Support NeoGAF

[Combichristoffersen]

So, how do I 1) find out what kind of HDD I have, and 2) install a larger capacity one which will fit, and 3) copy my files/programs/OS over to it?

I don't need a new computer, but I'm out of capacity.

First of all, do you have a laptop or a desktop? Second, you can't just straight copy your OS and programs to another disk. You'll need to either reinstall Windows and your programs on your new disk, or use some sort of ghosting software to clone your current drive over to the new drive (but going by your question, I'd assume ghosting might be a bit too daunting for you).

 

[GhaleonEB]

First of all, do you have a laptop or a desktop? Second, you can't just straight copy your OS and programs to another disk. You'll need to either reinstall Windows and your programs on your new disk, or use some sort of ghosting software to clone your current drive over to the new drive (but going by your question, I'd assume ghosting might be a bit too daunting for you).

I have a desktop (Dell). I have the original OS disk, so I assume I can install that again....

Perhaps the right question is, my HDD is out of capacity. Is adding a new one with higher capacity the best option? The primary source of space is pictures and video (which I'm in the process of backing up on DVD).

 

[MrBig]

I have a desktop (Dell). I have the original OS disk, so I assume I can install that again....

Perhaps the right question is, my HDD is out of capacity. Is adding a new one with higher capacity the best option? The primary source of space is pictures and video (which I'm in the process of backing up on DVD).

Then yeah you should be able to just add in another HDD for storage. Open up your case and see if they included spare SATA ports, SATA power, and drives bays, which should standard but there's no way to be sure with Dell. It'll be as simple as plugging in the new HDD and creating a partition in Disk Manager. If not you'll have to swap out the HDDs, backing up all your data to a USB HDD and then copying it over after installing windows.

 

[Maklershed]

Howdy GAF - I have a question on behalf of my dad. He has an HP laptop (Pavilion 6408nr I think) and when he tries to turn it on the laptop just turns itself off and on and off and on. Any idea what the problem might be?

Also, assuming its not an easily fixable problem, any suggestions for a new and relatively cheap laptop for a guy that uses it mostly for the internet but also to horde pictures and to do accounting/tax work?

 

[bucknuticus]

Ok posting this for my buddy since his computer is SOL.

None of his USB ports no longer work, disc drives doesnt work at all. Ive had him go around in the bios and mess with things so I know the USB ports work at some point, just not in windows. Had him use a PS/2 keyboard to get to device manager and mess in there, had him reset the CMOS battery and still nothing.

Anyone have any other tips?

 

[GhaleonEB]

Then yeah you should be able to just add in another HDD for storage. Open up your case and see if they included spare SATA ports, SATA power, and drives bays, which should standard but there's no way to be sure with Dell. It'll be as simple as plugging in the new HDD and creating a partition in Disk Manager. If not you'll have to swap out the HDDs, backing up all your data to a USB HDD and then copying it over after installing windows.

It looks like there is an extra drive bay. Here's my HDD with the second, empty slot below it:

I can't see it too well yet but I assume I can add a second drive given the setup. I'll need to pull out the DVD drive to access it.

This is the HDD label - will any SATA drive do, or is there a specific flavor I should be looking for? The actual install I can do, so I think at this point I just need to make sure I get the right type of HDD.

Thanks for the help.

 

[MrBig]

Howdy GAF - I have a question on behalf of my dad. He has an HP laptop (Pavilion 6408nr I think) and when he tries to turn it on the laptop just turns itself off and on and off and on. Any idea what the problem might be?

Also, assuming its not an easily fixable problem, any suggestions for a new and relatively cheap laptop for a guy that uses it mostly for the internet but also to horde pictures and to do accounting/tax work?

Could be a faulty battery/power supply. Does it reach post and shut down or just shut down randomly in the OS?

Ok posting this for my buddy since his computer is SOL.

None of his USB ports no longer work, disc drives doesnt work at all. Ive had him go around in the bios and mess with things so I know the USB ports work at some point, just not in windows. Had him use a PS/2 keyboard to get to device manager and mess in there, had him reset the CMOS battery and still nothing.

Anyone have any other tips?

Trying going back to a restore point from before this started happening. It's a software problem if they still power before the OS loads.

