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Tech Help (Beyond This Forum)

Ethernet wall sockets. I attach my laptop via ethernet cable directly to the LAN port on my router, and it works. I try this with another cable, and the second also works. However, if I then run one of these known-working cables from my router to the ethernet wall socket, and the other from another socket in the house to my laptop, I have no connection. Ergo, it's a problem with the sockets, right? I have unscrewed the cover plate on both and checked the wiring: one pair of wires was indeed crossed over, so I rectified that. But the damn arrangement still doesn't work, and I am at a loss. Is there anything obvious I have missed in my trouble-shooting? What would be the next logical step to take? Is there any possibility at all that I need to change a setting in the router (Mi wifi gen 4)?

I can't really just rely on the wi-fi signal: the wireless signal is unreliable, whereas I need to have a rock-steady connection for my online classes, on which rely not only my income but also my ability to stay in this country. Also, I can't easily have long cables snaking down the corridor (I am living with a toddler and a senior citizen with poor eyesight). And given who is sleeping in which room, I can't move my workspace closer to the router itself (or vice-versa, for that matter). So all suggestions gratefully received.

I think I can follow your description so here's my idea.

In our old apartment we had 16 ethernet wall sockets numbered 1-16. They are not, however connected with each other. Connecting a router to socket 4 and a laptop to socket 7 will not work as they don't speak to each other.

The cables in the wall ran from each individual socket into a cupboard in the hall with a patch box consisting of 16 female ethernet sockets numbered 1-16 (and a diagram showing where the sockets were in the house and what their numbers were). Our router was also in the cupboard. It had 4 outputs. So for example, if we connected the router to sockets 1,3,4,9 then we got signal at outlets 1,3,4 and 9.

So I think you have to find the patch box or "main" socket. Or, for example, let's say you have plugged your router into a wall socket (number 2) and you laptop (number 7) then you'll have to find the patchbox and connect 2 with 7 using a small ethernet cable.
 
Beat me to it Ringo! I was writing a post to say much the same when I saw a notification of a new reply on this thread. Krepostnoi, check for a patch panel which should be where the wall-port cables terminate, these need to be connected to a network switch to actually enable communication between the router and the laptop.
 
Krepostnoi:

There are multiple variables here, and your description of the setup doesn't pin those variables down, so this is only a first guess ...

Both the ISP's box and your router accept the IP connection on the "upstream" side and define a local area (sub-) network (LAN) on the "downstream" side.

Unless the second socket is itself "downstream" of the router, you're bypassing the router when you plug the laptop directly into the second socket. This means your laptop is attempting to access the higher-level IP network directly, and it's not working because your laptop isn't recognized as a valid first-level IP node within the house network.

As an experiment ... Move or reconnect the router so that its upstream connection is into the second wall plate, then connect the laptop directly into the router. If everything works as before, that demonstrates the second wall plate is a separate node from the first wallplate.
 
Not a 100 percent sure of the difference in the wiring between an ethernet wall socket and an ethernet mains adaptor plug (which works very well for me). Cable goes from router to the plug, plug goes into mains socket, second 'paired' adaptor plug goes into any electrical socket elsewhere in the house and you run cable from that to PC/laptop.
 
So I think you have to find the patch box or "main" socket. Or, for example, let's say you have plugged your router into a wall socket (number 2) and you laptop (number 7) then you'll have to find the patchbox and connect 2 with 7 using a small ethernet cable.
Krepostnoi, check for a patch panel which should be where the wall-port cables terminate, these need to be connected to a network switch to actually enable communication between the router and the laptop.
Thanks, both, this sounds likely to be a fruitful course of enquiry.

@EnolaGaia the internet comes into our apartment via, unsurprisingly, a cable. This cable attaches to a modem supplied by the ISP, and our router is connected directly via ethernet cable to this modem. Everything else is "downstream" from there. That is, no cables run out of the modem into any wall sockets, there is just that one wired connection from modem to router.

Not a 100 percent sure of the difference in the wiring between an ethernet wall socket and an ethernet mains adaptor plug (which works very well for me). Cable goes from router to the plug, plug goes into mains socket, second 'paired' adaptor plug goes into any electrical socket elsewhere in the house and you run cable from that to PC/laptop.
Funnily enough, we have some 3-pin ethernet-over-powerline adapters. Unfortunately, Vietnam uses 2-pin power sockets. And it turns out that a 3>2 pin plug adapter is no good for this purpose. 2-pin powerline adapters are available, but only if ordered from China, which right now makes them a riskier purchase than I want to make.
 
