Support NeoGAF

[oneran]

Hey guys, I upgraded my sister's 2008 Dell desktop to Windows 10 and found out it only has 2GB of RAM. Reinstalling iTunes took some time. I want to upgrade the RAM but I don't know how to tell what is compatible, can anyone tell me what to buy? I think 6GB of RAM should be fine

Dell Inspiron 530

What is currently installed according to the Service Tag
311-7244 : 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
Part Number XG700
Quantity 2
Description DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 1GB, 800, 128X64, 8, 240, 2RX8

You should be looking at DDR2 800MHZ sticks and according to your manual your Maximum memory is 4GB (Inspiron 530 only ) or 8 GB (Inspiron 530a/530c) so find out how much you can actually use before buying anything.

You should have four memory slots so you should either try to match the manufacture and timings of your current RAM and add 2 more 1GB sticks or just buy whatever domination you want and replace out your current sticks(this is normally the better choice). If you mix and match it could potentially cause stability issues.

You should probably open the system up before hand and check out the model of the motherboard and RAM just to ensure everything in the manual is correct.

 

[Persona7]

Been having an annoying problem with Windows 10. Need some help.

I have been trying to add a 2nd account to my wifes computer (so I can have my own login). When I add either a new microsoft account or a local account - each time I try to login it says the User Profile Login Service has failed and won't load.

Now I looked up a fix and it always directs you to Regedit to fix the "corrupt user profile". The problem is since I am adding a new account trying to do this every time - it never actually generates the new account (so there is no user profile to "fix")?

Anyone think they might have a fix? Is this a common Windows 10 problem?

Try running the system file checker, rebooting and then trying again.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...em-files/bc609315-da1f-4775-812c-695b60477a93

 

[Iorv3th]

This one is a hardware issue.

I have a Toshiba Qosmio gaming laptop.

It technically works, however I have to have the laptop connected to an external display, keeping the display on the laptop itself off.

This is not because the screen doesn't work, it does. The issue is that if the screen turns on for more than a few seconds, the laptop immediately loses power.

I can confirm its not the charger or the battery, as I've replaced both. I assume the issue is the power supply inside the laptop itself, but that's something I have little experience with, any ideas?

try taking the battery out and running it just on the power supply. There isn't an 'internal PSU' really, you would have to replace the whole motherboard if that was the problem.

Could also take it a part if you are at all comfortable and making sure all the cables for the monitor are securely connected.

 

[Mik2121]

I'm having a very weird problem that has happened before and somehow fixed itself, but I need to be able to fix it myself and know the reason.

Until last night I was using my PC without problems. I apparently left it turned on during the night and when I went to the PC in the morning, a bunch of icons were blank, nothing would click (even though I could actually move the mouse around and buttons would be highlighted), and the Windows button didn't work either. I turned off the PC and when I turned it back on, the PC fans and LEDs when on but nothing showing on the monitors, and the PC shut down and restarted after about 10-15 secs.
I tried restarting a few times and no luck, so I opened the case and checked to see that everything was fine and it seemed alright. I decided to detach the RAM from the two slots I was using (dunno the numbers but there are 4 slots, blue, black, blue, black, counting from the CPU) and switched them from the two black to the two blue and the PC stopped restarting itself but nothing would show on the screen.
Is the memory screwed? Or the motherboard? Or it's a completely different issue? Maybe using the wrong slots?
I might not have posted all relevant info but ask and I will post everything I know.

Thanks!

Edit: also unrelated maybe, but there's been a couple times where my second HDD would not be recognized by Windows unless I restarted, so two of my partitions would go missing during that time :S

 

[jotun?]

