HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

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future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

SlayVus posted:

How do I go about reinstalling Windows 8 on a laptop that came with it preloaded? Windows Update is completely non-functional on the laptop and neither Reset or Restore in the advanced before boot menu have fixed it. Neither has Microsoft's Windows Update Troubleshooter.

It depends on the laptop. Some of them have restore partitions that you can access at bootup and some of them have reinstall media that you can use. I'd check the drive out with the portable non-anime version of CrystalDiskInfo before trying a re-installation though as it could be dying early and breaking things like Windows Update, in which case a reinstall wouldn't help long-term.

Volcott posted:

Hello. I posted on the last page of the old thread. I was trying to get back into PC gaming with a computer that was sitting idle for 3-4 years. Long story short, one of the video cards has failed outright and the other is getting there.

So, now I'm shopping for a new computer. How's this for a prebuilt?

How do the processor and video card compare?

You'll probably get better advice on this in the Parts-picking thread as this is a rebuilding question:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3623433

You need to figure which model the videocard is specifically to compare it, as the "4800-series" includes 4830s-4890s, but the 720 card in the PC you linked wouldn't even come close no matter which 48xx model it is. The processor would be alot faster than what you have now, but the parts thread could point you in the right direction whether the Dell combo is worth it or not.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Sep 13, 2014

# ¿ Sep 13, 2014 20:42

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 00:23

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

I had really inconsistent performance on my fileserver/htpc at one point and it had over 1000ms DPC spikes when that was going on. Turned out that an out of date network driver was causing problems and needed to be replaced. So it might be related - I kept seeing weirdly high network CPU time usage in process explorer when that was going on.

Maybe try stripping out all non-essential cards, components, and drop to a single RAM stick to see if it improves & work up from there? Especially if you're using a third-party wireless card or something as I'd look at that first.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 16:08

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Duskfiend posted:

Hey, I'm posting from the library but my tower at home was turning off and I'm pretty sure the problem was the power supply. The prongs were melted into the power cord and there was evidence of burns and melting and bad poo poo. I took apart my computer to extract the power supply and I was wondering what I need to know when I buy a new PSU? I'm not looking for recommendations right now but do I need to match the new PSU to the other components or can I just buy the best one I can afford? If I need to take compatibility into account, what specs do I need to look for?

What power supply was it that melted on you? Sounds like you had a bad short and either OCP or OVP didn't kick in, assuming the PSU even has it. Hopefully it didn't kill anything else in the system, although if any of the cables inside are torched or have melted insulation it's unlikely stuff connected to them will emerge unscathed. If it's an AMD board with naked VRM chips the board might be toast if it was overclocked too high but you'd need another PSU to check.

The Parts thread has some good PSU recommendations in the OP for different price/wattage ranges. Something around 500W-600W is probably good enough if it's a high-quality unit and you aren't using multiple graphics cards or a highly-overclocked processor. If you're not sure what you need from the OP, post your system in that thread and they should be able to help you find a good replacement unit.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Sep 16, 2014

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 00:06

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

HalloKitty posted:

I would also be interested in this, but let's be honest, it's probably some generic fire hazard; and we're just waiting to wheel out the line about not skimping on PSUs. Be interesting anyway, as an anecdote, or cautionary tale.

I was thinking that there's a tiny chance it was something reputable that went wrong that had warranty coverage or a US customer service # to call and yell at about it of course there's not it's probably a Leadman, although the chances are of course slim.

karmaconfetti posted:

Is there a preferred external hard drive? (Just for like, back-up and music/movies 'n poo poo)

I usually just grab a separate hard drive and enclosure when I need backup USB drives. If you're going to be using it regularly you'll want either an enclosure+drive with a fan or an external drive with a fan so it probably won't melt itself. I'd avoid external WD drives since the pins on the drives don't allow for recovery if the enclosure itself dies. Every other external drive is going to be just about the same other than minor differences in USB/eSATA chipsets. Depending how much space you'll need and the portability required you can also look into a NAS.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 15:56

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Cross-post from the building thread:
Try checking it with HWiNFO or AIDA64 instead. Make sure HWMonitor is fully updated as well as the sensor apps are frequently updated to recalibrate for newer bus/chipset sensors.

