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[Sanctume]

My pc stopped working last Friday, and I can't believe I have not bought stuff to rebuild it sooner. 
Oldest part is from 2006, and latest part was from 2014. 
Here's the closest I can put together to represent what I have.

I think the motherboard is dead, but maybe not.  The speaker does not beep, but power and fans and power switch works. 
I'm thinking of upgrading anyway.  No signal to monitor, and I tried old GPU and integrated graphics to no avail.

I just play DF, some XCOM/XCOM2.  BattleTech game was crappy, but I think it was the game. 

Anyway, 8th gen i5 or i7? which means I would need new mobo and minimum of 16gb ram. 

Maybe new power supply since that one I got is from 2009.

I wonder if my Windows 7 to 10 upgrade keys will work on new rig.  It would save ~$100

[Akura]

I should probably slide this one over here:

Trying to replace the thermal paste for an old netbook. It's something I've put off for way too long.

First, only video on Youtube even remotely useful was one about replacing the hard drive and RAM, immensely useful since it showed me how to open the thing. Only thing else was a video in Russian where I learned I have to completely disassemble the netbook to get to the CPU.

Next problem, screws inside are mismatched, and some where actually loose. The only maintenance I've had done was having a professional replace the screen. I noticed this while watching the first video above right as the guy doing the video was looking at the exact same screws and complaining that they were worn despite buying it new and never opening it.

EDIT: Found out why there was a difference in screw sizes. That'll help putting it back together.

EDIT2: And an hour after I wanted to be done with this, I finally get to the heatsink and there appears to be absolutely nothing wrong with the thermal paste.

Okay, I took a close look, and there's two pads of thermal paste here. One is sitting on the CPU, another on the heatsink panel itself. Neither touch, and the motherboard has a spot marked for the heatsink's pad, and the heatsink has a marker for the other pad's point of contact, so I guess that's normal. I've got the replacement thermal paste in front of me, should I replace it anyway? If it wasn't the paste, I don't know what was causing the overheating.

There's some dust under the fan, but I can't see it being too much to keep the fan from working, gonna clear that anyway.

[wierd]

I should probably slide this one over here:

Trying to replace the thermal paste for an old netbook. It's something I've put off for way too long.

First, only video on Youtube even remotely useful was one about replacing the hard drive and RAM, immensely useful since it showed me how to open the thing. Only thing else was a video in Russian where I learned I have to completely disassemble the netbook to get to the CPU.

Next problem, screws inside are mismatched, and some where actually loose. The only maintenance I've had done was having a professional replace the screen. I noticed this while watching the first video above right as the guy doing the video was looking at the exact same screws and complaining that they were worn despite buying it new and never opening it.

EDIT: Found out why there was a difference in screw sizes. That'll help putting it back together.

EDIT2: And an hour after I wanted to be done with this, I finally get to the heatsink and there appears to be absolutely nothing wrong with the thermal paste.

Okay, I took a close look, and there's two pads of thermal paste here. One is sitting on the CPU, another on the heatsink panel itself. Neither touch, and the motherboard has a spot marked for the heatsink's pad, and the heatsink has a marker for the other pad's point of contact, so I guess that's normal. I've got the replacement thermal paste in front of me, should I replace it anyway? If it wasn't the paste, I don't know what was causing the overheating.

There's some dust under the fan, but I can't see it being too much to keep the fan from working, gonna clear that anyway.

Yes. Remove the old pads, then clean both the heat spreader and the tops of the chips with isopropyl alcohol on q tip. Then, apply a small (rice sized) amount of thermal compound on the top of each chip, then reseat the heat spreader, and tighten the lockdown screws.

We have to replace because we broke the pads seals. Good paste will perform better than the pads anyway. 

Remove all the dust from the heatsink and fan while you are there.

If safely possible, assess function before reassembly.

[AzyWng]

Trying to get Survival Crisis Z running in a virtual machine - Virtualbox as it happens. Unfortunately, just like in the Survival Crisis Z thread, I can't run the game even on the Virtual Machine - I keep getting a beige screen and an "Automation Error".

I don't suppose anyone might be able to tell me what the issue is here?

[Reelya]

Since it's freeware I'll try running it, see if anything comes up. I have VMWare Workstation installed.

EDIT: I got it running ok under Windows 10. My video card is a Radeon 6670. I followed the advice at the bottom of this post:
https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Survival_Crisis_Z
This, plus setting compatibility mode to Windows XP sp3 got it to work.

(Now, I'll go off see if I can get it running in a VM).