I've been having some issues with refresh rates, idle clocks, and temperatures on my GPU

GPU: 980 Ti (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487138)
Windows 7 - 64
359.00 drivers
Primary: Acer XB270HU, 144Hz G-Sync 2560x1440
Secondary: Dell U2412m, 60Hz 1920x1200

I'm using TechPowerUp GPU-Z to monitor clocks, load, and temps

Problem 1: GPU doesn't idle if the primary monitor is set to 144Hz.
If I set it to 144Hz, the clocks run at around 810/1752. Fan is at 1170rpm, and temp is 63C, just looking at the desktop. If I set it to 120Hz, the idle clocks drop to 135/202 and the temp idles in the high 30s.

Problem 2: Sometimes after playing a fullscreen game with g-sync, the desktop refresh rate will revert from 120Hz back to 144Hz. The driver may still be set to 120, but the monitor is actually running at 144 and problem 1 is present.

Problem 3: The fan never runs above 50% according to GPU-Z, even when the temp is 83C and it says the performance is being capped by the thermal limit.

 

[poppabk]

Not sure how to approach this, so here's the issue: my son's computer (PC running Windows 7) is getting very little speed from our internet connection. It's currently running about 3-5mbs, when my iMac running in the room just a few feet away is getting 80+mbs, which is close to our actual connection speed. He's trying to download stuff from Steam and getting 1mbs or less. His PC has a wireless adapter to get the signal; I just recently ran virus/malware cleanup on it, so I'm assuming that's not the issue. What else should I be looking for to try and fix this?

Get WiFi analyzer for your phone (or whatever iOS equivalent is) and check your WiFi strength. A few feet can make a world of difference some times.

 

[oneran]

I'm having a very weird problem that has happened before and somehow fixed itself, but I need to be able to fix it myself and know the reason.

Until last night I was using my PC without problems. I apparently left it turned on during the night and when I went to the PC in the morning, a bunch of icons were blank, nothing would click (even though I could actually move the mouse around and buttons would be highlighted), and the Windows button didn't work either. I turned off the PC and when I turned it back on, the PC fans and LEDs when on but nothing showing on the monitors, and the PC shut down and restarted after about 10-15 secs.
I tried restarting a few times and no luck, so I opened the case and checked to see that everything was fine and it seemed alright. I decided to detach the RAM from the two slots I was using (dunno the numbers but there are 4 slots, blue, black, blue, black, counting from the CPU) and switched them from the two black to the two blue and the PC stopped restarting itself but nothing would show on the screen.
Is the memory screwed? Or the motherboard? Or it's a completely different issue? Maybe using the wrong slots?
I might not have posted all relevant info but ask and I will post everything I know.

Thanks!

Edit: also unrelated maybe, but there's been a couple times where my second HDD would not be recognized by Windows unless I restarted, so two of my partitions would go missing during that time :S

The first thing you should do is look up your motherboards make and model and find the manual for it, under the memory section it should tell you the default memory configuration (i.e which of the colored slots to use first).

Try booting up after that and go into the BIOS, look to see if all your device are showing up (hard drives and disc drives) and that your ram is being reported correctly. Exit and restart.

If the computer is still not loading after that shutdown and try disconnecting all hard drives from the motherboard and try inserting a boot-able CD/DVD or usb drive (preferably a windows install medium) and try booting from that.

If it can load from a boot-able disc shutdown, reconnect your drives and try booting from the removable media once again. If it can't load chances are something is wrong with one or more of your disk drives. If you can boot into the removable media chances are something is wrong with the OS, if your running an windows install medium access the recovery tools and try running a CHKDSK on all your drives you can look on-line or ask if you have trouble with this.

I've been having some issues with refresh rates, idle clocks, and temperatures on my GPU

GPU: 980 Ti (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487138)
Windows 7 - 64
359.00 drivers
Primary: Acer XB270HU, 144Hz G-Sync 2560x1440
Secondary: Dell U2412m, 60Hz 1920x1200

I'm using TechPowerUp GPU-Z to monitor clocks, load, and temps

Problem 1: GPU doesn't idle if the primary monitor is set to 144Hz.
If I set it to 144Hz, the clocks run at around 810/1752. Fan is at 1170rpm, and temp is 63C, just looking at the desktop. If I set it to 120Hz, the idle clocks drop to 135/202 and the temp idles in the high 30s.