It seems really unlikely given the numbers but maybe it's a VRM sensor? Does your board have heatsinks over the VRM section by the CPU? Maybe try placing a fan over the CPU area and see if it changes.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 19:46

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

stickyfngrdboy posted:

I've just replaced the thermal paste on my Toshiba satellite laptop. I put the thing back together, and now there seems to be no power to either the display or the usb ports. The hdd seems to be working and the fan spins, but nothing else.

I've drained the power, i've tried a different display, i've checked the ram, which seems fine. Anything obvious I'm missing or is it off to a shop? Or getting replaced?

Did you miss any screws when reinstalling or was the CPU heatsink not screwed down completely? Maybe try reseating the RAM sticks. Also what kind if thermal paste did you use? Some of them are conductive like AS5 that can be really bad for exposed laptop CPUs and GPUs.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 08:26

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

DVI and HDMI are compatible with passive adapters so it'll work fine.

edit: Yeah there's no VIVO chip anymore so DVI-in won't work. Output-only.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Oct 8, 2014

# ¿ Oct 8, 2014 19:22

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Probably easiest just to sell the 770 instead if you're not going to use it for a family member's PC or something since you'd just be adding to power requirements for edge-case benefits and they're still selling for around $170-$220 or so.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2014 23:28

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Imazul posted:

This makes the most sense I guess. I didn't know they were so many little games that supported hardware Physx.

While physx can be cool as hell in the games that support it (tried out effects in BL2 on my CPU and they looked neat), most developers won't devote too many resources to a single-party solution that's heavily-dependent on cards with sufficient supporting compute hardware when most of the market won't see much benefit from it. Better to spend that development cash on gameplay, VA, and writing instead - or if you're Bioware maybe spend it on more poorly-animated elf sex I guess.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 13:36

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Mr Underhill posted:

Hey guys, I have an AMD HD6570 video card, and all of a sudden a few minutes ago my computer shut down by itself. Opened it up, something smelled a little burnt - powered it off, vacuumed everything, and on boot I noticed the video card fan isn't spinning. I can't seem to find info on whether it should spin automatically, but I suspect it should - what can I do about it? I was Hearthstoning away when it happened and now I'm afraid to fire it up.

The fan may have gotten jammed by a cable or something and burned out. Did the PC get to BIOS when you started it up? If it won't even POST it may be the card, board, or the PSU. If the PC POSTs properly it's probably just the fan, and your options are pretty much to replace the GPU cooler with something like one of the Arctic Cooling mono kits or just replace the card altogether. Just about anything from a gtx 650 on up will outperform it.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2014 23:16

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Rexxed posted:

It was a great technology killed off ~~presumably~~ by ~~people who want to sell more physical speakers.~~ Creative Labs

# ¿ Oct 14, 2014 21:40

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

pr0k posted:

What's a good model and price point for a used ipad? For kids playing games and wife doing recipes. Kids already have kindles, so wife probably primary user. Reading craigslist and amazon the prices seem all over the place. First-gens are still like $300 used? Really? Also I wifi only is fine/preferred. Do I need a 2 or 3 or "air" whatever that is (4?) or would a first gen handle basic web browsing and the reflex math app?

TIA

Probably have better luck checking in IYG:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3587386

# ¿ Oct 14, 2014 23:54

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Alternatively just get a good pair of headphones and a separate microphone - problem solved. It's too bad you can't buy the USB Logitech deskmics anymore as they were decent enough for skype and gaming usage for the price.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 18:12

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Maybe check BIOS to make sure your boot drive is set to the SSD and not something else. Also make sure you don't have the SSD plugged into any Marvell/etc SATA ports on your motherboard instead of the Intel ports.

