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[Zoidberg Jesus]

I have a Gigabyte P55 laptop with Windows 10 and a Nvidia GTX 965M graphics card, and I have 2 questions.

1. In dxdiag and Steam system information, it only lists the integrated Intel graphics for the display adapter. Is this normal? How can I tell if the Nvidia card is being used in-game?

2. Should I be using the latest driver from Nvidia Geforce Experience or Gigabyte's older recommended driver in their Smart Update application and on their website?

I'll provide more information if necessary.

 

[Rktk]

I have a Gigabyte P55 laptop with Windows 10 and a Nvidia GTX 965M graphics card, and I have 2 questions.

1. In dxdiag and Steam system information, it only lists the integrated Intel graphics for the display adapter. Is this normal? How can I tell if the Nvidia card is being used in-game?

2. Should I be using the latest driver from Nvidia Geforce Experience or Gigabyte's older recommended driver in their Smart Update application and on their website?

I'll provide more information if necessary.

Normally the on-board video in the CPU will take on explorer, the desktop and the graphics card will kick in for applications. The system will automatically decide which applications will use the GPU but you can also manually set this in the Nvidia control panel.

Most likely the CPU is being used to run Steam and it switches to the dedicated graphics in the game. You could monitor the usage of the GPU using a tool like MSI Afterburner.

 

[SeppOCE]

Cross-posting this from PC thread as I'm incredibly scared.

Okay so I'm frequently getting an issue where my computer will freeze and a loud buzzing sound will generate through the speakers. It never happens during gaming and only ever seems to happen if I'm watching Netflix/VLC or am doing anything while something is being downloaded/written to my hard drive or my SSD. I've ran a memtest and it doesn't seem to be the ram so I'm wondering if it could be a CPU/motherboard issue.

EDIT:

As soon as I posted this my PC froze and that was within 5 minutes of starting up and sending this reply. It took about 5 boot ups of my PC freezing at my motherboard screen and my login to my computer. One boot up didn't even display anything. I'm incredibly lost as to what could be happening.


EDIT: after typing that reply my PC restarted itself on the spot.

 

[oneran]

Cross-posting this from PC thread as I'm incredibly scared.

Have you tried running a basic chkdsk on your system drive? also what are your temperatures like?

 

[Baloonatic]

Seems like my CPU is maybe overheating. Going all the way to 100 degrees in Prime95, which I think is bad? Been getting lockups after playing particularly intensive games for certain amounts of time so that's what made me check it out.

I have a 4770k OC'd to 4.4 and a Corsair H100i. Wondering if the Corsair is knackered. So I'm thinking new thermal paste and cooling unit but just wondering if people could recommend what to go for and also give me an idea of how difficult it is to apply/install that stuff. Thanks.

 

[EdibleKnife]

Just experienced a wired issue. Was surfing and suddenly my internet cut out on everything (laptop & phone). Did a troubleshooting check and was kicked back that the "DNS server might be unavailable". My browser twice forces open a tab to something like "go.microsoft fwlink" I think but I close it since it wouldn't connect anyway. 5 minutes later every thing is back to normal but I'm scrubbing my comp with Malware Bytes just because that seemed a bit weird. Was this something on my ISP's end (AT&T btw) or something I should be worried about?

 

[eRonin]

Hi folks,

I recently bought a second-hand graphics card (ASUS DirectCUII 6950) which reportedly has a core clock of 810 MHz. However when I play games, it seems to cap itself to 725 MHz. I've cross-checked this on both Catalyst Control Centre and MSI Afterburner.

I opened up StarCraft 2 to run in the background while I took these screenshots to show the 725 MHz cap, and yes that isn't the most demanding game but I'm getting this cap as well while playing Rise of the Tomb Raider.

So, any ideas on why my GPU clock is being capped, and how I could alleviate that? Thanks!

