General Computer Chat

[Purple Materia]

It'll work, but I'd seriously go with a better brand. It's not something you want to be slack with, because if it goes, it can take other things with it. That's not to say it will but when you consider that you could get a much better one from Coolermaster, Antec, Thermaltake, Corsair, Silverstone, etc for not much more, it's a good insurance policy.

Yeah, I know. Lol. Being thrifty when it comes to power is a really bad idea, as a faulty PSU could screw everything up. But money's really tight. I saw a Coolermaster 500W for $40, which is probably the one I'll go with.

 

[TheAppleFreak]

Yeah, I know. Lol. Being thrifty when it comes to power is a really bad idea, as a faulty PSU could screw everything up. But money's really tight. I saw a Coolermaster 500W for $40, which is probably the one I'll go with.

My machine has an Antec Earthwatts 750W, which I got for either $80 or $90. If you're willing to pay that much, then I recommend it. The only issue that I have is if your case has the PSU at the bottom and not the top, the PSU fan makes a weird clanking noise, which is easily resolved by propping it up with something (in my case, my Intel i7 licensing information and instruction manual which is useless).

 

[Archer]

Yeah, I know. Lol. Being thrifty when it comes to power is a really bad idea, as a faulty PSU could screw everything up. But money's really tight. I saw a Coolermaster 500W for $40, which is probably the one I'll go with.

Run it by us first. The ones that Coolermaster ship in their cases are meh, but the Extreme Power and Silent Whatever range are fine. Bit of perspective, I had a cheap 550W in my current machine and I blew it after pushing it way too hard (overclocked CPU and Graphics card, playing a game). I mean, a good 500W will be fine, but not a generic, because they tend to exaggerate the wattage.

My machine has an Antec Earthwatts 750W, which I got for either $80 or $90. If you're willing to pay that much, then I recommend it. The only issue that I have is if your case has the PSU at the bottom and not the top, the PSU fan makes a weird clanking noise, which is easily resolved by propping it up with something (in my case, my Intel i7 licensing information and instruction manual which is useless).

Here's my current PSU. A Corsair HX-650W Modular. I didn't want to be cheap, so I think I went overboard. $150AU later, lol.

 

[Happy Azumarill]

Computer specs? As in: board, CPU, ram.

So it's starting to load Windows and then crash? That means that capacity isn't an issue or it wouldn't turn on.

You've got a few possibilities:

a. The new stick/DIMM or ram is faulty.
b. It's running out of spec.

We really need the specs to see what we're working with.

Cheers.

Asus MotherBoard don't now model
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2ghz
Nvidia 7600 GS 1GB
160GB HDD
1TB HDD
LG Multi DVD+RW

Though it dosen't matter i bought a Dell Alien Ware Laptop so yeh.

 

[Purple Materia]

So I stole my brother's Gamecom. I've been aching to try it out, to see how well it holds up against my Carcharias.

So far, the sound quality isn't extraordinary. It's comfortable, and the mic is pretty good.

 

[Buoysel]

I feel like a dummy. I encrypted some files but failed to back up my encryption key. >.> good thing I only encrypted a few files and not my whole back up hard drive. haha

 

[TheAppleFreak]

Ugh... Hackintoshing is annoying. I finally got my copy of Snow to boot on my computer, and then I install the wrong network driver, which crashes it before I can do anything. It doesn't help that I can't get hardware acceleration in OS X (hell, it barely recognizes my GPU), or networking, or anything of the sort. At least Windows works, and well for that matter.

 

[Captain Fabio]

I just want to say to those Mac users, I LOVE TIME MACHNE! XD
It is the best backing up software I have ever used :3

 

[Silver]

I just want to say to those Mac users, I LOVE TIME MACHNE! XD
It is the best backing up software I have ever used :3

I agree, it's amazing. I've had two hard drives fail (different machines) within the last year or so, and it's very nice to just backup right from a few hours - few days ago.

 

[Gerri Shin]

Time machine is great, but nothing can beat a set of bootable backups of the system drive and user folder. Being able to be up and running on a new drive in a matter of an hour with minimal loss is something that cannot be beat. Time machine helps recover what was lost from the time between restore back ups.