Problem 2: Sometimes after playing a fullscreen game with g-sync, the desktop refresh rate will revert from 120Hz back to 144Hz. The driver may still be set to 120, but the monitor is actually running at 144 and problem 1 is present.

Problem 3: The fan never runs above 50% according to GPU-Z, even when the temp is 83C and it says the performance is being capped by the thermal limit.

Have you tried disconnecting you secondary monitor from your video card (at least temporarily) to see if your clocks will reset to their idle values?

I doubt this, but you may also want to try using a program like EVGA PrecisionX (again at least temporarily) just to confirm GPU-Z is reporting correctly.

 

[luffeN]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but I recently bought a HyperX Cloud 2. I connect it via USB and now have the option of "Sidetone" in the speaker panel. What is it?

 

[PulseONE]

try taking the battery out and running it just on the power supply. There isn't an 'internal PSU' really, you would have to replace the whole motherboard if that was the problem.

Could also take it a part if you are at all comfortable and making sure all the cables for the monitor are securely connected.

Yep I have done this, still happens, also tried on battery alone, and yep I changed the charger as well so it's not that either, so...this does not bode well

 

[CasualTR]

Need some advice

My Rig:
FX 8350 4.4ghz
8gb 1333mhz RAM
R9 290 (with an arctic accelero cooler)
120gb ssd (windows / general stuff)
2x 500gb 7200rpm hdd

I have been mostly happy with my rig for the past year or two but I have noticed that my CPU can bottleneck my 290 on CPU intensive games (Total War etc)

I was wondering if anyone on GAF can recommend a good CPU/Motherboard/RAM upgrade choice for my PC this Christmas with a (preferably) max budget of £300.

 

[zulux21]

I am searching but alas I am failing to find it so I will just ask here.

the hard drive in my wife's computer is failing, it's not dead yet but I did have to order a new one.

she is on windows 10.

Is there a recovery disk or something to burn off so that I can get right back to windows 10 without having to install windows 8 first and upgrade to 10 or do I have to go through 8 again.

I do believe I recall reading something about windows 10 being saved somewhere online and connected to the computer so I could just do an install of windows 10 in general even though I don't have a key for it, but I can't find that right now either >.<:

 

[lt519]

The trials and tribulations of a moron (computer engineer of course) and his new SSD:

I got a 960GB SSD and wanted to install it next to my 1TB HDD but make it my drive to boot Windows from. So I get it, open up the computer, install a Y cable to steal some power from a molex connector to power it up. Problem 1: Look down and see that while I have an extra SATA slot there wasn't an extra cable. Run to Best Buy and grab a $5 cable. Problem 2:Get that installed and now Windows isn't recognizing the new drive. Open up the computer again, check some wires, say wtf, put it back together boot it up and now the drive is recognized. OK now we are cooking. Mistake 1: Time to use EaseUS Todo to clone my drive. Errors out. Ugh. After some research realizing that it wouldn't auto shrink any extra space so I had to shrink my windows partition on my 1TB. Not a big deal. Problem 3: Ok, EaseUS is happy now, cloning the drive, boom read error from source. Ugh. Mistake 2: Run Disk Check and Defrag on source drive, takes forever. Run EaseUS again, gets further, still a read error. FUCK IT. Time to just reinstall windows and bite the bullet (didn't want to reinstall 100+ programs). Run Windows media creation tool with my USB drive plugged in to make a boot disk. Problem 4: USB drive is write protected for some reason and it fails to make the boot disk. Problem 5: Windows doesn't just resume with a new USB drive, no it downloads the whole thing again. OK Boot drive done, let's do this the easy way and unplug the 1TB, put the SSD in the SATA slot for the 1TB and just go from there. Boot up into Windows Recovery see that it is still recognizing both drives. SSD drive has like 6 partitions for some reason (probably failed cloning). Went for it and deleted all partitions and re-installed windows. Yay! I'm done. Install everything test out speeds. Twice as fast in sector reads and 4-5 times fast in sequential reads, awesome. Mistake 3: My mobo only supports SATA 2.0 ):

Put the 1TB back in, reformat it, everyone is happy. Computer sings along, not sure if some of it is the fresh windows install (been about 3 years) or it is mostly the new SSD. Will try some games out today.

