Random Question Thread: Tech

[Ratatapa]

Used or new?

[Chun Liroy]

New. It's not a "Dell" brand battery but it is the correct battery for the laptop.

[Ratatapa]

Dell likes to be a bitch and try to block people from using other brands

I had a laptop once that i had to replace the RAM, bough some kingston ram (checked the specS) and laptop refused it

When i put RAM that Dell sent me (forgot the brand) laptop booted fine.

Anyway

[Chun Liroy]

Well... it fixed itself somehow while I was fixing (for the 4th! fucking time) the hinge on the laptop, so whatever I guess.

[Elizara]

Thought I'd ask because I just had to wait though the monthly chkdisk (Been doing that because I had to replace the hdd about 8-9 months ago)

Is there a way to automate a chkdisk, like once a month, in Windows XP? Barring that, is there a way to script it so I can schedule one in a click? (I always have to reboot to get it to go but I don't mind that.)

[Ratatapa]

NOTE: this must be run in the root of C: so save your .bat file to C:
You can, of course, create a shortcut to the .bat and run it from anywhere you choose.

echo y|chkdsk /f
shutdown -r -t 05

Copy the above 2 lines into notepad or your favorite .txt editor and save it with the extension
.bat in the root of your C: drive.

This .bat file will:
1) echo the answer Y to the question
2) schedule a chkdsk C: /f for the next time windows restarts
3) automatically fix errors ( /f )
3) initiate a restart with a count down of 05 seconds

[Elizara]

Thanks Rata. Set it up; hopefully next month I can get it started with that; it should be faster than trying to type it every time. ^^

[Howie Roary]

I think I pushed my video card too hard, and now I see pixelated spray across my screen and it basically freezes

Obviously I should have stopped playing Diablo 3 when it would occasionally (only twice) shut down and power right off instantly without even freezing. I think my card was already hurting, as I noticed that basic video was laggy

I thought everything was fine when Diablo 3 installer told me my driver was out of date, and I updated it (about 1-2 weeks ago) from version 190 to about 305 or so. I cleaned out my computer, adjusted the settings lower and it just kept getting worse and worse. It would freeze sooner and sooner, got 2 BSOD's although no more immediate power downs.

It seems all I get now is the pixelated blurry spray across the screen and it basically stops responding.

A friend is lending me their video card tomorrow to trouble shoot it, should replacing the video card be sufficient? Do these symptoms have the earmarkings of a video card problem? If switching out the card does the trick, I'll be buying a new one Friday, but if not I don't know where to start

[Qeomash]

Okay, tossing this out to BG--

I work at a hardware store and part of my job is being the IT on top of everything else. We run Epicor Eagle for inventory/bookkeeping/ordering/etc. Today, the "server" that handles all of that tanked. I use the term server loosely because the servers that Epicor supplies are literally just off the shelf Dell Optiplexes with 1 or 2 extra network components and a custom Linux system installed on it. Fun project for me in the future will be to try and duplicate the server on a different computer.

Sometime Sunday night, likely during the 9 PM daily backup, there was a kernel panic (Linux bluescreen). After a restart, the "server" hangs at a forced filesystem check on startup and then locks up. So, troubleshooting with their tech support we run the BIOS system checks. Critical error on the Hard Drive check--expected. Also a critical error in the memory check--unexpected. I pull 2 of the 4 sticks of RAM arbitrarily and try starting it up, no change on the check disk failure.

So, finally, they remote in through proprietary means on the server install disk and start doing manual checks. After awhile, they get the problem fixed and we're able to start it up. Problem was in the program files of the hard drive so we didn't lose any data and we were up and running.

So, as for the diagnosis of the problem(s): their tech believes that the hard drive is fine and that faulty memory caused an error during the backup which caused the file that was being backed up to become corrupt/ruin that sector. I believe that there are two problems that are likely unconnected.

tl;dr: Could bad ram kill a file being read for backup badly enough to cause checkdisk to fail?

