General Computer Thread

[Gingerbread Demon]

Should you turn your PC off at the PSU power switch when not in use?

Does anyone here have any opinions on this pro or con?

I looked it up online in some of the hardware sites but everyone seems to have differing opinions and the biggest take I can get is that most people say no don't do it because of inrush currents when you turn the PC back on. I've done it on and off over the years especially if the computer isn't going to be used for more then a day or two.

So people anyone here have any pros and cons of their own on this issue?

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^I leave nothing on standby or powered from the wall socket apart from the fridge, when something is not in use it's turned off and then flicked off at the wall, and that includes PC, so when i am not using it i shut it down and flip the wall socket power off, and in 20 plus years i have never had one PC or PSU break because of this, and most modern tech have voltage regulator stuff to make sure you don't get those kind of things happening, just don't go raising your PC into the roof of your castle during a massive thunder storm to switch it on and all should be fine.

 

[Santaman]

I have a master switch for my computer setup, when it's not being used the whole stuff gets switched off so it doesn't pull any power and also as a safety if there's a thunderstorm and I'm not at home.
As for inrush currents and the like, all old AT computers had a real powerswitch and some of mine are closing on being almost 40 years old and they still work so I keep switching things off for real.

 

[Marc]

^^I leave nothing on standby or powered from the wall socket apart from the fridge, when something is not in use it's turned off and then flicked off at the wall, and that includes PC, so when i am not using it i shut it down and flip the wall socket power off, and in 20 plus years i have never had one PC or PSU break because of this, and most modern tech have voltage regulator stuff to make sure you don't get those kind of things happening, just don't go raising your PC into the roof of your castle during a massive thunder storm to switch it on and all should be fine.

Can tell when some-one isn't in North America

We tend to lack switches on the walls to turn things off so you have to pull the plugs.

Of course growing up in Australia it was always turn off then pull the plug though I can't say I knew anyone who would turn their computers off at wall.

Usually it was simply a shutdown or in the pre-ATX days, flip the power switch/push the power button (remembering the park the hard disk heads first).

I just my PC down at night (PSU is 6 years old), server stays on 24/7 and that PSU will be 8 years old in September

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Oh OK I guess it all comes down to brand of PSU too. My last one was a thermaltake and it died in less than one year. Panic is why I asked because now every single component has been replaced in this build and I always turned it off at the switch on the back and worry that if I do that too often something will break.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Can tell when some-one isn't in North America

We tend to lack switches on the walls to turn things off so you have to pull the plugs.

Of course growing up in Australia it was always turn off then pull the plug though I can't say I knew anyone who would turn their computers off at wall.

Usually it was simply a shutdown or in the pre-ATX days, flip the power switch/push the power button (remembering the park the hard disk heads first).

I just my PC down at night (PSU is 6 years old), server stays on 24/7 and that PSU will be 8 years old in September

So you quite literally pull the power while it's on. lol

Do you have the 3 pin wall plugs as we do here in the UK?

 

[Marc]

So you quite literally pull the power while it's on. lol

Pretty much yeah - though it's only 110v so the shock isn't as bad if something goes wrong. Might be different if it was was 240v.

Do you have the 3 pin wall plugs as we do here in the UK?

yep though reading the reddit on home computer labs, some older houses in the U.S only have 2 pin plugs which can make things real fun.

Some of the 2 pinned plugs are keyed (one is larger than the other) so you can only put them in one, but others aren't which can help with your wall-warts.

The power point next to my desk has the 2 wall warts for my monitors, but the only way to plug in the ac adapter for my wireless headphones was to turn it upside down.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Don't the electrons fall out if it's upside down?

 

[publiusr]

Only if BLIZZARD melts

 

[Samurai8472]

New motherboard

ASUS PRIME B450M-A/CSM AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

New processor

AMD Ryzen 5 2600

Same graphics card from family member

Ram is supposed to arrive later this month(corona virus)

https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-32gb...2885?item=N82E16820232885&Tpk=N82E16820232885

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

New motherboard

ASUS PRIME B450M-A/CSM AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

New processor

AMD Ryzen 5 2600

Same graphics card from family member

Ram is supposed to arrive later this month(corona virus)

https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-32gb...2885?item=N82E16820232885&Tpk=N82E16820232885

Nice board......

