Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[Smellincoffee]

This is more about browsers than hardware, but is there a way to dodge redirects that are prompted by geographic information? For instance. I used to visit Wired.co.uk and BBC.co.uk, but in the last year they've begun automatically bouncing me to the US websites, which I am not interested in.

 

[Sarin]

This is more about browsers than hardware, but is there a way to dodge redirects that are prompted by geographic information? For instance. I used to visit Wired.co.uk and BBC.co.uk, but in the last year they've begun automatically bouncing me to the US websites, which I am not interested in.

VPN.

 

[Smellincoffee]

VPN.

I use Mozilla vpn, so that may have to suffice. Thanks.

 

[Quintillus]

Is this Moore's law hitting Quantum Mechanics, and the fabs turning to overclocking out of the gate?

Intel has been overclocking out of the gate for a long time now, and even when they don't so much, a lot of desktop motherboard manufacturers ship with overclocking-by-default enabled. It's incredibly wasteful if you ask me, since power use = clock speed * voltage ^2, and to increase the clock speed you have to increase the voltage, so you'll wind up with 15% more performance for 50% more power consumption or something like that. As an option for someone who really needs every bit of power, sure, but on-by-default makes no sense to me.

But the result was that CPUs were taking way more power than they had before, sometimes upwards of 250 to 300 Watts, when in the Pentium IV era, an era known for hot CPUs, upper-two-digits was considered a lot of power. This, in turn, stressed the electrical components to near their limits.

Why were Intel and their motherboard partners doing this, and why was AMD not doing it as much? Largely because Intel had fallen behind on manufacturing technology; the peak of this was their "14nm++++++++" CPUs that were brand new but using roughly five-year-old manufacturing techniques, while AMD was using current techniques on a 7nm scale (twice the density of transistors = faster chip using less power). Intel wanted to compete for the performance crown but the only way they could do so was to overclock to the hilt. So that's what they did. They won by 2% on performance and used two and a half times as much power to do so.

Granted, AMD had tried similar tricks circa 2015, when they were the ones who was behind, but not on such a wide swathe of their lineup.

It sounds like now that Intel is at least in the same ballpark, if not equal, to AMD from a performance standpoint, they've returned to sane clock speeds, but the motherboard manufacturers are trying to one-up each other and frying CPUs in the process.

It makes me glad I'm on a Ryzen 7 laptop where I don't have to worry about such shenanigans. No one's going to try that on a laptop because then the battery life would be measured in minutes.

This is more about browsers than hardware, but is there a way to dodge redirects that are prompted by geographic information? For instance. I used to visit Wired.co.uk and BBC.co.uk, but in the last year they've begun automatically bouncing me to the US websites, which I am not interested in.

Yeah, VPNs are the answer. Or finding websites that don't do that. No small part of why I started reading more of the Guardian than BBC, the former remembered my preference for the UK Edition.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

This is more about browsers than hardware, but is there a way to dodge redirects that are prompted by geographic information? For instance. I used to visit Wired.co.uk and BBC.co.uk, but in the last year they've begun automatically bouncing me to the US websites, which I am not interested in.

Scriptblock. Only allow the stuff you want and block the rest. Also conveniently cuts out any anti adblock features and some times even kills paywalls.

Also, depending on your browser and OS version you can also block the browser or specific websites from having access to your location data.

 

[Samson]

What is broken in my "new" computer?

I have just bought a second hand computer mostly for the graphics card. It looks like this with an Ubuntu live USN stick, if I boot in to "Safe Graphics" mode, normal mode is a blank screen. Any idea what is broken? It so looks like the graphics card, but it cannot be that bad.

Spoiler Some pictures :

Start of boot up, before grub menu

Main boot sequence

OS running

Spoiler Result of glmark2 :

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ glmark2
MESA: error: ZINK: failed to choose pdev
glx: failed to create drisw screen
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
=======================================================
glmark2 2023.01
=======================================================
OpenGL Information
GL_VENDOR: Mesa
GL_RENDERER: llvmpipe (LLVM 17.0.6, 256 bits)
GL_VERSION: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.1
Surface Config: buf=32 r=8 g=8 b=8 a=8 depth=32 stencil=0 samples=0
Surface Size: 800x600 windowed
=======================================================
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[build] use-vbo=false: FPS: 529 FrameTime: 1.894 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[build] use-vbo=true: FPS: 518 FrameTime: 1.933 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[texture] texture-filter=nearest: FPS: 813 FrameTime: 1.230 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[texture] texture-filter=linear: FPS: 837 FrameTime: 1.195 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[texture] texture-filter=mipmap: FPS: 620 FrameTime: 1.613 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[shading] shading=gouraud: FPS: 383 FrameTime: 2.611 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[shading] shading=blinn-phong-inf: FPS: 358 FrameTime: 2.796 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[shading] shading=phong: FPS: 358 FrameTime: 2.794 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[shading] shading=cel: FPS: 368 FrameTime: 2.724 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[bump] bump-render=high-poly: FPS: 216 FrameTime: 4.645 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[bump] bump-render=normals: FPS: 785 FrameTime: 1.275 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[bump] bump-render=height: FPS: 787 FrameTime: 1.271 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[effect2d] kernel=0,1,0;1,-4,1;0,1,0;: FPS: 417 FrameTime: 2.400 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[effect2d] kernel=1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;: FPS: 289 FrameTime: 3.462 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[pulsar] light=false:quads=5:texture=false: FPS: 410 FrameTime: 2.444 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[desktop] blur-radius=5:effect=blurasses=1:separable=true:windows=4: FPS: 135 FrameTime: 7.461 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[desktop] effect=shadow:windows=4: FPS: 324 FrameTime: 3.093 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 280 FrameTime: 3.576 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=subdata: FPS: 286 FrameTime: 3.505 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=true:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 290 FrameTime: 3.451 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[ideas] speed=duration: FPS: 414 FrameTime: 2.420 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[jellyfish] <default>: FPS: 231 FrameTime: 4.337 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[terrain] <default>: FPS: 21 FrameTime: 48.212 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[shadow] <default>: FPS: 264 FrameTime: 3.792 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[refract] <default>: FPS: 39 FrameTime: 25.702 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 479 FrameTime: 2.092 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[conditionals] fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 551 FrameTime: 1.818 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 562 FrameTime: 1.780 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[function] fragment-complexity=low:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 556 FrameTime: 1.801 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[function] fragment-complexity=medium:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 504 FrameTime: 1.987 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[loop] fragment-loop=false:fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 555 FrameTime: 1.803 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=false:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 559 FrameTime: 1.792 ms
** GLX does not support GLX_EXT_swap_control or GLX_MESA_swap_control!
** Failed to set swap interval. Results may be bounded above by refresh rate.
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=true:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 542 FrameTime: 1.847 ms
=======================================================
glmark2 Score: 431
=======================================================

 

[Quintillus]

The monitor has been tested with another computer and was okay then, right?

Assuming the monitor is okay, I see two options - a failing, dodgy GPU, and drivers.

Let's start with the bad one... the GPU being dodgy. Artifacting (showing blocks of colors where they aren't supposed to be) is common in GPUs experiencing hardware failure. I have an old laptop with a failing GPU (the model of GPU is known to start failing after a certain point due to a design flaw in its cooling system), and while my case doesn't look exactly like that, that sort of artifacting does not look unfamiliar, and the exact symptoms are likely to depend on which part of the GPU is having problems, as well as how the operating system is interacting with the GPU. For my old failing GPU, Linux Mint 22.04 became literally unusable because how the OS used the GPU would lead to lockups, but on Windows XP, it's sometimes usable, sometimes has visual artifacts, and occasionally also freezes up or throws a Blue Screen of Death that indicates a GPU problem. There's no one giveaway sign, but a variety of ways the failure can manifest.

As for drivers... the quality of GPU drivers on Linux is variable, and you can experience some weird side effects if you're using the wrong one. I remember eight or nine years ago, in some cases using nVIDIA's open-source drivers, I could see whole elements not appear when playing some games. Install nVIDIA's proprietary drivers, it worked great.

To me the pictures you're showing look worse than just driver problems, especially since you're just running Grub and the desktop, nothing exotic. It looks like you're running the Mesa drivers, which are an open source one. I'm out of the loop on what's currently recommended, but if you have an nVIDIA card, it's worth a try installing their proprietary drivers. I believe for AMD, the open-source ones are best but that might not be the same as Mesa? Still worth a try to head on over and download the official ones if you have an AMD card. I'm guessing you didn't buy a computer for an Intel Arc GPU, but if so, that's perhaps the most risky option, and I'd definitely try updating to whatever the latest drivers are.

Probably also worth sharing on a more technical forum like Tom's Hardware (RIP AnandTech). You'll find more experts there.