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i have a pc with a
geforce GTX 1050Ti
only 4gb
ram atm athlon x4 950 quad core
i just want this pc for streaming and gaming but i cant seem to play fortnite without it lagging because of low fps
should the game play fine i have 300 pound spare to spend if its my possessor or graphics card hope you can help open to question thank you very much Best answer I can give is to sell your current PC.
The upgrade path for gaming  is no longer economical and effective.

Let me say it another way. If you said 'software upgrade', you would have lots of options. If you had said 'beautiful hardware' you also would get answer.  But you asked for hardware that would up your FPS. It's not economical. There is no  economical hardware upgrade to improve FPS in a significant way. 

Thais not my idea.
Most of the time life hacker is right on. Look at this:
https://lifehacker.com/how-do-i-know-when-to-upgrade-my-pc-or-just-build-a-new-1571878154
Quote

Sometimes it can FEEL like your best BET is to just build a new computer entirely ..

Hey everyone,
I'm trying to make an AMD computer build. I want everything possible to be AMD inside this computer. AMD is just my preference, I don't want to hear anything on why INTEL is better. I know that AMD makes graphics cards, CPU's, and CPU coolers. Is there anything else that AMD manufactures that is a component to a computer? Such as Monitors or SSD's? AMD is mainly CPU and GPU's.

Most AMD Motherboards have a AMD GPU or Nvidia GPU if integrated video is available with the board. Motherboards with APU sockets have option for using the APU for AMD CPU and GPU all in one processing as well as most have a PCI Express slot if you want to add a better GPU.

They never got into the MONITOR, RAM,  and Hard DRIVE or SSD Market, HOWEVER they do have a software product to make a Ram Drive where system RAM can be set up to act as a Virtual SSD, where programs in this space run like 22x faster than a SSD. However the data is saved back to a Hard Drive or SSD on shutdown, and at boot it makes for a longer boot time as the data repopulates into system RAM to create this vitual drive space.

How can I get data off an SSD hard drive? My XPS 13 got some water on it and won t turn on, but I want to get the data off the hard drive.Buy an external HDD enclosure...or install it as a slave HDD in a working desktop...Assuming the SSD wasn't wet/dunked patio's suggestion should work. If it got wet, you will need to be sure its dry before powering on or else total data loss would occur if a droplet or more of water is across chip legs etc.Your Dell XPS 13 has a  M.2 Type 2280 SSD installed which will require something like this https://www.transcend-info.com/Products/No-760
and will need to have the LAPTOP dismantled to remove the drive. Also be very careful handling the drive as it is very static sensitive. If you have used any of the Dells security features make sure you check the ssd can be read OUTSIDE the laptop, before you try  it in the usb adapter. Dell support should help with this info.

Three times infections has knock out my ATI/Amd archive video card set up,but got the video/monitor display back up & running normal just TWO times.This time around i'm missing the ATI control center options which I need for my few GAMEPLAY 2000-11' games that I use on my Hp media ctr HP XP PRO desktop pc. When trying to re-download from Ati/Amd archive online,but I didn't see any avalible options for my archive ati/amd video card as before! Can this be found elsewhere safely online ?Why do you suspect infections and where are you going for drivers ? ?and I'm curious to know why an infection WOULD only target your graphics card.

Hi there,

Wireless connection for this laptop was suddenly not very good. It was CONNECTED to the router but the speed/signal was very low. So I replaced the wireless card hoping it will solve the PROBLEM, but it didn't. After careful inspection I couldn't find any cable that can be attached to the wireless card from the laptop motherboard. Do you KNOW if this SPECIFIC laptop comes with cables or without?

Attached pictures to show laptop wireless slot and wireless card.


pictures links - https://i.redd.it/bb9eb1je8zx01.jpg
https://i.redd.it/61f6flhe8zx01.jpg
https://i.redd.it/ry8xqohe8zx01.jpg

hello and good day, all.
I come here with an enigma and a mystery
So here's what you need to know: I own this laptop (model Lenovo Y700-15ISK 80NV, ram 8gb, CPU i7). Sometimes, exclusively so far when I play games, the keyboard (inbeded in the laptop, this is a laptop, ok) stops working. The leds (for caps lock for example) are still lit, impossible to turn them off, or to change numlock, no hotkey works, and my GAME characters are stuck on the last command issued (keep walking LEFT indefinitely).
What's interesting is also that the mouse works, as long as I don't unplug it and replug it, but that's completely sure.
Even more interesting, the shutdown button doesn't really work, and the computer cannot shut down by itself.
When the keyboard stops working like this (or is stuck, is that the word?) mid-game, I manage to return to the desktop by pluging in a phone in the usb, clicking in it's pop-up window, and voila, back to desktop. From there, I shut down the computer the usual way, through the menu, and everything will proceed, except for the shutting down. The screen will go black, as if shutting down, but that's it, everything keeps turning. So I have to kill it manually and I have to press and hold the shutdown button. Finally, most interesting and maybe most relevant: I have to hold the button for an unusually long time (like, 5, 6 seconds?) and it will make a loud "pop" electric noise when shutting down. When I turn the computer back on, everything works, until I'm 10 mins into a game and it all starts over again.

I think there might be SOMETHING more than the keyboard, as the shutdown button seems unable to do it's simple job either (pressing it once does nothing)

So, do you gentle ladies and men have any idea? I'm close to losing hope.
Ask me anything if you need precision. All this happened soon after the coputer got backed up after the April 2018 windows 10 update that *censored* a lot laptops. Maybe re-installing the OS did something? Sounds weird.
Anyway, thanks.
Talk to you soon Quote

and it will make a loud "pop" electric noise when shutting down.

Hello,

I have a very basic question about
MINI PC memory, hopefully someone could help.

I am going to buy a mini PC, for example
Beelink M1 Quad Core Mini PC 8GB RAM + 64GB ROM

available at

https://www.gearbest.com/mini-pc/pp_666529.html?wid=1433363

The memory is said to be 64 GB ROM,
that is, Read-Only-Memory.

ROM seems to mean that I can not write
on this space, or maybe write only once and
then it will be never erasable (like in CD ROM).

Is this really the case?

I would like to store some videos, games,
files in this space and erase them from time to time
and download other things, as I do in my usual
desktop (with hdd and ssd memories).

Will it be possible at all with this ROM device?

Thanks for the info

Andy
Here is my short answer.
Do not buy it. Unless you are sure it truly is what you want.
In that price range there are a number if mini-PC hubs that can give about the same performance.

What things are you familiar with?
Have you ever used a Microsoft Xbox?

Yes, ROM can not be changed. It can only be replaced. And even in that case it is a factory job.
If the ROM can be altered, it ought to be identified as EPROM, not as  ROM.

Here are You Tube reviews that are  critical, truthful and telling you what the limits are. Notice that SSD is used for adding more stuff. Note that there other gadgets like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cucGAbI5XYw

Hope that helps.   What are you expecting outta that rig ? ?...why would you buy 1 ? ?...just sayin.Stop the press!  He said ROM. That made me jump the track.
The INTERNAL storage is SSD, not ROM. You want 64 GB  or more.
Here some trusted reviews about the new mini PC boxes coming from the far east. (The CPU is from Intel.)
Early this year:
https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/358859/the-best-windows-micro-desktops
More recent:
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-mini-pcs,review-2760.html
These devices have virtually no provision for a meaningful upgrade. Once you invest,you are stuck with it. Notice a range of price and options. Some come with Ethernet, which is seldom needed. But the USB 3.0 is  good idea.
Not the point Geek...64G will dissappear in a heartbeat...Yes, the "ROM" name is poorly described. I think it may be a translation error since it is a chinese product. It refers to, most likely, eMMC Memory.

A Patio mentions the storage is limited, so generally speaking it's not going to be a proficient replacement for a "typical" PC. It could work well as a system to connect to a TV for movies, music, and small games, particularly if facilitated with extra storage via external drives.

Yes, it is nor ROM.
This same item is shown elsewhere with correct specs and a much lower price.
Look on Amazon and find two models of the  Beelink Mini PC with Intel inside.
Why one sells for $175 an the other goes for $260  is not very clear.
Wait. I see it. It has a Pentium CPU. Why would you PAY $85 more for a Pentium?
Amazon also has one wish a Celeron.

Edit: Not SSD. It is eMMC. Cheap storage. Dear all,

Thanks a lot for your help. I understand the stroy much better now.

Geek-9pm: I would be paying higher price not for Intel processor, but for 8 gig of Ram
versus 4gig for cheaper models. But I am still thinking about it.

Thanks again

Andy Quote from: BC_Programmer on June 03, 2018, 04:02:41 PM

Yes, the "ROM" name is poorly described. I think it may be a translation error since it is a chinese product. It refers to, most likely, eMMC Memory.

A Patio mentions the storage is limited, so generally speaking it's not going to be a proficient replacement for a "typical" PC. It could work well as a system to connect to a TV for movies, music, and small games, particularly if facilitated with extra storage via external drives.

Hi!

I got notebook without battery and found large dock with connector in attachment.
I think it is for battery. But Ineed to be sure, so please only reply if is it really for battery.
If yes, I have chance to use in dock 3,5" HDD.

Miro
Without the MODEL of your notebook, we won't get too far. Could you please provide the model and manufacturer of your device? This looks like any standard battery slot, usually a dock slot would have way more pins. Just stick to PROVIDING the Model and Manufacturer.

Have a good day!
AnthonyThat connector is in fact commonly used as a laptop battery blade connection. The battery will have female slots that these BLADES insert into. I'd advise just getting a replacement battery for whatever model it is that you have. Most batteries are inexpensive to replace. Additionally many laptops can be run direct from their power supplies if your trying to avoid spending money. Only drawback to running direct from power supply is that if power cuts out the laptop will crash as well as it would need to be plugged in to work without a battery.Thank you all.
It is what I meant.

I'm not using notebook in travel, it's used only in home and I bought it without battery, so always is connected to power adapter.

And your answer solves what I wanted - it's ENOUGH PLACE for 3,5" HDD.

Thank you for all, we can close this thread.

