Support NeoGAF

[Lashley]

Is there a website or a program that can tell me if I can upgrade parts in my PC/Laptop without replacing the motherboard?

Wanting to play PC games more often, but my laptop is pretty low end, and my computer is mid tier for gaming but runs them really slow for whatever reason (I probably suck at keeping them clean and healthy or whatever)

Basically, any advice for a newbie looking to get into PC gaming more? Doesn't have to be high end, console equivalent graphics would be fine.

If I was to build a PC my budget would be about 400-500, but wouldn't be doing it until a few months time.

EDIT: Current, old rig:

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Are you using it via USB? I've had faulty case USB ports that fucked up the device installation, causing it to BSOD. Had to re-install Windows.

It's USB, but it BSODed it with both a front port and now in a motherboard port. It installed right and even used the software to make sure the drivers are correct as well. But yeah, my W10 experience has been fantastic until I installed this mouse and software. Also, the crashes are random; not at any certain point will I know if it will fail or anything.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Is there a website or a program that can tell me if I can upgrade parts in my PC/Laptop without replacing the motherboard?

You probably want this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1094682

 

[XShagrath]

Didn't realize we had a dedicated tech-support thread. I posted this earlier in the "I need a new PC" thread. This is probably a better place for it though.

Need some help troubleshooting a problem with my PC.

I was playing a game the other day, and the PC went to a grey screen with some lines and the audio was looping with a "bzzzt" sound. The only way I could do anything was a hard reset. I thought at first it was maybe some graphical settings, so I turned some things down and ended up with the same problem. I downloaded HWMonitor and noticed that my CPU was running about 50-60C under normal conditions, so I figured it was overheating. I bought and installed a Cooler Master 212 EVO (was using just the stock Intel cooler), and got it to boot again. Temperatures had dropped down into the 30-40C range under normal conditions. I loaded my game back up and it seemed to be running fine. Then I tried to alt-tab o check something and it locked up, and now the system won't turn on again.

My mobo is a BIOSTAR TZ77B (bought in 2012) and it's getting to the postcode 62 (or 29 if it's upside down), and that's all I've got. It won't even pop up the BIOS screen at all. I looked at the manual, and that postcode is not listed, so I'm not entirely sure what to do from here.

Any help would be appreciated.


EDIT: I took out the graphics card and just plugged into the onboard, and now I can boot just fine. To me, this means that it's either the graphics card or the PCIE slot itself. How would I go about testing that? I don't have another card to put in there.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Are you using it via USB? I've had faulty case USB ports that fucked up the device installation, causing it to BSOD. Had to re-install Windows.

After reinstalling all the software and drivers again, it still BSODed out of nowhere. Doing nothing and no where near my computer. Sending this fucker back. No point in trying to use something that clearly doesn't want to be fixed.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Sorry for the double post, but it seems I just got a DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION BSOD. And the mouse is not connected. I updated my firmware on my Samsung 850 EVO and hopefully this will fix things. I also noticed that this was supposed to be fixed with a patch on Microsoft's end. Anything else I can do to fix things?

 

[DarthWoo]

As I was browsing some old folders for old artwork to post in a thread here, I discovered to my horror that some of my image files seem to show up in the default Windows picture viewer as well as Photoshop at their original height, but with widths condensed to single digit pixels. Oddly enough, they appear just fine in MS Paint. Is there anything I can do to salvage these images?

 

[MikeE21286]

I keep getting a hard drive error from Windows 10.

The hard drive is not the hard drive with my OS on it, it's a secondary (2TB) hard drive that I used to install most of my Steam games.

Is there any way that I can back up this hard drive and do another available hard drive I have (I have another 2 TB available that I'm not using) and restore the games that I have downloaded?

I really don'w want to download 1.5TB of games again....

 

[RGM79]

I keep getting a hard drive error from Windows 10.

The hard drive is not the hard drive with my OS on it, it's a secondary (2TB) hard drive that I used to install most of my Steam games.

