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hello I am trying to rebuild a laptop for my son who is 10 and this laptop is a nec versapro VY16E/LX-X and I need parts but I have checked everywhere for parts and came up empty. I will even take generic parts I don't care just I need parts so here is the part numbers and if someone can give me a hand with replacement parts or compriable and where to go to get them I am forever in your det.

1 cooling fan part # UDQF2R13CCM DOES NOT HAVE TO BE OEM. can be generic

2 hdd MK8032GSX 80GB Interface serial ATA, transfer sata/150

again parts do not have to be oem so if someone know where to get a list of replacement or generic parts and where to get thankyou very muchCooling fan will be the most difficult to find. There should be a sticker on this fan with info such as voltage, rpms, cfm's, etc. Then you need to measure its dimensions and find a similar fan. I had an old Pentium 3 Compaq that needed a cooling fan once and I ended up buying one through Mouser.com, but there are thousands of different fans out there and you need one that will fit the space, operate on same voltage, and same rpm range to provide the necessary airflow, and lastly if there are 3 wires or more to this fan vs just 2, it means that the fan has a tach that the computer must see otherwise it will shut itself down to protect itself from an overheat of a non moving fan even if replacement fan spins.

Looking on ebay there are lots of parts out there with some fans that may or may not work with different part numbers are shapes and sizes. Have you checked ebay out yet?

The hard drive can be any SATA II or SATA I HDD that is a 2.5" drive that is * less than 500GB. * Some older systems struggle to SUPPORT drives in excess of 500GB. You can find used SATA I drives cheap online such as ebay and it doesnt need to be this specific model HDD that was originally in it.

Ebay has many drives available that are 2.5" and SATA. Most SATA II drives are backwards compatible to SATA I speed controllers. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hitachi-HTS545012B9SA00-120GB-2-5-5400RPM-SATA-Hard-Drive-/121376617449?pt=US_Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item1c429c33e9#ht_1705wt_916

Can you provide more info on the cooling fan and maybe even some pictures if its not a square muffin fan?IMHO parts for the Nec Versapro are either too hard to find or overpriced.
And if it were me, I would think about SELLING the Nec for parts and buying a lower-priced laptop in working condition.

You can find a good  ACER, Dell, IBM  or HP laptop for under $100 and working.
Just SAYING

Hi,
I'm new to this forum but would be grateful for any suggestions. I recently purchased an Acer Ferrari laptop from ebay and am happy with it except for one little niggle. When playing you tube videos and occasionally general music I have some interference with the sound. The sound will CRACKLE for a couple of seconds and then subside and the CRACKLING may return within a MINUTE again for just a SECOND. It's the same through headphones so I don't think it's the speakers. Also the realtek software is up to date and working correctly according to my system. I may be being too fussy but I don't have this issue with my other 2 acer laptops. Do you think I may need a new sound card as I've tried all the different settings as a process of elimination but without success.? Any suggestions would be gratefully received. I want to try and get to the bottom of this because the laptop has terrific sound without this occasional crackle and interference.
Thanks,
Matt  You have made a reasonable effort to correct the problem. Yo0u have two other computers that do not show the same symptoms in the same scenario. There it is logical to conclude that your new device has an infantile failure. In other words, new gadgets sometimes break after leaving the factory. It is a condition that gets by the QC check  but is a real defect.

You must USE the warranty. Troubleshooting down to the component level is so time-consuming that the manufacturer would prefer to replace the unit.

Yes, I understand you would like t o fix it yourself. But it is very unlikely it is merely a setting you can adjust. But I can be wrong.

Hey,  I am having some problems with my packard bell monitor. When I go to turn it on the desktop starts up but the monitor just says no signal and goes asleep. My desktop is packard bell as well and I don't have a clue about bios and all that stuff lol. But it has been LIKE this for more than 2 MONTHS now and I need it soon. BTW I don't have a second COMPUTER to see if the monitor works on it. Thanks  Does a neighbor have a PC you could test it on ? ?
I know it's been 2 months...but what happened prior to this ? ?If you live in the U.S., that tells us you have a very old computer and monitor.  Packard Bell dropped out of the U.S. market many years AGO. Well...i wasn't gonna say it.
Actually i believe the US operations of Packard Bell were gobbled up by HP way back when....

Hi guys Ive decided to build my own PC as it is cheaper than buying a build pre made I need to be sure that all of my components are compatible with each other.
These are the parts:
Case - https://www.dabs.ie/products/best-value-black-micro-atx-case---500watt-power-supply--727-03b--7KHG.html
Hard drive- https://www.dabs.ie/products/seagate-momentus-spinpoint-500gb-sata-2-5--5400-rpm-hard-drive-8S08.html
Ram - https://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-4gb--2x2gb--ddr3-1333mhz-cl9-value-select--desktop-memory-kit-7CLL.html
Processor-  https://www.dabs.ie/products/amd-a4-5300-3-4ghz-fm2-1mb-65w-black-edition-89K2.html
Motherboard-http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00GJ3NQ6C/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1∣=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

If I am missing anything please left me know and if you could check to see if all if these parts are compatible with each other.
Thanks a million
VellinTrapperOnly thing I see missing is the Optical Drive DVD ROM etc as well as OS. What OS will you be installing and are you migrating the DVD Rom from another computer forwards in which you will want to verify that the optical drive is SATA and not IDE?

Parts are all compatible, but the 5400RPM drive is a slower HDD. I'd go with a 7200RPM drive instead for better performance if it works within your budget.

Lastly the MSI motherboard matches to the other hardware, but I have very little trust in MSI after many problems with their brand over the last 6 years with them for both my systems as well as others that I support. I'd suggest going with Gigabyte, ASUS, or Biostar as brands that I trust and havent had any problems with. Biostar will be the cheapest price of the brands on that list with Gigabyte and ASUS being priced around the same for similar features. Biostar motherboards are good for cheap builds and they are usually feature rich in the BIOS for optimization as well as over clock features, although their VRM's ( Voltage Regulators ) are prone to running warm if you run a max watt CPU and overclock it on top of that. ASUS and Gigabyte MAKE some boards that are better for those who want to stuff maximum supported CPU into the motherboard and overclock the CPU on top of that because they have passive heatsinks on the VRM's on the more costly boards that help reduce heat on the VRM's etc.

Here is a similar motherboard to the MSI which is a Gigabyte brand board that you would have better luck with in lasting. This is one of Gigabytes lower end boards due to the use of a mix of solid state and electrolytic capacitors etc, but I'd trust this Gigabyte board more than the MSI: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128699

Here is the supported CPU list for the Gigabyte motherboard which shows you also can upgrade later of needed to a more powerful CPU and faster than 1333mhz RAM. http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4725

Hi thanks for answering my query, if you dont find could you use the following online stores to find the parts as the newegg sites dont ship to me:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ref=gno_logo
http://www.dabs.ie/
Thank you so much for your co-operation

And to answer your last question , i will be getting windows 8 and i will be installing it through flash drive as i know how to, so i dont need a dvd reader and an optical drive COMES with the motherboards dont they

I need help building a pc full stop my budget is 543 dollars or 390 euro ,
If anyone has any good builds please post Quote

an optical drive comes with the motherboards dont they

I Currently have a 7200rpm WDC 750GB HDD, i went the SSD route but not only did I run out of room quick but it started freezing up after 2 years, so want to stick to HDD.

my current HDD is 5 years old, so if I got a newer HDD will it be any faster or worth having? or do all 7200rpm HDDs perform the same?As far as HDD's go 7200 is just the rpms of the platter. While the platter rotation speed does affect performance where say a 5400 is slower because the data bits are read at at slower stream, there are other features that affect performance such as how much internal on board cache the drive has as well as how well the on board controller card is at seeking the data and sending it on to the system.

This is why if you took say a Western Digital 7200 rpm 32mb cache drive and a Seagate 7200 rpm 32mb cache drive and performed benchmark testing one will be slightly better than the other, although performance overall should be very close to each other.

Going backwards to a HDD from a SSD you will notice a difference, but if you are fine with the speed of a HDD then your good to go.

Also lastly depending on the system specs, mainly the CPU and RAM, you might not notice that much difference because the system itself might be a bottleneck on itself. One such example is a netbook I had with Intel Atom 1.66Ghz processor and 2GB RAM. The upgrade to SSD from the 7200rpm drive was not as great as my desktop computers Athlon II x4 2600Mhz quadcores ability to utilize the full potential of the SSD's instant data on demand. So if your CPU and RAM is limited, the performance gain of a SSD vs HDD is not as great.

So if you already have a 7200 rpm healthy HDD, I wouldnt bother buying a new 7200rpm drive unless you NEED greater capacity than the one you currently have. The cache differences while they might show up on a benchmark result as better than another, you might only be shaving 1 to 3 seconds off of loading an application, and that might not be worth the investment if you already have a 7200 rpm drive to use.

I ran my Shuttle for 3 years using a Seagate 7200 RPM 500 GB SATA 2 hard drive, with a 16 MB cache, then recently I got an OCZ SSD which was a complete eye opener and I soon got used to the speed. It failed after 3 weeks (!) and I got a full REFUND. I restored Windows from a backup image onto the Seagate and it seemed that Windows now ran like a stone dog. I have now got a Samsung EVO 120 GB SSD with a 3 year warranty and if it should ever fail I will just buy another SSD. They are getting cheaper and cheaper, in particular the new Crucial MX100 drives are interesting - the 128 GB model is $74.99 in US money at Newegg, and the 256 GB is $114. My opinion is that compared to SSDs, all spinning hard drives are slow, whichever spindle speed you look at.

Quote from: DaveLembke

if you already have a 7200 rpm healthy HDD, I wouldnt bother buying a new 7200rpm drive unless you need greater capacity than the one you currently have.

HuH ? ?

HuH ? ?

Do you really want an explanation? 
Say you stereo 400 GB on a 2 TB drive. 
An you put 400 GB on a 800 GB drive.
The larger drive has more free space. Real access time is lower.

One last thing. A very large HDD will show faster access than  a smaller drive; other factors being equal.

I predict this Topic running 5 pages...

And i still disagree with the notion that the amount of free space increases performance...think about it.

SDs Make HDDs an Endangered Species.

Here is the scheme. The first partition is big enough for the OS and the day to day things the single  user needs. The partition would be about 50 to 70 per cent used. The remainder of the very large drive is devoted to occasional backups and archive that are seldom needed. And not indexed or included in the restore.

Just wondering if anyone here is familiar with the ibm personal science laboratory. I recently got a hold of ONE and have no clue what to do with it. Nothing seems to come up on google. Thanks!I don't got much for you here, but this is what I understand.

The base unit is a modular platform for various scientific PROBES and sensors.  Each one clips to the base and attaches to the unit.  The unit itself connects to a computer, looks like an old parallel or serial PORT.  I IMAGINE the drivers and software for each probe would come with a card of some sort to go into the slots on the machine.

There looks to be some stuff for it on eBay, and little information anywhere else to find.

-Mal

Quote from: Lewton on April 13, 2014, 02:21:02 PM

I did and the dots do not show up on the screenshot.
Is that of HELP in pointing to what's wrong ?

