Random Question Thread: Tech

[Mici]

demonoid.me up for anyone? I haven't been able to get to it for days and downforeveryoneorjustme.com says its just me.

[Caiyuo]

nupe, been down for a few days, even shows a little notice after the redirect

[Mici]

Ah, mine just endlessly redirects. Thanks though.

[sruon]

Thanks for all the help! If I'm upgrading to a different router is Dual band a must have? Only reason I ask is I noticed that one Jojimbo listed doesn't have (even though you said it's getting up there in age). I looked a couple different ones that have open source DD-WRT but they don't have Dual Band.

Also, are there any "never touch those with a 10ft stick" brands? Almost to a fault, I find myself gravitating to ASUS, because of the performance I've had, and my friends have had, but when I start getting into things like routers, I'm not sure if that's a time to move away from brand loyalty.

From what I remember reading, ASUS make solid routers, went to search a bit the DD-WRT forums and this model looks good if it fits your budget, it doesn't have dual-band but it does support Wifi-N, I can't comment on dual-band pros/cons or whatever else as I rarely ever use Wireless, everything is wired at my place.

My knowledge of routers is relatively limited, but that's the model I'd buy if it was me. May want to ask/scour the DD-WRT forums for more infos.

[GImpers]

I got a new comp and ffxi is lagging bad. It's very choppy. I asked earlier in here and was recommended to try older drivers for the video card. I haven't been able to find one that makes it run ok.

Anyone else have any ideas? Or, can you tell me which driver i should be using? Is it the video card itself? Do, I need a different one?

Any help would be appreciated. I'm not really computer savvy, so, I'm kinda lost here.

Here are the specs of the comp:

• • Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium [64-bit]
• • Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 quad-core processor [3.1GHz, 6MB cache]
• • FREE UPGRADE to 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 4GB
• • FREE UPGRADE to 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 750GB
• • No additional office software
• • SAVE $30 on Norton Internet Security(TM) 2011 - 15 month
• • 1GB DDR3 Radeon HD 6450 [DVI, HDMI. VGA adapter]

Thanks.

[Elesirdur]

Question re RAM for Netbooks:

I have an ASUS Eee PC 1015-PEM (http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_P...specifications) that has the stock 1 Gig of DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM and I would like to upgrade to the maximum of 2 GB. I believe there is only one RAM slot (manual is not helpful for this info), so I'm guessing I have to ditch the 1 GB stick and get a 2 GB stick to replace.

My question is, can you replace netbook RAM with any equivalent RAM meeting the same specs, or do I need a stick "specific" to ASUS netbooks? I'm looking at either http://ncix.com/products/?sku=35351&...L%20TECHNOLOGY or http://ncix.com/products/?sku=58987&...y&promoid=1371 to replace. I think the 1015 PEM can take the 1333 DDR3 RAM.

[sruon]

Question re RAM for Netbooks:

I have an ASUS Eee PC 1015-PEM (http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_P...specifications) that has the stock 1 Gig of DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM and I would like to upgrade to the maximum of 2 GB. I believe there is only one RAM slot (manual is not helpful for this info), so I'm guessing I have to ditch the 1 GB stick and get a 2 GB stick to replace.

My question is, can you replace netbook RAM with any equivalent RAM meeting the same specs, or do I need a stick "specific" to ASUS netbooks? I'm looking at either http://ncix.com/products/?sku=35351&...L%20TECHNOLOGY or http://ncix.com/products/?sku=58987&...y&promoid=1371 to replace. I think the 1015 PEM can take the 1333 DDR3 RAM.

You should be able to find a list of valid RAM on ASUS website, generally on the manual pdf. For what it's worth, there is a 99% chance it will take anything. And yes, 1 slot generally.

e: I take that back, there was nothing in the manual, but you can buy those blindly.

