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Hipster_Doofus
Dec 20, 2003

Lovin' every minute of it.

plape tickler posted:

The molex to sata cable fits both ways with the same amount of force.

Wow, that's nuts. Can you take a picture of it and/or link to what you bought?

E: I mean, it won't help with anything :( ; I'm just really curious.

Hipster_Doofus fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Feb 7, 2018

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plape tickler
Oct 21, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo
This is culprit http://a.co/8TmG0NB

I was trying to install a shucked external western digital 8TB drive internally and it was the newest model drive with 3.3 volt shut down. That's why I was using the molex to sata.

plape tickler fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Feb 7, 2018

Hipster_Doofus
Dec 20, 2003

Lovin' every minute of it.
Well, that is keyed correctly. If what you bought looks exactly like what's in the picture, then the culprit is surely the other half, on the psu side. Does that connector have 4 truncated corners? :psyduck: If not, the plastic on what you bought must be incredibly flimsy.

Puddin
Apr 9, 2004
Leave it to Brak

plape tickler posted:

I plugged in a molex to sata adapter backwards. I thought they were keyed to make that impossible but apparently not. Now a previously working drive and the new drive I was trying to add won't spin up. My ssd and a third mechanical drive that were in the system still work. Only the two drives I plugged into the molex to sata adapter won't power up. The drives are garbage now right? Nothing to try short of trying to get a new pcb for the hd?

Have you tried running them on a different rail to see if you've just fried the rail on the power supply? Another thing would be to get an external enclosure and plug the drives i to see if they are still working.

plape tickler
Oct 21, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo

Hipster_Doofus posted:

Well, that is keyed correctly. If what you bought looks exactly like what's in the picture, then the culprit is surely the other half, on the psu side. Does that connector have 4 truncated corners? :psyduck: If not, the plastic on what you bought must be incredibly flimsy.

My evga power supply has molex terminators that are small enough to fit into the adapter interchangeably. Wasn't any harder getting it in the wrong direction than the right one that matched the wire colors. The adapter end may be slightly too large also.

Puddin posted:

Have you tried running them on a different rail to see if you've just fried the rail on the power supply? Another thing would be to get an external enclosure and plug the drives i to see if they are still working.

I'll give it a shot. The new drive wouldn't work with the enclosure I have but I should try the older drive that seems dead. The power supply isn't modular. Pretty sure it has one other molex and sata extension though.

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

This reminds me that modular desktop PSUs have a lovely design attribute where the cables are often physically interchangeable between brands, but the pins are connected differently. Lots of stories of people frying all their equipment because they bought a new PSU and thought they could swap it in without replacing the cables.

Hipster_Doofus
Dec 20, 2003

Lovin' every minute of it.

TheGreasyStrangler posted:

This reminds me that modular desktop PSUs have a lovely design attribute where the cables are often physically interchangeable between brands, but the pins are connected differently. Lots of stories of people frying all their equipment because they bought a new PSU and thought they could swap it in without replacing the cables.

I killed a friend's 100gb ssd and 1tb hdd because of that. :( Luckily nothing of any importance at all was lost.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

TheGreasyStrangler posted:

This reminds me that modular desktop PSUs have a lovely design attribute where the cables are often physically interchangeable between brands, but the pins are connected differently. Lots of stories of people frying all their equipment because they bought a new PSU and thought they could swap it in without replacing the cables.

jesus loving christ

:stare:

Fragrag
Aug 3, 2007
The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.
Sometimes they're different with the same brand. My colleague was replacing an old Corsair PSU with a newer one and it took him a day before he figured out why it wasn't booting up. luckily nothing was fried.

Hipster_Doofus
Dec 20, 2003

Lovin' every minute of it.
That's just plain loving criminal.

