TK, I feel your pain.

My Intel Mac needed a new MLB and RAM riser. I got it home and the display starting acting up. I thought WTF? Did they not put the graphics card back in right after replacing the MLB (to get at the logic board, you have to remove the graphics card first)?? I checked the connections - rock solid. Disconnected my third-party peripherals. The problem was intermittent, and I couldn't be sure what was triggering the white flash and pixellation of the display. But the Windows side kept telling me the NVIDIA driver stopped responding, so I felt it had to be the graphics card.

Then yesterday it failed to boot up. Again. Ran the hardware test - no useful information. Took it baaaack to the Apple guys. Now we're thinking the graphics card is the original source of the problem and is messing up the MLB and eventually the RAM risers. So they're going to order a new card and test that first. We'll see.

In the meantime I"ve appropriated my mom's MacBook for school and forum browsing, as my own MacBook Pro is starting to get hinky as well. It's out of warranty, and to replace the logic board/graphics card in it would cost almost as much as a new MBP! So I'm just nursing it along, firing it up only to retrieve a bit of data here and there. Eventually I hope to have the whole drive cloned to an external drive, then it won't matter anymore when the thing finally dies.

Okay, good news and bad news.

Good news is, the PSU was definitely fried. After exchanging the power supply for a backup, I was able to turn the computer on again.

Bad news: Unfortunately, the computer is failing POST (Power-On Self Test), which means that the PSU's death may have damaged my system's hardware. And this is where it gets really angering, because the idiots who built it for us did not bother to place beep codes onto the MoBo, that means I have no way of knowing exactly where the POST test is failing.

I may be forced to send this one to the shop, and that does not make me happy at all. However, since I at least have power now, that did allow me to dunk into my DVD drive and retrieve my Oblivion game disc (which was trapped inside when the old PSU died).

Somewhere around here, I have a PCI POST card- can't remember what I paid for it (over 10 years ago probably). But it is a handy device...

Other thing- pull any peripheral cards you do not use- as well as all but one stick of RAM...

See if it POSTs

Okay, I finally found a way to get picture (PC was actually POSTing), and this has led to a number of revalations:

1. One of my PCI-E slots has been fried. Upon switching to the second video card in a different PCI-E slot, I was able to get picture back. Tested the other card in there, as well, and it worked okay.

2. My system is not able to boot from ANYWHERE. It demonstrates very erratic behavior when I try to boot from the Hard Drives, from simply freezing, to restarting, but always failing to boot. Furthermore, attempts to boot from a Windows disc fared no better, with the computer simply freezing as it tried to load all the files off the disc.

This means the probability of Motherboard failure at this point is quite high. To be absolutely certain, I am going to be sending the PC in for a shop test, but the question is no longer IF the PSU's failure caused any damage, but what.

EDIT: Final test, I tried a Ubuntu Linux disc, and that failed, as well.

Because of that, it's time to make this official: MY RIG IS DEAD.

I no longer have any choice in the matter. I must begin shopping for a new PC.

TK: Consider, instead of buying a new rig, how about building a new rig?

I'm not going to buy a whole new PC, I'm going to salvage what I can from the old one and upgrade a few outdated parts in the process (namely the CPU and OS).

It's my stepdad who's pushing to buy a new prebuilt, but as it is my computer, and therefore my decision, I am going to say no.

I will not ever purchase a system from someone who forces me to have Norton stuffed into my Hard Drive... ever.

Salvaging your drives and video cards is a good idea. Some mom & pop stores and internet sites will sell barebones PCs with just case, power supply, mobo & cpu all put together. You could buy one of those for a couple hundred, and then put all of your old stuff into it. Or just do it yourself of course. Sometimes its just not worth the hassle though, especially if the motherboad manufacturer does not include a decent manual explaining where/what all the jumper settings and connection points are. I had one like that, where I literally had to figure it all out through trial and error. Not fun.

Eh, I feel ya TK. My dad eventually forced me to get a whole new rig after years of dutifully maintaining a loyal Dell desktop that I nursed through Windows 2000 and XP. By the end of it, I think that only the original motherboard, CPU, and case remained. I went through a new sound card, new graphics card, and two hard drives before I realized I had to upgrade.