TL;DR: Just re-install windows when going to an SSD, cloning is not worth the headache.

This is also how you stuff an SSD into an already full case.

So my questions. How hot can this thing get and not ruin it's life? It was running at 41C last night but in general that small case can get extremely hot. Any other SSD optimization tricks I should know?

 

[RumblingRosco]

Hey GAF,

Bought a Dell laptop. It has a headphone jack... but the headphone jack has a rubber stopper on it. What the fuck is it? Can I remove it some how? I'm worried there's a trick to removing it because it sure as hell won't come off easily and I don't want to damage the port. This feels like a really dumb question, but does anyone have any advice as to how the hell I use my headphone jack? See attached photo.

 

[Rufus]

Have you consulted the manual yet?

 

[RumblingRosco]

Have you consulted the manual yet?

Not yet actually; I'm away from home at the moment and thus without he manual... but wanted to use my headphones now. Thought maybe GAF would know if it's an obvious/easy solution.

 

[Rufus]

Not yet actually; I'm away from home at the moment and thus without he manual... but wanted to use my headphones now. Thought maybe GAF would know if it's an obvious/easy solution.

Look on Dell's site for a pdf manual.

My first thought was: try pushing the jack in anyway, gently. Maybe it's just a protective cover that folds inside. Next: manual.

 

[Ghekkus]

Update: Reseated the video card and power cables and everything appears to be working. I can control the fans and they don't go full blast or bust. Phew.




I have an issue I hope someone can help me with. I got my new rig set up:

i7-5820k
Asus x99 Sabertooth
Zotac 980Ti
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
Corsair Vengeance DDR 4x4GB 2400
Corsair RM750i 750Watt PSU
Corsair H100i GTX cooler
Fractal R5

Windows 10, latest Nvidia drivers.

Everything is fine until I start playing a game (Assassins Creed Syndicate). The GPU fans will go to 100% even though the GPU isn't that hot. If I close the game and let it cool back down the fans still stay maxed. I have to reboot or shut down to get them to stop spinning so fast. I tried using MSI Afterburn and Zotac Firestorm to manually control the fans but it just wont change speeds. I hope I don't have to RMA this thing. Any ideas?


P.S. It's the only game I have installed at the moment so I'll try another as soon as it finish downloading.

 

[Seraph_Nicholas]

So, weirdest thing I've seen in a while...

TV episode playing on my computer ended, I was a bit slow to start the next one, and my computer went to sleep. I know you can intercept the sleep process, so I jumped up and tapped my mouse. My monitor came back on, and it was 100% multicolored static. Static! I haven't seen that since my last CRT TV!

So, I ripped the HDMI cord (Secondary, runs to livingroom TV) out of my computer and when I got back to the other side of the monitor the static was gone.

I'm hoping this is just Crimson shitting the bed, as it really dislikes my APU/R9 setup. Often has troubles displaying on both screens if I don't set it up just so.

But... Fucking static, man. That still happens?

 

[Syriel]

This one is a hardware issue.

I have a Toshiba Qosmio gaming laptop.

It technically works, however I have to have the laptop connected to an external display, keeping the display on the laptop itself off.

This is not because the screen doesn't work, it does. The issue is that if the screen turns on for more than a few seconds, the laptop immediately loses power.

I can confirm its not the charger or the battery, as I've replaced both. I assume the issue is the power supply inside the laptop itself, but that's something I have little experience with, any ideas?

Yep I have done this, still happens, also tried on battery alone, and yep I changed the charger as well so it's not that either, so...this does not bode well

The CCFL inverter assembly (backlight) may be going bad and drawing too much current.

