Explore topic-wise InterviewSolutions in .

when I took my laptop to the service STATION, he took it inside and brought back switched on WITHIN five MINUTES. I asked him how he did it, he SAID you have to short the battery terminals inside. but he will not disclose which ones.
Battery terminal has seven pins, 1,2 & 3 are connected by red wires and 5,6 & 7 are black wires. Pin 4 is blank. someone said, if you short 3 & 4 it will turn on. But it did not work.
Maybe some body knows the trick for this particular brand (CompBook).
Thanks in advance.Find another "service station" where they aren't crooks.+ 1 and then again...

My desktop MONITOR is damaged...how can i share the DISPLAY from CPU to my laptop monitor?
the external video (graphics) port on the laptop, be it HDMI, VGA, DVI or whatever is for outputting a signal - not for receiving a signal.

Hi, have not been here in a while. Getting ready to move into a 55+ community. Long over due as I am close to 70. My faithful HP a1600n is almost as old as I am. Seems like every year or so I come here to get advice on a replacement but never get around to it. Seems like I am doing most stuff on my iPad but still like to do my banking and document printing from my PC.

Was looking at refurbished units on a Newegg. How do you go about selecting the right one? Was thinking definitely Dell or HP with Win 10 and i5 or i7 processor. Definitely want a HMDI output. Would I be better off getting a business unit, eg Optiplex with Win10 Pro?

I am willing to pay a little more for a brand new tower if that is a better path. If I were a little YOUNGER I would build my own, but just do not have the interest to do that now.

I am a light user but I want a fast robust tower. Thanks for any tips.If you go with Dell, they have some really good financing options. Heck, I got a gaming desktop that has reasonable good specs for under 30 dollars a month for 4 years. I doubt that you would be getting a 1500 dollar gaming computer, so you would be looking at a decent computer at around 600 dollars, and if the financing is right, you could get a monitor with it for like 20 dollars a month for 4 years, or even less if you feel like making bigger payments. I had a really low interest rate on mine, so I'm sure you would too. HDMI is almost standard on computers nowadays, so I wouldn't be that much of an issue. On top of that, it would come with a warranty and tech support.

Here is one that I would recommend: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/inspiron-3670-desktop/ddcw3670v519p2h

Hope you find a decent computer that fits your needs!
AnthonyHi

Your idea of buying a Dell Optiplex is a great with Windows 10 pro. I would get one with a Solid State Drive and differently intel.

Looking at what Newegg and yes I know this is new not used.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1VK-0001-100W5

It has HDMI in and out sockets, lots of usb ports some 3.1 standard
23" - LED - 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) so screen has large easy to read writing
SSD 256 GB - PCI Express - M.2 this is a fast hard drive
Includes Limited warranty - 3 years - response time: next business day

Or used
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAHZN84V1621&Description=9020&cm_re=9020-_-9SIAHZN84V1621-_-Product

Or a desktop or maybe i should say a tiny pc
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883998512&Description=lenovo&cm_re=lenovo-_-83-998-512-_-Product

It is more common to get Display ports on used business computers.
You could use a Display port to HDMI cable. If you are happy to do this would give you more options of refurbished computers.

I recommend you buy the first Dell all in one i linked.
Ajfer, that is the exact New Dell I selected last night. Lisa, why are you getting i3 units? Should t I be getting at least a late generation i5? Great tips from both of you, thanks!Lots of different options floating around here, probably worth thinking about what sort of form factor you'd want - desktop tower vs all in one, also worth considering if a laptop may be a more suitable option. For refurbs (or any machine to be honest), I'd always go down the route of the business oriented machines such as the Dell Optiplex line over the more consumer focused options such as Inspirons - I find they tend to be better made and often easier to get replacement parts for.

I'd definitely second Lisa's advice about an SSD, easily the biggest performance boost you'll see for day to day use. For general office type tasks, a lower end CPU paired with an SSD will feel hugely more responsive than a top of the line i7 machine running from a conventional hard drive. Nowadays I'd never buy a machine without an SSD BOOT drive.Quote from: camerongray on November 11, 2018, 08:49:54 AM

Nowadays I'd never buy a machine without an SSD boot drive.

I have 4 GB INTEGRATED graphics CARD and a 4 GB dedicated graphics card will it add up to 8 gb graphics for gamingno.
no game I know uses both graphics cards.
They can't be COMBINED.

Hey everyone, I have a Dell Inspiron 5555 that will experience a sudden loss of power when jostled. This only happens while it is unplugged to my knowledge. This leads me to suspect it has something to do with the battery, but I'm not sure. The warranty has expired on the laptop, so SENDING it in for a REPAIR is not a good option. Any IDEAS? It has never been dropped, and the only TIME I have even opened it was to EXPAND the RAM. So I know I didn't do anything to it.

Hello,

I have a problem with my pc. When I browse it the screen will sometimes go black for a second, i would see just the cursor and the UI will look broken for a second after.

Here you can see how it looks. https://youtu.be/qRKoGOTP2N0

Specs:

AMD Radeon R7 200 Series

AMD FX-4300 3.8GHZ

4GB RAM

ASRock 980DE3U3S3Remove all power...remove and re-seat the VID card...if it still does it the card is failing...THANK you but it didn't do the trick. So I need a new GPU?
Looks that way...unless it only happens once in awhile...
Did you buy it used ? No, it was a new one. Now I see that if I unistall the driver it works ok.Install the driver from the CD that shipped with the card...reboot,

HINT: Newer drivers ain't always betterI don't have that disk but I installed an older driver version from 2017. It did't solve the problem, but I found an solution. If I enter bios, I reset bios to default settings, it will work ok, but if I try to play a game it crashes.where's the disc ? ?The PC was used by my brother, he lost itBummer...get the proper 1 from the card manuf SITE then...

My laptop is a Dell Vostro 1400 running Windows 10. WHENEVER I press the power button, the power light COMES on, then turns back off. Occasionally it fully turns on, but it shuts back off while it is LOADING. I have tried using just the battery and just the power cord. I get the same results each time. When it did a system DIAGNOSTIC, everything came back clear. I am completely stumped. Any ideas?

Quote from: patio on November 05, 2018, 06:12:16 PM

a 32 G flash drive cost me 8 bucks a few weeks back...

Patio, its not about the money. Obviously at this stage of the game $8 is nothing considering i paid a whopping $40 for a 1gb flash drive back in 2007 (my first one back then) but its more about decreasing electronic waste and perhaps learning a thing or two. Since I'm putting together some older machines, i figured smaller drives would be nice to have around for USB limitations, but also why throw out something that potentially works, but is just being difficult? Gotta give it a solid shot before declaring it broken and throwing it out. I do appreciate all the help.

Try the app in the link I provided for low level formatting of the drive.

Not precisely the same issue but there are some additional suggestions on a similar problem here. One poster suggests using "BootICE" to rectify the problem with the flash drive. You might try that if you don't have any luck with the other formatting tools.

I was able to pull all the files that were on the Windows Drive, an was going to do a fresh Install. I reconnected everything in order to PREFORM the install, however, now booting seems slower and set it to turbo in the BIOS but, it;s still takes a while an won't launch the disc's in the dvd drive either. It displays ctrl-alt-del error then or bootmng errorAre the DVD's you are putting in your computer made by you, or are they OEM? (From a company and most likely has a label on it.) Sometimes if you make the DVD yourself, there can be other issues that can make boot problems. If you can get your hands on a .iso file of Windows, then you can use Rufus to make a bootable USB flash drive and install it that way.

One reason why your computer might be taking a while to boot up is because it is searching for a bootable medium. You can configure this in your BIOS so that way your HDD is the first in order, but if you do that you will have to open up the boot menu to select the DVD/USB for your windows installation. You should ALSO try re-setting you BIOS by disconnecting all power sources and removing the small battery that is on your motherboard. That has helped me many-a-times.

My question to you is, when you turn on you computer, can you hear the drive make NOISE at all, or does it remain silent? Seems like it's not wanting to see any disc's that are inserted. Though when I check the BIOS it is seeing the DVD Drive. I told the BIOS to load the defauts an configured it so that its setup as I need it. There are no death clicksOk, so the best course of action here WOULD be to either A: Try another disc drive, or B: Use A USB Stick with Rufus.

If you are using a DVD made by you, then it could be that. Hope you get it sorted out! If you have any further questions, just let me know!and I thought that it may of been the disc too but, there working in other units however, that doesn't explain my other issues an that dvd drive isn't all that oldStill, it could be the drive not connected properly, or just not working. It could be a manufacturing defect. You really never know. Just try with a different Drive. There is no pain in it.

Plus, your bootmg error is probably because windows can't find that file because it is trying to start up on the hard disk because nothing else is bootable, and your slow boot is probably the BIOS looking for something to boot off of. So that scans through all of the USB ports, drives, Floppy Drives (If you even have one in there, LOL) and all connected devices. I formated the drive thoughDid you do a quick format or a full format? If you did a quick, there is the possibility of the files still being left over.I did it through management Like I said, your best bet is to use another DVD drive. It is most likely the issue in this case. There is no pain in trying that.I got one of those laser disc cleaners some where but, you have to be able to play the disc in order for it to do the cleaning process. What do you not understand about using a different drive? Just don't use the one you have right now. Switch it with another one. Use another bootable medium other than that drive you are using. It's not that hard to do either. Just. Use. A. Different. Drive.Okay - once again the OP refuses to follow instructions and is wasting our time. Thread locked.

so i have a system with overclocked GPU and CPU and RAM.
does removing one of the ram stick (i have 4 of them) could cause the MOBO to reset the overclock's settings?
because i've noticed the system start to act weird (booting twice) but then it booted to windows just fine!Some BIOS's remember the configuration from last boot and then prompt the user to confirm at next boot the change to the memory. Others will run with the change without warning the user.

If your worried about losing your overclock settings then, I'd go into all the overclock settings and write down all the settings so that if a memory change does wipe it out back to normal native clock, you know what settings to put in to get back to where you were.