Of course, I then found out that my new machine was a Vista, purchased as a gift/replacement and thus unable to be unloaded/given away/sold for spare cash. Since then, I've only ever built or custom-ordered machines so I know what I'm getting. Worse, it was a laptop. It's dead now. And not worthy of Sovngarde.

Well whenever I get back from a vacation it seems I always have computer problems. This year is going to maintain the trend.

My computer will start to boot for about 3-5 seconds, then shuts itself off. Then repeats the process until power is manually turned off.

KC, I'm so sorry to hear about your puter. I know it is a huge deal since that is where Aravi lives. Maybe it just misses you when you are gone and gets cranky? Have you tried offering the puter a sweet roll? I hope you can get it back to happy little lights and whirrings and puter stuff.

Different power supply appears to have fixed it. Going to have to buy a new one cause I kind of yanked this one from another computer.

Lucky you.

Anyways, I think I've decided on the components. I'll need to replace several components to make up for various incompatibilities, but I should be able to maintain a decent budget for this.

MoBo: MSI P67A - GD65 -- ATX Form Factor, Intel P67 NB, USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/sec

CPU: Intel Core i5 - 2500K @3.3GHz

RAM: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 SDRAM, 8Gb (4x 2Gb) @1600MHz

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium x64

Purchasing all those components, final cost (including shipping) if I DIY this one will be $603.00. However, that may change, because I'm trying to figure out if it is worth it to purchase the OEM version to save $90.00 off the Retail (I can't repair install off the disc and if this MoBo goes down, I have to buy Windows again).

KC and TK, sorry to hear of your computer problems.

My own Mr. Speedy had to go back to the Apple Hospital again. When I got it back, it was booting up fine, but I was having this intermittent but disabling screen flicker/flash. W7 was giving me messages that the NVIDIA driver had stopped communicating. The driver software was up to date. At first I thought it was loose connections on the video card (NVIDIA GeForce 8800), since in order to replace the logic board you have to remove the video card. Nope, all connections snug and tight. Problem persisted on both display ports, in both systems, though it would run fine for several hours then start up again. Finally a week later it failed to boot up again. Ugh. So back we went.

This time I told them of the video issues, and that I felt the graphics card was the original source of the problem and fried the logic board. They replaced the video card, ran the computer through some pretty rough testing (including rebooting every five minutes for several hours) and verified that the problem resolved before calling me back on Monday. I've had it up and running since Monday afternoon and no problems so far. Finally!

So after I finish my two finals this week (today and tomorrow) I plan to rescue the data off my failing laptop (out of warranty, at least $2K to fix - get a new one for that!) so I can keep writing and having fun with TES IV. I have a week off after finals before the next session starts July 4.

Hopefully that will end this rash of computer problems and everyone can get back to writing and playing and living!

Slight change of plans for me, I've decided to switch from four 2Gb sticks of RAM to two 4Gb sticks clocked to 1333MHz (which is more agreeable with the CPU I've decided on). This will leave two RAM slots open for upgrades should they become necessary, but most of all, doing this will shave $15.00 off the price tag for all the parts.

All that's left to do now is actually order the parts, but I've decided that can wait until my Stepdad finishes his annual inspection of his Cessna (yearly checkup on airworthiness).

So, that means I'll likely have the parts shipped this weekend.

In the meantime, I've taken to disassembling my computer to get ready for the rebuild, The only components left in the case are the MoBo and CPU, now.

While I'm at it, I would also like to take this time to reformat my hard drives to get rid of any junk that may be there, so that means I can likely look forward to a data retrieval session this weekend, as well. I'm probably going to need to do this anyway, since I'm not buying an upgrade package of Windows 7, so might as well get it out of the way.

That is excellent news! And- I am caught up on OHDH- now I just need to get my notes and highlights into Word. Maybe I can just download the Clippings file from the Kindle to the PC...? Hmmm

I think the video card overheating is what fried my previous rig- the one that COULD handle Oblivion. One day I will get a PCI-E card for the refurbished machine... When actual bills for things like food and whatnot become more manageable. Danged responsibilities....

My new PC parts have arrived.

