• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Tech Support GAF Thread: No Case Too Big, No Case Too Small

seb_n

Member
it's almost like the lag caused by a CPU spike, except the CPU isn't spiking. everything comes to a halt for 2-3 seconds. it's a Mac, so I can't virus scan it. maybe it's a sign to finally upgrade to solid state.

Sorry, but what do you mean you cant virus scan it? There are loads of mac compatible antivirus solutions available.
 

accx

Member
it's almost like the lag caused by a CPU spike, except the CPU isn't spiking. everything comes to a halt for 2-3 seconds. it's a Mac, so I can't virus scan it. maybe it's a sign to finally upgrade to solid state.

Memory leak or something similar from any software?
Close everything down and see if that helps.

Sure you can virus scan it, there's plenty of software available.

If you have any diagnostics tools available you can check and see if there's excessive access to the hard drive, and also check the current state of the drive.
 

OceanBlue

Member
Hey GAF, I need help with my parents' new router. They got a new Netgear AC1450 over Christmas because their old one's wireless signal wasn't strong enough, but for some reason webpages take longer than they should to load and videos buffer inconsistently.

I don't know much about networking, this is what I've tried so far. I'm getting from 600 ms to 1200 ms ping to Google when the previous router would only have around 32 ms, so I Googled my problem and this came up on Yahoo Answers suggesting that it's due to the new router's buffer size. I ran the Netalyzr linked there a couple of times and got some weird abnormalities like the DNS server being slow to look up names, the time to set up a TCP connection being high, and the network buffer being high. I've looked through the router settings and there isn't anything for changing any buffer sizes, so I'm wondering if I'm in the right direction and if there's anything I can do about it.

Edit: Called Netgear Customer Support and they fixed the problem (I think). I had to modify some wireless settings, and I wish I understood how that fixed the problem because what did I take that networking class for? :(
 
V9iGd2I.jpg

not sure what was causing the stuttering but apple says I'm in the clear. NSA wiretap?

what's a good, reliable solid state drive?
 

bitoriginal

Member
Okay GAF, I need help. I've got a macbook pro retina 15" late 2013 with 512gb ssd, 16g ram, and Nvidia 750m. I want to install windows via bootcamp so I can play some games, and hopefully DayZ.

I'm a mac newb, I know little to nothing about the operating system. Ideally I need someone to post links to a step by step guide/pm me about installing bootcamp. I'm in the UK btw.

1.) Where can I download a windows 7/8.1 ISO? I've tried searching the microsoft site but it's a clusterfuck that I'm struggling to get my head around. I'm currently using my old laptop on win7 and its giving me options to upgrade, but ideally I just want an ISO file I can put on a usb stick and use on my mac. I'm not averse to torrenting but I'm hesitant to download something I'm unsure about.

2.) Should I go for windows 7 or 8.1? I'm not really bothered either way, is one better/easier to install than the other?

3.) Do I need a legit windows key? If so, can I buy one cheaply through a site other than microsoft?

4.) I've got a 16gb USB stick. Will this do the job? Does it need to be formatted a certain way to work?

5.) Do I need anything else to get this process started? I know I can use bootcamp to download the drivers required.

Hopefully I got across the information I needed to, I'm fairly technically inept when it comes to this stuff.
 

Dramos

Member
Hey PC-GAF,

So it's winter break and I finally have the time to update and fix my integrated and discrete graphic card drivers for my laptop. As I uninstalled all the drivers and went through numerous reboots, I ended having a "SMART Hard Disk 301" error on start up. According to my research, this errors means that my hard disk is about to fail...

My laptop is a HP Envy 15 2011 and it is running Windows 8.1 64bit.
The hard disk is an 128GB Intel SSD.

I tried updating the BIOS, disabling SMART software, tried recovering my laptop with disks (can't access the partition from the hard disk) and reseating the SSD.

Luckily I have most of the stuffs on backup, although I would love to recover some of my files.

