AWKWARD ZOMBIE

For those who want to disable Win10's spying (which isn't actually disabled completely when you use the UI to do so), there's this tiny script that does it for you. Looking at the source code it looks trustworthy and straightforward.

My Cintiq is being really annoying right now. It’ll be fine when I open SAI, but gradually the cursor will just get laggier and laggier to the point that I’ll swipe the pen across the screen and the cursor will follow along behind it like a second later. Closing and reopening SAI temporarily fixes it, but then after about a minute it just does it again. I’ve tried restarting my laptop, I’ve tried disabling press and hold, I’ve tried disabling Windows Ink but none of it’s helping. It never used to do this so I have no idea why it’s suddenly started being weird. :[

edit: Actually I can't even do big long strokes like usual, it'll register the first bit of the line and then when my pen's off the screen it just... stops, and then when I put the pen closer to the screen again it'll add in the rest of the line like normal.

You should try reinstalling the drivers; if the line is there when you put the pen back down then it definitely sounds like the hardware is working fine. Go to the control panel and uninstall the Cintiq completely, unplug it, and then plug it back in an reboot so it goes through the usual first-time setup.

Drivers for tablets have always seemed a bit slipshod to me, I'd be surprised if the problem was elsewhere. I hear horror stories all the time.

Anyone know if there's a way i can stop Windows Update on Win10 from downloading updates in the background? Or at least configure when it downloads or how much bandwidth it uses? Because right now it slows everything to a crawl.

I don't even care about mandatory updating, i just want it to not throttle my wifi.

I was inclined to say it's impossible because Windows 10 is Just Like That, but I poked around in settings for a second and it should actually be pretty easy! Go into your wifi settings and under the Advanced Options, you can tell Windows that your connection is metered. Even if it's not actually metered, this will stop the automatic background downloads.

Interesting. Does it prevent/mess with all downloads in the background or just WinUpdate?

Edit: I'm guessing that'd depend on what program would be doing the downloading. Steam for example lets you set how much bandwidth it uses but it doesn't seem to have a setting based on metered connections from what I can tell.

Welp, guess I'm not updating Windows until I remember to turn the metered setting off? Hmmm.

I've started having an annoying audio problem on my laptop and I'm not sure what's causing it. If I try to play TF2 and talk with friends on Teamspeak/Steam audio chat/Mumble or whatever at the same time, I'll only hear the voicechat through my headphones while game sounds (and all other sounds) will come from my laptop's speakers. If I open TF2 and then connect to the Teamspeak server, the gamesounds will start coming out of the speakers, and if I close out of Teamspeak, the sound will start coming from my headphones again. I've tried restarting, I've tried changing default devices, I've tried different headsets, I've tried all sorts of things but none of it is making any sort of difference.

The weird thing is, I've had this same issue before and I have no idea what fixed it. For a while I was part of a TF2 team and I was having the weird audio problems, and in the end we just went with Skype and my teammates just had to put up with being able to hear all my gamesounds in the background. After a while the team split up and I didn't do anything that required voicechat for a while, up until a few months ago when I made a new bunch of friends and we started talking in Mumble. Somehow, the audio problems were gone, and all sounds were coming out of my headphones as normal. We later moved to a Teamspeak server and everything continued to be fine. Then one day my dad gave me a new headset to try out, so I plugged it in, got it set up and went on Teamspeak, but ended up just unplugging it because I couldn't hear anyone talking even though I had the sound on everything turned up. I plugged my regular headphones back in, and I've been having the annoying sound problems ever since.

My laptop is a HP Envy 15, my regular headphones are Skullcandy Hesh 2.0 Toxic Tune headphones and the USB ones are Tritton 720+ headphones. I want to use the latter because the mic quality is so much better, but I don't even know where to begin in regards to getting these sound issues sorted out. @~@ The Tritton ones are also second-hand, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

I have a friend who has the same problem (and refuses to fix it for some reason, says he prefers it :S), I'll hear if he has a solution if I see him soon. In the meantime, try reinstalling your audio drivers. Perhaps a program that manages audio output could also provide a solution, but I can't think of one at the moment.

Have you tried setting the default communications device? Windows has a built in function that allows you to put chat through one device and other audio through another.

Right click the volume icon -> Playback Devices -> Right click the headset -> Select "Set as Default Device" and "Set as Default Communications Device"

If that doesn't do it, the problem might be with the chat software itself. It might be forcing sound to go to a specific device rather than pointing to the default Windows device. Try checking the settings menu.

I'm looking for a new coolant for my processor, more RAM and a new fan.

I currently have a AMD3+ gigabyte motherboad and an AMD FX processor.

My computer suffers from a lot of stuttering and the fan is really noisy, so I think the issue is with the processor overheating and the fan not being good enough.

Does anyone have recommendations for parts I should get? I'm looking for something good midway in the price range. Nothing too expensive but none of the cheap crap either.

What fan do you currently have? Have you tried re-applying thermal paste?

I'll check later for the fan but haven't tried the thermal paste. This issue started from the day I got the processor, which would mean it wasn't applied or improperly so.

My biggest suspicion is that it's a new processor trying to work with old parts because this computer is a few years old and I hadn't upgraded it until I got a new motherboard and processor. I did get a new graphics card some time back but that's a year or two ago.

It shouldn't be a problem. Getting a new motherboard and processor wouldn't worsen improvement; it would improve it if they're compatible and I can't imagine they wouldn't be. Besides, it's the chipset in the motherboard that handles working with the parts.

Checked out my fan and it said Cooler Master 500, didn't quite see any more specific info on it from a short glance.

Either way, it's Cooler Master all around in my computer. It's a dated model, that's for sure, so not a model in the last 2 years.

If there's a big problem with heat not getting to the heat sync the will probably just turn off completely. An easy thing to do cheaply ($0) is just download a program to tell you what temperature it's running at.
A slightly dodgy trick to finding out which fan is making the noise is to open the case while it's running and slow each fan down by putting your finger on the central spinning part, with half a dozen fans going it can be tough to know exactly which one is making all the noise. Once you've found the fan you can either clean it, lubricate it, stop it scuffing on the edge, or replace it.