It looks like there is an extra drive bay. Here's my HDD with the second, empty slot below it:



I can't see it too well yet but I assume I can add a second drive given the setup. I'll need to pull out the DVD drive to access it.



This is the HDD label - will any SATA drive do, or is there a specific flavor I should be looking for? The actual install I can do, so I think at this point I just need to make sure I get the right type of HDD.



Thanks for the help.

Yep, you can fit any 3.5" SATA HDD in that bay. I recommend a Samsung F3/F4 (1TB/2TB) or a WD Caviar Black.

You need to make sure you have a spare sata power cable coming from your power supply, or a spare molex connection which you can get a cheap sata power adapter for. Then you need to check if you've got a spare sata port on your motherboard. You'll have to get a SATA cable yourself though (online or at any local electronics shop, they're super cheap), the HDD is just shipped with the HDD and nothing else. SATA power on the left, SATA data on the right.

 

[Maklershed]

Could be a faulty battery/power supply. Does it reach post and shut down or just shut down randomly in the OS?

Hmm don't know I'll have to ask. Would that be the rechargeable battery or is there a deeper internal battery?

 

[Hero]

Alright GAF I'm a little stumped.

My uncle just updated Windows 7 a bit and for some reason it's having issues playing videos on Youtube.com and only there. It can play videos fine on Hulu.

When you click on a video all that shows up is a black box and if you right click it the "movie not loaded" section is greyed out and it displays the Adobe version. This happens on Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

I have already tried deleting the cache/cookies/history, reinstalling Adobe Flash 11, rebooting the computer, uninstall/reinstalling the browsers, unchecking accelerate hardware in Flash Settings, and even tried a Windows Restore from a few days ago.

Nothing works. Googling this doesn't seem to be effective as I've done every other common answer for this. Any other ideas?

 

[clav]

Alright GAF I'm a little stumped.

My uncle just updated Windows 7 a bit and for some reason it's having issues playing videos on Youtube.com and only there. It can play videos fine on Hulu.

When you click on a video all that shows up is a black box and if you right click it the "movie not loaded" section is greyed out and it displays the Adobe version. This happens on Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

I have already tried deleting the cache/cookies/history, reinstalling Adobe Flash 11, rebooting the computer, uninstall/reinstalling the browsers, unchecking accelerate hardware in Flash Settings, and even tried a Windows Restore from a few days ago.

Nothing works. Googling this doesn't seem to be effective as I've done every other common answer for this. Any other ideas?

Uninstall Flash completely. (Active X, Firefox Extension, etc.) Reboot. Do not reinstall.

Only use Chrome as Chrome automanages/updates Flash.

What does chrome://plugins/ say about which Flash extension is used (click the details button)?

What is the computer's graphics card?

 

[PaulLFC]

I got my PC a couple of years ago when Blu-Ray drives were still quite expensive, so it has a Samsung DVD writer in it at the moment. I'd like to upgrade to Blu-Ray soon though as the prices have come down a lot.

I have almost zero PC building experience, so if I bought this drive for example, would it be as simple as just swapping out the DVD drive for the Blu-Ray drive, and I can do a straight swap of the cables from the DVD drive to the Blu-Ray drive, or does it need extra cables or steps to connect it?

Also, I'd primarily want the drive for watching Blu-Rays, but I've heard you can't play Blu-Rays out of the box without compatible software because of the Blu-Ray license or something - which software is the best to use? Are there any free options, or are they all paid programs?

Thanks

Anyone?

 

[Hero]

Uninstall Flash completely. (Active X, Firefox Extension, etc.) Reboot. Do not reinstall.

Only use Chrome as Chrome automanages/updates Flash.

What does chrome://plugins/ say about which Flash extension is used (click the details button)?

What is the computer's graphics card?

What I've done as a temporary fix is switched his browser support on Youtube to HTML5 and that seems to work fine but I still am baffled by the Flash being broken on this.

The chrome://plugins/ says

"Flash (2 files) - Version: 11,3,300,257
Shockwave Flash 11.3 r300"

It's weird because Flash works on other sites including the one that is the test page with the 3D logo bouncing around but on Youtube it wasn't.

