Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Stewie]

I wasn't sure where to put this so its in general for now.

Out of the blue one of my HDs has stopped being recognized by my system.

It was hosting a minecraft server and it just disappeared. I was at work when it happened, was not doing anything with my system, no changes to my system and had been running fine for ages.
My system now does not recognize it at all anymore. I have swapped the cables with a different drive that was working. After doing that the other drive works but this one still does not recognize. So I know its not the cables.
I cant imagine its my jumper, its sata2 and again nothing has changed at all.

I have booted into bios = does not see it.
It is definitely spinning but its just like its not there at all.
I really don't care if the drive is pooched but i want the data off of it.

Any advice??
It is a 200 gb samsung. (was one of 4 hd's)
I have a msi p55 mobo
running win 7 64bit

[CmdrSlack]

You could try to get an inexpensive enclosure from a big box store and see if that doesn't work.

I have the HD from an old machine in one. It was nice, I grabbed what I needed, then formatted the drive and now use it as a local backup drive.

[Engels]

You probably want to have this moved to the Quick Tech Questions thread in the PC Console Gaming forum.

The problem seems to be a failed controller on the hard drive itself. The good news seems to be that there's no mechanical failure (no broken motor or reader needle), but the bad news is that you're probably going to have to ship it to a HD repair place, and those can get expensive. They normally have local offices that then ship your HD to a lab for repair.  Some place like this: http://www.dataretrieval.com/

[Furiously]

Does the drive spin up when you put power to it? Are you running a UPS? Have you given it a "thump" against the palm of your hand?

[Stewie]

It definately has power and is spinning up. I am not using a ups and I have tried the good old fashioned thump.

I think engels may have it right. I'm gonna try my buddies exrenal enclousre. If that doesnt worj I'm not sure what I'm going to do but I'm not willing to spend on out as its just an old 200 gb hd

[Salamok]

just making sure you covered all the cheap options first, did you try plugging it into a different sata port on your mb?

[Stewie]

Yup, and tried that. I actually swapped the cables it was using one that was working. The borked drive still didn't work but the other one worked fine with the sata cables that were previously plugged in to the borked drive.

[Salamok]

Have you given it a chance to completely cool down?  How much would you be willing to spend on it to get the data back?  Most likely it is going to be a few hundred to get your data off of it, if it is just the controller board that is.  Hard drive recovery gets really expensive when it hits the "need to swap out the heads phase", at that point it can run several thousand and you still don't usually get all your data back.

[MuffinMan]

My Kaspersky Anti-Virus is expiring today. Should I renew or is there another program that's considered the tits? NOD32?

[Lantyssa]

Surprisingly, MS Security Essentials isn't bad.

[Engels]

Surprisingly, MS Security Essentials isn't bad.

Define 'not bad'. We had a virus in the computer lab that was at least 6 months old that MSSE wouldn't even detect. Not simply 'not stop', but not even notice. Other AV could stop it cold. This was about a year ago, tho. Things may have improved.

[Yegolev]

I've always been told that all AV have holes. MSSE works great* as long as I turn off the real-time monitoring.  Otherwise it's a performance drag.  Other AV are too intrusive or too flashy, while MSSE just does its thing quietly.

*I don't get viruses, as a general rule, so YMMV.

[Lantyssa]

It's true.  Every AV suite has something stupid it will miss.  That's why I use Malwarebytes, Stinger, and others to do scans as well.

MSSE would on occasion boot up in some CPU hogging state.  Killing the front end would always fix it for me in those cases (the protection is still running).  You could relaunch and it'd be fine.

I used to love McAfee Enterprise, but that started having performance issues only Norton could top, and I dumped them on all personal machines after their update that nuked any machine that was logged into.  The only reason I survived that with sanity intact was because I was trialing MSSE on my own at the time and many of our group machines I had set to update later in the day.

[ezrast]

What camera do I buy? No special requirements, just inexpensive and won't fall apart.

Or, if it's easier - what brand of camera do I be sure to not buy?

[Strazos]

I bought a Logitech c525 recently while it was on sale at Staples, and I haven't had any complaints. Installed seamlessly in W7, and does what I need it to do.

[ezrast]

Sorry, I mean a point and shoot camera. For taking photos.

This brand Vivitar seems to be cheaper than everything else on the websites I've looked at, but I've never heard of them. Avoid?

[Trippy]

Vivitar made their name selling cheap (relatively speaking) SLR camera lenses and have expanded into other related areas. No clue about the quality of their digital P&S cameras.

[apocrypha]

All I can tell you about Vivitar digital cameras is that DPReview doesn't even have a Vivitar section in their reviews... which isn't a good sign.

If they're cheap, they're cheap for a reason. Caveat emptor.

[MuffinMan]

I received a Vivitar digital camera a few years ago for Christmas, it was the biggest piece. Pictures looked terrible, batteries would die after ~10 pictures. Things may have changed since it's probably been close to 5-6 years since then but I ended up tossing it.

[Mosesandstick]

Just took some videos at a martial arts grading. Now I need free video editing software and to learn how to edit videos. Help please?

I guess I can use PS for stills editing.

[Sheepherder]

Windows Movie Maker.

[Hawkbit]

Just dumped half a cup of coffee into my blue G15... it's dead.  Really sad day, typing this out on a $12 keyboard until I can get a new decent one in next month's budget.  /sigh

[Salamok]

So for the latest version of netflix on the ps3 how the F do I get to my queue?

