u/Razor512
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3points
Razor512
Razor512
Sadly that did not work, it was one of the first things I tried after doing a factory reset of my earbuds, as well as a fresh install of the Bose app.
While another post made it clear that Google removed the absolute volume setting from the developer menu, indicating changes made to Bluetooth audio, from a technical standpoint, the function is still in place as if it were truly removed, my earbuds would be stuck in relative volume mode 100% of the time rather than being stuck in relative volume mode 10% of the time.
I also tested it without the Bose app installed, and the issue remains as well.
While more of a recent test that I did earlier today, I also tested it with an generic Bluetooth speaker, and it exhibited the same issue of its volume control being in absolute volume mode most of the time, but on some reconnects, it will be in relative volume mode, thus it ended up not being limited to the Bose QC Ultra earbuds.
I tried safe mode with the same result. This leaves the main step that i have not tried, as being a full factory reset of the phone, though from other complaints, it seems many users are experiencing a range of Bluetooth audio issues after the September update, including on more than just the Pixel 7 Pro.
Razor512
While tangentially related, I believe my issue is different as it is not like I don't have any absolute volume function, instead about 10% of the time when the Bluetooth earbuds connect, it will be functioning under relative volume rather than absolute volume. The other 90% of the time it is using absolute volume just fine under the latest update as of October 16, 2026.
Razor512
Sadly with coverage areas, there is no proper standardization, so consumer AP makers will often take a stance of if a WiFi radio can connect to AP at -90dB, even if it is doing dialup speeds at that distance, will effectively be the coverage area, while enterprise level products tend to advertise a range where the usage is still practical depending on environment.
Razor512
If you have a WiFi AP that you can use, the best test that you can do is simply measure the attenuation. Place the AP/ WiFi Router in one room, then record the signal strength using your smartphone (RSSI), then go to the other side of the wall and a similar distance, and measure the signal again. That will give you an idea of the practicality of a mesh network. While you will have a bunch of attenuation, often you can still get away with 3-4 mesh nodes.
PS, for many mid range and lower mesh systems, the backhaul connection throughput will be similar to the throughput of a WiFi extender's backhaul. For WiFI 7, outside of some of the super expensive Orbi units like the Orbi 970, they tend to not have a dedicated backhaul radio, thus the performance hit is similar to a WiFi extender. The main difference is with a proper mesh system, you get a robust set of roaming features so that client devices more smoothly roam between the APs.
Outside of that, many moderately high end mesh systems that may lack a dedicated backhaul radio, will often still establish a 4 stream backhaul connection.
Anyway, if you cannot run cables, then a mesh setup can work, though you need more mesh units. For example, a 1600 square foot house will likely still need a 3 mesh unit pack rather than a 2 mesh unit even though the 2 unit pack is advertising 5000 square feet of coverage.
Razor512
For thermal issues, for thin and light models, one challenge is Dell (and most other laptop makers) likes to use a tiny heatsink based on just the SDP on configurable power limit, e.g., many Intel CPUs will offer a configurable base power, and the cooling will be tailored to the configurable power limit that they set rather than the full capabilities of the CPU. e.g., it is common to see a CPU with a configurable TDP from 12-21 watts, and a normal operation mode of 15 watts where the CPU maker finds the best balance of efficiency and performance. In most cases, they will keep the normal sustained power limit, and will not use the configurable headroom to give an extra boost, even if the performance profile in the Dell power manager is set to max performance. When at a steady state, usually the CPU will be keeps in the upper 70C range.
In some cases, e.g., in the early days of Dell making windows tablets, they would routinely use the configurable TDP function to limit power well below what the CPU was capable of, this was when you saw lots of Intel CPUs being limited to 5-6 watts total package power).
The problem with the design is that it negatively impacts PL1 and PL2 limits since by design, laptop heatsinks have very little thermal mass. For example, some will have a 25 watt PL1 with a time limit of 28 seconds, and a PS2 of 55-123 watts (configurable) with a duration of 2.44ms. When they go for a bare minimum cooling design, while there is enough thermal mass for the 2.44ms boost, but often the PL1 will often never be sustained for 28 seconds, as often they will reach 100C within 5-10 seconds.