When you installed Windows did you make sure to unplug the other drives? It's possible that the Bootmgr got installed to another drive. Not sure if they fixed this in Windows 8 but it was an issue with 7. Kind of a pain in the rear end issue to fix if that's the case.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 23:45

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

You have a current pending sector count of 234 and 162 uncorrectable HDD sectors. That drive is failing. Backup what you need and RMA or replace it.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 00:23

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Titor posted:

I'm curious, how did you exactly find the number count? Did you convert the RAW values? How would I go about finding the detailed numbered information you found?

Check the column on the far right and convert the RAW values from hex.

Mr. Crow posted:

What do y'all do with hard drives that work but you're not comfortable putting data on it alone?

Thinking I want to turn it into a tertiary backup drive. It'll be more convenient to access than my external hard drive, but I won't really care if it goes kaput.

You can stick it in a USB/ESATA enclosure and use it that way, knowing that it could fail at any moment so you shouldn't trust it at all. Usually I just RMA and/or trash failed drives, although I have a couple old out-of-warranty drives I keep around if I need to hand-ferry a bunch of data somewhere.

Knifegrab posted:

So I am going to be replacing my i7 4790k stock fan cooler with a 212 EVO, but I have never done a replacement before. So I have a couple questions:

-When removing my old cooler, do I just yank it off?
-Is the the thermal paste that is going to be left over on the cpu going to be a problem?
-The 212 comes with a thermal paste applicator, but I have never done that because the intel coolers come with it pre-applied. Is there a particular pattern I should apply it in?

Run the PC for a little bit to warm up the thermal paste, shut it down (turn off switch at PSU), and twist the heatsink until it's removable after freeing the 4 pins on the side.
Clean the CPU and stock heatsink with 90% or higher rubbing alcohol - you can use 75% if you have to, but you'll need to give the CPU more time to dry if you do.

You need thermal paste. If it's not pre-installed on the heatsink, although it should already be there, you will have to apply it. Do not re-use the paste from the stock heatsink. Put a little grain of rice-sized dot on the CPU and it should be fine. You don't need to use too much.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Oct 24, 2014

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 17:02

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Replacing the TIM should make a noticeable difference to the temperatures and fan speed/volume.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 07:55

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Knifegrab posted:

Ha, I wish, that would be satisfying. I actually found one, I have a stupid question though, I know sata cables are the cables are the part that connects to the drive and delivers data, but what are the big blocky cords that deliver power called?

The SATA power connector is on the left. A male 4-pin molex connector (for IDE drives and other peripherals) is on the right. In this case that's a power adapter from 4-pin molex to female SATA. I'm not sure if SATA power connectors have an official name.

quote:

edit: Wait do sata cables deliver power?

ESATA connectors have power outputs connected to standard SATA power pins. You need a SATA power connector connector attached to use a regular SATA drive.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 18:54

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

22 Eargesplitten posted:

It's from the interim period where they had both IDE and SATA compatibility, thankfully. Otherwise I would have gotten rid of it two or three motherboards ago.

I'll admit I don't know what I'm looking at, but this seems like it's saying the drive is fine.

CDI indicates that it's OK, but that drive is old as gently caress so either do what Fishmech said with CF cards or just replace it anyways.

However, since it looks 'clear' I'd suggest running memtest86+ since you may have a bad RAM stick corrupting things since the Windows install keeps breaking. Before you do that give the motherboard a visual check for bad capacitors - Depending on how old it is, it may have blown caps around the CPU/VRMs, and the power supply could have hosed secondary caps or something. (efb, kinda ^^^)

future ghost fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Oct 29, 2014

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 21:48

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

NmareBfly posted:

I'm having power supply problems. Couple questions. Here's the hardware. The 12 volt rail seems to be dropping to something like 10.5 occasionally, which I noticed when it decided to start rebooting every time I run a game that needs the video card. If I leave the PC off for a while and then turn it back on it'll be a steady 12 for a few hours but start to drop slowly (overheating, maybe? temps look good but there isn't one in the PSU itself.)