I create and keep monthly bootable backups of my system drive. That way it'll only take me about 45 minutes to get back up and running on a new drive. Time machine is on an internal disc for my mac pro so it basically just keeps backups of my user folder ready to restore files after a secondary drive replacement.

 

[Silver]

Time machine is great, but nothing can beat a set of bootable backups of the system drive and user folder. Being able to be up and running on a new drive in a matter of an hour with minimal loss is something that cannot be beat. Time machine helps recover what was lost from the time between restore back ups.

I create and keep monthly bootable backups of my system drive. That way it'll only take me about 45 minutes to get back up and running on a new drive. Time machine is on an internal disc for my mac pro so it basically just keeps backups of my user folder ready to restore files after a secondary drive replacement.

Didn't I read somewhere that you had setup a RAID system, or were planning too?

 

[Zet]

I agree, it's amazing. I've had two hard drives fail (different machines) within the last year or so, and it's very nice to just backup right from a few hours - few days ago.

Man, I really hope you complained enough to get given a full refund from that kind of failure.

 

[Gerri Shin]

Didn't I read somewhere that you had setup a RAID system, or were planning too?

Yeah I had (2) 1TB drives raided into a RAID 1 set, but one of them failed so I had to remove the RAID set to keep from corrupting the second drive. Currently awaiting a new drive to replace the bad one, but RAID isn't really meant for back up purposes, just redundancy so there's less downtime. Even after the one drive had to be removed I still haven't had any downtime where the files were inaccessible.
(I've got 2 more drives coming so I can have a clone of one of the RAID drives and keep it offsite, with the exception of the monthly updates, that way I really have a good back up solution)

 

[Captain Fabio]

Time machine is great, but nothing can beat a set of bootable backups of the system drive and user folder. Being able to be up and running on a new drive in a matter of an hour with minimal loss is something that cannot be beat. Time machine helps recover what was lost from the time between restore back ups.

I create and keep monthly bootable backups of my system drive. That way it'll only take me about 45 minutes to get back up and running on a new drive. Time machine is on an internal disc for my mac pro so it basically just keeps backups of my user folder ready to restore files after a secondary drive replacement.

That is true, that is a good idea.
But for me, I just prefer Time Machine, maybe because I am lazy as it does it for me! XD

The downside is it does take a while to do. Mine took just over 2 hours for just under 150GB worth of stuff.​

​

 

[Silver]

Man, I really hope you complained enough to get given a full refund from that kind of failure.

They weren't worth complaining about. One was in a fairly old computer so I wasn't too upset when it failed. The second was a few weeks ago when my MacBook's HDD suffered infantile failure so that was nbd, they just popped a new HD in and I was on my way.

 

[Spinor]

Agh, crap, I don't have another disk big enough to back up my crap >__> Usually reinstalling W7 and moving everything from the windows.old does the trick anyways for my files.

Quick question for you all. Would it be worth it to learn another keyboard layout? I'm looking at Left Hand Dvorak for quick-tasking and Programmer Dvorak. Supposedly for speed and ease. But of course, this is difficult considering how dominant I already am of Qwerty. I dunno if learning those layouts would pay off.

 

[Purple Materia]

Quick question for you all. Would it be worth it to learn another keyboard layout? I'm looking at Left Hand Dvorak for quick-tasking and Programmer Dvorak. Supposedly for speed and ease. But of course, this is difficult considering how dominant I already am of Qwerty. I dunno if learning those layouts would pay off.

Eh, I don't see how learning another keyboard layout would be beneficial at all.

 

[Spinor]

Well, if I put my mind to learning the layouts my life may become 1% easier... which may or may not be efficient but oh well.

 

[Purple Materia]

Well, if it'll make your life easier, then go for it I guess.

 

[Silver]

All the articles and first hand experiences I've heard from people say stay with what you know, theoretically DVORAK could improve your productivity, but from what I understand, unless you learned it first, you first typing 'style' will be the most beneficial.