WooHoo! How exciting. Is the new (rebuilt) puter going to have blue lights? I think that makes it fast. Although, I've heard that if it has red lights it is even faster. Does it have fans and lot of gigastickjuice and stuff? It sounds like it. And Seven seems good; my puter likes it.

Oh, and are you going to have to reinstall Oblivion, or do you know a spell so you don't have to do that?

Well, let's see... my power LED is blue, which will match the blue-black-silver color scheme of the main board (which means my CPU heatsink will match, too). I do not think I have any red lights, but since they would clash with my current color scheme, they would do more harm than good.

Salvaged parts include my case, my GPUs, my hard drives, and my sound card. Everything else needed to be upgraded/replaced/removed due to incompatibilites.

It has 8Gb of Gigastickjuice, coming from two 4Gb GigaSticks of DDR3 set up for Dual Channel config.

I have four fans, one for the case, one for the CPU, and two for the GPUs (one each). That is actually one less than my previous build (bye bye Northbridge fan). I'm surprised my 'puter hasn't tried to go airborne so far.

I will need to reinstall Oblivion (the OS upgrade will necessitate a hard drive wipeout), BUT my patented Clone Disc spell will ensure that none of my mods or savegames will be lost. All I need to do is reinstall Oblivion as it is on the disc, then I can just plug in my other hard drive, copy the contents of my Oblivion and My Games folders over, delete the Oblivion.INI (more likely than not it will need reconfiguring), and voila! One revitalized install!

As an added benefit, I can also cast a special spell on the Oblivion.EXE that will allow it to use more RAM than before, because since I am using a 64bit OS now, I can do that. It's called Large Address Awareness, and it allows for 32bit programs to make use of up to 4Gb of RAM (as opposed to 2Gb) if the program is being run on 64bit architecture.

I did a lot of planning for this build. The CPU is much more powerful than before, I have now completely ditched IEDE and those gigantic ribbon cables, gone up to DDR3 RAM, and I now also have a grand total of four USB 3.0 slots available (as well as ten USB 2.0, two eSATA, two IEEE 1394, one LAN, and an onboard sound chipset that will likely never be used due to me owning a dedicated sound card).

I know a lot more about computer hardware now as a result of this build. All in preparation for a future career, most likely.

Here's a glance inside the box. As you can see, I have taken anti-static precautions (PC rests on a rubber mat, the floor is tile, and the grounding bracelet is in view). VERY IMPORTANT that you do that. One static discharge is enough to fry a PC component. Don't risk it, do not assemble on carpet.

And finally, the new specs:

MoBo: MSI P67A-GD65
>Intel P67 Northbridge
>SLI Ready
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3GHz
>Quad Core
Memory: 8Gb DDR3 @ 1333MHz (2X 4Gb)
>Dual Channel
GPU: nVidia GeForce 8800GT
>512Mb GDDR3 VRAM
>2 Way SLI
PSU: 700Watt
Audio: Creative SB X-Fi Titanium

I am back in line with modern tech now!

I just checked out some of the components you bought and you got and I'm pissed! A few months ago when I did my overhaul I got 2 2gig sticks of RAM for like $140! I might just order that RAM here. If so, then I'll need an OS upgrade as well (running 32 bit right now).

Your CPU determines if you can go 64bit. I believe every Sandy Bridge model processor is 64bit ready, so you shouldn't have a problem there.

I purchased this RAM package, in case you are wondering. Why? It was tested by MSI on my MoBo, for one. Second, I get 8Gb for 85 bucks (nyah nyah ) from a reputable manufacturer, and thirdly, you get that super-cool shark tooth heat dispersal unit.

TK, it sounds fabulous! I agree you can't (nor should you) abide clashing colors. I'm so glad you have a way to easily get Oblivion going again on it. It all sounds beautiful. Well, maybe not the picture with the poor thing's guts all hanging out and stuff. Congrats!

SHE LIVES!!!!

First boot was a success, Windows 7 has been installed, and the device drivers for my main board are now installed, as well.

Unfortunately, I have hit a brick wall here. To proceed any further, I need to connect my computer to the internet, and my previous wireless adapter will not work with Win7. I have a new one on the way, but it is shipping via USPS so I'm not sure when it will get here.

