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Author Topic: The Generic Computer Advice Thread  (Read 572062 times)

Rose

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1215 on: October 13, 2014, 12:17:27 pm »

The regarding the dual monitor stuff, the most incompatibility you'll find is when stuff on one screen is a different size and or color compared to the other screen.
Up how annoying this is depends on the person and budget, though.
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miauw62

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1216 on: October 13, 2014, 12:49:20 pm »

Turns out I just had a somewhat fucked up version of puppy. Here's hoping this version works.

E: Puppy insists on looking in disk drives for puppy files, but I ran out of empty disks a while ago. So it can't find the files it needs to boot, since I can only boot it from a USB. It takes ages to look for said files, however, and I will interpret that optimistically.

E2: after much struggling I managed to get puppy to boot from USB. But it can't seem to find or mount the HD...
« Last Edit: October 13, 2014, 02:16:38 pm by miauw62 »
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Quote from: NW_Kohaku
they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the raving confessions of a mass murdering cannibal from a recipe to bake a pie.
Knowing Belgium, everyone will vote for themselves out of mistrust for anyone else, and some kind of weird direct democracy coalition will need to be formed from 11 million or so individuals.

LordSlowpoke

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1217 on: October 13, 2014, 03:30:56 pm »

hey, this will sound stupid as fuck but you never bothered to say this was the case

did you make sure all the cables are set up correctly and the drive is actually detected by the motherboard during post

you might have to pop the laptop open and see whenever something managed to dislodge itself

speaking of popping it open, take the drive out, put another in if you have one, and run the broken one as an external?

i mean assuming the bastard isn't the kind that you can't open without a ridiculous set of screwdrivers because fuck the customer

then you can pretty much reset the mbr using tools like windows' bootrec (if it recognizes the drive via usb)
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miauw62

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1218 on: October 14, 2014, 09:13:09 am »

The HDD still shows up in the boot options, and there's nothing that could have disconnected any cables.
Also I'd need to actually be able to run Windows to run bootrec, eh?
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Quote from: NW_Kohaku
they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the raving confessions of a mass murdering cannibal from a recipe to bake a pie.
Knowing Belgium, everyone will vote for themselves out of mistrust for anyone else, and some kind of weird direct democracy coalition will need to be formed from 11 million or so individuals.

LordSlowpoke

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1219 on: October 14, 2014, 09:36:38 am »

there's nothing that could have disconnected any cables.

yeah, no

do not assume things, no matter how trivial

been told that in the sad thread once and it was even on topic

and speaking of something different you seem to have skipped over this here part

speaking of popping it open, take the drive out, put another in if you have one, and run the broken one as an external?

then you can pretty much reset the mbr using tools like windows' bootrec (if it recognizes the drive via usb)

if you don't have an external sleeve, just plop it into the second slot and set the other one to first boot priority if your bios isn't a piece of shit that doesn't allow you to change anything
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miauw62

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1220 on: October 14, 2014, 10:50:05 am »

Wait fffuuuck I mistook the network boot for the HDD.

E:
Anyway GParted sees the entire disk as unallocated, puppy won't let me access the files within and testdisk errors too.
;_;
« Last Edit: October 14, 2014, 12:40:48 pm by miauw62 »
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Quote from: NW_Kohaku
they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the raving confessions of a mass murdering cannibal from a recipe to bake a pie.
Knowing Belgium, everyone will vote for themselves out of mistrust for anyone else, and some kind of weird direct democracy coalition will need to be formed from 11 million or so individuals.

Thief^

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1221 on: October 14, 2014, 12:44:05 pm »

Regarding the monitor stuff:
DVI is the oldest, but that doesn't mean it's bad. DVI-D is digital only, and DVI-I is digtal and analogue, although the only real use of the analogue signal is a DVI->VGA adapter. Single-link (rare now) only handles up to 1920×1200 @ 60Hz, which is barely above 1080p, dual-link enables resolutions of up to 2560×1600 @ 60Hz, which handles almost everything except 4k.

HDMI is compatible with DVI, but extends the signalling to be able to do 2560×1600 @ 60Hz over a single link (as a result there's no such thing as dual-link HDMI) as well as carry audio. As it's compatible, the majority of DVI ports actually carry HDMI signals these days, making HDMI and DVI basically the same thing.

DisplayPort is the newest, and is compatible with HDMI, and by extension DVI (if the port is "dual-mode", which is likely). The newest version of DisplayPort is somewhat insane, it enables resolutions of up to 5120×2880 (aka 5k) @ 60 Hz with monitors, or up to 8k (7680×4320) @ 60 Hz with TVs, or also stereoscopic 3d (or VR) @ 4k 60Hz (per eye, aka 120Hz).

Most displays (except 4k) are HDMI, so due to all the inter-compatibility you can use pretty much whichever cable and adapters you like and it will use a HDMI signal :)
(excepting VGA of course. Never use VGA with a digital monitor)
« Last Edit: October 14, 2014, 12:53:02 pm by Thief^ »
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It's not an embark so much as seven dwarves having a simultaneous strange mood and going off to build an artifact fortress that menaces with spikes of awesome and hanging rings of death.

Thief^

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1222 on: October 14, 2014, 12:49:22 pm »

Wait fffuuuck I mistook the network boot for the HDD.

E:
Anyway GParted sees the entire disk as unallocated, puppy won't let me access the files within and testdisk errors too.
;_;

Disk is fucked. Sorry.
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Dwarven blood types are not A, B, AB, O but Ale, Wine, Beer, Rum, Whisky and so forth.
It's not an embark so much as seven dwarves having a simultaneous strange mood and going off to build an artifact fortress that menaces with spikes of awesome and hanging rings of death.

Lord Shonus

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1223 on: October 14, 2014, 01:08:25 pm »

Are there any "image settings adjustment" helper programs out there? I switched back from the 55" TV I was using as a monitor to my smaller, more comfortable dual monitor setup (The TV was always intended as a temporary setup until I moved, but that got delayed and I finally got sick of having a too-big monitor) and the brightness and/or gamma are all screwy. All my adjustments make it worse, because I'm absolutely horrid at this sort of thing.
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Sinistar

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1224 on: October 14, 2014, 02:43:28 pm »

Wait fffuuuck I mistook the network boot for the HDD.

E:
Anyway GParted sees the entire disk as unallocated, puppy won't let me access the files within and testdisk errors too.
;_;

Disk is fucked. Sorry.

Let me just share my experience with HDD failure - happened to me during summer, most likely because of hardware failure but still. complete Windows crash, couldn't re-install, any disk check tool reported the type of registry errors that meant hdd is more or less toast. So I bought new one, installed windows on that one. It turned out, the old disk could still be read... just, well, not always and not perfectly and incredibly slow. My point is, prepare for the worse, but maybe not all is lost.
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Chattox

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1225 on: October 15, 2014, 07:45:02 am »

New monitor arrived today, all set up and working great. The difference in picture quality is immense, so I don't know if I'll be doing gaming across both screens, but that was never the intention anyway. Thanks guys for clearing up my questions, here is my battlestation now :D
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Sinistar

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1226 on: October 15, 2014, 12:09:25 pm »

It's kinda weird seeing my own post on someone else computer. Weird in a funny, good way though.  :)


Now, my question - motherboard beeping.
Ever since summer, when I changed hdd and reinstalled Windows, occasionally this horrible cacophony of constant beeping being emitted from mobo occurs at start-up. So, like, I turn the power on, but instead of start-up sequence (we are talking cold start-up here; happened on restart too sometimes), a black screen and constant beeping. It's been a long time since this happened and even when it did it occurred very rarely. But just yesterday on start-up I went into BIOS to check booting settings, changed absolutely nothing, hit save&exit button, computer restarts...and beeping. I force shutdown it by holding power on button. Restart, come as far as user profiles screen (using Vista), bsod and I think beeping again. However, shut down and restart again, this time no bsod and everything normal again.

So a quick search tells me this could be either memory failure or BIOS failing due to hardware failure. Thing is, this occurs so rarely I can't quite pin-point the possible culprit. So what do you guys think - what should I do, how should I do it? And what else could also be a problem?
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Everything is an instrument if you hit it the right way.
Oh they know. Spiders are not stupid. They've just got disproportionally huge balls.

LordSlowpoke

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1227 on: October 15, 2014, 02:36:22 pm »

take the motherboard model and look up its beep codes

the beep code will tell you what exactly is wrong with the system

if it doesn't do "unspecified" in which case vOv
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miauw62

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1228 on: October 16, 2014, 10:12:27 am »

my hd has started clicking if you try to run diagnostics.
rip in pizza toppings
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Quote from: NW_Kohaku
they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the raving confessions of a mass murdering cannibal from a recipe to bake a pie.
Knowing Belgium, everyone will vote for themselves out of mistrust for anyone else, and some kind of weird direct democracy coalition will need to be formed from 11 million or so individuals.

Gentlefish

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #1229 on: October 16, 2014, 08:09:50 pm »

WOO MY MOBO IS WORKING. So the new one came in and did the exact same thing as the old one. Turns out it wasn't busted.

1) My goddamn front panel button fucking didn't match the power pins.

2) Apparently, on this MoBo you can actually put in the 4-pin power connector at a 90 degree wrong angle.

So we fixed 'er up, got a new button from radio shack, and of course I grab a momentary switch.

Now I get to pull a wire from the button during start-up like some kind of bomb-defusing badass.
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