Most router passwords are randomized and printed on the router nowadays, or force you to make your own password during initial setup. I think the bigger risk is if you have uPnP turned on the malware can open up your router to further intrusion. Also obviously, don't use the night light mode if you work in graphic design, as that can really screw you over on a project if you're coloring a project with a tinted screen.
A lot of these ‘mistakes’ are also things that are not needed when working with a computer like changing monitor color or power plans. Some people have laptops and need to save power while others have desktops and need all the power they can get. Just be careful on which ‘mistake’ you want to fix. Even setting the bios password is optional and should only be done if you travel a lot or afraid of your device being stolen. Refresh rate I can agree with for gamers, but no big deal if you have a business computer.
@@darwisyaiman1865Depending on your needs. If you want some more battery life on the go you can slide to "best battery life." But if you needs to do a bit heavy task you can slide to "best performance"
I still find I want good color accuracy at work, even though I'm not doing production work. There's something to be said about a good looking display, no matter what you do with it. Agreed though that these aren't universally applicable.
I personally have Night Mode on 24/7 on both my phone and laptop at, like, 90%. And you’re right when you say taking it off after adjusting is blinding. I have it set like this because loud sounds and bright light are my two biggest headache inducers, with me having higher sensitivity with Asperger’s Syndrome. Night Mode at least solves the bright light half of that.
You probably could get away with less than 90% if you also lowered the brightness a little, or a lot. That sounds excessive even for me though I'm unsure what a percentage value means. Mine is at 3400K 24/7.
@@soulstenance Whatever 90% is on the standard Windows 11 Night Mode Slider, that’s what I rock. Is there is a way to view the value in that particular format? I wouldn’t know how, if so. But yeah, I know max brightness is overkill, but I’m not the only one using my laptop. My mom is on and off using it trying to find her a new job at this point in time, and she can’t really see much on anything but max brightness. I keep it on while I’m on it just because I tend to be forgetful with little things like that, mainly for her sake.
@@TheVanishingDark534 On Windows I don't think there is. Not sure, never used Windows 11. Makes sense. Can you set those values on a per user basis I wonder?
Me too! Its a pretty old one so I just thought meh, looks bad. I can deal with it. I tried changing the settings and I feel like I just bought a new display.
Firmware updates are not always good, be sure to check what they changed in the changelog (if available) because if you aren't having any major problems, why add to your troubles with potentially more issues
unfortunately because of a lot of security issues like spectre and meltdown and the new one(forgot the name), you should still do that from time to time.
If you upgrade some hardware and the pc stops working, update the motherboard's firmware, period. Had that exact thing happen to me not so long ago and the firmware was 4 years out of date. No wonder it wouldn't detect the new GPU
And this is why I hate that laptop manufacturers have introduced automatic UEFI updates via Windows updates while Bitlocker is enabled by default. Edit: Also, now’s a good time to check for UEFI update because of the LogoFail vulnerability.
I don't totally agree about the frimware update : sometime, it can remove on purpose a fonctionality. For exemple, the last update for my audio card remove the Dolby Thaeter mode, leaving only the DTS part. I had to roll back and block update to prevent loosing the Dolby again. So make sure you read the entire changlog (if aviable) before updating an important hardware. Also, not setting a BIOS password can be time saving, because when your family member ask you to overlook his computer, and don't remember the BIOS password, your only luck is to search for the default BIOS password aroud Internet ...
#10 If you can find a "write zeros to wipe out hard drive" program, use it. It will take awhile to run, but actually blanks out all files, not just the directory.
@@lawrencespicher1769 writing zeros is actually deeper than the regular format. Most overwrite programs call it something like super-secure deletion, or maybe NSA-level or some such. Data can be recovered from a regularly formatted drive, but the zero-write nukes it.
This is not safe for SSDs though, because they work different to magnetic drives. If you want to wipe an SSD safely, look up "secure erase" instead, ideally combined with your drive's manufacturer, some of them have little tools you can download for that purpose.
The tip for monitor colour range was a good one. I went i to the Nvidia options per the instructions and the improvement was immediately noticeable. Thanks for the great tip!
Don't change the bios password. You'll never use it and therefore forget it when needed in the future. Just encrypt the SSD with bitlocker in Windows. Then when a bios setting is changed the bitlocker key needs to be entered for it to continue to boot to windows.
@@MrPir84free It is when you want your personal data to be safe if the device gets stolen. Of course, you'll need Windows Pro, not home. Nevertheless, a bios password is a bad idea.