[NowhereMan]

So in preparation for getting a new graphics card I cleaned out the inside of my PC for the first time in 9 months () and gave it a good full on clean and tidied up the wiring a bit as well. Pulling apart a bit also inspired me to try and get the front audio panel working since I never managed it when I first put all the shiny new innards (ASUS P6T motherboard) into my old case (Antec P160). Welp I failed but having spent a few hours researching and trying different shit I still can't figure out why. In fact previously the front audio jacks were registered but it wouldn't acknowledge any devices being connected. Now I can't see the jacks at all whether as disconnected or disabled in the windows playback devices. I should mention this has come up as well because I've actually started using Skype recently and it's a pain in the ass disconnecting the speakers to plug in my headphones. It should be simple as there's a front panel set of pins on the motherboard and the case comes with a standard 10 pin plug to use.

Now things I've tried: I've set the Front Panel sound as both HD (which it was originally) and AC97 as I can't seem to find out which the case actually is. Done this for every other thing I've done too. Have tried connecting the individual pins (the case plug also has all the wires splitting off as individual connections in case the motherboard isn't standard). This step was complicated by the fact that the labels for the pins in the motherboard manual differ from what the case manual tells you to connect to (case says MIC pin into mic power, MIC BIAS into mic pin. Seems more similar to the AC97 connection labelling for the motherboard). It's back to the standard 10 pin plug in it but the front panel jacks are gonesville. Have I just possibly fubared it totally? Can't seem to find anything on google beyond the relevant manuals. I'm wondering if I could do the individual wiring thing if I had a better idea of what should go where (i.e. matching labels), I'm also wondering if the 10 pin thing is set up for a non-standard board/the P6T is non-standard (doesn't seem to be).

tl;dr Front audio isn't working on an Antec P160 case and ASUS P6T motherboard. Have tried a few fixes and would appreciate someone pointing me at something other than the manuals with a solution or that will let me educate myself enough to solve it. Failing that slowly explaining what to do with diagrams would also be appreciated by simply monkey brain.

[Strazos]

Couldn't you just use Y-splitters to have speakers and headphones use the same output port?

[NowhereMan]

Hmm... Hadn't really considered that, certainly an option. I guess I'd rather get everything working, since I've already got it and can't see why it isn't working. I'd also like to be able to plug in the headphones and get the speakers muted rather than switching them off when I want to use the headphones. If I can't solve it 'properly' though that'd do the trick for the major annoyance and isn't something I can go too wrong with. Cheers.

[Sheepherder]

1	2
3	4
5	6
7
9	10

1: Analog Port 1 - left channel (Microphone)
2: Ground
3: Analog Port 1 - right channel (Microphone)
4: Active low signal that signals BIOS that an Intel® HD Audio dongle is connected to the analog header.
5: Analog Port 2 - right channel (Headphone)
6: Jack detection return for front panel (JACK1)
7: Jack detection sense line from the Intel® HD Audio CODEC jack detection resistor network
8: No pin
9: Analog Port 2 - left channel (Headphone)
10: Jack detection return for front panel (JACK2)

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-015851.htm

[NowhereMan]

Hmm... I think I've mostly solved it actually following a bit of advice I found setting the Realtek Audio manager to disable front panel detection (a setting that I had to hunt around a bit for). The result is that the front mic and headset work, they just don't cause the rear plugged things to mute so I've got to turn off the speakers when using the headphones. Not really a problem there, though it seems the front panel is AC97 or something as the sound isn't as nice as the rear connectors. Thanks for the diagram anyway Sheepherder.

[Sheepherder]

AC97 sound is shitty and lacks the ability to automatically configure itself.  I hate those goddamn manufacturers that label shit as "Intel compatible" when it's the AC97 connections present rather than the Intel Azalia/HD.

[SnakeCharmer]

Couldn't you just use Y-splitters to have speakers and headphones use the same output port?

Before I got my AX Pros that utilize the digital optical, this is what I used for all my other headphones and speaker combos.  Works well.

[Yegolev]

I need some help.

I got my RMA'ed mainboard and am using my RMA'ed CPU, and they are doing the same thing that the previous parts did.  Which is the CPU fan spins for a split second and it powers down.  It repeats this each second or two.  Having built this using two different CPU and two different mainboards, it must be something else.  Frankly I am the end of my brain rope.  Any idea which rabbit hole I need to poke my head down?

[Rasix]

Given your propensity for frying PS3s and various other home electronics, I'd start looking at your electrical situation.

[kildorn]

That does sound like a power drain issue to me. The system is supposed to rev up fully on boot, then head back down to normal operation. If it's unable to fully rev, it may be browning out.

Do you know what the board make/model is, and I presume it's completely unbootable (can't even get to bios in that state and such)

[Trippy]

I need some help.

I got my RMA'ed mainboard and am using my RMA'ed CPU, and they are doing the same thing that the previous parts did.  Which is the CPU fan spins for a split second and it powers down.  It repeats this each second or two.  Having built this using two different CPU and two different mainboards, it must be something else.  Frankly I am the end of my brain rope.  Any idea which rabbit hole I need to poke my head down?

Is your MB mounted properly? Try powering it up with the MB outside of the case.

And make sure your heatsink is attached properly.

[Sky]

I need some help.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=72&name=UPS

Do you have another power supply you can use to check the mobo/cpu?