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Topic: Quick [tech] Questions Thread (Read 1205437 times)
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Viin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6159
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More cache = more data processing at once, so if you are doing things with large files (ie: playing intensive games, editing videos, etc) then more is better. Personally, I would splurge and get at least one of the Core 2 Duos, if not one of the 45mn ones. For your gf the Dual Core is probably fine, as the real bottleneck is going to be the graphics card for LOTRO. A lot of the game stuff uses the video cards GPU instead of the CPU now days, so the CPU is becoming less important for video games.
It's always best to get the best you can afford, so you aren't upgrading as often. So I would start with what you want to spend then work backwards and see what you can afford. I start with the most important piece of hardware then move backwards:
Video Card CPU Mobo Memory
So if you are doing a total upgrade and you want to spend $1000 or less, see what you can get in the first slot that's 1 or 2 slots below "The Best(tm)" then work it through and tweak as needed or you see deals.
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- Viin
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Mrbloodworth
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15148
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YEah, thanks for the advice, but i have already done that part lol, right now i am trying to get the overall price down. As far as video card, i had already chosen This one. ( I currently use this on my new machine i bought about 2 months ago) I may just list the whole machine as a public wish list, and let you guys go over it to make sure i'm not buying stupid things. But, what i was thinking is, buy the dual core, and upgrade it later ( the slot allows for it) EDIT: I need to figure out how to make it public, lol.
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« Last Edit: September 18, 2008, 08:59:26 AM by Mrbloodworth »
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Viin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6159
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Feel free to post the whole thing, at least one of us will be bored enough to go over it.
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- Viin
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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Dual core Or core 2 duo?
Price seems to vary a good deal...but whats the difference?
Give some examples. Ok, what i am doing is ditching the idea of upgrading the old DELL (RAMBUS!!!1!). Now, i need a processor for my girls machine, but i am confused as to what Core 2 duo, and Dual core's differences are. I will link some from new egg. Dual core Search refinement. Core 2 duo search refinement. Now, i realize Mhz are Mhz and some are just faster. BUT! some of the dual core CPU's are not that far behind in Mhz, but the price difference is large. Now, what i need is a decent CPU for my girls machine, something that will allow her to play games like LOTRO and WAR...and what ever else, she doesn't ever have a want to play anything as intensive as oblivion ETC.. So, is dual core a good CPU for the price? or should i spend a little more for the Core 2 duo. "dual core" is a generic term meaning 2 CPU cores inside a single package. "Intel Pentium Dual-Core" is an Intel brand name for their low-end Core 2 Duo CPUs. Why they went back to using the Pentium name even though it's really a Core CPU I have no idea.
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Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803
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Isn't the i7 coming out in a month or 2 at a reasonable price?
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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Depends on what you mean by reasonable and what Intel launches with.
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Mrbloodworth
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15148
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So, your recommendation is... Get the core 2 duo over the dual core?
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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Depends on your budget. The "Pentium Dual-Core" is a Core 2 Duo (if you say "dual core" that's too ambiguous, you could be referring to an AMD CPU for all we know), it's just on the low-end.
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Mrbloodworth
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15148
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Will it be up to the task of running the games i had listed? I know i can upgrade later, but if the chip is ass performance wise (Even if Hrtz match), then id rather spend the extra 40$ for the better performance.
I am choosing from the Newegg lists i posted.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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Well it's hard to say since the usual sites typically don't bother benchmarking such low end CPUs, at least not in a way that's useful for comparison to other more expensive CPUs. Tom's probably has the most extensive CPU charts here: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2008/benchmarks,16.htmlbut they don't benchmark the E2200 or the E4500 (i.e. the E2200 with 2 MB of cache). On the TH charts probably the closest equivalent to the E2200 is the Intel Core 2 Duo E6400. It's also going to depend a lot of the resolution she's going to run the games at and the video card you are getting. If it was up to me and I was building a budget system and I wasn't going to overclock and I had to get something right now I'd spend a little extra and go with the E7200 over the E2200.