[Taube]

I think I pushed my video card too hard, and now I see pixelated spray across my screen and it basically freezes

Obviously I should have stopped playing Diablo 3 when it would occasionally (only twice) shut down and power right off instantly without even freezing. I think my card was already hurting, as I noticed that basic video was laggy

I thought everything was fine when Diablo 3 installer told me my driver was out of date, and I updated it (about 1-2 weeks ago) from version 190 to about 305 or so. I cleaned out my computer, adjusted the settings lower and it just kept getting worse and worse. It would freeze sooner and sooner, got 2 BSOD's although no more immediate power downs.

It seems all I get now is the pixelated blurry spray across the screen and it basically stops responding.

A friend is lending me their video card tomorrow to trouble shoot it, should replacing the video card be sufficient? Do these symptoms have the earmarkings of a video card problem? If switching out the card does the trick, I'll be buying a new one Friday, but if not I don't know where to start

It would seem like a graphics card problem... but if not, you just need to find the bad part by pulling out all the parts but the bare minimum and then add them one by one till you find where it goes wrong.

[Purrrfect]

I think I pushed my video card too hard, and now I see pixelated spray across my screen and it basically freezes

Obviously I should have stopped playing Diablo 3 when it would occasionally (only twice) shut down and power right off instantly without even freezing. I think my card was already hurting, as I noticed that basic video was laggy

I thought everything was fine when Diablo 3 installer told me my driver was out of date, and I updated it (about 1-2 weeks ago) from version 190 to about 305 or so. I cleaned out my computer, adjusted the settings lower and it just kept getting worse and worse. It would freeze sooner and sooner, got 2 BSOD's although no more immediate power downs.

It seems all I get now is the pixelated blurry spray across the screen and it basically stops responding.

A friend is lending me their video card tomorrow to trouble shoot it, should replacing the video card be sufficient? Do these symptoms have the earmarkings of a video card problem? If switching out the card does the trick, I'll be buying a new one Friday, but if not I don't know where to start

Magic 8-ball says: "New video card is imminent."

[Tricen]

Spoiler: show

Anyone have any idea why my graphics are doin this by chance?

[Elizara]

What I was told by a friend is that it has to do with certain models of ATI Radeon cards(mostly older ones tho I could be wrong). That's artifacts, tho some of those look kinda severe. Yes, I'd like to know too in case there IS a way to fix it. (I don't have long lines like the second shot though, dotted lines yes.) I couldn't figure it out, so have had to deal with it. ^^

Before anyone asks, BECAUSE I have a older PC, I can't just run out and get a new video card. AGP cards are NOT easy to find.

[Hoss]

I'm afraid I already know the answer to both these questions will be no. fat ps3 got ylod, tried to reflow, failed. New ps3 is ordered. Is there any way to get my game saves on new ps3? I made a system restore on an ext hdd like 2 months ago. Also have some older game saves on a usb drive. From what i've read the answer is no. I did so much work in gran turismo ; ~ ;
Second question, can anything be done with spare ps3 parts, bluray drive specifically?

[hey]

It's not impossible to recover the data from your ps3 hdd, but it's far from trivial, and unless you've already prepared some information, is not possible to do without buying some hardware.

The easiest way to do it is to be on cfw, and run a program to find your encryption key before the ps3 dies, then set the new one (must also be on cfw) to the same thing, and you'll be able to use the old hdd on the new ps3.

Other than that, you'd need to extract it directly from the nand/nor chip, which will require some hardware to read.

can anything be done with spare ps3 parts, bluray drive specifically?

You could sell it?

[Hoss]

Thanks for the info. Nice to know its not completely impossible, but I'm afraid it will be for me.

[Draygon]

Was going to pick up this TV for $779, but I haven't really heard anything of Toshiba's quality on their televisions. Anyone have any nitpicking?

[Vendog]

PS+ send all the saves to cloud......

[Buffy]

Was going to pick up this TV for $779, but I haven't really heard anything of Toshiba's quality on their televisions. Anyone have any nitpicking?

I've owned a 42" Toshiba LCD TV for roughly 18 months now. I've been quite happy with it, but wish it had more HDMI inputs. That's about as nit-picky as I can be, it's been great for me.

[hey]

PS+ send all the saves to cloud......

Does no good if the ps3 is dead. If you cannot boot the ps3, there is no easy way to recover anything from the hdd.