Miro

Hey everyone, I recently built a computer out of some parts I had lying around. (specs: ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe, 4GB of RAM, KingSpec 64 GB SSD, Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD, and an AMD Athlon Dual-Core clocked at 3.01 Ghz.) I put Windows XP Professional on the PC, however when I tried to use my HDD that I have installed in the PC itself, it required me to format it before using it. (It let me format it with NTFS) But now, every time I but a REMOVABLE drive, it can only read it if the file system is FAT32, and if it can't read it, it makes me format the drive before use, in the FAT32 file format! I'm still installing drivers for the Mobo, and maybe the storage controller driver is out-of-date or something LIKE that. Any suggestions?have to dust of my XP memory here, but didn't XP only read a max of 2GB PARTITIONS?so plugging in a 8GB USB stick WOULD not be read, but partition that into 4x2GB partitions and you're good to go.
+Mark
I never thought of that, and I will test this when I get home. However, when I plugged my 16 GB Cruzer Glide into it (it was formatted to fat32 and had Linux Mint Installer on it) it was read perfectly fine and I got the message that it was 16GB. Another thing is that I had an 8GB Flash drive formatted to exFat and it needed to be formatted to FAT32. I did so and I only got 200MB of space available on the Stick! Thanks for the reply.I would re-do the 8G....and or see if it has partitions...
Quote

formatted to exFat

Hi,

I've just bought an LG 27UD68P 27" monitor which I'm CONNECTING my MacBook Pro to via an HDMI cable.

When I set the resolution scaling on my MacBook to 4k - 3840 x 2160 the text is tiny. I ALSO have an iMac 27" which runs at 5k - 5120 × 2880 and the text is a size that is perfectly fine to read.

How can the LG 4k monitor text but so small when the iMac monitor at a larger resolution text is bigger?

If I set the resolution on my MacBook to 3008 x 1692, the LG monitor text size is fine and looks about the same as my iMac. Though then I'm not getting the full 4k benefit of the monitor...

I've tried to take some example images so you can see what I mean below. Images were taken on my phone at a hands length away from both screens.

Maybe it is the Zoom you have your MacBook set to on the internet browser? I'm not too familiar with MacOS, but try your zoom settings or if you have Chrome you can make the text itself bigger or smaller. Also, does this just happen in your browser or other places as well? Quote from: Ajfer03 on May 31, 2018, 08:14:23 AM

Maybe it is the Zoom you have your MacBook set to on the internet browser? I'm not too familiar with MacOS, but try your zoom settings or if you have Chrome you can make the text itself bigger or smaller. Also, does this just happen in your browser or other places as well?

OK, since nobody else is currently replying I'll give you this to work with. In your System Preferences, there should be a setting that says something like DPI or something along those lines. The only MacBook I have is the one that is issued by my school, and they have disables most functions like that so people don't mess up their system. Try and see if there is a setting related to that under the display tab.

Happy To Help,
Anthony

Hello, I have purchased a 1tb M.2 SSD. I expected it to work as i plugged it in but nothing.

I have tried removing all other disks and still did not get it to detect, it won't detect within windows, or bios. I did remove all drives and try the windows 10 installer, nothing there.

I did a BIOS update and i did not get anything, not sure what settings to play around with in BIOS but i did a bit, nothing.

The m.2 drive glows red so i'm assuming it's getting POWER.

The M.2 drive is a crucial MX500 drive, the software didn't detect it either. shown: https://i.imgur.com/cWGUdsY.png

Do not be shy to try and give troubleshooting tips, i'm willing to try everything.in my BIOS (american megatrends, gigabyte mobo) I go into > Peripherals > NVMe Configuration and see it there.
then in > BIOS > Boot Options I set the m.2 as the first boot device.
but if your BIOS can't even see the device then that would suggest a BIOS update needed, and from the sounds of it, you have already done that, which then leads me to believe ASUS has yet to MAKE that drive COMPATIBLE with their hardware.
I know this is KIND of far fetched, but maybe if you know someone with a compatible M.2 PORT on their motherboard, you could ask them to see if your drive works. Then you could see if it's your SSD or your motherboard, and work from there.

Hope this helps,
Anthony0x12312,
Please give more detail. What motherboard do you have?
is M.2 the only detail?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2
There are many vendors and makers. Which one did yu buy?
Have you considered sending it back?

Quote from: Geek-9pm on June 04, 2018, 10:49:35 PM

What motherboard do you have?

There are many vendors and makers. Which one did yu buy?

I have to figure out a way to print from a pc running QNX2 to a usb printer. the pc has a parallel port. I have a powered parallel male to usb B adapter, but it doesn't work. I think I know why, the pc bios only supports at and PS2. The adapter supports EPP/ECP. I've search for an adapter like the one I have that supports PS2 but can't find one. Printing on these machines has always worked with older parallel printers, but they are getting hard to come by and expensive. I have 25 of these installations. Any suggestions appreciated. Quote

I have 25 of these installations. Any suggestions appreciated.

I have a 17 year old dell 3800 Inspiron. When I was still working I used it for Auto CAD. It has auto CAD 2000 installed. It being 17 years old I am loosing the hard drive. It isn't wanting to boot up and I have found that the easy way to be able to use it is to tell it to hibernate when I want to turn it off. So far so good. Everything is still working.

What I want to do is replace the hard drive. I have called Dell and was told to get a new computer. I explained that I had a new computer and CAD 2000 will not load on it. It TELLS me to get a newer version of cad. That goes for around $3000 and I don't have that sort of money to spend on CAD. What I need is information on what hard drive will work in the Inspiron. Teck support at Dell told me to take it to a repair SHOP and they would replace it for me. I explained that all I needed was the information on what hard drive it would take and was told that he didn't have that information. Take it to a repair shop.

Talks like that stopped me from BUYING Dell stuff and building my own computers.

So my question is how do I find out what hard drive I need to order. Is it sata 2 or 3. Will a sata 3 work if it has only support for sata 2? It is also my understanding that they are different sizes of 2.5" hard drives. some are thicker than others. Will a solid state drive work in it? I would go with one of them if it would work. The hard drive that came with it is only 10 GB so a 60GB would be a monster for this lap top.

Thank you much for any help you can offer. SATA versions are forward and backward compatible. However, that isn't going to be an issue in this instance because - at least from what I can find- the laptop doesn't use SATA. It uses a 44-pin Laptop EIDE Drive.

Unfortunately, these are not manufactured anymore, so sourcing a new replacement could be difficult, but not impossible, and may have a premium since being discontinued means demand is outstripping supply. getting a used drive is of course something of a gamble, too.

There is a sort of "underground" of users who keep systems of these vintage, and older, running and mixing them together with modern devices to get the best out of them. In this case, one option sometimes used is a CompactFlash adapter. here. In fact, I have this very device in front of me right now. Effectively, what it does is allows you to use a CompactFlash card as a Hard Disk.

The astute observer might notice that since it's in front of me, it clearly isn't in a computer. Well- it turns out there are a bunch of little niggles and caveats with them that can cause issues. If you don't select the right CF Card, you can have issues involving it identifying itself as a removable drive, preventing certain things from working- These are the issues I encountered myself.

If you want to "clone" the existing install, that may prove difficult either way, because you need a way to use cloning tools while both drives are available- and their 44-pin laptop only EIDE interface presents a challenge. Another issue with that approach is that- at leasat as I recall- Autocad 2000's anti-piracy measures use the Hard Drive serial number information, so it wouldn't run on the new drive if cloned (but you can reinstall it).


You should be able to replace it with any 2.5" IDE (PATA) HDD.  There are plenty of refurbished drives available on Amazon or other sites.  I saw prices as low as $15.  There are 2 different thicknesses, older drives were 12.5mm thick while newer drives were 9mm thick.  Due to the age of your laptop, it's likely that your laptop's current drive is 12.5mm.  In that case, you can use either thickness. 

In order to clone the drive you'll need an adapter similar to this:  https://www.amazon.com/TechIntheBox-Adapter-Converter-Optical-External/dp/B075YVPNYF/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1526559289&sr=1-10&keywords=ide+to+usb+adapter.  The USB port on your laptop is only version 1.1 so data transfer will be slwo between the 2 drives.

I personally wouldn't bother with trying to find an IDE SDD or the CompactFlash adapter.  Although IDE SDDs are manufactured, they are relatively expensive.  The CompactFlash adapter would probably be a little too finicky for you.  I've used the CF adapters on REALLY old computers that used MFM drives which haven't been manufactures for quite a few years.  They worked great for that use but I wouldn't use one if an appropriate HDD was available.Thanks much for the information. I will order the ide drive and let you know how it goes. As far as cloning the new drive I had planed to just load all the programs on it just like I would do with a new build. Is there a reason to clone the drive?

As I said above. Thanks much for all the help. Why couldn't Dell just give me the same information. They did build the unit. Cloning would preserve the OS and all installed programs and data but, provided you have all the install disks, a fresh install of the OS and re-installation of your programs is the best way to do it.  Make sure to backup all of your data before hand.When I still used AutoCAD, was able to get it installed using Compatibility Mode.  We still have an old Dell Latitude running Windows 2000, it never gets connected to the internet.  Recently cloned IDE (PATA) drive using a DESKTOP computer & two IDE/SATA to USB adapters.  It will not work if the original drive has Ontrack installed or some other low level drive manager.  These were used to get drives larger than 32GB to work with a BIOS that supported up to 32GB.Hi all.
I just wanted to let you know how it all worded out. I now have Auto CADD 2000 working on my newer lap top, five years old Toshiba with Windows 7.

I down loaded from windows virtual PC and Windows XP immolator. That allowed me to load Auto CADD on to the virtual PC. It all works. The best part is it didn't cost me anything and it works. So now I can use the Dell till it dies and don't have to worry about it. I don't have to spend $140 on a new old tec hard drive. All is good in my world. You all have a great day.  Thank you all very much for your help.

flash memory and eeprom is same..?? Hard DISK is under flash memory category ..?? No, There are different forms of memory that can retain INFORMATION after power is restored.
CMOS memory keeps data with a small battery.
ROM memory never changes after it has been set.
EPROM memory can be erased either by an ELECTRICAL pulse or ultraviolet light.
FLASH memory can be programmed again, but is slow.
SSD is an improved form ht is faster tenn a hard drive.

There is a new form of this call M.2 and is documented below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2
However, general  use of this new memory might take awhile.

A NICE compromise is the 2.5 inch standard, which can use either a hard drive of a form of FLASH memory. Read about the 2.5 inch standard here:

2.5 inch HDD or SSD Videos   Don't like your political signature, Geek. No place for it on CH in my opinion.OK,  now it has Plato.

What is the reason that I can't replace my ink? I bought the CORRECT ones. My printer is written on the box of the inks so what is causing this PROBLEM?

It says that it's the wrong ink but it shouldn't be...

My printer is an epson stylus dx4450 and that same printer is written on the box... the "code" of colors is the same :/Either the chip that is on the ink cartridge is defective reporting wrong to the printer or the ink is "Non-Genuine" and Epson is trying to keep you from using generic brand or counterfeit ink on it.