Is there any way that I can back up this hard drive and do another available hard drive I have (I have another 2 TB available that I'm not using) and restore the games that I have downloaded?

I really don'w want to download 1.5TB of games again....

What error?

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I have a feeling that I'm getting some sort of cascading driver failures now creating different reasons for my computer blue screening. Just got "BAD_POOL_CALLER" and earlier I got "DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION". Chrome and CS:GO are all randomly crashing with no warning and nothing popping up saying something happened. I reinstalled/updated my mouse software, graphics software, anything that my motherboard uses for W10, my sound card and whatever else that I could update. No idea what to do other than possibly just reformatting eventually...

Curious, is it possible with Windows 10 to reset it to a default/factory install, but keep some of my files?

 

[DarthWoo]

I was listening to music on my phone today, and at some point right after a song ended, it stopped playing. I tried going into the music player app to start something else, but it wouldn't. Now I see that the phone is giving me a blank SD card notification, and it wants to format the card. When I popped the card into my PC, it also wanted to format the card. I don't really have terribly much important information on this SD card that I can't restore to it via my PC, but there were a few photos I didn't yet back up. Is there any free software that I can use to attempt to recover data from what appears to be a corrupted memory card?

Edit: I've tried out TestDisk and PhotoRec. The first showed there were no partitions to recover, and Windows Disk Manager shows the entire thing as a healthy RAW partition. I did manage to recover all the photos from it, although they now have filenames that are just random numbers and letters. I guess there's no way to recover the card to the point that I could just stick it back in the phone and have it work as if nothing had gone wrong? Is there a high probability that the card is going to fail again or is it more likely that the phone cause this somehow?

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

As an update, I updated/flashed my BIOS, updated my network drivers and updated anything else that I could think of an I have yet to have a real issue today. First time in like a week.

 

[Futureman]

how do you guys sync with Google Drive on your Windows PC?

I use a Surface as a digital tablet and pretty much the only files that I want to back up are my Photoshop files. I downloaded the Google Drive app on the Surface... how do you guys stay synced? Is there a way to just say "Google Drive, keep "C:\Drawings" synced when I make any changes?

 

[ElTopo]

Okay, I upgraded to Win 10 specifically to play Killer Instinct when it's out. So as a test I went to see if I could buy Gears of War Ultimate Edition through the store and I'm greeted with this:

I just had it update and it tells me that everything is updated. Help.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Alternate between restart and check for updates until it magically works probably. I don't know any good way to fix windows update other than that. It's always been terrible. Also, updates don't roll out to everyone at the same time.

 

[Lord British]

System:

Nvidia GeForce 660
8gb Ram
i5 processor
Windows 10

GAF, this one's driving me crazy. I really hope someone can help.

My games have started to run slow, laggy - low FPS, 10/15, or slow motion in games with a locked framerate.

The weirdest part is; if I alt+tab out, then back into the game, it fixes the issue. Straight back to proper framerates.

I've been able to replicate this in WWE 2k16 (need alt+tab after every match though), Alan Wake American Nightmare, Splinter Cell Blacklist... all fixed with alt+tab. The only one it hasn't worked on so far is Sonic Lost World, and I think that's because it has a locked framerate.

I'm just worried I've installed a corrupt driver somehow, or changed a setting in Nvidia control panel.

I've got an old system, sure, but this has never happened before...

 

[TheGamingBox]

i think update KB3140741 for window 10 broke the task bar, cant open the start menu or right click icons

edit: nope, seems it just bugged out once and restart fixed it

 

[Ambitious]

My brother just got his first PC. Just in case he screws something up, I would like to set up some kind of automatic backup. But I'm not really familiar with Windows software anymore - which application would you recommend?

It should be free, update in a regular interval (I think daily should be enough), use delta/incremental updates instead of copying the whole drive and support network shares (because the backups should be stored on my Synology NAS). A nice UI for restoring specific files would be useful too.