The computer itself is an Acer Aspire 7535-5020 and the graphics card seems to be an ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics Card and I tried searching for a driver update on Acer's site which there were none and even had Windows search for a driver update which said it was running the most current version.

If the problem comes up again or persists I will try uninstalling Flash completely again but if you or anyone else can think of something else let me know. Much appreciated for the help!

 

[GhaleonEB]

Yep, you can fit any 3.5" SATA HDD in that bay. I recommend a Samsung F3/F4 (1TB/2TB) or a WD Caviar Black.

You need to make sure you have a spare sata power cable coming from your power supply, or a spare molex connection which you can get a cheap sata power adapter for. Then you need to check if you've got a spare sata port on your motherboard. You'll have to get a SATA cable yourself though (online or at any local electronics shop, they're super cheap), the HDD is just shipped with the HDD and nothing else. SATA power on the left, SATA data on the right.

I've done a bit more poking around, and I'm not sure if I've got the spare space for the power cable. The SATA drive is powered from the power supply, not from a cable to the motherboard.

I think I'm good for data ports, the blue cable here comes from the HDD and there are two spare identical ports next to it.

I'm not sure what to do for power for a spare HDD, though. Here's a couple other shots of the board - I'm not sure which if any ports are the rights ones for power.

Any ideas?

 

[MrBig]

You're looking for another one of these.

It should be on the same line as the one that's plugged in to the current HDD, but it may be on a separate line and tucked away somewhere. It should be there somewhere since they have the bay for another drive bay

e: top left of this picture has one laying there, unless that was to your optical drive

 

[clav]

If you can't find another power cable, you may need to purchase one of these.

Expensive, but it'll do.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002N2EHVQ/?tag=neogaf0e-20

edit: Looks like you do have one lying around.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Yeah that was the DVD drive power cable, I had to take it out to get a good view of the rest of the board and see the HDD bays. Is it possible there's another cable tucked inside the power supply housing? I didn't see any spare cables laying about, and all the power cables went into the power supply. I can get in there and see.

Do you see anywhere on the motherboard to plug power into?

Edit:

If you can't find another power cable, you may need to purchase one of these.

Expensive, but it'll do.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002N2EHVQ/?tag=neogaf0e-20

edit: Looks like you do have one lying around.

Ah, I can just split the one going to the current HDD. That should work. Unless there's a reason not to, I'll pick that up and a new SATA drive that MrBig recommended.

 

[Reseil]

Anyone?

As long as the DVD drive you are replacing is SATA, then yes. It's a simple swap out process. Most likely it's SATA, but double check before you do anything.

I have both Cyberlink Power DVD and Arcsoft's version of player software. Unfortunately, there is no free solution, so compare those two and see which has the features that support your needs. You may not need all the extra stuff the Ult version has, so go from there. I believe Corel still makes a player, but I had their version from a few years ago and it really paled in comparision to Cyberlink and Arcsoft TMT.

 

[MrBig]

Ah, I can just split the one going to the current HDD. That should work. Unless there's a reason not to, I'll pick that up and a new SATA drive that MrBig recommended.

That should work, yep. If not replacing the old drive wholly would be your only option and you'll be out a whole $5.

 

[Empty Space]

I'm looking for a way to limit an individuals data usage on my network by MAC address, but haven't been able to find a real solution. All I've seen is how to monitor usage not limit. Does anybody have an idea of how to do this? Is it even possible? If its not do you have an idea of what I could do.

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

I just did a system backup using the built in Windows 7 Utility and I'm having issues.

#1. It's INCREDIBLY slow. Took about 15 hours to back up 550gb of data.
#2. The end result ended up being about 940GB. The system image was like 500. I barely even have that much data on the HDD to begin with.

What happen?

 

[squall23]

I have a problem in regards to AMD drivers. This computer is on Vista 64-bit.

So I decided to update drivers after god knows how long because this old driver has been effective despite every game I use through it. Now comes the problem. I deleted the old driver and CCC along with it. I downloaded the new 12.6 beta driver, ran it and installed it. Except now, CCC didn't install, and the C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies folder is empty even though installer specifically said it will install there.

What's even more odd, when I looked at the list of components during installation, it didn't give me the option of installing the driver. It just wasn't there for some reason.