*** Only Big thing to worry about with this is that if your overclocking the FSB which overclocks your RAM you might find that the prior RAM you had worked fine with like a 10% overclock to the FSB, but the other RAM that is different from the initial RAM acts up under the overclock settings of what the prior RAM was happy with. Additionally if your messing with voltages (likely over voltage) to push components harder, some RAM is ok with this and other RAM get cooked to death. Additionally any undervoltage settings can cause INSTABILITY as well if your trying to fine tune an overclock with an undervoltage to reduce heat and still have a fast RELIABLE system.

With all overclocking and/or Over/Under Voltage settings, there is the risk of costly damage to hardware and data corruption, so be careful with it. And if messing with undervoltage settings definitely have the computer powered through a Battery Backup so that if there is a dip in line voltage to your home, it doesnt cause the system to be overly sensitive to a minor dip in the AC power to home or OFFICE as the battery backup would smooth out dips in power.

Greetings CH users!

Some of you folks may remember that for a while now, I've wanted to build something older that suitable for older games. I've got about 3 builds going, and have mixed results on all three of them. I get not everything is plug and play, (more like Plug and pray here) so ill be tackling one issue at a time.

Current machine im dealing with has a SpaceWalker AV11 mainboard. AGP/PCI/ISA. Along with this is a 600Mhz Celeron SOCKET 370 CPU, a Chaintech Branded Nvidia 4200 Ti (128mb) Graphics card, 512mb of ram, and a nice AWE32 Soundblaster card.

After getting the board posting and having windows 98 SE installed, i ran into some bad ram and it kept Blue screening. So i gave it some better ram, memtested it and reinstalled windows just to ensure everything is proper. Sound and video works, and everything appears to be good. However my current issue, is the PCI slots. If i put ANYTHING into PCI the machine will boot, show the windows 98 boot screen show the black screen right before login and then restart.

Being that ive set up the HARD drive (80gb seagate) for 20gb windows 98 SE, i will try to install XP on here via the second partition and see if this also happens in XP. But in the meantime, is there perhaps a BIOS setting i have incorrect?

I want to ADD a USB PCI card. Just to be cleare, i did have it booting the PCI card before but i pulled it apart (dont remember why) and now no matter what, it wont boot in. Not with my USB 2.0 card, or the 10/100 based ethernet card i have.

lastly on my current issues, is i have 2 copies of GTA 2. One is the modern redistributed copy that rockstar gave away free for some years, and another that appears to be the ORIGINAL on a EXPLOSIVE disk. I have a copy of the modern one running on a IBM THINKPAD A20M and that runs fine (the laptop is still on its factory install) but ANYTIME i install the game myself, i have issues. be it the games laggy, or refuses to open, or in this case, the game opens and plays intro video, but pressing ANYTHING kills the application. AM i missing some crucial software, and or updates in Windows that could be causing issues. With the specs above, im MORE then good enough for this game.

Im sure i'll run into other issues, but for now this is what im faced with. Any help is accepted. Thanks guys. For the PCI issue, I personally would back up all important data on the comuter, gather all driver info needed for redownload, and just do a clean reinstall of windows 98 with your cards installed. Once that is done, you could put all of your games and whatever else back onto the computer as you like.

As for your game, you could try using snappy driver installer to try and get any drivers that you missed. It works very well for me, because I use the offline version and anytime I setup a new computer, I just plug it in and let it do it's work.

Hope this helps somehow.
AnthonyHi Ajfer03,

The install was a clean one. Barely a day old and from an OEM Windows 98 SE disk. No pirated OS's here. The computer just acted weird in general, as the day i got that working, it managed to kill an ODD drive, and then the other day a second one failed with it.

As for the drivers, everything was there except for my GPU and AWE32 card, which i got offline easy. I'll be trying another fresh install later on with perhaps a smaller hard drive as i was using an 80GB divided up into partitions.

For the *censored* of it, i dug out more stuff and put together a different PC of the same era and have different results. Will keep the post updated tho.

Thanks.

Hello to everyone.

I have an OLD HP Pavillion from 2007 or 2008. It has a Q9300 with a Geforce GT440.

The motherboard is quite old, and has the LGA 755 socket.

I WANT to upgrade my pc, and from what i have researched i can upgrade to a Intel Core2 Quad Q9650 and maybe a 750ti (not sure if the mother BOARD will support, but it does have pcix16).

I have a 450w power supply so power wont be a problem.

Is this setupd any good? If not any better suggestions?

Thank you, and sorry for my english.Probably the best value for your money would be to PUT into savings the money you are willing to budget for upgrading that system and wait until you have enough to buy a new system. If you build your own you can also get more for your money than from buying a factory build from HP, Dell or where ever else.

Hello, we are from a private school in greece and have a problem with Hp 4730 printer. The previous months it was working well and then suddenly error "10.00.01 Supply Memory Error" appears every time. The only way to SKIP this error is to disable catridge check and open and close the CATRIDGES cap, but that isn't a good solution because printer sometimes restarts and error reappears. I know it means that the CYAN catridge needs replace but that doesn't work too, if we replace cyan then the error appears to other number 10.00.00 or 10.00.02 also if remove any of these catridges or even all of of them that error still appears. So i think its a chip on the printer faulty that can't read the catridges well.

I want to ask if anyone knows what chip can be the problem in this case. And if that chip has a name so we can search and BUY it and if there is any guide how replace this chip on the printer if its easy. Thanks!
This might help -

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/10-0000-SUPPLY-MEMORY-ERROR/m-p/2970267/highlight/true#M247389

Hey all Iv GOT a few sever components that I want to get rid of it and wondering what price tag i should put on it. the components are as follows;

Motherbored; Gigabyte GA-7BESH-RH
Power Supply; Hipro HP-R65FF3 (X2 Redundant)
CPU; Intel 06 E5405 XEON (One only)
Case; Altos G540

Has no RAM, has a SCSI card with a Tape reader, Hot swap able SATA Drive mounting on the front, has a lockable case for a rack.
Also a DVD drive with label flash.

Here are some pictures.
https://i.imgur.com/wwPTiMr.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4zMzgsM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/D1pU9ws.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Tgirbzj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/mpn37Sy.jpg




In my opinion, if I had to make an offer on it, I would offer a solid 500 dollars, but that's just me. It looks like it is is great condition and it has a nice selection of I/O, and probably could get whatever job that is needed from it done. The reason I wouldn't offer more is because it is used.

Hope you find a buyer!
Anthonythanks for your quick reply appropriate it You'd be best looking on eBay to check the "Completed Listings" to see what other similar specs sold for. Unfortunately servers tend not to hold their value particularly well due to the number being sold off by IT recycling companies for very little MONEY. Great for buying them used, not so great for selling them. I'm not overly familiar with the US market but in the UK I'd expect to pay at most £200 for a machine of that SPEC, quite likely less.Yeah, I FORGOT about how many are sold all the time. I said that price because if I had one I would actually use it, hence the high price. It looked like it was in great condition. But like cameron said, companies sell them all of the time for low prices.

I was in the process of writing a post to get more input on this issue but then in the process of providing information by eliminating possibilities, I managed to solve it. Figure I'd post it anyway as it may be useful for somebody experiencing the same issues.

I recently got a Compaq SR5450f System for free and set to work cleaning it up, getting rid of the massive dust BUNNIES living inside, and making it look good as new.

One annoyance was that HP no longer provides any software or driver downloads for "legacy" systems as far as I could find.

The system had 4GB of DDR2, N2180 CPU, 9800GT Graphics card, 750GB Hard Drive.

HDD was the first to go. Seatools claimed it was fine, but I had a 1TB new in box that I threw that in instead.

I found that during Windows setup, it would hang. Eventually, after many attempts at practicing typing through the appropriate prompts as fast as possible, I managed to get through the setup process. Once Windows 7 was installed, it continued to hang (I'm not sure what I expected...). I found that if i disabled the Graphics Card in device manager, it wouldn't. That eliminated my concern that it was an electrical problem with the motherboard as was the case for another system I had previously. Linux Mint 19 running from a USB Drive also didn't hang, and was able to use the full resolution of the graphics card which was even more puzzling to me.

Since I knew the Graphics card itself was good (it was working in another system) I updated the drivers in Windows. No change- still hung.

I swapped out the 250W Power supply with a 400W unit. Still no change.

Alright, maybe there is a problem with the CPU? swapped in my Quad Core Q8200. (I planned to put it in anyway). Still the same.

Alright, perhaps it is the memory? it had two sticks of Corsair XMS2 Memory. I ran memtest and allowed it to run for 6 hours or so- several passes at least. No errors.

Then I realized I had forgotten all about chipset drivers. Once I finally found those, I installed them, and got an Inaccessible Boot Device Blue screen at Boot. OK, nevermind... Not quite what I was hoping for. Had to use Last KNOWN good configuration to get out of a boot loop.

At some point during this I threw in a new CMOS battery since the one in the system was completely dead. Had no effect.

I was running out of ideas at this point, so decided to see about updating the BIOS. Since it still had the original revision from 2007 and the latest was 2010.

Once I managed to get that to run through (It failed in safe mode claiming I had the wrong motherboard, so I disabled my graphics card so that I could run in normal mode and it flashed the BIOS without incident). I was pleased to find- though a bit surprised- that this resolved the problem! It's no longer hanging. Victory.

I guess every once in a while a BIOS update can solve show-stopping issues!






Awesome that you found the issue.

I had a strange issue recently with a board that had an Intel G31 chipset that claimed to support the 6000 series Quadcore, however the system would black screen on me when attempting to boot on the Q6600. It ran perfectly fine on the wimpy Pentium E2160 1.8Ghz.