EDIT: I think I've figured it out. I went into my mobo BIOS setup and saw a setting for computer performance set to "normal". I switched it to "performance" and now my GPU behaves as expected, including dropping to 250 MHz when it is idling rather than before when it was stuck at 500 MHz at the lowest.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

Hi All - quick question

is 1200$ reasonable for a repair to a mechanical failure ( r/w head) on a 1Tb external Lacie drive? or should i shop around?

cheers

 

[kennah]

Hi All - quick question

is 1200$ reasonable for a repair to a mechanical failure ( r/w head) on a 1Tb external Lacie drive? or should i shop around?

cheers

What. Are you trying to recover the data? Even then it seems a bit high.

 

[Kilrogg]

My Mac is stuck on the account loading screen.

Well, not my Mac, my boss's. We decided to update it. It was running 10.7.5 on a Macbook Pro that's probably from 2009-2010 (no earlier). Installing El Capitan took a while, but it eventually worked.

Now the computer boots up normally and gets to the account login screen just fine. But when we type the password and press enter, the loading wheel spins... and never stops. It can't go past the home screen.

What should I do? I don't know Macs well, I'm a PC user.

[EDIT] Nevermind, managed to fix it.

 

[ipitydatfu]

i have no idea whats going on with my desktop. the desktop is randomly flashing black and white squars in the middle of the screen


my computer itself is pretty old, the only thing thats recent is the new gpu and power supply

 

[Mattdaddy]

Is there any consequence to not activating Windows 10?

I just upgraded my hard drive to an ssd drive. I cloned the entire hard drive over... everything went fine but now I now I have this "Activate Windows" watermark thing on the bottom right of my screen... but when I try to activate windows its saying its not valid. I paid for it and did everything like all good and legal like... but I'm assuming the hard drive transfer messed it up.

Any consequence to not ever activating Windows?

 

[clem84]

I have a question about Facebook for those of you who know the service well.

I went through all the options menu on FB and didn't find a way to do this. I'm wondering if it's possible. Is there a way to set FB to not broadcast my activities to my friends list?

You know when you like or comment on a publication, your entire friend's list knows it right? I would prefer if they didn't. My likes, comments, as well as all my activities in public groups, I would prefer if they didn't see it. Ideally I would want them to see only the publications I create, or the stuff I share.

Is there a way to do this?

 

[clem84]

Is there any consequence to not activating Windows 10?

I just upgraded my hard drive to an ssd drive. I cloned the entire hard drive over... everything went fine but now I now I have this "Activate Windows" watermark thing on the bottom right of my screen... but when I try to activate windows its saying its not valid. I paid for it and did everything like all good and legal like... but I'm assuming the hard drive transfer messed it up.

Any consequence to not ever activating Windows?

On Win8 the only consequences were

- Being reminded once in a while to activate
- Not being able to customize certain things

That was pretty much it IIRC. I'm guessing it must be something similar for Windows 10.

 

[Keikaku]

Hey all, I've got what might be an interesting problem here and I wanted to get some help from you knowledgeable people

I have a second monitor that's a hand-me-down from a friend at work. I know it works but it's a really old Acer x223 and I have no idea if I can even get it working on Windows 10 with my current system. I've listed the specs below and if anyone can help me get this monitor working, I'll give you so many virtual cookies!

I generated the following list of the relevant parts for my current build from PCPartPicker so sorry in advance for the links:

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 390 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit)

Any ideas?

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Any ideas?

Are you connecting the monitor and it doesn't work, because your post doesn't actually say what and if there is a problem? And if you have connected it, with what kind of cable (and are you connecting it to the gfx card and not the motherboard)?

 

[Keikaku]

Are you connecting the monitor and it doesn't work, because your post doesn't actually say what and if there is a problem? And if you have connected it, with what kind of cable (and are you connecting it to the gfx card and not the motherboard)?

Sorry I wasn't more specific; it's late and I'm pretty beat. To answer your question, the monitor is connected with a VGA cable to my motherboard, not my graphics card. With this connection, it's not even being detected by Windows at all. There's no error message of any kind, it just doesn't even show up as being detected.

