Table of contents for November 2018 in Maximum PC

WHEN IT COMES TO TECH, a little knowledge goes a long way. Windows 10, especially as it becomes more mature, is growing in stability, and it’s a long way ahead of its predecessors, but—and it’s a big but—it is still beset by little niggles and gripes that can make it difficult to use. However, you’re the master of your own domain, and you can be the master of your own PC. Those problems can be banished by a little knowledge, either of the right thing to do or the right place to look. So, we’re bringing you a collection of the most common Windows 10 problems and the best ways to solve them. We’ve broken them up into categories to help you find your way around, so the next time…

Losing files after disaster hits because you didn’t back them up is hugely frustrating, but it can be easily avoided. To create a backup, buy an external storage drive (larger in size than the data you want to store on it). You can copy your files across to this disk manually, or you can set up File History in Windows. To do the latter, ensure the drive is connected to your PC, left-click the “Start” menu, then click “Settings.” Click “Update & Security,” and navigate to “Backup.” See the “Add a Drive” button next to the “+” sign? Click this. Windows scans for available drives, and you should select the one you want to use from the list it brings up. The OS now gets to work; an “On” toggle…

Updating Windows is an incredibly important part of your day-to-day maintenance, but many people put off the updating experience—if they can. This isn’t laziness—Microsoft has quite the reputation for releasing patches before they are ready for general consumption, and there are horror stories of Windows installations falling over (turn to pages 34–35 for troubleshooting help). Despite this, in most circumstances it pays to ensure you’re at least up to date with the latest security hotfixes, so opting out of updates altogether—even where possible—isn’t practical. Let’s see what you can do about ensuring the Windows Update process works with you and not against you. TAKE BACK CONTROL When Microsoft released Windows 10, it took control away from the end user running Windows 10 Home, and now forces updates to be installed…

It’s rare for updates to screw your system up so much it can no longer boot into Windows. After several failed attempts, Windows should give you the option of booting into Safe mode, or bring up the recovery menu. From here, try “Startup Repair” or “System Restore” to roll your PC back to the restore point taken before the update was installed. Note: This may not be an option if you’re running Windows 10 and didn’t switch System Restore back on after installing the April 2018 Update. Other options involve recovery media—if you regularly back up using a tool such as Macrium Reflect Free (www.macrium.com/reflectfree), roll back to your last backup using its boot media. Or you could boot from your Lazesoft Recovery Suite rescue media (http://bit.ly/2LtlgPq), and try its…

WHY IS PLAYING VIDEO so complicated? Why does it play smoothly in one program, but not another? Why can you play it on this system, but not that one? Why does it stream OK, but not play locally? How can the video play, but not sound? How do you get subtitles to display? Why is the audio only in stereo, not surround? How come the colors are drab? All those questions have come from the mouths of people who had the audacity to try to play video. Before you throw your PC out the window, we’re offering you a masterclass in video playback. We’ll explain the complexities of the Windows video pipeline (you’ll see why things can become so difficult to diagnose), and discuss what software you need to get the…

We’re closet fans of home theater setups. A quiet media center PC, powering a projector, and connected to a surround sound A/V amp makes for a formidable entertainment solution. For people from a PC background, though, the audio side of things can get neglected, but if you’re entertaining the idea of a big screen, you’re going to need a big soundscape to match. We don’t have space to explore all the options, but a good place to start is a suitable A/V amp with matching satellite surround speakers, plus a low-frequency effects subwoofer, if you’re a fan of thumping bass. The latest marketing drive is Dolby Atmos, which adds vertical speakers to the mix, but even a basic 5/6/7.1 surround option is going to please your ears. A potential issue for…