Oh, and Acadian, you and Buffy will also be pleased to hear that there are even more pretty blue LEDs mounted on the board, as well.

YEAH!

..Oh that sucks. Get a long line of cable and do it that way lol.

Seriously I'd consider this, waaay less packet loss, faster, vastly more secure and less faffing around with poorly made wireless stuff. Just grab 30m of cat6 cable off ebay for a few quid (or more appropriatly bucks) and some cable pins and run it from router to computer.

Good to hear she lives. Colours sound rather more tasteful then my frankenstein of a machine too. Beige media drives in a (squashed and repaired) black box anyone?

What are you going to win7 from? I'd be interested to hear what you think of it as vista is rubbish and I've been thinking of upgrading (or getting another drive and dual-booting something else which works).

How can you do that? I have Oblivion running on 64-bit Win7. Any way to optimize the improved architecture would be great. Please share (or PM me if you prefer).

And don't wear anything polyester! Blue jeans and cotton T-shirts (without the caked-on designs that crackle in the wash) are de rigeur when repairing computers. Leave the Victoria's Secret stuff at home. And always ground yourself first before working with the delicate innards. Not much difference from veterinary surgery, if you ask me.

Olen, I'd say get Win7. Don't waste any more time. It comes in both 32 and 64-bit architecture, so it should run fine with your machine (as long as the CPU and memory are up to par). I've never personally used Vista, but have had friends who do. Only those who got Vista preinstalled on new boxes have been happy - those with older machines have been extremely unhappy with its memory hogginess and instability. I myself consider it a very poor imitator of Mac OS X. However, I've been quite happy with Win 7 on my machine. Except for a few minor details, it runs nearly as flawlessly as OS X on my Mac partition, and that's saying a LOT. But for $200, I consider it less a bargain than Mac OS X ($29 for the new upcoming Lion update).

I skipped Vista, and went straight to 7 from XP.

Also, rider, you can purchase a single-license OEM edition of Windows for only $100.00 if you need to maintain a budget. You will need to re-purchase Windows if you buy a new computer or your old one fails, but if you're on a tight budget, it's a great way to save money.

Anyways, yesterday's activities included:

- Assembling the rig
- Performing the first boot
- Installing Windows
- Installing main board drivers

One look at the RAM Windows is seeing (8Gb) is enough to tell me I am indeed running the 64bit version, and considering Windows was fully installed in a timeframe of roughly 15 minutes, I think that speaks a lot for my choice of CPU.

Today's activities will include:

- Installing and configuring AVG Antivirus
- Getting the computer networked (wireless or not)
- Installing Firefox
- Downloading and installing GPU drivers
- Downloading and installing SFX drivers
- Downloading and installing Creative ALchemy (due to Win7 no longer supporting hardware-accelerated audio)

I was looking at the OEM version, but decided against it due to the age of my desktop. In hindsight, it was just as well, as I needed a new logic board within a month. As I understand it, a new logic board is just like a 'hole 'nutha 'puter, and I would have had to buy another OEM Win7 anyway, so it worked out.

At long last, my disc clone backup is finally complete.

No more worrying about having to start over if things go south, now.

And that means I am now officially off on a clean slate on this machine. Every last trace of my Windows XP build is now gone.

I installed some new memory (the same stuff TK got actually at $70) and am now on 64 bit Win 7. I'm finishing up with installing software and making sure everything is up to date.

OK, this isnt a computer problem. Its a PS3 problem. Still, I hope someone can help!

Ever since Ive had it the fans been extremely noisy. Is there any way to help, or if not, how much would a repair be?

A possible easy fix is to simply get the unit raised up on something that allows better air flow to the base (which is where the intakes are located).

Something like a wire baking rack would be ideal. Improved air flow should mean the fans do not have to work as hard.

ETA- Reminds me of working at the university and having to warn students about not using their laptop PCs on the bed- at least not for long periods of time. Blankets block air flow = overheating.

Of course- college students getting overheated in bed is a different sort of issue- but we did not deal with that.

Does the loud sound persist? My Xbox sounds like a freaking jet barreling down the runway when I turn it on, but after a few minutes it quiets down a lot.

That's a job for the health department.