One of the frustrating things for a electronic hobbyists is understanding when and why some component in an electronic device will fail. You seldom get warnings. Failing components do not always give smoke or make noises. Some tiny component may fail without any warning at all. What is more frustrating this might happen, even after the device has proven to be reliable for years. Engineers who work in maintenance and design are familiar with the concept called the so-called" bathtub curve". Here is a reference from Wikipedia that introduces this idea.
Quote

...
Electronic components have a wide range of failure modes. These can be classified in various ways, such as by time or cause. Failures can be caused by excess temperature, excess current or voltage, ionizing radiation, mechanical shock, stress or impact, and many other causes. In semiconductor devices, problems in the device package may cause failures due to contamination, mechanical stress of the device, or open or short circuits.
Failures most commonly occur at near the beginning and near the ending of the lifetime of the parts, resulting in the bathtub curve graph of failure rates. Burn-in procedures are used to detect early failures. In semiconductor devices, parasitic structures, irrelevant for normal operation, become important in the context of failures; they can be both a source and protection against failure.

Hello everyone!
I'm TRYING to help my friend upgrading his Desktop computer.

Actual Desktop: [CyberPower]
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 x86
Case: Cooler Master RC 1000KSN (that all the info I have about the case)
CPU: INTEL i7-920 2.6Ghz BloomField 45nm
CPU Cooling: Asetek Liquid Cooling System (I can't find any model number on it... ?? )
RAM: "Buffalo Select" 3GB DDR3 534Mhz
Mobo: ASUS P6T Deluxe LGA1366 82801JR
GPU: EVGA Geforce GTX260 (10DE-05E2) 896MB DDR3
HDD: WD Caviar Green 1TB
Optical Drives: 1x DVD Burner + 1x BluRay Reader
PCI: 1x PCI Card USB 3.0 (2x USB 3.0 Ports)
PSU: Corsair HX850 (Purchased Brand New two weeks ago from TIGER Direct)
Fans: 3x 120MM Cooler Master Fans
Front Panel: 4x USB 2.0 + Audio 3.5mm Jack + Microphone 3.5mm Jack + eSata Port + Firewire port


Here is a list of the parts that he would like to add (Replace the old parts by these)
Upgraded Desktop:
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 x64
CPU: Intel i5-4670 3.4Ghz [$219.99]
Mobo: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 [$149.99]
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 [$79.99] (Maybe add the 3GB DDR3 that he actually have in addition of the Corsair Vengeance)
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM [$81.99]
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX770 2GB [$349.99]

For the CPU Cooling system, it works fine with the actual i7.

What do you think of that upgrade? Any concern? Any different choice?
He prefers Nvidia graphic cards, and Intel processors. so, he wouldn't want to SWITCH to AMD.
That's about the maximum budget that he can put. (Max Budget of $900.00)

Computer usage: Used mainly to run a simulator program called Run8: http://www.run8studios.com/
He told me that they will improve the graphics in the near future.

I always like to have different opinions.
Thank you in advance for all your help
Have a great day!
Looks good, just a couple of points:

• If you want to be able to overclock you will need to get the i5 4670k, otherwise  you can save money by getting a board with a H87 chipset
• I'd avoid MSI motherboards as they are a budget brand, you can't really go wrong with something from Gigabyte or ASUS

Thanks for the clarification.

First, how do I know if the driver list above has all drivers for my machine?
Maybe it shows only drivers which have updates.

Second, I don't have a sound card that I can see in Device Manager. Maybe it's part of something else.

Third, I can't find any motherboard support chips. How would I identify them? Which categories in the driver list?From Archives:
How do I find the computer motherboard CHIPSET?
The article has other links related to your post.
OK thanks for the link. Device manager has a line in System devices for Motherboard resources:
Device type: System devices
Manufacturer: (Standard system devices)
Location: on Intel(R) ICH8M LPC Interface Controller - 2
Driver provider: Microsoft
Driver date: 7/1/2001
Driver Version: 5.1.2600.2180
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Component Publisher
Conflicting device list: No conflicts.

There is no listing for Microsoft or Lenovo on the Computer motherboard links page. I guess i could contact MS for help. Or just update the driver from it's location in Device Manager.
I don't have a driver CD.

And likely there are other parts of the motherboard with other drivers. Like the MS UAA Bus Driver for HD Audio. Have to be careful with this one, I've already read about problems with its update.

Is the system mostly stable? Does the HARD drive check OK?
If so, and you have enough drive space, you  could create a small partition on the drive and do a second install of the OS. That does not violate the license.
The purpose is to see if a new install of Windows does a better job of finding suitable drivers.  It might. If not, it could mean there is a problem with the HARDWARE. This is a diagnostic trick to see if something went wrong on hate first install.

Or, a more conservative thing is tyo try and boot from a USB or CD that has a Linux Live OS. Linux does a fair job of finding drivers. Again, the objective is to see if the hardware is alright.
Just suggestions. System seems mostly stable. Main issue is the lack of any sound.
You can see my system specs in the OP.
Hard Drives: C: Total - 145744 MB, Free - 66684 MB
Disk management says C: is Healthy. I run chkdsk /r once in a while. Disk CLEANUP every day. Defrag once in a while. MBAM at least once a week.

I don't have the installation disk for XP.
Are you suggesting something like creating a new partition for a second install of XP?

I tried the Linux Cd thing but it did not work. I took out the HDD and although the Cd started, I could never get it to run Linux. Spent hours and days trying it ... several new coasters later, I don't WANT to try it again.

Hello and THANKS for taking the time to read this thread and maybe even answer it.I wanted to ask if someone could tell me how and IF i can make my laptop better for games.Anything from drivers to recomendations for new desktops/LAPTOPS/computer parts.

My specs are (used speecy to see) :
Os: Win 8.1 64 bit
CPU: Intel Pentium T4500 2.30GHz
Ram: 2,00GB Single-Channel DDR3 398MHz
GPU: Intel Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family (laaaaame)


Please let me know if you want to know anything else.
Thanks, A fellow gamer.
2gb RAM is pretty low but the main issue here for games will be your GPU.  Unfortunately as this is a laptop you can't upgrade this so you'll really need to look at a new machine.

For gaming you'd be best to CONSIDER building your own desktop and keep your laptop if you need something portable.I agree what camerongray say'd but just to let you know you can test if your pc can run the game in this site:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

And you can also check what parts you need to change.The TOPIC is about

• Laptops for ganging
• Best Gaming PCs
• Improve a Laptop for ganging

So I am trying to format a Vista laptop and REPLACE it with Windows 7 ultimate. The problem is, the rom will not read the OS disc. It Will read other disc's though. When I try to boot from CD message pops up and says No Boot Devise found. When I look at it on my desktop it says the disc is blank. It  works in my other Windows 7 machine but not the Vista one. I also tried it on a Windows 8 machine and had the same problem. Any help would be appreciated I am very frustrated. Thank You!PLEASE give specific INFORMATION about your computers. It may be related to the model number of the COMPUTER.
But as an ALTERNATIVE, Windows 7 can be installed from a USB drive.
See:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/a/install-windows-7-usb.htm
OR
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

Maybe that will work.Where is this Win DVD from ? ?

Have about 20 OLDER SATA/ATA HDDs that I want to review and purge. All are <1T (yeah, old!). Don't want to MESS with a new box just for bare HDDs and 3/4 internals on my main box are snug and secure. So thinking with a long SATA cable I could ease the DRIVE swapping.

Does anybody know of a SATA HDD docking station that carries SATA straight thru (on an extended cable). Just need a p/s and a dock.

thanks,
JosephMaybe this is want your want.
An external enclosure for a SATA hard drive.
But they are hard to find.
Instead, people use USB enclosures.

When you use a sata drive external to a computer it is normal to use ESata which is a longer cable and needs the motherboard to have Esata ports.
As USB 3.0 is nearly as fast and supports easy drive swapping that is maybe the best option.
The other option is to use 1 of your spare motherboard Sata ports and use a standard cable and POWER from the computer and attach the drives that way.You need to power the computer down when changing the drives thou.

So here is a Sata to esata /USB3.0 docking station

 http://www.startech.com/HDD/Docking/SuperSpeed-USB-3-eSATA-Hard-Drive-Docking-Station-with-Cooling-Fan~SATDOCKU3SEF

Hey guys
So i'm completely new to building a computer and i was just wondering whether the following specs would synchronize and work well with one another. If possible id also like to find cheaper alternatives parts without affecting the performance that much, because right now my total cost is around 1,900 and i'd like to cut it down to 1,600~1,800. HOWEVER, if the parts are already worthy of 1.9k im willing to pay for that too.

Monitor: 24" Acer G246 HLA $172

Motherboard: Gigabyte G1-SNIPER-Z87 $220

VGA card: 4Gb GTX 760 Gigabyte OC $365

Power unit: Thermaltake Smartpower 80Plus Bronze 750W $109

CPU: Intel i7-4770 $348 (i could change this to the i5-4670K but that costs 269 so its like a 50$ save, but i'm not looking  to overclock it so i was thinking of just keeping the i7)

SSD: Intel 530 mSATA3 240Gb $253

Memory: 8Gb kit 1600 G.Skill Ripjaws-X $94

Internal Hard drive disk: Seagate SATA3 1TB $66

DVD burner: SATA Samsung DVD $18

Cpu cooler: Coolmaster hyper 212 EVO $37

Case: Corsair C70-Black $169

Keyboard: Corsair Raptor-K50 $109

Thanks in advance as it will be MUCH appreciated First of all, what country/retailer are you buying from?  This would help us find parts.

Even if you aren't planning on overclocking now, it may be worth getting the 4770k so you have the ability in the future as the price difference isn't massive, I can see some of other ways to cut costs which I'll detail below.

• That power supply is expensive for what it is and a lot higher wattage than you'll need.  I'd recommend something around the 600-650w mark from a brand such as XFX, Corsair (Non CX or VS) or Seasonic.  The SeaSonic S12II 620 is a great unit for the price or something like a Corsair RM650 would be great.
• That's a very expensive SSD, you don't need to really worry about getting an mSATA one.  Something like a 240gb Crucual M500 would do the job brilliantly and is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper.
• If you aren't overclocking you don't really need that CPU cooler, the stock cooler will do the job fine.

SSD: Intel 530 mSATA3 240Gb $253

Geek ...why would he add it later when the real benefits of an SSD are to have the OS and important apps installed to it ? ?

I'm puzzled.

It will take him awhile to build it. In that time the price will drop.

I don't think that's the issue, i can build it quite soon. 1week tops.

A 120 GB SSD now at $80. And falling.

A couple of days ago my Blue Yeti stopped playing my voice when i talked, i tried fixing it by raising the volume on the microphone. It worked but there was a buzzing sound in the background. But this morning i played some Battlefield 4 and just randomly clicked the mute button on the yeti (to unmute it) just to check if it was working, when it was unmuted it worked just fine. but when i turned off the COMPUTER then left it for some TIME and then came back to play some more BF4 it simply did not work. I have searched the internet far and wide but have got no result. I would appreciate some help

Computer specs:
AMD FX 6100 six-core processor.
Nvidia GeForce GTX760
Windows 7 Home PremiumYou need to specify which Blue Yeti you have.
This is a USB microphone -Right?
So, what about USING a ordinary microphone?

Quote from: Geek-9pm on July 16, 2014, 07:02:50 PM

You need to specify which Blue Yeti you have.
This is a USB microphone -Right?
So, what about using a ordinary microphone?

Would the i5 core processor be efficient for everyday editing in Sony Vegas?

Can I ask a question?
What if the OP had chose a CyberpowerPC Gamer at half the price?
- $509.99 ! 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229285
    AMD FX-Series FX-4300 (3.80GHz)
    8GB DDR3 500GB HDD
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
    AMD Radeon R7 240 2GB
Why would that not be a good game machine?
Just asking.