 

[mrklaw]

Need to layout a simple newsletter for the office. It was suggested i use word, but I hate the limited layout flexibility in word. I'm used to old fashioned stuff like pagemaker or Quark Xpress.

So I'm thinking to use powerpoint instead - the way items like text boxes and images can be individually moved around just seems a little easier to use than word.

Any issues with my thinking?

 

[Zepp Twofist]

You should use Publisher, but if you don't have access to it Word is the better choice if you just learn how to properly set text flow around images.

 

[mrklaw]

You should use Publisher, but if you don't have access to it Word is the better choice if you just learn how to properly set text flow around images.

I don't think publisher comes with office 365? I just find Word's text flow to be frustrating, and everything is one big document rather than separate articles - I can experiment though.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

The reason I suggest Word over Powerpoint is that the formatting tools provided can allow you to set up stuff more neatly if you spend a bit of time learning the layout/formatting tools and it usually plays better if you want to present it in different formats (pdf, html, printed out paper) than Powerpoint can.

I think Publisher is included in 365 though. At least for the subs I looked at earlier, I don't know if they offer different levels of access.

 

[ColdPizza]

Man, I need some help ASAP.

I just got a new laptop and some "browsefox" or "Candle jar" adware/malware got installed on my computer somehow.

I have a 30 day free trial of McCafee and it detected it but couldn't remove it.

Basically whenever I open a browser a bunch of ads get injected on all sides of my screen. Is there a free malware app I can download to remove this? This is extremely annoying.

edit: I had to uninstall candle jar from both add/remove programs and remove it from firefox extensions.

i'm running Malwarebytes right now just to be safe

 

[oneran]

Man, I need some help ASAP.

I just got a new laptop and some "browsefox" or "Candle jar" adware/malware got installed on my computer somehow.

I have a 30 day free trial of McCafee and it detected it but couldn't remove it.

Basically whenever I open a browser a bunch of ads get injected on all sides of my screen. Is there a free malware app I can download to remove this? This is extremely annoying.

edit: I had to uninstall candle jar from both add/remove programs and remove it from firefox extensions.

i'm running Malwarebytes right now just to be safe

Might want to try a free virus scanner such as avast and run a boot-time scan, ensure to check off the pup option. Put avast into silent/gaming mode in the settings so its not constantly bugging you if you decide to keep it.

 

[ColdPizza]

Might want to try a free virus scanner such as avast and run a boot-time scan, ensure to check off the pup option. Put avast into silent/gaming mode in the settings so its not constantly bugging you if you decide to keep it.

malwarebytes detected 157 pup so i removed that...

so weird that i get a new laptop and this happens and have never had this problem on my desktop, and i visit all the same sites. not even porn sites on this laptop....yet...lol

 

[zXe]

Are there other tools that people use to scan for spyware/malware besides the mains ones, like adaware/malwarebytes. I used to have spybot years ago and recently saw they have a new version of it, but its it even necessary to have that many programs that do the same job?

 

[ColdPizza]

I've been a Chrome user for years, but I decided to give Firefox another chance...I'm confused as to why the header of the tabs appear blank except for the current tab. Is there a way I can fix this?

edit: apparently i just needed to update Firefox...weird.

 

[sonicmj1]

My computer is acting strange again, in a way that has me very concerned. The sound on the computer keeps suddenly shutting off, and then coming back.

It happens after about ten minutes of continuous sound playback (usually, it's been either games or video). All sound on the PC stops. This holds true for both headphones and speakers. Notably, Skype will not pick up calls during this time, and foobar returns an error when attempting to play music.

Eventually, after a somewhat random amount of time, the sound will suddenly come back on its own, and the computer will behave as if nothing is wrong for a while, until the next time that too much sound is played.

This first started happening very rarely a few weeks ago, but over the last two or three days it's a constant issue. My suspicion is that the onboard motherboard sound card is starting to give out after five years (I'd been having USB issues with this computer earlier), but I'm not certain. I really don't want to build a new PC, but buying a sound card seems expensive for a bandaid on something that's already aging, and it might not fix things.