In an older GAF thread, people recommended Crashplan. I had a look at its features, and unless I'm missing something it indeed seems to cover all my requirements. Any other suggestions?


edit: Apparently, it's designed to backup user files, and not the whole system. So you can't restore your computer to a previous snapshot. That's disappointing.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

It should be free, update in a regular interval (I think daily should be enough), use delta/incremental updates instead of copying the whole drive and support network shares (because the backups should be stored on my Synology NAS). A nice UI for restoring specific files would be useful too.

That is a tall order for free software. Personally I use Acronis Trueimage which is not free, but does all of those things. There is also something called Aomei that has a free tier. I've never used it personally, but it seems to do most of the stuff you want.

 

[DCX]

I acquired a Sony Vaio laptop VPCSC31FM. It has a BD ROM drive but it doesn't seem to work. I'm on Windows 10 now and the drive shows up in devices. Says the firmware is up to date but nothing happens when I insert a Blu-ray or DVD.

I hear the drive doing something ( assuming it was reading it )

What can I do to make sure the issue isn't software related? If it's drive failure then its no big deal.

DCX

 

[Walker_Boh]

I need your help gaffers. Lately my PC completely hard locks followed by a loud buzzing sound. It happened around a month ago and just happened again 15 minutes ago while I was on Gaf. It has happened while on Youtube, Gaf, and even during a game once. The hell is going on with my PC? My specs are Windows 7, AMD FX 6300, Sapphire Radeon R9 270x, G.Skill 16GB DDR3 Ram, Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P motherboard.

 

[Cuban Legend]

So Hello PC-GAF, having an issue and would like input/suggestions Please. Here's my setup:

MOBO: ASUS Crosshair AM2+ mobo on (Genie 1402 BIOS mod v3)
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz Stock
GPU: ASUS GTX 770 DCU2 1050/4000 core/mem OC
RAM: 2x 4GB DDR2-800
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 750G2
HDD: (OS) Old Seagate Barracuda 250GB 3.5in, (steam) Seagate Freeagent Go 2TB 2.5in
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium x64
DRIVERS: Latest as of 3/14/2016 with GeForce Experience

Been having an issue with my PC just straight up shutting off right when I boot a PC game, also with any game in Dolphin (No BSOD, no freeze, no audio loop). And I have to turn it back on with the power button to get it back up. It's like the instant the game window loads up and is about to load the intro logos it crashes (happens about 75% of the time) and it happens with different games at bootup. I'm left constantly rebooting my PC to retry again and again (sometimes a 4 or 5 times) before it'll boot the game up normally without a crash. But then when I exit that game and try to open another, the PC will still crash. Sometimes my buddies come over to play a local co-op game and I'm stuck there rebooting again and again, it sucks... sucks even when I just want to play a game myself. This used to happen randomly way back in the day when I had my original 8 year-old PSU before I got the new one, but it's started happening recently and more frequently, and only during game bootups.

This motherboard was released in 2006, I bought it almost 10 years ago on 09/18/2006... It's lived a long life so I'm not against a completely new build. And I have upgraded everything else in the build except for the Motherboard and the Case (old Coolermaster CM Stacker 830) but what could I do to troubleshoot this issue before I do anything rash? If I could fix this issue it would be a godsend. My PC is plugged into a Surge Protector and at idle my CPU/GPU are at 45/40c, topping out at 60/80c at full load. I take apart my PC and dust it and reapply the CPU's thermal paste every year.

What could be causing this? Could it be voltage fluctuations? Could my caps be going bad on my motherboard? Could my Hard Drive(s) be bad? Should I just backup my files and reinstall Windows 7 and reinstall all driver and retry? (haven't reinstalled windows in 3 years btw) Please help me out in troubleshooting this PC-GAF, where do i start? I'm pulling my hair out over here and I'm scared a large chunk of my tax return will have to go to towards a new build.