• Terrible video card that will barely cope with modern games on low graphics detail settings
• Very weak CPU for the intended purpose
• Motherboard looks very poor quality (Although it is Gigabyte) - Loads of electrolytic capacitors on that motherboard and absolutely no nice features like SATA III or USB 3.0
• The power supply in that looks so bad I genuinely wouldn't be happy plugging it in

I bumped the graphics card to the AMD Radeon R80 3GB

yes

Hello, I am typing this from my phone.

In attempt to fix my gpu (unrelated) i uninstall amd CATALYST whih leads to my monitor not PICKING up any image now.

My pc works fine as I can hear it boot up and log in and such, I need to INSTALL drivers again but I can't do it without not be ABLE to see! What can I do???Boot to safe mode and DLoad and re-install the drivers...
With many GPU's the driver can be found seperate of the Catalyst package...i'd try that 1st.I can not see the booting screen...I FIXED it.Swell...You gonna share what the solution was?  I'm dying to know.

-Mal

Hi;

I have an Emachines W3115 that have the following specs:
Processor: AMD Sempron 3100+ 1.8 Ghz
Video: nvidia GeForce 6100 GPU
Mobo: K8MC51G LF
512 RAM on Slot 1
Bios: Phoenix Award
Bios Date: January 13th, 2006
Bios ID: 01/13/2006-C51MCP51-6A61HF09C-00
Bios Oem: Version NAA24EM-6.00 PG
Chipset: Athlon 1100 rev 0
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 preinstalled
120 Gb HDD

I want to upgrade the ram from 512 MB to full 2 GB (Max capacity of RAM said by Emachines Company). I bought two KVR400/1GR 1GB per stick. Kingston Value Ram 2.6v. Verified that is If I install the two Ram for a Total of 2 GB, the pc FREEZE when startup on e logo. See attached picture A.

The PC freeze also when I install only one  KVR400/1GR 1GB stick on slot #2.

Otherwise, when I install only one KVR400/1GR 1GB stick on slot #1, the PC works excellent.

Its like that slot #2 is damaged?

The two RAMs that I bought are good and working fine tested.

I think that maybe I need a BIOS Update but I don't know is there are one.

Or maybe change a setting in the current Bios? If is a setting, what setting I need to change?

Please can you help me to upgrade my Emachines W3115 to full capacity of 2 GB?

Any hint is appreciated, Thanks a LOT;
Carlos

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]What happens if you put your original 512mb stick in slot 2?  This would help determine if the slot is bad or not.Does your start-up screen always look like that with the lines, or is that just because of the photo?Hi camerongray & Maleke; when I put the original 512 mb stick in slot #2 only is the same history, when I put the 512 mb stick in slot #1 only, the pc run & works great. The start-up screen with the lines appears like that when I put whatever working memory stick (512 Mb & 1Gb) in that slot #2. The issue is with the slot #2. I notice that the Northbridge are very hot than the Southbridge.

My guess is that the slot #2 is damaged, but the solution is buy a mobo replacement? or there is a fix???

Thanks for your help an replies

CarlosLooks like it is probably that #2 slot.  There is no reasonable fix for this.  You are stuck with cramming all that ram into a single slot, or buying a new mobo.  So you could return your ram sticks and buy a single bigger one.

If you have had the PC for a while and never used the slot, maybe there is dust in there causing problems.  Maybe check with your flashlight and see, could also be corrosion or what not built up as well causing the problem.

-MalHi Mal, The PC never use that slot. I inclined in your idea that maybe there is dust. Now my question is how I clean a memory slot? What PROCESS, tools, or cleaning products I can use that not damage the mobo with static. I think only I use a air pressure can. Any ideas or hints Will be appreciated.

CarlosAir can is best...Air can is probably the safest bet.  Either way it is a long shot and the odds are against you.  But hey, it is worth a shot.  When using the air can be careful not to hold it upside down when you spray.  If you see any condensation BUILD up when you are spraying it is best to let it dry a few minutes before turning it back on.

-Mal I will try the can, but I see in the web that use a toothbrush with a little Isopropyl alcohol or WD-40 and then blow with the can in the memory slot, what is the pros & cons with this method? Really works? It's secure??

Thanks guys for your recommendations & comments, Any more ideas will be appreciate. I test the air can, later I will post if works.I was going to mention the alcohol with a q-tip or other small brush type of thing.  This can be used on many things with connectors and is worth trying.  Just make sure you let the computer dry completely before turning it on.  Another precaution is to use something like rubbing alcohol that is diluted, to much alcohol can leave a residue that can cause more problems.

-MalI suspect the Slot was dead from day 1...
However Best of Luck...bring us good news...Hello Guys, well I think that patio is right. I think I can live with one slot at full capacity, 1Gb is better than original 512Mb. Thanks everyone for all recommendations, hints and tips. Special Thanks to camerongray, Mal & patio.Welcome Aboard !...Hi

You could try INSERTING the memory and ejecting several times from the dimm2 socket. This often clears corrosion from the socket.

I am not entirely sure this is in the correct location. I'll start with specs.

System specs
OS = Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU = Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400
RAM = 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Motherboard = ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5P43TD
Graphics Card = 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+
PSU Viotech ATX Switching Power Supply Vio70 700w
Any other specs I can provide upon request

Alright, so last week, my computer crashed in a way I have never seen before. Its about 4 years old, and its seen its fair share of issues, but not anything like this one. It abruptly shut off as if the power had been cut . . . I actually thought I had a power outage at first, until I realized my gf's computer was still on. The screen went black, the fans shut off and it was entirely silent, but the LED LIGHTS inside and outside the computer remained on. I was NOT able to restart my computer by pressing the power button, and I left it like that and went to bed. About 20 minutes later the computer spontaneously re-activated itself and all was fine.

Until this morning, this problem had not repeated itself. However, when I had used the computer for about a half hour today, it repeated this distinctive crash, along with the inability to reactivate it. Since that time it has done it an additional 3 times, 4 crashes in about 4 hours of usage (my use time has ranged from 15 minutes to about an hour before the crash occurs). The period of time before it either spontaneously reactivates or I'm able to turn it back on vary between 1 minute and a half hour.

I had some crashing issues a few months back (unrelated, and a good bit different) and I was using a temperature monitoring program to check the problem (that was caused by a CPU overheat due to a bad setting in a video game). The program (Piriform Speccy) is not showing any abnormal temperature spikes on any of the visible components. However, I noticed a while ago that the fan in my power supply no longer functions. The power supply was relatively hot the first time the computer crashed, but the later crashes today it was either only slightly warm to very warm, but never hot. Given the "power loss" behavior, I was concerned that it may be related to the power supply.

I'm considering replacing the power supply if it is the issue here, which I should probably do anyway due to the faulty fan (at least I assume its faulty . . . I don't know when it stopped working or if its possible to get it to work again). However, I'd like to find out what the cause of the issue is, I'd rather just buy a new computer rather than replace a part that won't help at all.

A friend as well as a few online reports seemed to suggest that this sort of problem can be a result of power surges. The go-to suggestion was usually to try a different outlet on the wall or surge protector. I tried this after the 3rd crash today, but it still crashed the fourth time so I am not sure if it helped (this is my fifth session online today and it is my longest lasting so far without a crash . . . around an hour).

So yeah . . . computer is turning off, stays off and will not power back on, don't know why, considering power supply as possible culprit. I'm not having any other abnormal issues with the computer. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions we could try to identify or, even better, alleviate the issue?I'd start with replacing the PSU as for they have a thermocouple in them that will kill them until they cool, as well as some have timers in them that the only way to reset is to unplug the power from the PSU and wait for it to drain and then plug it back in to be able to boot sooner than later.

Also as far as a video game setting overheating a CPU.... this is more of a problem then just a video game setting, as for video games should be able to bring all cores to 100% for a long period of time without the CPU overheating. So you have an issue with your CPU's cooling which could be caused by a couple of issues. ( Lack of adequate thermal compound, heatsink not rated for the CPU in use, heatsink & fan dirty with dust etc, overclocking a CPU without upgrading the heatsink, inadequate airflow within the computer case .. power supply fan is not venting the hot air etc... )

Thanks, I'm going to look into replacing the PSU then. I DID use that "unplug and drain power" workaround to turn them back on, so that SOUNDS like the issue.

As for the video game issue, the problem was that the game's auto-settings took one look at my system's specs and autoset the FPS to 250 with maximum settings in all other categories out of some sort of sheer overconfidence. This was causing overheating blue screens after 20-45 minutes, which I had never had before. Reducing it down to a more reasonable 60 easily negated the issue entirely. I haven't had that sort of overheating problems before or after, until now . . . and this one seems entirely unrelated, as I get the overheating even while doing mundane things like composing emails or internet browsing with a single window on low stress websites. There doesn't seem to be much correlation between system strain and shut-off.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite mechanically savvy enough to really do a lot of the simpler upgrades . . . I opened my computer for the first time this year, and have been using computers heavily for over 15 years (more than half my life). The idea of doing things like replacing thermal paste or upgrading parts is pretty beyond my confidence level . . . if I actually replace the PSU, it will easily be the most technical modification to my own system I've ever done. I'm still at that level where most "fixable" problems still require professional intervention or just buying a new computer. I'd like to change that relative inexperience, but there is only so much diving in head-first into unfamiliar territory one can do before you get in over your head.Power supply replacements are not that bad. I have seen some people write down where each cable came disconnected from, and this way when they INSTALL the new power supply they dont feel overwhelmed with the mess of plugs and trying to figure out where they all belong and missing a plug.

The motherboard will have 2 connections a small 4-pin and a larger 24-pin or  20+4 pin molex. You just need to be aware of the fact that you dont just yank on them, they have clips that need to be pressed to unlock them while you pull directly up at the connector. Try to avoid the rocking wiggle to disconnect as for you can damage the motherboard or connector on the motherboard. For power connections to drives its usually just a push in with no clip to worry about releasing. Just pay attention to what the plug looks like in shape and where it plugs in as for they only plug in one way and if you have to force it, its probably wrong. Lastly after everything is plugged in and the 4 screws are securing the power supply in the case so it wont fall into the case, its best to dress the cables with tie wraps or tape if need be to make everything inside neat and cables that are not at risk of getting caught in the fan blade of the CPU heatsink or the case fan.

The one most common connection that people forget about is the 4-pin molex connector which is crucial for a bootable system. Lastly if you have a high end video card that requires power connections you also need to plug those in as well. This is why making note of where plugs go and then using it as a check list with the new power supply makes this process so simple and very little risk for problems.  Thanks for the installation tips!

Is it likely that I will need to apply any thermal paste at all? If so, I'd need to buy some, but I can't see anything about needing to.No thermal paste needed for a PSU replacement.

Its just write down where plugs go and disconnect them 1 by 1, and then remove the 4 screws and then it slides out of the tray into the case or if trayless just comes right out the SIDE. *Be sure the computer is laying on its side if a tower so that the PSU doesnt fall down onto motherboard.

Then install new PSU and connect the connections on your checklist and you should be good. You may end up with some extra connections in the end as for most PSU come with more than enough. Just tidy up the cables when done to make sure none will get into a fan blade and stop a cooling fan, and then all set.A good way to hone your hardware skills would be a $20.00 working PC to practice on...Alright, so I got my new power supply, and so far everything is fine. Since the initial post, I've occasionally managed to keep the computer running for up to 3 hours, so its going to take a while to see if the problem is resolved.