I would add a little warning about using a BIOS password, there are no safe guards if you forget that password. You may even find trouble getting help restoring your computer, I would probably offer to just pull the HD and recover the data to be put on a new computer.
Big one I have seen is people not removing stuff that says "Please remove before use" like those packaging foams, not as prominent now with glass side panels but it still happens commonly.
I've heard of people forgetting to remove the "Please remove before use" plastic thingy that covers AIO blocks, so they end up installing the AIO onto their CPU with a literal thermal insulator between the CPU and the AIO block pump thing. Then they wonder why their CPU temps are so high, lol
It happens in lots of situations. I sell auto parts, and I don't know how many people have brought car batteries back as defective over the years because they didn't take the little plastic post covers off before attaching their cables lol. And one of the covers is RED!
I would turn off "Fast Startup" even though it is recommended to have it on. Rebuilding the Kernal (with "Fast Startup" turned off) takes seconds and it just means that any lose ends will likely get fixed each time you start up Windows
That's a good idea, not to mention doesn't Fast Startup involve saving a sort of hibernation file? I've been 90% on Linux a long time so I can't remember the other thirty years of my Windows use lol. So turning it off would also save storage space and SSD wear I believe. I know that the one Windows computer I have for AAA gaming has it turned off and I believe that's the reason I did it in the first place.
Another one, when people buy a "gaming pc" a lot of people seem to forget to turn on XMP also known as D.O.C.P in some AMD motherboards. Just make sure the RAM speed doesn't exceed the supported speed by the CPU or it may not work. After updating Bios this also needs to be enabled again. This basically means if you plug in XMP 3200mhz ddr4 RAM into a computer, it'll be running at JEDEC 2133mhz until you manually go switch it on in bios. JEDEC is the default safe speed for all RAM, you can research what these words mean if you care because it's too much to explain here. I think Task manager will show your RAM speed, but a more detailed way to know is use a program called CPU-Z. Check the memory speed tab, DRAM Frequency and then double that number to know your true speed. DDR = Double Data rate, thats why we double it. In the next Tab SPD, you can see all the memory profiles. The JEDEC and XMP profiles. If you go to turn on XMP and your PC fails to boot, just wait and it should fix itself. There is a lot of reasons why this could happen, like the CPU isnt happy with the speed. This can be fixed with adjusting voltages or timings, trial and error. but if you're not interested in researching and figuring that out, Bios should return to safe setting, but if all fails then you can remove the battery from your motherboard for 10 seconds then reconnect it, then it'll return back to factory settings/JEDEC speeds.
I actually didnt have my 2nd monitor on full RGB. Always assumed the screen was kinda crappy as it was like 80€ and since its only a chat window I didn't bat an eye. Now it actually looks kinda good haha
One thing about firmware updates, NEVER try to cancel or in any way disrupt them. I learned this at a very young age, when i was updating my brothers PSP and subsequently bricked it :)))) You don't want to be that guy who bricks his brothers PSP.
I'm against the average user setting bios password unless there's a very high probability of losing the device, whatever benefits you achieve in terms of data protection can also be achieved by a full disk encryption, while with a bios lock you'll basically turn the device into ewaste if you forget it (if it isn't just for changing settings) or if the person who gets it in the future as part of a sale or whatever doesn't know it.
I heavily disagree with the storage at the end. If you have an ssd (which is very easy to check on windows) I would look at using any Secure Erase options. Some manafactures (like HP) have this option in the BIOS. again, this is just for SSDs, it will voltage spike all the cells on the SSD wiping it. It only takes a few seconds. On the HPs we have at work, 256gb is gone on 7 seconds. The SSD has to support secure erase, as the ssd wipes itself, but I have not come across one that doesn't support it. This way you can prevent e-waste and the next person that buys your computer can have a ssd that works that you know they can't get the data back.
Yes, I agree, and it's a pain to find a great bargain on a used computer and then realize that because the owner doesn't know this you now have to buy a drive, if their goal was to keep you from seeing their porn (which I have encountered on a couple purchases). Or...they may just want to reuse the drive in another computer lol.
Yeah, most SSDs have a secure erase which uses the erase command on all the flash. This is quick and erases every bit and resets the drive to a factory configuration. I do this whenever I get a used SSD to ensure best performance (I usually get MLC enterprise drives with 99% health so the only issue is them having been run for years).
Glad that you mentioned the malware Wi-Fi password stuff. If you aren't prepared for it and you end up having malware, you'll affect the people around you and even potentially ruin your life like if your browser is logged in to your bank accounts.