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Not a 100 percent sure of the difference in the wiring between an ethernet wall socket and an ethernet mains adaptor plug (which works very well for me). Cable goes from router to the plug, plug goes into mains socket, second 'paired' adaptor plug goes into any electrical socket elsewhere in the house and you run cable from that to PC/laptop.
That sounds like 'digital powerline' technology. Not standard Ethernet.
 
I have a miserable, elderly lady problem:-

I had to buy a new monitor for my faithful desk top a couple of years ago. (No printed instructions -I plugged it in and it worked fine!)

I accidentally nudged one of the little monitor buttons this morning, and it has turned the background colour from white to dirty white.
I have tried the various monitor buttons in desperation to find out how to restore the brilliant white background, and there are various little boxes come up with possibilities, but I don't know how to get into these little boxes. They don't respond to a click of the mouse (right OR left) or the arrow keys or the space bar.

If I go into the computer's control panel, it acknowledges that I've got a monitor, but that's about it.
I don't want to meddle too much , as I don't want to mess things up even more, without being able to put them right again!

Any suggestions?
 
I have a miserable, elderly lady problem:-

I had to buy a new monitor for my faithful desk top a couple of years ago. (No printed instructions -I plugged it in and it worked fine!)

I accidentally nudged one of the little monitor buttons this morning, and it has turned the background colour from white to dirty white.
I have tried the various monitor buttons in desperation to find out how to restore the brilliant white background, and there are various little boxes come up with possibilities, but I don't know how to get into these little boxes. They don't respond to a click of the mouse (right OR left) or the arrow keys or the space bar.

If I go into the computer's control panel, it acknowledges that I've got a monitor, but that's about it.
I don't want to meddle too much , as I don't want to mess things up even more, without being able to put them right again!

Any suggestions?
That sounds like the 'warmth' setting on the monitor.
Clicking the mouse or doing stuff with Windows won't change it, because it's on the monitor.
You need to press the buttons on the monitor until you get what looks like a menu.
One of those buttons turns the menu on or off (it's a toggle). It may also be used to select things, so press it more than once to see how it behaves.
The other buttons may be a + or - These may be used for cycling through the options in a particular menu. There are probably 3 'warmth' settings for your monitor (just guessing).
There may be an Auto button. Try pressing this to see if it auto-configures.
Without knowing what buttons you've got, I can't help further, sorry.

It might help if you could find a brand name on the monitor - there may be a downloadable manual on the Web somewhere.
 
My smaller Macbook stopped, which I assumed was a blown fuse. Took it out and found it was a 10 amp which seemed unusual.

Couldn't find one so I tried a spare lead which worked. Nicked the fuse from it to try in the original plug and it's a 5 amp.
Looked online for advice and read that it should be a 3 amp.

Both my leads had the original fuses from new. Now I'm just confused!
 
My smaller Macbook stopped, which I assumed was a blown fuse. Took it out and found it was a 10 amp which seemed unusual.

Couldn't find one so I tried a spare lead which worked. Nicked the fuse from it to try in the original plug and it's a 5 amp.
Looked online for advice and read that it should be a 3 amp.

Both my leads had the original fuses from new. Now I'm just confused!
Bizarre, but the lowest-rated one that works would probably be your safest best. Use the 5, or a 3 if you have one.

Don't know why I'm offering electrical advice, I'm not even vaguely qualified, but there you go...
 
My smaller Macbook stopped, which I assumed was a blown fuse. Took it out and found it was a 10 amp which seemed unusual.

Couldn't find one so I tried a spare lead which worked. Nicked the fuse from it to try in the original plug and it's a 5 amp.
Looked online for advice and read that it should be a 3 amp.

Both my leads had the original fuses from new. Now I'm just confused!
Must be some information available online.
 
Yup, I looked online and found conflicting advice. Neither of the original fuses is the recommended strength.
As a Macbook charger is a low power item, I'd have thought that 3 amps would be fine.
 
