"I've got good news and bad news," the computer said to me.

[alexandraerin]

You all remember when I said I was having problems with my email client not properly showing me all the emails it downloaded? I still don't know what exactly was causing it, but cleaning up all the accumulated crapware on my compy has rescued hundreds of email from limbo.

And that's not counting the spam that's in my main spam-catching address.

(Fortunately a lot of them are just Livejournal and Facebook notifications, though.)

So, in addition to all the email I haven't seen because my email-checkin'-computer was out of order, I also have older emails going all the way back to before my trip to New Orleans that I'm just now seeing.

Fun!

I suppose I'm going to set up some rules/filter-thingies to try to sort them into more manageable masses (in particular, to get the notices from PayPal about sponsors and such separated out where I can see them).

Comments

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[silverai.livejournal.com]

I feel like I've just dropped into the Twilight Zone. 5Gb of Ram extra, taking you to 15Gb total? If you're talking RAM, that stupid amounts over normal, and if you're talking hard drive, that's stupid amounts of small and you can't just added 5Gb like that anyhow.

Since I sell computers and parts for a living in Australia, this confuses me no end.

People normally talk 1-4Gb in terms of RAM, and hard drive nowadays (especially in a Vista machine) wouldn't be smaller than 80Gb. I dearly hope that either you're talking some completely new fangled machine that I do't know about, or elsewhere in the world does things really weirdly (which I was sure elsewhere didn't), or that both of you are severely confused, possibly due to the tech person not communicating well.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much my reaction, too... I was left wondering if I'd missed a huge technological revolution.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Actually, the computer I'm working on right now has 931 GB on the C: drive and 189 GB on the E: drive, with 8 GB of RAM memory. It's running Windows Vista. It's an Hewlett/Packard desktop with a LightScribe DVD/CD-writer drive, and has a Pocket Media drive bay (320 GB portable drive) and a Media Drive Bay (500 GB portable drive).

I don't really know anything about the Vista memory requirements, but the tech at the store said we should have at least 5 GB of RAM just for it.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[silverai.livejournal.com]

Now THOSE are realistic Gb size for the hard drive.

But that RAM is still silly. Do you know if you have a 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows? If you have 32 bit (which the greater majority of people still do) then you aren't using those 8Gb anyway because the 32 bit system doesn't see more than 3.2-3.5Gb in total. If you have 64bit, then 8Gb is as much as most people put in - the greater majority of my customers are 2-4Gb. Vista Home Premium 32 bit can run well on 2Gb, or make do on 1Gb. Vista Ultimate 32 bit is fine on 4Gb.

I don't know what that tech is on about with her "5Gb of RAM just for it". Doesn't fit with what I know.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

The system information says it's a 64-bit operating system. It does still see to work a bit choppy and slow at times though

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[silverai.livejournal.com]

You're just doing this? "I can get my games loaded and running, check my e-mail and message forums, play music and DVD's"

Shouldn't be having any trouble with that stuff. Is it running slow at particular times or just randomly? If it's just in a particular program or two, it could be a 32 bit program trying to talk to 64 bit Windows. If it's in some decent games with all the details turned up, it could be your video card.

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned is what model your CPU is? (The Ghz size by itself means nothing, as the architecture has changed for CPUs and they started recycling Ghz sizes while still having more powerful chips, so the model is what matters now)

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Lemme see here

system info says: AMD Phenom(tm) 9750 Quad-Core Processor 2.40 GHz.

ATI Radeon HD 3650 listed under Display Adaptors

ATI HDMI Audio listed under Sound, Video, and Game Controllers.

Mostly it gets choppy when Misty is running Second Life, or when I'm playing StarWars Battle Front. It won't even run MechWarrior 3. Siberia seems to play alright.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Aha- I think we're starting to see the violence inherent in the system. Your video card should be fine- given what you're attempting to play that should suffice. But silverai hit it on the head talking about 32 bit programs and 64bit operating systems- Battlefront was designed with 32bit OSes in mind, not 64. The LucasArts page for it doesn't even make mention of Vista. Mechwarrior 3 is even older, and can at times have issues with XP. I think Vista is not backwards compatible enough to run it.