It's got power and the cable itself definitely works (as does the monitor). I've also done some checking and the latest drivers for the monitor that I see are for Windows Vista but I can't use them if Windows can't even detect the monitor.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Sorry I wasn't more specific; it's late and I'm pretty beat. To answer your question, the monitor is connected with a VGA cable to my motherboard, not my graphics card. With this connection, it's not even being detected by Windows at all. There's no error message of any kind, it just doesn't even show up as being detected.

You need to connect it to the graphics card. If the monitor only has VGA in, you need either a DVI-VGA or DisplayPort-VGA adapter. When a graphics card is connected, your motherboard video output gets disabled, and while you can enable it in bios you really don't want to since then all processing will be done by the CPU (can't remember if your cpu even has onboard graphics though).

Operating systems and such are not really an issue. All monitors work with any computer as long as you can connect them, and pretty much every computer made outputs VGA signal in some form, you just need the correct adapter.

Though if your monitor has another input type other than VGA, that will be better for image quality since VGA is an analogue signal and DP/HMDI/DVI are all digital.

 

[dodosaurus]

-solved-

sorry if this has been asked before but i just googled for hours an i would apprecaite some help.

i've recently build a new pc with the help of a roommate and now i just need to install windows with no other OS on it. i've bought a digital download of the iso file and a key for windows 7 home premium 64 bit and tried to install it with a usb stick.

but when i downloaded the usb windows 7 USB DVD tool to burn the .iso to the usb it said:
'file copied succesfully. however, we were unable to run bootsect to make the usb device bootable.'

i've tried re-formating the drive and trying again but it gave the same error. getting a different iso from the microsoft website didn't work,because you need a activated key. and to activate it you first need to install windows and activate the key from there.

i also cant burn it to a DVD because my new pc doesn't have a DVD drive to read the disc.

any help would be appreciated

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Click start menu, right click "computer" and select "manage" (in Win10, right click start menu and choose disk manager) . Check Disk manager if there are more then one partition on you usb stick. It might be that there is already a boot sector on it and you should be able to remove it from there.

 

[dodosaurus]

Click start menu, right click "computer" and select "manage" (in Win10, right click start menu and choose disk manager) . Check Disk manager if there are more then one partition on you usb stick. It might be that there is already a boot sector on it and you should be able to remove it from there.

it says it doesn't have a partition on it, does this mean that it needs a partition to get one partition or does in need no partition? also thanks for the quick respond.

 

[MrDaravon]

Bit of a longshot here but thought I'd ask since I'm not too good with hardware stuff. I'm currently stuck on a shitty over the counter desktop PC that I lucked out on on an amazing deal for, and I don't have the money to upgrade or build a proper (first) PC in the immediate future. This is fine, but I'm trying to figure out what games I can possibly play on this, and not only am I no good at figuring out game requirement specs to begin with, this thing has an APU which is making it harder. These are the specs:

I was directed to systemlabrequirements which tells me I can run for example Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls (which is the main thing I play on PC right now) and that I exceed both the minimum and recommended requirements. The game does run, but after messing around with every possible configuration of settings I can't get better than about ~20fps at everything maxed out, or a more reliable 30-35 at a combination of medium and low settings. Normally I'd maybe chalk it up to Diablo itself (especially since the game is sort of notorious for being unoptimized) but I have similar problems with Ultra Street Fighter IV on PC where the game runs fairly well but not 100% smoothly, and that game is ancient with not a lot going on.

Now I'm also looking at Rocket League on PC since I have tons of friends playing it there and that website is telling me again I exceed the recommended requirements but I don't know if that site just isn't accurate at this point, or if it's something on my end. I've got the Radeon Crimson Software Edition thing downloaded and I'm fully up to date driver-wise with that as well as with Windows. I've got everything within Crimson set to the lowest/performance settings I can. So at this point I can't tell if that site is just wrong, or if there's something on my end. I'm 99% sure I've fully gotten rid of any bloatware etc on this PC (I've done this multiple times in the past for years now) and I've checked for running processes and so on in that regard. If it IS something on my end I'm baffled, the only other thing I can think of is I'm actually using a 16:10 monitor (Hannspree HF199H) so I don't know if that's pushing the system too hard maybe? I've tried both with GPU scaling on and off, in Diablo specifically I get sliiiiiightly better performance with scaling on and running at a lower 4:3 resolution with black bars on the sides which I can deal with, but the bump isn't super significant.