Beyond that, you can often extend the PL1 time by a few seconds if you repaste the CPU, e.g., using a high end thermal paste, but the issue is that the high performance pastes are highly susceptible to pumpout. thus you end up with a good boost in thermal performance and PL1 times, but within a few months, it performs more like the stock paste, and by around a year, it is now performing much worse than the stock paste, especially for low mounting pressure applications such as with thin and lights.
So far, no one seems to sell the official OEM thermal paste that the laptop makers use, thus when the stock paste fails, you can't really find a new paste that will last 5+ years like the stock paste.
Razor512
Forgot to mention, windows 11 can be debloated, to a point where it will use around 2GB, but it will take a while, and require the use of powershell in addition to services.msc, though some corporate features may not work well, and some major windows updates can end up reinstalling and re-enabling some of the bloat that required more work to disable to begin with. For me system, I did not go to that extent of debloating, but if I had to stick with windows 11 on an 8GB system, and needed to use it longer than just testing for a few hours, I would go through the full range of debloating.
From a CPU standpoint, the CPU in your system is pretty good, as even slower ones offer a snappy experience provided there is enough RAM, the main thing holding it back for you is the stock bloat which is forcing windows to make compromises that negatively impact responsiveness. Clean that up, as well as disabling some of the useless animation effects, and it will like a much higher end system.
Keep in mind that before the DRAM price fixing scandal, microsoft previously recommended 16GB of RAM for windows 11 as a starting point, and 32GB for a good experience. https://9to5windows.com/microsoft-quietly-retires-windows-11-ram-recommendation/
They started pushing 8GB systems without making any changes to the OS, then with 26H2, they made some minor improvements, but virtually nothing in the way of improvements for low memory systems. They announced that they will be working to make the OS more efficient, but they have no definite timelines on how long it will take.
This is why iI feel a good option if supported, is sticking with windows 10 for about a year, then moving to windows 11 in the hopes that microsoft would have gotten the bloat under control by then.
Razor512
For 8GB of RAM models, Dell should really consider is developing budget models with easy to access RAM slots instead of the dreaded row of chips, and then offer options such as preinstalling Windows 10 or a linux distro, and then lead with marketing upgradability. After that, without any spamming, just have an email notification for when the NAND and RAM price fixing finally stops.
Laptop makers should not be making any laptops during the DRAM and NAND price fixing scandal where such components cannot be upgraded.
With that in mind, Windows 11 with 8GB is still a major issue. While windows 11 can scale its RAM usage down, the scaling is not a sign of efficiency, instead it is simply not preloading as many assets related to its running processes, but as soon as any of those background processes engage in a scheduled task or other background activity, they will immediately begin allocating their full memory footprint.
With windows 10 and no debloating, on an 8GB system, it will use about 1.8GB of RAM, and that will all of the stock services and startup items, allocating their full memory footprint. This also means that after loading your additional background processes, e.g., video card drivers and their companion software, sound card driver software, and various other processes and and still keep the usage low.
For example, on my desktop PC, I am still running windows 10 (especially since Microsoft extended support to October 2027), with the stock bloat removed (office365, onedrive, solitaire and other game bloat) and other junk, and then installing the AMD radeon drivers and adrenaline software, MSI afterburner, Logitech gaming software (for my G510S keyboard and G700 mouse), Creative driver software (Soundblaster Z), Intel drivers for the AX200 (only using its Bluetooth function), PIA VPN software, and Display Can profile loader for display calibration across multiple applications including ones that do not work well with standard ICC profiles.
With all of that on a system with only 64GB of RAM, windows 10 manages to only use a little over 3GB at startup.
On my laptop (Dell Latitude 5330), with less running (just the waves maxx audio driver software, and other basic dell drivers needed for some of the features like the fingerprint scanner, fan adjustments and various other controls, it takes about 6.5GB after sitting idle for a while. Though soon after startup, it actually allocated around 5.9GB.
PS, on windows 10, the memory usage will actually drop even more since when idle at startup, one background task that will begin running after a lack of user input is the indexing service refreshing itself, as well as windows defender doing a background quick scan.