When digging further into it I realized that the motherboard has on the silk screen "65 Watt CPU Maximum" that I didnt initially see when installing the CPU.... who reads silk screen print . And the Q6600 is a 105 Watt TDP Quadcore according to Intel. So I was likely LOADING down too heavily the VRM's or the BIOS lacked support for it even though the chipset supported it. I ended up putting in a Pentium E5400 2.7Ghz Dual-Core which runs laps around that Pentium E2160 1.8Ghz Dual-Lag Processor. But the Core 2 Quad would have been far better if the motherboard didnt have the 65 watt Processor Maximum.Yep, I was about to pretty much give up on it and just use Linux. Now I can use a dual boot. Specifically what I'll use it for is another question- but if nothing else it's good to have various setups for software testing.

The system was actually my Brother's PC from before I built him a new PC a while ago. When he moved in with his girlfriend he basically didn't want to bring his old PC, so I took it.

Somewhat annoyingly, the issue I encountered is quite specific to Windows 7- The system came ORIGINALLY with Vista and was upgraded to Windows 8.1, skipping 7 altogether which is why he hadn't seen issues except for a failing Hard Drive which I helped him replace.

It's also a good excuse for some pointless hardware busywork. Found a cheap high-end X-Fi on eBay with that silly breakout box. Figure I'll pop that into my 2008 build, and put it's PCI Audio card into the Compaq. It's "pointless" because I seldom use these systems. On the other hand- if my main PC blows up or has a problem at least I know I'll have some nice setups to fallback on.

Here's a fun update! Apparently this thing has decided to be rather fiesty. These prefab systems tend to bring their own brand of trouble!

Went to power it on the other day and Windows 7 was getting blue screens trying to boot, or hanging- similar to before. No Safe mode boot either. This time Linux Mint 19 was also hanging hard frequently too.

Eventually tossed on Memtest to rule out the memory. Imagine my surprise to receive errors (or in one case when I checked on it after starting the test a screen of corrupted garbage!).

These are two Corsair XMS2 DDR2 PC-6400 Sticks, and they are identical to the sticks I have in my old build. I tested them individually and both encountered errors in the Block Move tests. I threw in a 1GB Stick and the memtest was able to run through several passes without issue.

So it was pointing at the Memory. But I wasn't convinced. I tried cleaning the slots as well as the pins of the memory sticks just to make sure that wasn't causing some problems, which rather expectedly didn't fix the issue.

I ran memtest on my old build's 8GB to be sure it had good sticks, then popped one out and put in one of the sticks that was failing in the Compaq and ran the test again. It encountered no errors. The stick I had removed however had the same issues in the Compaq with the same test.

At this point, I suspected the power supply. So I swapped out the 400W unit it had with a 500W Unit. No change. Same memory errors.

I went a step further- I put in the 1GB and one of the 2GB sticks that gives memory errors- and memtest encountered no issues with the 5GB, with either of the 2GB sticks; but together, they would have issues in memtest.

My two theories are that either it using Dual Channel causes problems, or that the 800Mhz speed is problematic. Why the issue suddenly developed is another question, but my prime suspect would be the new BIOS version. Unfortunately the BIOS (neither this nor the old) had Memory control options like one would find on a retail motherboard, so I cannot force it down to 667Mhz to test if that helps. I went ahead and got some 4GB of cheap DDR2 667 Memory ($18 CAD) to try to test my RAM speed theory.

HI all first build computer,

I installed a CPU Fan and went onto BIOS to quickly see if it was working and it saw the OPTION to enable RAID and it said it would increase performance so it seduced me because I'm new to this and like shiny things.

so i enabled RAID mode and it caused my SSD to disappear from the SATA Information and i have not been able get it back.

I have gone to PCH storage configuration and changed the SATA mode selection back to AHCI and still can't see my SSD in SATA information upon reboot.

Full spec;

Asus H370-a prime
16gb Corsair vengeance ram
I5 8400
Gtx 1060
Windows 10 pro

was only USING the SSD so i had my OS on there (Windows 10). i have moved it back to AHCI in the BIOS options. Reset Defaults in BIOS. i have manually shorted on Mobo (although not sure how this worked as Asus MANUAL said to turn computer off and then short the two pins with a screwdriver?) and have also reset CMOS by removing battery and shorting pins on Mobo still SSD cannot be found in Sata information.

I have no idea what else to do my computer can no longer recognise my SSD. have i broke it?

Thanks for reading and any suggestions.
Here are your troubleshooting steps.

1. Remove SSD From PC
2. Try connecting drive to another computer. (If you cannot see the drive from the other computer, then the drive has most likely failed.)
3. Attach a different drive to your main computer and see if it is recognized. (If the drive has not failed, then it has something to do with your computer.)
5. If nothing has seemed to be wrong so far during the testing, then possibly try switching to another SATA port on your motherboard.
6. If still nothing SEEMS to be showing any answers, then try switching the cable that supplies power to the drive.
7. If all else fails, disconnect all power from your computer. Remove CMOS battery and wait 10-15 minutes. (If you want, possibly do this first.)

Hope this helps you!
AnthonyQuote from: Ajfer03 on October 30, 2018, 06:39:03 PM

Here are your troubleshooting steps.

1. Remove SSD From PC
2. Try connecting drive to another computer. (If you cannot see the drive from the other computer, then the drive has most likely failed.)
3. Attach a different drive to your main computer and see if it is recognized. (If the drive has not failed, then it has something to do with your computer.)
5. If nothing has seemed to be wrong so far during the testing, then possibly try switching to another SATA port on your motherboard.
6. If still nothing seems to be showing any answers, then try switching the cable that supplies power to the drive.
7. If all else fails, disconnect all power from your computer. Remove CMOS battery and wait 10-15 minutes. (If you want, possibly do this first.)

Hope this helps you!
Anthony

Morning, I am thinking of building or buying a new pc,depends on price.but either way i will buy a 1tb hard drive ,
i have two hard drives in at the moment.one from a old pc i ASKED the guy who built it to leave my old one in.because it had files on it ,but if i keep doing this there will be no room for anything else. SO my question is can i put the contents of both,
hard drives on to the new one ,and how do i do it.

any advice would be welcome.your DATA (pics, docs, emails, bookmarks etc) can be copy/paste'd to the new drive.
software (Windows, Office, security, printers etc) have to be reinstalled from the installation CD or from a web download.

so the new rig will come with its drive, then you plug in one of your old drives, either internally or via a USB external enclosure, and copy and paste away.
Thanks Mark. for answering, afraid i am new at this so i will have to keep reading it to understand it. not sure how i cut and paste from old to new drive. and download form a disk i dont understand that. sorry to be a MORON, but if i don't ask i will never do it.So what you want to do in in your new computer, connect your old hard drive up by whatever means. The go into windows file EXPLORER and you should be able to see your old hard drive listed on the left side. Once you click on it you can see all of your files that you had on the other computer and you can drag and drop them ONTO your desktop or any other folder that you would like.

This video here can help you out, it tells you what is going to pop up and how you can take the files off your drive.
Hope this helps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n64F6p-_Vfo

is it possible to replace an acer nitro 5 notebook motherboard with an oem acer nitro 5 (an515-53) motherboard. I KNOW that they both take same amount of POWER supply and I think the same case is used in both models. I'm just not SURE though if this is COMPATIBLE still. Please let me know.

Hi

I have a monitor (Samsung SyncMaster P2370) which only has DVI INPUT. When I connect it to my PC (DVI-to-DVI) I have no ISSUES. But if I try to connect it to my laptop (DVI-to-HDMI) the left part of the image is shown on the right and vice versa, plus it's rather grainy:


https://imgur.com/a/KRACJVT

I have tried two different laptops and two different DVI-to-HDMI cables, with the same result.

The DVI-to-DVI cable is SINGLE link, while the two DVI-to-HDMI cables are dual link, but as far as I've read that shouldn't matter?

CheersWell, that most likely means it has something to do with the monitor, and not the cables or the computers. That's pretty strange THOUGH...

Hi!

I have 2TB disk which was in use and later was by mistake initialized and I needed to RECOVER data.
I recovered data, with errors and it looks it has bad sectors - but it can be only problem of partition table or filesystem.
I want to ask if is possible after disk wipe, REPARTITIONING and formatting to get it work without any problems?
Disk physically never failed, but currently some disk checkers reporting bad blocks.

Really don't know what to do with... can anybody help me?

Thank you all.
Mirowhy continue to use a known unreliable unit.
hard drives are something you want as much trust in as possible, not store your data on a drive that has already let you down.
plus they are so cheap these days.Most of the time, if you do a FULL format or a hard drive and then use a program like Disk Checkup to check the health of the drive and run some tests, you are PROBABLY OK. If you are going to be using this drive for critical data storage, or using it for hosting an operating system, I recommend purchasing a new drive. If what you are going to be putting on there is VERY important, just buy a new one. If you are going to be using it a secondary drive in a computer for something like cloud saved games, or a steam library, or something of lower value, then yeah, by all means if it passes the tests after the FULL format, then you're good to go.

Here is the LINK to Disk Checkup:
https://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htmand ALSO check its SMART values.
they aren't 100% reliable but they are indicative.I know that there I will never store important data.
I want to use it for storage data from other drives lower capacity which I hadn't where to store and are only like old resources or how to name them.

So, your all answers are useful and thank you.
Miro

Hello All,

my Toshiba c660-28t laptop will not POWER on, i have completely REPLACED the charger for a new one. when i plug it in, the light on the charger flickers on/off. generally the light on the charger is constantly on.
Just wondering might it be the dc jack.
Thanks.
Is it a generic charger ? ?...if not it's likely the jack...
A good shop can replace it for 40 Bucks or so if it's worth it to you...No, its original.
Thanks patio.Anytime...if they quote you more than that walk away...HI

The light on the charger FLASHING is normally that the charger is over loaded.

