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You have an undiagnosed issue with your laptop. Simply plugging in a USB device should not be causing that much power drain.
The Computer Thread - Desktops, Laptops, Windows, Mac, & Linux
- Thread starter Grand Potentate
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I was using USB A. I'll try USB C since I need the A port for my mouse. I don't know if that changes anything.
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I am trying to simplify my father’s Windows taskbar and desktop and Microsoft thinks it is good to have a running UHN stock ticker in the lower left hand corner.
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Dell killed its Dell Update after 31st December 2024. Strangely I can still use it to download some new drivers in 2025. But around that time my computer stopped shutting down properly. My (Microsoft) Windows Update would never work. I had to go find I think it's a Dell Support Assist thing in my msconfig startup and disable it in order for it to start and shut down properly. Thanks for the reminder I should buy a new Dell but it didn't work this time.
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My mum asked me to pick her out a desktop monitor for her to buy with a gift voucher. She wants to order it before we visit, so I can set it up for her when I’m there. She’s been squinting at her laptop all year, since the old one died.
There are basically six different 27” monitors in her price range st the shop and they all seem about the same to me (different brands, slightly different port set-ups and one is curved).
Is there anything important I’m missing here that I should be looking for?
There are basically six different 27” monitors in her price range st the shop and they all seem about the same to me (different brands, slightly different port set-ups and one is curved).
Is there anything important I’m missing here that I should be looking for?
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Curved monitors: Does she have macular degeneration? My father was blind in one eye and had glaucoma so his peripheral field of vision was shrinking (until treatment stopped progression) so curved monitors or monitors that are too big at a close distance (based on where she sits) are not very good because they would need to move their head to see everything.
Size: I started with a 24" and then moved to a 32"-33". A mate of mine got a 40"-50" TV for his father. You don't want to end up upgrading in size every year. (They get embarrassed to ask you and think it's a hassle to toss the old one)
USB-C support: Does she use a tablet as well? My father had a pretty big Samsung tablet but because he started having vision issues I rigged his monitor to a USB-C hub that then connected to the tablet. At one point I had a switch that let him switch between the tablet & computer via the hub. He even tried his Samsung mobile phone. Bottom line - if those things are important it's best to get a monitor that supports USB-C. The cheapest ones usually just do HDMI, VGA and/or display port. Of course if you opt for this then powered hubs/ports are best so you're not draining the tablet/phone when displaying on the monitor.
Touchscreen (via USB-C data support): The laptop she has must support USB-C data (not just USB-C) to use a touchscreen monitor. On the topic of macular degeneration, if she has issues finding the cursor and stuff - in retrospect I would have bought my father a monitor with touchscreen support so for some basic things he can just press on the button (i.e. close in Windows, or start button). It would have worked better with the tablet setup that he gave up on with mouse & keyboard because the tablet then becomes almost like a giant touchpad and your fingers are like a stylus. With a touchscreen via USB-C you'd just touch the monitor to control the tablet.
Other things I did for my father was jack up the font between 115%-125%. It can't be so big that websites start scrambling on you. I killed every icon on his desktop and left just a handful of icons (Edge, Start, etc) on his taskbar. I used the accessibility functions to do reverse contrast. This helped him a lot but it was totally alien to me: black background + blue-ish grey text worked best. (not the bright orange on black of aircraft cockpits). I set his mouse pointers to 300% size.
I bought him an accessible/low vision keyboard that lights up. You could probably get by with a gaming keyboard because the laptop basically became a stationary computer and the hubs/monitor turned into a docking station setup.
I did install Phone Link to connect Windows to his Android. This was to get around multi-factor authentication via SMS. I don't think Phone Link is accessible at all because the fonts are tiny regardless of what you set in Windows but I know multi-factor codes drove my father nuts. He would refuse to use "Call me with the code" when offered. I even set up a Google Nest Mini and taught him to ask it to read out the SMS codes but ultimately he relied on his Galaxy tablet paired with his phone to read some of it (again text+accessibility jacked up). Or he just yelled at my mum - which seemed to be the preferred option.
In the final 3 months, I bought him a Meta Ray-Ban Wayfarer pair of glasses. He used that to "look" at his screen and asked Meta to read what was on there. He had a habit of printing everything out and this also helped with that. He already amassed off the shelf retail magnifying glasses that I bought for him & inherited his father's blind association certified magnifying glass.
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I'm seeing all these advertisements on Bloomberg that Windows 10 is going away. People are still running it? I thought most people got a free upgrade for 10 to 11 except for my Aunt's Surface (irony...).
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My main bank that has my chequing account has been having SSO API problems handing me over to their credit card site. I am using a PC because I want to download the transactions into CSV and crunch it in my budget spreadsheet. The solution was, as most help desk people will tell you, clear your cookies and cache. Somehow I wasn't able to delete just the bank's cookies but the entire cookie/cached data on my computer so now I have to log in to everything all over again (including my late father and my mum's accounts that I am working through). Why are basic things so hard in the 2020s.