EDIT2: Running it in VMWare, using the same procedure from the wiki leads to the same beige screen, and an error message "Run-Time Error 5: invalid procedure call or argument". Compatibility mode doesn't seem to help.

[AzyWng]

The problem is that I can get the program to work under Windows 10, but it runs very slowly - often freezing up for a bit when you shoot a zombie or recieve damage.

Following that advice and setting compatability mode didn't seem to help any.

[Gentlefish]

So I did a thing.

Honestly just looking for input as to if I'm missing anything or if there's any real glaring flaws in my new computer build. It's meant to essentially be an upgrade over the system I have now which is a third generation i5 and an R9 280x with 8gb of RAM. The only thing I really see myself upgrading in the future is the graphics card for VR gaming when I get to the point I can afford it.

The monitor's set to $0 because it's something I'll want down the line, and the storage is $0 because I already own them. Nothing like free storage space.

[Sanctume]

I made my own drama dilemma.

I bought RTX 2070 for $500 off Newegg on Nov 19. 

Come Nov 20, all RTX cards get a free game Battlefield V. 

I called Newegg to get the promo code, but they wont budge. 

So I RMA my order that I have not received yet. 

Now wondering if I should keep the RTX 2070 for $500 without BFV,

Or shop around for another RTX 2070 (sold out) with BFV, 

Or may find a GTX 1080 for less than $500. 

[Gentlefish]

The promo code may be through NVIDIA and it may be a physical slip of paper in the box. Unless it really was a Newegg special?

[wierd]

Personally, I would just keep the beefier card.  The 2070 you purchased has the fancy new ray tracing functionality that is the new hawtness.  The inclusion of (possibly) a 60$ game is peanuts compared to the price of the card itself, and the fact that there is likely to be a waiting list to get the next shipment in.

We can't always get what we want, but in this case, I wouldn't sweat it too much.

[Sanctume]

To my surprise, Fedex delivered my monitor around 5pm at my house.  But the video card is delayed until Friday or Saturday.  So, I may just forgo BFV game and keep the card.  I still have Black Ops to "get gud" because I suck at it.

[AzyWng]

Can anyone recommend a good video editor available for free that runs well on Windows 10?

Here's the ones I've tried:

Adobe Premiere: Costs money, or I can run the risks of piracy.

Sony VEGAS Pro: Ditto.

Openshot: Seems to run extremely slowly on Windows 10 (Attempting to perform any edits of any kind seems to make the whole program freeze up for whole minutes) and the only threads I've seen about the issue have all been closed before the issue is resolved, often involving the developer complaining about the vagueness of the comments, the people having the issue shooting back, and further devolvement from there.

Kind of like our own forum sometimes, except people don't lock threads the immediate moment mean words are bandied about.

VideoPad Video Editor: Preview mode sometimes fails to work after the video clip I'm looking at is edited. This makes editing videos and making sure I cut clips in the right places... somewhat difficult.

DaVinci Resolve: I can't figure out how to make the program export my projects to a video file. Or to Youtube (In spite of the presence of a feature for that specific purpose). Also, it's pretty complicated overall. I could get used to it in time (RTFM would likely work wonders in that regard), but I'd like to look for alternatives that are easier to pick up first.

Lightworks: Has a free license. That expires. Also, haven't quite tried it yet...

Hitflim Express: I'm aware of it but have not tried it yet.

Windows Movie Maker: I can't seem to find an equivalent software on Windows 10...

[wierd]

Virtualdub?

http://www.virtualdub.org/

Dunno if it works well under win10... But it IS 64bit aware, and pretty no-frills.  Almost all of its functionality is handled via "plugins", of which there are literally hundreds to choose from.

http://www.infognition.com/VirtualDubFilters/

(for example, of just ONE filter pack out there. There are many others.)

What exactly are you trying to do with this video?

[AzyWng]

I'm just interested in editing gameplay footage. I'm trying to make a video just comprised of action-y segments, so I'd like to edit out anything that isn't, well, action-y.

That's why the fact the video preview doesn't seem to work on some programs is a real issue for me.

[Starver]

If it's that simple, something like WinFF (or just the base ffplay, certainly; it's been a while since I used the GUI frontend so not sure what it presents to you any more) can slice'n'dice if you know the timestamps. Then you can record a commentary track over the finished version you're happy with and merge (or create as a separate channel, or subtitles) that overlay your basic cut.

It's a bit of command-line/shell stuff, if you do it how I have done it (even without the processing of still-frame sequences into transitions, etc).