Second Life... well let's just say there's a fairly solid chance it isn't your computer that's at fault when that gets slow. Based on my limited experience with it, things can get pretty bad pretty quickly just due to their servers being strained.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

That's what I was worried about. And why I really want to get our old computer up and running again, since it was running on XP.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Any idea what the old power supply wattage was?

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, this is what I picked up for mine. It's excessive- I basically used their wattage calculator and assumed two of everything I could. Just to give you a general rule of thumb for pricing and so on.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

dunno, the sticker on the side just says AC Input: 115V-230V under Voltage, and 6A-4A under current. Says "The Best Power, Model No.:MT-400P" and a bunch of stuff listed in Amps about DC Output

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Then I'd say you're probably looking at a 400 watt PSU as a rule of thumb; a 400 to 450 is probably a safe bet. Here's matching PSUs at newegg- there's more details that need to be taken into consideration, like how many 12v connectors and whether you have a 20 or 24 pin main connector, but it's a decent reference for price ranges and narrowing things down a bit.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Ok, now we're definetly out of my area of understanding. :D I know nothing of pins and connectors.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

It's very simple once you look at it- there's a few standard shapes and sizes of connectors in a computer. The most common is the 12 volt, 4 pin type- they're generally found connected to hard drives and CD drives and the like. It looks like a rectangle with two corners shaved off, so it only fits in one way.

The motherboard itself typically has one big connector, which is either 20 or 24 pins. It's impossible to miss, and again, they've designed the plug so it'll only fit one way. Many power supplies are set up as 20+4s, meaning you've got two separate connectors that can snap together to fit into a 24 pin, or you can just use the 20 pin. In addition there's some smaller ones used for other things, such as video cards, and possibly a CPU fan- as well as a separate CPU power plug-in on the motherboard. Not everything has all the connectors- some old video cards don't need extra juice, for instance.

Newegg (which isn't paying me anything, I swear) has a good writeup, with pictures, here.

Generally speaking, you shouldn't need to worry too much so long as you look at the number of things currently hooked up in the box, figure out how many pins are involved, and make sure you've got at least that on anything new. Worst case, you can always resort to either taking pictures of the PSU and inside of the case, or lugging it over to the shop and getting Tonia to tell you which PSU you need.

Honestly the whole thing's easier than you think. Connecting things up is akin to those blocks and holes when you were a toddler, figuring out which will fit in which.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

My friend Tony was the one that built our sytem for us. He use to come over whenever we needed him. And he'd bring his girlfriend Kim with him. We'd all sit around and watch anime and eat, it was kind of like a little party whenever we had computer trouble. But Tony's moved to New Mexico looking for work. Kim doesn't drive herself. I miss my friends.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize. Most of my friends are about four hundred miles North of me- the rest are further away. It's been years since I've had a chance to really sit down and have fun with good friends. But, I hope to find more when I move, and I can use the Internet to keep contact with the old ones. And make new ones.

And hey- this gives you an excuse to talk to Tony.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

I would if I had a way to contact him.

So where are you planning to move to?

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

You could ask Kim, see if she has any information on how to reach him.

As for where I'm off to, I was hoping for somewhere near Lansing, just because being near Michigan State would guarantee gaming. But right now it looks like I'll end up closer to Detroit. Which still isn't bad. There's a renfaire within reasonable driving distance and apparently other events going on.

