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Topic: Quick [tech] Questions Thread (Read 1186518 times)
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Trippy
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Posts: 23612
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SnakeCharmer
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3807
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Not really a tech question per se, but what's everyone's choice of a media player these days? I really don't like WMP, and haven't used winamp in years so I have no idea if it's any good still.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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VLC Player with CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) installed.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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Not really a tech question per se, but what's everyone's choice of a media player these days? I really don't like WMP, and haven't used winamp in years so I have no idea if it's any good still.
foobar2000 on Windows. Haven't found anything I'm happy with yet on Mac but I'm mostly using Songbird. All I need is something that launches super fast, doesn't use a ton of resources, and includes basic play list support. Most players are either bloated monstrosities or totally stripped down without any playlist support.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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oh. music, not porn, my bad.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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He mentioned Winamp so I assumed he meant music but I guess these days Winamp plays video as well so I don't know.
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apocrypha
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6711
Planes? Shit, I'm terrified to get in my car now!
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I don't have any problems with winamp as long as you keep an eye on it when installing - pare it down to the minimum and don't let it installl the media library and winamp agent stuff. There's always Media Player Classic too which now has a 64 bit version that seems to work ok.
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"Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1915.
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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iToooooones! Surprise, cockfags!
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rattran
Moderator
Posts: 4257
Unreasonable
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I use mplayer on windows and linux, with the mpui frontend on windows 7. This windows build to be specific.
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Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803
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I kind of like the cowon/jet audio player. The only problem I have with it is the web driven add/splash screen that occasional comes up when you open it (also occasional has an error in said splashscreen). I use the cowon player at work and iTunes at home, I really do not like iTunes but my wife has an ipod and iTunes invaded all user accounts of the PC when installed and I haven't bothered to kick it off my account yet.
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Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536
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So my computer decided to not start up any more. I press the front button, nothing. I turn off the switch in the back and turn it on: lights turn on, fan on the cooling system turns on, fan on the power supply turns on, they all run for 3 seconds and then the whole thing shuts down. Hard drive never even starts spinning up. The computer at least starts the drive checks because I can see the CD-ROM tray lights turn on for a bit.
First thought was power supply. Never replaced one but it looks pretty straightforward (in theory). Just can't see how it'd turn on for a second and then turn off though. There circuit breakers in these things?
Second thought was complete hard drive meltdown. Can't see how it'd go without any of the warning signs at all, but wouldn't be surprising.
Third thought is this little button cell battery on the mobo. Back in the way old days I had to replace the 6v battery on my Power Computer Mac like three times in it's life, and it wouldn't work unless I replaced the battery. That was 15 years ago or so though, and I can't imagine they still design them like that.
Help?
Specs: Power Supply: NZXT PRC-550 550W Power Supply (SLI-Ready) Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6600 (2x 2.4GHz) Motherboard: Asus P5N32-E SLI nForce® 680i SLI Chipset Memory: Corsair XMS2 Xtreme 2x1024mb RAM Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB Sound: Creative Lab Sound Blaster X-Fi Hard Drive: 250gb SATA-II 7200rpm CD/DVD Drive ( 16x DVD-ROM Drive) CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive 18X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW) Intel Pro 10/100/1000 Network Card
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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Does your MB have a tiny speaker and is it hooked up? Do you have a little POST code display on the MB?
I would disconnect the cables from all the drives, pull out the sound card and network card, recheck the power cable to the MB, the CPU fan connector and the connector from the power switch to the motherboard and see if you can get to the startup screen and enter the BIOS.
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Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536
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No tiny speaker I could see and know POST code display. I assume the latter is some sort of LED/LCD, and couldn't find one.
I disconnected both CD-ROMs, the HD, removed this secondary audio card thing, removed the SoundBlaster, even removed the 8800 GTS. Couldn't remove the network card since that appears to be integrated on the mobo.
Same result: starts up for 2-3 seconds, turns off.
I did notice something else I've never seen before though: on the back of the computer is this Blue LED light next to the word "Combined". It's part of the power supply. When the computer turns on, that turns on, but it is dim. Then when the computer shuts off, it flares very bright then dims back down to dim again.
That seems ominous...