 

[SmartBase]

"Size all columns to fit"

How do I do this for every folder on the system? I upgraded my work laptop to Win 10 hoping that they'd finally added a universal File Explorer setting somewhere but no such luck. Any ideas? It's phenomenally annoying having to change the setting for each folder, and I can't seem to find the option to apply it for all subfolders.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

"Size all columns to fit"

How do I do this for every folder on the system? I upgraded my work laptop to Win 10 hoping that they'd finally added a universal File Explorer setting somewhere but no such luck. Any ideas? It's phenomenally annoying having to change the setting for each folder, and I can't seem to find the option to apply it for all subfolders.

There has always been this option. If you go to view->alternatives when in a folder, you can copy the settings for the current folder to all folders of the same type.

Edit: nvm. It seems to only apply to view types. Previous versions of windows had the option of setting the default of all folders to be the same though. Not sure if they removed it when folders started being aware of what type of files they contain.

 

[TheGamingBox]

uhh should i be worried that bird seeds fell into my battery back up

 

[Lashley]

What are some good programs for keeping my drivers up to date?

 

[#sorrynotsorry]

I think this is the right place for this.

I have an issue with my Asus laptop. It's running Windows 10 (originally 7). Yesterday, the wifi refused to turn on for more than a second. I turn it on and it immediately turns off.

I used Windows to update the drivers, which caused it to not turn on at all. I then removed the driver and it worked for a few minutes before I turned it off. When I turned it back on, it was back to the turn on and immediately off thing again.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Fou-Lu]

What kind of utility programs should I generally have on my computer to keep it clean and safe? As is I use Malware Bytes and Windows Defender and that's it.

My computer has also been running a bit slow lately, though I think my HDD might just be wearing out, so is there anything that might improve its speed a bit?

 

[B4s5C]

My PC has been crashing a lot. CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED Blue Screen and have had to uninstall my video drivers several times. Here is the log file:



CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (ef)
A critical system process died
Arguments:
Arg1: ffffe000407fb840, Process object
Arg2: 0000000000000000
Arg3: 0000000000000000
Arg4: 0000000000000000

Debugging Details:
------------------

TRIAGER: Could not open triage file : e:\dump_analysis\program\triage\modclass.ini, error 2

PROCESS_OBJECT: ffffe000407fb840

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN8_DRIVER_FAULT

BUGCHECK_STR: 0xEF

PROCESS_NAME: svchost.exe

CURRENT_IRQL: 0

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from fffff8018e456cfc to fffff8018df58760

STACK_TEXT:
ffffd000`206ac9a8 fffff801`8e456cfc : 00000000`000000ef ffffe000`407fb840 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KeBugCheckEx
ffffd000`206ac9b0 fffff801`8e241368 : 00000000`00000000 ffffe000`40bd5400 00000000`00000001 fffff801`8de9cfba : nt!PspCatchCriticalBreak+0xa4
ffffd000`206ac9f0 fffff801`8e2407bd : ffffe000`407fb840 ffffe000`407fb840 ffffe000`40bd5400 00000000`00000001 : nt!PspTerminateAllThreads+0x74
ffffd000`206aca50 fffff801`8e291374 : ffffe000`407fb840 00000000`c0000005 ffffe000`407fb840 ffffe000`40bd5080 : nt!PspTerminateProcess+0x101
ffffd000`206aca90 fffff801`8df62fa3 : ffffe000`407fb840 ffffe000`40bd5080 ffffd000`206acb80 ffffd000`206acb80 : nt!NtTerminateProcess+0x9c
ffffd000`206acb00 00007ffc`cfdd5654 : 00007ffc`cfd8c5d8 00007ffc`cfc880e0 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13
0000008a`7d37fbe8 00007ffc`cfd8c5d8 : 00007ffc`cfc880e0 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : 0x7ffc`cfdd5654
0000008a`7d37fbf0 00007ffc`cfc880e0 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000001 : 0x7ffc`cfd8c5d8
0000008a`7d37fbf8 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000001 00007ffc`cc4a7c70 : 0x7ffc`cfc880e0


STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
nt!PspCatchCriticalBreak+a4
fffff801`8e456cfc cc int 3