I actually did set a password for my BIOS, thinking it was weak security and I made the password too complicated and eventually my RAM stopped working, got it replaced, needed my BIOS password, and I've been locked out of that computer ever since.
So a forced CMOS reset like removing the battery or shorting jumpers won't fix that? I don't know so that's why I'm asking. Well...now you can justify buying a new, better motherboard!
@@CYLITM oh I see. Yeah that's disappointing. I've got an old Chromebook I bricked while cracking it to install Linux and it sits in the closet, mocking me.
I would add setting up your Wi-Fi in the 2.4 GHz band to broadcast on channels other than 1, 6, or 11. Also, setting up bandwidth greater than 20 MHz in that band. The really, really bad thing about this is that by not following these rules, not only are you messing up your own Wi-Fi, but you’re eff’ing up all your neighbors’ Wi-Fi as well, especially in a dense environment like an apartment building. Unfortunately, I see people doing this out of ignorance all the time.
My NVIDIA and monitor color range has always been limited, so I turned them both to use full range. Great! All the colors are vibrant. But I also has been using Night Light for the longest time, very comfortable with it at level 33. Turning night light off (because I want to see the actual color), right after setting full color range. Let's just say it wasn't a pleasant experience for my eyes 😂Think I'm seeing colors now.
@@lextacy2008 His point was that HDMI cables and USB cables can both be lower quality and have slower transfer rates, but only HDMI cables were mentioned in the video.
Could you do a video about computer sleep? I am very confused about S3 S4 and S5 sleep, GPU DC3Cold support, how hibernate interacts with all this, and other hardware differences. It would be nice to reduce the idle power usage of my computer, and learn how to set up the sleep states exactly how I want. Does anyone else know where to find resources on understanding this?
11:15 As a sound and lighting guy, the nightshift colour looks weird and triggers the heck outta me. So I solemnly swear to never use that ever. 12:55 I never ran into the issue of having laptop storage drive soldered on to the MB. The laptops I own/took apart always have removable 2.5" HDD or an M.2 SSD. And the drives I gave out I do wipe them with Nwipe on default mode (fill the drive to the brim with 0 and 1 at random 3 times) so good job to me l guess.
Have one of those 144Hz displays and an NVIDIA graphics card for quite a while now, and I had no idea about Windows not defaulting to the max refresh rate supported / having to change my colour profile! I draw / edit videos, so those were game-changing!
ikr, I first learned that from a MAC video. Another way to do something similar is to hold a right click and then let go when you're hovering over your preferred context menu item, which also lets you access all right click functionality. also if you middle click a tab it will close it without having to hunt for the "X" that being said, I'm not sure I'd call it a "mistake" per-se. Like, It's (at least to my knowledge) the fastest way to open and close tabs without keybinds, but navigating a GUI is, by design, a very fluid concept that can be tackled in a bunch of different ways. Ntm that for most mice "middle click" is bound to the scroll wheel which might not be the most comfortable thing to press down on for some and many (especially cheaper) mice don't do a great job of preventing you from rolling the scroll wheel without meaning to.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Considering the fact the "night filter" doesn't show up in recordings, I assume it's a display (monitor) filter and doesn't affect performance in games.
But never dispose of them until they don't work anymore, there's always something you can use them for. I get cheap SATA/whatever-USB cables (maybe $5 each) and use them like chunky USB sticks until they DIE. Just like my Depression-era grandparents used to say, use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without ha ha! I defy the NSA to ever get their hands on my todo lists and pictures of my pets! I've actually got five or six 250GB Western Digital drives that came out of old office equipment my boss scrapped that I'm thinking of making a home cloud with. Have a great day!
Fun fact: A recently released extensive study came to the conclusion that blue light has no effect on eye strain or similar, so those night modes only make your color accurarcy worse
Yes, all of these red-spectrum apps are focused on stopping the reduction of melatonin production so you sleep well. I'd rather see correct colors though, so I tried the apps but meh don't use them anymore. I simply take a 1.25mg dose (a quarter dose) of melatonin pills every night if I have trouble sleeping, but that's not all the time either. I sleep like a dead rock and dream what feels like every second I'm asleep, so I know I'm getting into deep REM sleep.
@@TheSultan1470 well, it's complicated. Blue light is proven to suppress melatonin production. BUT some people make enough that it doesn't even matter if they have reduced production. For me, it may well indeed suppress melatonin, but I've never been a super great sleeper anyway because I do a lot of physical work so I usually hurt during the night in some way or another. Any better sleep I might get is awesome, but to someone else it might be crappy. It's all a matter of degrees, and since I don't look at perfect sleep as normal anyway, the red look is just a pain in the butt to look at to me.