Have you tried the laptop with the main battery removed? if the laptop starts plug the battery back in. And SEE if the battery charges, if not it is most likely the battery.

not sure if this is the right place but its hardware but i have Sony PlayStation 3D Display LED LCD Monitor and lately its had a pink line going through the screen and pressing on the screen would make it go away but now its just staying is there a somewhat easy solution to fix this i've looked everywhere. I know its not anything wrong with the computer, or the cords. Its 100% the screen because when i unplug my HDMI cable and says no signal i can see it.you are right - faulty hardware.
either grin and bear it if you can LIVE with it or time for a new one.Yeah ill have to BARE with it till i can afford to buy a new one the line keeps disappearing after using it a little bit so hopefully it STAYS LIKE that. Thank you.

Hey everyone, I've had this little HP Jornanda 540 Series for quite some time, and besides PLAYING solitaire with it and using it as a calculator here and there, there is not much else I have done with it. I'm planning on buying a CF TYPE 1 to SD card adapter to up the storage in it, and give it some wireless capabilities by putting in a Wi-Fi Attached SD card to transfer files to and from. It's a shame that I have the USB cradle that the thing came with but I run windows 10 at the moment and the software is way too archaic for it. So, my thoughts here are that I would be able to load windows XP onto a USB stick and install it on my little laptop that I have but don't use, and pair it with that. (Toshiba NB505) Before I get ahead of myself, is there anything I am doing wrong or should take into consideration here? Thanks for the help!Active SYNC works on XP just fine.
Used to use that very setup for my Psion 5mx PDA's and a HP Ipaq.
Even got Activesync to talk to the old gal about 2 years ago when I setup a VM XP and dug the 5mx out of storage.Could never get it to work though VirtualBox. Would always freeze up. Got it running fine and working well!I've recently SWITCHED to Microsoft's Hyper-V but haven't needed to try Activesync yet.
The VM at the time I did have it working was either VirtualBox or VMware. (can't remember which as I went through a period of swapping between the two trying to compare)

I have an Acer Predator G3-710 2016 (desktop) pc.
I haven't found the motherboard SPECS, but in the meantime I attached 3 photos.
Could it be that photo #1 shows the SLOT where the NVMe card plugs? (red rectangle)

According to laurent_14 from the Acer forums these are the available expansion ports in this pc:

SATA 3.0: 4
- ONE for DVD drive
- One for HDD drive
- 3 HDD bays so 2 free
M.2 SSD: 1 (SATA 3.0)
PCIe X1 3.0: 2
PCIe X16 3.0: 1

Thank you in advance guys
those are PCI express slots.
abbreviated to PCI-e or PCI-x.
the sort of NVMe you want for those slots are these (but it'll also depend of the PCI slot specs and the NVMe card requirements)

Yes- As Mark says, those two slots are PCI Express slots.

The motherbard has an M.2 slot. As per the specs there though it is not NVMe, it uses SATA 3.

As to where that slot is, You can see it poking out from under the graphics card just above and to the right of the battery in your first image. An NVMe Card would slot in parallel to the motherboard- not perpendicular LIKE expansion cards.Thank you so much for your help guys!
That's the info I needed to move forward.

I wouldn't want to abuse your kindness, but would you mind helping me out with this other but very similar post?
It's basically kind of the same question but for an older pc.

Thanks in advance,

DPC

Would the ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 O8G Dual-fan OC Edition be USABLE with the ASUS PRIME B250-A MOTHERBOARD?What make and model PSU do you have ? ?

And how much room is in that case since it's a micro-ATX MBoard ...I plan to UPGRADE my PSU to
"Corsair CX Series 850 Watt 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Modular Power Supply (CP-9020099-NA)" and there is plenty of room in my case I have https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MRYJG25/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this PC.K...you can do better than the CX series though...CORSAIR TXM Series, TX850M, 850 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Semi Modular Power Supply would this one be better?Yepper...

Hi I have a MB asrock g31m-gs that does not turn on. the CPU FAN TURNS but not from video signal and does not boot. I tried to connect a diagnostic card and it GIVES me like 6F and 6E errors. From the instruction booklet the 6F has no description, while the 6E indicates: (6E) Display possible high address for UMB recovery. I have already tried to remove the RAM, to put a single bank, to change the processor, to detach everything. I know it's an old and not very useful mobo but I'd like to try and fix it if it's possible.

I just completed my first PC build in a Cooler Master MasterCase H500M ATX Mid-Tower. Everything works fine except for the 2 front 200mm fans. They light up but do not spin. 

My build includes:

ASUS ROG STRIX X299-E GAMING LGA2066 DDR4 M.2 USB 3.1 802.11 AC WI-FI X299 ATX Motherboard

Intel Core i9-7940X Skylake X 14-Core 3.1 GHz LGA 2066 165W

ASUS ROG GeForce GTX 1080 Ti DirectX 12 STRIX-GTX1080TI-11G-GAMING 11GB 352-Bit GDDR5X HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200

NZXT Kraken X72 RL-KRX72-01 High-Performance 360mm All-In-One Water/Liquid CPU Cooler

SAMSUNG 970 PRO M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3. X4, NVMe 1.3 64L V-NAND 2-bit MLC Internal Solid STATE Drive

NZXT AC-IUSBH-M1 USB Hub

EVGA SuperNOVA 1200 P2 220-P2-1200-X1 80+ PLATINUM 1200W Fully Modular PSU

I am running Windows 10 pro OS

I have an ASUS Fan Extension Card but I did not end up USING it. I've tried going through the bios to set the fan speeds but it's not doing anything. Any suggestions WOULD be great, I have no clue where to start. If these fans have 3 or 4 wires on them then they are variable speed and it might be a calibration required in the BIOS to set the PWM values. I have a motherboard that has this feature and I performed the calibration and it fixed it. The CPU FAN also could be calibrated on a system like this to run quiet and only run the fan when necessary at slowest speed possible, however if the system starts to create heat, then the fans can go to 100% speed and be loud running.

If that's the case then they stay off until the inside temp gets to a certain temp then they turn on slow speed and then if temp continues to climb inside the case then it will go to other higher speed steps to like 50% then 75% and then to 100% full speed if needed.

If these fans only have 2 wires to the motor then they are defective. You also can test them by removing from the case and temporarily hooking them to a MBoard SLOT instead of the front header panel...

Generally speaking the fans that come with a case are the cheapest garbage they can find...

1 other thought is if they are 2 pin connectors try reversing the connection.Quote

1 other thought is if they are 2 pin connectors try reversing the connection.

Hi there. So, I need to BUILD a DECENT and GOOD quality GAMING PC that can run games smoothly. HOWEVER, the budget is around 9000-11000 L.E Egyptian pounds.

Heya, so recently I decided to UPGRADE my rig with 3gpu's in a crate and simple addition hardware (pentium processor, asrock motherboard etc) into a more eyecandy-like and more efficiënt mining rig (i7 7700k, I use cpu miner for burst).

after some trouble I booted it up, and it worked just fine. then I had to reboot it however to apply some graphic DRIVERS and now it just won't boot at all... this is what happens : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx-9FR-0I26eVkpnLU9lVldKLUE/view?usp=sharing .

Anyone has any idea? I am already blaming my PSU but it's weird CAUSE it has worked before so.... any help is welcome.

Part list : Aorus Z290 gaming 9 motherboard intel i7 7700k processor 32gb Gskill RGB ram 1200w thermaltake POWERSUPPLY 2x msi amd 480 (Already took those out as well, didn't seem to do anything)

any help is appreciated, cheers

does a WIRELESS HEADSET play the sound PRODUCED from a separate sound CARD or the motherboard

hi everyone
recently I had removed my WIFI connection as it was of no use and I have switched to POSTPAID which GIVES me a lot of data now EVERY TIME I have to tether my mobile to a laptop for accessing internet I want to attach my mobile to a router so that the router will create a Wi-Fi of my mobile data as a hotspot so that I can connect any device to it as I cannot always turn on the mobile 's hotspot as it drains a lot of POWER of the mobilePUNCTUATION!!!!!!Plug the mobile into an outlet and use it to create a hotspot. Yes it will drain the battery quickly which is why you need to have it plugged in. If you need to use it away from home you could plug a charger into your vehicle's power system or use one of the external power packs.

If your mobile doesn't have the ability to create a hotspot, then tether it to your laptop and run software on your laptop such as https://www.connectify.me/blog/share-internet-connection/best-portable-wifi-hotspot-free/ that will use the laptop's wifi adapter to create a hotspot. If you need to use a device that only connects via Ethernet, then you can get a bridge adapter that will connect to the hotspot via wifi and provide an Ethernet jack.

Can you offer me a sanity check on the laptop I am considering (specs below) or offer a better alternative?

My current laptop is a Dell Precision M4600 and the screen is fluttering. It also LAGS when utilizing my art tablet (Intuos PRO 3).

Software/Demands:
Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects. I also use Lightwave.

I currently own Adobe CS5 and will very likely switch to Adobe Creative Cloud in the next 12 months.
Hardware Lag: I use a Wacom Untuos PRO 3 tablet to digitally paint 300dpi 3000 x 5000 pixel images in Photoshop, so I would like to continue to do this YET without the lag problems I'm currently facing on my Dell Precision M4600.

Budget: $500 is greatly desired, but if a little more money means a lot more computer, I would be willing to do so.

I have a Samsung SSD so I do not need the laptop to come with one.

Candidate Laptop I found:

Lenovo W530
Intel Core i7-CPU 3740QM (Quad Core) Base FREQUENCY @2.70 GHz; Turbo Frequency @3.70 GHz
16GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA Quadro K1000M 2GB (GDDR5) Dedicated Video RAM
15.6 Inch | LED | FHD | Full HD Display - 1920 X 1080 Resolution ULTRA High Resolution with Vivid Colors | Anti-glare Finish
1TB HDD
Win 10 64bit

Anyways, I think that about does it. What say ye? Am I on the right track? Do I need to consider another laptop or will a $100-$200 budget increase, make a huge difference in performance?

Thank you. -MikeHi

I find it difficult to understand replacing the Dell you already have. If cosmetically it is in good condition it maybe better to repair than replace.