RASPBERRY PI The credit-card-sized computer costs as little as $35. IN THIS TUTORIAL, WE’RE LOOKING at what you need to make your own voice control software for your Raspberry Pi projects. If you want a virtual assistant, one project is the Jasper system (http://jasperproject.github.io). The documentation on the main Jasper website has a description of the hardware to attach to your Raspberry Pi, along with a full set of instructions for installation and configuration. There’s a set of standard modules included to allow interaction with various services—use the time, Gmail, or even the joke module—and there are also third-party modules for you to access. There is even a developer API and documentation to help you add your own functionality to Jasper. 1 VOICE CONTROL Everyone who has watched the Iron…

PHOTOSHOP CC Subscribe to a suitable Adobe package at www.adobe.com. WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT if photographs could move? Photoshop contains a Timeline tool to create animations from your photos, and can export each one as a video file. The method uses the standard Photoshop tools—such as Layers, Opacity, and dragging handles to move and transform—and isn’t that difficult to get the hang of. It uses a system of keyframes, where you specify what you want the beginning and end of an animated sequence to look like, and Photoshop automatically animates between these points. You can have as many or as few keyframes as you like, making your animation more complex, or a simple fade-away, like Marty’s photograph in Back to the Future. What Photoshop isn’t is a full-fledged video editor,…

AH, THREADRIPPER, where do we begin? That mad assortment of core complexes, intricately stitched together, was enough to revolutionize the HEDT segment into a world unlike one we’d ever seen before, even rattling Intel to its very bones. AMD truly was on to a winner with its Infinity Fabric, and it provided much-needed proof that multi-die packages are certainly the way forward. The age of the monolithic processor is dead. Long live Ryzen. Or something like that, right? So here we are: second-gen, Threadripper 2, sort of. 12nm transistors, architectural adjustments, memory optimizations, and—more importantly—a bigger product stack this time around. The big question: Is it worth the upgrade? Well, let’s get to that. First up, there’s the platform. Given the nature of how Threadripper operates, being essentially a run-off,…

CONVERTING AN HDTV into a large-scale PC monitor—which is basically what Philips has done with the 43-inch 436M6—isn’t a new idea, but nor is it necessarily a bad one. That’s especially true if it’s done well. Happily, Philips has good form in this area. In the 1080p era, HDTV conversions had limited appeal; a 2K pixel grid stretched over 40-plus inches of LCD panel made for big, fat, ugly pixels. Today’s UHD or 4K sets, however, have plenty when it comes to pixels. TV tech of late also matches or beats the best monitors in other areas. Thanks to broad adoption of various HDR standards in the mainstream TV market, wider color spaces and supercharged contrast capability is becoming the norm. TV prices also look like amazing value compared to…

IT’S BEEN THE BEST part of a decade now since Corsair first forayed into the peripherals market, and despite some excellent keyboard and headset offerings along the way, it’s never truly cracked the gaming mouse. At least, not by the manufacturer’s own mile-high standards. The reassuring build quality, masterful design, and luscious aesthetics of its cases never quite translates to mice, and although we can’t fault the functionality or spec sheet of this Dark Core, it doesn’t buck that trend either. But let’s start with the positives, because they’re really worth shouting about. Somehow, the Dark Core RGB SE is positioned well below other manufacturers’ wireless offerings in price, and it’s not obvious where the costs have been cut. Far from it—the Dark Core can even boast to be the…

IT’S NOT OFTEN we look at game expansions, but when it comes to the juggernaut that is World of Warcraft, we made an exception. Why? Well, with so many games out there nowadays, it’s rare that two of us here are playing the same title at the same time. And with a combined 27 years’ worth of WoW experience between the two reviewers, we thought it would be worth sharing our views on Blizzard’s latest blockbuster. WoW is a genre-defining achievement. Surpassing the likes of Everquest, it reimagined what an MMO could be, making it more accessible to the mainstream. Over the years, it reached almost 13 million subscribers (at $10 a month). But it hasn’t been without upset, with many a design decision or lackluster expansion reducing that number…