Oddhair
Mar 21, 2004

Q8ee posted:

why on earth did I manage to sell my GTX970 that I bought in 2015 for £200 when I bought it for £280? after Amazon's cut, I get £186 total, which is pretty insane and doesn't make much sense. Cost me £100 to own this decent card for two years, why would someone buy a used 970 for £200?

The 970 is the minimum recommended card to use with the HTC Vive, that could keep its used price high.

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Hipster_Doofus posted:

That's just plain loving criminal.

I've seen PSU designs where the connectors are not keyed differently, so you can trivially plug things in incorrectly and fry them. I cannot fathom what would cause someone to design such trash.

HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Feb 7, 2018

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

Re: video card prices

bitcoin mining lol

All of my cards are worth more now used than what i paid for them new

EssOEss
Oct 23, 2006
128-bit approved

Statutory Ape posted:

I have some case fans that I hooked up to one of those fan controllers (NZXT Sentry 3 or something) but it seems like the slowest I can set the fans on it is either 40% or off.

Is this a controller limitation or just an observation? Because I have noticed massive differences in fans themselves - some fans will just stop at XX%, whereas others can go way further down on the same input.

Llamadeus
Dec 20, 2005
Yeah, some fans just have really poor ranges, especially DC fans. The DC fans that came with my case spin down to about 42% (~550RPM), Noctua PWM fans can spin down to under 200 RPM.

Hipster_Doofus
Dec 20, 2003

Lovin' every minute of it.

HalloKitty posted:

I've seen PSU designs where the cables are not keyed differently, so you can trivially plug things in incorrectly and fry them. I cannot fathom what would cause someone to design such trash.

Me neither. All I can think of is that they used existing connector designs as templates without understanding what the different colored wires mean.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

EssOEss posted:

Is this a controller limitation or just an observation? Because I have noticed massive differences in fans themselves - some fans will just stop at XX%, whereas others can go way further down on the same input.

I cant honestly answer wrt the fans but I can say its definitely a controller limitation. I'm going to rewire it all tomorrow and see what I can come up with

Maybe I should look at getting a different controller :shrug: I dont need one but its just fun to play around

The one I got was very highly rated and that's how I chose it. But god drat going from 0% to 40% is a big jump to me

Red_Fred
Oct 21, 2010


Fallen Rib
I just bought a new 2 Tb platter HDD to replace my ancient (7 years!) 1 Tb drive, my main drive is an SSD. What’s the easiest way to clone the old drive onto the new drive? Ideally it would just appear as if it was the old drive but with the extra space.

It doesn’t have Windows installed on it but it has some systems links most likely that I don’t want to have to tidy up if I don’t have to.

JnnyThndrs
May 29, 2001

HERE ARE THE FUCKING TOWELS

TheGreasyStrangler posted:

This reminds me that modular desktop PSUs have a lovely design attribute where the cables are often physically interchangeable between brands, but the pins are connected differently. Lots of stories of people frying all their equipment because they bought a new PSU and thought they could swap it in without replacing the cables.

I almost did this on my last build, thank Christ at the last minute I said to myself ‘I’d better test this’ and pulled out my old DVOM. I’d bought a used PS off of SA-Mart and it didn’t come with a couple of the modular cables, so I found some in my box-o-wires.

Red_Fred posted:

I just bought a new 2 Tb platter HDD to replace my ancient (7 years!) 1 Tb drive, my main drive is an SSD. What’s the easiest way to clone the old drive onto the new drive? Ideally it would just appear as if it was the old drive but with the extra space.

It doesn’t have Windows installed on it but it has some systems links most likely that I don’t want to have to tidy up if I don’t have to.

Macrium Reflect Free works well and is easy to use.

Red_Fred
Oct 21, 2010


Fallen Rib

JnnyThndrs posted:

Macrium Reflect Free works well and is easy to use.

Thanks. Any ideas on what to do with the old drive? So far it seems to be working fine but given its age it could die at any moment.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Red_Fred posted:

I just bought a new 2 Tb platter HDD to replace my ancient (7 years!) 1 Tb drive, my main drive is an SSD. What’s the easiest way to clone the old drive onto the new drive? Ideally it would just appear as if it was the old drive but with the extra space.