Overall, windows 10 is a far better option while waiting for microsoft to make windows 11 not so bloated. I have tried both on 8GB systems, and the user experience is drastically better on windows 10, simply because it remains far more responsive since the more important processes can load to their full memory footprint at startup.
Image of task manager on both systems: https://imgur.com/a/lUQf65h
For the Dell Latitude 5330, I upgraded to the Intel BE200 WiFi adapter.
Anyway, if Dell were to use windows 10, then debloat it, as well as disable unneeded services, they could potentially get it using a decent amount under 2GB while still running their driver package.
Razor512
If the heatsink has not been cleaned in a long time, then it may need to be cleaned, especially considering that the bottom rubber strip is missing, this means that it is more likely to some in contact with surfaces where it can suck in heavier items that would otherwise not be sucked in. It is hard to tell how much clearance that one has without the pad, but there are some models, especially some of the dell latitude 2 in 1 models that are so reliant on the rubber strip that without it, they will overheat as the fan can only pull air from the bottom, and on a flat surface it will be so close that it almost completely blocks the fan.
Due to how laptops save energy and rapidly change power states, they are more likely to get some coil wine. hissing at very low loads, e.g., moving the mouse cursor on a laptop which has poor input filtering. PS, poor clearance between the bottom of the laptop and a table, or worse, if placed on a cloth surface, can lead to the fans running at very high speeds for and ultimately wear out more quickly.
In that case, if the fan blades are properly clean and are not making contact with any dirt or significant dust buildup behind the finstack, and you get a rattle or other weird noise, then chances are that the bearing is worn out on the fan, and the fan would need to be replaced (luckily those are easy to replace and often cost around $10-12)
Razor512
Something like that would not really be possible, at least given the 2015 regulations that lead to drastic locking down of WiFi radios. The attached image is an example from Intel, but pretty much everyone is doing it. The end result is that if a minor change to a WiFi standard takes place, of if they ever decide to ditch the overly low transmit power restrictions, existing hardware will not be able to be updated, as the draconian restrictions are are all set in OTP memory.
Basically since then, the industry adopted a policy of OTP memory for many core functions, thus if there is a change that the hardware may be technically capable of, a company would likely not be able to implement it even if they wanted to, though in general they would much rather have people buy a new product and give them more money rather than bring a feature to an older product, even if a product came out a few months before a major change.
In the case of WiFi 7 and WiFi 8, some of the features seems like they could be possible on the WiFi 7 hardware (potentially doing a WiFi 7.5 like implementation), but even if technically possible to avoid costly legal troubles, all of the major manufacturers took the safest route to avoid even the chance of firmware modding.
Razor512
It costs a lot more than $10,000 to soundproof a house for when the datacenter's cooling system and generators plays an endless earsplitting screech 24/7.
Razor512
The first kobold image with the spear and gun is really cute :)
Razor512
What they need to do is go back to some of the older DSLRs, especially at the entry level, and unlock some basic features such as AF-finetune, since many entry level DSLR cameras as well as lower cost lenses, often are more prone to loose tolerances that lead to back or front focusing, and not having those basic calibration function, makes the used market a risky and frustrating experience for those looking to get into using DSLRs and other ILC cameras cheaply to see if they have a passion for photography or not, especially since it is hard to find copies of various versions of the nikon service center software that isn't also packed with malware. For this industry to thrive, we need to bring in more people.
Beyond that, unlocking more video features are useful, especially if they can get higher higher bit rates, removing any recording limits, and otherwise getting the most out of the hardware.
Razor512
If the issue is only the adhesive failing (Bose still uses an adhesive that breaks down with moisture and humidity) then you can use JB Weld ClearWeld epoxy, since it does not offgas, it will not clog the fine meshes and mics inside of the earbud like regular superglue would.
The only downside is that if you use epoxy, you will likely be unable to disassemble the earbuds when it is time to replace the battery.
Razor512
Seems okay, the signs of a failing pin, is one of the contacts are shifting backwards too easily, or the sides are failing to provide adequate clamping force due to angular stress on the connector.
Since the contacts also rely the plastic housing to hold things in place, the moment a contact heats up too much and softens the plastic, then you get a cascading failure as all of the contacts will begin run into similar issues.