[Qalbert]

not sure if this is the right place to ask, but some fuckface broke a window and stole a bunch of shit from my car, including my ipod in the glove compartment, so I'm looking for a replacement, and no idea where to begin. Don't need fancy touchscreen shit or anything, just straightforward music playback. I've got an ipod speaker dock so I'm inclined to get another ipod, but if there's a good alternative I can certainly look into it. My music atm is in 50gb range so needs to be decently sized.

[Karbuncle]

Odd Tech-esque question.

I have a relatively old computer, But it runs fine for the most part. however Mozilla Firefox seems to be overheating it pretty bad. Its a pretty recent problem, But occasionally when i run Firefox, My computer will start to slowly overheat, inevitably to about 156* (which is Red/flashing for my PC) and stay there, then without warning, it'll cool down again (with nothing changing).

Some days I'll have Mozilla open and it'll never go above its base of about 120, and again, other days I'll run Mozilla and it'll constantly hit 154/156 and stay there, then inexplicably start going back down.

Either way, the problem is fairly recent, and even if i keep running Mozilla it never seems to overheat to the point of shutting down. For instance, As i was typing this out, My little Active-Monitor was telling me it was 156 and it was flashing at me, And by this paragraph, its back down to 127... Nothing changed during this time, only this window was open, and i was typing the entire time.

Anyway, I can't explain the problem more than that... Am i just to assume my computer is in its final stages? Its about 10 years old, its an Alienware PC, but its age is showing... I'd like to think theres something I'm overlooking, But i fear its just my computer getting old.

Thanks for the help.

Edit: After finishing typing, it slowly began to rise to 156 again. It never seems to go past 156, The Fan is always on, and its really quite cool in my room. Can't explain it..

[Caiyuo]

not sure if this is the right place to ask, but some fuckface broke a window and stole a bunch of shit from my car, including my ipod in the glove compartment, so I'm looking for a replacement, and no idea where to begin. Don't need fancy touchscreen shit or anything, just straightforward music playback. I've got an ipod speaker dock so I'm inclined to get another ipod, but if there's a good alternative I can certainly look into it. My music atm is in 50gb range so needs to be decently sized.

Are you looking to keep your entire library or just something in the ballpark like 32~? Within ipod it's p. easy in that the 160GB classic is the only thing I can see being worthwhile, since with the smaller capacity models I think looking elsewhere would be way better value. Seems like most modern players moved to flash memory so the available sizes are a lot smaller, with the upside being some support expansion with SD cards, but that also eats up some savings. If you're okay with smaller sizes, the sansa clip+ and clip zip (what the fuck) are nice, with the latter just being an update to the former with an actual screen. They're both 4-8GB, but support SD+SDHC cards letting you add on another 2-32GB. If you're interested in any other non-ipod, try here: http://anythingbutipod.com/

And sorry to hear about your luck, man

[TacoTaru]

From what I remember reading, ASUS make solid routers, went to search a bit the DD-WRT forums and this model looks good if it fits your budget, it doesn't have dual-band but it does support Wifi-N, I can't comment on dual-band pros/cons or whatever else as I rarely ever use Wireless, everything is wired at my place.

My knowledge of routers is relatively limited, but that's the model I'd buy if it was me. May want to ask/scour the DD-WRT forums for more infos.

That was actually the model I was looking at when I came here to ask about ASUS, and it fits perfect within my budget. Thanks again!

[Hitoshura]

I was going to post a thread but maybe I can get a helpful reply here. I am going to be moving to a different state and need to take my PC with me. It's pretty big and I have never moved something like this with me on a plane before. Have any of you had to transport a PC on a plane? Any suggestions? Was thinking of just gutting the parts out, maybe carry them in my personal luggage. Main problem is the PC case itself, hopefully I can find a decent box for it, my idiot roommate threw the one that came with it in the trash.

http://i56.tinypic.com/23s7wav.jpg

Pic is said PC. Do they secure the luggage well? I would hate to lose that shit.. man lol.