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Aez
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1369
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OK, quick question :
Where do you start?
I have a recurring and really annoying bug that survived a window reinstall, I'm guessing it's an hardware problem but I can't determine which part is broken. I don't think it's my videocard, it's the first I returned but the bug stayed with a new card. I'm thinking about switching my motherboard.
I can try to describe the problem for your amusement, it's a weird non repeatable bug but after 1 year of tolerating it I think I found a pattern.
My machine : Motherboard : M2N-SLI deluxe CPU : AMD Atlhon 64 x2 dual core processor 4200+ RAM : 2,21 GHz, 2 GB videocard : nvidia geforce 7900 GT/GTO
The bug/problem :
Videoflash image freeze when I watch a movie, it unfreeze if I right click anywhere on the screen, the whole screen goes black for 1sec and the video continue like nothing happenned.
I think I freeze too much when I play videogame. I get tons of crash to desktop in spore, complete crash in bioshock, complete crash in Team fortress. The weirdest part is when I reboot my computer after a complete crash, I get an infinite loading screen for window, starting in safe mode doesn't work. Sometime I get a : can't find disk error press ctrl + alt + del. If I wait 5 min before I restart, everything is fine again... I think I have decent cooling, my case is top notch. An other weird part is that a game only run normally the first time, if I close it I have to restart window before I play it again or I get glitches and a flickering screen in game.
I tried to get some solutions from random google question but nothing work. I haven't even found a single thing talking about the videoflash problem.
What would you do? Is it worth the bother of changing my motherboard has a blind shot in the dark? Any suggestion? This kind of problem will probably cost more to fix by a professional than a new computer.
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rattran
Moderator
Posts: 4257
Unreasonable
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I've seen/heard many horror stories about the m2n-sli deluxe. Seems Asus never really got all the bugs out of the design. And the onboard sound appears to have a number of issues.
Check (a fingertip will work) heat on the heatsink on the mcp, and mosfets after it crashes. With the computer shut off but before it has time to cool. The cpu isn't the only thing that can cause heat problems. Also check to see what voltage your memory requires, and how much you're providing to it. And run memtest86.
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Viin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6159
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Hard to track down stuff like that. First thing I'd do is disable the onboard sound via the device manager.. see if that helps any. Also make sure you have updated drivers, etc. Voltage to memory is also important, especially if you have cheap memory.
Might be worth it to buy a new mobo and pay attention to the return policy. You could try a new one see if it helps after running some stuff hard (TF2, etc) and return it if it doesn't.
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- Viin
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Yegolev
Moderator
Posts: 24440
2/10 WOULD NOT INGEST
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Might try a BIOS flash, but that should come after other ideas and before "buy a new mobo".
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Why am I homeless? Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question. They called it The Prayer, its answer was law Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
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Aez
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1369
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I flashed my bios today, it said it couldn't complete the flash but all the hardware autodetected after a reboot and the updater is now telling me I have the new version. I'm not seeing any noticeable change.
With the setting I posted above, anyone could recommend a stable motherboard? Throw in the price tag if you can, I'll google it otherwise.
I haven't done any hardware stuff beside changing a videocard and adding some ram. I'm guessing I should go to a computer store and pay for an install?
It's too bad Vista is such a POS. I was waiting on it to double the ram and fix my problem. That would have been easy, cheap and in my skill range.
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Viin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6159
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A friend of mine was having weird problems with his computer (random shutdowns and weirdness when playing games) that was fixed (so far) by replacing his memory modules with better quality sticks rather than bargain basement ones. Might be something to try, it would be pretty cheap to buy a new set of mem.
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- Viin
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Aez
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1369
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Thx. Worth a try, and I can return them if it doesn't work. It might be a RAM problem since a memory optimizer program has a direct impact on my problems. Any suggestion?