Overall the best you can do is ensure the connector and the contacts are fully seated and that there is as little stress in any direction on the cable.
Razor512
While G hub is not as bad as many other brands, in my opinion, it is certainly worse than the older Logitech Gaming Software in terms of responsiveness and consistency of the UI across devices.
Since I have both older and newer devices, I am stuck running both Logitech Gaming Software, and G Hub. Since I am not constantly opening either app when they are running in the background, I would prefer if they would just enable support for the G510 and the G700.
Logitech originally had it in their earlier release notes that they were working on it, but after a while, they stopped including that info, and never seemed to make progress. Link in case reddit image compression makes the text unreadable. https://i.imgur.com/vQnEnR1.png
There were a number of other posts as well, but they are difficult to track down due to how wayback machine and other archives function and the way their site is designed. But at various points in time, they referenced an expanded list of popular older devices that they were working to bring into G Hub before one day, doing an extreme purge of such content.
Razor512
Many onboard audio solutions now allows you to reassign ports, e.g., reassign the line-in or if not using 5.1 or 7.1, then reassigning one of the other ports for headphone use. The exceptions are if you have a high impedance headphone and have an onboard audio solution that only has the higher output voltage wired to the green port, then you will need to reassign the other ports for line output for speakers.
Overall, while they default to a specific color code, most of the ports are software addressable. For example, if you use a USB mic, then you could reassign the analog mic jack to be a headphone jack if you want. Overall, a simple and free solution that doesn't need any adapters or splitters.
Beyond that, by default, green is for the headphones and speaker out, and pink is for the microphone.
PS on some motherboards, the mic port may be a combo jack that can do both. If none of the ports have 4 contacts inside of them, then you are sadly stuck with needing a breakout adapter like shown in the top comment. e.g., https://www.amazon.com/MillSO-Headphone-Splitter-Computer-Headset/dp/B071NDLCGC/?th=1
Also, if you are willing to give up the mic function on the headset, then you can simply assign the audio jack as headphone and turn off the auto jack detection, then get a separate mix that you can place in a more optimal location.
Razor512
Having both options means getting the best of both worlds. While a manual setup can be great for a heavily controlled environment, e.g., if the ambient noise levels almost never change, and you have the mic in generally the same location as well as using the seating position, then a fixed setting is best since it rules out the "AI" mistakenly picking the wrong value. But for everything else, some degree of automation is amazing to have.
Razor512
Wanted to add some images of the manual controls to show why things can get annoying when you want to fine tune the noise reduction for specific environments.
While Logitech could improve it, e.g., auto gain has been around since windows 95, it could easily be implemented. Though adaptive noise reduction would effectively require automating many of those adjustments. But if they managed to integrate it all within the Yeti 2, then that makes it far better. With it not being fully reliant on the G Hub software, can mean that even if the software crashes, the audio output from the mic will not change. So far, many of those controls on the Yeti 2 are a mystery.
Razor512
There seems to be many improvements, but Logitech also did a poor job marketing it. For example, it can do many of the advertised functions without the G Hub software, but they do not make it clear, and to what extent. They also leave out nearly all details about the mic capsules and their capabilities and response curves.
They also do not include info on the controls it offers. For example, when I got the Yeti X, while it worked decently well, it was a negative surprise to see that there was no brightness control over the LEDs. You can slightly reduce the brightness by picking a darker shade of a color, but the LEDs are still extremely bright for metering. Same with the mode selection, the mic clearly has PWM control given the lighting effects it can do, but it was never leveraged to add a simple brightness slider like with their other products.
Beyond that, they need to offer enough technical details so that people can compare the mics, e.g., outside of the software changes. in terms of raw quality, how much of an improvement does it offer over the Yeti X, as well as other Yeti mics?
From what I have seen so far, it seems like they may have made major improvements to the noise reduction, especially if they made it adaptive such that you don't need multiple different mic profiles that you manually switch between depending on background noise. For example, while a small annoyance, I have 4 different profiles.
1: Mic close with slight noise reduction (good for when the environment is quiet and the fans in the PC case are not running very quickly.
2: Mic close with stronger noise reduction and a high pass filter to cut out the compressor hum (Good for when the air conditioner is running)
3: Mic far (slightly stronger noise reduction and higher gain): good for when the mic is further on the desk but I still want to use the mic while doing other work.