Please help.

EDIT: I have managed to install CCC, but now a new error saying "Driver Install: The inf file was not found" is showing up. So I decided to manually update the drivers through device manager. The weird thing is that it's telling me the device is up to date. Any ideas?

FINAL EDIT: I was able to install everything successfully. What caused this was that my initial install of 12.6 did not for some stupid reason replace the old drivers. So from now on it's wipe and update for me.

 

[rouken]

i just had the weirdest problem with my pc.

i have 2 sticks of ram set to dual channel mode for the last 2 years.
then last week after i restarted my pc, it didn't show POST but instead the beep sound came up. i looked it up in the motherboard manual and it says that its a ram problem.
so i tried to swap the two and also just boot with one stick but to no avail its still the same beep. then i borrowed my neighbors ram and to my surprise it actually booted up my pc.
i tried my pair of ram in my neighbors pc and it did work there.

so what the hell just happened? is my old ram rejecting my motherboard?
help me pcgaf

 

[PaulLFC]

As long as the DVD drive you are replacing is SATA, then yes. It's a simple swap out process. Most likely it's SATA, but double check before you do anything.

I have both Cyberlink Power DVD and Arcsoft's version of player software. Unfortunately, there is no free solution, so compare those two and see which has the features that support your needs. You may not need all the extra stuff the Ult version has, so go from there. I believe Corel still makes a player, but I had their version from a few years ago and it really paled in comparision to Cyberlink and Arcsoft TMT.

Thanks I'm pretty sure it's SATA, but I'll double check before I upgrade. Thanks for the software recommendations too, I did have an old version of PowerDVD I got free with a DVD drive but that was years ago, I'll price up the latest version.

Edit: Cheapest seems to be PowerDVD 11 Standard at £20 delivered on Amazon. Although PowerDVD 12 is out, that's 3 times the price, and I read it's had Blu-Ray playing capability since version 9 or 10, so I assume it should be fine. Most blu-ray drives say they come with "software", but not what software, so I may wait until I get the drive delivered and see, so I don't end up buying something that may already be included in the package.

 

[DarkLegion]

Hello, I've been really abusing the media sharing feature in Windows Media Player 11 to stream videos from my 360. Suddenly today it just stopped working. Whenever I tried to enable media sharing in WMP11 it allows me to check the box and allow/deny the 360. When I attempt to verify that it's checked I get the message:

Media sharing has been turned off because a required Windows setting or component has changed. For additional assistance, click Web Help.

I've uninstalled/reinstalled WMP11 which has led to my xbox not detecting my PC entirely and I still get the same problem when trying to turn on media sharing. I'm running on Windows XP, I've checked that the wmp network sharing service is active. Nothing is working. Any help?

If it matters I've been turning on/off sharing of folders so I could transfer files between my laptop and desktop right before this happened, but after I was done I set everything back to normal.

EDIT: Okay now it stays checked and I get the following error:

Media sharing is currently disabled, either because the service is not running or your firewall settings have changed. To restart sharing you must first confirm your sharing settings

EDIT2: Okay sorry for multiple edits but I was able to get it to work again >_>

 

[Swig_]

My laptop died on me last night. No warning, just turned off completely. After checking to see if I could get it to turn back on a few times, I removed the battery, unplugged it and let it sit overnight.

It is an ASUS G50VT-X1. It has a light that is always lit, even when turned off, above the keyboard which is NOT lit now.

I don't have much experience troubleshooting laptops.. my last one is still running. Any ideas for things I could check to see if I can get this one running again? I'm not sure where to start, especially since it seems like it's not getting any power whatsoever.

 

[Roofy]

Hi TechSupportGAF

I am officially stumped.

I have two monitors. One is run by my graphics card, the other is run by the chip on the motherboard. My desktop is set to use the second display as an extended monitor.

When I work on the first monitor powered by the on board graphics, my computer often crashes leaving only a screen like this

sorry for the bad image quality

every time it ends up like this and its become more and more of an issue. It always takes the page and looks as if it shreds it.

I'm entirely out of ideas on how to fix this. I've tried so many things GAF is my last hope.

Please GAF, any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated

 

[AlteredBeast]

My wife's Windows 7 laptop is crapping up my life out of the blue.