Anyone have any guidance on if I should be getting better performance than I currently am and maybe some suggestions, or is that site just bullshit and I'm already getting what I should be out of it? Only thing I can probably do at this point without specific direction if it is something on my end is do an upgrade to Windows 10, then do a clean install of Windows 10 just to make sure I'm not missing something on here fucking things up.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

The specs you list are for a low powered laptop/notebook. If it's in a desktop form factor it is most likely been put there to sell it at a higher value then it is worth. The experiences you have seem to be in line with expected performance.

it says it doesn't have a partition on it, does this mean that it needs a partition to get one partition or does in need no partition? also thanks for the quick respond.

Not sure, you could try creating one and see if that helps.

 

[Rktk]

You could read into increasing performance in particular games by editing the game files, normally a cfg file that will allow you to adjust more graphics settings than the standard game settings - that will depend on the game though.

Maybe check out youtube videos for your specific APU, see what other people are getting out of it. Outside of that, as Zepp says, your experience seems about right. Only option is to build a new machine down the road, don't try to upgrade the rig.

 

[MrDaravon]

The specs you list are for a low powered laptop/notebook. If it's in a desktop form factor it is most likely been put there to sell it at a higher value then it is worth. The experiences you have seem to be in line with expected performance.

You could read into increasing performance in particular games by editing the game files, normally a cfg file that will allow you to adjust more graphics settings than the standard game settings - that will depend on the game though.

Maybe check out youtube videos for your specific APU, see what other people are getting out of it. Outside of that, as Zepp says, your experience seems about right. Only option is to build a new machine down the road, don't try to upgrade the rig.

Okay thanks! If that's the case that's fine, I just didn't want to kill myself doing clean installs of windows and all this other crap if that was the case so that's great to know, I guess that site's just not terribly accurate.

With those specs do you think I would be able to run Rocket League on PC however? Only thing I kinda care about at this point then, and there's no demo for me to try. I mean I guess I could do the Steam refund thing if it doesn't work but I'd feel like an ass haha.

 

[Cth]

Hi TechGAF, got a weird question for you.. but first some background..

CLIFF NOTES
I've been involved in some form of tech support for the last 20 or so years. In the 90s, it was my primary job, the others, I was the backup technician. I was laid off in 2011 (from engineering) and have recently gotten back into the IT field full time doing tech support. For the last 2 years I've done a lot of contract work, but nothing really challenging that a Google search couldn't solve. I have lots of MTAs, A+, Apple certs, etc but outside of the MTAs, they're kind of old.

THE QUESTION
That being said, does anyone have any advice/links/recommendations for someone getting back into IT after a long time? I've taken some A+ CBTs to see how I do.. I'm going through every page of this thread taking notes of links/etc in the meantime.

BONUS QUESTION
The company I'm going to work for is about to open new stores and they're looking to expand business into other areas. They're dabbling in custom build PCs, home security, cell repair, etc. I'm going to brainstorm some ideas and pitch them to the manager but wanted to know if anyone had any suggestions or advice on how to generate additional business/promotion for their companies. At the very least, I'm suggesting some form of training for end users.

Thanks!

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Do anyone have recommendations for software to make neatly formatted HTML e-mail newsletters? It needs to be easy to use for someone not very tech-literate (but with a somewhat firm grasp on normal office software). We tried Publisher, but it couldn't format HTML for shit unless you adhear to standards that are about as strict as just writing the code from scratch.

Doesn't need to be free, but at least have a trial so we can check it out.

 

[Symphonia]

If I record a video at 1080p60, but edit the video and render it at 1080p30, will there be a lag or sync error in the audio matched up with the video?

 

[plagiarize]

If I record a video at 1080p60, but edit the video and render it at 1080p30, will there be a lag or sync error in the audio matched up with the video?