4; Mic far (heavy noise reduction and higher gain): Good for when I set up the fume extractor and other soldering equipment.
Overall, it can handle the different noise environments but it requires manual switching of profiles.
Furthermore due to the manual selection, it also means that there is no way for it to dynamically adapt to noises, e.g., if a someone wants to be obnoxious and ride past with a motorcycle or car with a straightpipe/ no muffler, it cannot adapt to that.
On the other hand with ML based noise reduction e.g., Nvidia broadcaster's "AI" based noise reduction, it will cut out all of those noises, but then you are effectively putting a heavy GPU load to do it.
With that in mind, imagine if the full effect of Logitech's implementation of "AI" noise reduction was done entirely in the mic, even if not to the extend of a GPU accelerated one, and through those capabilities, be able to dynamically adapt to different noise environments. That would make it far more convenient to use as there would be no more need for manually changing profiles or manually adjusting the gain and noise reduction levels depending on where I want to place the mic.
Razor512
If you have an existing mesh network, then avoid extenders when trying to expand wireless coverage. You will lose many of the roaming assists that help to ensure that your devices more smoothly switch over to the closest AP. In those cases, a better option is to purchase more mesh satellite units that are compatible with your system.
Beyond that, those extenders that are branded after a TV series, are likely to have many compromises to offset the cost of licensing the characters from the movies. If the hardware has and differences, then odds are that those products will never see a new firmware update to patch any bugs or security issues, since many manufacturers tend to focus most of their aftermarket support on the models that sell the most, while quickly abandoning everything else.
Razor512
In the case of testing signal strength, the overall WiFi radio speed doesn't matter as much as just being able to view the realtime RSSI of the WiFi signal. The idea is you will slowly walk around the room and make note of which spot in the room has the strongest RSSI. Apps like Analiti can make a realtime graph of the RSSI, thus making it easy to see where it peaks. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.analiti.fastest.android&hl=en-US
This is only useful if you already have an extender that you are planning to use in WiFi client mode, and just want to find the spot inside of the room where your PC is located that has the strongest signal.
This is also useful in some apartments where internet access is included in the rent but provides via a few APs placed in the building, where in some cases, the signal strengths in many of the apartment units will be very weak, except for a few spots. In such cases, someone that has WiFi router that has a client mode, or using an extender in a client mode where its Ethernet port then connects to the WAN port of a WiFi router that otherwise lacks a WiFi client mode, a user will use the same method of graphing out the RSSI of the AP provided by the landlord, to find where the RSSI in the apartment unit is the strongest, and then place the extender in client mode in that area to get the strongest signal.
Razor512
Basically one way is to look for a coax splitter nearby the main connection coming into the house. If you want to test each of the lines, you could temporarily connect the main coax cable into the splitter and then connect your cable model to the jack in the room where you want to use MoCA. Furthermore, if you are in a location with a very strong signal and good SNR, you could potentially just leave the main coax connected to the splitter, and ensure that any unused jacks as well as unused ports on the splitter, have a termination cap screwed on (otherwise your SNR will be lower than expected), and have any room be capable of using the cable modem or a MoCA adapter. Though this will lower the overall max PHY rate that the MoCA adapter will reach.
If your home is on an already very long coax run and the signal is fairly weak, then instead of utilizing the splitter, just get a simple female to female coax coupler, and then take the coax line from the 2 rooms where you want to place the MoCA adapters, and directly connect those cables to each other, this will usually get you very close to the max real world speed that the MoCA adapter has to offer.
Razor512
AI is good at being a more practical version of a fuzzing attack, it just depends on how convoluted you are willing to go.
An AI can find a bug that requires a convoluted set of actions to reproduce, and before you know it, it is reporting a bug that requires the user to perform 200 different steps exactly in a specific order. Something that would be seemingly impossible for a regular user to stumble across, is something that an AI can discover because it will incrementally iterate through near endless set of actions until something breaks.
Kobolds have high cuteness levels, especially the more 5E aligned designs, and not the hyper versions the oversized parts.
They are also popular because there is a lot of lore to make them into well rounded characters.