She somehow got a Trojan/hijacker/fake antivirus program on there, despite the fact that she never deliberately downloads anything. This one is called Live Security Premium and attempts to make itself look just like a real Windows antivirus product. I booted into Safe Mode and downloaded Malwarebytes, ran it and it found like 10 warnings, which I quarantined. I boot up into regular boot mode and now after a few minutes using the computer, it will say, "Windows experienced a critical error and will restart in one minute" The taskbar still shows that Live Security Premium is installed and Microsoft Security Essentials will pop up in the bottom right corner and say that I need to restart the computer for the changes to go into effect. Ensue endless loop.

What say you, all-knowledgeable TechSupport GAF? please help!


EDIT - it evens does that crap if I boot into safe mode with the boot loops and critical errors.

 

[Vyer]

My wife's Windows 7 laptop is crapping up my life out of the blue.

She somehow got a Trojan/hijacker/fake antivirus program on there, despite the fact that she never deliberately downloads anything. This one is called Live Security Premium and attempts to make itself look just like a real Windows antivirus product. I booted into Safe Mode and downloaded Malwarebytes, ran it and it found like 10 warnings, which I quarantined. I boot up into regular boot mode and now after a few minutes using the computer, it will say, "Windows experienced a critical error and will restart in one minute" The taskbar still shows that Live Security Premium is installed and Microsoft Security Essentials will pop up in the bottom right corner and say that I need to restart the computer for the changes to go into effect. Ensue endless loop.

What say you, all-knowledgeable TechSupport GAF? please help!


EDIT - it evens does that crap if I boot into safe mode with the boot loops and critical errors.

Whatever malware bytes finds, delete don't quarantine. If possible get something called rkill and Combofix on there. When you search Combofix use the bleepingcomputer link as there are some bogus ones. rkill kills any malware processes for better scans/so you can work. Then run Combofix. You may need to uninstall any antivirus on the machine so Combofix can run correctly.

Those are the best virus killing combinations I have found. Otherwise be prepared for a reload.

 

[AlteredBeast]

it appears that your recommendation has worked, if you PM me your address (or email address if you are paranoid) I will send you a mix of music that will make you smile.

 

[DarkFlow]

Hi TechSupportGAF

I am officially stumped.

I have two monitors. One is run by my graphics card, the other is run by the chip on the motherboard. My desktop is set to use the second display as an extended monitor.

When I work on the first monitor powered by the on board graphics, my computer often crashes leaving only a screen like this

sorry for the bad image quality

every time it ends up like this and its become more and more of an issue. It always takes the page and looks as if it shreds it.

I'm entirely out of ideas on how to fix this. I've tried so many things GAF is my last hope.

Please GAF, any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated

Have you tried running them both off the graphics card? I don't think having them run off two different ones will work well, mainly because they won't want to play nice with each other.

 

[decaf]

Hey Tech GAF,please help! I'm going mad trying to figure out why two external passport drives aren't showing up in My Computer.

In Disk management they both show up, only 100% empty and without a file system. As I said, I've tried two drives. One 320GB drive and one 1TB partitioned drive (pictured).

My other full-sized external HDDs (each of which have their own PSUs) are working just fine. I've tried booting up Windows 7 x64 with only these drives plugged in to check it's not a power issue. Still nothing.

Any ideas?

Edit: Just needed to assign them a drive letter. Derp.

 

[Vyer]

it appears that your recommendation has worked, if you PM me your address (or email address if you are paranoid) I will send you a mix of music that will make you smile.

haha, sweet

 

[Roofy]

Have you tried running them both off the graphics card? I don't think having them run off two different ones will work well, mainly because they won't want to play nice with each other.

I havent because the graphics card only has three outputs: 2DVI and an S-Video (I know this really shows the age of my PC...) and my second monitor is HDMI

I'm sort of doubtful that would be an issue because I've been running like this for years now with no issues. I could be entirely wrong and have just been slowly destroying my computer all these years though.

I'll look into an adapter to see if I can run both monitors off of one card.

Any other suggestions though?

 

[Dimorphic]

I have a 21.5" mid-2011 iMac and an Alienware M14x. I was wondering if it's possible to use the iMac to display the m14x? Essentially have the iMac as a second monitor?

