General Computer Thread

[Santaman]

Debug G=C800:5 I know it and the Model 30 doesn't work that way, also programs like WDHDINIT etc won't work, you need the IBM advanced diagnostics disk which i have but I need an ancient enough machine to write its image to disk.. which is a 720KB DS/DD disk, not the high density 1.44MB version.
Win 10 and win 7 hilariously fail to recognise the .IMG file and won't write it to the disk, I've got an ancient Sony external USB floppy drive which usually does the trick, I'll try Win2k and lower later on this week.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

You can still get 3.5 inch floppy drives but who is still buying them?

 

[Marc]

You can still get 3.5 inch floppy drives but who is still buying them?

people who still need them of course.

 

[Santaman]

You can't buy new 720KB drives unless you can buy new old stock if that's even available after all these years, 1.44MB drives should be available especially the USB versions, I actually have a whole pile of those, they're pretty much indestructible.
Floppy drives are still used a lot because some industrial machines still have them, replacing them would be just too expensive or technically impossible, also BIOS upgrades for older boards need a floppy drive, of course that's getting rare.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

You can't buy new 720KB drives unless you can buy new old stock if that's even available after all these years, 1.44MB drives should be available especially the USB versions, I actually have a whole pile of those, they're pretty much indestructible.
Floppy drives are still used a lot because some industrial machines still have them, replacing them would be just too expensive or technically impossible, also BIOS upgrades for older boards need a floppy drive, of course that's getting rare.

It just feels quaint seeing ads for brand new floppy drives

 

[Santaman]

Finally found a program that can write .IMG files back to a floppy.
https://freeextractor.sourceforge.net/diskwrite/
And I have a 1999 - 2002 era Medion Pentium 4 machine with a floppy drive so 1+1= the much needed IBM advanced diagnostics and utilities floppy, going to see if it works tomorrow.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

A kind of general question but what era do you think was the best years for computers? Things like styling and ease of use, and how convenient they were.

For me it's the mid to late 80s, early 90s and the early 2000s.

The 80s and 90s because that's when I first got a computer and had several different ones during that period. I liked how different manufacturers try doing different things with appearance and design. Every computer seem to have a little bit of a different look and design.

Early 2000s is where I found windows and for a long time stuck with one machine.

 

[Santaman]

For me personally there are a few periods/advances in the tech that were great era's
XT time, my brother and I were able to buy an ex office machine, a Philips NMS 9100, 8088 with VGA and a 20MB HDD, really lovely times we had, later on I bought a IBM PS/2 Model 30 double diskette machine which was my first own PC.
486 era, we had a 486 DX2 66Mhz machine with all the nice stuff like a CD ROM drive and a soundcard, SVGA and a 14" color monitor whoohoo, was great for playing Dune II and so on.

Early Pentium era, the start of building my own machines, last machine my brother and I bought together was a K6 233Mhz machine.

Early Pentium II-III Era, we both had a P-III 450 which lasted for a long time, the rise of 3D cards did mean that we changed graphics cards a few times and had upgraded to Win2K and 768MB RAM, was a good era.

Athlon era, also Duron era, started out with the Duron 750 which was incredibly fast compared to the P-III 450, smart scamm.. eh trading made me able to get a 850Mhz Duron quite easily which lasted me again quite a long time.

Athlon 64 Era, kicked the Pentium 4's ass big time, I have a few machines left from that era, main machine was a Athlon 64 Vienna core at 2Ghz which was socket 939 then switched to a dual core 4450E Brisbane chip, all very low to mid range systems, liked it though, did a lot of experimenting with OS's and started to use Linux on some machines.

Phenom II era, first time I build a high end machine, Phenom II X4 955 BE with 8 GB RAM and a ATI Radeon HD 5870 etc etc, that one lasted 5 years, then I got the FX 8350 which lasted 6 years and now I have a main gaming rig with a Ryzen 2600X this era I like because I do game a lot and these machines were all able to run everything I want/wanted.

So all kinds of fun through the ages..

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

My machine in the 2000s was just cobbled together from bits I had bought but it did the job and was fairly reliable. Ah those days when we had separate things like sound cards. I had a Sound Blaster 16 with onboard interface for a disk drive. It was CD Rom in those days and the only disks it had problems with were CD+ which was a regular CD but also had folders and usually videos or picture files.

Who remembers Cyrix Processors?

 

[Santaman]

Grmmph, the old HDD kicked the bucket, machine has its two floppy drives still, that's pretty much okay for the era and programs.

 

[Malicia]

The power cable port on my Latitude 3490 has broken and is no longer charging the battery. The circular casing of the port has been crumbling and small plastic pieces have fallen out but the cable still fits so I can use the laptop while connected to the mains but the battery is on 0% so when the power cable is removed it hard powers off. I'm worried it might activate BitLocker and I don't have the code for that or a way to disable it.

The centre pin in the power cable is in the correct position and it fits snugly in the mains port on the laptop so I'm not sure why it's no longer charging the battery. What options do I have to charge the battery without removing it which would require unscrewing the base of the laptop each time to get to the battery? Can I do it via a USB port or is there anything in the BIOS? When I hover over the battery icon in the system tray it says 'plugged in, not charging' and every time I boot it up I get a warning that the power cable is not recognised.

 

[Santaman]

You can't recharge the battery via USB, the connection for that isn't there, my tip would be to find an electronics repairshop and have the port replaced which might not be worth it but it's cheaper than buying a new laptop.
Of course the alternative is to buy a new/newer-ish used one, in any case backup everything you deem important as soon as possible.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Alternatively if you can find a second hand model similar to yours in the same brand and know someone you trust to do the work they could swap the charging ports from one to the other if they are the same which they usually are in similar models of the same brand. I mean it could be as simple as a burned out port or something around that area of the board might be scorched.