What are my options GAF? As a Computer Science student, I feel like I can fix this myself but I don't have much knowledge in low-level hardware and stuff. I was thinking of just replacing the SSD and starting out new from there. I also read that I can probably hook up my SSD to my desktop and try recovering data with some specific hardware (I don't know which software though). I don't feel like paying someone to fix this, specially after the holidays...

Anyway, any help is appreciated!
 

mrmisterwaa

Neo Member
Okay GAF, I need help. I've got a macbook pro retina 15" late 2013 with 512gb ssd, 16g ram, and Nvidia 750m. I want to install windows via bootcamp so I can play some games, and hopefully DayZ.

I'm a mac newb, I know little to nothing about the operating system. Ideally I need someone to post links to a step by step guide/pm me about installing bootcamp. I'm in the UK btw.

1.) Where can I download a windows 7/8.1 ISO? I've tried searching the microsoft site but it's a clusterfuck that I'm struggling to get my head around. I'm currently using my old laptop on win7 and its giving me options to upgrade, but ideally I just want an ISO file I can put on a usb stick and use on my mac. I'm not averse to torrenting but I'm hesitant to download something I'm unsure about.

If you do not want to download it via torrents, you will have to buy it.

2.) Should I go for windows 7 or 8.1? I'm not really bothered either way, is one better/easier to install than the other?

That is up to you. Not sure if there is a difference between 7 & 8.1 using bootcamp (in terms of compatibility)


3.) Do I need a legit windows key? If so, can I buy one cheaply through a site other than microsoft?

You would require a legit key (kind of --- you get a trial version for about 30 days if you want to try 7 or 8 and see how it works out for you).

4.) I've got a 16gb USB stick. Will this do the job? Does it need to be formatted a certain way to work?

http://www.rmprepusb.com/

Great for creating a USB-bootable windows 7/8 (NTFS for Windows 7+) You can also find how to do it manually using diskpart.

5.) Do I need anything else to get this process started? I know I can use bootcamp to download the drivers required.

I don't think so.

Hopefully I got across the information I needed to, I'm fairly technically inept when it comes to this stuff.

tl;dr Buy Windows 7 or 8 - if you are not comfortable with torrenting (a legit cd and just buying a key from shady websites) spent the 50 - 100$ for an OEM version. Worst case - you just use Windows on trial and never update.

what's a good, reliable solid state drive?

It depends - how many expansion slots do you have? Is this a PC or a laptop? If it's a laptop --- Trying going for the Seagate hybird HDD and if you want a premium SSD/HDD hybird - Grab the Black^2

Otherwise for a PC, I would honestly recommend Samsung Evo ~250+gb for the best price performance (due to Rapid firmware performance boost)
 

stormplyr

Member
Has anybody ever taken apart an acer laptop to clean out the dust? The reason I ask is that it's just a basic laptop for school, and it has been getting really hot and overheating at times doing the smallest of things. I was just curious as to how labor intensive it is to get to the fan to clean it out.
 

Karak

Member
So I have something really odd going on.

Windows 7 32bit
6 gigs(I duel into 64bit)
GTX 670
Windows 32 bit partition is over 60 gigs remaining

I am having constant memory issues with the 32bit version. If I run longer than say 1-3 hours I start getting "not enough storage available to-"
Delete files
download files
run some programs
run my duel monitor setup(Starts resetting the resolution if I play a game and won't run at my default 1440p without one of them being in 16 bit color)

No windows events indicate an issue I can find at all.

It is as if Windows 7 32 has some horrendous memory leak I can't figure out. Overnight burn in test for memory came back flawless, stress tests all came back flawless. Ran comodo, malwarebytes, Avast and MS essentials locally. Also ran 2 online cloud virus scanners 0 entries. No bugs or virus, no hardware changes in the past 5 months. No installs in the past 2 months and Windows 7 has all updates.

Changed the virtual memory settings(pagefile). Didn't fix it.
Ran harddrive check on all harddrives. No errors.

It also stops me from downloading anything bigger than say 100 megs. Tried utorrent(not enough storage) error comes up after a couple minutes to an hour.
Changed the cache settings in Utorrent. Didn't fix it.