 

[GWX]

Guys, I need help.

I have a spare wireless router here, a TP-Link TL-WR941ND model. I use a wireless modem and router TP-Link TD-W8901G downstairs. My computer, which finds itself upstairs, connects to the router with a LAN cable. My will is to use my spare wireless router, which have 4 LAN ports, as a mere hub. I tried to connect the modem to it with the LAN cable, and then connect it with my computer with another, but I can't find a way to make it work. When I do that, the internet stops working using both wired or wireless connections. Is there a way to use that router as a hub or it's just wishful thinking? I mean, something as simple as a hub... It should work, right?

 

[Volimar]

My computer has froze a few times at start up the past few days. Today, it restarted on its own and asked if I wanted to start in safe mode. I did, but it froze like 10 seconds after Ichose that option in the middle of loading files. I did a system repair and restored to an earlier version and it installed fine. My firewall said that it's files seemed to have been tampered with and advised me to search for malware. I ran malwarebytes and MSE and neither found a problem, so it might have been from using the system repair and going to an earlier version... I ran CCleaner and it cam up with a few issues. One of them was in the start up folder about a missing file. It said it might have been from uninstalling a program, but I haven't uninstalled anything lately. Anyway, I let it fix the problem, though I probably should have looked up what it did first. Any other tips for what I could do to make sure this doesn't keep happening? I use Vista if that's important.

Also, though it's not a fix, I've considered just leaving my computer on all the time (in sleep mode when I'm not using it). Would that be okay? How much electricity does a computer in sleep mode suck up?

 

[Atruvius]

I have a wireless mouse and keyboard combo bought in 2007. Microsoft Wireless Multimedia Keyboard 1.1 to be exact. I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

I just got a new computer and I'm diving into the world of PC gaming for the first time. The problem is I can't move and turn at the same time.

I hold down "W" and turn my character at the same time and the character just stops moving. I have to let go of the button and press it again for the character to start moving again.

Should I go buy newer keyboard and mouse?

Edit. Downloaded newer drivers. Seems to work now. *Crosses fingers*

Edit 2. Nope. Started again...

 

[Moppet13]

Hey I have been having an issue with my PC. I noticed my games are crashing frequently without an error message and rarely a BSOD. The BSOD were mostly caused by crossfire and Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl so that wasn't a big deal. However my other games have just been freezing and becoming non responsive. I am pretty sure all my drivers are up to date too.

 

[Moppet13]

Oops double post too many tabs.

edit: I also checked to see if it was an over heating issue and nothing seems to be running too hot.

Edit 2: Nevermind, I ran coretemp and GPUtemp on my second monitor while I tried playing one of these games. The GPU got up to 61C which wasn't bad at all. But the CPU got up to 80-90 when the crashes happened. Is it possible my CPU is running too hot and causing the crashes?

 

[Jagxyz]

How can I reliably split a 14.3 gb .dat file (GuildWars2) into two or more parts?

 

[MjFrancis]

I have a Windows 7 64-bit desktop that has had problems with blue screens. It went about for a few months every few weeks so I never cared to investigate why. Then it started happening with increasing frequency, to the point where the computer had trouble starting. It would hang up before it would hit the Windows logo or oftentimes within ten minutes of booting up. Useless.

The first blue screen of death was usually IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

I thought it might be the RAM (this is important for later) but I ran a memtest and it came up clean. DDR3 4x2GB sticks. Two were installed about nine months ago, the others three years ago. All four are the same.

I went the rounds with my drivers but since I have my programs on my SSD (C:\) and documents and STEAM on my D:\ drive I just went for the nuclear option. I reinstalled Windows 7 and of course, I still had problems. Now, more than ever, the computer wouldn't boot or would get stuck in an infinite booting loop at the start of things before just crapping out. I'm sure stuff like that's great on my hardware.

So in short order I purchased a new power supply for no other reason than I wanted a new one and since it wasn't the RAM I figured what the hell. Hindsight being 20/20 I have no idea why I assumed issues with the PSU. Three days later my PSU is in from Newegg, I do some housecleaning and I'm still smart enough to install a PSU correctly. The computer works for six plus hours straight.