However, everything is currently ON, which means I installed it right . . . so that's a very good feeling. Piriform Speccy is showing that my CPU and motherboard are running a lot cooler now, ranging from mid 30s to mid 40s, while before they were getting up into the 60s, so the fixed fan really seems to be helping.

Aside from observing to see if the shut-off problem is gone, is there any short term maintenance I should be doing, or watching for, after a part change like this? Like, any signs maybe the plugs aren't fully in? Everything seems fine now, but I don't want anything to get out of hand because I got too lax too soon.

Thanks for the help on everything so far folks, its been very helpful!Good to hear you had success in this REPAIR.

Retired electrical engineer P. Eng., considering building my own desktop for general home use, investment managing, and a little gaming.

Would any of you experienced types care to kick around a little comparison information re using Intel vs AMD CPU's?

I'm on my 3rd desktop, all bought as complete units, and all with Intel CPU's by coincidence.You must a have already seen these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices
About AMD future:
Quote

Summary
    AMD's Q1 2014 forecast is conservative assuming a 10% PC market decline and SLOWER console sales.
    IDC reports PC shipments are better than expected with the US market showing signs of stabilizing.
    Consoles and GPU sales continue to benefit from high consumer demand

You must a have already seen these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices
About AMD future

Which explains why Intel is making f more money.  The AND forecasts are mediocre.

Question: Would you buy a car from and old company that has a mediocre business future?  Well... maybe you would if there was a compelling reason.

Actually, I really don't know. Maybe some like AMD because their GPU designs., not the CPU.

But sometimes you can find real bargains on AMD design motherboards.
Hard choice. 

EDIT: Did you say gaming? You must see this:

He is up to date on and top of it. Take a look.

Retired electrical engineer P. Eng., considering building my own desktop for general home use, investment managing, and a little gaming.

Would any of you experienced types care to kick around a little comparison information re using Intel vs AMD CPU's?

I'm on my 3rd desktop, all bought as complete units, and all with Intel CPU's by coincidence.

Definitely a SSD, don't need outlandish memory, 500 Gig would do me.

Hybrid Drives and Dual-Drive Systems
Back in the mid 2000s, some of the hard drive manufacturers like Samsung and Seagate theorized that if you add a few GB of flash chips to a spinning HDD, you'd get a so-called "hybrid" drive that approaches the performance of an SSD, with only a slight price difference with a HDD. All of it will fit in the same space as a "regular" HDD, plus you'd get the HDD's overall storage capacity. The flash memory acts as a buffer for oft-used files (like apps or boot files), so your system has the potential for booting faster and launching apps faster. The flash memory isn't directly accessible by the end user, so they can't, for example, install Windows or Linux on the flash chips. In practice, drives like the Seagate Momentus XT work, but they are still more expensive and more complex than simple hard drives. They work best for people like road warriors who need large storage, but need fast boot times, too. Since they're an in-between product, they don't necessarily replace dedicated HDDs nor SSDs.

Quote from: dgreen on July 10, 2014, 02:08:43 PM

Thanks Geek.
is there a link where I could see what this adapter looks LIKE, I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to.

Can you give me the description I need to put in the search box.

USB SATA IDE Adapter

I5 3570k 4.4
g.skill ripjaws x 16gb 1600mhz
asrock extream 3 z77 motherboard
128gb ocz vertex 4 ssd
1tb hitachi hard drive
r9 290x (got this on sale for 480$ w/ 3 free games)
corsair h50
corsair cxm 600 watt modular psu
windows 7 64bit

i would appreciate ratings and advice!

thanks in advance  Which 3 games came with it?

Processing power it should be plenty for games.

Brand wise, I am not a fan of ASRock, Hitachi, and g.skill.... although I have gotten Hitachi and g.skill parts for free through dead computers.

As far as HDD's go I trust Seagate as my #1 brand, however I still do research into the drives they make before buying because while they have been awesome for warranty replacements on the rare occasion of a failure, BUT they have switched from a better quality control manufacturing location in Philipines of drives for some of there lower cost drives to a newer manufacturing location in China in which has had some bad batches. The last 3TB External that I bought for $99 on sale, was 3 of 5 star/egg rating at newegg, and the ratings of people with problems almost caused me to decline the deal. But having dealt with Seagate for the last almost 30 years with no major issues and they always making things right in the end such as a 120GB HDD that crashed under warranty after 3 years of use on a 5 year warranty and they shipped me a letter stating that they were sorry, but they could not return a 120GB HDD, they could only ship me a 160GB instead. I was very happy to get a 160GB instead for an extra 40GB of storage capacity. As well as my brother told me that Seagate bought out Maxtor and are applying their 5 year warranty to Maxtor drives that originally only had a 3 year warranty and a Maxtor drive I had that was a 500GB paperweight that was 4 years and 6 MONTHS old, I was able to contact Seagate and send this drive in under the new 5 year warranty term that they offered as part of the aquisition of Maxtor warranty terms, and turn that 500GB paperweight into a RMA# and shipped it off and get a Seagate 500GB SATA drive back in return that I used daily on a 2nd computer of mine. As far as Hitachi goes, I have a Hitachi Deskstar 164.7GB SATA/150 that I use with processing large video files recorded of gameplay with FRAPS and then encoding them down to smaller AVI files such as a 10GB to 700MB downsizing of raw fraps video format to a smaller encoded AVI without much loss in quality to post game footage onto YOUTUBE etc. The Hitachi I placed into this role because I didnt want to batter my SSD or my 500GB drive. If this 164.7GB drive is battered to death with all the read/writes and finally dies I can then finally toss it out. But I have difficulty in throwing away good parts even if they are 10 years old slower and smaller in capacity etc. If it crashes its like throwing away a burnt out light bulb vs throwing away a good one that still can serve a purpose etc. Here is the Hitachi that just wont die under read/write abuse and it has over 50,000 spin hours on it. Prior to me getting it, it came out of a businesses low cost server where they chose to have 2 of these in RAID array vs SCSI drives. Back in 2004, this drive was a fast drive at 7200 rpms and SATA/150. Today its a slower SATA drive, but is not a bottleneck for what I use it for. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hitachi-13G0254-Deskstar-HDS722516VLSA80-164-7GB-7200RPM-SATA-3-5-HDD-/161217913518

As far as ASRock goes, they are right along the lines of ECS brand boards. They generally have been made with quality cutting parts and manufacturing and have a high failure/bug rate. Biostar is the lowest quality board I will buy and I have no issues with Biostar. Been buying their boards and many of them for last 10 years or so. Only complaints I have with their boards are design based such as CMOS BATTERY or USB header location too close to PCI Express slot so very tight clearance or contortion of USB cable from 7 gold pin header to USB at the front of the PC etc. As well as 1 board that had the 4-pin 12VDC molex in a position on the board on a mATX that with the case fan in the way you could barely get your fingers in to plug in the 12VDC and the yellow and black wire pairs had to be bent at an angle because of the case fan on the back of the mATX case that this placement slightly conflicted with. With ASUS and Gigabyte boards, the placement of everything is generally better, but this may be also because on those boards I am usually building a gaming system for someone and so its a full size ATX and not a mATX cram of everything into a smaller area board.

As far as G.Skill Memory goes. I got 2GB for free from a laptop that was being thrown away because a guys girlfriend accidentally sat in a wooden chair that the laptop was resting on and the display was destroyed and the Toshiba Qosmio "High End" laptop which be bought for $2600 he didnt want to spend the $280 on $200 for a new display for it + $80 labor. And so he decided to buy a new i7 laptop instead and asked if I wanted it for parts and I accepted. I ended up gutting it for the RAM and dual hard drives and sending the rest to recycle. The RAM fit perfect in my Toshiba Netbook which maxes out on 2GB, so it was a free upgrade. While this memory hasnt failed yet, for some reason the memory gives off a lot of heat felt from the bottom of the laptop. Info online suggested that this memory was known to run warm. Although with the heat created I would think that it should have a heatspreader etc although I doubt there is enough clearance on a netbook to have that feature. The original 1GB RAM module in it never ran as warm. Generally when it comes to memory I like to buy from these brands ( Kingston, Crucial, Corsair ) which I have had good luck with, no high failure rate, and of the 2 rare failures 1 with Kingston, and the other with Crucial they took care of me well with a fast turn around with replacement of the failed RAM and the replacement RAM was flawless. * The good thing is that I had some smaller memory capacity sticks to install into these systems to limp along on until I got the larger sticks back such as able to place 2GB 1333 DDR3 RAM into my newest gaming build when the 8GB 1600 DDR3 stick died after about 3 months of 4 to 8 HR a day heavy gaming from Crucial. Crucial was great in shipping me out a replacement stick within 7 days from the date that I sent my stick back. It may be unfair to rate G.Skill like I am since I havent had a failure myself yet to say whether they are good or bad, but given the many years with the other brands, I stick to what I trust vs buying into a newer brand and taking a chance.I got to choose from a collection of games and i chose sniper elite 3 and thief and the new tomb raider as my free games. i have owned 6 sticks of g.skill ripjaes x ram and never had an issue with heat but i have my pc case with max fans and push and pull setup. so my case is well ventilated as for the hitachi hard drive i took it out of 2 year old build its 7200rpm with 6gbs transfer rate and still running like a champ.
this is the 1st asrock motherboard i have ever owned. the only complaint is when i was ocing my cpu to stable oc the bios kept freezing so to fix this i had to power down pc unplug it and remove the batterie from motherboard for 30sec and after doing this i never had the issue again. also the amd gaming evolve app gives reward points for optimizing games and i spent over 1500 points to enter drawing to win 3 more free games(they choose 245 winners per month) and i won and i chose, saint row 4, darksiders 2 and payday 2The newest Tomb Raider game is one that I have on my to purchase list myself, just havent bought it yet because of other higher priorities for the money to be paid to bills etc. Seen some game footage on youtube and it looks like fun and really good effects and graphics. Also looks quite challenging.

As far as ...

Quote

this is the 1st asrock motherboard i have ever owned. the only complaint is when i was ocing my cpu to stable oc the bios kept freezing so to fix this i had to power down pc unplug it and remove the batterie from motherboard for 30sec and after doing this i never had the issue again.

also the amd gaming evolve app gives reward points for optimizing games and i spent over 1500 points to enter drawing to win 3 more free games(they choose 245 winners per month) and i won and i chose, saint row 4, darksiders 2 and payday 2

I5 3570k 4.4
g.skill ripjaws x 16gb 1600mhz
asrock extream 3 z77 motherboard
128gb ocz vertex 4 ssd
1tb hitachi hard drive
r9 290x (got this on sale for 480$ w/ 3 free games)
corsair h50
corsair cxm 600 watt modular psu
windows 7 64bit

i would appreciate ratings and advice!

thanks in advance

Interesting... had to google search on this because I wasnt aware of this and found this info:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/loyalty-gaming-evolved-rewards-program,26063.html#loyalty-gaming-evolved-rewards-program%2C26063.html?&_suid=140503064027402300862125435406

Going to see if I can start building points since I run mainly AMD CPU and GPU systems.

HP Photosmart Premium c310 printer pops up out-of-paper alarm every time we try to print.  Can find no paper jam or even fragments in machine, front, top or back. Have loaded std. paper in stacks and singles.  Have tried smaller photo paper.  Have tried to print from wireless and from the direct connected computer.  All rollers are free and clean.  Have restarted machine, plus did hard power re-set, checked for, "jobs waiting," (none), etc.  Did search here and no references.  On general Google search there seems to be a lot of folks with this problem, but few solutions and none that worked for us. 