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 1

SYMBOL_NAME: nt!PspCatchCriticalBreak+a4

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: nt

IMAGE_NAME: ntkrnlmp.exe

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 56cd4410

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: X64_0xEF_nt!PspCatchCriticalBreak+a4

BUCKET_ID: X64_0xEF_nt!PspCatchCriticalBreak+a4

Followup: MachineOwner

 

[ElTopo]

Okay, I upgraded to Win 10 specifically to play Killer Instinct when it's out. So as a test I went to see if I could buy Gears of War Ultimate Edition through the store and I'm greeted with this:

I just had it update and it tells me that everything is updated. Help.

Still having this issue. I've restarted so many times now and sometimes it tries to update and tells me it got it. Sometimes it say's everything is already updated. I think it's update KB3140768. Problem is that if I try to download it manually through the Microsoft Update Catalog it doesn't do anything. For some reason. And of course you can't just go to the Microsoft Update Catalog site through Chrome because reasons.

I just want to buy a game M$, why make this process such a pain in the ass?

Is there any other way to grab update KB3140768 through any other means like a torrent or something?

 

[Persona7]

Anyone know what this means in my routers log

Send Deauthenticate (reason 15) - (insert random mac addess)

Discarded session, User - (same random mac address)

I am seeing dozens of these from a mac address I don't recognize and seems to be a motorola phone

 

[Apt101]

Anyone know what this means in my routers log





I am seeing dozens of these from a mac address I don't recognize and seems to be a motorola phone

In general terms something is failing authentication. Do you have your wifi configured to advertise the SSID? Could merely be a phone or tablet close by attempting to join your network using various well-known guest credentials.

 

[Persona7]

In general terms something is failing authentication. Do you have your wifi configured to advertise the SSID? Could merely be a phone or tablet close by attempting to join your network using various well-known guest credentials.

hmm...ok. is it normal to see dozens of these in a row? I see the same thing happened about 2 days ago as well.

 

[Jotaka]

hmm...ok. is it normal to see dozens of these in a row? I see the same thing happened about 2 days ago as well.

never advertise the SSID. It's just a bad idea as you can see. Someone trying get a free internet access and you never know what they try to access in the internet and it could be illegal content.

 

[Persona7]

never advertise the SSID. It's just a bad idea as you can see. Someone trying get a free internet access and you never know what they try to access in the internet and it could be illegal content.

Hiding the SSID might work for people who don't really know much about wifi but hiding your SSID doesn't really improve security. Similar to mac filtering, it just adds an extra annoyance and doesn't really improve security.

Either way, I have a strong wi-fi key so this shouldn't be an issue. I just wasn't sure what the logs meant.

 

[23qwerty]

Hey I've got kind of a weird issue, every now and then my whole system just stutters for a half second or so, visual, audio, mouse, everything. Seems to happen more frequently when I'm playing The Division, and presumably other intensive games, it doesn't seem to happen in League of Legends too much but it does seem to occur with the same frequency as not playing.

I've looked around a bit and saw a suggestion to see if CPU usage spikes when it happens but it doesn't. Neither does GPU.

Any thoughts?

 

[Mistake]

I have two problems. My computer is a Lenovo Y50-70
First is this
http://superuser.com/questions/810592/windows-8-keyboard-repeat-rate-resetting-on-wakeup

I followed the steps and it still happens. Not sure what's wrong.

The second thing is thin horizontal lines sometimes flashing across my screen. I already took the computer apart and pushed the screen cable in both ways. It seemed to work for a little bit, but then it came back. My computer is under warranty for 3 more months, but I'm currently in China and I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done. I will message Lenovo later tonight.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

Okay, I upgraded to Win 10 specifically to play Killer Instinct when it's out. So as a test I went to see if I could buy Gears of War Ultimate Edition through the store and I'm greeted with this:

I just had it update and it tells me that everything is updated. Help.

It seems like the easiest way to fix this is to run the windows media creation tool and do a reinstall of windows. It will keep all your settings and programs, but it will update to the latest version.