What should I do?

 

[Bsigg12]

Does TechSupport-GAF do network issues as well? I am having a very strange DNS error and wouldn't mind some input on it.

 

[hateradio]

Are there other tools that people use to scan for spyware/malware besides the mains ones, like adaware/malwarebytes. I used to have spybot years ago and recently saw they have a new version of it, but its it even necessary to have that many programs that do the same job?

Different programs have different detection signatures.

If you're really worried about it, you can run the scan, and then uninstall SpyBot.

 

[oneran]

My computer is acting strange again, in a way that has me very concerned. The sound on the computer keeps suddenly shutting off, and then coming back.

It happens after about ten minutes of continuous sound playback (usually, it's been either games or video). All sound on the PC stops. This holds true for both headphones and speakers. Notably, Skype will not pick up calls during this time, and foobar returns an error when attempting to play music.

Eventually, after a somewhat random amount of time, the sound will suddenly come back on its own, and the computer will behave as if nothing is wrong for a while, until the next time that too much sound is played.

This first started happening very rarely a few weeks ago, but over the last two or three days it's a constant issue. My suspicion is that the onboard motherboard sound card is starting to give out after five years (I'd been having USB issues with this computer earlier), but I'm not certain. I really don't want to build a new PC, but buying a sound card seems expensive for a bandaid on something that's already aging, and it might not fix things.

What should I do?

Try downloading the latest sound drivers from your motherboards manufacture website, uninstall sound your device via device manager and re-install the driver if you haven't already, But it does kinda sound like on-board is starting to go.

If your looking for a cheaper band-aid solution you can typically get off-brand usb and PCI sound cards for under $10 on eBay or amazon and they work fairly well if you have a simple 2.0/2.1 setup.

 

[Kilrogg]

I've been using the Xmarks Firefox plugins to synchronize my bookmarks across computers for years.

For some reason, right now, on my desktop, it's screwing up. Some of my bookmark folders haven't changed one bit. Some are empty. I've checked my Xmarks account, and they're all still there. I've used the "force bookmark download from server", but it doesn't change anything.

Anyone dealing with this?

 

[mrklaw]

mail merge GAF - is there a way to do mail merge if the source excel is badly formatted?

eg ideally you'd want a record per row, with each column having a different field (name/company/address etc). But what if you've inherited a huge excel where each record is like this, all in one column

John Smith
Company inc
123 business road
London
W1A 1AA
.
Jane Smyth
..etc

with varied sizes (some longer so more rows, some shorter). Is there a way to parse that, or do you just have to trudge through and make a parallel version that is more suited for merging?

 

[sharkmuncher]

OK, here's a fun one. I went and did a nono and followed random advice on the internet on how to get my pc to multi-boot Linux Mint and Window 8/10. I'm pretty sure what happened was I ran a program that re-wrote the boot sectors on all my drives and now my PC boots to an OS not detected screen.

Things I know:
Original setup was Windows 10 on a 256GB SSD.
Windows 8.1 Mirrored across 2 1 TB HD
-These 3 disks all still have their Windows file systems intact.
-Running the command line on a windows 7 install disk gets the following:
- diskpart recognizes all 3 hard drives as online and the correct sizes
- bootrec /scan os shows:

[1]   C:\Windows
[2]   C:\Windows
[3]   C:\Windows

-bootrec \fixmbr is successful
-bootrec \fixboot fails - "The volume does not contain a recognized file system..."
-bootrec \rebuildbcd fails - "The system cannot find the path specified"


Wanted: Linux Mint on a USB 3 external drive to be an optional boot. I still can't reliably boot to this disk. I've done it once, not sure how.


I have tried following the fix listed here under the section "Nuclear Holocaust," but it fails after

bcdedit.exe /import c:\boot\bcd.temp

with

The store import operation has failed.
The system cannot find the path specified.