(Originaly mistyped as browster which is somehow more appealing...)

Need Microsoft edge. seems simple

Anything to be wary of?

Im always wary with IT...
 
My Kaspersky has spent most of the last two days telling me that "The source of loading advertisements is stopped" the source being Bit torrent, this happens every 30 seconds or so with pop up and noise, regardless of whether bit torrent is open. I've tried turning off notifications to seemingly no effect, it abates from time to time only to restart seemingly at random. The notifications are "for information" and not warnings as such but it is deeply, deeply annoying. I've googled this to little avail.

Any suggestions, wise boardfolks?
 
Ogdred, sound like a bot (or someat) has gotten to her computer. It could be that Bit Torrent has be compromised (haven't used it in years), or it could simply be a rogue program that latched on to something she downloaded.
 
Does anyone know of any way of splitting out the different instruments of a song, is there software that can do that?

E.g. to hear just the keyboard part, or just the bass part, etc.

Or is the music file (e.g. mp3) all mushed together into one lump and this isn't possible? :confused:
 
You can sort of do it by filtering out certain frequencies in something like Audition, but you'll never be able to isolate the sounds properly unless you have access to multi track recordings. By the time a song is out on the public domain everything has been bounced down to left and right stereo tracks, so as you say it's all mushed together.

However.... if a song has been featured in Rock Band, Guitar Hero etc then those tracks are out there in the wild. They have to be separated in the game files otherwise you wouldn't be able to just play the bass or guitar line for example.

YouTube is your friend if you want to find those.

Here's an example...

 
You can sort of do it by filtering out certain frequencies in something like Audition, but you'll never be able to isolate the sounds properly unless you have access to multi track recordings. By the time a song is out on the public domain everything has been bounced down to left and right stereo tracks, so as you say it's all mushed together.

However.... if a song has been featured in Rock Band, Guitar Hero etc then those tracks are out there in the wild. They have to be separated in the game files otherwise you wouldn't be able to just play the bass or guitar line for example.

YouTube is your friend if you want to find those.

Here's an example...


Thank you! That's a couple of avenues for me to investigate. :)
 
I'd be grateful for web hosting recommendations. My current host - Tsohost - has unilaterally declared it's going to "upgrade" me from my current package at £17.99 including VAT per annum to a new one costing £3.99 excluding VAT per month. Stuff that. I particularly dislike the lack of choice in the matter.

It's a small wordpress-based site that functions as an online portfolio for my translation work, and allows students to book language lessons with me. Very little traffic at the moment, as I'm not actively pushing either line of work just now. If I'm honest, that's unlikely to change any time soon, but I know if I take the site down now, it will never go back up.

Your recommendations for cheap-n-cheerful hosting would be very welcome.
 
Does server location (internationally) matter?
 
Bit of advice.
Dump Firefox for ANY other browser.

I started using ff over ten years ago as it was clean and fast. Their own developers finally convinced me their browser is the slowest, clunkiest and most unworkable. Well done, guys. Having to log back into every website again after closing the browser was the last straw.

I am now on Edge. Fast and clean. Took 5 minutes to import faves, establish content prefs, install adblock, etc.

Happy times.
 
I use Firefox and I don't have to log back in after closing the browser. Sounds like some sort of misconfiguration specific to your particular device.
 
Same here. It's my browser of choice because I can set it up the way I like it. Adblockers don't work well on Chrome, because Google owns it. Been using Firefox ever since I first heard about it. Firefox's market share is quite low these days, according to some reports I've seen, but I don't think it's going anywhere.
 
AdBlock works fine on Chrome for me.
Hmmm... I don't use Chrome much because of other issues, like Gmail not displaying properly. That's kind of stupid, both being Google products. I do use Chrome for one forum, though I've forgotten just why. The adblockers are weak when trying to watch Youtube, another Gooooogle property of course. I've tried changing settings, deleting and reinstalling Chrome, and so forth. Anyway, I currently have three browsers running, as is my habit. Brave is really good and fast for some things, but lacks a lot of the customization capacity of Firefox. Here is a screenshot of my Firefox behavior modification team in operation. That little fence icon is some kind of Farcebook sandbox. It may or may not affect the insane behavior of Farcebook. Hard to tell, really.
Browser Police.PNG
 
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