I'd bring the ink back to where ever you got it from and tell them there is a problem with it. If the ink is genuine and the seller is genuine then there should be no problems with getting a replacement to try since the ink was defective.

The only other thing that can cause this is that the printer itself has the issue with its interface pins and circuitry which reads the ink cartridge. The compartment where the ink goes in should have metal spring loaded finger contacts that make contact with the circuitry of the ink cartridge, and if there is ink on a contact it could cause troubles. Alcohol on a Q-tip carefully worked on these pins to not bend them but get off any dry ink etc might fix this.

Lastly... Epson has been known to put counters in their printers that kill the printer after a certain count of prints. I had an Epson C60 that they did this to where one day in the middle of printing term papers the printer would print no more. Adding new ink didnt fix it. I ended up buying a cheap Lexmark for $30 at the time to print my term paper and I assumed the Epson simply died. However later I found out that Epson as well as many other companies have "Planned OBSOLESCENCE" in the design of their devices so its meant to last only so long and then die so you have to buy a new one. A russian white hat hacker put up a tool to reset the counter back to 0 which made these printers work again, but my Epson C60 was long gone years prior. If you have printed a lot with this and now its done this then Epson may have bricked it on you. When Epson was CALLED out on the internal counter as to why it exists, why make a printer that dies at a specific print count, their answer was that the printer after a certain number of prints, its internal sponge that is used for ink purging and under the printer cartridges when parked idle could be maximum ink holding capacity, and so instead of having a error code or message to inspect or replace this ink sponge, they instead have your printer die. They claimed that the sponge can get to a holding capacity and then ink start to seep out of the printer, so due to this, the best thing to do was to force people to throw their printers away to buy new ones because that made more $CENTS$ to them vs offering a ink sponge replacement for their printers which they dont make money on. 

I have since moved on to Laser printers that have counters, but are able to be reset. The counters are to inform you that the laser printer will need a service kit run through it or pick up rollers and fuser unit inspected by a tech or yourself if savy in this area. Then easy reset of this counter and good to go for another 5000+ prints etc.Did you get the cartridges from another country? Some (maybe all) Epson cartridges are region-coded. That is, the printer and cartridge have to be purchased in the same region. This is so Epson can make money selling cartridges at a lower price in a low-wage economy like (for example) Indonesia, and a higher price in Australia nearby, without people travelling from the high price country to the lower price one and buying lots of cartridges to take home. Learned something new... Thanks for sharing that salmon. Didnt realize they had region set cartridges.Vert interesting. 
Here are two links that might help a little. 
https://www.consumerreports.org/printers/most-cost-efficient-inkjet-printers/
Quote

All too often, says Rich Sulin, who leads CR’s printer-testing program, shoppers focus on the sticker price alone. But if you don't factor in the cost of ink refills, you're inviting trouble.
A printer with a low price can balloon in cost—and quickly, too. Consider the Canon Pixma TS8020, which seems like a bargain at $100 but ends up setting you back nearly $600 over two years with typical ink use, according to our estimates.

After printing for a year, you’ll find that the total cost of printer cartridges you bought has surpassed the price of your printer. In most cases, it doesn’t take long until you’ve spent $100 on ink for a printer you only paid $50 for. Printer manufacturers are notorious for selling their printers cheap because they expect to make their money back in ink and toner sales.

My pc randomly restarts randomly. I don't know why but whenever my pc is restarting I notice that my ram and GPU are very hot

Windows 8.1
4 GB ram
Dual core Intel CPU
Nvedia gforce 710 graphics card

Plz help getting headache and tension and stress due to this
Sounds like you have an airflow issue internal to the computer case. Run it with the cover off and see if this helps avoid the thermal problem. A case with inadequate airflow can create hot air pockets inside and this can lead to thermal problems.

Video Cards do get warm/hot, but RAM should be just barely noticeable warm. If RAM feels hot enough to cook and egg on then you might have a power supply that is feeding the RAM a higher than normal voltage causing the RAM to roast, Additionally if you have any overclocking going on of the GPU ( if the 710 allows overclocking via software which I am unsure of for that card ), or you have in BIOS it set to overclock the RAM, undo all overclocking and run it at normal clocks and see if that helps.

If its an airflow issue in the case your solution is to either run it with the cover off which is the free solution, or spend money getting  an extra fan or two mounted inside to generate more airflow of cool air from outside of the case and more to exit, or install the guts into a better case.

*Note:  Airflow DIRECTION of the FANS should be checked to make sure you dont have 2 fans drawing air from outside into the case, but none set to exit. The muffin fans usually have 2 arrows on them. The first arrow showing direction of fan blade rotation and the other showing air direction when running.I do run the PC without the cover. I don't remember overclocking my GPU and it only restarts when I play video games
During Idle the temperatures are at followsPretty hot for idle...leave speedfan runnin in the tray then copy/paste results after 4 minutes gaming.Thermal compound on CPU might have dried up making a weak thermal bond and 25 degrees hotter than it should be when idle. The CPU should thermal throttle when it roasts in the 80C+ range which would lag out the performance.

I agree with Patio in running a speedfan graph log for TEMPS and then play game and see how hot the CPU and GPU get. Hopefully you can see how hot it gets before restart.

*If you removed the CPU heatsink and then placed it back onto the CPU without new thermal compound it will run hot idle like this too. Have you ever removed the CPU heatsink and PUT it back on without new thermal compound ADDED and old removed first?No I did not even touch the heatsink.
I have a doubt if it is a thermal paste problem why is my you so hot .
When  I was checking the bios there is a power section in which 3.3 voltage was running at 2.8
My psu,monitor,speakers are connected to the same socketHi I am back the pc still restarts after everything now it is a black screen which shows nothing when I boot it up not even the bios plz help I am getting a big headacheIs this the same PC as the 1 with mis-matched RAM ? ?NoSee Here...

I found an old Planar led monitor seems to run on 12 volt dc 2.5 amp all I have is a 11.75 power supply from an old vic 20 commodore I wonder if one cut the end off the power supply and open up the planar monitor soldier to wires to the power inside run them out thru a hole and connect to power supply wire hooked up the right way this should work should it not?Maybe. Assuming the VIC-20 supply is a later model that outputs DC, (earlier models were AC and the system had a built in power supply to do the AC-DC Conversion) and assuming you FIND the correct solder pads, use the correct wire pair (VIC-20 has 9V and 12V), get the polarity correct, Don't break anything when you solder it, and the Power Supply itself hasn't already failed in the typical way VIC-20 power supplies do where they deliver massive overcurrent, which would destroy the monitor. All of that- and assuming that there isn't some operational detail that I'm missing.Three words: in line fuse. 3 amps.I looked more closely I see it is 11.75 volts ac so won't work. I think a car battery should work....12v power supplies are cheap. You can probably find one that is correct to display for under $30. Could probably even get the replacement to that monitor on eBay.
Quote from: John1397 on June 06, 2018, 07:00:20 AM

I looked more closely I see it is 11.75 volts ac so won't work. I think a car battery should work.

Just because a car battery can pump out hundreds of amps into something that demands it, such as a starter motor, that does not mean it will force a huge current through anything connected to it
 Ohm's law doesn't work like that. A 12 volt appliance rated at 2.5 amps will take 2.5 amps from a 12v car battery. What you want to watch out for is a fault condition or a short circuit. That's when the fire risk arises. As I said , use a fuse.

The down side is that this question is boring stupid 
The upside is it should therefore be easy to answer 
I just need to KNOW if it is time for me (even for my humble needs) to upgrade my laptop by replacing it with a more powerful engine or buying a new one.
Comparing its specs with those advertised, what are the important parameters and what do they respectively do for the user?
Listening Does you laptop do what you need it to do and work properly? The answer to that question is all that matters.+1
we fall into the trap of believing we need to get the latest and greatest, when what we have is adequately meeting our needs.
by all means, budget permitting, get new toys - and yes they will perform better than what you currently have - but will the outlay be offset by a measurable productivity increase?
and it's that subjective word productivity that only you can determine the worthiness of.I love these answers!! That's how I also think!

OK, reason is I perceive my Internet to be a bit slow, so I upgraded my ISP to a new contracts called 4Mbps Uncapped, with 4Mbps ADSL to match. (Those number were respectively 2 and 2 before) Bought a new router too. My speed is same speed if not slower. (eg Chrome takes about 15 seconds to open) I sent a screenshot of a speed test to a clever young man who said my Internet is fast enough, it is probably my laptop, which is 6 years old. Hence the question. Does this help? That clever young man isn't so clever. Your hardware does not effect internet speed. And the time it takes for a browser to OPEN has nothing to do with internet speed. Are you on dial-up? Because 4Mbps is VERY slow. My broadband connection is 200Mbps.hoping,
I feel your ADSL pain.
I was on ADSL with a top speed of 3Mbps, all because of distance from the street, distance from the exchange, quality of the copper etc etc.

log into your modem config menu and hunt for these values; Signal to NOISE Ratio, often abbreviated to SNR, and Line Attenuation.
the SNR should be around 7 to 12 and the attenuation around 20 to 40, anything higher and you have a 'noisy' line which your ISP should investigate.
also on your speed test, look at the latency figure, that's another indication of noisy lines.

things like corrosion in the street pit box, vermin in the pole junction etc.

but I have since moved cities and now get NBN at 40Mbps - happy days.

changing IPS's will not help (as you have discovered) if you are in a bad area.  you need to change to wireless broadband delivery, effectively bypassing the copper network, but you tend to get half the allowance at twice the monthly spend - but the speed will be awesome.  using your smart phone as a temporary hotspot should prove that point, one way or the other.Oops - sorry - missed the ADSL reference.I got smart and did a speed test by Ookla 
within 10 minutes the 3 tests showed DOWNLOAD to be 1.74, 3.96,3.91 Mbps
uploads were 0.34, 0.44, 0.39 Mbps
The ping was 78, 72,44 ms

does that help?