 

[Song of the Turtle]

I've been away for a week and suddenly my internet connection (via LAN, Win10) is gone. Troubleshooting tells me theres a network protocoll missing (never had this problem before).
So, I googled and did a bunch of stuff that worked for other people, including resetting Winsock and netsh, installing new drivers and disabling NetBIOS.

Still the same error. Do you have any other ideas?

 

[-KRS-]

So the 1TB WD Green I use for backup in my server seems to be on its last legs. It has worked for around 5 years, so not too bad considering the issues I've been reading people have with these drives.

But anyway, I'm now looking to replace it with a 3TB drive. So I'm simply wondering what is a reliable and relatively cheap drive these days? It doesn't have to be a 7200rpm drive since it'll just get accessed mostly over a 100mbit connection anyway. I'm mostly after reliability. I'm kinda weary about getting a new WD drive after reading reviews. Should I be?

 

[decaf]

Hi folks. Would really appreciate some help with this as I'm tearing my hair out at this point.

I have a Seagate (I know...) 8TB hard drive that I formatted as exFAT, which has now decided it's read only. I've looked for various fixes, and tried checkdisk via drive properties, the chkdsk command via cmd prompt as an admin, and the "attributes disk clear readonly" command in diskpart.exe as an admin. While the latter said "Disk attributes cleared successfully," the drive is still read only.

The files read just fine. It's a new drive and there is nothing physically wrong with it. I really don't want to copy 6TB of files to other drives, format it, then return them as I'm not sure I even have that amount of space across my other drives. Any other solutions you fine folks can think of?

Much ta in advance.

 

[bobbyrawlins]

Nevermind, I'm an idiot.

 

[Kilrogg]

Google Drive keeps failing at uploading new versions of a file I updated to the cloud. The file icon is marked by a red X instead of a green checkmark, and even when I try resyncing it fails. I have to create a copy of the file, let it sync properly (which it will), and then delete the original.

Anyone know why/how to fix this? Annoying as hell.

 

[Zee-Row]

I just bought an SSD for my PC. I wanna make the new SSD the boot able drive for my OS. Is there a way to do this if I already have Windows 10 installed on my regular HDD?

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

So remember all those issues I had a bit ago? Yeah, the motherboard is pretty well fucked. Can't recognize memory anymore. Just going to fully upgrade most of my system.

 

[RGM79]

I just bought an SSD for my PC. I wanna make the new SSD the boot able drive for my OS. Is there a way to do this if I already have Windows 10 installed on my regular HDD?

See this guide about cloning your existing Windows installation to your new SSD. If the data of the drive you're cloning is is larger than what the SSD can hold, you'll have to delete or move some stuff before cloning.

 

[MarkusRJR]

Is there any fix for the "display driver has stopped" issue for Windows 10. I just bought a brand new Dell Inspiron 15 with an i5 and an Intel 520 graphics driver. I've had it on for only 4 hours to update everything and it's blue screened twice. I finally got the latest Windows 10 update on it and haven't done much beyond that. Might have been fixed, but a lot of Surface users say the issue wasn't fixed for them with the latest drivers.

Looking it up online makes it look like the Intel 520 is awful or something (but it's on like every laptop).

Not sure if I should return it or keep it, if it's an issue with every Intel 520 device.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Posts with https links in img tags do not show an image for me in Chrome. I have to quote these posts to see the URL, however if the image is in a quote tag already then I cannot even see a URL. It's also not limited to one device or browser. I use firefox at work and have this issue there as well. They load in IE though.

So, any idea how to get https images to work in firefox/chrome?

 

[Jhoan]

I need help trying to solve an issue. My laptop's web browsers won't open at all after I hit system restore. None of the web browsers open at all. I've tried system restoring back to the most recent daye but no dice. I've looked at a few videos as well and am currently running a quick scan of Microsoft Security Essentials. Advice?

 

[Zepp Twofist]

So, any idea how to get https images to work in firefox/chrome?

Is the clock on your computer set right?