There shouldn't be, but depending on the settings you choose when rendering the final version it could happen. I've seen it happen with certain settings and certain tools, but for the most part, you should be good to go.

 

[Symphonia]

There shouldn't be, but depending on the settings you choose when rendering the final version it could happen. I've seen it happen with certain settings and certain tools, but for the most part, you should be good to go.

I'm using an Elgato HD60 to record, and Adobe Premiere Pro CC to edit and render. I have my file format set to H.264, resolution set to 1080p, and FPS set to 30. I recorded Firewatch without realising I'd set Elgato to record to 60FPS.

 

[NumberTwo]

Hello TechSupportGAF,

I swap SSD's and HDD's often enough but am a bit ignorant on what type of external enclosure to buy for this particular SATA 7200.7 HDD. Is it possible to purchase one with a USB 3.0 connection? Thanks in advance.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000H3EJ2A/?tag=neogaf0e-20

 

[jotun?]

Is there any consequence to not activating Windows 10?

I just upgraded my hard drive to an ssd drive. I cloned the entire hard drive over... everything went fine but now I now I have this "Activate Windows" watermark thing on the bottom right of my screen... but when I try to activate windows its saying its not valid. I paid for it and did everything like all good and legal like... but I'm assuming the hard drive transfer messed it up.

Any consequence to not ever activating Windows?

I had a similar issue when I upgraded my CPU+motherboard.

If you open the System control panel (windows key + break), try doing "Change product key", then type in whatever key came with the copy of windows that you bought. I originally bought Windows 7 then upgraded to 10, and typing in my Win7 key did the trick.

 

[Pocks]

SSD performance is sluggish

Seems like my laptop is taking considerably longer to cold boot. The biggest red flag I see is that Speccy shows SATA II connection.. but that doesn't explain the ~30 second bootup time. I recall bootup times of sub 15 seconds originally.

 

[RaoulDuke]

one of my hard drives is no longer appearing suddenly. Doesn't appear in BIOS, i tried the freezer trick and still doesn't show up. I've swapped the data cable and power so i know its not that.

the only small grain of hope i have is that Recuva (drive/info recovery software) shows this:
local disk (\\.\harddiskvolume4) and when i try to scan it gives this message: failed to scan "unable to determine file system type"


any thoughts on how i might get some data off of this?

 

[mrmisterwaa]

one of my hard drives is no longer appearing suddenly. Doesn't appear in BIOS, i tried the freezer trick and still doesn't show up. I've swapped the data cable and power so i know its not that.

the only small grain of hope i have is that Recuva (drive/info recovery software) shows this:
local disk (\\.\harddiskvolume4) and when i try to scan it gives this message: failed to scan "unable to determine file system type"


any thoughts on how i might get some data off of this?

Do you have an external docking bay? There are a few options left.

If you cannot detect the drive at all. It might be time for you to consider professional recovery.

If you do not want to resort to that and still want to try to recover stuff. You can get replacement headers / controller and DIY.

Edit: I advise extreme caution when handling an open hard drive and replacing anything.

 

[freshVeggie]

Hi folks. I'm having the following issue ever since I got a new PC. It was the exact same on Win8.1 and is the same now that I did a clean Win10 install.

The issue is that when I start my PC, CPU usage and GPU utilization are not functioning properly. Even at idle, one core is always maxed out while all other cores are working as they should (only under load).
GPU is the other way. It just doesn't get utilized as well as it should. I get much worse performance thus.

The only solution which always solves this, is to restart after a PC start. I don't even have to restart in Windows. Going in BIOS when starting the first time and exiting(restarting) from there solves the issue.
After restarting/"double starting" the PC, CPU usage is again normal and GPU gets utilizied much more which leads to expectable performance in games.

Here screenshots showing the problem.

CPU usage after a single PC start (left) and after doing a restart (right)

Gaming performance after a single PC start (left) and after doing a restart (right)
(I had gaming instances where GPU usage was ~10% after a single PC start and ~90% after restarting the PC!)