Opera downloads of the same file(GOG file) breaks after maybe 10-15 minutes)
Firefox breaks

All download breaks occur regardless of what harddrive I download the file too.
 
So I have something really odd going on.

I am having constant memory issues with the 32bit version. If I run longer than say 1-3 hours I start getting "not enough storage available to-"
Delete files
download files
run some programs
run my duel monitor setup(Starts resetting the resolution if I play a game and won't run at my default 1440p without one of them being in 16 bit color)

No windows events indicate an issue I can find at all.

It is as if Windows 7 32 has some horrendous memory leak I can't figure out. Overnight burn in test for memory came back flawless, stress tests all came back flawless. Ran comodo, malwarebytes, Avast and MS essentials locally. Also ran 2 online cloud virus scanners 0 entries. No bugs or virus, no hardware changes in the past 5 months. No installs in the past 2 months and Windows 7 has all updates.

Just a shot in the dark, but where is the location of your Temp folder? Could it be in a place where there is next to no space remaining?

Also, here's something you can try, when and if you have the time (and the patience) to do so:-

1. Start up Resource Monitor from the Start Menu (Start --> type in Resource Monitor --> Enter)

2. Keep it open, and perform the tasks that would elicit the error messages. Look for any oddities in the Resource Monitor. Specifically in the Memory and Disk tabs.

Another thing you can try is to take out 2 out of the 3 sticks of RAM in your PC (I assume you have 3x2GB sticks) and boot up the 32bit Windows with the remaining stick. Try performing the troublesome tasks again.

Lastly, run a program like WinDirStat that allows you to see precisely what is going on in your harddrives.

All of the above steps on their own may not amount to much, but collectively they'll help you gain a better understanding of what's going on with your PC when the errors occur.
 
This might not be the right thread for this question, but I trust gaf more than other websites.

What's the most possible high end computer you could build today that Windows XP supports?

Just curious.
KuGsj.gif
 

kennah

Member
This might not be the right thread for this question, but I trust gaf more than other websites.

What's the most possible high end computer you could build today that Windows XP supports?

Just curious.
KuGsj.gif
Anything current should run XP. I just setup an AMD APU with Windows XP for my grandma.

Lots of games won't work on it though.

EDIT: NEvermind. Seems Haswell has dropped XP support from the quick search I just did. Check the Motherbaord support websites for stuff you're thinking of using.
 

Chibits12

Banned
Ok Techgaf, this has been happening for the last year or so. Whenever I leave my laptop alone for 10 minutes, logged in and everything, it would just freeze and give me the blue screen of death. It doesn't have a screensaver on or anything and I'm running on Windows 7.
Is it due to a virus or something?
 

Heel

Member
How does one not get throttled by Comcast so I can enjoy The Avengers on Netflix in something other than 386p during peak hours on my new television?
 

kennah

Member
Greetings TechGAF, looking to find a good 6670 to Dual Graphics with an A10-5700. so far i've narrowed it down to these two.


SAPPHIRE Ultimate Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

XFX HD-667X-ZHF3 Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Based on the passed year, i've learned that GDDR5 is powerful, but what difference would the PCIe 2.0 make compared to the 2.1?

2.1 vs 2.0 makes no difference what so ever. Get the first one.
 

Karak

Member
Just a shot in the dark, but where is the location of your Temp folder? Could it be in a place where there is next to no space remaining?

Also, here's something you can try, when and if you have the time (and the patience) to do so:-

1. Start up Resource Monitor from the Start Menu (Start --> type in Resource Monitor --> Enter)

2. Keep it open, and perform the tasks that would elicit the error messages. Look for any oddities in the Resource Monitor. Specifically in the Memory and Disk tabs.

Another thing you can try is to take out 2 out of the 3 sticks of RAM in your PC (I assume you have 3x2GB sticks) and boot up the 32bit Windows with the remaining stick. Try performing the troublesome tasks again.

Lastly, run a program like WinDirStat that allows you to see precisely what is going on in your harddrives.

