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Steam, for those people who have been living under a rock since 2003, is the most popular games delivery service. I own 352 games on there, with a value of somewhere between £770 and £3377* depending on how many I bought on sale**.
Steam Link is a way of streaming those games from your PC to other devices. It supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and importantly for me, Samsung TVs.
So I grabbed a Logitech F710, got Jane to help me take the TV off the wall for five minutes while I plugged in the USB receiver (annoyingly it's a wireless controller, but doesn't support Bluetooth, meaning a nervewracking couple of minutes of lifting a giant TV down and putting it back up), turned on the controller, and It Just Worked.
For about 30 joyous seconds, and then the "Mode" light started flashing, and it went a bit funny, with presses not going through, and then being stuck on, and it generally not wanting to talk to Steam properly.
I tried restarting everything (TV, controller, and desktop), and that seemed to help, but not really very much.
Checking the internet, people seemed to think that the Mode light flashing meant low battery, but changing batteries didn't help.
And then I realised that the USB wireless dongle was sitting behind a big metal thing, in front of a metal wall mount, effectively in a tiny medium-effective wireless shield. Indeed, holding the controller within 2 feet of the TV made it a fair chunk more reliable. But that's not a very useful strategy for comfortable game playing. And *then* I realised that there was a USB extender in the package - a 1m-ish cable that would then hang down under the TV.
So I got Jane to help me take down the TV again, plugged that in, plugged the dongle into that so it now sits on the cabinet under the TV, and magically everything worked perfectly, and I was able to play the first 5 minutes of Ori and the Blind Forest (because if anything will tell you whether your signal is fast, latency free, and reasonable bandwidth, it's a beautiful platformer with amazing control feel.) And it's like playing a Console game - only I have access to all of my Steam back catalogue. I may even get round to playing more of them!
And then I thought I'd post this here, so that if anyone else is googling "Logitech F710 mode light flashing" then they can know that the problem probably isn't low battery - it's rubbish signal!
* courtesy of https://steamdb.info/
** The vast majority of them
Steam Link is a way of streaming those games from your PC to other devices. It supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and importantly for me, Samsung TVs.
So I grabbed a Logitech F710, got Jane to help me take the TV off the wall for five minutes while I plugged in the USB receiver (annoyingly it's a wireless controller, but doesn't support Bluetooth, meaning a nervewracking couple of minutes of lifting a giant TV down and putting it back up), turned on the controller, and It Just Worked.
For about 30 joyous seconds, and then the "Mode" light started flashing, and it went a bit funny, with presses not going through, and then being stuck on, and it generally not wanting to talk to Steam properly.
I tried restarting everything (TV, controller, and desktop), and that seemed to help, but not really very much.
Checking the internet, people seemed to think that the Mode light flashing meant low battery, but changing batteries didn't help.
And then I realised that the USB wireless dongle was sitting behind a big metal thing, in front of a metal wall mount, effectively in a tiny medium-effective wireless shield. Indeed, holding the controller within 2 feet of the TV made it a fair chunk more reliable. But that's not a very useful strategy for comfortable game playing. And *then* I realised that there was a USB extender in the package - a 1m-ish cable that would then hang down under the TV.
So I got Jane to help me take down the TV again, plugged that in, plugged the dongle into that so it now sits on the cabinet under the TV, and magically everything worked perfectly, and I was able to play the first 5 minutes of Ori and the Blind Forest (because if anything will tell you whether your signal is fast, latency free, and reasonable bandwidth, it's a beautiful platformer with amazing control feel.) And it's like playing a Console game - only I have access to all of my Steam back catalogue. I may even get round to playing more of them!
And then I thought I'd post this here, so that if anyone else is googling "Logitech F710 mode light flashing" then they can know that the problem probably isn't low battery - it's rubbish signal!
* courtesy of https://steamdb.info/
** The vast majority of them
no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 02:26 pm (UTC)I'd had my doubts.
me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-30 04:25 pm (UTC)––––– we own a dwarf among giants. :P
Re: me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-30 04:43 pm (UTC)Re: me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-30 04:53 pm (UTC)Re: me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-30 05:02 pm (UTC)Re: me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-30 05:22 pm (UTC)Re: me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-31 12:29 am (UTC)Re: me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-31 12:31 am (UTC)fave loom is a tapestry and i prefer to make things with soumak....
Re: me & Tony's TV
Date: 2022-03-31 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-31 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-31 11:47 am (UTC)https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08FT9BLQX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 is the one I went for.