Thoughts?

Thank you, DennisLet me be frank. 
If the printer is over a year old  and out of warranty, you are stuck.
Not just my thought. Read this from Amazon:
Quote

I am going to cut to the chase here; under no circumstances should you buy this printer. Feature rich, the printer sounds great on paper, and for the most part, many of the features work as advertised. The big problem with this printer is it does not print reliably. Don't take my word for it though, read the other 1-star reviews and visit HP's own Support Website forums...

List Price:    $199.99
Price:    $153.29 & FREE Shipping
You Save:    $46.70 (23%)
Only 6 left in stock

I had a similar issue with noisy server many YEARS ago. (My wife didnt like it in our bedroom running 24/7.) It was a Dual CPU Pentium II 333 Mhz. I got mine quiet by installing that massive motherboard into a full HEIGHT tower with 3 of the 5.25" bays.

I did have to make a slight alteration to the case which was to cut with a dremel tool to remove about 2 inches of the tail end of 2 of the 3 - 5.25" bays which conflicted with installation of the massively large motherboard. (Cut metal out without board nearby since lots of metal dust. Then blew it out with compressed air outdoors and inspected for metal frags. When no metal frags FOUND I was able to install that motherboard and run my NT4 Server quietly with just the 2 small cpu fans on the Slot 1 heatsinks, and 80mm muffin fan on back of case and fan in 350watt PSU that were quiet and kept everything cool.

Prior to that major swap it was installed in a loud server enclosure with fans like you mention that are like 25k rpms..LOL

Some motherboards can be swapped to full height towers while others can not, such as the 1U and 2U servers that are designed only for that case and have slim riser cards for extra single PCI slot etc would be a nightmare transferring guts to a full height tower. I got lucky with my PII 12 years ago. Also to mention I have also seen where some motherboards for servers have custom pinouts for PSU to main boards while others stick to the universal ATX TYPE power connections.

You could always make a cabinet for this to mount into with 4 x 120mm fans ( 2 x 120mm inlet fans, and 2 x 120mm outlet muffin fans ) and have a 3" diameter hole for cables to all snake thru to it. I had to make one of these cabinets once for a auto service center which was killing their computer server about once every 6 months. They thought it was taking power spikes and paid another contractor to add power protection, but got frustrated and called me when they had bad luck with the other contractor. I opened up the case and saw brown brake dust and grime all over inside of motherboard. This caused the system to burn up by allowing for shorts. I made a cabinet and added 4 x 120mm muffin fans with air filters on intake side. Server is still running 2 years later and they just need to remove air filters and blow them out with compressed air every few weeks and reinstall them. Since then they spread word of my creativity and I got more work in addition to a happy customer with quarterly maintenance to their server and systems for security updates and proactive maintenance. So if you are good with carpentry and minor electrical connections and have a place to place a cabinet, this is a possibility to solve for noise issue without introducing other troubles by modifying the fans of the server. Most servers have tachs on their fans and if they are not spinning to correct speed the main board will shut itself down to protect itself. Seen that problem before with fan replacements with installing slower moving fans in place of original faster fans.

My fans in my custom cabinet were powered off of the servers PSU unit off of an available P-connector with 12V tap.

Good Luck on whichever PATH you chose to take... Many ways to quiet it down and run reliably!I like the idea of moving the motherboard away of the tiny case. I might try after I get a bit more time.
I am guessing that because my server has hardware RAID, I will have to cut the drive bays out (which is essentially a huge chunk of metal) and smash it into a large case... or leave it outside. I guess I will look for a nice large case, so instead of having to shove in 40mm fans that go at 25000 RPM into a already-cramped 2U case, I could get a nice, large, 120mm fan that doesn't make any noise sitting right next to all the heat sinks.
But then again, to sufficiently cool the computer and to prevent warm air brewing inside the case, I might have to carve a few holes for a couple more case fans.
The server I have is pretty large... would it be wise to get something big as 4U and spaciously put everything in?Here Ya go...

                                  Even though I highly doubt I could do such a thing in a regular home, I would rather have that than those 10 billion RPM fans.
Anyways, I decided to get myself the Graphics Driver for this server.
However, I am experiencing a couple of problems:

 -Some of their pages are corrupt
 -The Arima Corp NM64X motherboard is actually quite old... so I am having trouble with research.
 -Arima's main page is written ENTIRELY in Chinese, and Google Translate is not cooperating. No sign of any drivers.

If you want to see it:
http://www.arima.com.tw/

So... could anyone decode the Chinese or help me find the drivers? Quote from: sarcasticphoenix on July 20, 2012, 07:04:30 PM

Even though I highly doubt I could do such a thing in a regular home, I would rather have that than those 10 billion RPM fans.
Anyways, I decided to get myself the Graphics Driver for this server.
However, I am experiencing a couple of problems:

 -Some of their pages are corrupt
 -The Arima Corp NM64X motherboard is actually quite old... so I am having trouble with research.
 -Arima's main page is written ENTIRELY in Chinese, and Google Translate is not cooperating. No sign of any drivers.

If you want to see it:
http://www.arima.com.tw/

So... could anyone decode the Chinese or help me find the drivers?

True, but I wonder if I could get a BIOS update.
Also, I bought the new power supply, testing it as soon as I get back home.

I am in desperate need of help.
The fan in the power supply is causing way too much noise, so I decided to buy myself a new power supply.
Here is the current one being used:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380452384850+&item=380452384850&lgeo=1&vectorid=229466#ht_2815wt_1039
I found the same one on eBay.
I looked at the power supply, and this is what I can identify:
(As seen in the image of the auction listing:)
One of 24 pin connector
2 4-pin connectors
and...

...
one 8 pin connector.

I have looked over the internet, not many supplies have the "8-pin" connector.

This is the closest I have found:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=253

I want to buy the new power supply as fast as possible, so...
Is that power supply compatible with my server?

EDIT:
The one has "Single PCI-E 8pin and dual PCI-E 6pin connectors support", will it work?

i have an HP 2000 laptop that was WORKING fine until the other day and im pretty sure the hard drive crashed so i attempted to put a new fresh copy of windows (which is on my usb flash drive) but when i try the laptop doesnt read it and i do not get the "press any KEY to boot" message..i have went into the bios and correctly set it so it would read the flash drive first but still so success...when i plug it into other computers or laptops the message shows up so i know its working correctly...anybody know whats wrong?When you re=set the BIOS did you press F10 to "save changes and exit" ? ?You cannot load ISO's, they must be burned to CD's or flash drives.yes i pressed f10 and made sure changes were save

and i must of phrased it wrong...the iso is burned onto the flash drive but laptop just wont read the stickDoes that laptop have a UEFI bios?  If so, you NEED to turn off secure boot in the bios.

I have an INTERNET modem from the cable company.I have a built-in Wi-Fi on my laptop.Which is the BEST way to get an internet connection?. In the wireless connection dialog BOX that APPEARS on my computer, do I select the modem from the cable company or my Linksys?The Lynksis...
Thank you.

I got 2 computers right with their own monitors, but at the same time the computers are plugged into a TV up front above the TVs, i want the TV to display on a button push or something one of those computer screens at a time sorta cloning one of the displays and on button push switches to the other computer. Can you think of a way? it has been boggling my mind. trying to set it up for computer room.

Example image attached.

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]An A B video signal box comes to mind...How are these displays CONNECTED up?  DVI, HDMI, VGA.etc?

Lets just say you are using HDMI for simplicity.  You could then use an HDMI splitter cable on each PC with one cable going to the monitor and the other (one cable from each PC) going to an HDMI switch box which in turn connects to the MAIN display with a single HDMI cable - You would then switch the HDMI switch to pick what display gets fed to the big display.  There would also be similar splitters and switches for other types of connection.

Just BEAR in mind that if these screens are different resolutions then the display will be set to the highest resolution both monitors support so you may end up running one of the monitors at a non-optimal resolution. Quote from: camerongray on July 10, 2014, 09:37:30 AM

How are these displays connected up?  DVI, HDMI, VGA.etc?

Lets just say you are using HDMI for simplicity.  You could then use an HDMI splitter cable on each PC with one cable going to the monitor and the other (one cable from each PC) going to an HDMI switch box which in turn connects to the main display with a single HDMI cable - You would then switch the HDMI switch to pick what display gets fed to the big display.  There would also be similar splitters and switches for other types of connection.

Just bear in mind that if these screens are different resolutions then the display will be set to the highest resolution both monitors support so you may end up running one of the monitors at a non-optimal resolution.

Hello,

I was wondering - is there a way to find out the chemical 'recipe' of certain computer models? Like, this computer is 33.4742 % zinc or something?
Odd question, I know, and I know there are DIFFERENT chemical make-ups for the different parts of the computer, but this would be very helpful, if anyone knows.

Thank you,This info is not info that companies would spend time and money to list details of. If you wanted to though, you could always dismantle a computer weigh the like PLASTIC into categories, weigh like metals, and then send samples if the plastics out as well as samples of the circuit boards out to have them use a spectrometer to give you a graph that shows every detectable element.

Plan on having about a million dollar budget to have the numbers as precise as possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrometer

Most people for SAY a school project would get say 10 dead computers from what may be going to landfill or recycle, and then document the strip down and weights of the proportion of plastic to metal in the computer. If they wanted to take it 1 step further and had proper PPE they could dip the circuit boards into an acid solution that would eat the boards and metal, and then isolate the metal from the fiberglass and other non metal impurities and be able to state that there was 3.8325 ounces of metal copper/gold/lead mixture in the boards and from top side components and 15.0932 ounces of fiberglass and random partially eaten components.

Based on older and newer computers one could EVEN show how computers over the last say 20 years have declined in weight and metal usage and increased in plastic usage if they have a sample of 10 systems going back to a Pentium 60Mhz bought in 1994 to date etc.

Most may not take your post seriously as for it is far from the norm that we get here, however, I wanted to help if this is a real question and suggestions on figuring out weights and measurements of materials and costs associated with being very precise, vs for less than $100 you can get a rough assessment without having to know that there is 1.2 GRAMS of zinc in the Galvanized Steel case.

If only calculating for zinc. You could always calculate the area of the metal of every bend and radius or hammer it flat to be dealing with 2D measurements of area, and then find out the average amount of zinc used to galvanize a 1 x 1 inch square area and then with that number get a pretty good estimate, although not actual, measurement of actual zinc in the metal of the case. Contacting a specific manufacturer you may be able to have them share how many microns the thickness of the zinc plating is etc.it was a real question (hard to believe, i know, but i'm doing work for someone so i had to ask), and thank you for responding seriously.The principal materials are:
Aluminum
Arsenic
Boron
Brass
Carbon
Ceramnic
Copper
Fiberglass
Gold
Iron
Lead
Mercury
Mylar
Polyethylene
Polychlorinated biphenyl
Vinyl chloride
Silicon
Tin
Zinc

This is not a complete list.
It is hard to estimate the relative amounts.

Hey all,
My laptop keeps restarting and goes into HP recovery mode, where it attempts to fix and restart but nothing fixes.  This is the screen I see:



I have tried every single option on that screen (minus the backup) as well as:

TYPING in these commands

bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

bootrec.exe /fixboot

When I choose the recovery option, it starts to back stuff up but I don't have a cd to back it up to.  I also do not have my windows recovery CD's anymore.

