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Win 10 Upgrades
Video Editing
External Drives
USB Won’t Act Right
Dear Doctor, I’m hoping you
can help me with a problem
that’s been plaguing me
for the last year: My USB
ports can’t all be used at the
same time. I’m only using
a keyboard (two ports), a
mouse (one port), and a
Logitech C920 webcam
(one port). They all plug into
an Asus Sabertooth X99
motherboard, with a Core i7-
5930K, and 32GB of Corsair
RAM. I have to frequently
switch the mouse (a Corsair
Ironclaw) between USB ports
for it to be recognized. This
wouldn’t be an issue if I didn’t
have to run Linux so often for
my job. When I use Windows
or Linux exclusively, there is
no problem. All my drivers
are current and I’m using the
latest version of Windows 10.
I’m also running two
GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics
cards, a Samsung 950 Pro
NVMe SSD for the boot
drive, and a 3TB Western
Digital HDD. Before buying
new games, how can I tell
if they’ll recognize both of
my GPUs? –PapaHomeyTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS:
Asus’s Sabertooth X99 is
loaded down with lots of USB
connectivity, including four
USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, four USB2.0 ports, and two USB 3.1 Gen
2 ports on its back panel. Try
plugging all your peripherals
into the blue USB 3.1 ports
and see how they behave.
If the problem persists,
and you see it under Windows,
try disabling USB selective
suspend. This feature allows
the OS to put one port to
sleep without affecting the
others. In Cortana’s search
box, type “Edit power plan”
and hit Enter. Click “Change
advanced power settings” and
expand the “USB settings”
branch. Change “USB
selective suspend setting” to
“Disabled,” then click “OK.”
To troubleshoot further,
the Doc would need more
info. If there is no problem
when running Windows or
Linux exclusively, when does
the issue manifest? Is this a
virtualized environment? Is
the mouse the only peripheral
affected? There may be other
variables to isolate still.
As for multi-GPU support,
plenty of DirectX 11-based
games still benefit from
your GeForce GTX 980 Tis
in SLI through Nvidia’s
drivers. Under DirectX 12
renderers, enabling multi-
GPU functionality falls on
the developers’ shoulders.
Since two- and three-way
configurations represent sucha small percentage of gaming
PCs, fewer titles receive the
requisite work to make SLI
function properly. Absent an
official list of SLI-enabled
games, spend some time
with Nvidia’s official SLI
support community at https://
forums.geforce.com/default/
board/50/sli/.Upgrading to Win 10
Hi Doc. As someone who
procrastinates, and with
the demise of Windows 7, is
there still time to upgrade to
Win 10? –Frank EspositoTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS:
Technically, Microsoft’s offer
to upgrade to Windows 10
from Win 7 or 8.1 expired in
2016, but the Doc kept hearing
that readers with older
versions of Windows were still
able to install a licensed copy
of Windows 10 right up until
he received your email. So, he
set out to find an old machine
in the lab running Windows 7.
After digging in a closet, the
Doc found a laptop previously
used to log power data. He
fired it up, opened Microsoft’s
“Download Windows 10”
page at http://www.microsoft.com/
en-us/software-download/
windows10 and hit “Download
tool now.” When the Media
Creation Tool finisheddownloading, he launched it,
and began the Win 10 setup.
Given the option to “Upgrade
this PC now” and “Create
installation media for another
PC,” he chose the former.
After navigating his way
through a series of prompts,
he emerged with a valid digital
license for Windows 10 Home.
While there are no guarantees
that you’ll see the same, at
least for now the upgrade
does seem to work.
Thanks for reminding the
Doc about this one. He’s going
to spend the weekend digging
up aging test machines and
wiping them clean with fresh
installations of Windows 10.New Build Dilemma
Hi Doc. I recently built
my first PC with a friend.
It lives in an NZXT H500i
ATX chassis and includes
an Asus Prime B450M-A
motherboard with an AMD
Ryzen 5 2600X. We went with
the stock cooler for now. We
also used a 250GB Samsung
970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD, a
Rosewill HIVE-series 1,000W
modular PSU, a Gigabyte
GeForce GT 1030 OC 2G, and
a single 8GB stick of Corsair
Vengeance LPX DDR4-2400.
We mounted everything
inside of the case correctly.
Then, when we hit the powerquickstart
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