Since the issue is the same under Win8.1 & Win10 and it gets solved when restarting/double starting from BIOS, I assume it has something to do with my motherboard maybe? I have no clue really why BIOS is the newest available firmware. But I want to solve this issue and not every single time double start my PC for it to work properly.

Please help!

My PC specs are following:
CPU: Intel i5-4690
GPU: MSI 970 Gaming 4G
MOBO: MSI Z97 PC Mate
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz

 

[freshVeggie]

The problem is solved thanks to a nice helper in another thread.
It was Windows after all and not the motherboard. Disabling "Fast Startup" in the Power Settings was the key.

 

[ZalXII]

Would i gain fps using my gtx650 as a dedicated physX accelerator alongside my GTX 970? Note that the 970 is in a 3.0 x16 slot and the only additional x16 slot is 2.0 and works as x4 technically.

 

[Symphonia]

I want to upgrade my laptop RAM as it's getting pretty sluggish when I'm editing videos and using Photoshop together, but I haven't the faintest idea where to begin. I used Crucial's system scan tool to aid and this is what it tells me.

Now, where it says RAM, it says I have 1 slot, yet below it has two sticks of RAM shown. So, do I have 2 slots or 1? And where it says 2GB and 4GB, can I only add a stick of RAM equal to the one I have? For example, replace the 2GB with another 4GB one, or can I simply add an 8GB stick of RAM?

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Seems like your laptop only has 1 according to what I could find on google. In that case you just replace it with whatever size you want. It's normally not an issue to have 2 sticks of different size either, but you don't get the same theoretical performance out of it (though in practical terms your system is usually bottle necked by other stuff)

Edit: Seems like you have 1 upgradeable slot and one slot you can't change. In that case, the latter part of my post still applies, but make sure total ram does not exceed 12GB.

 

[Symphonia]

Edit: Seems like you have 1 upgradeable slot and one slot you can't change. In that case, the latter part of my post still applies, but make sure total ram does not exceed 12GB.

I'm a complete noob when it comes to this, but do you know which one is upgradeable and which one is not? Like, can I keep the 4GB stick in there, and add 8GB to the other slot, reaching - but not exceeding - the maximum 12GB?

 

[Zepp Twofist]

I'm a complete noob when it comes to this, but do you know which one is upgradeable and which one is not? Like, can I keep the 4GB stick in there, and add 8GB to the other slot, reaching - but not exceeding - the maximum 12GB?

I don't know. Easiest way to find out is to open it and check what the ram in the slot says. The non-upgradeable one will be soldered to the mother board instead.

Though in either case, you can safely add a 8GB stick since there are no such thing as a 10GB stick.

 

[Symphonia]

I don't know. Easiest way to find out is to open it and check what the ram in the slot says. The non-upgradeable one will be soldered to the mother board instead.

Though in either case, you can safely add a 8GB stick since there are no such thing as a 10GB stick.

Is there any way of finding out without opening up the laptop? I want to absolutely make sure it's possible before getting my hands dirty.

 

[Symphonia]

Sorry for the double post, but I found a Reddit thread from someone who has the same make and model of me. The 4GB is hardwired in, the 2GB is replaceable. I'm going to find an 8GB RAM stick and upgrade to the full 12GB RAM.

 

[Primethius]

Google hangouts keeps installing on my Chrome every time I launch it. How can I get rid of this shit permanently?

 

[oneida]

Hi guys! today, I need your help.

Last Summer, I lost sound on my PC. I think the problem had to do with critical system sound files being quarantined and removed by AVG. It was never resolved, and I've given up trying to fix it. Instead, I am going to buy a new motherboard. Surely, this will fix the problem (...yeah?). When discussing the problem here, a poster mentioned that I should try to get a mobo which stores its sound files some place other than where my current mobo stores them. If that makes sense. I might be misremembering as this was a very long time ago.

So... I'm in the market for a new motherboard.
Here's what I need:
-USB 3.0 support

actually that's all I need. And, if possible, for the mobo to fit the criteria above, re: sound file storage.