It doesn’t have Windows installed on it but it has some systems links most likely that I don’t want to have to tidy up if I don’t have to.

Huh? All you have to do is to copy between drives as normal. Then when you're done, go into Windows Disk Management, change the old drive's drive letter to something different, and change the new drive's drive letter to what the old drive was. There will be no missing links at that point.

Red_Fred
Oct 21, 2010


Fallen Rib

fishmech posted:

Huh? All you have to do is to copy between drives as normal. Then when you're done, go into Windows Disk Management, change the old drive's drive letter to something different, and change the new drive's drive letter to what the old drive was. There will be no missing links at that point.

You mean I could do it all from Windows if I installed the new drive with the old drive? I’m just thinking things like my Windows Library links would break when I changed drive letters.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Red_Fred posted:

You mean I could do it all from Windows if I installed the new drive with the old drive? I’m just thinking things like my Windows Library links would break when I changed drive letters.

Those will break, but don't worry. If you have all your stuff at say, D:\Files now, you can copy it all to E:\Files, change D: to F:, and then change E: to D:

Then all your links to D: will work but point to the new drive, while the old drive is accessible at a different letter.




As you can see, any drive besides the main system drive can have the drive letter instantly changed, to any letter that isn't in use. From then on, anytime you have that drive in your computer, it will maintain that drive letter.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

out of solidarity with my floppy bros i shant assign drive A ever again

Hipster_Doofus
Dec 20, 2003

Lovin' every minute of it.
Boy wasn't windows an adventure when it didn't work like that?

E: hm did NT always work like that? I pretty much stuck with 98 till XP came out.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Hipster_Doofus posted:

Boy wasn't windows an adventure when it didn't work like that?

E: hm did NT always work like that? I pretty much stuck with 98 till XP came out.

You could assign A: to something other than a floppy drive in Windows 9x, or even DOS. The catch was that you had to not have an active floppy disk controller at all.

Even well into the 2000s, you'd end up with XP/Vista/7 systems where you couldn't use A: or B: without serious fuckery because the computer still had an unused floppy disk controller active, which Windows would see and assign A: to, and of course B: would be aliased to the same drive after a disk swap.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

i actually have a short question. whats a small form factor/low-ish power thing i can run ubuntu on? cant be raspberry pi since i think ARM has issues with dependencies i need. hardware capability wise other than the ARM thing the raspberry pi 3 is adequate

E: might give this a shot, anybody have any experience with it?
https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-ZBOX-C...0_&dpSrc=detail

Worf fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Feb 8, 2018

EssOEss
Oct 23, 2006
128-bit approved
A Compute Stick is pretty small and low power.

FCKGW
May 21, 2006

Red_Fred posted:

I just bought a new 2 Tb platter HDD to replace my ancient (7 years!) 1 Tb drive, my main drive is an SSD. What’s the easiest way to clone the old drive onto the new drive? Ideally it would just appear as if it was the old drive but with the extra space.

It doesn’t have Windows installed on it but it has some systems links most likely that I don’t want to have to tidy up if I don’t have to.

All of the drive manufacturers provide a branded copy of Acronis on their websites.
https://www.wdc.com/products/features/acronis.html
https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/discwizard/

Puddin
Apr 9, 2004
Leave it to Brak

Statutory Ape posted:

i actually have a short question. whats a small form factor/low-ish power thing i can run ubuntu on? cant be raspberry pi since i think ARM has issues with dependencies i need. hardware capability wise other than the ARM thing the raspberry pi 3 is adequate

E: might give this a shot, anybody have any experience with it?
https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-ZBOX-C...0_&dpSrc=detail

I had one of those nucs (different brand) a year ago that worked fine for about 10 months then the power supply plug on the motherboard poo poo the bed.

