General Computer Thread

[Amaris]

Hopefully a completely new install will fix this problem.

On another note, I am gobsmacked by how arrogant people are when they don't know something. I was over at C-Net's page, and they were discussing why everyone should have an SSD. I talked about how I love my HDD and don't feel the need for one. I talked about how fast everything moves, how snappy it feels, and that my system boots up in about 14 seconds. Several self-professed computer nerds said they didn't believe me. I said if you mean from the moment one presses the power button until the Windows login screen appears, right? They said yes. I said, yes, it takes about 14 seconds, sometimes a tiny bit more, sometimes a tiny bit less. I was told that PCs with mechanical drives can't boot that fast. So I made a video to show them that my system boots up in about 14 seconds.

Unfortunately, C-Net's FB page wipes out links. *grumble* *grumble* Which means I can't prove it to them. Still, I'll show you guys the video:

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[Santaman]

I used to boot from a 1TB WD Caviar black which kicked the bucket a few months ago and I've replaced it with a Intel SSD, boot time wise it isn't really all that faster.
Also, newer machines boot a lot faster than old ones, I've got an old Phenom II black edition @3.2 Ghz and in boot time it gets its ass handed to it compared to one of my little AMD Athlon 5350 machines which runs at about 2.05 Ghz, I think it has to do with the new BIOS's the Phenom II has a standard BIOS, the AM1 Athlons an UEFI BIOS which loads extremely fast.
So yeah, I believe you.

 

[Amaris]

I used to boot from a 1TB WD Caviar black which kicked the bucket a few months ago and I've replaced it with a Intel SSD, boot time wise it isn't really all that faster.
Also, newer machines boot a lot faster than old ones, I've got an old Phenom II black edition @3.2 Ghz and in boot time it gets its ass handed to it compared to one of my little AMD Athlon 5350 machines which runs at about 2.05 Ghz, I think it has to do with the new BIOS's the Phenom II has a standard BIOS, the AM1 Athlons an UEFI BIOS which loads extremely fast.
So yeah, I believe you.

I like SSDs, and eventually want one once the price gets well within my range (I want a 1 TB drive for $50 or less). It's just these guys are nearly impossible to convince that it's not something I need. They think I should buy anyway, and to me that's a waste of money I don't really have.

 

[Santaman]

I use a 120Gb drive as boot drive, it only has Windows on it and all programs I use, all my data is on the second drive, SSD's are nice as bootdrive and programs like photoshop and the like to load faster, I still don't trust SSD's enough to park all my stuff on it.

 

[Amaris]

I use a 120Gb drive as boot drive, it only has Windows on it and all programs I use, all my data is on the second drive, SSD's are nice as bootdrive and programs like photoshop and the like to load faster, I still don't trust SSD's enough to park all my stuff on it.

Which for me means to avoid until that confidence exists. Plus, I like having everything on a primary drive. I use my secondary drive for my media server. I use drives like filing cabinets. :P

 

[Santaman]

I use my drives in utter chaos, but its my chaos so I know what is parked where..

 

[John Clark]

I use my drives in utter chaos, but its my chaos so I know what is parked where..

Uh, yeah - On my Desktop, C is now only the OS. The other drives (and sub-partitions there of) generally have stuff parked where there's space. One of these days, I'm going to have to do a tidy up because I want to put some larger drives in and I just don't have the available connections at the moment.

 

[Kemaiku]

And now WIndows Update is cut off entirely. It's stuck at 0% with 4 updates, and won't continue.

I've downloaded the diagnostic tool and run as administrator, but it can't repair it. I've used Services and command prompt, it won't respond to either of them (HELPMSG 2186) and I can't delete DownloadedSoftware folder contents as they're in use.

I'm slowly losing all access/control of the OS.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Hopefully a completely new install will fix this problem.