The Lenovo for the spec is a very good price. And if you installed the Samsung ssd would be a great laptop.

A couple of questions. If you do want to stick with the present laptop.

Did you upgrade to Windows 10, if so the original laptop will need quite a lot of work to get working well.

If your model has the 256gb SSD how much free space do you have. Also I would download hddtune pro trial and run it to test the drive. It COULD be failing by now. Seems you can put the Samsung SSD into the Dell 4600.



Hi,

I do have the Samsung in the Dell M4600.

It has 55GB free out of 231GB.

I did install Win10 over a year ago when they were giving the free upgrade.

Hi Mikey

Looking again at the original post with the flickering display there is this post https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln104563/precision-m4600-lcd-screen-flickering?lang=en

Seems to apply when the display brightness is below 50 %



55 Gb is an ok amount of free space.

If you can, backup the Samsung SSD . Copy the 1 tb Lenovo drive to the Samsung. And use the Samsung in the Lenovo.
Keep the 1 TB to put back in if you need to use the warranty.

I suggest getting a copy of Easues Todo backup from here https://www.easeus.com/backup-software/tb-home.html
To do the backups and transfers

Hello everyone,

I need your expertise regarding an issue I have with my Gateway FX541XG desktop computer. Since two days ago I am trying to figure out why my computer doesn't boot. When I start my computer, the power button indicator, optical drive indicator and hard drive indicator light up for a few seconds and after, turned off. No beeping sound, no signal on the monitor. The only hardware that are running are the fans, nothing else. These are the steps I have made to try to resolve the issue:

I unplugged the power cord and I pressed the power button for 30 seconds....No change.
I tried to identify if one of the RAM sticks doesn't work connecting only one stick on every slot having the other three disconnected....No change.
I REPLACED the CMOS battery....No change.

I am running out of ideas of what to do next...I am thinking at the PSU, but the PSU fan are running fine.
Any new idea of what else to test will be highly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for a possible reply.I'd swap out the PSU with a known good power supply. You can have a power supply run with fans spinning and a voltage rail is low causing failed boot.Thank you for your reply DaveLembke

I followed your advice and I tested my PSU (Delta Electronics, model DPS-700FB-1 E), paperclip test and seems that is defective (PSU fan didn't start). I bought a new compatible PSU (unfortunately didn't FIND the original one), EVGA BQ750watt and replaced the defective one...After I installed it and connected all the cables I pushed the start button and is doing the same thing, nothing's changed.
I am thinking now at the motherboard but I find hard to believe that two important components (PSU and motherboard) broke at the same time.
Any idea of what should be my next step regarding checking or testing?

Thank youCould be CPU FAN Tach not detected and then it performs a shutdown. If you physically see the CPU FAN moving then this is not the cause.

Clear the CMOS ( BIOS ) and then try to boot. * Also check the voltage on the coin cell it should be 3 volts. If its weaker than 2.94 volts it could cause POST issues. Usually they are slightly greater than 3 volts like 3.06 VDC when battery is healthy.

Other thing to try is remove all the RAM and install just a single stick of RAM and boot. If same, then shut off, and install a different RAM stick from the 4 into it and see if you find a stick of RAM as the cause. If it boots on a single stick of RAM then one of the RAM sticks is bad or one of the MEMORY BANK slots is damaged or the memory controller has an issue.

Looking up the specs it looks like it came with a Geforce 8800GT video card. If it had integrated video try to get it to boot without the video card but on integrated VGA video.

Last test is disconnect all hard drives and optical drives, remove all addon cards that are not necessary for boot and see if you can get it to boot at minimal hardware. If it boots then and behaves then work your way back adding the devices back with the computer off until you find the device that is causing this issue.

If none of the above works then its then its likely main board failure.Nicely done Dave...very thorough advice.Thank you Dave for your suggestions. I did all the tests you advised, except the video card because I don't have one...Is just an integrated graphic processor on motherboard.
Unfortunately didn't make any difference. The part that is making me thinking that might be a defective motherboard is the absence of any kind of beeps. Even with the RAM sticks totally removed there isn't any ERROR beeps.
I started to look for the original MOBO (NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI)...At a first search didn't find any...If I can't find the original MOBO, can you suggest a compatible one?

Thank you once again for helpQuote from: JustinJack on October 06, 2018, 10:02:08 AM

Would you please tell me that you install the drivers properly in your windows?

I have a SITUATION where i am trying to swap my toshiba laptop hard drive into my iMac. iMac 2008 24"inch

So in order to do so, i have used diskpart on my other computer, i have "clean all" the disk in diskpart, and formatted it to HFS+ which is similar to (MAC OS Extended (journaled)) i guess.

After the whole process was complete, i connected the hard drive into the internal of the iMac. When i powered on the iMac, i pressed "command" "option" "P" "R" to clear the memory, and pressed "option" afterwards. I then saw a Hard drive called "windows" (Its the same hard drive i put in). So by selecting it to run the system, i get a black screen saying "no operating system found_". Which is something a windows system would say. So im wondering, what did i do wrong, and why isnt it working.

I am doing this because i want to reuse the Toshiba Laptop hard drive on my iMac. I want to run the Mac Os on the Toshiba hard drive.

p.s I have an Os X Mountain Installation Disk


Install the disk to your working macOS system. Use Disk Utility to format the drive as macOS Extended file system. Download the macOS installer from the App Store. Run the installer. Specify the secondary disk as the drive to install the system.

To boot from the secondary drive, set it as the boot drive in System Preferences -> Startup Disk, or hold down Option when you boot for a boot menu and select the new disk.


I would have done that, but unfortunately my iMac is only capable of connecting to one drive internally at a time. I have a different windows computer and it has more then one hard drive connectors.

I have tried formatting to HFS+ and doing "clean all", when the hard drive was connected to my other windows computer, but this method didn't IMPACT the hard drives OS apparently. When trying to boot to the hard drive on my iMac, it shows a dark screen saying "Operating system not found_"....and i'm pretty sure thats a windows sign.



You aren't going to be able to boot to a blank Hard Drive. I'm unsure what you expect to happen- presumably there is a misunderstanding about file systems and operating systems? formatting to HFS+ doesn't mean a drive can boot into OS X.

That said, you mention formatting to HFS+ via a Windows computer. I find that somewhat unusual because you cannot format a drive to HFS+ on Windows. I suspect that you formatted it to NTFS. That would explain why it is labelled as "Windows" by the mac and why it switches into a traditional BIOS when attempting to boot it.

Regardless of what File system is used, the disk still would have no Operating System. You need to Install OSX onto the hard drive. You do that by having the drive installed and booting to the OS X Installation Disc. (I expect with the disc inserted it APPEARS in the same boot menu you accessed)BakedHardDrive,
Why did you not just buy a new hard drive?
BC_Programer

I formatted to hfs+ with this website "https://smallbusiness.chron.com/format-disk-hfs-mac-49229.html"....but considering my computer knowledge, i had no idea if it was it or not, since i just followed the instructions. I read that hfs+ was supposed to be a format similar to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)....It makes sense when you said "i probably formated to NTfS, and thats why it shows "windows"....

But as i try to install the Mac Os Installation disk, it still redirects me to a black screen with a "Operating system not found_" sign. I still think i need to format the hard drive to a non windows format, that mac will see, and install the OS on, because the windows doesn't want to install mac.


Geek 9PM

I want to learn how to reuse hard drives with different operating systems. Maybe its the hard drive, or maybe im doing something wrong. Because im having no luck with it so far.Quote from: BakedHardDrive on January 06, 2019, 03:40:05 PM

But as i try to install the Mac Os Installation disk, it still redirects me to a black screen with a "Operating system not found_" sign. I still think i need to format the hard drive to a non windows format, that mac will see, and install the OS on, because the windows doesn't want to install mac.

Hi, my Dell Inspiron 15 3544 series 3000 will not turn on. I’ve tried turning it on without the charger, without the battery and I’ve tried draining it’s residual power too by removing the charger and battery and holding down the power button, but still nothing. ANYWAYS, whenever I press down the power button, I hear a tiny ‘click’ and the battery light will flash white one for a second. Nothing else happens. Any help?Any history on this system that might point out a cause for failure or it was running fine then dead all of a sudden?

Assuming the power supply is good!!! ( Have you verified the voltage output of it to be correct? ) ..... Laptop should BOOT and run with battery removed and only the power supply connected between Laptop and live outlet. If this doesnt work then you would have to bring it to a computer repair shop or venture on your own into seeing if its a stuck CPU fan not spinning to which its shutting itself down to prevent from overheating. If a CPU fan doesnt spin a system will shutdown at boot.

I own a very similar Dell Inspiron 15 3000 series model 3558 with the 5th Series i3 2.1Ghz CPU and on my model there is only a single LED in the lower left in the front that is a pain to troubleshoot with. I picked mine up for $279.99 on black friday deal 2 years ago without looking at all the features. Just saw Core i3 and Dell BRAND and price tag as low as it is and bought one. Its quite annoying that its lacking LEDs for troubleshooting as well as to keep an eye on heavy HDD use etc. I dont quite understand why they decided to SKIMP on LED indicators. Powered on mine has no LEDs LIT and if it wasn't for the display showing whats going on I'd have to put it up to my ear and listen for HDD activity of the 1TB HDD. Was going to upgrade mine to SSD but I think I am going to hold off on that as for I have a feeling I may be replacing this laptop this year when a better laptop is available and will double check that it has LED indicators before making my purchase.

On Google I see others with same problem your having but no answer as to why:
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Inspiron-15-3543-won-t-start-with-LED-light-flashes/td-p/6087239

I am looking to upgrade my computer RAM OR CPU. I run Windows 10 64bit mode and firefox everyday with AROUND 25 PINNED TABS, and around 15-20 actual firefox tabs open all at once.
If I CTRL-ALT-DEL and look the task manager, with all that open my memory is approx 25-30% used and the CPU can be anywhere from 60-95% used (Really changes live)..