Check with your ISP before updating router firmware if the router was supplied by them. Many ISPs recommend you do not update the firmware from the manufacturer because it might brick your router or prevent you from connecting to the internet
You left out how to change color settings for Intel Arc graphics card users. Remember, the world is not so red and green anymore; those days are long gone. ;)
One time back when I was living in a condo, in the garbage disposal area, someone had thrown away their old laptop. Of course I took it with me, opened it up and removed the HDD. Drive definitely had some sensitive info (like someone's resume), so I at least did the nice thing and kept the drive out and threw the laptop. Formatted the drive for myself. On another note, I always tell people not to use the Admin account on their PCs
When it comes to uppdates I own a Mac laptop and I learned long ago that if it is working dont uppdate... Because uppdates often breaks things and if it works without uppdating it is not worth the risk.
In the old days of CRT running your monitor at 60hz which was the default would give you a terrible headache because of the 60hz constant flashing (like sitting in front of a 60hz flashing strobe).... Countless people got sick and had to leave work because they did not know they could set it at much higher refresh rates. I had a 100hz monitor that gladly accepted 120hz refresh rates ;)
Windows power profiles are probably the last thing you should configure on a system. On desktop, there are countless utlities that are made for system tuning, as well as utilities like UXTU for laptops. Also, Windows power profiles most often only affects max/minimum utilization, not clockspeeds.
Don't bother with nightlight. Your monitor always displays blue. You can't turn it off. So it does very little for your melatonin. All you need to do is buy orange coloured glasses. Doesn't matter the price or brand, it just has to be orange. Put them on an hour before bed and you'll notice you'll be a lot more tiered. That's because it blocks all blue light even your monitors. Enjoy the doomscrolling without feeling bad!
All you can do is harden up the security (firewall, etc.) on your computer and hope the NSA doesn't target you lol. Or if you're really slick, buy yourself a router which will connect to the dorm router, but which you CAN set a password on.
Thank you for the monitor color range advise, My monitor is a tv, but once I switched the color mode, the colors actually look better, it's like I upgraded my monitor.
I misread a while back somewhere, my old laptop is slow and the way I understood what I had read is that "High Performance" in power settings is easier on you CPU. It's like lawn darts when I was a kid......throw them straight up as high as you throw them and then.....See What Happens......
I just enabled HDR on my monitor, since it is an HDR monitor. However, since the contrast on that was horrible, and everything looked completely washed out with it on, I used to always have it disabled. This video reminded me I have the NVidia control panel that can fix that.
1:29 I don't have a password set for Windows or my Bios. Then again if you're able to use my computer it means you're in my bedroom, and if you're in my bedroom it's because I allowed you in there.
I always turn off all advanced features on TV's because it makes the TV work less and therefore lasts longer. The average person won't realize there's an issue but someone who knows how to repair a TV will tell you that all those fancy features makes the TV work harder and will shorten the life of it. I also put heatsinks and silicone heat pads over all hot chips because hot chips will die prematurely. Check the TV video board and you'll be surprised to see that the main TV video chip runs extremely hot and the manufacturers put none or very poor cooling solution on it so it will fail early by design. Do some thinking to extend the life of your device. It's what the manufacturers don't want to you do.
For what it's worth, if it's advanced enough to brute force or guess your default password, which is usually randomized and printed on the router these days, it's also advanced enough to just pull the password that's likely saved to your browsers keychain and just get in with zero effort. If your machine's compromised, you're probably toast.
I've been using Nightlight for years and just started using a dimmer app Twinkle Tray with Nightlight, Twinkle Tray dos'nt make the screen orange it keeps it white light but dim and together it seems to work well
8:49 Fine for new features but don't forget that manufacturers can also decide that features you paid for when you bought the item are now a subscription service, so you can't use them any more. Does HP printers suddenly deciding that third party cartridges are now unusable, so you need to replace them immediately, ring a bell with anyone?
Is Reformat really that bad, If we use Full Format not Quick Format ? I assume Full Reformat is writing to each actual sector, not just Partition Table ?
2:05 Most laptops store that in the CMOS, pop the battery out and its gone....... Use an OS that lets you encrypt the whole drive (so windows is out the window).
Im 23 years old and only 1 HDD ever died in my life and encrypting IS NOT DELETING! There is software to recover the data after you do this and the only way to get the data from it is by using programms like Eraser or drill holes into the HDD.