Yes. It definately persists. It starts off silent, but after a minute it gets a bit louder. then louder still. After 5 minutes its at jet engine stage. Also, it happens faster when playing a game (that might be my imagination). Ive heard that it could be the "Themal paste" whatever that is.

No, Im not a tech pro at all.

Thermal paste is the magic compound that allows for ideal heat transfer between a hardware component and a heat sink (for which the fans are providing airflow for). If it was applied incorrectly or insufficiently, then the transfer of heat between hardware components and the heat sink (which diffuses the heat and keeps your hardware cool) may not be ideal, and as such the fans are going to be working overtime to try and make up for it. Bad quality paste, or paste that has worn out, can also be to blame.

Trey, I'm afraid the "elevated with nothing beneath" idea didnt help much. It just made it take longer to overheat.

I guess this means a call to sony for a repair job then...

How many other PS3s have you come across. All the ones I have have been pretty loud, might be nothing wrong with it. Or it could be dust (depending on how much you hoover), that certainly lowers heatsinks' ability to do their job.

As for repair, all I can imagine they'd do is clean it and maybe replace the fans or thermal paste if one or other is known to go. You could try an external cooling unit if such things exist for PS3s, no idea what they do to the warrenty though.

Oh boy. Tomorrow I'll be using my "mini sucker" to hoover up all the dust inside it. :/

Also, one of my mates has the same model and its whispering quiet.

Also also, I think I did see an external fan for sale in argos. There go my skyrim savings so I guess its Back to Part time jobbing

This is the stupidest idea I've ever thought of, but it just might work.

What if I were to put an everyday offic fan behind my PS3? Would that help at all?

I doubt it. The fans used in electronics are to draw hot air out; that means they have to channel that heat and pull it out through the vents. My XBox has one of those external fan thingies on it - it sits right on the external vents at the back and literally suck the heat out of the box. Makes it good for about an hour longer before the thing overheats.

All I can see the office fan doing is waft air around the PS3; it won't directly affect air flow through the machine. Sorry.

So in the spirit of

Quis custodiet custodes? (Spelling?)

Went into work Monday and my computer would not boot. Since I am the tech- thus the question above. Or to put it another way- "Who fixes the computer tech's busted computer?"

Now I could have simply done a re-image- I have the disks for that. But I also have files I would rather not lose--- and- true to form, my last backup was several months ago... Hey- I just GIVE the advice- I don't listen to it.

Anyway- the hard drive tested fine- so I got a handy dandy hard drive to USB adapter today and am currently saving off all my files. (The work computer is a laptop- otherwise I would have simply pulled the drive and put into another machine as a secondary.)

And of course- I now have a backup- which I will probably not update until the computer croaks again...

C4.

Actually, that's a semi serious response. If its a laptop, hardware problems usually mean time for a new one.

Believe me- I would be THRILLED to get a replacement. I already put a new mainboard in this thing last year.

But- it is a government agency computer- AND my users are limping along with 7-year-old PCS... so, prospects for replacement are dim.

In the last 4-5 times I've gotten on the game, one or more of my saves seems to be corrupted - lights flashing around (exactly like Fallout 3 did in places when it first came out). I've deleted that save, but it is wittling down my number of back-up saves lately since it is happening with more frequency. What would cause this suddenly? It never happened before in Oblivion.

My old nVidia card finally kicked the bucket almost a year ago, and I ended up replacing it with a Radeon 5670 with 1GB of onboard memory.

When I got FO3 up and running again, at full 1280x1024 resolution as opposed to 800x600, all textures maxed out... well, that was the first of many eyegasms, lemme tell ya!

Cue jealousy on my part! I've only got a home laptop and a work laptop (which is a) something I would rather not install games on even if there's nobody stopping me and a Mac) and the home laptop does not... do graphics very well.

In fact, I seem to have overheating problems myself - the fan *really* works overtime, and also the computer crashes if I do anything too CPU-strenuous. Like try to play Dragon Age (*sob*). I assume it's because of overheating because I can hear the fan working very hard, and also there's no error message, the computer just turns itself off, and it happens both under Ubuntu and Vista (I have a dual-boot). Keep meaning to call in the warranty that still lasts another two months to have a look at that. But even without there's massive lag for graphics-intensive things - I've been tempted to get a proper computer that can at least handle modded-up Morrowind, but the laptop isn't even three years old yet and I am not made of money.