I have (2) ideas:

[RAM UPGRADE]

So I currently have 24 GIGS (1600mhz DDR3) of ram in my PC desktop computer with windows 10

Slot A: 4GB - Kingston khx1600c9d3x2k2/8gx
Slot B: 8GB - Hyperx hx316c10fb/8
Slot C: 4GB - Kingston khx1600c9d3x2k2/8gx
Slot D: 8GB - Hyperx hx316c10fb/8

Now I don't do gaming... I do however have a bunch of firefox windows and tabs, and pins open all the time and it can slow down WEBSITE browsing to a CRAWL or even taking 10-15 seconds or MORE just for the computer to acknowledge I TYPED something...

I am thinking of swapping the 2x 4GB ram cards for the hyperx hx316c10fb/8 which would be 2X 8 = 16.

OR Upgrade the CPU

[CPU UPGRADE]

I do not know what would be better than the AMD A10 6800K that I have now...

[SYSTEM]

the system I have is this:

CPU: AMD A10 6800K
MOTHERBOARD: ASUSTEK F2A55-M
Running Windows 10 in 64bit mode
RAM: 24GIGS

QUESTIONS:

1. In my case, do you think the RAM should be upgraded or the CPU? Someone pointed out that I might get an increase in speed with the CPU since 24GIGs of ram is fairly high.
2. If I Upgrade my CPU, what are examples of the BETTER (Looking for FASTER than what my current AMD A10 does) and FASTER?If you want more CPU, I feel you would have to leave the APU and that motherboard for a Socket AM3+ or AM4 motherboard with the AM3+ you can install a FX-8350 4.0Ghz 8-core, and with the AM4 motherboards COME the even better Ryzen CPUs. If you break away from AMD and go with Intel the NEWEST generation i7 and i9's are available at a premium but would kick that APU's bottom in performance.

15-20 tabs open at once is almost unheard of. Curious what you have going on that you need that many open at the same time?

How much is this computer worth in euro's?

(I've inserted a picture with the specs)If you were buying this system used I'd say try to get it for around $300 USD or less which is 262.96 Euro's or less.

Pros going for this system is that it has 16GB RAM, GTX 960 Video Card, and a Large SSD.

Cons going for it is that the CPU is general level gaming and some titles out there require FX-8350 or BETTER as minimum requirement although this system could probably run the games with some lag for CPU INTENSIVE games.

If your looking to sell this system you might find it easier to get your money BACK out of it by parting it out online for PEOPLE to bid on at ebay etc vs selling a complete used system. And unless there is a heavy demand for a specific used part your lucky if you get 40-50% retail new price when selling used for parts. If there is an abundance of the parts used your lucky to then get 25 to 30% what you paid as well as as components age and demand is reduced for them you see used parts going for 10% to 20% of cost new. But these percentages also don't apply to a rock bottom value in parts, so such as a power supply can hit a rock bottom of around $12.50 used worth for a $50 power supply for example vs $5.00.

For Christmas I upgraded my gaming system to 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz for $72, the SSD market prices are tanking lower and lower and there are better video cards out there than the GTX 960 and Sapphire brand is not as in demand as a EVGA brand card etc.

If you were planning on selling this and buying something better, you might be able to keep this system and just put in an 8-core CPU instead of the 6-core and that might get you where you want to be with performance. I own a FX-8300 3.3Ghz and a FX-8350 4.0Ghz system. I prefer to use my 95 watt TDP FX-8300 8-core for most of what I do instead of the FX-8350 4.0Ghz only because the air cooled heatsink that comes stock with the CPU from AMD is barely adequate for the heat that the 125 watt TDP CPU creates, so the CPU is always running at 100% speed to cool the FX-8350 at 4.0Ghz and this makes it annoyingly loud running, so liquid cooling is suggested if you went the upgrade route to 8-core and with the FX-8350 4.0Ghz... Also to note the FX processors most of them have Turbo feature that clocks the CPU's faster such as the 4.0Ghz FX-8350 can Turbo to 4.2Ghz, however my motherboard does not support the Turbo feature and so the cheap Biostar motherboard only runs at 4Ghz maximum. Your board is a gaming board and it might support the Turbo feature to slightly overclock the CPU on the fly with Turbo enabled. The FX-8300 I have seen go for $100 USD new and $60 used, and the FX-8350 go for $120 USD new and $80 used.
Thank you for replying.

I actually wanted to buy this computer to play fortnite and it's really cheap! He's selling it for 175 euro's, got a bit lucky i guess. and do you think i can play pubg on medium or even high without lag? And again thank you for taking your time to reply to me and do research, i really appreciate it!If you currently don't have a PC then SURE, go ahead and buy it.

You should be able to run Fortnite fairly well, PUBG however is less well optimised, meaning basically it is more intensive than it necessarily needs to be. Some systems can struggle a lot with PUBG but the GPU should be fine for low settings. As well as you have plenty of RAM, which is great, despite the slightly low clock speed.

If you have the money spare and don't currently have a PC you can play games on, I would go for it. Try t0 get it for 230 -260 euros

Hello. I have a TOSHIBA A200 with Windows Vista. For some unknown reason today, I have no wireless connection. The button on the front is switched on. Hitting the FUNCTION key and F8 does nothing. When I tried Windows X, the Windows Mobility Centre menu is greyed out for 'Turn Wireless On'
Any IDEAS?
Thanks. In Device MANAGER what does it show for this Wireless Adapter?

I was given a non-working laptop and told that if i could fix it i could keep it. The power supply checked out. So i opened the laptop and discovered that the side vent that leads to the CPU fan was completely clogged. So I think the CPU may have OVERHEATED and is no longer working. But I decided to replace the motherboard and the CPU fan. The CPU fan is connected to a copper heat sink arm and one end it sits on top of the CPU. I know that the ram is good as well. I put the Laptop back together make all the connections. When I turn on the LT ( I attached the keyboard but left it up so i could see if the CPU fan would work.) But now the green power light and the CPU fan comes comes on but only for a few seconds then stops. The LT keeps doing this over and over again but the LT NEVER starts or boots up. I get no image on the screen either. I know the hard drive is good. What else could it be ??


Some of the laptop specs are: Sony Vaio PCG - 71312L 5GB HD, 4096 Ram, Windows 7, Core CPU



Albert O.
Well you went down the correct troubleshooting path of verifying that the CPU fan moves and that if it moves then it cant be the cause so where else to look. My thoughts on this is that the laptop likely overheated cooking a component creating permanent damage on the main board as a result of this. The CPU is protected both by the watch dog circuit of the tach on the fan that as long as the fan is spinning to keep the system running but if the fan isn't moving then shutdown the laptop without warning ( hard shutdown ) and power off to protect from damage as well as the CPU itself has internal thermal protection to perform what is KNOWN as Thermal Throttling when it gets to a certain threshold for a temperature to which it will work with the main board to underclock itself to slow its processing as a MEANS to reduce heat.

All other components on the main board do not have such thermal protection and so they are subject to roasting and cooking themselves to death if there is a lack of cooling ( airflow ).

If it was a laptop given to me which I have been given many dead computers, I would salvage the CPU, RAM, and Hard Drive from it and if it has a DVD ROM check to make sure no Discs are in it. Toss the rest into recycle and save these parts for another laptop that could be acquired cheaply or for free that use these components as an upgrade to it. The CPU however in another laptop would be tricky however as for its more of an advanced upgrade path to where you have to make sure the main board supports it and that the TDP of the CPU your putting into a healthy laptop main board is very similar to the TDP of the CPU coming out of it, otherwise the cooling of the CPU could be inadequate and lead to thermal throttling and a CPU that's running in excess of 80C.I did replace the Motherboard.


Albert O. Thermal paste applied proper ? ?My Bad in not seeing this initially...
Quote

But I decided to replace the motherboard and the CPU fan.

I put my LAPTOP to sleep mode, while the USB flash drive is plugged in.

I pressed the power button to resume my laptop from sleep, the little blue lights on the machine indicated that it did wake up, but the screen was not displaying.

I pressed the power button again to turn it off.

And then turned it on again, the screen shown the BIOS screen as the following;

DELL
Inspiron 1525 series
BIOS Revision A16

After that, the screen turned black, didn't show ANYTHING.

But I can hear the Windows sound (Windows log in sound).

I unplugged the power cord, took the battery out, and held the power button for 60 seconds,
then put the battery back in, plugged the power cord in, and turned on the laptop,
the screen was still not working.

I powered on the laptop and pressed F2 continuously to go to the set up page.
The blue screen of set up page flashed up for a second, and then the screen went dark again.

I repeated these steps, still got the same issues.

Finally, I shined the flashlight on the screen, I was able to see all the processes since the machine started working, the BIOS screen, Windows logo, log on screen, and finally my desktop, but all these were very dark, without the flashlight I couldn't see these.

My laptop is Dell
Intel® Pentium® Dual CPU T2390 @ 1.86GHz 1.87 GHz
Windows 10

I don't have an external monitor to test this laptop screen.

How to fix this problem? Hi
Thanks for all the detail. It is mostly likely either the back light for the display or the inverter which supplies the high voltage for the back light.

*****Note high voltage, not something to play with if you are not technically trained.*******

Try turning the brightness up by pressing the F5 key. If the display is still dim then you will need someone with the gear to test the inverter and if that is ok to replace the display.
Is it ok to replace just the back lights or I need to replace the whole display? Hi

Easier to replace the whole display . The INVERT er is a separate part and quite cheap and is the most likely part which has failed the florescent tubes don't normally fail so quickly they go dim over time. Before jumping in and replacing the screen, you can check the backlight by shining a bright light onto the front of the screen, if it's just the backlight that's at fault, you should still be able to see some sort of faint image on the screen. I'd also try disconnecting the screen from the motherboard and hooking up an external monitor to ensure that doesn't exhibit the same behaviour as the internal screen (disconnecting the internal screen will often force the laptop to use the external monitor as its PRIMARY output device). I'd also recommend purchasing a screen from somewhere that allows you to return it if it turns out to not be the solution, better than ending up stuck with a screen that you don't need!+ 1 ! !Here is a youtube video of what is involved in disconnecting the laptop display as Cameron suggested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spfHa_FRq6c

As you have already done the bright light test and can see the laptop booting.
Also an external monitor will work without going to the trouble of disconnecting the display but you said in the original post you don't have an external monitor to use for testing.
Where you go from here depends on whether you want to fix it yourself after seeing the video or have a tech do it.