[avelle]

I was going to post a thread but maybe I can get a helpful reply here. I am going to be moving to a different state and need to take my PC with me. It's pretty big and I have never moved something like this with me on a plane before. Have any of you had to transport a PC on a plane? Any suggestions? Was thinking of just gutting the parts out, maybe carry them in my personal luggage. Main problem is the PC case itself, hopefully I can find a decent box for it, my idiot roommate threw the one that came with it in the trash.

Pic is said PC. Do they secure the luggage well? I would hate to lose that shit.. man lol.

They charge you extra if your luggage is over a certain weight. Are you not able to ship it instead? I wouldn't even dream of trying to transport that as luggage on a plane.

[Cephius]

Way, way, way easier and cheaper to just ship it to yourself. Even if you could get that on a plane, I'd be concerned about turbulence damaging the parts.

[Isiolia]

Can't mail it? Can't drive instead if you need to take stuff like that?

It'd need to go into checked baggage, and that's really hit and miss. Personally, I had things stolen out of my checked bag before, so I'd be hesitant to put anything of real value in there.

[Hitoshura]

Going from California to Texas, driving isn't an option. What's the safest, most reliable place to have it shipped with? UPS? USPS? Also, should I just put all my parts in the packaging (GPU, RAM, Hard Drive's) and carry them with me? I would hate to not be able to turn my PC on when I get there.

Edit: Would I also have to ship the monitor along with it?

[avelle]

Going from California to Texas, driving isn't an option. What's the safest, most reliable place to have it shipped with? UPS? USPS? Also, should I just put all my parts in the packaging (GPU, RAM, Hard Drive's) and carry them with me? I would hate to not be able to turn my PC on when I get there.

Edit: Would I also have to ship the monitor along with it?

I'm not sure about who to ship it with, I'd probably just choose between UPS/USPS depending on the fee. I think you should definitely pull your components out of the case. At minimum your GPU and maybe hard drives. I think your motherboard might be ok since it's screwed in there so good, but if you want to be extra careful I'd probably strip the whole damn thing down. Get some anti-static bags (even better if you still have the ones that the parts came in I guess) and package all that shit together in a box filled with peanuts. I guarantee you the shipping fee for all that would be less than what the the Airlines charge you for overweight/oversized luggage.

And yes, I would ship the monitor too.

[Jojimbo]

CPU Heatsink (depending on how big it is) and maybe GPU are the only things that might cause trouble as they can fairly heavy and loose compared to other components. I would imagine HDD would be fine left in the case.

You could send monitor as well, would need good packaging for it to prevent screen from being damaged though (if you have the original box + packing that would be fine.

[Jakson]

I recently (2-3 months ago) bought an Auria 42" tv and have been using it as a monitor for my PC. In the past couple of days, whenever playing FFXIV (which, atm, is the only pc game I play, so I don't know if it is the cause) it will occasionally turn the screen off; if I don't turn it back on quickly, I can hear the sound when you remove a device and when it comes to, I'll have a direct x error. I don't have the exact wording of the error, I'll write it down next time it happens. Does anybody have any experience with this kind of problem? Thanks in advance!

[Caiyuo]

An Aunt with an older compaq desktop is having problems and I'm not sure what's wrong. It's running Windows XP and it seems to freeze or fail while windows is loading, but doesn't seem to show any problems during boot or in the BIOS. Occasionally it makes it all the way through booting and brings up Windows, but shortly after it freezes with a screen full of lines. The monitor itself seems okay since the OSD comes up and can be changed, and I wondered if the video card may have been dying so I opened it up and found out it was onboard video. Given that, I can't tell if it's the hard drive, the RAM, or something else entirely. Previously her hard drive had died and I swapped it out a few years ago, so it seemed unlikely, but it's even freezing at the same point every time I try to boot into safe mode (mup.sys) but from what I've read that's just where safe mode crashes for any variety of reasons and not necessarily because of that specific file. Looking for some boot CDs to see if I can test the hardware separately from Windows and get somewhere.

Sorry this is so ambiguous, but if anyone has ideas I'd be really grateful.