THE LAUNCH of a major new range of graphics cards is always a notable event, but Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX range is something beyond that. These are the first of a whole new generation of cards based on the Turing GPU. Nvidia’s president, Jensen Huang, has claimed this is the company’s most important GPU since the Tesla, in 2006. It shows where cards are heading over the next few years, and it’s going to look sumptuous. There are three new cards initially: The RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 are due first (and we’ve got one—see page 76). The Ti version is an eye-watering $999; the plain version is a still-substantial $699. The RTX 2070 is due to follow in a month, at around $499. There are Founders Editions, too,…

When it comes to PCs, we spend an inordinate amount of time covering all the details inside your rig. What we often forget is that your environment, from the desk to the lighting to the chair, is equally important for an enjoyable experience. Nowhere is this more true than where you place your backside. We sat down with Steven Levitt from Noblechairs to get to grips with gaming chairs, and find out why you might want to shell out on one. Maximum PC: So, Steven, you’re business development manager at Noblechairs; can you tell us a little bit about your role and what it entails? What’s your background? And what brought you to Noblechairs to begin with? Steven Levitt: Hi guys. Sure thing—my day-to-day role consists of a ton of…

Annoyingly, Windows 10 ships without DVD-playing software. However, Microsoft offers an app from the Microsoft Store called Windows DVD Player, but it costs $14.99. The best bet if you want to watch DVDs is VLC Media Player, which is free to download, and fully supports Windows 10. VLC Media Player also supports a host of other file formats—even the weird ones—making it a very useful tool. Many of us have moved on from DVDs to the wild world of media streaming. Netflix and Amazon Prime both work on Win 10’s default browser, Edge, but may need an update to Silverlight, an application framework that Microsoft created and maintains. If you’ve upgraded from a Win 7 PC, you could well suffer from this issue, as the older version of Silverlight may…

Windows Update is designed to keep your copy of Windows up to date through the delivery of special files that “patch” it. The most obvious updates are security hotfixes, which patch vulnerabilities and security holes that could be exploited by malware, as well as bug fixes to resolve specific issues. Windows Update also delivers bigger updates—what once were Service Packs, then point releases (Windows 8.1), have now evolved into feature updates, delivered biannually to add new features, and change the way existing features work. The latest feature update is the April 2018 Update (version 1803), set to be superceded in the fall by the October 2018 update. There are also “optional” updates, which include other Microsoft tools, such as the .NET Framework, as well as signed hardware drivers, which have…

Windows Update provides “optional” updates that include additional components, such as Silverlight. They also include Microsoft-delivered drivers for a wide range of hardware. Windows 7 and 8.1 users can review and install these via Windows Update, but these updates are hidden from view in Windows 10—installing driver updates is a hit-and-miss affair, involving going into Device Manager and clicking “Update Driver” within the “Driver” tab of selected devices. To see what’s available—and install it—download the Windows Update MiniTool (http://bit.ly/2v9BwtK). Extract its contents, then run wumt_x64.exe (64-bit) or wumt_x86.exe (32-bit), depending on your Windows system type. Click “Check for updates” under “Update History” after verifying “Include drivers” is selected. Select the updates you want, and click “Install Updates” to install them. It’s also possible to hide unwanted updates here—if you’re struggling…

TIP OF THE MONTH MEMORY DIAGNOSTICS Trouble booting? Struggling with a black screen? BIOS debug codes not making sense? We’ll put money on your problem being memory-based; 95 percent of the time when diagnosing mobos, we pull the memory first. Try booting off one stick, use alternative slots, try multiple sticks, or even remove the CPU cooler and reseat the CPU. Nine times out of ten, it fixes the issue—if not, your system might be pushing up daisies. MAKE – USE – CREATE Create a digital assistant using a Raspberry Pi Add movement to your photos with Photoshop timelines How a downgrade strangely transformed into an upgrade… FRANKENSTEIN’S MOTHERBOARD Unsurprisingly, given my reviewing responsibilities, I’ve killed my fair share of mobos. Recently, though, I destroyed one that was more frustrating…

