Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

Peek in there with a hex editor which shows the Ascii off to one side. That's the fallback which can tell you whether there's actually anything to salvage inside there
http://superuser.com/questions/14465/hex-editors-for-windows

[alexandertnt]

Does anyone know how to get a chunk of dust out of a PCI Express slot?

I have tried compressed air cans, but it's crammed in the corner and won't dislodge. I don't really want to go sticking a pin in there either, but if there's no other way...

Pretty sure this dust-chunk is what is causing my video card to run at 8x or 4x PCI Express instead of 16x.

[Thief^]

Have you got anything fine and non-conductive, like a toothpick?

[alexandertnt]

A toothpick was too thick and got stuck on the pins. I used a loop of electrical tape and that got the dust out. Now it runs at x16.

[Thief^]

Great news!

(It also constantly amazes me how resistant to abuse/faults/etc computers actually are)

[BigD145]

You also could have used a knife to shave the toothpick down. Good on you for fixing your problem.

[Shook]

SUP CHUMS

So i find myself seeking a laptop cooler, since my poor widdle laptop overheats when taking on the MORE POWERFUL games. Thing is, i don't know how important it is that the dimensions match up exactly. My laptop (Asus K53S), if going by the official dimensions, is approximately 18 inches diagonally, which i assume is their unit of measurement as well since they only give one measurement. For example, this one says up to 17 inches, and likewise does this one. Am i just shit outta luck for having too fat a laptop? It's not that they're hugely expensive (the ERGOSTAND III costs less than No Man's Sky for me), i just don't want to buy something that i can't even use.

[Thief^]

It might be meaning the screen size, as that is the standard advertised "size" for a laptop. You're probably fine.

Also how old is it and what surface are you using it on? Make sure you haven't just got the intake vents stuffed with fabric (i.e. you're using it on a cushion / in bed) or dust!

[Shook]

Only hard surfaces, and it's... Iunno, 6 years old or something. I blasted the vents with compressed air before leaving for folk high school, so i don't think the dust is that bad. I'm not sure i dare take it apart completely though, because i might end up not being able to put it back together. :v
Also, if it's screen size, then i feel much more at ease, since the display is merely 15.6". I MIGHT WELL GO AHEAD AND DOO THIS. If i can figure out how delivery to the folk high school works.

[wierd]

If the laptop is 6 years old, and overheating, consider replacing the assuredly crispy thermally conductive pad sandwiched under the heatsink with some actual thermal joint compound.

It has been discussed previously in this thread.

[Sensei]

If the laptop is 6 years old, and overheating, consider replacing the assuredly crispy thermally conductive pad sandwiched under the heatsink with some actual thermal joint compound.

It has been discussed previously in this thread.

Yes, I've read about this a lot and seen it before myself as well. It's a common problem in laptops. At some point, not even removing the bottom of the laptop and blasting it with air ducted from the refrigerator will help. On top of your CPU is a heat sink that pulls heat away, cooling the CPU (true of any computer, laptop or otherwise). In between the CPU is thermal compound of some kind. The good stuff comes in a little syringe and takes a small amount of care to apply properly but is effective and lasts for years. For whatever reason, laptops are often assembled with thermal pads, which are cheap trash and will dry out after a few years. At that point, it's nearly as bad as having no thermal compound, which means your laptop might well overheat enough that it crashes just sitting on the desktop. Fortunately, it's not too hard to apply thermal paste. Just make sure you remove all the old thermal material first, usually with a Q-tip and high purity rubbing alcohol/isopropyl alcohol (I've also used glasses wipes). Disassembling laptops can be a pain, there's a lot of small screws, but if you find the exact model number you can find a maintenance manual online (not the user manual) that will help, or maybe even a video.

[BigD145]

Keep old credit cards around. They help in prying apart electronics with clips inside.

[Elvang]

Recently built a new computer (all parts are new except for the graphics card), and I've noticed that occasionally (maybe once per 6-8 hours of usage) my keyboard will become unresponsive and lose power. Rarely, it happens to the mouse at the same time. When this happens, it only lasts for a few seconds, though it takes longer for the keyboard to finish its startup stuff than the mouse. How would I go about narrowing down the cause of this? They are plugged into adjacent USB ports in the back, and the keyboard and mouse are both new-ish (Razer Blackwidow Chroma and a Logitech G500). The motherboard is an ASROCK X99 Extreme4.

[wierd]

this may be a power management issue.

try looking at the keyboard and mouse HID driver properties in device manager to see if "allow this device to be turned off" is checked.  if so, uncheck the box on both drivers' property pages.

[Elvang]

this may be a power management issue.

try looking at the keyboard and mouse HID driver properties in device manager to see if "allow this device to be turned off" is checked.  if so, uncheck the box on both drivers' property pages.

Checked device manager, all the keyboard/mouse entries have the "Allow the computer to turn this device off to save power" box grayed out, unchecked and unable to be changed.