Is it due to that my pc restarts simply when I play video games and use google chrome .
Getting headache plz helphi rana and welcome.
you will need to supply way more details of your issue.I for one have no idea whet you are after.Modern Desktops PCs require the POWER supply to give these VOLTAGES:
+ 12 volts
+ 5 volts
+ 3.3 volts
Somewhere on the motherboard you will find a voltage below 3 volts. This is by design.
On other forums this has bee a concern for some users who suspect the PC performance might be lacking due to low voltage.
Example:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1902670/voltage-952.html
I can not find any clear answer on that forum. Part of the problem is when the poster does not provide exact details about what they think is wrong.
Short answer. Don't bark up the wrong tree.
 Until we have info it's futile at this point...could be the CPU throttling...could be the PSU not 3.3 etc etc
but then my pc restarts randomly sometimes never sometimes when the window's screen showes up is it due to thisThat doesn't quite qualify as "more info"...ok, still as clear as mud what you are asking for.

let's try a few questions...

do you have a laptop or desktop PC?
where did you get those voltage readings from?
how old is the PC?
do you get any error messages?
what is the version of Windows?

basically it sounds like your PC is randomly shutting down (for whatever reason), a common reason is dust build-up, have you blown out any excessive dust within the chassis?
have you tested the memory?

remember - better info means better advice.
I guess I have to change the thread name {no clue}. It is a custom built pc and I got the readings from bios and a hardware utility called speed fan. I have 4 4gb ram.
No I don't get any error message it just shuts down and starts up again. I have Windows 8.1 64 bit. I have not tested the memory or cleaned the dust because I don't know how to do itFor what it  is worth....
With current hardware the3.3 volts is not critical. The motherboard has regulators to drop the voltage down to what's needed by CPU and RAM.

More likely the issue is bad memory sticks
Or a heat sink not well fitted.2.8V is well outside the 15% tolerance range, so you are right to be concerned. However, I don't BELIEVE it would directly cause the system to shut down.

Also remember that Software utilities that measure voltage cannot always be relied on for accuracy.

Assuming, however, those measurements are accurate, both your issues could be caused by something as simple as power connector that isn't fully seated onto the motherboard. I've happened across a few instances of other people having the same issues (2.8V on 3.3V Rail) and they resolved their problem by double-checking their motherboard power connections.

Well I fixed it but it is temporary I remove a ram switch on the pc switch it off put the other ram . This works for a while but I don't know the actual problem
What I last said was:
Quote

With current hardware the3.3 volts is not critical. The motherboard has regulators to drop the voltage down to what's needed by CPU and RAM.

Well I fixed it but it is temporary I remove a ram switch on the pc switch it off put the other ram . This works for a while but I don't know the actual problem

So I'm fairly tech savvy, I built this computer about 3 years ago. As far as I'm AWARE nothing is really faulty. I did replace my graphics card and hard drive recently to see if that may be the problem. I have tested the ram, had the motherboard tested, done virus/spyware scans, and a lot else.

If I install the driver that CAME with the graphics card it seems to work and with two monitors but I can only play a handful of games. I used to be able to play anything from skyrim, battlefield 4 and newer games but I haven't in some time. If I install the latest drivers via nvidia geforce experience It starts having code 43 though in the device manager. I'm updating windows right now and disabling it and turning it off to see if that will help, then trying to see if I can install the latest driver to see if it may help it.

I've ran a few other apps to see if everything is running smoothly, I don't think it's my cpu, ram or motherboard as far as I am aware. I did have to get a sound card to get sound working again though, it wouldn't work without one. The power supply should be in good shape and its 700 watts I believe maybe higher.

So far my display hasn't been messing up since i installed new hard drive, but it has already randomly crashed and going a little slow at times as well. I'm at a loss as to what the problem could be, I think it may be hardware in NATURE but who knows, I'm contacting nvidia to see if they can COME up with anything. Are you running any overclocking with this build? Also your integrated sound died on the main board and you had to add a sound card?

Any history of the original sound as to what lead up to its failure, such as after a power surge or bad storm etc?43 is a hardware error,,,if its happened with 2 cards then i suspect it's the MBoard.

I try to get RID of files but I can't.   I will click "This PC>Windows C> Windows. It will say something to the effect of "You need the administrator" or "You don't have Permission". Also, it will say something to the effect of "You need Permission. You require permission from TrustedInstaller to make changes to this FOLDER."

How do I go about eliminating some of my files when I get messages like I just mentioned?You're not supposed to DELETE files from the Windows folder. They are usually system files needed to keep Windows running. The files you need to delete (or shift to somewhere ELSE) are files you have put on the disc yourself. These could be games, movies, ETC?

Hello,

I'm actually trying to REPAIR an usb flash drive, I tried to format it but I can't (no partition table), I tried to flash the IC but it doesn't answer, I don't know how to make it work or even if I can  . It's a PNY 64GB 3.0, IC is a SMI SM3267AC, VID 090C, PID 1000.

Any help would be APPRECIATED, thanks.Okay so, I found that link which is working with my controller, I erased everything (flash & isp) and i'm now trying to reflow it, I dunno if this is gonna work cause I have a lot of badblocks (which are being erased too) and it's taking a lot of time and heating. Does anyone know if I'm doing the right things ?Okay so, for anyone who's having the same problem (even if i THINK that i'm the only one), you can download chipeasy to find your chip model, then download the factory soft to flash your chip, you just have to erase the FIRMWARE and the isp and then install the factory ones, it did solve my problem.with new ones being so cheap, why risk using a known unreliable device with bad blocks which has already caused grief at least once?Re-flowing a USB drive ? ?...Really ?

Why not do my method...mistakenly leave in jeans pocket...find in washer...put back in jeans pocket...full dryer cycle...Done.

Needs 1 extra Bounce sheet to work."re-flowing"  -  predictive text perhaps?    that's what the extra sheet of Bounce is for...

I want switchable access to an external HDD, and have bought (from Ebay) and set up, a number of powered hubs - a number, because I found that 'contact was lost' after a short period of 'normal' functioning, and so replaced the hubs with new ones. After much trial and error (over years) I have discovered reliable operation is achieved only by removing the HDD USB CABLE from the hub socket and then re-inserting it - or simulating that action by moving the connector in the socket without actually extracting the USB plug. The need to 'remove & replace' the plug in the socket, pretty well DEFEATS the purpose of having a switchable hub socket.  I would like to know why proper functioning stops after a short period of use when the hub is new; and why 'rubbing the plug in the socket' restores function; and if there is a technique (greasing the socket with graphite powder ?) to make it reliable.Please clarify - same plug, different sockets? Quote

After much trial and error (over years) I have discovered reliable operation is achieved only by removing the HDD USB cable from the hub socket and then re-inserting it - or simulating that action by moving the connector in the socket without actually extracting the USB plug.

Specs:-
Intel dual core processor
Two ram both same
Windows 8.1

This GIVES me a headache plz help
What I did
Cleaned the motherboard
When there was a BLACK screen error removed 1 ram stick and put it back. Now this solution does not WORK
When I thought it was a power problem I connected it to other socket it did not restart or anything but know it didn't work
When I thought it was a heating problem I left it It idle for sometime and then it used to Work but know even if I did not touch it for SEVERAL days it still shows the black screen or restarts plz help
Plz helpYou now have 4 Topics on this same issue...

QUICK question...which if any of the solutions offered have you tried so far ? ?

Hello,

my hard drive is on its way out and I need some help finding a new one. I'm also looking at some more RAM as I think my laptop needs a bit more to support windows 10 (when bought it came with windows 7). I have a dell inspiron n5010

CPU:   Intel Dual Core i3 Processor
Memory Type:   PC3-10600 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM  - (320GB SAMSUNG Spinpoint M7E HM321HI 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s)
Standard Memory:   up to 8GB (Currently has 3 gb)

Max Memory:   8GB
Memory Expansion Slots:   2 SO-DIMM Slots

1. I am currently limited to PC world at the moment as I have a lot of vouchers for here, so if you could give me LINKS of which one's from their site you would recommend, that would be great!

2. I'm also interested in switching to a ssd from my hdd, can i do this easily or is there any motherboard issues or software issue I would need to undertake.


3. I'm not sure what information people would need to help with this issue so please let me know if you need more info and i'll get that for you .
For the hard drive, most any 2.5" SATA laptop drive will work. Keep in MIND though that unless you have backup CDs/DVDs, all of your restore information is likely on your current hard drive. Your PRICE per gigabyte is a lot higher with an SSD as well. You'll end up paying twice as much for an SSD and likely won't notice the difference unless you're hardcore into gaming or loading massive spreadsheets. I hope you aren't judging by the rest of the specs.

As for memory, if you're running a 32-bit version of Windows, you're not going to get more than 3GB of memory no matter what you put in. Make sure you install a 64-bit version of Windows if you want to break that 3GB barrier.

Quaxo ! !...Holey Cow !.....long see...no TIME .

I had a computer with windows 8.1 installed but the HDD died. So I bought a NEW one and installed windows 8.1 with SATA MODE IDE. Everything was fine UNTILL I shut it down. When I tired to open it said that there were no bootable device. I tried everything and FINALLY when I changed SATA mode to AHCI it saw the HDD but could not start Windows, so I changed it back to IDE and it started Widows as if nothing had happened.
Whenever I shut down the computer and try to start it, the same thing happens, and I do all these steps again.

I also tried to install windows 8.1 on AHCI mode, but the same thing happened again. But this time I had to switch to IDE and then AHCI again.

Also, when I pick restart option, not shut down, there is no problem. It RESTARTS just fine.

Do you have any idea why this is happening or how can I fix this?Set BIOS to IDE mode...wipe HDD and do a clean install...
For some reason BIOS isn't recognising changes made which is 1 of 2 things...not pressing F10 to "save changes and exit"...or CMOS battery may be goin flat.

Hello,

I had got a problem recently with my main computer and I can't turn it on for the moment.
In order to be able to get BACK some data, that are really important to me, i bought an adaptator to use my HDD as an external drive, CONNECTED in USB to my laptop
(By the way, if that does matter : my HDD is a Seagate 2To 7200/min, that i use as a second disk on my main computer, for data storage mainly, while the OS is on a SSD.)


The thing is that even if windows does recognize the hard drive (see pic below), it doesn't appear as a hard drive.



I can see it in the disk management though : disk 1 on the pic, and windows tells me that it is dynamic.



I can see it through diskpart aswell, and here it says that the disk is invalid and that there is no volume on it




I already tried to see if I could access to the HDD with a linux live CD, the answer is no.


So I wanted to convert the disk from dynamic to basic, because I read that this is possible without losing any data.
I tried the AOMEI programs but it doesn't work (& I'm not sure about what it says to me about the possible data loss)

either i get this with the Dynamic Disk Manager :


either i get this with the Dynamic Disk Converter (can't proceed) :






I wanted to try the dskprobe method aswell (see : https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=726327 )
but I don't have a "42" at the mentionned line (see pic), so I prefered to not TOUCH anything




I'm really stuck and really annoyed with this.
Could somebody help me pls ?When and why did you span the HDD ? ?