SCREEN CALIBRATION DEVICE The Datacolor Spyder 5 Express costs around $130. ANYONE WHO SITS LOOKING AT A MONITOR ALL DAY, then perhaps goes home and looks at another, will know one thing about them: Two screens are rarely the same. One may be brighter than the other, or have more yellow in its output, and while these discrepancies may be forgivable in a simple office machine, if you have a twin-screen setup, you’ll want the displays to output the same brightness and color temperature. This is especially true if you’ve mixed and matched your monitors, because the Asus 4K model on the right you got for gaming may not match the BenQ 1080p screen on the left you use for Google Docs and email. The color output of your screen…

PHOTOS And lots of them—but you can begin organizing your pix when you only have a few, of course. WITH MODERN DIGITAL CAMERAS, it’s easy to take a lot of photos. It’s not like you’re wasting film, after all, and with memory cards of up to 256GB easily available and reusable, you can come back from your vacation with a bulging collection of images that need sorting through and putting in order. That’s where image organizing software comes in. Being able to arrange your images into a coherent collection, even if it’s just by date, is important if you want to be able to quickly find your photos as you accumulate more and more. Apps are available to help you, one of the best being Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 2018, which…

THE FUTURE OF GRAPHICS CARDS and gaming is about to experience the next revolution; at least, that’s the marketing behind Nvidia’s GeForce RTX cards. When Nvidia demonstrated real-time ray tracing running at 24fps on a DGX Station earlier this year, it felt like a lot of hoopla over something more beneficial to Hollywood than PC gamers. Six months later, we’re looking at a single graphics card that can outperform the DGX Station, at just $799. Great news, at least for enthusiast gamers with deep pockets. The technology crammed into Nvidia’s Turing architecture is certainly impressive. The CUDA cores have been enhanced, promising up to 50 percent higher performance than on Pascal, and there’s more of them. Next, add faster GDDR6 memory, improved caching, and memory subsystem tweaks that also provide…

WOW! WE WEREN’T expecting that. Just as we were Googling studio monitor deals to find out exactly how much professional-grade audio you can get for $500—the answer’s “a lot”—the Nommo blasted us into submission. This is, if you can believe it, a wonderfully articulated 2.1 speaker system, which—despite the subwoofer looking like a 1:1 scale trashcan—doesn’t overdo the low end. It sounds…. Well, it sounds like a high-end speaker system, A similar revolution has taken place in the headset market. Where once there were tinny sounds and apologetic tribal designs on each earcup, there’s now audiophile-friendly, sonorous audio from SteelSeries, HyperX, et al. “Gaming headset” is no longer shorthand for “They’ve botched the sound, but it comes with a detachable mic.” Gaming speaker systems, though…. That’s a different story. Actual…

THE SIXTH GAME in a previously PlayStation-exclusive series getting a Windows release when none of the earlier games did may seem like an oddity, but Yakuza 0 was designed as a jumping-on point for those who hadn’t played before, so is the perfect ambassador for Sega’s mob epic. The name gives it away: Lead characters Kiryu and Majima are Yakuza, Japanese gangsters. Kiryu is the series’s protagonist, while Majima has been a supporting character until now. And while Kiryu is often content to let his fists do the talking, allowing a player to project themselves into his sharp suit, Majima is a flamboyant madman, his personality strongly etched from the moment you meet him. The plot is a duffer—a dispute over real estate that turns out to be a conspiracy—but…

> Future Formats > Intrepid Explorer > 4K Gaming Goodness Lies, Damn Lies, & Stats I remember when everyone said that typewriters were supposed to put an end to handwriting. Now, no one knows what a typewriter is. Fax machines were declared dead many years ago, but they’re still used by many businesses. That’s when I gave up on futurist ideals. I prefer physical media—video games, movies, and TV—for the love of the sound, which digital media audio can’t compete with. Great editorial last issue, but where futurists always mess up is in taking the side of the consumed (product) instead of consumers (society). Numbers are just numbers in the end. –Randy Williams EXECUTIVE EDITOR ALAN DEXTER RESPONDS: Your point is sound, and the resurgence in vinyl records proves that…