How to view on my laptop the photos from my memory card?

I have correctly inserted the card in my laptop, but what is the NEXT STEP?

THANK you in advance.

Joe BusuttilIf you open the My computer icon the card should be listed...double clik it and the photo list should appear.You solved my PROBLEM. Thank you, too, for prompt help.

Joe Busuttil

P.S. Why do incoming emails sometimes vanish INEXPLICABLY? I have tried to locate them in the Recycle Bin, but to no avail.

Renewed thanks.

Joe

My Asrock B75 Pro 3 MB has DIED and needs to be replaced. Without having to buy new hardware (besides the MB), which MB do you recommend I get?You have to determine which boards will take your CPU...

That being stated ASUS or GigaByte

Hello, I changed my CPU from an Intel i3 4160 (2 cores 3.6 GHZ, LGA 1150) to an i5 4570S (4 cores 2.9 GHZ, LGA 1150) hoping to improve the gaming graphics. Now the onboard INTEL 4400 graphics is missing, vanished, gone. The graphics driver is now a Microsoft generic, The board is an ECS H81H3 M4 Haswell mini ATA with 16 GBytes ddr3 memory. The BIOS reports that the CPU is missing the hyperthreading function. That is unrelated to the problem, right? Can anyone help me get my onboard graphics back?
That is an APU and not a CPU, so the GPU is on the same Processor package, so your Graphic Driver needs to be upgraded to a Intel HD 4600 from HD 4400 drivers. Specs are in inks below that show the GPU difference in those APU's. So the driver for the Intel HD 4600 needs to be installed as the fix to this. Regarding the Hyperthreading... I have HEARD of ECS boards reporting wrong about Hyperthreading. I would check the processor when RUNNING Windows to see if the Hyperthreading virtual cores are missing or not. ECS is not a quality product and is a quantity for cheap board. NOTHING good to say about that brand.

https://ark.intel.com/products/77488/Intel-Core-i3-4160-Processor-3M-Cache-3-60-GHz-

https://ark.intel.com/products/75044/Intel-Core-i5-4570S-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3-60-GHz-The i5 4570S doesn't have hyper-threading, as listed on the ARK page.

I built the PC around Christmas, and so far every single game I've played(~15 different titles) are randomly crashing, except for league of legends.

Specifications are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950x
GPU: MSI NVIDIA RTX 2080 8gb
RAM: G.Skill DDR4 Flare-X 4x8GB 3200MHz
Mobo: ASRock X399 Taichi
144hz Monitor

The PC is mainly used as a workstation, but on the off-time I'm playing games. All of the games just randomly close after 1-4h or minutes. The most common error that I get 99% of the times is "0xc0000005" from the event-viewer, which doesn't really help.

What I've tried so far:
Reinstalling/Repairing - Visual C++ Redistribute
Repairing/checking windows for corrupted files
GPU Drivers updating and downgrading.
I've checked temps during gameplay as well and they're fine(GPU avrg 62c, max ~71c, idle 29c),(CPU avrg. 50c, max 62c, idle 32c)
BIOS is on the latest version.
Different DP and HDMI Cables.
I've ran memtest86 for ~30 hours and there were no errors.
Also ran Furmark for 2 hours without any problems.

I'm out of ideas, so any suggestions are appreciated.

How you tried a intensive hard drive test?Quote from: Geek-9pm on January 07, 2019, 06:40:56 PM

How you tried a intensive hard drive test?

Hi

With what you have done and if you are sure the bios is the correct one for your board and completely up to date. Leaves the power supply not up to the task. I would think you would need a good quality power supply at 700 watts +. And you are running windows 10 64bit ?

Hi

What 1000 watt power supply do you have and what sockets are you using for the memory modules.

Memtest86 should be run on this to rule out a memory module as the cause. Run it through 3 full tests minimum.

Additionally if you have any overclocking going on, shut off the overclocking and run everything normal clock and see if it then behaves. I have seen overclocked systems look fine and then crash on games that push the overclock and they point out stability issues with over driving the CPU or GPU or both.

Hi.
First of all, I am a non-English SPEAKER, so the terms you use may be different from the ones I've translated. please UNDERSTAND even if English is a little strange.

To the main point, the problem occurred after the format, which is often used as a integrated graphic when playing games or working.

In other words, programs were originally used only for external graphics, but all of a sudden, INTERNAL graphics were used to interfere in between.

This causes my computer to lower the frame and get lagged and problem did not occur before the format.

To sum up my track so far, On September 2nd, I formatted using the Windows 10 format function and I installed Windows 10 RS4 and there was a problem.

Then I've done all the easy-to-find solutions on the Internet. For example, power settings, nvidia control panel, check for high-performance processor usage, revert the GeForce driver to the old version, upgrade the GeForce driver to the new version, and the physx settings.
Of course, nothing has changed at all.

Meanwhile, I was asked by a local computer expert to return to the version of RS2, which I originally used, and that didn't happen in some programs.

What this means is that it's partially solved, not entirely.

I am using the ASUS A556UR laptop, which includes Intel(R) HD Graphics 620 and NVIDIA GeForce 930MX.
The CPU specification is Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50 GHz 2.71 GHz.
The OS build is 15063.0 and the Windows 10 version is 1703.

Please help me! The expert I DESCRIBED before gave up my computer...

Thank you!
Hi

I think the problem is you used a generic windows copy, Not the Asus Windows install.
You may get a better result if you contact Asus in your country and get them to restore the Laptop with the factory image. I would then backup the laptop to dvd or an external hard drive. Then do the windows 10 updates, doing another backup.
If something goes wrong with windows 10 it is better to use the system recovery to reload windows. Can you do a simple test? Download the Furmark freeware and run it. It should fire up the 930MX and stress it. If there are hardware failures, theres' a good chance you'll see it.
You can check if it's working with GPU-Z or HWInfo, both great

Toshiba Satellite P770 64 bit Win 7 SP1 Home Premium.

After adding Picture Manager to MS Office 2003 using the optical disc, the DVD/CD entry disappeared from Device Manager and the BIOS listed the ODD as not present. The drive does spin up when I put a disc in but no data. The connector looks good. A known good drive acts the same.

Some time ago, I read something on a Microsoft site that said this problem could occur after updating Microsoft software. I have not been able to find that reference again.

Unless the Intel Mobile Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller is the only entry that is supposed to be listed under IDE ATA/ATAPI, the DVD/CD ATAPI Controllers also disappeared. There were no error messages.

When I right click the computer in Devices and Printers, there is an exclamation point next to Troubleshoot. When I follow the link, it says 'Troubleshooting couldn't identify the problem'. I click 'View detailed information', and get 'Problem with PnP devices' with no usable information.

One time, I had a single, fleeting message in the notification area that said something like 'Toshiba Power Saver Optical Drive Turned Off'. I checked all the settings and they appeared to be set correctly. => Power Options - Select a power plan - Balanced - Change plan settings - Change advanced power settings - Toshiba Power Saver Settings V8.9.7.64 - Optical Drive power management - On battery: On and Plugged in: On.

I did find an associated service: TODDSrv.exe - Toshiba Optical Disc Drive. Known file sizes on Windows 10/8/7/XP are 114,688 bytes (71% of all occurrences), 129,632 bytes, 128,344 bytes or 128,416 bytes. (From www.file.net/process/toddsrv.exe) The version on my computer was 136 KB - not a match - so I removed it. No help. I put it in a safe place.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I followed the MS site titled:
Your CD or DVD drive is not recognized by Windows or other programs
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/314060/your-cd-or-dvd-drive-is-not-recognized-by-windows-or-other-programs

The Hardware and Sound Troubleshooter found nothing when run in configuration mode.

The BIOS lists the ODD as not present.

Device Manager:
The DVD/CD-ROM drives entry is missing so there were no error codes. That prevents me from updating or reinstalling the CD driver.

Under IDE ATA/ATAPI, the ATA Channel 0 and ATA Channel 1 controllers don't exist so I 'm unable to remove and reinstall the drivers.

The only entry under IDE ATA/ATAPI is the Intel Mobile Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller. I deleted it. Rebooting correctly reinstalled it. I was not able to uninstall / reinstall anything else.

Scan for hardware changes is no longer in the Action tab in Device Manager. The only thing there is Help.

Reg entries:
Removed both UpperFilters and LowerFilters from the CD ROM entry in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\

When I first started troubleshooting this problem, there was only one filter and I deleted it. I don't remember which filter it was.

I added the ATAPI Controller0 EnumDevice1 registry subkey to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi

Still no ODD detected in the BIOS or in Device Manager (and, it's not listed under Other devices)The drive is dead...A known good drive acts the same.
Not sure what that means...but OK.The Toshiba Satellite P770 uses a SATA connection for the Optical Drive, and does not have any ATA controllers; this is why you do not see them listed in Device Manager- That is normal.

The drive not appearing in the BIOS suggests strongly to me that the issue is not related to Windows. Registry, services, etc. only affect the drive function while Windows is running.

As the drive lights up and will spin discs, that tells us that it is receiving power. However all the other problems are consistent with there being no Data connection between the drive and the Laptop, particularly as a known-good drive exhibits the same problem. What I would suspect is that the SATA connection between the Optical Drive Bay and the motherboard has failed, or something has failed within the SATA controller chip that prevents the appropriate SATA channel for the drive from functioning.