Then I get a new blue screen that says PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. The computer hangs up before the windows logo every time from here on out. The description I found for this is:

Faulty hardware, including RAM (system, video, or L2 cache).

SO, I'm reading up on blue screen problems even more and I'm going to start taking RAM sticks out one at a time and seeing what happens. I'll then double check that I have the PSU in right, though I don't figure how I could have got that wrong if it was running and playing nice for hours otherwise.

I won't be able to work on my computer for another twelve plus hours, but if anyone has any ideas for me I'm open. I'm really hoping it's not a problem with the motherboard. Should I be able to get Windows open I'll try and get a dump file for others to examine.

Perhaps this post will remain a monument to my ignorance as a monkey swinging tools in the general direction of a computer in hopes it'll start working. I haven't tried humping it just yet, but the day is still young. If anyone can illuminate a likely problem or point me in the right direction I would be immensely appreciative.

 

[wolfmat]

It really might be the graphics card. I had issues like this after overclocking my GPU.

 

[MjFrancis]

If it is, that's awesome because I just jumped from a 430W PSU to a 650W PSU. More options.

Of course, it costs money, which sucks since I'm not made of it. Not yet, at any rate.

 

[Erasus]

Is it possible my CPU is running too hot and causing the crashes?

Yes, 80-90C is way too high.

Clean it and if you can reapply thermal paste

 

[Taffer]

How can I reliably split a 14.3 gb .dat file (GuildWars2) into two or more parts?

Use an archiver to make two .zip files? You can use 7zip to create an archive from the file, set the compression to 'none' and set the 'split to volumes, bytes' field to 7.2Gb.

 

[Dimorphic]

So I just hooked my M14x up to a BenQ 21" monitor. I'm currently sitting the monitor on top of the laptop but I was thinking this might not be good for the laptop screen. Anyone know if it will damage it or not?

EDIT: Doesn't matter I decided to play it safe and not do it.

 

[PaulLFC]

I was looking through my external HDD today and noticed that a folder named "624dfe8657743bb05854123c7df7e" had appeared in the root of it.

I clicked to see what it was and was told to click Continue to gain access. I do so, and it has one folder inside it - "amd64". I clicked on that, and it says that "permission has been denied". I looked at the security options in the folder properties, and there doesn't seem to be a way to give myself access to it.

Is it something I should be worried about? MSE said it cleaned and removed a virus before, so I'm running a full scan now, wondering if it could be anything to do with that. It seems strange it would be on the external drive though.

 

[Volimar]

Okay, so now I just got a Blue screen. I don't remember if I ever had one with this computer before. It was this type of error:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

A device driver attempting to corrupt the system has been caught.
The faulty driver currently on the kernel stack must be replaced
with a working version.

Unfortunately, I couldn't see much because it restarted my computer pretty quickly. Is there somewhere on my computer where I can see what the error was? I checked my graphics driver and it's up to date, MSE, malwarebytes and CCleaner all came back with no detections. The only program I've downloaded recently was mumble, and it's up to date, but I can't uninstall it, I get an error that says:

The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact support personnel for assistance.

I'm in safe mode if that might have anything to do with it. Also, I tried to download any windows updates I might be missing but when I click on it, nothing happens. Could that be prevented by being in safe mode? Talk me down GAF.

Edit - I finally bit the bullet and restarted in normal mode. Everything went fine. I was able to uninstall mumble. I'm loathe to have to restart or turn off my computer now...

 

[Dr.Acula]

Aargh.

Okay. Had an old, tiny SSD, upgraded to a larger SSD.

Put Win7 on new SSD.

Formatted old SSD.

PC cannot find O/S.

New SSD has all files on it when I look at in Ubuntu.

When I run Win7 repair, it lists no O/S under recovery options!

Was my mbr on my old drive even though I did a new install on my new drive?

WTF.

How can I repair my install?

Nvmnd, just nuked it. Bleh.

 

[DodgerSan]

Weird little problem guys.

My mouse cursor is constantly showing the 'busy' icon.

I've done virus/malware scans - clean apparently.
Task manager doesn't show any crazy HDD/Network/CPU activity.

Any ideas where to start?