This may be trickier than you think...The drive was dynamic because it was spanned. A spanned volume is a volume that stores data across partitions on more than one physical disk. At best, that means you need all physical drives that were part of that spanned set in order to rebuild it. Alternatively, recovery software can often get data back from the physical drive that was part of a spanned volume, since data is not striped across the disks.

I would surmise that at some point or somehow you created a dynamic, spanned volume from unallocated space on your SSD and your secondary drive, perhaps while setting it up. Hi guys, thanks for your help

patio
I never did this. I bought my computer online through a website that was specialised in assembling computers. I guess they did it. I had no idea about that (I didnt even know what was a spanned drive before).

BC_Programmer : thanks for explanations. As I said just before, I think its the guy who assembled the computer who did that.
So i could try something like Recuva ?

So yeah, I noticed an abnormally high temperature with some hardware I got second hand to REPLACE the FAILED AM3+ motherboard I was using (FX 8350). I trust the guy I got this system from so I don't really think anything is wrong, I'm pretty sure it's just a bogus reading buuuut...

I have to ask since Google is turning up dead ends. As you'll see below, open hardware monitor is reporting ROUGHLY 230F temperatures on something, speedfan thinks its the CPU, the BIOS insists the CPU is running cold as does open hardware monitor. I think this is just a case of ITX strangeness but I'm not sure. My system specs are listed below as well, I even ditched the Intel heatsink for a Cryorig H7 I had on my FX8350 to no avail. The bizarre high temperature does not change with load on the CPU or other system components EITHER. Also, no it's not the GPU it's reading.

If anyone knows whats going on, cool, lemme know, if not, no biggie, probably just a harmless anomaly.

The specs of this system are:

Intel Core i5 4570 3.20GHz (up to 3.6 boost)
Cryorig H7 heatsink that sticks out of the case like a tumor until I can afford a C7
MSI H81I ITX motherboard (MS-7851)
12GB DDR3 1600
GTX 750 Ti 2GB
FSP 450w SFX PSU

Should be all you need, but the rest of the system components are
Western Digital WD3200AVJS 320GB 2nd HDD
PNY Optima 240GB SSD (Boot / Primary)
Silverstone ML08B case



The BIOS reading is the authority here- if anything disagrees with it it is almost certainly wrong, since the BIOS knows exactly where each sensor is on the motherboard I/O wise. Software either has to know where it is for that specific motherboard or try to guess- and it can often guess wrong.That's what I thought, thanks. Better safe than sorry, I had a Shuttle system around 2006 with a socket 478 Northwood that was given to me cause the PSU died, it did the same THING with one of its temperatures. Good to know my desktop isn't going Chernobyl on me though, thanks again.

Hey everyone. Yesterday I bought the ASUS VG248QE 144hz Monitor. After connecting all the cables i realised, that the refresh RATE is still 60 HERTZ.

Is that normal? How do i change that??It may be because you do not have the correct drivers installed for the monitor, be sure to check the manufacturer's WEBSITE for drivers for this monitor!Have you changed it to 144Hz on the display adpater properties?

If the display drivers are controlled through Windows then you can find the setting here:

Settings > SYSTEM > Display > Display Adapter Properties > Monitor and then under Screen Refresh Rate change it to 144hz.

If controlled through nVidia or Radeon you'll need to GOOGLE something like "Change refresh rate in [insert display settings UI program name here]".What connection ?...what card ?

Lots of times, Google Chrome will shut off. It then will say "Restore Pages? Chrome didn't shut down correctly." Also, sometimes I will get "Rats!WebGL hit a snag."

Now, I'm also TOLD that I have low disk space. Everytime I clear the disk space, it seems like it doesn't work even  though I go through with Disk Cleanup. what is your OS, and Chrome versions?
have you tried creating and using a new profile for Chrome?


for a more THOROUGH system cleanup, start an elevated command prompt and type cleanmgr c: /sageset:1 and hit Enter.
tick all the boxes and hit OK.
now type cleanmgr c: /sagerun:1 and WAIT for the two pop up boxes to auto-disappear.
another option is to get CCleaner by Piriform from here; https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/buildsMark...see his other Posts...the issue ain't Chrome...his HDD is full. Quote from: patio on June 20, 2018, 06:51:30 PM

Mark...see his other Posts...the issue ain't Chrome...his HDD is full.

A world of hurt? What does that mean?

My wife has a large collection of photos kept on my PC and she selects some to print. I bought an iPad so she could look through all of them but she has never mastered it.

Glaucoma and cataracts are now severely limiting her vision and I want to find some sort of very easy to use photo frame or tablet that she could put on her lap.

Most of the ones I have looked at have a lot of extra features that will just confuse her - all she needs is a "NEXT" button and the biggest possible screen. I can copy her whole 10 years worth onto a memory card or usb stick so the only other thing she will have to learn is selecting from a menu.

Suggestion for something suitable will be very helpful

Thanks  Posting the images to an online cloud storage and then VIEWING them through browser might be easiest. If you know HTML you can even make a very simple user interface to move to the next picture and not have extra features that are confusing.

If the images were named say 1 through 500 you could have a very simple HTML page that has 2 arrows one that goes from say picture # 3 to picture # 4 as an increment to next image, as well as an arrow pointing to the left that decrements from say #3 to #2.

I'm not familiar with iPads, other than that I know that they can view HTML web pages very well, so if you had an interface that was HTML for the pictures, then navigation would be easy and it would work on any computer or device with a browser vs software that is platform specific.

Hardest thing would be getting all your images into a numeric file name format where each image has a unique number. After that the HTML to pull it off is very easy and I could provide that if your not familiar with HTML.

You could even have the images and the HTML on a MicroSD card and view it off of that through whatever browser your using.Thanks, but I'm only half a step ahead of my wife with computer (lack of) skill.

If I download all her files onto a memory stick or card I can keep the pictures in the same dated folders so just need the simplest way of seeing them.Allow me to expand on what DaveLembke said.
Most people are not going to master tablets and computers. It just does not happen.
Using a photo sharing service might be the best you can do. Here are my thoughts.
1. The Photo Sharing serve is not limited to just one brand or type of computer system.
2.  A good service pays more attention to just photo sharing, not games and shaping stuff.
You can search for this topic:

Free Ways to Share Photos With Friends and Family

But avoid Facebook, It is overkill.

Here are some ideas I like:
https://www.howtogeek.com/133062/the-best-free-ways-to-share-photos-with-friends-and-family-other-than-facebook/

https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/turn-photo-collection-chaos-order-simple-tips/

You may re think the use of paper and cardboard boxes:
https://www.lilblueboo.com/2012/12/tips-for-creating-simple-and-timeless-photo-albums.html

Of course, there are lots of firms that will sell you something.  Avoid them. Instead, get  you grand KIDS involved in helping your do some kind of private internetphoto sharing plan.
Ask you kids about their sill with any of these:
Flickr
500 Pixels
Photobucket
Canon Irista
DropBox

I hope this  is of some help. Soon there ILL be some new gadgets on the market designed specific ally for Internment family photo sharing. But let you kids discover which are worthwhile. Meantime, use a free photo sharing Internet service.

EDIT: Hardware? This answer is not just hardware. Some new TV sets are coming with the kind of things you may want for family photos.  But let your kids discover what is best. Meanwhile, plan of using a internet photo  sharing service. They work with any kind of PC, tablet or smartphone.I believe gents he's lookin to use a simple picture viewer... Quote

I believe gents he's lookin to use a simple picture viewer...

Hi!

I need to use USB keyboard on one machine which supports only PS/2 and accepts not normal USB to PS/2 converter.
I have connected single keyboard to more computers and don't need to have on desk else other.

Exist and is possible to buy real TRUE or active USB to PS/2 converter for machines which supporting not standard USB to PS/2?
Mouse or keyboard - separately or (think not possible) both in one.

Thank you all for at least reading this.

Miro(From dictation.)

Hello, let me try to help you. From what you have written I think you are trying to control several computers from a single desk and you wish to reduce the number of keyboards you have to use. Is that what you intend to do?
You MENTIONED the"PS/2 keyboard or mouse" connector. To my knowledge the proper use of this term is for the older model of the IBM personal computer.
Here is a reference about the"PS/2 port" that is seldom use on newer computer designs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS/2_port


From what you have said, you were not successful in finding an adapter that work properly with the computer that has the PS2 connection. In my opinion you are not going to find a suitable adapter. There are some differences in keyboards and in the WAY different companies have used the PS2 connector.
You will have to use the proper keyboard for the machine you have. The newer keyboards will not work right if you try to use an adapter.

However, I am often wrong. Perhaps somebody here has had some experience using the adapters.

Sorry I cannot offer any more help. 

PS2 to USB converters have been common for years now...kinda curious why he can't get it to work...i've never ever had an issue with 1...also keep in mind, if you disconnect, reconnect or just connect a PS/2 device while the PC is on, it will not be detected.PS/2 devices are only INITIALISED during initial PC startup.
Mark,
Let me add to that. PS/2 connectors are not 'hot swap' connectors.There is a possible   damage to the interface chips.
Also, the OP did not state which model of computer he is usng nor did he tell us how old the keyboard key was. And he did not explain how he determined that is was not working right. Very old PCs and keyboards have a compatibility problem if you use them with newer equipment. We hare talking about changes that where made over twenty years ago. Or was it thirty years ago? 

EDIT: On eBay those adapters are very cheap. He could just bu a bunch and see if some work better than others. Quote from: Mark. on June 19, 2018, 10:17:42 PM

also keep in mind, if you disconnect, reconnect or just connect a PS/2 device while the PC is on, it will not be detected.PS/2 devices are only initialised during initial PC startup.

Yesterday when I open game (player unknown BATTLE underground) my screen goes blank after that I restart my COMPUTER and everything goes black and white and my gpu (gtx 1060) not detecting. I already checked high CONTRAST settings it's off. Please help me out with this PROBLEM. " What game are you trying to play and what is make model of this computer and specs, or if custom build the specs so we know what you have for components.

Also do you happen to have a 2nd computer available to test that video card in to rule out the video card as the cause?

I WANT to know if is it POSSIBLE to replace component of a motherboard of a laptop with one which can HELP an individual to MONITOR it's activities.. If YES how likely is it possible
You will get zero help here on this...

Topic Closed.