 

[Malicia]

Thanks for the advice. I’ve just remembered I have a USB-C power cable in storage that should power the laptop and charge the battery at the same time so will try it tomorrow. I’ve not needed it since 2020 but that’s what I used instead of a docking station when I was office based. If that doesn’t work I’ll try connecting the laptop to an external monitor which I’ve read can trickle charge the laptop. If that doesn’t work I’ll see if I can replace the charging port myself. I’ve checked Amazon and it looks like it snaps on to the motherboard so there’s no soldering.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Thanks for the advice. I’ve just remembered I have a USB-C power cable in storage that should power the laptop and charge the battery at the same time so will try it tomorrow. I’ve not needed it since 2020 but that’s what I used instead of a docking station when I was office based. If that doesn’t work I’ll try connecting the laptop to an external monitor which I’ve read can trickle charge the laptop. If that doesn’t work I’ll see if I can replace the charging port myself. I’ve checked Amazon and it looks like it snaps on to the motherboard so there’s no soldering.

Only if your laptop supports USB-C charging.. Check first if it does.

Had to share this video this guy has super steady hands reballed a GPU by hand!!!!!!!

 

[Malicia]

It works and the battery is now charging from the USB-C port. I borrowed a Dell WD15 during lockdown and my employer didn't ask for it back when I left.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

It works and the battery is now charging from the USB-C port. I borrowed a Dell WD15 during lockdown and my employer didn't ask for it back when I left.

Yay..........Glad that works for you

 

[Marc]

Thanks for the advice. I’ve just remembered I have a USB-C power cable in storage that should power the laptop and charge the battery at the same time so will try it tomorrow. I’ve not needed it since 2020 but that’s what I used instead of a docking station when I was office based. If that doesn’t work I’ll try connecting the laptop to an external monitor which I’ve read can trickle charge the laptop. If that doesn’t work I’ll see if I can replace the charging port myself. I’ve checked Amazon and it looks like it snaps on to the motherboard so there’s no soldering.

usb-c wasn’t well received at the beginning because it didn’t really bring much new but now it’s a useful little plug.

my wife’s laptop has a usb-c port and I bought a little hub so everything could connect in one go.

then it reminded me her laptop (Asus Vivobook) is from 2018 and before usb-c gained all its magical powers

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

usb-c wasn’t well received at the beginning because it didn’t really bring much new but now it’s a useful little plug.

So warning to those who charge with high wattage on USB Type-C connectors.

ASUS created the brand new "Slim Power Jack" for it's entire Mobile / LapTop line for good technical reasons.

It's a proprietary Power Charging Jack for their ASUS LapTops that is reversible like USB Type-C.
But it's properly designed for efficient High Wattage charging, unlike USB Type-C.

One other important addition is the introduction of the ASUS Slim Power jack, which will be the company’s default charging port for high-power systems across its mainstream and ROG lines. It looks similar to USB-C, in that it’s also reversible, but with a slightly boxier connector. I kind of wish ASUS opted for USB-C power delivery, at least on the smaller G14. But I’ve been told that the cost and relatively low efficiency of high-power USB-C charging (especially above 140 watts, as the G14 uses a 180-watt brick) still isn’t good enough for widespread use.

Linus of LTT was told the same thing by ASUS Reps & Engineers.

- ASUS found USB-C is "pretty good" up to ~150 Watts, despite the latest in USB-PD allowing up to 240 watts on USB Type-C.
- Low Efficiency of USB-PD above 140 Watts on USB Type-C is pretty bad & a big deal for energy efficiency if we want to be more efficient.
- USB-C is not very efficient at delivering power over Type-C past 100 Watts; so any USB-C PD above 100 Watts is relatively dangerous & inefficient to use, so "DON'T BOTHER!"
Stick with USB-PD 1.0/2.0/3.0 on Type-C & intentionally limit yourself to 100 Watts if you want to be energy efficient and not just create excess Waste Heat
- To get 240 Watts, you have to run at 48 Volts, the power brick stepping up to 48 Volts & stepping back down to 20 volts that most LapTop MoBo's use, that results in 24 watts of waste heat.
- Increasing Voltage of Power Brick to 48 Volts & Down-Converting it back to 20 Volts for LapTop MoBo's, that results in 24 watts of waste Heat
- USB Type-C Pins were only designed to handle a Maximum of 5 Amps
- You also have to deal with power circuitry for 48 Volts into the Power Brick & LapTop, that adds alot of unnecessary cost.
- The Circuitry for dealing with 48 Volts in the power adapter & Stepping Back Down to 20 Volts wasn't worth it & gets expensive quickly.
- ASUS claims their "Slim Power Jack" can deliver up to 99% Energy Efficiency @ UpTo 330 watts & is reversible like USB Type-C
- If all of ASUS claims are true, this can be the true 1x "Universal Power Jack" to rule them all for mobile devices and replace most Mobile Device Power Plugs out on the market

 

[aquova]

On the other end of the spectrum from floppy discs, I learned recently that my internal LG Bluray drive is capable of reading 4KUHD discs as well... maybe. There's a lot of conflicting information about them. LG makes a handful of relevant models, and I bought one of the lower end ones to read regular BD a few years ago. I've been told that only the higher end ones can read 4K, alternatively that they all can read 4K if manufactured after a certain date and if you downgrade their firmware, or that there's no actual difference between any of them, it's just the firmware and the sticker they put on the outside, etc.

In any case, I've gotten mine to be able to recognize the film and to actually mount it in a file explorer, but I've been unable to actually get the movie off of it. Granted, the only software that (apparently) supports it I've used in the past, and I've always found finicky, so maybe it's just not a hardware issue at all.