It was only used for xbmc so the performance was great, Windows was a long boot time but bearable.

The only real drawback is if your putting a 2.5inch drove in it it can be a very tight squeeze.

Don't forget that most nucs don't come with any storage or RAM so figure that into the cost if you don't already have it.

Hipster_Doofus
Dec 20, 2003

Lovin' every minute of it.

fishmech posted:

You could assign A: to something other than a floppy drive in Windows 9x, or even DOS. The catch was that you had to not have an active floppy disk controller at all.

Even well into the 2000s, you'd end up with XP/Vista/7 systems where you couldn't use A: or B: without serious fuckery because the computer still had an unused floppy disk controller active, which Windows would see and assign A: to, and of course B: would be aliased to the same drive after a disk swap.

Actually I was referring to the "drive retains its assigned letter" thing, but that sounds like fun too!

Geoj
May 28, 2008

BITTER POOR PERSON
I've been running a Sandy Bridge Celeron-based NUC as a HTPC for about three years.

Running Windows 10 off of a mSATA SSD with 8 GB RAM. Its getting a bit long in the tooth, especially now that x264 isn't the go-to codec - the CPU has hardware optimization for 264 but falls flat on its face with 265 codec videos. Streams Netflix/Hulu/HBOnow/etc mostly trouble free, can be a bit laggy when you first start but it usually smooths out.

Only real issue I've had with it is the squirrel cage blower rattles sometimes but you can only hear it if the room is otherwise dead silent. If I had it to do over again I'd probably spend the extra $50-75 and get the i3 model.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

Puddin posted:

I had one of those nucs (different brand) a year ago that worked fine for about 10 months then the power supply plug on the motherboard poo poo the bed.

It was only used for xbmc so the performance was great, Windows was a long boot time but bearable.

The only real drawback is if your putting a 2.5inch drove in it it can be a very tight squeeze.

Don't forget that most nucs don't come with any storage or RAM so figure that into the cost if you don't already have it.

i dont really care about money so much as silence, i think i might try the zotac one :shrug: 2gb RAM off ebay and whatever cheapo 30 gig SSD is all i really need

i was going to put a 2.5 inch drive in it but i guess i can see about just booting off of a USB or something. food for thought. thanks for responding

kloa
Feb 14, 2007


If I have a mobo with Intel vPro, can I update the BIOS without a CPU present?

I ordered a ASUS Q87M-E motherboard and don't know what BIOS version it has installed, but I may need to flash it before the CPU I have will work with it :sigh:

DizzyBum
Apr 16, 2007


Cross-posting from the Monitor Megathread:

I've been having problems with my new(ish) monitor. It's a Dell U3014. Occasionally, the screen would suddenly go black and not display anything at all. The backlight would stay on, but everything behaved like the monitor was functioning fine, including the monitor buttons. I would usually be able to fix it by unplugging the monitor's power, waiting several seconds, and then plugging it back in. I noticed it would often start doing this when putting the PC into sleep mode.

Well, something happened overnight, and now it's stuck in this black screen state. Plugging/unplugging does nothing, and the screen never shows the "No input detected - power off in 5 minutes" blue box. Same issues as before, but now I can't revert it.

I did some searching around and downloaded a tool called SoftMCCS which does monitor diagnostics. I don't see anything unusual that really stands out to me. The monitor diagnostics all seem to come back normal. The inputs all still seem to *work* but I can never get a picture.

Has anyone had a similar issue with any Dell monitors? I really don't want to have to get rid of this thing. I've tasted 2560x1600 and I'm hooked. :(

Oh, I checked the Advanced Exchange warranty on Dell's website and it expired a year and a half ago.