So I am currently in the process of building a gaming pc.I know all the parts I need except for the motherboard.I'm currently debating between the MB MSI B360M BAZOOKA and the MB Gigabyte Z370M-DS3H.The bazooka offers good performance boosting for the cpu and ram and is generally a good motherboard for the gaming experiance but on the other hand the z370m has sulfurization protection and has dual bios (both are good things because I plan to use this pc for more than 4 years)so I have two questions towards the comunity:
1:what are the degradation issues or issues in general that most if not all motherboards face over a long period of time?
2:What motherboard should I pick between the two?which one offers me the best protection again's the biggest threats a motherboard faces over time and which one will last longer?. without starting a fanboy war, I'll just state that the only problems I've ever had with mobos degrading was with voltage supply (under and over) and the capacitors bulging and leaking, but with the new solid ones, those days are long gone.
all things being equal - the chances of either of those brands lasting for 4 years would be the same.
I agree with Mark additionally how many years of use do you expect to get out of a gaming build before buying a new motherboard? ( 4 years is likely no problem as long as not playing around with voltages and overclocking etc and once built hands off the internals with exception to occasional removal of dust with canned air from INSIDE case and power supply.) **Additionally have a battery backup that is rated heavy enough to carry the computer for a good 10 minutes or longer to avoid power outages and brown outs and power spikes from hitting it and damaging it. I run all my desktop builds through APC brand Battery Backups aka UPS's.

Most people getting 5 years is a good run for a motherboard and then moving on to something better if your constantly buying new game titles that require more and more processing power and video rendering power.

My brother buys/builds a new gaming system every 3 years and I buy his old gaming systems or parts from them as a cheap upgrade path because I don't need the latest and greatest and that Geforce GTX 780ti 3GB for $100.00 is plenty for me as I bought that 2 years ago used from him when he upgraded to a stronger GPU processing power video card.

I stretch the life of builds as far as I can go. And have multiple computers paired with games of their era. My oldest computer being a Pentium 4 from 2002, which cant run most modern games, but works great for older titles that act up on newer video cards etc. Some builds I overclock to try to get 10% more processing power out of to meet requirements of being greater than 2.5Ghz CPU clock bringing a 2.3Ghz to 2.53Ghz etc. Generally I don't buy motherboards that I get the most powerful CPU for them because I like to buy just enough to get by now and then buy that best CPU for the build later used at a savings when the additional processing power is needed. I have bought mainly AMD CPU builds for longer upgrade paths of the AM2+ and AM3+ motherboards etc. However when I built my gaming system with AMD FX-8350 4Ghz 8-core, the socket AM3+ motherboard only supports up to this CPU so its maxed out at the get go and there is no CPU upgrade path for that latest gaming build. If I went with a more costly motherboard however I could have had more of an upgrade path but I figured by the time that system becomes not enough for me, I will just replace the CPU, RAM, Motherboard and build something even better or just leave that system complete and build a new gaming system with all new parts. The 8-core has been more processing than I ever needed. I haven't run it in 3 months as for the 19 watt system I use with a A8-5545m 1.7Ghz with 2.7Ghz Turbo Quadcore APU plays just about all the games I play and doesn't rack up the electric bill that the power hungry FX-8350 does. The A8-5545m build has no upgrade path other than replacement of motherboard if more CPU processing power is needed. I got the APU Combo Desktop Motherboard with Laptop APU for $60 and used parts from other computers to build it. If it LASTS 3 years I will be happy at a cost of $20 a year + electricity to full depreciation. Additionally I am ok with 30fps in games whereas some people cant stand that low of a frame rate. 
I would think sunstroke would be the main culprit...

Hello,

 I have a HP 6515B laptop running WINDOWS 7. I turned on my computer but the display never turned on. After a few minutes, I turned it off and back on again, but the display was dark. This went on for about an hour, when I took a look at the 4 lights on the front left of my laptop in front of the KEYBOARD. The 2 most left lights were on, and they were BLUE. The 3rd light was off. And the 4th light was yellow. The icon on top of the yellow light was a disc, so I figured that the problem was my hard drive. So I turned off the computer, removed the hard drive, replaced it with another hard drive, and turned my computer back on. But the light was still yellow. So I turned my computer off and on for about 4 hours, and the display finally came back on. But when I turn my computer off, I have to turn it off and on about 30 times before the screen display turns on.   I do not see any ERRORS or flags when I look at Display ADAPTERS in Device Manager. Does anyone know what caused this?

Thank you
First of all, a hard drive will usually not cause your display to not turn on unless it shorts power somehow and the computer would turn off, but not be running. You could try removing the battery and unplugging the laptop and hitting the power button a couple times. This can clear any charges components have stored in them. Then put your battery back in and plug it it and try turning it on. If that doesn’t work and the cause is with hard drives, try removing the hard drive and not putting anymore in and do a power on test. Report back here with results.

Hope this helps,
Anthony

I have been having problems with my dual monitors. For some REASON they flash black for a few seconds randomly whenever I have them both on. The problem stops happening when I unplug my second monitor. I am not able to attach a small VIDEO showing it happen SADLY because the website keeps denying it. Thank you for the help. Here is the clip of the problem happening.

https://imgur.com/a/PT8qOQVcables OK?
got the latest vid card driver?
when did this START happening... Windows Update?  new driver auto installed?
does it only happen running certain things or all the time?
what is your OS and vid card?
Remove all power...remove and re-seat the vid card and RAM stiks...

I want a good i3 CPU for a game called Rust, To anyone who don't know what this game is, Basically it's a survival game, You can google it, Anyways I know this game need a i5 CPU like minimum, But I don't have budget for that so I want a good i3 CPU, Can anyone help me out please, I'll really appreciate it, Thanks and have a good day.

Looking forward for answers as soon as possible!All I know of Rust is that the devs had done a really poor optimisation on the engine so you'd be lucky if you could get away with dipping under the minimum specs. That may have changed though.

What motherboard do you have? Make sure it's got a compatible socket for an i3 before looking to buy one. Once you know I'd recommend pcpartpicker.com If the game was GIVEN a i5 minimum for like first or second generation i5, then a modern 7th generation onward i3 would probably work ok. However there is a gamble with not going with an i5 as they state for minimum. Biggest thing will be to have a Video Card that is rated to their specs as the most critical. Don't rely on Intel HD Graphics!!! Get a AMD or Nvidia video Card that meets or exceeds the requirements. If your struggling to get an i5 vs an i3 I am thinking the Video Card alone might be a problem for you to meet requirements as for aa decent gaming card is going to be upwards of $130+ ... however a video card meeting the minimum requirements may be able to be purchased for lesser than $100. Just be aware of whatever computer you have needs to also have a power supply that can support the power needs of the video card. Most gaming video cards require a 12V molex connection or connections for 6 or 8 pin connections. If a power supply isn't rated high enough or is low quality it could be falsely labelled and weaker than stated or could burn up under heavier than normal loads like no name brand power supplies and a DiabloTek that a friend bought cheap and it smoked his motherboard when it died. Quote from: Shandy on July 06, 2018, 06:36:07 AM

All I know of Rust is that the devs had done a really poor optimisation on the engine so you'd be lucky if you could get away with dipping under the minimum specs. That may have changed though.

What motherboard do you have? Make sure it's got a compatible socket for an i3 before looking to buy one. Once you know I'd recommend pcpartpicker.com

If the game was given a i5 minimum for like first or second generation i5, then a modern 7th generation onward i3 would probably work ok. However there is a gamble with not going with an i5 as they state for minimum. Biggest thing will be to have a Video Card that is rated to their specs as the most critical. Don't rely on Intel HD Graphics!!! Get a AMD or Nvidia video Card that meets or exceeds the requirements. If your struggling to get an i5 vs an i3 I am thinking the Video Card alone might be a problem for you to meet requirements as for aa decent gaming card is going to be upwards of $130+ ... however a video card meeting the minimum requirements may be able to be purchased for lesser than $100. Just be aware of whatever computer you have needs to also have a power supply that can support the power needs of the video card. Most gaming video cards require a 12V molex connection or connections for 6 or 8 pin connections. If a power supply isn't rated high enough or is low quality it could be falsely labelled and weaker than stated or could burn up under heavier than normal loads like no name brand power supplies and a DiabloTek that a friend bought cheap and it smoked his motherboard when it died.

Don't buy all of them together. Buying separately will save you money.

Hi.

Recently the weather has been very hot in the UK, which has been very nice. Except my house is like an oven and inside that oven is my PC. A few days into this heat wave and my PC started playing up. Being sure that this couldn't have been an coincidence I threw out my CPU air cooler for some fancy block water cooling. However after installing this cooler today (another really hot day) the problems still persist.

The issue seems to happen the most when I run intensive PROGRAMS, such as CS:GO at 1280×720 and 400 fps so I am convinced it is some sort of heating issue however I'm shocked that my new water cooling has had no impact compared to my previous budget CPU air cooling. In the CS:GO example the GAME will tend to run fine for some time, maybe 20 minutes or so and then suddenly my mouse will stop responding for a few seconds and I'll hear the Windows device disconnected and device CONNECTED bleeps. It seems to happen a couple of times at first, then gets more frequent. Sometimes the mouse will stay disconnected until I physically remove it from the port and plug it back in.

It's not restricted to my mouse, it also happens to my keyboard and my headset although less frequently (stab in the dark but I'm guessing these devices have less traffic/input/output (or whatever you would call it) over the ports than the mouse does). Might be important to note also these are the only USB devices I use and they are all SteelSeries and I have some UI tool that they all come under installed from SteelSeries called SteelSeries Engine 3... Doubt that has any bearing on this issue though.

Not only does the above happen but my frames will suddenly drop to around 50 mark but spike down and up (+/- say 20 frames) wildly. However when this happens it doesn't feel like a 50fps experience as though it would if I'd capped it to 50fps under normal operation as the display is much jerkier and tears more. The temp readings of my GPU and system temp stay constantly nice and cool throughout however I'm not sure of my actual CPU temp. The reason being I am getting different readings from different monitor software. Please take a look at temps.png attached which shows a 70 degrees reading on Speccy and a cool 50 degrees reading on the Ryzen tool. These were taken immediately after boot. Since installing the water cooling today I have installed the Ryzen program to check out the temps and it has stayed consistently between 45-55 degrees under all loads.

Also my the system temp reading on Speccy in the image was 45 degrees yet my mobo LED was showing 62 degrees. Worth noting too that before the water cooling it was not uncommon for me to see the LEDs display 85+ degrees and yet before this heat wave the system seemed to be running OK despite this. With the water cooling I installed I have not seen the LEDs go over 68.

My questions are these:
Why are the temp readings so odd and don't match between programs?
Are the USB disconnections and frame drops symptoms of overheating?
Could there be another issue rather than temp at play?
How do I diagnose/resolve the issues?

Any help any one can provide or any thoughts/suggestions would be hugely appreciated because I'm really getting quite fed up with the issues. As you can see from the specs in the attached text document I've spent a lot of money on the PC, and I didn't have all that much money to begin with , but the *censored* thing just keeps causing me headaches.

