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Glenn9999

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Everything posted by Glenn9999

  1. I got my GPU upgrade done. It turns out I completely underestimated the whole problem. I really had no idea my computer was being held back that much by the graphics just in general. Everything loads quicker and with less problems. Web pages are almost instant now, as well as loading any icons. I can do HTML 5.0 web game type stuff a lot easier. I always pictured GPU as more "game-related", but I guess it moves across everything you do these days. I really didn't imagine it, but I'm seeing just how crippled my old graphics board was in this computer, even just putting something in that parallels the CPU according to UserBenchmark. I feel like I got about a 40% speed upgrade on this computer and my jaw is still on the floor at seeing how fast it's working now. (Nothing really intended as an issue/problem, but more of a need to kind of "blog" the results. I'm still like "Wow. Just wow.")
  2. Probably PCIe 3.0? The board I have is PCI 2.0 and I can find GPUs for that for $120. But not sure if it'd be an appreciable enough upgrade to match what the CPU can do, usefulness-wise. But I can upgrade the CPU and get PCIe 3.0 capability, which is represented in that $600 I quoted (assuming I can find everything, my computer seems to be that old).
  3. Was it optimal? That's what I'm noticing with this one I'm on: Baseline stuff is working (more or less), but there's little cracks showing in a number of those things that are listed above. Like minor slowdowns and stuff that I am noticing. Biggest thing being trying to stream a game older than my computer (so theoretically you'd think the computer could handle it) and only getting like 4 or 5 fps and really babying it just to save any kind of video to the hard drive. Really haven't tried reeling 1080p or 4K vid through it but I know 720p isn't *entirely* smooth either. Course the scary part is it's looking like a $500-$600 outlay just to upgrade what I got, and haven't even looked into what a new build would be yet. But then again, GPUs seem to be most affected by the supply shortage, which seems to explain why those are for this system what they were when I did the build. I'll figure it out.
  4. I usually try to clean mine every month or two. I can tell some good stories of other computers I've opened up, worst being one I opened up to work on that ended up taking a can of duster to clean up after I dumped a big pile of dirt out onto the floor in the process of moving it to work on. A guy I used to know that ran a computer shop ran into much worse from stories he'd tell me of things not involving simple dust...
  5. Thanks for the reply. I took off the grinding case fan and tweaked it around and blew some duster into it in some angles I couldn't get to with it in the case and it seems to have stopped. The curious question I have is that there's a wire from it to the front panel (it may be a throttle switch I just stuffed up there to get out of the way when I did the build). I really wasn't in the mood to figure it out, but it definitely presents a wrinkle in locating a replacement for it. UserBenchmark is an interesting program. It pretty much confirmed my thinking that the GPU I have is garbage (2%). But I notice an interesting trend in planned obsolescence, as I don't think I could locate a good GPU that would be compatible with my main board. It doesn't seem to be difficult to obtain the parts that I would need for an admittedly long overdue new build, but I did notice the new parts coming in at 2-3X what they were for my last build. Not to mention the challenge of trying to locate a plain mainboard with no added frills. I'll have to think about it more. Like I mentioned above, I think there's going to be no issue in finding the parts, more the cost of them. This being what I feared in writing the COVID remark. As for the program above, it indicated most of the other parts at about "half", and also helpfully suggested I should turn on DOCP for the memory. As for using it, it seems mostly okay for what I do with after eight years, but there's certain little gaps in the things that I have attempted with my computer (video capture/rendering, probably would have problems with stuff like Zoom if I tried it) that reveal that GPU to be garbage. I'll have to think about how I'm going to proceed from here, but I may just be fine if I can locate a GPU that will represent an appreciable upgrade that I know will do that video rendering job a lot more proficiently than what I have now. Big problem is whether what I find will work with this board I have (PCIe 2.0).
  6. Got an older PC for right now that I built but noticing some components failing connected with the case. Figured out that I could replace the case fans easily enough, but the front USB jack is a bit glitchy. Power supply is of course a question after 14 years. Sometimes (10% or so of the time) when I put a flash drive in there it won't read or Windows will come back and say it's got problems and I need to run checkdisk against it. So is it possible to order that part separately or am I stuck into trying to match a fresh one to the case in question (Antec Three Hundred). Conversely, I thought about going ahead and throwing together a new build when I started to see the ages of some of what I have here, even at minimum a new case. Is there a good guide anywhere to how much CPUs and other components have improved in the last eight years? Any ideas on how COVID would limit me finding the components readily? (Basically trying to figure out whether it'd be worth my time to attempt a rebuild or not, especially since I need a GPU in any event...) (So basically, case related components possibly on the way to failing, trying to figure out what I can legit do in response to it that would make sense.)
  7. Ditto. Thought I donated about 5 months ago (November 3, 2021) under my alias here, but still haven't seen any sign of it.
  8. No on all of those. Tossing those two simply because it still looks pretty weird on the face of it to me for a major software company to distribute with CD-R or DVD-R. Course, there's probably no real solid way of verifying it's legit and not a counterfeit, so there's that too.
  9. I usually don't like to call attention to my charitable deeds, but I definitely have to say that whoever handles that here seems to be asleep at the switch.