How are you testing the voltage? Are you using a multimeter to check it or are you going by software readings? If it's software and it's running while you're seeing 10.5V I'd be disinclined to trust it, since the PC should've already shut off with those voltages. 550W is plenty of power for that system with a good-quality unit.

I'd suggest looking at something else than the PSU given that you had it replaced and Oklahoma Wolf on Jonnyguru recommended that model, but it's probably worth trying another PSU at least to verify that it's not something else like the motherboard or videocard.

** edit: It actually might be your UPS causing the issues. If it's not a pure sinewave model and it's loaded heavily, it's very likely that it would cause the PC to reboot. Try running it without the UPS to see if it is still rebooting during games or whatever.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Nov 10, 2014

# ¿ Nov 10, 2014 19:36

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

NmareBfly posted:

Yeah, it's facing down. I also blew out all the dust while I was puttering around with it this weekend. Wasn't much, but every bit helps.

Heat (within reason) shouldn't really a be a problem for that model anyways. Try it without the UPS before you bother taking it into work.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 00:42

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

BurritoJustice posted:

I know all this. My fans are all PWM and are all plugged into PWM headers (using a PWM splitter for the back two). The fan curve on my ASUS motherboard does not allow me to set the fans lower than 20%, I want a way around this. Additionally I was curious as to whether I could run the thing without fans at all and still get fine temps for stock clocks (maybe with an undervolt if necessary).

The fin spacing on that cooler doesn't look like it'd be conducive to semi-passive operation, although it your case cooling is decent enough and you're willing to undervolt the CPU you could probably experiment with it. I run my CPU cooler semi-passively with a max at 7V, but the HR-02 was designed to passively handle Nehalem chips so a 2600K isn't too difficult.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 15:34

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Might be a grounding issue? Did you miss a case standoff when installing the board or possibly an extra standoff where one shouldn't be?

Another thing to try is removing the board from the case and try running it on a non conductive surface barebones.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2014 03:31

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Away all Goats posted:

So it looks like my computer completely poo poo itself. First it began rebooting randomly (and sometimes shutting down completely) and then the video output stopped and now it won't even boot up.

Whats the most likely cause of all this? Motherboard/CPU? Would I be able to transfer my old hard drive to a new setup?

Probably the power supply, but you'll want to set up a properly-formatted Haus of Tech Support thread for more in-depth troubleshooting. Assuming the harddrive isn't dead or too old it may be transferable. Crystaldiskinfo (non-anime portable version) could let you know if it's worth salvaging.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2014 09:13

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Probably should use Display Driver Uninstaller instead for dealing with the old GPU drivers. Driver Sweeper's not maintained or updated anymore after they moved everything to 'Driver Fusion' instead and ramped up their pricing model.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Nov 21, 2014

# ¿ Nov 21, 2014 18:17

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

redstormpopcorn posted:

Am I correct in my assumption that the read error rate for this drive indicates current/imminent failure, or am I just way more pessimistic than CDI?

Unless you have a good reason to assume the drive is dying, such as horrible performance or weird noises, then it's really more :tinfoil:

than even pessimism. The ultraDMA CRC error might indicate a bad SATA cable but beyond that there's really nothing that stands out. All Seagate drives have 'high' seek error figures compared to other OEMs even when they're working fine which can look a bit strange if you're not used to it.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Dec 9, 2014

# ¿ Dec 9, 2014 19:11

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

I've never really understood bare-minimum PSU sizing personally. Sizing for just enough might make sense when building, but later on if you want to add another couple drives or overclock or something you'd be hosed and you'll have to also get a new PSU just to pull it off. It's a waste swapping out a major component like that since you can just buy a little over and maybe keep the same PSU through a future PC rebuild, or at least never need to wonder if capacitor aging or another 50W is going to be too much for the system. Going way too far over requirements is usually crazy, but undersizing to bare-minimum will almost guarantee that you'll have to buy a replacement sooner than necessary.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2014 22:00

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

SlayVus posted:

Does anyone know off hand if BNIB laptops from Lenovo's recertified/refurbished store come with a full warranty? On my suggestion, my friend bought one laptop from there a few months ago and the hard drive is dying in it now.