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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what is this 'memory optimizer' program? That sounds wonky to start with. I also vote for ram, or video memory. How many sticks of ram do you have in the board? Use one, run memtest86 on a bootable CD, then if that passes, swap it out and use the other.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Aez
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1369
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this oneI didn't reinstall it after my window reinstall, the impact wasn't good enough. It did prevent my from having to right click my mouse everytime videoflash bug. I'll try that test memtest86, looks hard to do.
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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not really. its a sinch. http://www.memtest86.com/download.htmldownload ISO. Burn ISO to blank CD. Boot to CD. Run test. Buncha lines start flowing as it runs some test. If the bottom 2/3rds of the screen fill up with screaming red columns of numbers, your memory is kaput. Most bad memory sticks only take a minute to discover, if not seconds. Rarely, memory problems are more subtle and take hours for memtest86 to discover.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Yegolev
Moderator
Posts: 24440
2/10 WOULD NOT INGEST
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I have always had good luck with ASUS mobos and I have stuck with them for a few years, so I don't know. If you memory test comes clean, I'd still suggest ASUS. If you need new RAM, the recommendation is always Crucial.
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Why am I homeless? Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question. They called it The Prayer, its answer was law Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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I've been lucky enough to recieve a small bit of money recently so I can now most likely get a new PC like I had been planning to for a while. The last time I looked about and got some advice here was a few of months ago from memory. I'll be looking to get the PC before the end of October (end of Uni and Fallout 3) and was wondering if much has changed recently and if waiting a few more weeks would have any influence on price and the like. My plans back in early July looked like this: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=12985.msg473043#msg473043Prices don't seem to have changed much since then here in Australia. I can probably spend a little bit more if it represents significantly better value for money.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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Depends if you want to wait for Nehalem.
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Aez
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1369
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not really. its a sinch. http://www.memtest86.com/download.htmldownload ISO. Burn ISO to blank CD. Boot to CD. Run test. Buncha lines start flowing as it runs some test. If the bottom 2/3rds of the screen fill up with screaming red columns of numbers, your memory is kaput. Most bad memory sticks only take a minute to discover, if not seconds. Rarely, memory problems are more subtle and take hours for memtest86 to discover. Ok, so I ran the test, my memory is perfect... I did both stick at once. I figured out I could do one at a time if I had any error. I hope it's a valid reasoning. I'm reinstalling again, I'll try it with out any window update.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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Depends if you want to wait for Nehalem. All I could see is late 2008, 4thQ 2008 and such. Which I assume means it won't be here in Australia within the next couple of months. So I guess I'll just go for the same as earlier.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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Last I read it'll be available sometime in October. Dunno what sort of delay that translates into for Australia.
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rattran
Moderator
Posts: 4257
Unreasonable
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not really. its a sinch. http://www.memtest86.com/download.htmldownload ISO. Burn ISO to blank CD. Boot to CD. Run test. Buncha lines start flowing as it runs some test. If the bottom 2/3rds of the screen fill up with screaming red columns of numbers, your memory is kaput. Most bad memory sticks only take a minute to discover, if not seconds. Rarely, memory problems are more subtle and take hours for memtest86 to discover. Ok, so I ran the test, my memory is perfect... I did both stick at once. I figured out I could do one at a time if I had any error. I hope it's a valid reasoning. I'm reinstalling again, I'll try it with out any window update. [emphasis mine] It's not. At the very least, remove your sticks and reverse the order to retest. And passing Memtest86 doesn't mean your memory is good, it just means it passed memtest86.
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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And passing Memtest86 doesn't mean your memory is good, it just means it passed memtest86.
Mind explaining rather than proclaiming from on high? Memtest86 sends data to all memory areas on a stick, in various patterns that cover just about every which way an OS reads and writes to memory blocks. I'm prepared to hear of a way that an OS taxes memory in a way that memtest86 can't reproduce within reason.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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From the FAQ: Using Memtest -------------
- How long does memtest run? How do I stop it?
Memtest runs indefinately unless you stop it. It does however repeat the same tests over and over again. Memtest86+ contains a number of different tests which each take different approaches in trying to expose any errors in your memory. In the top right of your screen you can see the progress of each test in the lower of the two progress bars. The topmost progress bar shows the progress of a pass, each pass consists of all the tests in the memtest suite.