VR HAS BEEN the next big thing for so many years that it is has almost become comical. Recent advances in hardware, and backing by some big names, have pushed it back into the spotlight; however, sales figures for the last quarter have emerged, and it’s not good news. Sales are down 33.7 percent on the same time last year. The high-end tethered headsets contracted by 37.3 percent. Standalone headsets bucked the trend, but overall numbers are still very low; just 0.3 percent of Steam users can enjoy virtual worlds. These are stark figures, but there are consolations. Previous sales figures were inflated by Samsung, Google, and Alcatel bundling cheap screenless VR viewers; this has declined from over a million to around 400,000. And potential growth is seen in the…

> Diagnostic Dilemma > Authentication > Future 4K Fun Problems With Power? Hi Doc, I have been having issues with my PC for the last year or so. It all started when the system stopped waking from sleep mode. I had to flip the PSU’s power switch because the case’s power and reset buttons were non-functional. Eventually, the problem evolved into the machine unexpectedly shutting down during normal use, though the fans kept spinning as if nothing was wrong. As before, I needed to flip the PSU’s power switch off and back on to restart. I suspected that my CPU was at fault, so played games that put a load on the host and graphics processors. However, those games ran fine, and I was unable to reproduce the symptoms. But…

Windows 10 users need to be aware of a feature known as Delivery Optimization, which affects how Microsoft delivers updates to PCs over the web. Head to “Settings → Windows Update → Advanced options,” and click the “Delivery Optimization” link. Here you’ll see a setting called “Allow downloads from other PCs,” which basically means that when the feature is switched on (as it is by default), it’s possible to receive your Windows updates using peer-to-peer technology from files stored on other PCs across your network and the Internet. In turn, these files can also be sent from your PC to other computers, too. Click “Activity monitor” to review how much data is being transferred and how much bandwidth is being used, then click “Advanced options” to set manual limits that…

Ideally, Windows Update should be virtually invisible—other than alerting you when updates are ready to be installed, and while they’re being configured on startup. In the real world, we all know better, of course. Some Windows updates might require two or three attempts before finally installing, while others may stubbornly refuse to install, period. Windows Update might even stop functioning completely, or your PC may suddenly refuse to reboot after you’ve installed the latest updates. So, what’s the solution? GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING If Windows Update refuses to work correctly—it throws up errors when you attempt to install or scan for updates, for example, or you’re struggling to install a specific update—start by running the Windows Update troubleshooter. In Win 10, go to “Settings → Update & Security → Troubleshoot,” click the…

Moore’s Law is dead and quantum computing isn’t coming to the rescue. Although, not any time soon. So, is there anything that can keep conventional computing moving forward? One promising technology is carbon nanotubes, one of those wonder technologies with seemingly infinite possible applications, from space elevators to solar cells. But how can they help computing? One of the key theoretical advantages of transistors built from carbon nanotubes could be much lower power consumption. That would allow for more powerful chips to operate within the limited energy budget of a device like a smartphone. Physically, it’s easy to fit a desktop-class CPU die inside a smartphone. Powering it is the problem, and carbon nanotubes might solve it. Optical interconnects both between and within chips are another big opportunity. Just as fiber-optic…

IN OUR INTER-CONNECTED AGE of technological marvels, the need for ever more storage has been one of the driving forces of an industry that never stops. From speed to latency, capacity, and form factors, it’s something that we consumers constantly demand more of. Whether it’s for phones, action cameras, flying 4K drones, or the latest Nintendo consoles, having access to more storage in ever smaller forms is imperative for keeping the experience both seamless and enjoyable. It’s staggering just how far we’ve come in the last few years alone. Step back just six years, and a 32GB microSD card would have set you back a serious bundle of cash, with the largest card limited to a total of 64GB. Fast-forward to 2018, and today we have access to arguably the…