I have the B450 Prime plus but full size ATX same cpu and an rx 580

 

[think]

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...rain-computer-chip-music-stream-a9627686.html

Elon Musk‘s mysterious Neuralink startup is working on a brain-computer interface that will allow wearers to stream music directly to their brain, the technology entrepreneur has claimed.

Mr Musk, who also heads SpaceX and Tesla, is set to reveal new information about the mysterious startup next month but has been slowly releasing details over Twitter in recent days.

____________________________
I already have music in my head all the time .. over and over that same song--- some pop song that doesn't stop just repeats --

 

[publiusr]

NATURE has an article called “Terahertz Topological Photonics on chips” IIRC
6G stuff

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Tom's Hardware wasn't much help so hoping you guys will be helpful.

I made a system image of my main drive a Samsung QVO SATA based 1 terabyte drive.
I have on hand a new WD Blue 1 terabyte NVME drive which I would like to put on my motherboard as it's got the slot for it.

Tried to restore the image to that drive but what is happening is it is booting but then resetting and looping around and around. So it looks like windows is there but not completing its boot process.

 

[Santaman]

You can't just restore an image of Win10, you first need to set up the NVME drive, IIRC Windows 10 has a hidden system partition that needs to be there and so on, think you should google around, you could maybe try booting from the Windows 10 install CD/USB stick and run system repair on the NVME might be that it can fix the problem.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

You can't just restore an image of Win10, you first need to set up the NVME drive, IIRC Windows 10 has a hidden system partition that needs to be there and so on, think you should google around, you could maybe try booting from Windows 10 install CD/USB stick and run system repair on the NVME might be that it can fix the problem.

What do you mean? That's how my current system was done with the two standard SSD drives. I had the disk image on one and restored to the other via Windows Repair disk. The image restored all the partitions

 

[Santaman]

Then I have no clue, I don't run $pyware 10 or NVME drives.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Then I have no clue, I don't run $pyware 10 or NVME drives.

No problem.... Not sure what the issue is either as the source drive was GPT too so all that formatting should have happened automatically, the destination drive was also GPT

EDIT: Nvidia is going to introduce a single 12 pin power connector on graphics cards and it's also mounted on a 45 degree angle on the cards. AMD will follow if this becomes a standard.

 

[Noname Given]

Tom's Hardware wasn't much help so hoping you guys will be helpful.

I made a system image of my main drive a Samsung QVO SATA based 1 terabyte drive.
I have on hand a new WD Blue 1 terabyte NVME drive which I would like to put on my motherboard as it's got the slot for it.

Tried to restore the image to that drive but what is happening is it is booting but then resetting and looping around and around. So it looks like windows is there but not completing its boot process.

It may be the same type of Drive, but I suspect the HD drivers between Samsung and Western Digital may be different, and that's part of your problem. You generally can get away with swapping some higher level components on a system image (like say a video card); and MAYBE if the new Drive was also a Samsung - but usually, when you go to a different Drive manufacturer; you aren't going to be able to just restore and image and have it work. Full static snapshot Images are usually VERY hardware specific.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

It may be the same type of Drive, but I suspect the HD drivers between Samsung and Western Digital may be different, and that's part of your problem. You generally can get away with swapping some higher level components on a system image (like say a video card); and MAYBE if the new Drive was also a Samsung - but usually, when you go to a different Drive manufacturer; you aren't going to be able to just restore and image and have it work. Full static snapshot Images are usually VERY hardware specific.

Yep.... True. Luckily for me I was able to fix this issue. Am using the internal drive NVME and really I haven't noticed that much of a speed change. Larger files are quicker but not by much compared to my Samsung EVO, at least not that I have noticed. But it's all working now and that is all that really matters.

I just resorted to doing a clean install and reloading all the programs I use, was in the end quicker than messing around trying to fix what couldn't be fixed.