Power supply arrived. Will install after work tonight.

Power supply installation successful. The system seems to be running fine. Will try to do a normal gaming session tomorrow to make sure everything is working the way it should.

I'm ready the build a new PC, if the GPU prices and availability ever gets smoothed out.

<sighs> I empathize with anyone contemplating a high-end GPU acquisition in current market realities.

Turned on my pc this morning with intentions on giving it a real work out, but I couldn’t make up my mind what I wanted to play!

Settled on BATTLETECH but only had time to run one mission. Everything went fine though. No random shut down. Hopefully it will continue to behave.

Swapped monitors between my two active PCs today, to see if the IPS Viewsonic has better color/contract than my primary PC's TN Viewsonic. Results were mixed. The IPS is better overall, with Nvidia color control settings at 'default'. The TN, again set to defaults, is far too bright. Whites are significantly crushed. Blacks, on the other hand, are pretty spot-on. The IPS crushed whites too, but not nearly as much as the TN. It's blacks are fairly on par with the TN. Thing is, at default settings, the IPS is lackluster. The TN 'pops'. But those whites are too much. My eyes tend to get sore after a while unless I monkey with the control panel. Problem there is that taming whites has thus far resulted in oversaturate black,s so that the overall image is too dark.

What actually decided me to stick with the TN its 144hz refresh rate. The TN sports 60hz. I figured that the sort of games I play (and don't play) might render higher refresh rates irrelevant. Nope. Fired up TS2021. Panning the countryside from within a locomotive cab of a moving train is vastly smoother at 144hz. Much more so than anticipated. Even scrolling web pages is appreciably smoother. I can't see myself going back to 60hz.

So I'll once again monkey around with the TN in hope of hitting on an acceptable compromise between good color/contrast and over-bright whites.

Here's the calibration site I use to test monitors for accuracy:

(link) LCD monitor test images (link)

The important calibration screens for me are:
....Black Level
....White Saturation
....Contrast

Gradient (banding) is useful to evaluate a monitor, but I've not needed it during adjustments. (Neither of my current monitors show banding worth bothering about. My Viewsonic's image is better than the test page "What it should look like" image.)

Gamma Calibration: Neither of my two monitors come anywhere close to recommended settings. Nor can I adjust them to be correct. My original digital monitor, a Viewsonic 19" 1280x1024 standard ratio TN, was best at it, only a little off on two of the three calibration bars, spot-on on the third. Great monitor for everything but gaming, where its ultra slow response times caused noticeable screen tearing and ghosting. (It was also power hungry, and made a satisfactory space-heater. Heat eventually did it in.) Its replacement, a 24" 1920x1080 Samsung TN, couldn't match the old Viewsonic, but had noticeably better Gamma than my current monitors, both of which show readings very near the top of the calibration bars. (It also had better colors out of the box and caused no eyestrain.)

With its latest update, Firefox' 'New Tab' window now conforms to the rest of Firefox when 'dark theme' is selected. That tab's background is now darkish gray rather than eye-frying white. About time! I was going to post a capture of that tab, but some link-icons kept permanently pinned there are best seen by my eyes only. For security reasons, not naughtiness.

Had a comprehensive eye exam yesterday. First since 2019. (I skipped 2020 due to the pandemic.) Looks like some/all issues I currently have with my left eye when at the computer might well be due to changes in that eye rather my monitor. I'm ordering a special computer-distance glasses through the place that examined me. Those glasses are, according to that establishment, fully covered by my current insurance. (I did, btw, voluntarily pay extra for use of a fancy examination machine that is more sophisticated than eye dilation.) I'm a bit skeptical about that, but we shall see when the glasses arrive, I reckon. I'm ordering a new 'regular' pair of bifocal glasses free-of-charge through the government, that being one of my military retiree benefits. They are ultra basic and nothing to look at, but I care nothing for that.

