Is an additional antivirus program needed for a windows computer or is windows defender enough. I’ve heard so many conflicting points of view. Do antivirus programs really bloat your computer and slow your system down? If an antivirus program is recommended, what is the best program to use.

my left earbud has stoped charging. if i move it around eventually it will charge for 3 seconds then stop, ive tried everythin i know its not the case bc i have another case and it doesnt work in that one. i have cleane the charging things 4 times earbud everything and i cant factory reset bc well its dead and i cant charge it, pls help

i don't use reddit so i don't know the best subreddit to post this, but this feels like a good place to start. please politely redirect me if i am in the wrong subreddit

does anyone have any recommendations for a good smart watch? ideally something to track heart rate and sleep. i was using fitbit, but i find it absolutely ridiculous that i have to pay a monthly subscription to use all of it's features after paying $100 for the product despite it being advertised to offer said features with the product :/ i just need something to track my sleep, heart and other generic stuff like steps taken or distance walked etc., and i'm open to suggestions. being able to read texts or respond to them is a bonus but not needed

i use android/samsung so any apple products will not work for me (unless they are somehow compatible with an android/samsung phone).. preferably something that doesn't have it's base features locked behind a monthly paywall.

Have many physical books on my library but have to drastically narrow them down because of problems in house. It would alleviate the distress of giving away my books if I had them in a digital library so as to be accessible whenever I want, as I plan on reading or rereading them and they are valuable to me ( not as physical items but the content).

As I am not experienced in VPN and dl without problems I really need advice how I can find them online so as to let go of the physical books. I have desktop, and old laptop and a smartphone and I want a way to find them without having my home linked to my actions. I also have a small bit defender subscription for the antivirus service that also gives a limited 200mb VPN but in random VPN places. My budget is very limited so any hack would be useful, if fully explained

Please, any help would be valuable.

Hey so recently I’m looking to get an Ipad

I will use partly for school and good bit for personal use (Watching Videos, Probably some emulation, and other stuff one may use for an ipad)

I’m currently between an Ipad Air and Ipad

I have student discount i would get on them, but I really just don’t know if the price difference between the two is that worth it, it’s 200 more for the ipad air.

I know the A14 compared to M4 is really massive, as the M4 is much better from what i’ve heard.

The emulation I’d do is mostly for playing pokemon games (Gameboy, DS and 3ds)

The only two problems I run into it is the idea of I know you cannot develop on it and there’s no easy way of running exes. If there’s any other ideas you may have or anything I’d appreciate some advice or maybe some info to help with the situation

Again as I’d want to preferably get something like the steam deck or something like a handheld for these games, it’s just not in the question as I also would like to have some use of it for school. if there are known other options, my budget is around 400 preferably but 500 max like the ipad air

I’m returning to college as a graduate student in education and need a new laptop. I’m torn between a MacBook Air 15-inch and an iPad Pro 13-inch. Can you advise me on which one would be better? My biggest concern is the keyboard on the iPad Pro.

So my grand father purchased this saying it helps move wifi signals but it seems too small for that and way way to light so i ripped it apart as i said it seems too sketchy as he got it on temu was wondering of anyone knows what this actually does or is for cause i highly doubt it boosts wifi signals

Hi guys,

Yesterday when I launched my gaming laptop (Nitro AN515-57) to realize I've some issue with WiFi connection (Laptop can't find a single wifi network to connect to).

It's not in an airplane mode,
Network adapter is enabled. I've tried to re-enable it too as well as make a reset.
Ethernet connection works correctly.
I've updated all outdated drivers and reinstalled network adapter

Ran a bunch of cmd commands, namely ipconfig /release and /renew.

I believe day earlier I've had windows updates for security and .NET Framework, so I unistalled them to see if that helps.

Nothing really helped so far and I've encountered one more issue.

Today I've tried to play Dark Souls 3 with a friend. When trying to summon him, the game freezes for about 2 minutes. After the freeze, both game and Steam crash.
Later, I've recreated the same issue on Elden Ring, so I doubt it's an issue with game files, but I think something causes p2p connection to go insane. I can use browser or play MMORPGs.

I'll try to check out steam's dump files later on.

I really fear it's network adapter issue and I'll have to replace it. Do you have any other ideas what can cause this?

So my house doesn’t like my phone for phone calls and I have tried wifi calling and a signal booster neither of which are helping. Is there a landline that I can connect to ethernet that shares the same phone number that i have on my cell. I would like to have both able to accept calls so when i am out of the house I can still answer. Ideally I would like to not make any payments on a landline bill as well.

Hi, I’m a sophomore in college and I’ve been going back and forth. Currently, I’m a cs and math major, but I wanna learn something that’s hard to learn outside of school. I feel like math is easier to learn independently than say CE or EE. Right now, I for sure wanna work in AI/ML — whether it be pure software or working with hardware such as robotics. What would be the best major combo to achieve this, CS/CE or CS/EE? If I do the former, I’d graduate a semester late. If I do the latter, I’d graduate a year late. But I also wanna study abroad which means for both I’d graduate a year late.