DizzyBum fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Feb 13, 2018

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

DizzyBum posted:

Cross-posting from the Monitor Megathread:

I've been having problems with my new(ish) monitor. It's a Dell U3014. Occasionally, the screen would suddenly go black and not display anything at all. The backlight would stay on, but everything behaved like the monitor was functioning fine, including the monitor buttons. I would usually be able to fix it by unplugging the monitor's power, waiting several seconds, and then plugging it back in. I noticed it would often start doing this when putting the PC into sleep mode.

Well, something happened overnight, and now it's stuck in this black screen state. Plugging/unplugging does nothing, and the screen never shows the "No input detected - power off in 5 minutes" blue box. Same issues as before, but now I can't revert it.

I did some searching around and downloaded a tool called SoftMCCS which does monitor diagnostics. I don't see anything unusual that really stands out to me. The monitor diagnostics all seem to come back normal. The inputs all still seem to *work* but I can never get a picture.

Has anyone had a similar issue with any Dell monitors? I really don't want to have to get rid of this thing. I've tasted 2560x1600 and I'm hooked. :(

Oh, I checked the Advanced Exchange warranty on Dell's website and it expired a year and a half ago.

There are built in diagnostics you could try: https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U3014-Issues/td-p/4110823/page/2

It sounds like it could possibly be a power board problem. Many monitors have had lovely capacitors go, causing weird issues. I would definitely check that possibility, any tv repair place could swap some caps on a power board.

DizzyBum
Apr 16, 2007


HalloKitty posted:

There are built in diagnostics you could try: https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/U3014-Issues/td-p/4110823/page/2

It sounds like it could possibly be a power board problem. Many monitors have had lovely capacitors go, causing weird issues. I would definitely check that possibility, any tv repair place could swap some caps on a power board.

Oh yeah, the screen color test? I can't even get that far:

quote:

* The monitor is on
* Disconnect all video cables from the monitor
* The monitor goes into its self-test mode <---- this never appears; the screen stays black (backlight does turn on, though)
* Press and hold buttons 1 and 4 for two seconds. A grey screen appears
* Press button 4 again. A red screen appears
* Press button 4 again. A green screen appears
* Press button 4 again. A blue screen appears
* Press button 4 again. A black screen appears
* Press button 4 again. A white screen appears
* To exit, press button 4

I am tempted to just open up the monitor and see what I can find before I bring it to a repair shop. Thankfully I have spare 1080p monitors so this isn't a disaster. I just *really* like this monitor.

All of the repair steps I find online are for monitors that don't turn on at all, or that turn off after a few seconds. I can't seem to find anything for "monitor turns on, stays on black screen, backlight stays on."

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

DizzyBum posted:

I just *really* like this monitor.

I don't blame you, I'd really love a 30" 2560×1600 Dell as well. In my opinion definitely worth repairing, seeing as the most expensive part, the panel itself, is most likely not the problem.

DizzyBum
Apr 16, 2007


HalloKitty posted:

I don't blame you, I'd really love a 30" 2560×1600 Dell as well. In my opinion definitely worth repairing, seeing as the most expensive part, the panel itself, is most likely not the problem.

Yeah, I don't think the panel is dead either. All the diagnostics are coming back normal from this thing. Literally everything is acting normal except for the fact that the panel is a black screen. Even the backlight still works.

The other thread suggested the monitor might be stuck in some sort of "deep sleep" mode which is apparently an issue with some Dell monitors, so I'll try to look into that, too.

Man, I feel like I should start a blog with all the weird poo poo I come across that I can't find on Google.

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Naan Bread
Sep 3, 2011

I'm shipping my gaming PC from home that has been sat in a garage for over two years. What are some things I should be wary of before powering it on for the first time?

I've thought about taking it all apart and clearing out dust/reseating the GPU and RAM, maybe reapplying some thermal paste. Will I need to replace the CMOS battery? It has been in a garage in England so the lowest and highest temps it would have experienced shouldn't have been more than -5C to 30C at the extreme so condensation shouldn't be an issue at this point. No mice or anything got to it as far as I can tell from a blurry picture my brother sent me.

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