As PC gamers, we’ve probably all booted up our favorite game, only to be distracted big time by our graphics card sounding like a Boeing 747 getting ready to take off. This noise is called coil whine, and while many people say that it’s caused by electromagnetic interference (which I’ll discuss later), there’s also another … Read more
Western Digital produce some great quality drives: from massive 22TB hard drives to super-fast NVMe SSDs. They also make a drive that sounds fairly eco-friendly: the WD Green range. Unfortunately using this drive in your Synology NAS can have some big consequences. Here’s why. What Makes The WD Green Drives ‘Eco-Friendly’ WD Green drives claim … Read more
PCs work well… most of the time. However in rare cases, Windows computers can have major problems after a power outage – even resulting in the PC failing to boot up. This is because modern PCs are actually quite complicated: a range of PC hardware, BIOS options and operating system layers all have to work … Read more
Some people barely notice power outages – especially brief brownouts. But if you own a NAS, you should be very wary of them – because even a small power outage could result in big problems, including potentially losing your data. Here’s exactly what you need to know about power outages as a Synology owner, and … Read more
“Microtransactions“, “loot boxes” and “freemium” are all phrases that have (unfortunately) become common to us over the past 1-2 decades. These are all forms of ‘pay to win’, whereby games are designed so that you can sort of beat them for free – but it’s often much quicker to pay a small amount for a … Read more
Before I started working for myself, I worked as a software developer for a decade. And pretty much everyone kept their computers on overnight (and over the weekends, too). It was just too much effort to constantly close down a dozen or more programs a night, only to open them back up the following day. … Read more
Every few months (or weeks..!) I have an issue where my computer powers on and the fans are spinning fine, but no output appears on the PC screen. This is a confusing and annoying issue, especially because I always double check that all cables are correctly inserted into my computer and monitor. Luckily this issue … Read more
A computer’s BIOS is filled with loads of weird and scary sounding options, and you might have come across a settings like “Launch CSM” and “Secure Boot”. Sometimes you might come across an article online suggesting that you disable CSM, either to speed up boot times or resolve certain hardware bugs. Unfortunately disabling CSM has … Read more
I have a network switch in my attic, so when I purchased a Synology NAS, it made sense to install my NAS there. That way, I wouldn’t have to hear my NAS’ fans (and drives) spinning, but I could still access and use it normally. Until I couldn’t. One day I couldn’t access my NAS, … Read more
While it’s recommended to buy a PC or laptop with as much RAM as possible, sometimes we don’t have that luxury. Sometimes we’re stuck with a 4GB system, and can’t easily upgrade its RAM. If this applies to you – and you still want to game on it – fear not. There are a number … Read more