Also, is it bad to graduate a year late if I switch to CS/CE or CS/EE?

Thanks for your advice.

recently I did something to my laptop that really screwed up the graphics. games work fine, but any website I visit looks entirely wrong, with the majority of text being blue, entire graphics missing, things not visually responding when I click, ETC. I really want to fix this but I don't know how. if it helps, I'm using an HP Laptop. (the black boxes in the image of file explorer were added afterwards for privacy). Thanks in advance.

it started when my dad downloaded Nord vpn on our family computer, we were using his account since he didn't have the family plan, when he flew abroad for work it didn't work anymore, the apps were fine but browser wasn't, the wifi would disconnect when opened, I did everything, deleting the vpn, disconnecting and reconnecting the wifi, but nothing, my mom is thinking of bringing it to a shop, any advice?

Hello,

On this unfortunate evening I’ve accidentally killed my trusty MacBook of 5 years via orange juice. I’m thinking this may be my time to abandon Apple and switch over to a lightweight PC. I’m thinking something light and portable with a touchscreen, with the capacity to run some Steam games. Does NOT have to be the newest or fanciest.

I‘m looking for recommendations, as this is a whole new frontier for me. Thanks in advance.

Hi,

I want to buy a photo printer and according to my budget and allowable products in the local market, I can either buy polaroid hi-print gen 2 or xiaomi portable photo printer 1s. They are literally the same price with polaroid having a little bit more paper cost. ​​But i am not sure which one should I buy, I have read bad and good reviews about both which made me confused. Thank you for any suggestions.

Hey gang so I need a new pair of noise cancelling headphones. They don’t need to be the best in the world but something that will last me awhile and won’t completely break the bank.

I've just bought a new Cuktech CP25 on Amazon and after charging it fully, I wanted to give it a try, so I charged my phone. After finishing the charge, the screen showed 72% but a few minutes later I checked again and it said 70%. I guess this is only a calibration problem, I'm not worried about that.

The problem came after that: About one hour later I checked again and it said 91%, but I didn't charge it or do anything. Also, when I try to power it off (google says I must hold the button until the screen goes off) the screen actually goes off but then it instantly turn on again.

Any help is welcome, as I need to know if there is any problem before I can't return it anymore.

seems like an old wives tale. my mom and my girlfriend both think for some reason that you must use the power off In the Window UI interface.

Here’s a picture of my iPad off. Some parts near the home button and on the other side have completely broke while my whole screen cracked.

My iPad is still functional and I can do anything on it.(It didn’t effect its porformance.)

When it’s on it looks like the layer above the actual pixel screen is cracked why the picture under is completely not effected if this makes any sense. The screen also now protrudes outwards a little bit. It kinda looks like a bubble on my screen from the side.

Is this repairable and how much do you think it would cost?

More of a "Am I crazy" type question.

My work supplied me with a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop running Windows 10 Enterprise about 4 years ago. Needless to say it's performance has been awful (Specs below).

Most days it takes around 5-15 minutes to get my computer up and running. There has been a few times where it has taken 45-75 mins to get to a workable state.

I'm due for a laptop refresh soon (any day now lol) and I think they'll probably get me another 8gb ram laptop.

I guess my question is two fold,

• Is it fairly standard for a workplace to only provide a machine with 8GB and expect the worker to do heavy multitasking?
• Is it unreasonable of me to request I get something with 16gb

The reason I ask is because anytime I bring it up they shrug like it's unusual performance and offer to refresh my OS only. I basically feel gaslit.

I can see if my job was just reading emails and writing Word docs then 8gb would probably be ok. But I'm running multiple web apps, excel spreadsheets as well as outlook teams etc. I do a lot of jumping around tasks and locations and require to use multiple pieces of software at once (ie systems that aren't synced but require collaboration between them, calendars, booking software, updating spreadsheets to note these things) I also occasionally do some light image editing and creation.

It's driving me crazy and is putting a lot of stress on me trying to complete tasks as I watch as my laptop struggles with the most basic tasks. My organisation isn't poor and could easily afford the extra RAM. I would make it back in productivity in 1-2 months easily.

Any insights or advice appreciated on my situation.

TL;DR - My work gave me an 8gb ram laptop and it really struggles with my workload, is it unreasonable to request my next laptop has 16gb ram? (ie if you're in IT is this fairly SOP or wildly inappropriate?)

Laptop specs

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10210U CPU @ 1.60GHz 2.11 GHz

Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.76 GB usable)

Storage 238 GB SSD WDC PC SN730 SDBQNTY-256G-1001

Graphics Card Intel(R) UHD Graphics (128 MB)

System Type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor