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[My Name is Immaterial]

This is the hope.

[Reelya]

You could try booting another OS off a CD/DVD or a USB, see if that can see your battery.

[alexandertnt]

Download BatteryInfoView and it should display various bits of information about your battery, including its capacity, cycle count and wear level.

The last time I had this problem, the adaptor socket in my Dell laptop was damaged and it wouldn't properly identify the adaptor (despite still powering it) and thus refused to charge. I fixed it by super-gluing the plug back together.

[Vector]

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[Lord Shonus]

Get EASUS Partition Manager, and use it to delete the partition on the Vista hard drive (I'm assuming that you've found a way to connect the laptop HD to the computer you're using, if not you'll have to do that first.) Create and format a new partition.

The steps here should help you prepare a USB stick for reinstallation. In theory, you would be able to do a full format and wipe as part of the installation process, but I've had trouble with that in the past, so I always partition it seperately.

[Vector]

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[DJ]

There's Linux distros that run off a stick, I think you should be able to boot up Linux and format from it.

[Lord Shonus]

So, for clarity, I'm wiping it so that I can give it to someone else who needs it. I don't have any way to directly connect the two machines--say, via a USB--or else I would just run an eraser from my Windows 7 box to kill the Vista box. I don't need to partition the drive--there's just one drive, and it needs to be wiped.

I find partitioning to be the most reliable way of wiping a disc, as something always seems to go wrong when I format without repartitioning first. DJ's suggestion of a Linux USB distro is a good one, but I'm Linux-illiterate, so I can't help there. 

[Vector]

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[My Name is Immaterial]

Download BatteryInfoView and it should display various bits of information about your battery, including its capacity, cycle count and wear level.

The last time I had this problem, the adaptor socket in my Dell laptop was damaged and it wouldn't properly identify the adaptor (despite still powering it) and thus refused to charge. I fixed it by super-gluing the plug back together.

Well, that's not really helpful, per se. It says that the battery wear level is 100%, which is, while inaccurate, possibly helpful.
Other than that, I'm getting the same readings as before.

[wierd]

If you are paranoid about data, then the tool to use is DBAN.  (Darik's Boot and Nuke)

http://www.dban.org/

It is DoD certified data erasure. Much more aggressive than a simple format. Quick, easy to use. Boot, choose nuke. that simple.

[Vector]

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[wierd]

DBAN can DEFINITELY work off a USB stick.

Something like LiLi (linux Live USB creator) should be able to do it pretty effortlessly, and is free software.
uNetBootin is supposedly able to do it too, but I have never had good luck with unetbootin.

I make live USB sticks out of linux install disc images all the time with LiLi.

[Tellemurius]

Unfortunately, DBAN would not put itself on my USB no matter how many different ISO-to-USB programs I used (I tried four or five). It looks like there's a commercial alternative that they're trying to promote which does let you mount onto USB, but I didn't have that option and needed to get the whole damn thing done by this evening after having wasted most of yesterday trying to fuck about with DBAN. So, instead I used Partition Wizard and wrote over the drive 7 times with that, which I assume will be enough.

7 times? a single pass with zero write out would have been plenty.

[Sinistar]

So apparently I have finally reached the point when I have to change my GPU, for realz now. Screen-wide corrupting artifacts resulting in complete freeze, computer not restarting properly unless if I cut power completely and display drivers re-install not making a difference is the final wake up call I needed apparently, hehe.

Anyways, last time I asked here I've been suggested either Radeon's R7 250X or nVidea's 750 Ti. I can get a 2GB DDR5 250X for just about 120€ at lowest. However, I've spotted 260X and getting a 2GB version would make my pockets emptier for about 142€ which is just about what I'm prepared to give. Meanwhile, cheapest 750 Ti around here is 166€ so unless there is some real incentive to spend further 20/40€, I'd rather stay with Radeon (my current GPU is 512MB HD4850, for reference)

So here are two questions: 260X worth that extra ~20€ over 250X?
AND
Should I pay attention to which company is producing this cards? 250X I'm eying is from Gigabyte, 260X from Sapphire.