'm not using for anything. I know CNRs were used for networking and audio. Is there anything useful I can hook in a CNR assuming my mobo (BIOStar M7NCD) has a built-in audio processor?

 

2. Is is possible to overclock GeForce4 MX440 (AGP8x) or do something else to increase it's performance? I Googled, but I didn't find anything.

[yoječ]

It's possible to overclock. Don't expect it to make any miraculous difference though.

[Evil.Tim]

In the unlikely case that someone has been reading about my problem and has a similar situation, I have found a solution. Using Vuze instead of uTorrent/BitTorrent and enabling some basic encryption settings does the trick just fine and I'm getting up to almost 10MB/s speeds now.

[friendly luggage]

How much difference is there in ping between wireless and using an ethernet cable?

[Zxirius.]

That depends on the strength of the wireless connection and the quality of it. The main difference between a wired and wireless connection is that a wired connection is a lot more reliable since you don't have to worry about the connection strength or interference. Lower strength and interference will cause massive jitter (ping fluctuations) which can make your gaming experience much less enjoyable. A wireless connection has a much higher chance of dropping packets than a wired connection as well, for the same reasons.

 

Most of the time you don't have to worry about these problems if you're well within range of your access point, but if you are in a location where there are many other wireless access points as well as wireless devices potentially using the same frequency range; you may end up receiving a lot of interference and have a tough time maintaining high speeds and stable ping.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Zxirius

[Finn 7 five 11]

How much difference is there in ping between wireless and using an ethernet cable?

What the guy said above pretty much. For gaming I strongly recommend a wired, if it's a desktop or console it's not Like you're moving it much anyway. I used to use wireless for my ps3, since using wired I found I get way more consistent signal, not many lag spikes at all. I get kicked out way less often.

[Remix]

 

^ What Ports do you have on the back? Hdmi? Dvi? VGA? Optical? We don't necessarilyall have imacs so it's hard to know.

You might not be able to get a second monitor knowing how apple likes to do things.

 

Edit: according to the specifications it has a mini display port with support for dvi, so you need a mini d to dvi cable and a monitor with dvi obviously, which is pretty much all new monitors, however you won't have sound.

 

The only thing is I see the mini dvi in the specs, but not on the actual imac.

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs/

 

The joys of Apples "superior" inflexible products.

Hey mate, cheers for the reply!

 

My iMac looks like this (minus one of the firewire ports):

 

 

Edit: Here is the specs for my specific iMac. Thanks!

[Finn 7 five 11]

Reading the specifications, how it works is a mini display port cable plugs into the thunderbolt jack, you then need a cable that is mini display port-----> mini display port and then a monitor with a mini display port input.

Or a mini displayport-----> dvi cable with a monitor that has dvi input.

The latter would be easier as pretty well all new monitors have dvi.

 

So you need a mini display port cable to DVI, with a monitor that supports DVI input.

[Remix]

Reading the specifications, how it works is a mini display port cable plugs into the thunderbolt jack, you then need a cable that is mini display port-----> mini display port and then a monitor with a mini display port input.

Or a mini displayport-----> dvi cable with a monitor that has dvi input.

The latter would be easier as pretty well all new monitors have dvi.

 

So you need a mini display port cable to DVI, with a monitor that supports DVI input.

Awesome! Thank you so much for your help.

 

Christmas is coming early!

 

 

[Bad.boy!]

Does anyone know how these inputs are called (red & white)? Is it possible to connect the speakers to a pc and use them?

[Crokey]

Phono's or RCA connectors (same thing), and if your speakers have them on the back then yes it's possible just search 2x Phono (or RCA) - Stereo 3.5mm Jack, it will be a y-split cable, something like this will do the job.

 

[fgcarva1]

I have a Samsung Hard Drive that I used with my old PC. A few months back I got a MacBook Pro and I'm running on OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion)... so I tried using the hard drive for the first time on my Mac and I can only move files from the hard drive into the computer and not fro the computer to the hard drive. It just won't let me copy the file into the Samsung hard drive while in Finder.

 

So, is there a way I can copy files from my Mac to the HD?

[Narcis_speed6]

What is the error you receive? maybe the hard drive has bad sectors.

[Evil.Tim]

This isn't exactly a "tech" question, it's more of a warranty thing. My WD 1TB external drive has been giving me trouble lately. I'm often getting a "cyclic redundancy check" when downloading torrents straight onto it. So far the only programs reporting this issue are torrent clients, but I'll take that as an early sign of incoming trouble. Anyway, I've dug up the bill and warranty for the drive, but there's a bit of an issue. The store I bought the drive from offers one-year warranty while the manufacturers (WD themselves) offer a 2 year warranty for it. It's been a bit over a year since I've bought it, but nowhere near two. So, where does that leave me? I know it's not unheard of to contact the manufacturer and ask them for help (In fact, my friend contacted Logitech about a broken Performance MX mouse, and they sent him a brand new one even though he was a few months late for his warranty), but I'm wondering how I should get around to doing this.

 

Also, any general tips about the "cyclic redundancy check" error? I know what it means, but I'm having no trouble with it other than torrents. I was kinda wondering if it's even smart to download directly to it, since it's an external drive and all? I've tried several disk checks and they report fixing a few bad clusters, but I keep getting the error in a matter of minutes. Am I right to assume that this will keep getting worse and worse as time progresses?