-What type of CD do I need to back my files up?  There are 220gb worth of things I need from n what I remember. 
-After backing up, I want to be 100% SURE everything I needed was backed up before reformatting or anything similar   How do I make sure about this?!  Seeing how I can't GET out of this screen
-What do I do about the issue of not having the reinstallation cds?  Will I need them?

MUCH thanks for all the SUPPORT!Have you tried booting to safemode ? ?
If it does run chkdsk /r....
As far as a re-install goes that HP has a hidden factory restore partition which can be used...NOTE All data and apps will be gone when you run this.

To backup what you need the drive does not have to be able to boot...remove the drive and put it in a USB enclosure and do backups on a working desktop PC...Yes I've tried safe mode and the same thing happens, straight to this screen. I don't have another laptop or PC to MOVE the hard drive too. 

Am I better off backing up to a CD or external drive?  How would I check those afterwards to make sure they have all the files I want before reformatting and losing all files?

Can anyone else also offer their input?  Thanks!You have no other PC to do your backups ? ? how 'bout a friend ? ?
How are you gonna backup to CD if the PC won't boot ? ?

The simplest solution is what i suggested above...

Hi, I am making my computer and I just want a person who knows more than me on computers to just check my build and if everything is good. Here's the link to my build! http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3sjqgI'd go with a heavier power supply. 500 watts I feel may not be enough to drive that video card with the rest of the hardware. 650 watts is my suggestion, with a 600 watt absolute minimum. I see that there is a Corsair CX 750 watt for $60 which is what I'd go with to avoid running PSU close to its 100% limit in case you want to add more drives, fans, etc later.

*Also I have had issues with MSI products so I avoid that brand. The video card you have is MSI.That looks okay, the only things I would change would be the motherboard and CPU.  The CPU is Ivy Bridge so is an old generation, look at the Haswell i5s (4xxx) nowadays.  I'd also recommend a motherboard from a better brand such as Gigabyte or ASUS.

Also bear in mind that the non-k series i5s are not overclockable, if you aren't planning on overclocking then there is no real need to get an aftermarket CPU cooler, the stock one will be fine.  The 'P' series chips like the one you picked don't have integrated graphics, I'd be inclined to avoid them as the cost difference is minimal and having integrated graphics can be very useful for debugging issues down the line.What parts would you suggest then for my CPU and motherboard? What about this? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3sEHF
Made a couple of changes to what you had above: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3sIHA.

Replaced the CPU with an Intel Core i5 4670k - Xeons are for servers and high end workstations, not a system like this.  Also swapped the power supply for a better quality, lower wattage (750w is too high for this build) Seasonic unit.  The case also includes all the fans you'll need so you only need to buy those extra ones if you want the LEDs.

I would also strongly recommend getting an SSD for this system.  If you can't get one for whatever reason, you would really be best to swap the hard drive for a faster 7200rpm unit.What's an SSD for should I have one or the other?SSD is an acronym for "Solid State Drive". Just google it and read about it. Personally, I am avoiding them because if you have a power outage and the drive is active, it could be a  critical error. I'm not risking that for a quicker boot time.
Quote from: robosodope on April 16, 2014, 07:36:12 AM

What's an SSD for should I have one or the other?

SSD is an acronym for "Solid State Drive". Just google it and read about it. Personally, I am avoiding them because if you have a power outage and the drive is active, it could be a  critical error. I'm not risking that for a quicker boot time.

What  have you been smoking?
An SSD can fail and how it is used matters.

Sorry guys. this should be in a software section, but I need help. How can I ->(EASILY)&LT;- install windows 7 WITHOUT paying anything? If you have any IDEAS, please post WHOLE tutorial. Please write it so any idiot from 80s first TIME using pc would understand this :/We neither condone nor allow discussions of illegally obtained software. I'm locking this thread and advising you not to engage in such practices - and certainly not to discuss it here if you do.

Is this GOOD for med to high GAMING also for applications
HTTP://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3uNFy
Many THANKS

I have a Sony Vaio VPCEE23FX and I am running Windows 7. It has been awesome up until recently. A little over 1 month ago, I seemed to have an issue with it going into sleep mode and not "waking up". It happened 2 or 3 times and each time it would not restart immediately. When I hit the power button, the power light would COME on (green) and stay on, the cd/dvd drive boots, but the screen stays black (there are no beeps). I am unable to access anything (BIOS, Windows etc) because it does not boot. Also, my hard drive light does not come on. Usually within about 2 days, I can randomly push the power button and the computer will start right up.

The new issue is (it seems to me that I removed the usb drive both times this has occurred) I get the blue screen of death (STOP:0x000000D1) and the only thing I can do it shut off the computer, at which time it will not restart again - but seems to be the same as before (described above), powering on after a few days. I did run the Vaio care program that said my usb had failed (nothing odd appearing the device manager and I have no idea which port it is on the list).

So far this is what I have done: held the power button down (without the battery) for 30-60 secs and tried to turn it back on with only the power cord, I have (when it has turned on) done system restore, updated drivers, & ran every diagnostic tool I can find on my laptop.  I have reseated the RAM, put new RAM in (which I am using now - so it works). I have tried a new hard drive and it still won't boot until it's ready. Several days ago I disassembled the laptop to TRY to find the CMOS battery (I heard this could be a problem) but was unable to find it without removing the motherboard which I am not comfortable with. I am a college student and single mom with not a lot of money and can't afford a new computer at the moment. I need mine to be reliable but am running out of ideas as to what could be causing this issue. I am willing to try anything, so any ideas would be awesome! Thanks!

BTW the computer is working at the moment, I am using now! This usually means the mainboard is giving up the ghost and it's very difficult to diagnose a laptop without actually looking at it.

Sometimes the CMOS battery is very well hidden and you won't be able to find it without dissambling the entire unit.
As far as I know (I rarely work on Sony Vaio's and I'd recommend HP or Dell instead), Sony Vaio doesn't release any service manuals which makes the task of disassembling it even more difficult.

If you have replaced all user service-able PARTS and it did not resolve the problem, it's time to back-up your data and start saving for a new one. If the laptop refuses to turn on entirely, it is not a software issue.

There are a few more things you can try and there are some questions to be answered:

1. Did you spill any liquids on the laptop during its lifetime?
2. Did you clean the fan and heatsink assembly?
3. Have you tried to remove the laptop battery and then turn on the laptop?
4. Have you inspected the power supply for damage (e.g. exposed wires or grinding noise)
Thanks for the info I have backed everything up just in case it won't turn back on at all.
As far as the list of questions you menioned:

1. No I have never spilled anything on the laptop
2. When I took the laptop apart the other day I did clean the fan and the heat sink did not look like it needed cleaned.
3. Yes I have removed the battery and tried to start it and there is no difference, it still only starts when it wants to lol!
4. The power supply appears to be in good working condition. It appears to be getting power just fine, just refuses to boot for several days at a time.

I am thinking it could be, but hoping it's not the motherboard. However, if it is the motherboard, would it continue to turn on after crashing? As of right now is has crashed with a blue screen at least 2 times (Maybe 3 -my daughter was using it and something happened but she couldn't explain it lol) and then the issue with it sleeping and not waking up has occurred at least 3 times. Every time it has started back up after being off for 2-3 days. If it were the motherboard would it continue to power up on occasion or would it be totally dead for good? Quote

I am thinking it could be, but hoping it's not the motherboard. However, if it is the motherboard, would it continue to turn on after crashing? As of right now is has crashed with a blue screen at least 2 times (Maybe 3 -my daughter was using it and something happened but she couldn't explain it lol) and then the issue with it sleeping and not waking up has occurred at least 3 times. Every time it has started back up after being off for 2-3 days. If it were the motherboard would it continue to power up on occasion or would it be totally dead for good?

1. No I have never spilled anything on the laptop
2. When I took the laptop apart the other day I did clean the fan and the heat sink did not look like it needed cleaned.
3. Yes I have removed the battery and tried to start it and there is no difference, it still only starts when it wants to lol!
4. The power supply appears to be in good working condition. It appears to be getting power just fine, just refuses to boot for several days at a time.

I tried to turn it on with no hard drive and got nothing. I tried to boot from an Ubuntu disk and Windows disk and neither worked (I have both OS on my hard drive).lol!

It's so frustrating because it keeps coming back on! If it would just die for good then I could walk away from it. I just can't stand it

FILE Description CRITICAL BIOS Update Utility Release Date 1/21/2011 Version R0200Z5 File Size 3.90 MB This utility updates the BIOS to version R0200Z5 and provides the following benefits:

    Resolves an issue where the optical disc drive does not appear in the system after start-up
    Improves the touchpad response
    Resolves and issue where the system may hang or freeze (stop responding) during start-up
    Resolves an issue where the system may display a blank screen during start-up
    Improves CPU throttling
    Resolves an issue where the AMD Phenom II P650 mobile CPU is improperly displayed in the System menu

I'm looking at replacing the SCREEN on a laptop. The p/n is LTN156AT27 - H01.  While searching for a replacement, I see other part numbers that end in H02 and H04.  Anyone know what these H0 numbers mean?There are experts here READY to HELP you. . But his is not a char room. You need to give as much detail as needed. Make, model, part number of both the laptop and the part.  Replacement parts are NOT standardized in the laptop industry. Each maker has their own part list.
I did receive a reply from a vendor on this just now. Here's what they said:
Quote

In this CASE, there's no significant difference between any of them that we know of. The H01, H02, etc. are revision numbers, so an H04 screen may have slightly updated firmware over an H02, or a minor component change, but the compatibility and function of the screens is the same. It is good to keep an eye on revisions though, as some screens may have more significant differences (for example,
LTN173KT01 H01 usually has the CONNECTOR on the opposite side of
LTN173KT01 K01).

Hi My computer is shutting off and turning back on, with no bios screen. new build, tried another mobo that was working just two weeks ago, same thing. my new mobo was a Asrock killer z97. all fans come on then shut off, I checked all wires for shorts and proper installation, checked memory, bought a brand new power SUPPLY Consair cx750m. what could cause this? Even a new power supply might do that.
Are you using a SSD? Has it been working prior to this build?
Remove all drives and USB devices, except keyboard.
Reduce memory down to least. TRY an old memory stick.
No then can you get a stable BIOS screen?
What motherboard do you faveNo I am not using an SSD, Seagate 1tb, the mobo I am using now is one that worked two weeks ago a  Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3. I only have one computer so I will have to try to SWITCH out old one later. As I said In my last post I did the memory thing, even had a friend ( that's been building computers since he was 14 now is 30, and has built two computers for me with no problems)help me redo the computer from scratch, checked, for bad connections even cleared c mos. he thinks is a short in my case or the  powers supply. But did not have time to check either.I moved this...
Stop posting in the FAQ section...
Not the 1st time.My money is on the power supply, maybe you got it overloaded or something.  There is also room for stupid check issues.  Have you verified your system is securely plugged into the wall/power strip?  Also is the power cable securely plugged into your computer.  (I've had a situation similar to this where all my moving the cast around knocked the cable lose, ever so slightly, enough to cause power problems.)

You rebuilt your computer from scratch?  Did you apply a new tube of thermal paste on your heatsink/fan?

-Malthanks for the reply for some reason, I have to stop posting hear, Than where do I post IT!. We put thermal paste  on cpu, Like I said we checked wires . I will check power Supply today.It's in the Hardware section as it is a hardware issue.