My current mobo is a MSI 760GM-P34 (FX)

Thank you so much for your help in advance!

EDIT:
my CPU: AMD FX 8120
my GPU: AMD Radeon HD7900

 

[SecretMoblin]

I've been hit with a very frustrating issue just in the last few days:

My computer will grind to a complete halt, sometimes taking a long time to switch tasks and sometimes never switching at all. Sometimes it works normally, with me being able to open and switch programs at will, but the last two days have been a nightmare.

When I check the Task Manager, it shows my disk usage at a constant 100% despite my highest program doing negligible disk reading/writing. Restarting the computer does nothing; even if I immediately open just the task manager it shows disk usage at 100% and opening programs is a battle.



Could this be a sign of a failing drive? I haven't heard any noises or seen any other evidence. I'm using Windows 8.1 and a HDD on a PC built in late 2012 for reference.

 

[mrmisterwaa]

I've been hit with a very frustrating issue just in the last few days:

My computer will grind to a complete halt, sometimes taking a long time to switch tasks and sometimes never switching at all. Sometimes it works normally, with me being able to open and switch programs at will, but the last two days have been a nightmare.

When I check the Task Manager, it shows my disk usage at a constant 100% despite my highest program doing negligible disk reading/writing. Restarting the computer does nothing; even if I immediately open just the task manager it shows disk usage at 100% and opening programs is a battle.



Could this be a sign of a failing drive? I haven't heard any noises or seen any other evidence. I'm using Windows 8.1 and a HDD on a PC built in late 2012 for reference.

Run something to monitor the applications currently running and the memory hogs / disk usage by application.

Performance Monitor (Windows) can be helpful. There are a few other applications you can use. I personally used SSD Ready to see which applications were writing a lot to my SSD and figure out what was causing it.

 

[SecretMoblin]

Run something to monitor the applications currently running and the memory hogs / disk usage by application.

Performance Monitor (Windows) can be helpful. There are a few other applications you can use. I personally used SSD Ready to see which applications were writing a lot to my SSD and figure out what was causing it.

I've been looking at Resource Monitor through the Task Manager on Windows and it looks like "System" is pretty consistently at the top, writing quite a bit.

I'm wondering if it's related to the fact my HDD was almost full a short while ago; I deleted/uninstalled some stuff to free up space but the drive may be having issues wading through all the remnants.

So far I've run Malwarebytes and gotten a clean bill of health, I've "analyzed" the drive through Windows which showed 1% fragmentation, and I've tried just waiting it out to see if there's something in the background like a scheduled checkup or background download trying to finish.


The computer is functional right this moment but it's tough not knowing if/when the issues will lock me out of it for several hours

I guess I could use it as an excuse to upgrade to Windows 10 and get a SSD but I don't know how to move my Windows copy to the drive, etc. I just want things the way they were last week

 

[ChoklitReign]

Does anyone know powerline adapters well? I use this and until a few weeks ago it was a godsend for connecting my desktop when it's in a wifi dead zone. But about a week ago on Sunday or Monday it stopped working - the middle light representing the powerline connection went blank. Ideally all three light should be on and either solid or blinking. My router VERY frequently goes out for about a minute and reboots one or twice a day but I think this time it did something to the powerline network. There may have been a storm. Well after some intuitive thinking (today) I thought, What if I try another outlet? I know you shouldn't use surge protectors but I have to to connect the LAN port to one because 4 devices use the wall outlet. Never had any speed issues before with this method anyway. So I plugged the LAN powerline to the very next open outlet and all three lights light up! But I go up to my room where my desktop is and the middle light STILL isn't on. I thought, fuck it, I'll plug it into the surge protector I have up there. NOW all three lights are on. BUT. STILL. NO. INTERNET. I diagnose the Ethernet connection in Windows and I get this message with the details:

I think I have to download software but I'm not sure. Do you think my powerline network is good but it's the computer's problem? Right now the LAN powerline adapter has the middle light (powerline) blinking slowly and the bottom light (ethernet) is blinking rapidly, which it usually does. What are my options?

P.S. Uverse is literally evil