All of the above steps on their own may not amount to much, but collectively they'll help you gain a better understanding of what's going on with your PC when the errors occur.
Thanks much.
So one or two of these I have done.
Windirstat shows ample room on all drives at all times with no less than 20+ gigs per drive available.
Resource Monitor runs and so far hasn't shown anything crazy. I will keep an eye out. But when the errors come up I still usually have 45-65% memory free according to Windows, resource monitor and task manager.

I was about to go rummaging into the ram. Sadly even though it passed the overnight testing maybe it is indeed randomly bad:(
Temp is on the main drive with over 20 gigs of space remaining on it.

For some reason I keep thinking this has to do with .net framework. Not because I updated anything but frankly because its a source of so many issues.:)
 

Garou

Member
Greetings TechGAF, looking to find a good 6670 to Dual Graphics with an A10-5700. so far i've narrowed it down to these two.


SAPPHIRE Ultimate Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

XFX HD-667X-ZHF3 Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Based on the passed year, i've learned that GDDR5 is powerful, but what difference would the PCIe 2.0 make compared to the 2.1?

Crossfiring the APU and a 6670 is less efficient than just buying a 7790 and using only that. Plus you won't have the headaches of Crossfiring.
 

Bikola

Member
Probably accidently changed the display mode. When switched to HDMI-in and VGA-in, the All-in-one PC can be used as a standard desktop LCD monitor so thats probably why there was no input warning. Also when you say it doesn't turn on you, do you mean completely black, no blinking lights?
 
Wondering if anyone can help me out with this, got a new laptop yesterday. Windows 8.1, Geforce 750m, i7-4700HQ.

When I'm playing games with it everything seems to be fine until my FPS randomly tanks. I messed around for a bit and it looks like the CPU is downclocking, I had the turboboost monitor on and the CPU would randomly go into Energy Saver in the middle of playing a game, causing the game to become unplayable. Anyone got a solution?
 
Wondering if anyone can help me out with this, got a new laptop yesterday. Windows 8.1, Geforce 750m, i7-4700HQ.

When I'm playing games with it everything seems to be fine until my FPS randomly tanks. I messed around for a bit and it looks like the CPU is downclocking, I had the turboboost monitor on and the CPU would randomly go into Energy Saver in the middle of playing a game, causing the game to become unplayable. Anyone got a solution?

Sounds like some serious CPU throttling going on. Could be one of two causes:-

1. Thermal Throttling caused by excessive heat. Verify this by using software like CoreTemp/HWMonitor, running your game in windowed mode and checking the temps when the FPS tanks. Thermal Throttling is a legit cause for concern as your laptop may not have adequate cooling. Alternatively,

2. If it's not the temps that are excessive (and I'm assuming you're plugged to the wall socket and not running on battery power), then it could easily be the Mobo that's responsible for this throttling phenomenon. Some manufacturers like Dell like to place these artificial throttling mechanisms to prevent excessive power draw (underpowered power bricks could be a factor), preventing both your CPU and GPU to work at their fullest potential after a certain period of time, which I find absolutely infuriating, as your laptop is not allowed to run at it's rated capacity.

The only ways to solve this issue (that I know of) is to either update your laptop's BIOS to the latest one, or use software like Throttlestop, which will allow you to bypass the throttling and let your machine run at full capacity 100% of the time. I can vouch for Throttlestop personally, as I'm currently using it for my own 4.5 year old Dell XPS Studio 16 laptop which had this issue from the start (it was a systemic issue present in all laptops of that line, and the symptoms exhibited were the same like yours)

Just make sure excessive temps are not the issue first before using Throttlestop. It's pretty potent stuff.
 
Sounds like some serious CPU throttling going on. Could be one of two causes:-

1. Thermal Throttling caused by excessive heat. Verify this by using software like CoreTemp/HWMonitor, running your game in windowed mode and checking the temps when the FPS tanks. Thermal Throttling is a legit cause for concern as your laptop may not have adequate cooling. Alternatively,

2. If it's not the temps that are excessive (and I'm assuming you're plugged to the wall socket and not running on battery power), then it could easily be the Mobo that's responsible for this throttling phenomenon. Some manufacturers like Dell like to place these artificial throttling mechanisms to prevent excessive power draw (underpowered power bricks could be a factor), preventing both your CPU and GPU to work at their fullest potential after a certain period of time, which I find absolutely infuriating, as your laptop is not allowed to run at it's rated capacity.