I'm pretty much stuck at his point. I guess I could reinstall Windows, but that would be a huge pain in the ass, especially considering I have access to everything on all the drives, they just won't boot.

Any ideas on where to go from here?

 

[oneran]

OK, here's a fun one. I went and did a nono and followed random advice on the internet on how to get my pc to multi-boot Linux Mint and Window 8/10. I'm pretty sure what happened was I ran a program that re-wrote the boot sectors on all my drives and now my PC boots to an OS not detected screen.

Things I know:
Original setup was Windows 10 on a 256GB SSD.
Windows 8.1 Mirrored across 2 1 TB HD
-These 3 disks all still have their Windows file systems intact.
-Running the command line on a windows 7 install disk gets the following:
- diskpart recognizes all 3 hard drives as online and the correct sizes
- bootrec /scan os shows:

[1]   C:\Windows
[2]   C:\Windows
[3]   C:\Windows

-bootrec \fixmbr is successful
-bootrec \fixboot fails - "The volume does not contain a recognized file system..."
-bootrec \rebuildbcd fails - "The system cannot find the path specified"


Wanted: Linux Mint on a USB 3 external drive to be an optional boot. I still can't reliably boot to this disk. I've done it once, not sure how.


I have tried following the fix listed here under the section "Nuclear Holocaust," but it fails after

bcdedit.exe /import c:\boot\bcd.temp

with

The store import operation has failed.
The system cannot find the path specified.

I'm pretty much stuck at his point. I guess I could reinstall Windows, but that would be a huge pain in the ass, especially considering I have access to everything on all the drives, they just won't boot.

Any ideas on where to go from here?

I assume you followed instructions similar to RebuildBcd Command, is the C:\ drive where your boot folder is located? because if it isn't you'll have to change it.

When in diskpart use the list part command on all of your disks select the partition that has the system type partition assign it a drive letter using the assign command and try the instructions on the Microsoft support website using that drive letter.

 

[sharkmuncher]

I assume you followed instructions similar to RebuildBcd Command, is the C:\ drive where your boot folder is located? because if it isn't you'll have to change it.

When in diskpart use the list part command on all of your disks select the partition that has the system type partition assign it a drive letter using the assign command and try the instructions on the Microsoft support website using that drive letter.

Just noticed a typo in my above post. Should be:

[1]   C:\Windows
[2]   G:\Windows
[3]   G:\Windows

Not all C: drives

The repair Windows option doesn't work as it doesn't see any Windows installs. When I do diskpart using an install disk, I get the following:

list disk

Disk ###   Status       Size       Free       Dyn    Gpt
---------  ------       ----       ----       ---    ---
Disk 0     Online       238 GB     450 MB
Disk 1     Online       931 GB     100 MB      *
Disk 2     Online       931 GB        0 B      *

DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> list partition

Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset 
-------------  ----------------  -------  -------
Partition 1    Primary            238 GB  1024 KB

I should be able to boot into either C: for Windows 10 or G: for Windows 8.1. Disk 1 and 2 above are mirrored 1TB hard drives with Windows 8.1 installed.

I'm pretty sure my boot folders/partitions got deleted. I think I need to rebuild them, just not sure how.

 

[TheGamingBox]

so what would be the most likely thing to cause a computer to randomly not turn on

 

[malfcn]

Fucking svchost is always hogging resources.

 

[kennah]

Fucking svchost is always hogging resources.

Joke post? That's the stuff that makes Windows run. Go ahead and manually turn off a bunch of services if you're that worried about it.

 

[mojiimbo]

Any Excel/Spreadsheet wizards able to lend a hand?

I need something to itemize Christmas gifts with a running tally of how much I've spent per recipient and found this template on Google Docs that's really close but the summary on the right seems to break when I insert multiple new lines.

I know nothing about Excel/Google Docs so is going to Insert --> Row Above/Below even the right way to add more items to the list?