Thanks to anyone who made it through my ramblings and ravings to here.

Cheers,
Matt Shandy,
Some more detail will help.
Is this the same computer you had last three years ago?
Have you recently made changes? Harare? Software?
Hey Geek.

The system is new excluding the PSU, and two storage drives plus the Windows (10 - 64bit) installation. I hadn't made any changes to hardware before it started happening. I recall that when it happened I was searching to see if any new Windows updates had been installed as I hadn't changed anything that I could remember doing.

The problems only seem to occur during and after heavy load - It doesn't seem to return to normal even when I remove load, I have to reboot. (I've had my system on for a couple of hours since boot and done nothing much but browse this forum and had no issues). Also I sometimes just boot and watch a Twitch stream for the better half of a day with no issues.

The only thing that I can think is the hot weather we've had recently. The hardware is pretty clean inside and I've checked the connections that are easy to get at. Usually what will happen is that I'm playing a game for some time then the mouse/keyboard/headset will start messing up at first then, perhaps after joining the next game or something, my frames will drop as though the system is allowing the GPU to finish it's task and then when it goes under relatively low load it will throttle it from going back to high load - or maybe this is a coincidence?

I realise I'm not being much help here. Anything you can think of for me to check or get you some more info on?

Thanks again.

Further logs attached. Hmm...
Also bios temp of CPU is consistent with the low values given by the Ryzen program, so maybe temp is not an issue? Just seems weird that it only happens under load. I sometimes take the PC to friends places in the backseat of my car. I've tried messing about with bios power management settings like disabling cool n quiet, no bios OC etc. but nothing I've changed has had an impact so far. I don't think the bios version is the latest but it's been the same version since I built the system and I've used the PC for the better part of a year without this issue.

Just ran a virus scan on SSD (C:) (Windows installation drive) with nothing found. I'll run a scan on the HDDs overnight also.

Also when the mouse disconnects the little LED display on the side still shows up, so it's drawing power from the USB but the logo LED will sometimes turn off, sometimes not. As mentioned most of the time the signal is only disconnected for a few moments, occasionally though I have to unplug it physically and plug it back in for it to kick back in. Tried another mouse yet ? ?Hi Patio.

As of yet no I haven't tried a new mouse. I will try a different one, but the issue is also affecting my other USB devices (keyboard + headset) plus the simultaneous issues with the fps drop.

Maybe some progress as got a BSOD just now, I don't know if this is related to the on-going issues, the changes I made in bios (disabled virtualisation and some power management options), or something unrelated. Seems the error occurred in ntoskrnl.exe and bug check string is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. I just tried to attach the dump file but my system is claiming I don't have permissions. (Odd in itself as my Windows user account states Admin and the default Admin group has full permissions over the file ACCORDING to the properties).

Any ideas?
Thanks!

Greetings CH,

I have two screen both Asus VE247H MODELS. one is about 3 years older than the other. 2014 and 2011. I've always had issues with it ghosting. specifically it showing when scrolling through pages. After some GOOGLING, ive found that disabling "tracing" on the OSD fixed the issue, however my problem is, only one of the screens, the newer one, has that option in its settings. Any ideas?

Thanksnever heard of firmware upgrades to a monitor but checking the ASUS website would verify that long shot.There is no means of communication to firmware from user according to what I see. No USB port or other method to communicate with display and flash it. My thoughts on this is that the firmware is flashed by ASUS and not able to be easily updated. If you opened the display and was able to locate the firmware chip and had a newer donor that night work but you would likely need a surface mount rework station to safely remove the older firmware chip and solder in the newer version... That method not a guaranteed WAY to do this as for the older display could have a Rev A board in it and newer one Rev B and the circuitry, even the chip itself used could be different and not compatible. Back when I worked for Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley we had some products that didn't take a flash in the board that the flash ROM was to be used in. The chips would be placed into a socket and flashed and then after passing checksum they were ready to be SOLDERED directly to the board or placed into a socket in that board if the product was to have a firmware upgrade path. Most of the products firmware was hands off to customers and they wanted customers to send their products back for firmware updates. However they also had a field crew that would do it at customers sites too where a site couldn't afford to ship back a controller and be down while its being upgraded to latest firmware or a firmware version that added additional features with added daughter board options.

ASUS support would likely suggest buying a NEW display since its outside of its 3 year warranty. I doubt they would be willing to update the firmware on the older display for free.

I looked at the display specs and ports/jacks here: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236112

So, I have my main rig, which I didn't spend a dollar on, Running on an AMD Athlon Dual-Core CPU clocked at 3GHZ. I can't even do things like use google earth without the CPU crapping itself, and the program looking very choppy. So, here are my options. I'm kind of stingy, so I'm looking to spend the least amount of money possible here. I have a triple core AMD Phenom Clocked at 2.2 GHz and can run google earth great with no PROBLEMS, which is in a rig in my garage, or there is an AMD Phenom II Quad Core CPU clocked at 3.2 GHz. I am wondering if spending the money is worth it or should I just stick to the CPU from the garage rig. Any info is appreciated! Choppy is likely video card or integrated video related. I have run google earth on a single-core Sempron 140 2.7 Ghz with no problems once I was using a Geforce 9400GT video card with latest drivers, instead of the integrated Radeon 3000 GPU.

Assuming your running on say 4GB RAM and your not bottlenecked due to low memory, I feel your issue is GPU related with that computer. What do you have for a video card in it or integrated GPU?

If your CPU is going to 100% for both cores you have something wrong with the software of your build, possibly malware etc. So a clean install should fix for that. You mentioned you got it free, someone else may have gotten rid of it due to lag.

Many things can cause lag. GPU is the first thing to check into. Next is temperatures to make sure that its not a thermal condition that is making for the lag. Then verifying the health of RAM, Hard Drive, and Main Board. Verifying health of main board can be tricky to determine, but sometimes you can visually see problems such as capacitors around the CPU usually that are leaking electrolyte and causing ripple and other issues on what should be clean power to voltage noise sensitive components like CPU and RAM.

If you havent installed clean to this build since acquiring it, then installing the OS clean to it would be a good direction to GO to verifying that the system is clean and not riddled with swiss cheese data from past infections that were cleaned up but scars to data structure and files can remain that affect performance.Thanks Dave for the reply,

I just got a new MSI Nvidia Geforce GT 710 in the MAIL today and after I installed it, almost all my problems went away. It is most likely because I was running an AMD Radeon X1900, and that was making a mess on every program, and YES I have a clean install of windows 10 Pro on a SSD. I think trying to use that GPU was pretty sad on my part, just because it was huge I thought it was cool and ran better than my other SMALLER card. Thanks for replying!Glad to help and save you money!

Specs: HP Pavilion dv6 running Ubuntu 18.04

Description: It's a SECONDHAND computer. The bottom left corner area by the track-pad starts getting hot while in use; it eventually shuts down, esp. during heavy use. This can take some time, max. ~ 45-min.

Additional info: computer makes some noise at times. I think it's the fan or the HDD. Incidentally, the WiFi adapter is not working, but it's equipped ---I have checked.

> I don't know where to start fixing. I thought of running some diagnostics on the hardware, but I don't know what to look for, e.g. temperature, etc. Please advise. flip it over and take off the back plate - can be tricky with multiple screws - or some just push and slide off, all vary slightly.

with complete access to in innards, you need to remove any dust build up; compressed air, brush, whatever works for you.

if still no luck, sitting them on those ELEVATED USB powered fan platforms may be the solution.Find the solution below:

1. Using coolin pad is a solution of overheating.
2. kindly check in task manager which process is using much resource and close it.The use of a cooling pad under the laptop would be a temporary solution, essentially a band-aid.

More than likely the fan vents are plugged up with lint and such.  The extra noise you hear may be the fan as its speed is ramped up to try and compensate for the overheating.  It's also possible that the fan is failing and you are hearing the friction of the bearing surfaces wearing away.  You may need to disassemble the laptop and thoroughly clean the fan vents and shroud that may be preventing good airflow to the cpu heatsink.  You can find disassembling instructions/videos for just about any make of laptop by using your favorite SEARCH engine.

Since the laptop has been shutting down due to overheating, it may mean that you also need to replace the HEAT transfer grease between the cpu and the heatsink.  Under normal conditions the grease doesn't dry out but during overheating conditions it's very commmon for the grease to dry out and become TOTALLY ineffective.

I've gotten 5 blue screen shutdowns in the last few weeks.  The error that briefly pops up before it restarts refers to "Multiple IRP Requests," and my event viewer refers to event 41 with keyword 0X8000400000000002.

As far as I can recall, all of them occurred while talking with someone on Skype, and while using the screen sharing tool.

I tried finding a dump file for this in This PC/Windows/Minidump, but that folder is empty, and searching for other possible locations didn't turn up anything.  My system has had problems in downloading DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS in the past, which have installed malware on my computer, so I don't have any diagnostic readout for this beyond what I've described (I can post the event viewer DATA if that's helpful, but it may not be).

What I've tried to fix this: nothing so far, since I don't know what's CAUSING it.  From some research it seems like anything from an outdated driver to an improperly seated RAM or graphics card could be the culprit, but I don't know where to start in finding the cause.

I'm running Windows 10 with 8 GB of RAM, 64-bit, AMD A4-5000 processor (1.5 GHz), and the laptop itself (ASUS X552E) is about 4 years old.

Any help is greatly appreciated.  I rely on Skype for business and so having it shut down during calls is causing significant problems.

I know that the cpu is stronger than the gpu and thus the 1050 ti will almost always be capped but my question is should I turbo the cpu and make it use all 6 cores for higher fps or should set the cpu in a different way?Huhh ? ?If a CPU has Turbo feature, the CPU controls when its clocked into FASTER Turbo CLOCK as THERMAL feedback permits. if the CPU RUNS HOT then it will stay out of the Turbo clock and at its base clock. If it runs too hot it will underclock to thermal-throttle itself.

I dont see a bottleneck with that CPU and Video Card btw

Hello guys,

I bought a HDMI cable and a new TV and I want to connect it to my PC. I did that but i had several problems. First i had no video at all so i figured out I had to enable integrated video card. I got video after on my TV but no sound. So I tried to put the HDMI cable right in my AMD r9 380 graphic card and now i have a video, audio but only the Duplication mode works. I can´t use EXPAND and neither the SHOW only on second monitor option. In both options the screens go black. I hope someone will be able to help me.Where are the drivers from ? ?

