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Author Topic: The Generic Computer Advice Thread  (Read 572581 times)

King Zultan

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4530 on: April 28, 2021, 05:55:38 am »
Good to hear I might not have to buy it.

Now here's my followup question that I have a feeling I already know the answer to but am going to ask anyway just to confirm.

The laptop in question originally had Windows 7 32 bit on it, but since that copy is dead can I replace it with Windows 7 64 bit?
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BigD145

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4531 on: April 28, 2021, 10:43:11 am »
If the hardware supports 64bit, then yes. The existing key works for either.
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King Zultan

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4532 on: April 29, 2021, 02:49:01 am »
How would I be able to find out if the hardware supports 64 bit with out an OS, because everything I found uses a computer with an OS to find out.

Also are there any brands of hard drive I should avoid?
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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Quote from: Blood_Librarian on February 13, 2018, 09:28:16 am
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
Quote from: Imic on May 17, 2018, 12:00:14 pm
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4533 on: April 29, 2021, 03:25:16 am »
If you can refer to the Internet, the fastest way would be to enter the BIOS and read off which CPU it has. Then, you can look it up and check if it's a 64-bit CPU. The key to enter the BIOS is different across brands, but I've had good luck mashing F2 or Delete during startup as a first guess.

Hard drive... for boot drives, I'd still suggest SSDs, just on basis of being faster. Windows 7 has full support for those. Regardless of what you pick, you have to use common sense here; if it comes from a brand that no-one's heard of (apart from random forum posts), I wouldn't say it's trustworthy. If its price is way lower than similar products, it's probably not trustworthy. If it has to ship from overseas, it's probably not trustworthy. If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
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King Zultan

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4534 on: April 29, 2021, 04:30:37 am »
Huzza it appears that I can upgrade it to 64 bit, because what I found said the intel core i5 m560 could.

Also I don't think I could do a separate boot driver because there doesn't seem to be room for it with out getting rid of the DVD drive or something else, and I'd rather not get rid of the DVD drive as some things needing it.
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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Quote from: Blood_Librarian on February 13, 2018, 09:28:16 am
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
Quote from: Imic on May 17, 2018, 12:00:14 pm
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4535 on: April 29, 2021, 04:44:22 am »
Just make sure you have enough RAM to really make use of 64-bit Windows. Both Windows and 64-bit programs tend to use more RAM, IIRC.

Oh, I was thinking your situation was along the lines of "My hard drive broke, gotta buy a new one", so I thought you were looking for a replacement drive. Then again, I know that laptops can have some impressively user-hostile internal design. I suppose it is possible for the DVD drive to get in the way of the hard drive, and you'd then have to remove the DVD drive and it's all just a bigger pain in the ass than it needs to be. I can only say, "proceed with caution".
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King Zultan

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4536 on: April 29, 2021, 04:54:18 am »
Quote from: methylatedspirit on April 29, 2021, 04:44:22 am
"My hard drive broke, gotta buy a new one"
That is the situation, I think I misunderstood what you were saying because when you said SSD for the boot drive I thought you meant a drive for the OS and a separate drive for everything else.

I'm pretty sure 4 gigs should be enough as that's what I have in my other 64 bit laptop.
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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Quote from: Blood_Librarian on February 13, 2018, 09:28:16 am
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
Quote from: Imic on May 17, 2018, 12:00:14 pm
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4537 on: April 29, 2021, 05:14:46 am »
Quote from: King Zultan on April 29, 2021, 04:54:18 am
Quote from: methylatedspirit on April 29, 2021, 04:44:22 am
"My hard drive broke, gotta buy a new one"
That is the situation, I think I misunderstood what you were saying because when you said SSD for the boot drive I thought you meant a drive for the OS and a separate drive for everything else.

Yeah, I was thinking of just replacing the hard drive outright with an SSD. SSDs tend to be more expensive (in other words, less storage for the same price) though, so you'd have to offload any particularly large files onto an external drive. As a general rule, 240 GB is about the smallest you should go. Any smaller, and you'll find yourself uninstalling programs just to avoid filling up the drive.

But as far as I know, Windows 7 doesn't suffer (or suffers less) from crippling slowdown on a hard drive like Windows 10 does. I think you could get away with a hard drive for Windows 7, but keep in mind that I haven't used Windows 7 for years now. Your mileage will vary.
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King Zultan

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4538 on: April 29, 2021, 05:45:04 am »
A SSD is out of my price range given my current income, I'm hoping for a 1TB but I can work with less, as long as it's more than 240 as that is what it had originally.

I've personally never noticed any slowdown on Windows 7 due to the HDD, so I think I'm good there.


What makes windows 10 slow down so much on HDDs anyway?
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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Quote from: Blood_Librarian on February 13, 2018, 09:28:16 am
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
Quote from: Imic on May 17, 2018, 12:00:14 pm
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

Schmaven

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4539 on: April 29, 2021, 05:59:01 am »
Quote from: King Zultan on April 29, 2021, 05:45:04 am
What makes windows 10 slow down so much on HDDs anyway?

I think most Windows 10 machines ship out with SSDs now.  Pretty much everything is faster with an SSD, especially the OS.  So going back to a regular HDD is just going to be slower in comparison.

The speed boost is largely due to SSDs not having any moving parts: no disk to spin, no laser optics arm to move around.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2021, 07:27:04 am by Schmaven »
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methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4540 on: April 29, 2021, 06:22:20 am »
A contributing factor would be that Windows 10 comes with a built-in realtime virus scanner. Virus scanners need to read the contents of new files as they come in, so the fact that they're constantly asking the drive for all these files will also hamper the performance of the drive, and consequently the entire system.

If you ever want to demonstrate a disk bottleneck due to the 'scanner, I'd suggest compiling a large program like VLC or FFmpeg without turning off the realtime protection. Watch the drive in Task Manager, as it just gets absolutely swamped with reads. Compilation produces lots of small "object files", and the scanner has to look through each and every one to make sure they're not malicious.

This is bad for performance, because there's other programs on the system that want to load their own files from disk, and they can't continue without loading in their stuff. So now they're just stuck waiting around for files, and you're the one who feels it. It's all these loading times that add up to make a slow system.
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coalboat

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4541 on: May 09, 2021, 07:10:48 am »
Quote from: coalboat on April 21, 2021, 03:14:34 am
There are only 7 syslog files. So my computer only keeps them for a week? The crash happened at least more than a week ago.

A freezing showed up again at about between 13:40 and 13:50. This time it unfroze mid-way through the REISUB though.

Here's the log
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What might be the problem?
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wierd

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4542 on: May 09, 2021, 09:35:19 am »
A division by 0 error occurred, when performing the instructions in memory at the location (and stack pointer) provided, when servicing a call to libc-2.27.so

Prior to that, your computer was having a very terrible time trying to resolve an IP v6 address.

I would need a memory dump from the time of the event, a disassembler, and skills I do not possess (64 bit assembler for x86 processors) to be able to tell you more.


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gimlet

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4543 on: May 09, 2021, 09:48:14 am »
The very basic things I always do first is to check the disk diagnostics, and run a memtest overnight.   Even run one of the drive tests if it's a mechanical drive.  Memory/disk problems can manifest as completely baffling symptoms and you can easily chase your tail for a long time with misleading symptoms.  Very simple things to do to provide a sound starting point to diagnose something trickier...
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coalboat

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #4544 on: May 09, 2021, 10:03:44 am »
Freezing just happened again. This time REISUB didn't work.

The log is too long to put in a single post.

Log:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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