You originally posted it in the FAQ section which is for FAQ's.Not the power supply, put new one in today, no luck. case short? do you have to have special motherboard screws. I have the brass stops in secure but two screws look a little different but screw in the brass stop things fine. What I am saying is could the wrong screws short the mobo from the top of the motherboard.  Those little brass screws are called risers and are absolutely necessary.  If you have 2 screws that look different, check the underside of the mobo, by taking off the side cover and looking for areas where the screws from the mobo are touching the case.    This side cover is the OTHER one, the one that doesn't provide access to anything.

Really the only WAY to have a case short is by having some part of the motherboard (Or screws in the motherboard) touching the case directly.

-MalVideo about testing motherboard out of case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PXBe9FE0f0
Published on FEB 16, 2013
Quote

..just testing my new motherboard before i install it in the case.

my windows 7 laptop keeps shutting down AUTOMATICALLY.however it works fine in SAFE mode, can anyone help me to fix this concern.1) What do you mean it shuts down "automatically"?

2) When does this happen (what are you doing when it happens)?

3) Does it always happen after a specific period of time?

4) What is NEW or different since the LAST time everything worked properly (ie, new hw, new sw, virus, error, etc)?

5) Does it shut down or reboot?

1)sometime my laptop will shut down and sometime it will restart.

2)it works only for 4-5 minutes and then shut down without any information

3)however it works ABSOLUTELY fine in safe mode with networking.

4)is this a hardware problem or you can tell how to fix this.
Please answer all of my questions.

I have a 7 yr old HP Pavillon a1600n PC. Here are the specs:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00757531&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en#N55

I assume it does not have a video card because I see two nvidia modules on the mobo. I guess that is what "integrated video" means? I have a new Asus monitor and would like to give it a digital signal but of course do not want to spend much $$ on this old box. I do have a spare PCI x16 slot but I only have a VGA port. Also, I can not tell from the specs how much power I have for a new video card.

Will someone help me SELECT a video card and tell me what other mods I need (HDMI port, eg)? Also, what happens to the existing nvidia modules and the integrated video when I install a video card?

I suspect I have a problem with the existing integrated video (see my recent post on the Win7 subforum) which may be associated with my recent upgrade from XP to 7. Thanks for your help!The integrated graphics on that board is very weak so pretty much any modern card will outperform this.  Something like a GeForce 610 would work fine as long as it has the ports you need.  It all comes down to how much you want to spend.

Also check the wattage of the power supply in the system, for a basic card like a 610 it shouldn't matter too much but it may be an issue if you plan on getting a more powerful card. Quote from: camerongray on April 13, 2014, 10:35:25 AM

The integrated graphics on that board is very weak so pretty much any modern card will outperform this.  Something like a GeForce 610 would work fine as long as it has the ports you need.  It all comes down to how much you want to spend.

Also check the wattage of the power supply in the system, for a basic card like a 610 it shouldn't matter too much but it may be an issue if you plan on getting a more powerful card.

Thanks for the quick response. I have read several places that I have a nominal 300w PS but I have to confirm that. I also read that the available amps at 12 volts is more important than the total power. Is this a consideration for me? Do I have to modify my case for a HDMI port or can I simply remove the existing VGA port and drop in the new  HDMI?

Edit: Looked at the 610 and I see the ports are an integral part of the card. When I plug the card into the mobo, will the ports line up with the case? Or, do you run a cable from the card to a port mounted on the case? Finally, the 610 says PCI 2.0 express. Will that plug into PCI x16 slot?

The video card will go in one of the slots on your motherboard (The x16 slot is fine) - There will then be a small "blanker" that fills a slot on the back of your case, you can simply remove this blanker and then insert the card - The ports for the card will then be accessible through the slot on the back of the PC.  When the card is in place the onboard graphics (and therefore your current VGA port) will be disabled.

Yeah, a 610 is happy with a 300w unit.  I am assuming that you don't plan on extreme gaming or anything as the 610 would be too weak for that but it's fine as a basic card for office tasks, video playback and very light gaming.

Yeah, 12v current is important when you are dealing with high powered video cards which can easily pull over 200w alone, this isn't a big deal with a 610 as it will only pull around 29w when completely maxed out.

EVGA is a very good brand.  The 610 is a very basic card so there isn't really any difference between brands, they are dead simple cards.

I've GOT a 2TB Western Digital WD20EADS  HDD.
The USB connector snapped off so it LONGER worked with the USB cable.
I then tried connecting it with my sata docking station.
The drive was recognised in the 'safely remove Hardware and Eject media' icon (bottom right of screen, but when I tried to access the files through windows explorer the drive was not visible.
I opened Disk management which asked me to assign the drive, which I did but it was then asking me to format it but I obviously don't want to do this !
Can you help me recover the data from this HDD.

Thanks

DavidThe drive you mentioned has no USB connector.I think you'll find that it does.
I may not be the brightest computer guy in the world but I can certainly tell what a USB connector is.
I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but it's not accurate.!
Quote from: dgreen on November 10, 2012, 05:17:30 PM

I may not be the brightest computer guy in the world but I can certainly tell what a USB connector is.

Can you see the USB connector... I must be hallucinating !

I've got a 2TB Western Digital WD20EADS  HDD.

I had connected it to my data dicking station.

I actually thought you guys could have put two and two together and not come up with five!

For you to even challenge this without realising that I must have already taken the drive out of its casing beggars belief.

What am I digging for... Is it valuable?

All week I've been in a hotel and cursing the internet connection. My Outlook would disconnect, pages were loading at dial-up speeds, etc.

Then last night, something dawned on me - I was staring at a blank SCREEN while it took three or FOUR minutes to load a Sales Force page... And I was watching HBO Go on my iPad over WiFi as well.

So the slow speed seemed to be limited to my laptop, not the network itself. I was also able to stream video on my phone pretty easily, using the hotel WiFi.

Today, I had my laptop at work and on Wi Fi for the first time this week, and it kept dropping my Outlook and took forever (OK, a few minutes) to get a boarding pass. I'd never noticed slow speeds before.

Later today, I'd tried logging on the the Free WiFi at the airport, and it never was able to load the graphics to the signon screen; last week I was at the same airport (same gate, even) and didn't notice an issue.

So, what can I check? Can a WiFi antenna or card go "bad"? What do I do to try to diagnose this?

ThanksYes, the antenna can go bad. In a laptop the antenna is a small bit of wire. If it comes disconnected, the Wi-Fi will drop  to a crawl. OK. Is there a way to test that theory before I call Dell?

If the antenna is broke, the number of bars would drop to one.Besides the antenna, which I think is an excellent suggestion, maybe erase your network histories.  You computer might be trying to connect to your home, hotel1, hotel2, airport1, airport2, etc. connections before getting to the newly discovered network.

-MalNumber of bars is fine.

I'll clean up the network history - how would that explain a slow connection, once I've established a connection? Does it continually ping through the whole list?So more data.

This weekend, at home, number of bars was fine. On the airplane, when I posted the above, fine.

Now I'm back at the office.

My colleague and I are using absolutely identically-outfitted machines (Dell Latitude E6430) that were leased and SHIPPED at exactly the same time. He has four bars and I have one, connected to the same network.

Is there a diagnostic tool I can run to check this, before I tear the machine apart?

ThanksYou could try downloading inssider (I believe the older free versions are still availible). If installed on both laptops, you could more accuratly compare the signal strength received by decebel levels. (Requires Microsoft .net framework)OK, so the top picture is the Inssider screenshot of my machine, and the second one is an identically-equipped machine, literally right next to mine.

I don't know what I'm looking at, but it seems mine is a whole lot more volatile than the other. (Even though mine has a higher "link score", although that, too, fluctuates wildly).

Also, that volatility wouldn't speak to a loose antenna wire, would it? After all, both machines are sitting safe and sound on a nice stable desk.

MINE:


COLLEAGUE'S:


His is on Channel 6, mine on 11. That shouldn't make a difference?Earlier in this thread it was mentioned that your antenna could be the problem.  BASED on your posted pictures I would have to agree.  Your signal is all over the place, while your colleague's is stable. 

-MalWhat was suggested earlier was that the antenna was disconnected, and one of the symptom would be one bar (which is not the CASE), so I was wondering if that was still valid.

What specifically do you think is wrong with the antenna, that would lead to such sporadic performance? "Disconnected" you'd expect it to be flat, but low, not volatile. Right?

(I need to give a pretty good diagnosis to my IT team, otherwise I get the "send it in and we'll figure it out" response instead of a "OK, let's fix that" response.)

Thanks
Yeah... those "helpful" IT guys.

Looks like it isn't disconnected, but that it is performing in a reduced capacity, so it seams that either the antenna is lose or perhaps the wireless network system is dying on your system.  Honestly, I bet they try to re-install the drivers first then go from there.

-Mal Quote from: rjbinney on July 14, 2014, 12:22:34 PM

My colleague and I are using absolutely identically-outfitted machines (Dell Latitude E6430) that were leased and shipped at exactly the same time. He has four bars and I have one, connected to the same network.

I have a 3TB HD and for some reason I cannot create a logical drive with 700mb left over from the 2TB partition. What is going on??  Can I merge these two?

[recovering disk SPACE, attachment deleted by admin]Right clik it and allocate it...
You can then merge...or MAKE it a partition...If you look at the attachment,I have no option of doing so...Is this Windows 7?
You're at the limit of PRIMARY partitions, you'll have to make an existing ONE a Logical partition.  I would choose "E".
OR
What is Disk 0?  Your old boot disk?  You want to get the Recovery Partition moved over to Disk1, so delete "E", allocate Disk1 space as Primary, copy Recovery to new Primary space, then kill Disk 0.

This is all done easier with 3rd party software, AOMEI Partition Assistant or MiniTool Partition Wizard.Dang.... How am I supposed to install all my computer games?....

I will try what you recommended.

Thanks

I was trying to remove the outer cover to get to the CPU fan to blow it out when I realized that the screw was stripped inside of the casing, leaving me unable to remove to cover unable to get to fan. I'm not sure what to do now. Here is a trick that I use. If the screw comes out part WAY, slip a flat edge of metal under the lip of the screw, such as a flat headed screw driver or butter knife. While using say the philips screw driver to unscrew the screw, apply pressure against the lip of the screw towards yourself. The  remaining threads should bite into the soft case metal and start to back out. When you have this screw removed, if its an optional screw you can continue to leave it out. Otherwise you can try to find a replacement screw that is slightly larger to bite into and rethread itself into the soft case metal in which the next removal of it should back out with no problems.Its a Gateway laptop with Windows 7. It looks like to be the only screw holding the cover on. The screw is so badly stripped that it wont even move. Oh ok... not a desktop... ok... Most of the time its a desktop with the soft case metal causing issues.

Laptops are more TRICKY as for you dont want to have metal filings or FRAGMENTS making their way inside.


If the screw is close to the surface and you can grab it with needle nose plyers, you may be able to twist it counter clockwise and once it starts to move you might have something left to use a screw driver with or else its needle nose the whole way out until finger tight in which you can unscrew with fingers.

If the screw is a deep screw such as down in a 1/4" hole and stripped, this is one of the worst ones to be dealing with and extraction is a pain.

If the screws are screwing into metal usually brass ferrals which are in the cast plastic, the only way to get it out is to carefully grind the top of the screw off with a dremmel. This then allows for the cover to slide off of the screw body with no screw top/flat holding it together. You then can remove the remains of the screw by plyers to unscrew it from the brass threaded ferral that is fused to the plastic body of the laptop. ((( The extreme caution with this process is that there are metal dust/fragments that you do not want to have making their way into the computer case to short out sensitive electronics )))

If the screws are threaded into plastic directly, the trick to getting these out is by heating up the screw with a soldering iron and once hot grabbing the screw top and pulling the hot screw out of the laptop in which the plastic that is around the metal threads of the screw is melted.