On another note, I am gobsmacked by how arrogant people are when they don't know something. I was over at C-Net's page, and they were discussing why everyone should have an SSD. I talked about how I love my HDD and don't feel the need for one. I talked about how fast everything moves, how snappy it feels, and that my system boots up in about 14 seconds. Several self-professed computer nerds said they didn't believe me. I said if you mean from the moment one presses the power button until the Windows login screen appears, right? They said yes. I said, yes, it takes about 14 seconds, sometimes a tiny bit more, sometimes a tiny bit less. I was told that PCs with mechanical drives can't boot that fast. So I made a video to show them that my system boots up in about 14 seconds.

Unfortunately, C-Net's FB page wipes out links. *grumble* *grumble* Which means I can't prove it to them. Still, I'll show you guys the video:

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That's fast...... That is very fast.

For me though boot up is something like 45 seconds from pressing the power switch to the desktop showing. I auto login .....

I duplicated my system onto an SSD and the boot time is now 16 seconds, sometimes around 18 seconds. But I made that change 3 months ago and have not looked back.

 

[Santaman]

And now WIndows Update is cut off entirely. It's stuck at 0% with 4 updates, and won't continue.

I've downloaded the diagnostic tool and run as administrator, but it can't repair it. I've used Services and command prompt, it won't respond to either of them (HELPMSG 2186) and I can't delete DownloadedSoftware folder contents as they're in use.

I'm slowly losing all access/control of the OS.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52974
If you're running win7 then this will probably help, its an update to the Windows update client, I've used it on two seperate machines and both have gathered the new updates within a10 minutes, one machine being a rather old dual core, before this patch it took me 4 hours to run windows update on that machine.

 

[Kemaiku]

I have Windows 10, and have already used a lot of the "fixes" on MS and internet sites.

 

[Santaman]

I don't know anything about 10 but if all has failed I guess only a full reinstall might help.

 

[Kemaiku]

Well we had a weird moment today where all computers in the house locked up and had to be restarted. Now mine seems to be working more or less okay again. I just can't right now.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I just did the upgrade on my phone to Windows 10. So far so good. Not sure if I like how it all works now. I had gotten very familiar with 8.1 on my phone. But it's got its own quirks and all. For one you end a call but that pane is still open you have to hold the back arrow and click the X on the top right of the call pane to close the open window.

With 8.1 when a call ended that window closed itself..... So yeah slight annoyance..

BTW this video is satire isn't it?

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[Santaman]

Total bullshit.. there is no such thing as a redundant core, cores mean wafer space, wafer space is really not something you waste.

However, if you have a quad core CPU and one core fails then you still can have a really fine triple core, this is what AMD has done with the Phenom and Athlon X3 series, those are quadcores with one core disabled, along the line the foundry will improve its production method so in the end there are hardly any chips with failed cores so with the AMD X3 series it was quite possible to unlock the 4th core, when in luck, this core is up to spec and will perform totally fine, so you'd have a fully functioning quad core for the price of a triple core but in other cases that core was rightfully disabled because it was really broken.

I've got a AMD Sempron 145 which is actually a dual core Athlon X2 with one core disabled, I have attempted to unlock core Nr2 but it actually is REALLY broken so the machine will crash, however these chips do have a 60-80% chance of having a working second core.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I'm using a quad core FX4300 with stock cooling.

 

[Marc]

However, if you have a quad core CPU and one core fails then you still can have a really fine triple core, this is what AMD has done with the Phenom and Athlon X3 series, those are quadcores with one core disabled, along the line the foundry will improve its production method so in the end there are hardly any chips with failed cores so with the AMD X3 series it was quite possible to unlock the 4th core, when in luck, this core is up to spec and will perform totally fine, so you'd have a fully functioning quad core for the price of a triple core but in other cases that core was rightfully disabled because it was really broken.

Unless you upgraded your bios.

I have an Athlon X3 system and had enabled the 4th core via the bios until I made the mistake of upgrading the bios and away went the option of accessing the fourth core.

 

[Santaman]

Usually the mainboard manufacturer has all previous BIOS's on the website for download so you should be able to reflash the version you want.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I put an SSD in my laptop because, well, because it's a laptop and I wanted a new drive in it anyway.

It's my first SSD (Samsung 850EVO 500GB). It's doesn't feel much faster than the HDD, so it's mostly for any shock/drop/vibration issues.

 

[sojourner]

It will also use less battery charge.