Set up the drive as an external USB and see what happens.
Get one of these kits:

.. from Amazon and others.
@BC_Programmer

Thank you for your input. I like your logic.

My experience is primarily IBM 370 Assembler language.

This problem started around last April. I believe there were problems with updates at that time.
I found a Microsoft site that said this problem could occur after updating Microsoft software using the ODD.

Are you aware of any update kbs that may have caused this?

"The drive not appearing in the BIOS strongly suggests to me that the issue is not related to Windows.
Registry, services, etc. only affect the drive function while Windows is running."

I agree, not appearing in the BIOS is usually an indication of a hardware problem.
That reference on the MS site causes me to think there are other possibilities.

Your reasoning is strong. CONSIDER though:
At one point, after applying DriverPackSolutions, The ODD reappeared for a short time and then disappeared again.

From DevManView, the CD/DVD Device Instance ID is listed as:
IDE\CdRomTSSTcorp_CDDDVDW_TS_L633F____________TF01___\4&3b404081&0&0.1.0

I believe DevManView got this info from the registry at: HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Enum/IDE\CdRomTSSTcorp
To my untrained eye, it looks good.

The cdrom.inf identifies the drive as: [Manufacturer]
%MITSUMI% = mitsumi_cdrom,NTamd64

But the markings on the drive say Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology DVD Writer Model TS L633(B).

I now have a persistent icon in the notification area that says 'Optical Drive Power: OFF'

"These problems are consistent with there being no Data connection between the drive and the Laptop,
particularly as a known-good drive exhibits the same problem."

"I suspect the SATA connection between the Optical Drive Bay and the motherboard has failed,"

I cleaned the SATA contacts. They looked good.

"or something has failed within the SATA controller chip that prevents the appropriate SATA channel for the drive from functioning."

This is something I would like to look at. Can you suggest a way for me to troubleshoot the SATA controller?

It appears the computer sees the device and Microsoft seems to have admitted to possibly having had a hand in causing the problem.Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)
The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)
A driver (service) for this device has been disabled. An alternate driver may be providing this functionality. (Code 32)
Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)
Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)
This issue may have occurred after one of the following SITUATIONS:
You upgrade the Windows OPERATING system.
You install or uninstall CD or DVD recording programs.
You uninstall Microsoft Digital Image.
There are various reasons why a CD or DVD drive is not detected. The resolutions that are listed in this article may help solve some instances but not all instances of this problem.You need to verify that the Optical drive is really good.
Use of an external adapter, as I said earlier, will do two things:
1) CONFIRM the optical drive is not the problem.
2) Provide workaround if the error is with cables, controller BIOS or a rare esoteric issue that cannot be identified with usual methods.
@niketathakare
@Geek-9pm
Thank you both for your input. I saw the article niketathakare cites. There is no CD/DVD entry in Device Manager so there are no codes displayed. I have been doing searches on the other wording in each of those entries - unsuccessfully.
I am trying to locate an external adapter to use to test the drive outside the computer in which it does not work.
ThanxI found this on Amazon...

External power supply and USB adapter for CD-Rom and Hard Drives.
This thing lets you provisionally use a HDD Optical drive outside of the computer.

I have used this whenever I have trouble with a drive in the computer.Works good. But it is ugly and is for emergency use. Works with either SATA or ATA interfaces.
It does not depend of the BIOS. Windows 7 and Windows 10 will recognize this adapter and install drivers instantly.

Everybpdy needs oneof these for computer troubleshooting.@Geek-9pm
I appreciate your help. Thank you.

I was able to verify that the ODD is truly good. I plugged it into another computer's SATA and tested both
CD and DVD. I only tested the read function. I was able to view a file structure for each. The ODD is good.

I know the external connection is a good alternative solution except that this is a borrowed
computer and I am obligated to return it in the same condition it was in when I borrowed it.
Thank you for your input.

I think the main players in this problem are MS, because of the comment I saw on their website about
MS software possibly causing this scenario after adding a feature to MS Office 2003 using the ODD and
Toshiba Power Saver which continues to tell me the power to the ODD is off when all the settings
indicate it's on and then would not turn it on when I clicked the option to turn it back on.

I think it's a software issue.

Hello, I just got a second hand pc on ebay that i was told is stock. UPON start up I get a message that reads "cpu is overpowered... SYSTEM will RUN under clocked to maintain stability." The pc runs but i have no idea if its "fully" running.
What would i need to do to get it performing properly if it isn't? How would or could i upgrade from here?

It's a cyberpower pc gua 520
AMD Fx 4350 quadcore
Nvidia GeForce GT 730
8gb RAM
PSU Venus VM500WT
1 Tb HddWhat is the exact wording of the message you get? Are you able to work out the model of motherboard the machine has? Even though the seller CLAIMS it's stock, the model you mentioned appears to have come ORIGINALLY with a AMD-FX4300 chip which is a 95w CPU, the FX4350 you have is a 125w chip. It wouldn't surprise me if a machine like that has a lower end motherboard that doesn't have sufficient power delivery to power a 125w TDP chip and it's therefore downclocking the CPU.

At any rate, unless the fault was mentioned on the eBay listing, I'd be pushing to return the system since it's clearly not working as it should.

I replaced my PWM FAN on the HSF and I'm a little confused about Smart FAN Control as Gigabyte calls it. I do not OC and I game very infrequently. So I believe I should use 'cpu smart fan control' in the Bios (enabled) and set 'cpu smart fan mode' to auto or PWM.

PWM is preferable as this is a PWM 4p fan. Also I see I want to switch to 'balanced' in my Windows 7 PRO power management scheme (and enable C1E and DRAM power down in Bios).

Question: The manual shows fan mode 'auto' means bios sets optimal mode. I presume that means between 'voltage' or 'PWM' and since this is a 4p fan it will use PWM mode. Is that correct?

Question 2: Should I NOT use 'Cool & Quiet' while control is set to auto or PWM? Would there be any difference or BENEFIT to setting mode to auto vs. PWM?

Lastly, lowering fan speed while surfing, etc. would be a benefit. If I would prefer not delving into bios every time I want to game would it be best to set mode to PWM and then just alter my Windows power management scheme back to high performance?


Thank you,


MacI always set Cool n'Quiet to enabled. This will underclock the CPU when processing power is not needed which will make it run cooler and cost less on electric bill in electricity. I would set fans to auto and through the process it should calibrate the fans that it is set to automatic speed on. Through the process usually it will show an RPM indicator on the BIOS screen for this and it starts off at 0 RPMs and then it increments the PWM signal and it senses the fan speed in relation to the PWM setting. After its calibrated the fan will go back to slower speed and your system is ready to use.

I haven't seen any performance loss out of setting Cool n' Quiet to enabled. I have seen Cool n' Quiet clock my systems to like 700 Mhz and then jump around to 1400Mhz and 2100Mhz and 2800Mhz and basically whatever is running is weighed on how much processing power is needed to complete it. So If your watching a streaming movie for example you might see it jumping around between 700Mhz and 1400Mhz but when you launch a game it may go direct from 700Mhz to 2800Mhz and no lag in response when launching the game. Its able to jump from 700Mhz to 2800Mhz in a very small fraction of a second and the system never lags out when underclocked or gaming as a result of this.

I'd say the only reason to have to not use Cool n' Quiet would be if you wrote a program that you want to have executed at maximum clock speed of say 2800Mhz and you notice that the end result is slower to come up with an answer to it because its a single-threaded program and Cool n'Quiet doesnt detect it as a serious program to have to justify running it at 2800Mhz and its running it in an underclocked state.

However I create programs in C++ which is single-threaded execution for console apps and never had a need yet to disable Cool n'Quiet. And actually to get the most processing power out of my 8-Core CPU when running single-threaded programs, instead of using an 8th of the processing power of the FX-8350 4.0Ghz with one instance of the program running, I wanted to look for a needle in the hay stack of a problem that could be in the algorithm of the code I was using and so I set the scope of where I was targeting 1 billion 32-bit keys to be tested at 125 million keys per core, so I ran 8 instances of my program on the 8-core system and set the first to run from 1 to 125 million and then the next core to run through 125 million and 1 to 250 million and so on until the 8th core was set to run 875 million to 1 billion, and the system ran through all those keys using string compares and other methods within the code to look for weak keys within the first 1 billion keys of a 32-bit key. During this process Cool n'Quiet was enabled and the system ran non stop for a few days at 4000Mhz and all cores pegged to 100% utilization. I had Windows 7 64-bit installed on that system and a CPU Monitor Gadget running that displayed the CPU ACTIVITY and Memory activity so I can quickly see how the system is handling running my program of 8 instances of the same program running and each set with core affinity to their specific cores.

Lastly setting fans on auto will keep the systems cleaner from dust and hair. Lesser air flow going through the system vs a constant high volume airflow. As well as the fan life is greater for cooling fans that wear out and eventually fail, so having them spin slower or not as often as full speed makes them last longer. The system is very good at self monitoring its temperatures and quickly cooling itself to not damage anything so no worries of anything overheating as a result of fans set to AUTO in BIOS.Dave thanks. Don't know why I didn't get an email. Ended up doing aok for 3 days w/fan on auto but after I switched to PWM it froze and I thought the mobo was borked. Turns out PWM did something to the 965 cpu but switching it out allowed a good boot.

Really appreciate learning what you think about Cool n' Quiet. Still can't believe I hosed a cpu from 2-3 hours of surfing but I seem to have my main system back.


Thank you.Curious if your board was only rated for 95 watt TDP CPU and you were running the Phenom II 965 which is a 125 watt TDP CPU. I have seen boards have 125 watt CPU's listed as supported and then you look further and it states like 95 watt CPU maximum.

I haven't seen CPUs roast in ages. Intel and AMD CPUs have throttling built into them so that if they run too hot they will throttle performance to reduce heat. However it is possible to have a CPU that is too heavy for VRM's etc.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3015397/amd-phenom-965-throttling-stock-speeds.html

Which CPU did you switch to to be healthy running again?