Still up in the air though- mostly dependent upon where I can find work. I just know I want it to be in Michigan, due to the aforementioned redhead. So that's where I'm looking.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't bank on there being much work in Detroit these days. I was reading an article last month about how vast sections of the suburbs are empty. The population has dropped from 2 million to 900,000. In particular, the article was about one old guy who's making a living as a trapper. Seems the animals have moved back in to the abandoned suburbs. Raccoons are getting into empty houses and cougars are lounging around backyard swimming pools. Here is the article, To Urban Hunter Next Meal Is Scampering By (http://www.detnews.com/article/20090402/METRO08/904020395/To+urban+hunter++next+meal+is+scampering+by)

I've read other articles about how many construction companies are being called in to demolish houses because the realty companies that own them just can't sell them. That's even happening out here in California. I suppose if they get rid of the tract homes, and plant some trees, they could turn it into a big park though. Might be a nice place to camp.

[akailaughingman.livejournal.com]

computers are much easier than metal and wood. You have tabs, and you have slots. Try opening the case to your computer, dusting it off (yes it'll be dusty. hope you don't have spiders), and getting used to unplugging and plugging things back in. Most of the crazy wires will trace back to the power supply, and the others will trace back to the motherboard.

You seriously can NOT break anything while pushing these on and off. There is more delicate work to putting a computer together (most notably adding a cpu. takes xylene among other things to do it right. and a delicate hand so you don't bend the fine pins). But you really ought to get used to the easy stuff.

I hotwire my computer whenever I turn it on, ever since the power switch broke.

oops!

[akailaughingman.livejournal.com]

do not do any of the above without either a static strip (recommended) or some good grounding (hand on metal near power supply generally works, so long as puter is still plugged in to a good ground.)

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Oh I've plugged and unplugged a few things in before. Had to get the tower case open just to clean the dust out to get the fans spinning again. I'm just more mechanical minded than electronic (much to my dad's disappointment, I'm sure. He's an electronics engineer). But mostly I just make a note of where things were plugged in that I had to clean, and make sure they get back in that spot.

[akailaughingman.livejournal.com]

then switching out a power supply should be no different. (get one that's a little larger, and recommended by arstechnica -- saggy power sucks (ask yer pap if you don't know what that means, teehee)). Just remember which went where (write 'em down if you have to), and plug them back in.

It really is simple.

And if you order from newegg, it's fairly easy to send back if you get the wrong one (I too heart newegg).

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

If you've got 8 GB in it and you're running into problems, there's a few potential causes. One is not having enough room on the hard drive for temporary files- but given you've got nearly a full terabyte on your C drive, I'm going to guess there's plenty of free space.

The next possibility is that you've got a lot of programs running simultaneously- either things on the taskbar or in the background. If you're running Aero, you might want to try disabling it for a while and using the less fancy appearance settings, see if that helps at all. If it is, that's your issue.

The last possibility is something gumming up the works, software-wise. Either an install that didn't go quite right, or malware, or something else causing things not to work quite the way they should. This could also be caused by multiple programs that are overlapping, including security programs. For instance, let's say you have three different programs that scan any other program that starts running, to make sure it isn't infected. They're all trying to get at the same files, and also possibly going to be checking out each other. The old too many cooks thing.

It's difficult to say offhand, but I think lack of RAM is probably not the problem here. It might be necessary to try something else- preferably something that's free.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Um....What's Aero and how do I know if it's on the computer?

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Aero is part of Vista- it's basically Microsoft saying, "You know, all these people have these really fancy computers and really powerful video cards. Why don't we have the operating system use more of that power." Thus, they created Aero- basically a Windows desktop where the frame around an application looks like it's made of glass, so you can see what's behind it.

This is Aero. Or at least what it looks like. There's more to it, but that's the most easily identified aspect.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that this use of extra processing power is also one of the biggest complaints about Vista- people bought those powerful video cards and CPUs and RAM for games and applications, not because they wanted their OS to be more of a resource hog. Newer OSes using more resources is not unusual, but attempting to sell it as a feature was... less than genius.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Oh THAT thing. Doesn't seem to be running, I've just got regular frames.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Well, that eliminates an easy test.

Re: Computer Problems Suck

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Another option is to hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete which should bring up another screen with one of the options mentioning the Task Manager. Starting that up should allow you to see how much memory and CPU time is being used by everything that's running. That should help you see how much is going on and how much you've got happening at once.