The only ways to solve this issue (that I know of) is to either update your laptop's BIOS to the latest one, or use software like Throttlestop, which will allow you to bypass the throttling and let your machine run at full capacity 100% of the time. I can vouch for Throttlestop personally, as I'm currently using it for my own 4.5 year old Dell XPS Studio 16 laptop which had this issue from the start (it was a systemic issue present in all laptops of that line, and the symptoms exhibited were the same like yours)

Just make sure excessive temps are not the issue first before using Throttlestop. It's pretty potent stuff.

Temps were holding around the 70C mark, which doesn't seem too excessive for a laptop CPU while gaming

Tried throttlestop there and the CPU seemed to hold at 3.2-3.3 GHz didn't notice any drops over 10 minutes while before it was throttling every couple of minutes.

I'll give it a proper test later when I play a full game of Dota or CS:Go
 

Kansoku

Member
So I have this 19" TV/Monitor that was sting unused, so I decided to use it as a second monitor. But I'm having some problems. First, it's a pretty generic monitor. I looked at it's manual and it says the native resolution is 1440x900 (at 50/60Hz). I managed to add this resolution trough Intel's HD control (I have a laptop with a Intel HD 3000 and a Radeon 6770M), but when I chose the resolution it says "Invalid Mode". The funny thing is that it have a bunch of crazy resolutions on the slider:
XyrYB0K.png

The three above 1600 also give Invalid mode. I've been using it on 1152x864 because it's the one that stretches less. Everything else gets really stretched (horizontally, except on 136[] x 768 ones). Plus I'm having a ghosting problem as well:
iI6d94hl.jpg
eSDqKIcl.jpg

It's hard to see but it's there.

There's any fix, or it's "get a new one"?
 
i have a very mysterious problem - I can transfer faster on my internet connection when connected to wifi than I can locally between my htpc and laptop. Fastest speed I've recorded is 2mB/s on a 54mbps connection. I'm running windows 7 on both machines. My router is a Asus RT-N66U. It's driving me crazy, any helpful souls who might come to my aid?
 

kmg90

Member
I can't believe I've been on Neogaf for months and have never bumped into this thread (IT consulting and repair is my livelihood)

Wondering if anyone can help me out with this, got a new laptop yesterday. Windows 8.1, Geforce 750m, i7-4700HQ.

When I'm playing games with it everything seems to be fine until my FPS randomly tanks. I messed around for a bit and it looks like the CPU is downclocking, I had the turboboost monitor on and the CPU would randomly go into Energy Saver in the middle of playing a game, causing the game to become unplayable. Anyone got a solution?



Have you checked what power mode/scheme your laptop is running?

vv If you don't know how to check vv

IFujgaT.png



Don't trust the turboboost monitor it's garbage and not worth the extra resources....
 

wilflare

Member
okay maybe I should have posted here instead

(1) SSD not detected on Cold Boot
using a Plextor M5Pro 128GB on my Asrock B85M Pro4
have already updated both to the latest firmware/BIOS
took a few restarts before the SSD was detected and I could boot into Windows

(2) Intel Rapid Start?
Should I enable this?

(3) Asrock Deep Sleep
Should I enable this?
 

sn00zer

Member
I cant seem to upload anything to the internet....every speed test I run crashes on the upload test, cant upload images to imgur, cant attach files, etc.

Ive tried:
-Disabling all firewalls
-Unistalling all antivirus software
-Connecting directly to my modem instead of my router

Ive tried googling and turned up with nothing
 

GutsOfThor

Member
How do I get the google play music player to stop opening in firefox and instead open in google chrome by default? Chrome is my default browser but some programs still open in firefox for some reason.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 

BIGWORM

Member
How do I get the google play music player to stop opening in firefox and instead open in google chrome by default? Chrome is my default browser but some programs still open in firefox for some reason.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Uninstall Firefox?
 