Thus all tests are executed in one pass, so does that mean that no errors will show after the first pass if that pass didn't reveal any errors? Well no, there are several reasons why errors might only show up after a number of passes. Firstly as of this writing, the latest version of memtest also includes a test which uses random test patterns, each pass these patterns will of course be different. Secondly some types of errors simply don't show up until the system has been running for a while or are very critical on a certain timing condition, are thermal in nature, or other such conditions.
To conclude, one successful pass of memtest will give you a pretty good idea that your memory is ok, only in rare cases will there be errors showing after the first pass. To be sure though simply have the test run overnight or even for a couple of days depending on the level of importance of the system.
- Which memory is tested?
As much as possible of the system memory is tested. Unfortunately memtest86+ can usually not test all of the memory. The reason for this is that todays processors and BIOSes have become so complex that they require a small amount of memory to keep accounting data of the processor and BIOS state respectively. If memtest were to write over these areas the state of the processor or BIOS becomes invalid and it's behaviour unpredictable. Alas it is also impossible to relocate these areas in the memory.
This means that a small area of your memory can not be tested by memtest. If this part of the memory is defective you will know soon enough though as the processor, parts of the processor or the BIOS simply won't work correctly if this part of your memory is defective. Do realise though that in very rare cases memtest will show no errors even though the module is defective, not because memtest can't detect the error, but because memtest can't test the area the error is located in.
Basically the longer you run memtest with the widest variety of tests and get no errors you asymptotically approach 100% certainity that your memory modules have no defects but you can never be 100% certain of that fact just from running memtest itself since memtest itself does not exactly simulate your machine under (ab)normal working conditions.
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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Ya, I hear you, but really, what are the odds of the exact part of memory that's broken is precisely the part that holds the bios/cpu data? It also is probably a very very small amount of memory space to boot.
I mean, I guess everything is possible. I've seen file structures on a hard disk trashed and made to look like failing clusters when all that was going on was a failing block of video ram on a card that was mangling the living ell out of the data sent back to the GPU, which was in turn writing borked data to the disk.
I've seen an entire network multicast in Ghostcast server server crawl to 50 MB/min simply because some idiot (me) used a Sun network cable instead of a generic Cat5 cable on an entirely unrelated computer that happened to be plugged into one of the 8 switches in the network.
computers r hard mang
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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If you have two sticks you can swap them around to handle the BIOS/memory being used issue. The bigger uncertainity is this: Secondly some types of errors simply don't show up until the system has been running for a while or are very critical on a certain timing condition, are thermal in nature, or other such conditions.
E.g. can you be certain that memtest replicates every timing condition in real-world operation?
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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While I don't doubt for a moment that there are occasionally memory defects that only show when the sticks get to x temperature and the specific bad chip get hit with a specific pattern coming from a very specific type of data stream requireing a timing response that memtest86 can't duplicate, I would have to guess that they have to be rare.
At this stage, in relation to Aez problem, I would go back to Rattan's original suspicions about the motherboard. I'd check BIOS updates, and turn off on-board sound altogether. I would also perhaps check to see if there are any GPU ROM updates.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Aez
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1369
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In a complete WTF outcome, simply removing and then putting back my RAM solved 90% of my problems...I didn't even switched them. I hadn't moved them since I got the computer from the store.
WTF?
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rattran
Moderator
Posts: 4257
Unreasonable
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Dust, corrosion, electromagnetic migration, elves.
Could be any of those. Reseating/reconnecting is never a bad idea when troubleshooting.
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Yegolev
Moderator
Posts: 24440
2/10 WOULD NOT INGEST
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In a complete WTF outcome, simply removing and then putting back my RAM solved 90% of my problems...I didn't even switched them. I hadn't moved them since I got the computer from the store.
WTF?
Reseating sometimes is all you need. Mazel tov!
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Why am I homeless? Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question. They called it The Prayer, its answer was law Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
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