Maximum PC - UK (2020-05)

THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...

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VPN Varieties

Weird Wake-Up

Mouse Mystery

Which VPN Option?

I’m considering ditching my

monthly-fee VPN service for

my own home-brewed VPN.

While I have no doubt there

are Internet how-to guides

and MPC tutorials, what is

the short answer? I have a

TP-Link Safestream VPN

router collecting dust, or my

current router supports easy

setup using OpenVPN, so

are these two relatively easy

viable alternatives? Does a

secure VPN require serious

hardware, or is there a poor

man’s alternative to pay

services? – Ryan Pitts

THE DOCTOR RESPONDS:

Your question has given the

Max PC team an idea, and

we’ll be revisiting this subject

in greater detail in a future

issue. For now, remember

that third-party VPN providers

offer a different service from

a VPN server sitting at home.

A home-brewed VPN server

is best for allowing you to

“dial” into your home network

securely when out and about.

It creates a secure, encrypted

tunnel that extends your local

network to specific devices

on the road, allowing them to

access services as if you were

at home.

Fee-based VPN providers

work differently—their

encrypted tunnels are

designed to connect your

devices securely (and

anonymously) to the Internet

itself. While you can configure

a home VPN server to provide

an encrypted tunnel to the

Internet for extra security,

your home’s public IP address

(the one that identifies you

on the Internet) isn’t masked.

Long story short: If

remaining anonymous or

accessing geo-restricted

content are your reasons

for using a VPN, you need

to stick with a third-party

provider. If your budget is

stretched, consider looking

at Windscribe (https://

windscribe.com). Its free tier

offers a choice of 10 locations,

as well as 10GB of free

monthly bandwidth, adequate

for most moderate-use cases.

Sluggish File Explorer

Last year, I upgraded

my system to an AMD

Threadripper 2950X from a

quad-core Intel CPU, and I

expected a big performance

increase, which did not

happen. My system runs

reliably, but it’s s-l-o-w.

Sometimes it takes 10

seconds to open Windows

Explorer. Everything is

slow. I read a lot about

how picky Threadripper

is concerning RAM, and I

purchased memory that was

on the Gigabyte memory

compatibility list, but I’m

wondering if the RAM is

slowing everything down.

Windows is running off

an M.2 boot drive (Samsung

950 Pro, 512GB), with five

internal traditional spinning-

platter disks offering a total

capacity of 31TB. I’m hoping

you can tell me if I have

components that are not

optimal, or some possible

reason the system is so slow,

and/or what I might do to

increase the performance.

I’m not overclocking it. The

CPU stays cool with the

liquid cooling system.

I use the system mostly

for software development

and often have one or two

virtual machines running,

but even with no VMs it’s still

very slow. –Hal Endresen

THE DOCTOR RESPONDS:

You’re not going to notice a

stellar increase in the day-

to-day performance of your

PC when upgrading from

an older quad-core chip to a

Threadripper—basic Windows

usage benefits most from a

faster hard drive, which you’ve

already got in place in the

form of the M.2 drive.

That said, things certainly

shouldn’t run slower than

before—you don’t mention ©^ M

ICR

OS

OF

T

A corrupt Windows Search index can bring File Explorer to a halt.

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20 MAXIMUM PC MAY 2020 maximumpc.com