However... Its far more common that the screws are threaded into metal on the inside of the laptop instead of threaded into plastic. But one way to know what type your dealing with is to look at the other screws that are like it that you already removed. If the threads are large and less per inch, then its a self tapping screw that goes into a plastic stand off inside on the opposing case cover. If you are looking at very fine threads on the screws which is more common, then its a metal screw that threads into a metal piece on the inside of the case, and this can sometimes be threaded into the keypad frame.

*** If you are going to use the last effort dremmel attempt to cut the top off of this screw.. Here are the steps I took that have been successful.

1.) Tape over all vent holes etc on the case so that no metal frags/dust etc can fall into the inside of the case.
2.) Have a Vacuum cleaner handy as well as a dremmel with a grinding stone at the tip of it that is rated for grinding steel.
3.) Remove Battery and Hard Drive ( if one that can be removed from a bottom access panel ) To avoid the hard drive getting shocked by the vibration of the dremmel.
4.) Carefully with safety glasses on hopefully, and maybe even a flash light to see into the hole, carefully grind the top of the screw, and alternate between grinding and vacuum to suck out the dust. * If the screws are steel, you can also magnetize a nail or use another magnet to get the metal filings to cling to it. *** Just be sure the magnet never gets near the HDD.
5.) When the screw top is removed and all fragments are carefully removed, the laptop cover should come off.
6.) Measure the length of the screw that was destroyed to try to find a suitable replacement with same thread count and size, or if its an optional screw leave it empty when done.
7.) Also remove the tape that was plugging all vent holes etc as for the tape served its purpose to block entry of fragments into the case and is no longer needed.

This is a very risky process... Perform at own risk.   I have had to do this before with a clients laptop that their son rounded the philips screw when trying to add memory to laptop by using an over sized screw driver on a jewelers philips type screw. FORTUNATELY because I have various dead laptops around, I was able to test this on a carcass first and then perform this on the clients laptop, and also had an abundance of similar screws to TAKE from a dead laptop and install as a replacement screw to this laptop.
Do you think I'm better off handing it over to a professional than doing it myself? This sounds very complicated. I'm better with software than with hardware. If not comfortable with this, I'd say yes with having someone else do it.

I am guessing that this computer is unhealthy and thats why you want to open and clean it of dust and possibly apply new thermal compound?If a user can not remove a screw,
- he should not try doing  thermal compound.

Hey guys, I was hoping someone could help me with a my problem

Well..my PC everything is work perfectly .....but recently the
problem COME in big way.... my system configuration...

AMD Phenom II X2 555

ASUS M4N68T-M V2 Motherboard

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD7750 1Gb/DDR5 graphics card PCI-E X16 slot version.

8 GB DDR3 RAM - 500 GB SATA

MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

right now my computer doesn't seem to recognize my graphics card so it's forced to use the M/B integrated one which is a nVidia GeForce 7025 / nVidia nForce 630a. When I FIRST booted the computer, my VGA cable was in my graphics card, even though my monitor said no signal I had no choice but to put the VGA cable into the M/B just to set up BIOS and get everything running. I've made sure all hardware was installed properly and is seated correctly but it just doesn't work. the bios may NOT automically enable the video on the
card in the slot. i've done search for any SOLUTION same too me thru webs..but seem i got nothing to do with this..

I also done this steps that i found a few forums :

1. Shutdown comp - take out graphic card
2. Restart into Bios / update to the LATEST BIOS ( Asus BIOS - 1.001) - set all to default
3. Windows start with IGP then uninstalled all  graphic drivers (including onboard)  ATI/NVidia. (im using driver sweeper)..using CCleaner to fix all registry
4. Shutdown, put graphic cards..cable on PCI then reboot again
 Everything i've done..but nothings..

Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated..ThanksDoes the card work in another PC ? ?
Is it new...or used ? ?Its new..i used since last year..and afew week ago..its happened..'no signals'..many steps i try..but nothing changes..this morning i try once again..when i turn on computer..the fan of graphic card spin about 30second and its stop again..its happend everytime i unplug p.cord and put it again...now the cable i put it on vga portThe card it seems has failed...try it in another working PC to confirm this.

I have a MSI 870-G45 mb with 1/8"  sound input/output  jacks.
I am RUNNING Windows 7 64 bit  with SP/1
I have my "Line-in jack connected to a CD player

When I assembled this machine three years ago I could play tapes, CDs etc through the line-in jacks and it worked perfectly.  I could listen or RECORD as I wished.  Recently I had to reformat and restore Windows 7 because off some serious problems that I had.   Since then my "Line-in" feature is "unavailable".    If I fool around with it LONG enough sometimes I might do something and it starts to work again.  I never know for sure what it was that I did.  BUT the next time that I boot up, it's RIGHT back to "unavailable".   

Can anyone help me.  It is very frustrating.      I am tempted to buy a "Sound" PC card but i would RATHER not if it can be helped.   Thank you for reading this.   
When you re-installed did you remember to re-install ALL the drivers from the MBoard driver  CD ? ?
If you can't find the CD they will be at the MBoard manuf. site under your Model # and the Win version.

Chipset drivers go 1st...then re-boot and then all others.Okay, I'll try that.  Thank you Patio.  I'll let you knowPATIO:   Thank you so much.  I found the DVD that came with the MB.  Evidently I didn't uses it when I assembled the machine and I don't know what I did right but it is now working (better than before).  Once again you guys at CH have saved my bacon.  I don't know what I would have done these past few years without your help.  Bless you all,  JIMGlad to hear you are all fixed up...

Does anybody KNOW what kind or type plug i need for this CD/DVD ROM player??? where can i find one? and is there an adapter that will convert to usb?

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]a little more info about the unit

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]I deleted your duplicate post and moved this to the appropriate forum.ThanksYou want to use it as an external USB to  DVD reader. Is that right?
A generic external USB DVD player goes for about $15 mail order.
Unless you do not value your time, you are wasting your time. 


thanks. i kind of hoped it could be used. cause it is also a cd and rom burner . thought it could be used to back up my files to cd. thats what i used it for mostly in the old laptop.Low cost  USB adapters have IDE and SATA PORTS and a standard power connector. Regular internal DVD/CD drives can be used with  such adapters. Sad to SAY, internal DVD drives for LAPTOPS are not the same connectors. Which you already know.thanks for the help. i also removed the hard drive and memory module from the old laptop ive located an adapter for the hard drive and a local office supply store said they coul do a antivirus data transfer for me but werent sure about the memory module.how can i retrieve data from it? it does nt line up to the slot in my new laptop..There is absolutely no data on the memory module...no adapter will fix that.

Have a Lenova KEYBOARD and when the "forward slash" button (also ? key) is used, it types an odd looking "E" character. Any help?Have you tried a different keyboard to see if its the keyboard malfunction or if its a keyboard MAPPING swap to that character?Hi

That can happen if in WINDOWS you have your language set to French Canadian. To quickly TEST try AltCar o and if it SHOWS § then that's the cause.

PS : it might be wrong section i'm sorry i wasnt sure where to post this.

Hello i'm having a problem with my audio... i have recently bought a new computer and i'm having this problem where my sound goes up or down randomly for no reason.. i have removed what was removed on my other computer(didn't have this problem so i doubt it would be the headset) like do nothing INSTEAD of lower the volume by 50% with skype etc and nothing that i've done works.. I have tried installing/uninstalling my audio drivers without any luck either.. it is very annoying so if anyone could help me that would be great !

My pc specs are :
1 x Intel Core i7 4770K Unlocked Quad Core 3.5GHZ Processor LGA1150 Haswell 8MB Cache Retail
1 x Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA 6Gbps 3.5in Internal Hard Drive - OEM
1 x Please Use The Onboard Network Ethernet Card Integrated On My Motherboard
1 x Please Use The Onboard Sound Card Integrated On My Motherboard
1 x Corsair Neutron Series GTX 120GB 2.5in SATA3 6GB/S 7MM LAMD LM87800 Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD
1 x Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H55 CPU Cooler System LGA1150 1155 1366 1156 2011 AM2 AM3 & FM1
1 x ASUS P8Z77-V Lk ATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 2PCI SATA3 SLI DVI HDMI DP USB3.0 Motherboard
1 x Corsair Vengeance Blue CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit
1 x AMD Radeon HD 7950 800MHZ 3GB 5GHZ GDDR5 PCI-E DVI HDMI 2 X Mini Display Port
1 x Thermaltake Overseer RX-I EATX Full Tower Case Black 3X5.25 1X3.5 5X3.5INT Side Window No PS
1 x Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750M 750W ATX Modular Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan 5 Year Warranty

I use a Logitech G930 headset(been using it for years never had any ISSUES)

If you need any other information just ask and i will do my best to get them for you. It is really a nightmare and frustrating i have no idea how to fix

Thanks !What operating system?Sorry i should of included that.. Windows 7I have tried uninstalling the logitech program itself and the issue seems to be in surround sound only(I have been using surround sound for years so the normal one sounds a bit wierd to me) i reinstalled it but the issue is still there.

I really HOPE someone knows how to fix this ;(

Hi My HP desktop just crashed. Suddenly the SCREEN was FILLED with 10 or more columns of NUMBERS scrolling down the screen. No keys affected this behavior. I shut down manually. I attempted to restart normally and with my recovery disk. my screen remains blank. any advice I WOULD like to Identify the failure if I can.  For example is my hard drive still functional.  (before I go shopping)?What were you running when this system crashed like this?

This sounds very odd that you had scrolling columns with numbers.

If nothing is displayed including the HP logo not displayed at boot:

If your system has a video CARD added and integrated video as an option, remove the video card and connect to the integrated video instead. If problem solved then its either bad video card or power supply is weak. If problem remains or you do not have a video card to remove then continue to nect steps.

I'd remove and reseat the memory sticks with the computer off and then try to boot. If still a black screen shut down and then if you have more than 1 memory stick installed, remove all but 1 stick and try to boot. If still a black screen shut it down again and try to boot with the other spare stick.

Last effort is if a spare power supply is available to swap out with this system.

* Your hard drive may still be good with a computer that is dead. You can always buy a new computer and buy an external hard drive enclosure and install the hard drive from this system into the enclosure and be able to access your data on the new computer. Sometimes you need to take ownership of files and folders though depending on how you had your system configured.

I have a build in which at first I was proud of but now I'm not so sure of
This was the first computer I've build for myself everything here are the specs
CPU: AMD FX 8150 3.6ghz 8(4) core processor w/Kuhler h20 liquid cooling
Motherboard: Crosshair Formula V
RAM: 1600 Corsair Vengance 12 Gigs 9-9-24
Harddrive 1: 250 WD 7200RPM HD
              2: 1TB WD 7200RPM HD
Video Card: MSI GTX 760 2gig Direct CU II
Power Supply: Antec 1000 watts

So this is my build it is a few years old
and I just wanted to know what I could get to improve performance
I've been looking into SSD's and a new monitor my monitor is a
Dell UltraSharp2007WFP 20-inch WIDESCREEN Flat Panel LCD Monitor with 16ms lag time
I FEEL like thats why I get headaches quite EASILY because the newer games are
made for HD monitors
Anywho I'm just asking if anyone has any suggestions to possibly improve and upgrade
my computer before I have to start over?
Thanks - Kysper


An SSD would be a nice upgrade for that system. Will make the whole machine feel a lot quicker.