...although actually the main thing that's been annoying me lately is that for no explicable reason my Mac's decided to switch my keyboard language to German whenever I open Word. I learned to type on a US keyboard, but I keep an alternate German one when I want to type something in German and need the �, �, � and �. The problem is that when it switches without telling me it means that I start typing and the next line looks like: zou see, there�s actuallz manz differences between the two� the z and y are verz obvious, but none of the punctuation is where zou�d expect either )with one or two exceptions=. Can zou guess how annozing this can get if zou�re used to touch�tzping and don�t realiye what�s happened for a while_

*thwaps it*

Kazaera, if your Mac is an Intel Mac Pro, you can run Windows & Morrowind and yes, 'Blivion on it. That's what I've done with my Mac. I have a second internal hard drive installed with Win7 and 'Blivion on it. I boot up into Win7 whenever I want to do my schoolwork or play TES. Since I did this in April, it's been running great, and 'Blivion looks great with my nVIDIA 8600 graphics card.

As for the keyboard issue, it sounds like your System Preferences got a little twisted around. I'm assuming you're running Snow Leopard? Go into your System Preferences and select Language & Text. On the first tab, Language, make sure English is at the top. If Deutsch is at the top, that may be why your keyboard keeps switching into German on you. Also, look at your modifier keys. If you're touch-typing, it's easy to hit control or option instead of shift, and command instead of the period or x. Believe me, I do that all the time. It's possible that you are hitting one of the modifier keys at the bottom of the keyboard at the same time you're hitting another key, and that's causing the keyboard to switch to German if you have it set to switch on a certain combination of keys. Clear as mud? PM me if you need more help - I'll try to help you out with that as much as I can. As for the laptop overheating issue, better call to have that looked at before the warranty runs out. If your laptop is anything like the MacBook Pros, you'll need to have the motherboard swapped out, and that can easily cost as much as a new laptop. That's the reason I've pretty much stopped using my MacBook Pro. I'm saving up for one of the new MacBook Airs, but it'll be a few years!

I also am having some laptop heating issues. It's all the rage nowadays it seem.s

The fan sounds relatively fine to me at the moment, but what tipped me off was my audio crackling after a while. I ran some tests and found out i'm running an internal temperature of around 50 degrees, sometimes kicking up to 60. Which is obviously not good.

So i'm off to try and find some compressed air to blast any dust in the fan with, but my question is could I just blast the fan through the outlet, to dislodge any dust, so it'd be extracted next time the fan starts running. Or should I open the laptop up and void the warranty to get at the fan a bit better?

In order to thoroughly clear out any dust within your laptop, you'd have to open it up. Sorry.

Thanks! And my Mac's a MacBook, so I don't know if that will work? *knows sooo little about computers* Also, although nobody cares if we have non-work stuff on our work computers (officemate of mine has WoW on hers, the general attitude is "they're PhD students, they can structure their time themselves) I sort of want to try not to get used to doing too much non-work stuff on it... although I suppose that's more or less hopeless by now anyway. >> It's worth a shot, because it's very hard to play stuff on my home laptop - because of the crashing issue and the graphics issue and the space issue (when I set up the dual-boot I allocated most of the hard drive space to Ubuntu, which means I have... some space problems playing games under Windows.)

Re: keyboard, I found something under System Preferences (System Preferences > International > Language) that had language preferences set, but that actually had English on top and German too far down. I also can't see how it could be the shortcut because it's every time I switch to Word (which I do by mouse, generally!) and literally /only/ when I switch to Word. I keep looking to see if Word has some weird default-language option but I can't find anything. I guess I could just install OpenOffice (would be useful anyway because I use it on my home comp and Word can't do .odt files last I checked) and see if that helps. Or someone's suggested just getting rid of the German keyboard because there are handy shortcuts for umlauts and esszett with Mac, but that's a bit frustrating and I'm worried that because I've also got a Chinese keyboard installed (I did Mandarin last year and wanted to be able to type up vocabulary) it'll then start switching to *that* instead.