8:27 Biggest mistake people make is allowing automatic updates. Not every update is worth installing. Some don't do anything useful at all. Some brick your device. Some Remove functionality. It doesn't matter what it is. The radio I fly my RC airplanes with, my OS(Still on Win7 lol), bios, my 3D printer, my car(LOLOL carburetted), I do not install updates unless that update fixes an issue I'm having AND has been proven to not break shit. I've been fucked by bad updates one too many times to ever allow automatic updating again. I will manually manage updates and, more often than not, they just don't get installed.
For the router, my parents screamed at me for wanting to change the passwords I havent changed yet btw, just suggested So ever since then, I never changed anything so long as I am stuck in this place
#1 Using Windows Home #2 Using Windows #3 Not using Linux or macOS #4 Using Windows for more than JUST gaming #5 Treating Windows like a real OS #6 Trusting Windows with your data #7 Trying to do work on Windows #8 Running Windows on real hardware instead of a VM etc.
I must be strange I just decommissioned a drive I was using, I like taking out the platers and degassing them then they are put on the wall... also the controller borad gets shredded...
My curved 55" Samsung TV I use as computer monitors is extremely sensitive to bad HDMI cables, I had to try several cables that all said they was 4k 60HZ until I paid 80 dollar for a horrible expensive 2m HDMI cable that worked.
When you bitlocker the drive, especially to get rid of it, bitlocker 100% of the drive. It takes longer, but that's the best way to do it. You'll be presented an option to bitlocker the entire drive or just where there appears to be data; choose the entire drive. Then reload Windows over top of the system. On a modern system, it should take very little time to encrypt the entire drive; perhaps 2 to 3 hours tops. As pointed out, just reloading Windows does not erase existing data. Deleting your data can be a pain If you decide to not load Windows. While identifying your documents, and files is relatively easy, you may have user logons, passwords, cached files, & other confidential data that is contained within browsers and user logins. This is more challenging than just wiping the drive and reloading Windows. If it was a drive that contained your data, you should encrypt the drive at least once, in its entirety, then reload Windows.. Another option is to just buy a replacement 256 or 512 GB drive to replace the current drive. 512 GB would be my recommendation, In today's world, this is about $30. Then take your existing drive, and buy a drive enclosure for it, and keep it as a backup of what your system was. Such a drive enclosure should cost you about $10 to 25. Your total cost to keep your drive, buy a cheap replacement and keep access to your old drive will be about $50; cheap insurance to keep your data - your data.. The other option is to sell your computer MINUS the drive, just keeping the drive for yourself and for your sanity. My choice would be to sell the computer without the drive, or slap in a cheap replacement. Remember, while many people may pay several hundred dollars for a new computer, a used computer only fetches a handful of dollars unless you have a nice graphics card, loads of memory or a nice processor; so selling it without a drive is not really detrimental to the re-sale price.
Thanks, Thio, but throw out a computer? You can't resurrect the dead if you throw out the corpse! A better idea is to turn it into a Chromebook-esque web browser/shopping/media machine with a simple Linux install and GIVE IT to an elderly relative or (BONUS POINTS) take it to the local nursing home and donate it as a patient recreational machine. Everybody feels good then! 🤗
I use Intel Settings almost always and at times Windows settings. I play with all settings until I get the correct flesh tones for known vids/live streams and everything else falls into place. Note: My monitor uses Intel settings
I was able to reduce my systems power consumption for 2d applications by at least 35 Watts by forcing the lowest GPU power state if the utilization was below 30%. Don't know whether this is necessary with current GPUs, but my 1080ti does not clock fully down on its own, when multiple monitors are connected even while idling.
Also if you have LG monitor you can maybe use their onscreen control software. So you dont need to use the nipple on the monitor to change the monitor settings. :)
I actually got a monitor once and was confused why the colors were very washed out. I then switched to 144Hz and that fixed it (for some reason?). It took me a while to realize that I had to set it to full range in Nvidia settings to see correct colors with lower refresh rates. Since then I've switched to a DisplayPort cable, because I wanted to use Freesync (and you can't do that over HDMI afaik).
9:54 as a desktop user that used high performance for many years, then switched to balanced, I can say for sure the 2% performance gain in rare cases is not worth running your CPU at almost load temperatures all the time, my i7 4770k on balanced is basically 5c higher than ambient most of the time and clocks are low. Don't waste your power on heating your CPU for no reason. Stick to balanced Edit: even if you have a good reason to use high performance, you have applications such as Process Lasso that enable you to switch power modes when certain programs are running. This can completely automate it so you get the best of both!