Worthy of its own section is the VideoLan Client (www.videolan.org), aka VLC. It’s famous for its ability to play anything you throw at it, even if the file is corrupt or partially recovered. The reasons for its amazing abilities are many: Firstly, it’s open source, so it has been openly developed, and is available for free to all; secondly, it uses its own built-in codec systems, and it supports pretty much everything. VLC is based in France, which enables it to ignore most USA-based software patents that would prevent other programs from including certain codecs. Version 3.0, released at the start of 2018, introduced a host of innovations that brought VLC right up to date. These included default hardware decoding to support 4K and 8K playback, HDR 12-bit color, the ability…

Samsung Galaxy Note9 BACKGROUND Samsung is at it again with the Galaxy Note9, right on schedule. Amid a brutal anti-Apple ad campaign, it’s hoping a cool new S Pen is enough to carry the day. Could there be more waiting for us under the hood? We’ll tear down to find out! MAJOR TECH SPECS Notchless edge-to-edge 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display with 2960×1440 resolution (516 ppi) Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, with 6GB/8GB RAM 4,000mAh battery 12MP OIS dual rear camera, with dual-aperture f/1.5–f/2.4 wide-angle and f/2.4 telephoto modules, plus 8MP selfie cam 128GB/512GB storage, extra 512GB available via microSD S Pen stylus with Bluetooth connectivity IP68 dust and water resistance rating KEY FINDINGS The Note9 looks very similar to the Note8—and in principle, we’re fine with that. So, what is new?…

TO START, AND BEFORE we move on to the more interesting aspects of this tenkeyless keyboard, we need to talk about its size. Not the narrow width, which is a natural result of chopping off the number pad, but rather the exaggerated width of the main keyboard layout. Whoever came up with this grid, which squashes the left-hand functions slightly, yet stretches the main cluster about two thirds of an inch wider than any other standard keyboard, must be a little sadistic. You’ll spend at least your initial hours with the K63 fighting your muscle memory and mistyping. By the time you attempt to reach the arrow cluster with your right pinky, you’ll spot that the left key is placed almost precisely where the down key is on most other…

BEING BIG AND DUMB never did us any harm, but for some reason it’s looked down upon. Not here, though. Mothergunship does not set out to be subtle, and it does not attempt to be serious. From the scenery-chewing Colonel to the way your starship AI gets infected with pop-up ads, there’s a deft comedic streak behind all the shooting. Ah yes, the shooting. There’s a lot of it. Mothergunship is a bit like the original Doom, as hordes of bad guys rush toward you as you enter a room, and you open fire until they’re all gone. There are no tense duels as you switch between cover points, no last-second headshots, and no way of sneaking through undetected. Levels are also randomly generated, so if you die and try…

I’VE LONG RAILED against ridiculous mouse pads. Being a connoisseur, I like a hard mat that’s durable, smooth, easy to clean, and preferably not aluminum (bad experiences). That’s why the mat I’m using today is over three years old—and still looks brand new. It’s all about that old adage Poppa Storey used to say to me: “Keep it simple, stupid.” And that’s exactly what a mouse mat should be: simple. That doesn’t mean dumb, it means it does what it’s meant to do, in such a manner that it doesn’t need any additional thrills. That’s not something mainstream peripheral manufacturers seem to be able to grasp. From the first LED-touting RGB monstrosity, I’ve hammered these things into the dirt, reviewing three—from Razer, Corsair, and SteelSeries—and scoring them 3, 4, and…

These days, the best gaming mice come packed with so many buttons and features, that shopping for a new one can be overwhelming. Things like ergonomics, button placement, and even RGB lighting all need to be considered. There’s also the matter of DPI, a feature that is often prominently displayed on packaging and in product listings. But you might find yourself still wondering: What DPI do I really need? DPI stands for “dots per linear inch,” and is a measure of how many pixels the cursor moves per inch that the actual mouse moves. Other names for DPI are “counts per inch” (CPI) and “mickeys per second,” the latter being an older term that isn’t used much anymore. No matter what it’s called, it all boils down to one thing:…