Most refurbished laptops come with 1 year warranty from Dell so I imagine it's the same for that one. You'd need to check the site or the purchase documents for the laptop to confirm.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2014 23:29

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

While I got my X-series Seasonic PSU as part of a trade and I wouldn't recommend anyone going so overboard normally, having a PSU that makes zero noise even with an i7 and 290 fully-loaded is definitely nice if quiet computing is a priority. Not that the 290 is silent maxed out but the semi-passive PSU helps keep overall noise down.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Dec 27, 2014

# ¿ Dec 27, 2014 01:50

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

If you're sure it's just the external drive having issues and not something else given the PC's age, it's probably safer and easier just to return it for a replacement since it would be within the store's exchange window. Not worth fighting with a drive that's defective out of the box.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2014 17:32

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Mozi posted:

Yikes - I was just at my desktop on the rig I just built (Maximus VII Hero MB, GTX 970 SLI, Win 8.1) and it suddenly shut down and wouldn't POST. The mobo was showing code 00 and after searching around I was able to get it to start by disconnecting the motherboard from the PSU and leaving it alone for a half hour. But I should probably go ahead and start the RMA process, right? Unfortunate because it's working fine otherwise.

What is the model of the power supply?

# ¿ Dec 27, 2014 20:56

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Did you use all the case standoffs and made sure there's not one where it's not supposed to be? The PSU's probably OK so it might be something on the board grounding where it shouldn't, but a faulty capacitor or other motherboard component could be responsible.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2014 23:11

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Teledahn posted:

I'm looking for recommendations for some benchmarking/stress-testing software to test my GPU and CPU, GPU specifically. I figure this is an appropriate place to ask?
Trying to pin down some odd issues I'm having.
HOTS Thread for the curious.

Intel burn test, prime95, OCCT, and Heaven benchmark are all good.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 01:10

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

program666 posted:

Just a reminder that the 840 evo has that problem where the data that sit on the driver get slower and slower readings and you have to use a tool to fix it.

That's been fixed for a few months now. Worst-case you have to run a one-time tool to fix it but newer ones will have the fix applied already.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 21:09

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Party Plane Jones posted:

It passes Seagate's external hard drive tool diagnostic but there's quite literally no information that comes from what the result generates; its just a pass or a fail.

Is that a long test or short? I've seen dying drives pass a short test. Either way I wouldn't trust the drive with anything important personally.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2015 03:22

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Probably not, but you can try searching google for the model name of the box and 'custom roms', 'htpc', ect.
If it's a niche product it's unlikely you'll find much of anything, or maybe one barely-maintained project.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2015 19:46

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Only the 3 total standoffs line up? Are you sure the board wasn't designed for a specific one-off server/workstation chassis?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 23:59

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Macrium Reflect's free version is another vendor-agnostic migration app that works fine.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2015 17:39

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

SD cards have limited numbers of writes, and the flash memory used is generally not to the same quality as say a SSD.

While bittorrent does tons of small writes which could hammer the card and thus it's probably more than 30GB writes, it's more likely the heat and flash quality that killed it. Phones and SD cards really aren't designed for using for torrenting, so don't do that unless you want to kill more cards. Tether your phone instead if it's an unlimited data connection or whatever that you're using, and hope that your carrier doesn't drop you. Alternatively don't use your phone for torrenting duh.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Mar 10, 2015

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 16:16

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 00:23

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

It's an early failure for for the card that should be replaced under warranty just fine by PNY, but it doesn't make torrenting on a phone any less dumb.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 18:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

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