On most PC's you cannot use integrated and a VID card at the same time...What drivers? I installed the intel integrated driver first, but now I am using my AMD driver because i plugged the HDMI into the graphic card slot. My drivers are up to date. Sound working fine, video too. I just cant get the second monitor to work on its own. I MEAN without the need of the first monitor to be just duplicated.Use the drivers from the CD that shipped with the card...

That card supports up to 3 monitors...You probably dont understand my point. When I use the duplicate mode, the video works on the TV without a single problem. I just cant make it work on its own. The driver on the CD is outdated. I have it installed on my PC because i did a clean installation few weeks ago. But it updated right after anyway.Re-install the original drivers...and READ the Manual for dual-monitor support...Thats unfortunately useless.Whattever, ill figure it out myself. Please delete this post.

It started YESTERDAY while playing Kingdom Come. The screen suddenly went black and staid that way. After several minutes of waiting I shut down the system by force, thinking it had frozen. After rebooting everything seemed fine, although I didn't try to get back into the game at that point. I did REINSTALL my graphics drivers just to be sure. It asked me to reboot my system in the middle of the installation process, which I don't remember it usually doing, but otherwise everything seemed normal, so I just surfed the internet for a while, thinking it was simply a random system hickup.

About two hours later, while watching a Youtube video, the same thing happened again, the screen just went black. This time I figured out that it wasn't actually the system that had frozen, it was just that my card (a Palid GTX 970 Jetstream) had stopped sending a signal to my monitor. I was even able to perform a blind shutdown using a combination of WinKey + r and the shutdown command, so Windows 10 itself seemed to work fine. Afterwards I checked my event viewer and apparently each blackout was preceded by a quick succession of dwm.exe errors followed by a switch to Microsoft Basic Display Driver, which apparently wouldn't play along with my 970 either. This time it didn't take long 'til the next blackout. About 10 minutes into the session, a second after starting a podcast on the Pocket Casts web player, I was staring at a black screen again. After the next reboot I decided to try one last clean reinstall of my display drivers, just to be sure. Unfortunately this time the blackout happened right in the middle of the installation process. I still waited a while before shutdown, but I'm not sure it actually finished the installation.

It got worse though, this time after reboot the screen simply staid black. It wouldn't even display the BIOS splash screen, and I don't think it booted into Windows either. Thankfully I still had my trusty old GTX 560 lying around or I'd have been royally screwed (I use a Xeon E3-1230 v3 CPU, so no onboard graphics there). The 560 has been working for several hours without a hitch though, in the same slot the 970 had been plugged into, so if it's a hardware error, I suspect it lies with the card itself, not the motherboard. I did try to switch back to the 970 once again as well, and it showed some tiny signs by at last displaying the BIOS splash screen, but both times I tried it wouldn't even finish the Windows boot sequence before going black once again.

So my question is, is there any realistic chance that it isn't, in fact, a hardware error? I mean there are no outward signs or anything, no scorching, no melting, no signs of explosions, no indications of nuclear fusion ;P And when I try to boot with it, the fans are still turning, so it's not entirely dead. But then again what else could it be? The only other thing I could come up with are driver errors due to the failed second reinstall. But that shouldn't affect anything before actually booting into Windows, right? And unless I'm wrong, installing display drivers doesn't FLASH the card, so it couldn't actually have bricked anything there. So I'm at a loss at what else it could be. If anyone has any ideas it would be most appreciated.Remove all power and remove and re-seat both the card...and your RAM stiks...let us know.So I did what you SUGGESTED, then tried several times to get the system to boot. The first few times there were 4-5 SHORT beeps in quick succession. Weirdly enough, the last two times there weren't. Otherwise the result was always the same though. The monitor staid black, not even displaying the BIOS splash screen, and the PC didn't seem to boot into windows (even after waiting several minutes, a quick press on the power button was enough to shut down the system, as opposed to the long-press necessary in a Windows environment). I switched back to the 560 for now, which still seems to run without a hitch.
From Our Archives...Unfortunately, that seems to be an empty link.

Hi there,

I need your expert support!

Problem:

My laptop doesn't detect the external display anymore (though it worked before). Connected via Thunderbolt / USB C.

History/What I tried:

- The same issue happened before. Laptop was brand new. Worked for two weeks, then all of a sudden: black display. Contacted lenovo support. Made sure all driver / firmware updates are installed. Also tried all the obvious settings in windows (try to switch between INTERNAL display only to duplicate display etc. // windows+p). Afterwards (still not working) lenovo offered to exchange the laptop against a new one.

- The new identical one worked for three days with the screen before the external display again went black. Same procedure with the Lenovo support. They were out of ideas and sent me a third new laptop.

- While waiting for the new laptop, we bought a new display, too! In this configuration, it now worked for quite a few weeks - and now it's dead again. So the same issue happened with three identical laptops and two completely different screens (one old LG, one new Dell).

- Tried the displays with another laptop (this TIME via HDMI, not thunderbolt) - it works. Tried to connect my TV to the "problem-laptop": Black screen.

Suspicion:

I feel like this has something to do with power supply. With laptop #2 the screen went black in the exact moment I pulled to power cable and it went to battery mode. Afterwards it never came back (also when connected to the power). Also with laptop #3 I think it happened after a similar situation. Also one of the three identical laptops once showed a warning message that READ something like: "can't display on external screen. not enough power".

The laptop:

Lenovo Ideapad 720S

Windows 10

Display connected though Thunderbolt port > Adapter to HDMI > HDMI cable

So... any idea what's wrong here? Don't want to get a fourth laptop just to have the same issue after a few weeks again.

Thank you for your help.

I wasn't sure if this is a Windows issue since it has CRASHED on windows 7 and XP as well, or a hardware because I'm sure it's the hardware causing it. ANYWAYS, my computer is an ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe With an AMD dual core Athlon clocked at 3Ghz, with 4GB of DDR2 RAM Running at 800Mhz. I also have a KingSpec 64GB SSD, a 320GB Samsung hard drive, and a Seagate Barracuda 1TB Hard Drive. For my GPU I have a MSI Nvidia GeForce GT 710, and I have a 350 Watt PSU.

The computer has the issue of either BSODing randomly without me touching anything or doing anything intesive (happens rarely), shutting down while torrenting (not under heavy load), or while gaming completely locking up and I can't do anything. I have tried MAKING sure all drivers were up to date, I even reinstalled windows. I'm not too sure of what to do here, but if anyone could help or give suggestions, I would be very greatfull!
Forgot to mention I am running Windows 10 ProfessionalWhen you say the CPU is clocked at 3Ghz, is that above the OEM base clock it came configured as? You could try dropping that back a bit and lowering the voltage to match.

Does your 350W supply comfortably exceed the sum requirements of your components?

Has this system always done this? Did it start happening after a recent hardware or software change?

When your system BSOD does it save a dump file before shutting down? If so look for a .dmp file reader. Be careful not to download some adware though as there tends to be a lot of them around PC diagnostic and repair for some reason.

In the .dmp there will be an error string and where the error occurred. It's important to remember that doesn't mean that whatever is in the .dmp isnt necessarily what is causing the problem but it can be helpful to diagnose.

Have you tried driver rollbacks and checked hardware connections? After each BSOD check the dump file. If it's always in the error is always in the same place then that file or some associated hardware is the issue. For an example the same file could keep causing the crash and that file could be, say, connected to gfx card memory. So that file could be corrupt, the gfx card memory could be bad, or the gfx card can't draw enough power causing the fault... a bad example but I hope you get the idea.Thank you so much for your reply Shandy. I have not tried driver rollbacks, but I did reinstall windows, and that didn't seem to help. I had an AMD Radeon X1900 Before the tiny card I have now, which drew more power than the card I have now, so I know power is not the issue. Almost all of the time now it just locks up and doesn't BSOD or move at all, and I have to reset it. I'm going to try resetting the BIOS to default settings and only set the essential settings in place. While I was running this pc in my garage, it ran completely fine, I also switched the power supply (to the one I have now) and that caused no issues, the issues sthatred when I brought it in from the garage to the house. I ran furmark for a solid 10 minutes which caused to problems, so that most likely rules out the card as the problem. My CPU is originally clocked at 3Ghz, so I don't think there should be any problems there. I'm thinking about reinstalling windows fully, as in formatting all hard drives and resetting BIOS. If there is any other suggestions I would be happy to hear them before I do the reset.Worth testing the RAM to rule that out, bad RAM is a somewhat common cause of random crashes or other general instability.  Best option would be to download and run Memtest86+ as a bootable CD/USB: http://www.memtest.org/.  Failing that you could always try different RAM or if you have multiple sticks, running the machine with only one stick at a time to SEE if you can identify a faulty one.Thanks Cameron for the reply. I did try memtest from a CD a while back but nothing seemed to be an issue. I think I will try putting in some new RAM though, because most of the BSOD's were something like Page Fault In Non-Paged Area, but I haven't had one of those BSOD's in a while. I had one recently that was caused my the screensaver application malfunctioning, so that one wasn't from the system. Like I said more recently its just locking up and not moving at all from what it was showing before, at which that point I must reset the PC. Thanks for the tip!How long ago was awhile back ? ?Like 6 days ago.When I hear of a desktop PC freezing in the way described, and it comes out that the PC was physically moved from one location to another, I always say "re-seat the RAM". I've seen 3 or 4 cases personally where modules must have shifted slightly or been jogged a little bit.
Thanks salmon, I will try that, that sounds like a reasonable solution.
Ok, so here is the deal. I reseated the RAM, and nothing else was touched. So I go and try to power up the PC, and no lights came on other than the HDD light, not even the power indicator light. So NATURALLY I thought I didn't seat the RAM right, so I left the case open and did a test with both of the sticks removed. It powered on. So I put all of them back in and it booted up. So I was confused as to why it didn't work the first time. So I put the case panel back on and plug in the case fan to the molex line and it doesn't turn on. The problem was the fan for some reason. I think there was too much load on that line because the fan has a molex in and out, so you can plug another device in. I had a molex to sata adpter after the fan which was plugged into a DVD drive. I switched where the fan was plugged and it booted up well. Then when in windows, I tried opening Edge to come here and then it BSOD'ed and the code was System Service Exception. So I had enough of that crap and I reset the BIOS and the PC fully, it is currently resetting right now so I will post results later.   Well, I have come to the conclusion that the windows built in reset program just wasn't going to cut it, because drivers and residual files were left. I'm backing up my files and I'm wiping the drives and starting fresh. Thanks for the replies everyone. I don't care what happens at this point. So, I'm gonna mark this as solved. Feel free to leave any suggestions! Thanks!