on sound cards, I'm fine with not buying any since onboard sound became a standard part of a new PC. I know a good sound card offers more, but i've always been happy enough with onboard sound

A motherboard with RDRAM memory modules.

I remember being disgusted about how Rambus tried to shove their patented crap down the collective PC industry's throat.

Not only am I glad that I didn't touch that technology with a 10-foot pole, I'm also glad that the technology lost out to the industry-standard DDR SDRAM.

emu34b wrote on 2025-04-04, 02:16:

I made damn sure to steer them clear of Belkin, and got one of those classic blue Linksys routers instead. And guess what, that thing still works, like the day we bought it.

Linksys WRT54GL?

I'm glad I never bought a wireless keyboard and mouse.
I prefer my keyboard/mouse to have a good connection by cable. Bonus I don't worry about battery.

UCyborg wrote on 2025-04-04, 12:39:

emu34b wrote on 2025-04-04, 02:16:

I made damn sure to steer them clear of Belkin, and got one of those classic blue Linksys routers instead. And guess what, that thing still works, like the day we bought it.

Linksys WRT54GL?

Yep, that’s the one!

I lost Linksys WRT54GL about a year ago after power went out, well, it coming back was fatal.

From what I could gather, its capacitors are rather low grade. Its power supply presumably isn't particularly trustworthy either. I found it a bit odd that it was always so hot, only when the router died and compared its power supply to the one used by a newer modem with similar power requirements and another 3rd party power supply for similar devices, it struck me that old Linksys' brick was rather odd.

That router is short-circuited now, its repair would have to go beyond capacitors. I usually unplug electronics if power goes out, but in that one instance, I wasn't home and the person who was didn't think to unplug them.

I wondered if having a better power supply brick would have saved it.

darry wrote on 2025-03-26, 12:38:

I also have an Acer LCD panel with an IPS panel that I once believed might be the same as the one in the Philips (not that sure […]
Show full quote

sndwv wrote on 2025-03-26, 12:21:

darry wrote on 2025-03-25, 17:05:

The Philips 252B9 might be an option, but I believe the panel use FRC and has an oddly textured look on some uniform color areas when running at native resolution AND >60Hz. Its scaler can force any resolution to display pillarboxed as 4:3, even non square pixel ones. AFAICR, it displays 16:9 properly letterboxed as well (in auto aspect mode), but I use mine in in forced 4:3 mode exclusively.

Thanks for the tip, I'll check the display out! The 'textured look' I have noticed on several other panels as well, can be pretty distracting, but if the doesn't happen st 60Hz I'm fine with it.

I also have an Acer LCD panel with an IPS panel that I once believed might be the same as the one in the Philips (not that sure anymore). The Acer has that textured look on a specific light blue gradient, but only, AFAICR, starting at 55ish Hz refresh rate and going upward (I experimented).

I suspect that this is might be down to these possibly being 6-bit + FRC panels, with the symptom being due to differing FRC implementation, but I could be wrong.

EDIT: Assuming this us due to FRC, I wonder if 8-bit + FRC panels have similar visually detectable issues.

As a follow-up, not seeing that issue on an 8-bit + FRC panel in an MP275Q, even at 100Hz . That one is a 2560x1440 IPS display and has an an actual forced 4x3 mode. Mine calibrates fine to an average Delta E of 0.4. Did not bother measuring it out of the box (but white point seemed visually too cool when set to 6500K preset manually or to SRGB mode preset).