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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Apparently that power supply can either run with the 12V power split between the two lines or combined into one.
Is the CPU fan spinning on power up?
I'd try another power supply.
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Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536
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The CPU fan and the Power Supply fan both start spinning up. But then shut off with everything else. Any advice on a new power supply of equivalent (or greater) capacity? I don't think I have one I can throw in here that's got capacity for what's loaded. The board lacks integrated video so at the very least I need the drive and vidcard in to get to a BIOS screen. So I'll need to order one. Which is fine since I'm headed out for the holiday anyway. Wouldn't mind having a new supply from Newegg waiting for me when I get back. Just don't want to order the wrong one. Oh, and I've never installed one before. But I'll learn
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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You can put in a (relatively) wimpy one just to test things out. An unloaded CPU and GPU draw much less power so you don't need the full 550 Watts of your current one.
You don't need a drive for the BIOS screen.
Look at the Advice on a New Rig thread near the end for suggestions we gave to Strazos for his power supply which is about your range.
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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So, I used some PSU load calculator and it said that I needed ~680 watts. My current 700 watt Truepower (Thermaltake) is starting to be very loud under load. Its got some crazed 14" fan that's just gotten louder over time. Stands to reason, I guess, but I thing I want a new one. So, let me break it down for you guys and see what you think:
At least 5 SATA2 drives with 4 in raid5 4x1 gigs of DDR2 ram A modern higher end vid card DVD/BlueRay player dedicated sound card 4 12" fans (two front, one rear and one for CPU)
Bearing in mind that I will probably be upgrading at the very least my vid card from an 8800GT to a 200 series Nvidia (prolly the new 275) and will eventually go for a DDR3 set of ram & new intel chip, what do you guys suggest?
How important is Active Power? Good experiences with modular cabling PSUs? SILENCE is golden, especially with 5 active fans in the case already
Brand recommendations? PC Power & Cooling is now owned by OCZ and they don't seem to be making higher end PSUs, at least not the modular type.
Antec seems to have some patented temp/fanspeed regulation in their PSUs. Are they worth fussing over or should I go for something simpler?
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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: 23612
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How important is Active Power?
Read this: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/atx-psu5_3.htmlGood experiences with modular cabling PSUs?
I have a few that use them (like an Antec NeoPower PS in one of my boxes) but I don't consider them mandatory as I have no problems letting my cabling look like a rat's nest. SILENCE is golden, especially with 5 active fans in the case already
Read the reviews in http://silentpcreview.com/ if you want a quiet power supply. Brand recommendations? PC Power & Cooling is now owned by OCZ and they don't seem to be making higher end PSUs, at least not the modular type.
Seasonic is still my benchmark though the "enthusiast" power supply market is very crowded these days.
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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I was going to use a Seasonic after talking about this a couple years ago when I built my current computer, but I ended up going with a 610W PCP&C. This feeds my thirsty 8800gtx, but I only have a single 10k hdd.
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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I was looking at the 800 watt Seasonic, and it does indeed seem to be the king of power supplies. Silver rated power management, Active PFC, modular cables, 12 volt high amp rails up the ying yang, silent as a doormouse, etc.
But is it really worth $300 bucks? I mean, sure, it probably merits the sticker price, but am I going overboard?
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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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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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5 hard drives, 4 in raid 5 and you're wondering if a power supply is overboard?
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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Well, its a gamer box more than a work production box, so ya. That Seasonic is teh serious shtz, if you look at it. There are other ~700 to 800 Watt PSUs for about 100 bucks cheaper from still 'reputable' name brands that would probably never go bad on me, and/or keep silent.
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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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Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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A little off the build topic, but what would people recommend as a good CSS editor? I’m been having a balls of a time trying to get freeware editors to work. I have Dreamweaver, but it might as well be in Arabic. I need an approachable CSS text editor with a good preview feature. Thx.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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Emacs.
More seriously a preview feature is mostly useless unless your site is IE6-only (the IE "rendering engine" is relatively easy to embed in Windows apps). As schild can tell you in great detail, every browser does CSS slightly differently.
Also, what OS are you using?
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Viin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6159
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I like to do my CSS editing in firebug, as you can see your changes rendered on the page immediately.