  10. FWIW, the company in question is Roxio. Distributed in DVD style cases. Legit looking cases, very nice looking printed labels. But quite obviously CD-R or DVD-R if you inspect the discs. Which is kinda throwing me. Discs are readable, save that Disc 2 I referred to, which reads as a blank CD-R. Roxio Creator 2010 and Easy Media Creator 10 Suite. I heard Amazon distributes CD-R discs themselves for music now (burn a copy, send it out), which basically makes that junk media in my view. So had to wonder if the trend carries to all physical media or not in trying to figure out if all this stuff I ended up with is legit or not. As for the Wii discs, figured out they're a totally different format the PC doesn't understand, so I'm likely out of luck verifying those are still good.
  11. I ended up with some aftermarket software I'm thinking of flipping. Problem is it looks like CD-R discs (and even a disc 2 that's reads as blank in my drive). Seems shady, but I'm wondering if software companies went ahead and used CD-R instead of paying a company to press discs eventually before they went all Internet? Any thoughts on this one, especially since I'm not seeing a real good way to verify whether this stuff is legit or not? Edit: Also ended up with a couple of WII discs in the same batch of stuff which won't read in my drive. Any good way to verify those as good outside of having my own WII unit?
  12. I basically ended up coming to ask the question that's pinned here, since I haven't seen anything good when I searched. Is there such a thing as a reliable corded mouse that'll last longer than a year or so without having problems related to click functions? I've run through two Logitech M100 in the last three years (right click not accurate, a third if you go back three more years), and am now on an Onn (Walmart house brand, that's another bad kettle of fish I could write a different topic on) corded mouse I pulled out of a pile of stuff that has an inaccurate left-click (especially seen on drag/drop). So any real solutions to this and a suggestion on something that'll be a lot more reliable? In other words, have the issues in that post been addressed to any significant degree?
  13. Every rubber belt driven piece of machinery has this same issue. One could make a business out of pulling vacuum cleaners out of the trash that people thought were broken, replacing their belts, cleaning them up, and reselling them (and evidently DVD drives too). I just never thought a DVD drive would be belt-driven, especially since all the other drives I worked with had direct cogs that operated the drive tray.
  14. The boiling water trick worked (for now - given the way the housing works, I had to actually take the drive apart to get to the belt), but looking for suitable replacement belts. All I'm seeing on Ebay is labeled "For XBox 360" and really doesn't have specific measurements on the belts. Is that what I'm going to want? Looking at the belt situation on my Blu-ray player too (it occurred to me that a tray problem there might be a similar issue).
  15. Okay, problem confirmed. If it's where I think it is in the drive, I'll be able to replace the belt, but need to find an adequate replacement.
  16. Why does the drive work perfectly once I get a disc in it?
  17. Basically, I'm just on this copy of Windows I'm on because it's just been working. I've had my problems, but I haven't worried about tweaking or fixing more than just simply using the computer. Really the only option, compared to Linux, which was just a complete and total disaster when I tried it - rather would use my computer than have to work on it all the time.
  18. I got code already worked out that'll replace duplicate files with hard links on NTFS drives.  I'm half-tempted to throw it at a Windows install to see what happens, but there's the usual game of chicken involved...

  19. With phones, there's typically ringing (when you get a call), dial tone (when you pick up the phone to make a call), and touch-tone tones (when you hit the numbers). Ring tone is probably just best done by sampling something, but you could repeat tones at a certain frequency, too (my land-line phone does that). I'm sure there's references for what kind of sounds all these things are out there.
  20. None of the compatibility settings changes this? Edit: Now that I see what this program does, have you thought about changing to something more modern/more supported, like Audacity?
  21. I've had this problem, too, with Windows 8.1, as I understand the implementation on it is pretty bad. Basically all you can do is check whether the drivers are good and you're updated fully, minus maybe checking to see if the adapter is set to be turned off on power profile. If you're not using a brand name wi-fi adapter (something like Realtek or the like with no brand name packaging as opposed to something like D-Link or Linksys), that might be part of the problem too. Honestly, a lot of my problem went away when I changed to a brand-name adapter from my generic. But not all of it - I'm connecting as 802.11g for some reason when I have 802.11n equipment, which makes me think it could be a USB issue (1.0 instead of 2.0). But can't see in the drivers whether I'm getting USB 2.0 on my ports or not...
  22. Lately, I notice when I try to open my DVD drive the tray "thunks" several times over about 30 seconds before I can get it to open. Once the disk is in the drive, I can open and close the tray at will. I did some debugging and found that Windows now has a feature called Zero Power ODD, which seems to be the cause of this behavior. I tried the registry change on that page and didn't have any success in fixing this problem. Has anyone encountered this and successfully found a fix?
  23. The usual option is setting up a Virtual Machine of some kind. The basic idea is that it's a program that runs on your main OS that simulates a computer. It has container files that represent the hard drive and so on. You go on and install your OS into the VM. Then to get access to other files on your machine by sharing a directory which shows up in the VM OS on a separate drive. It's a little tricky to handle mouse and keyboard stuff sometimes (the need to "capture input" basically and uncapturing it doesn't make seamless interaction) and it might not work as well on a performance sense because the VM won't have the entire machine's resources, but on the main OS it more or less functions as a separate program. Different things can be wonky sometimes when run in VM, but most things that aren't coded in a funky way will work as well in VM as it did in the regular OS.
  24. Definitely fun stuff and brings back some memories as I read through here. I notice I had to pull the files in the linked thread for the limitation of the attachment system on this forum, but brings to mind that I've been thinking about finding a way to post a lot of stuff like this I've done over the years (and perhaps source to go with it). Probably not much demand, but been thinking either a linked blog to something like Dropbox. Not sure how trying to post a bunch of small things like this on GitHub would fly, but can always figure out something to put some of this stuff back up.
  25. It was in a pile of random other stuff that I obtained. Basically a lot of stuff - I didn't really set out to obtain the specific part in question.
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