Also, I need to be able to add more recipients than just 4 but I don't know if that'll also break the spreadsheet.

https://drive.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0AmJBGxHxI5tfdGUzR2NfOVZqT28xWTViOHZudHFRZ0E&mode=public

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Charcoal]

Posted this on Reddit's TS, but I'm about to pull my hair out. Any ideas?

Hey TechSupport,
I consider myself pretty technically-savvy, but this has been throwing me for a loop. It's been about a week now, but every hour or so my PC freezes and requires a hard reset. It's blue screened as well as frozen the screen and all inputs, but I can still move my mouse. This has happened while browsing local files, as well as during gaming.
I thought it might be a driver issue, so I reloaded them but still nothing. I thought my SSD might be going out, but I haven't got any errors from it.
Has anyone ever delt with something like this?
i7 3770K at 4.6/ 16GB RAM/ GTX 980TI/ 256 SSD/ Windows 10
Also, this isn't a new build and has been stable for years.
Thanks for any help!

 

[opticalmace]

mail merge GAF - is there a way to do mail merge if the source excel is badly formatted?

eg ideally you'd want a record per row, with each column having a different field (name/company/address etc). But what if you've inherited a huge excel where each record is like this, all in one column

John Smith
Company inc
123 business road
London
W1A 1AA
.
Jane Smyth
..etc

with varied sizes (some longer so more rows, some shorter). Is there a way to parse that, or do you just have to trudge through and make a parallel version that is more suited for merging?

I don't know anything about excel but it would be pretty easy to do with a script (e.g. in python). Read each line, dump them into an appropriate array. I assume each entry is separated by something. Just a thought.

Posted this on Reddit's TS, but I'm about to pull my hair out. Any ideas?

Revert to stock speeds. If it goes away then it was an unstable overclock. Could also be a hardware fault, run memtes86 on your ram.

edit: ditto about your GPU if you've overclocked it.

 

[Charcoal]

Revert to stock speeds. If it goes away then it was an unstable overclock. Could also be a hardware fault, run memtes86 on your ram.

edit: ditto about your GPU if you've overclocked it.

Even if I've had my OC for the past few years? Thanks for your help!

 

[opticalmace]

Even if I've had my OC for the past few years? Thanks for your help!

Yup. And no problem.

 

[Charcoal]

Yup. And no problem.

Alright so, I down clocked to factory and ran a memory test. Everything came back fine, but I'm still having issues.

Any other ideas?

 

[opticalmace]

Alright so, I down clocked to factory and ran a memory test. Everything came back fine, but I'm still having issues.

Any other ideas?

Some ideas:
- start looking at the BSOD logs to figure out what triggered it (there are some tutorials online for how to do this).
- pop in an ubuntu live usb stick, if you still have the problems there then it's a hardware problem.
- do you have another PSU you could test?

edit: my guess is a hardware problem, based on what you said originally. You could try removing any peripherials/components that aren't strictly necessary. Between this and the Ubuntu test you'll be able to narrow it down.

edit2: if you run a stress test (say prime95) and it immediately locks up then it's definitely a hardware thing. What are your CPU temps like on load? When was the last time you cleaned out your cooler?

 

[D1renegade]

Oh wow, I found this thread at a perfect time. I've been trying to fix my grandmother's PC and I've hit a wall. I'll post a video later this week with more details

 

[truthiness]

Alright so, I down clocked to factory and ran a memory test. Everything came back fine, but I'm still having issues.

Any other ideas?

Have you monitored temperatures to make sure you are not overheating? I know you said it happens sometimes when you aren't doing much, but it still might be worth checking.

Another easy thing to try is to reseat the RAM if you haven't already. Just remove each stick and then put them back in.

You could also try testing with just one RAM stick at a time to make sure it's definitely not a memory issue.

 

[Yusaku]

For those with G-sync monitors, what are you supposed to set V-sync to in games? I don't see tearing with it either on or off. Does the setting even do anything anymore with a G-Sync monitor?