Doesn't Eclipse have a CSS editing plugin too?
The "see your changes in preview" thingy is a bit advanced, so expect it to be clunky in most implementations. Easiest to just edit the CSS file in a good text editor (TextPad on Windows) and save/promote your changes, refresh browser to see changes.
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- Viin
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Murgos
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7474
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Save and refresh works very well and isn't usually any longer than other methods.
Ctrl-s, alt-tab, F5.
That said, when I was doing a lot of web stuff I found it generally easier to get the page the way I liked it in Firefox/Mozilla and then make IE look right. Starting with IE as your base can lead you off in directions that work in no other browser.
I worked on state run websites and we had to stay standards compliant and I found that if you try and stay as close to the standards as you can, you may not (probably wont) be able to 100% but making the effort will get rid of a lot of your cross browser compatibility issues.
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"You have all recieved youre last warning. I am in the process of currently tracking all of youre ips and pinging your home adressess. you should not have commencemed a war with me" - Aaron Rayburn
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Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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I can use Mac or PC. My copy of Dreamweaver is for Mac. And yeah I think what I was hoping for was a WYSIWYG editor for only the basic architecture. Just to get the basic layout, and then finesse everything by text. Hadn't thought of Eclipse. Thx.
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Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803
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Have you tried textmate on your mac? DW designer view sucks at CSS so even if you were comfy with it it wouldn't give you the solution you are looking for. On the other hand DW's built in ftp makes saving local, uploading to web and refreshing your browser as easy as F12. Personally I think DW is the closest thing out there to becoming the perfect web development tool, unfortunately adobe is clueless so it will never even be a contender.
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Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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"textmate"
thanks very much I will try this. I know little about the Mac world and for some reason I never encountered textmate in any of my previous searches. Cheers and thanks.
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Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536
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You can put in a (relatively) wimpy one just to test things out. An unloaded CPU and GPU draw much less power so you don't need the full 550 Watts of your current one.
Ok, tried a brand new PSU. Tried turning it on with just the video card and HDD plugged in, after 2 seconds, complete shut down. Tried without the HDD, same thing. Pulled the video card out, same thing. Pulled out the RAM just for kicks, same thing. Tried it when the only thing plugged in was the mobo (it's plugged in in two different places: big ass plug and somewhere near the top left next to a heat sink. Could it be a fried motherboard? Specs: Power Supply: Now a Corsair 650W Power Supply Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6600 (2x 2.4GHz) Motherboard: Asus P5N32-E SLI nForce® 680i SLI Chipset Memory: Corsair XMS2 Xtreme 2x1024mb RAM Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB Sound: Creative Lab Sound Blaster X-Fi Hard Drive: 250gb SATA-II 7200rpm CD/DVD Drive ( 16x DVD-ROM Drive) CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive 18X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW) Intel Pro 10/100/1000 Network Card
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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You can put in a (relatively) wimpy one just to test things out. An unloaded CPU and GPU draw much less power so you don't need the full 550 Watts of your current one.
Ok, tried a brand new PSU. Tried turning it on with just the video card and HDD plugged in, after 2 seconds, complete shut down. Tried without the HDD, same thing. Pulled the video card out, same thing. Pulled out the RAM just for kicks, same thing. Tried it when the only thing plugged in was the mobo (it's plugged in in two different places: big ass plug and somewhere near the top left next to a heat sink. Could it be a fried motherboard? Could be. Is this your own PC/motherboard that can fit your CPU?
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Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536
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Hmm, sorry, but I'm not quite sure what you're asking. I am that clueless. The computer arrived from iBuyPower all put together already, with those specs. The only thing I did was configure it on the website using their constraints. The only things I've done since is add RAM, go to Vista Ultimate, and now change the power supply.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612
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Do you have another computer that's running a Core (2/Quad) CPU?
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Viin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6159
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Does sound like it's either the CPU or mobo .. CPUs are pretty darn reliable these days, so my money is on the mobo being fried. But since you'd have to buy a new mobo anyways, might as well get a new CPU to go with it!
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- Viin
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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My friend bought an IBuyPower system a few years ago, against my advice not to. He has crappy problems with his system as well.
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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