My PC just blue screened to death for the first time ever. I have no idea what causes that, so Im worried that its serious. Is it serious?

As a non technical person, I dont know what info I should give you guys.

Specs:

GTX 770 2 GB

core I5 4570 @ 3.20 GHz

dont know the motherboard

8 gigs of corsair ram

for storage I have a small ssd for caching and a terabyte hdd

the sitituation:
I was booting up Skulls of the Shogun, and talking to a friend on Skype. Then it just blue screened
 

scogoth

Member
My PC just blue screened to death for the first time ever. I have no idea what causes that, so Im worried that its serious. Is it serious?

As a non technical person, I dont know what info I should give you guys.

Specs:

GTX 770 2 GB

core I5 4570 @ 3.20 GHz

dont know the motherboard

8 gigs of corsair ram

for storage I have a small ssd for caching and a terabyte hdd

the sitituation:
I was booting up Skulls of the Shogun, and talking to a friend on Skype. Then it just blue screened

BSOD is not a huge deal. Usually just a bug in a driver, check to make sure your drivers are all up to date especially audio and GPU drivers.
 
I have a wireless router with DD-WRT (specifically the iconic Linksys model). And I had no issue with the actual network. However, I want to make setting changes in the router but I lost the actual IP address for the router. I tried the usuals, 192.168.1.100, 192.168.1.1 (used for Comcast modem), and a few other combinations. But I can't find the IP address and Google isn't really helping. Any help finding the IP address so I can log in and makes changes to the router?
 
Anyone able to help me with this strange issue i have, where when trying to view Imgur images, sometimes they load pretty quickly, sometimes they load about half way, stop, and i have to wait about 5 minutes for the rest to load, or i have to sometimes wait 5/10 minutes before it even attempts to load it up.

I did a bit of googling, and people suggest it could be something to do with DNS. Ive never really delved into networking stuff, but i tried some suggestions like using google's public DNS IP's, but doesnt seem to have made a difference.

I cant seem to find anyway to use other DNS servers either on my router (BT Home Hub), so im a loss for what to do. Anybody have any ideas ?

Just an update on this one, might be useful for others .....

Tried 2 different routers, and both of them display imgur links straight away, looks like it was the router being a git (although how or why I may never know).
 

scogoth

Member
I have a wireless router with DD-WRT (specifically the iconic Linksys model). And I had no issue with the actual network. However, I want to make setting changes in the router but I lost the actual IP address for the router. I tried the usuals, 192.168.1.100, 192.168.1.1 (used for Comcast modem), and a few other combinations. But I can't find the IP address and Google isn't really helping. Any help finding the IP address so I can log in and makes changes to the router?

Windows open cmd and type "ipconfig" it should show your Default Gateway which is your routers IP address.

Mac open terminal and type "arp -a" to show all devices on the network.
 
OK, I am having some serious issues with my Windows 8 Samsung Series 7 Chronos Laptop.
I have 8GB of ram, but for some reason it is appearing as nearly all being used even when hardly anything is using it, is there a fix for this? I have to keep closing applications, and it really is extremely irritating.
Thanks.
Edit: and my actual programs showing in Task manager are using 500MB tops (in fact, that's a conservative estimate) yet my laptop is using over 7GB of ram altogether.
Help me GAF!
 

Rnr1224

Member
so im having a kind of weird issue with battlefield 3. whenever i start up the game in either campaign or multiplayer, my FPS is really low no matter what setting it starts on. However, when i change the screen resolution and then change it back to normal, the FPS goes back to the correct amount. any possible fix so i can have good FPS on startup?
 

davidnic

Member
Question that I am finding hard to google.
Using an Exchange server I want share my contacts via outlook with my college using outlook which works!

If the college wants my share contacts on his\ her phone that has email set up on it. How do I do it?

I don't want to my export my contacts my college SD card cause I might update them and then it there will be out of date.
 
Top Bottom