Here's my primary PC's motherboard. It's been a good board these four years. What ultimately decided me on it is that it has Sound Blaster audio built in. The high quality Sound Blaster card in my secondary computer is PCI bus, as opposed to PCIe, so couldn't be transferred. The card is a bit more sophisticated than the Aorus motherboard sound chipset, but with my hearing what it is that's no big deal.

It's of course obsolete nowadays.

But you get the sharpest graphics and smoothest gameplay .

You also get that by playing games that are donkey's years old

Can't for the life of me find some ancient midi files I created decades ago. I ought to have transferred them with each new computer build. But no, they're not on any of my primary or secondary PC drives. They won't be on my ancient third PC, coz those drives got pruned of almost everything non-essential. Nor can I find the files among my many backup CDs.

However, I spotted what might be them buried in my rows of backup floppy disks. Problem there is, my last PC to house floppy drives was donated to GoodWill years ago.

Cut to the chase. I've ordered a USB external floppy drive off Amazon. Dirt cheap, so if it proves to be a potato I'm not out enough to care.

In other PC related news, I ordered a 55" long PC desk off NewEgg. It was heavily discounted. I paid roughly $39US plus tax. It's a very simple desk, as you might expect for the price. Still, it'll serve me well as a desk for the secondary PC. At the moment its monitor rests atop a bar stool. Its mouse rests on a narrow night stand. Its keyboard sits atop a folding TV tray.

The desk arrived day before yesterday. I've been too lazy to assemble it. That's not likely to change any time soon. Or will it?

A usb floppy drive. Wow. That exists.

My main puter is acting up. It keeps "forgetting" what year and time it is, much like my Millennium does. At least I have everything backed up with all the to-day latest savegames and pics and if need be I can go to my backup one. Don't want to of course, but at least I won't be stranded.

I also have another issue that's been going on a bit longer hwere I need to pick one of two choices at startup. Something I've never needed to do before. It says something about a USB and I can choose to go to settings or use the default. I choose default and then it starts up normally, although now I also have that date/time issue. And to think, this puter is only 12 years old

For the date/time issue check the motherboard for a coin cell battery. Twelve years old, the Real-Time-Clock (RTC) or CMOS battery probably needs to be replaced.
I have had to to this at least once over the years.
Not sure but the two issues may be related.

Thanks, macole! I'll check it with my local computer tech


Edit: Just talked to him on the copper landline phone thing and he said the same thing so I'm rolling with it!

hopefully a relatively cheap fix.

Aye, sounds like a dying PC battery for sure. And yup, it's a cheap and simple fix. (Well, I assume yours will be simple to replace. They almost always are.)

Well, the battery does seem to have been the issue. I even replaced it in my Millennium and it now keeps time and date again, something it hasn't been able to do for many a year


--------------------------

Since Firefox doesn't work with my bank anymore I'm now using Chrome for that.

Since Firefox 'updated' to v89, its New Tab page search bar has been worthless. Soon as I begin typing in it, I'm automatically transferred to the Address Search Bar. If I want to search via that bar, I'll do so, thank you. Thankfully, an easy solution has been found, via Firefox' own 'about:config' function. Here's a detailed explanation:

(link) [Fix] Restore Real Working Search Box on New Tab Page in Firefox 89 and Later (link)

Yikes!
My primary PC is, according to Microsoft, unable to run Windows 11. Meaning it will be obsolete when they discontinue support for Win10 during 2025. Not good!

The compatibility utility I ran shows the culprit to likely be my Intel i7 7700k. Looks like it's one generation too old. The 8000 series is compatible, but not the 7000 series.

Best case (cheapest) scenario for me is to replace motherboard, CPU and memory. Sort of a drag, as what I'd really 'like' to replace is the GPU...if that was economically possible to do so, which it isn't.

Also, Windows 11 has made Microsoft Account a requirement. Who didn't see that coming???


In some sense this is much ado about little or nothing. By 2025 I'm likely going to be ready to build a new primary PC, if I've not already done so. But then ya never know. Even assuming I remain able to assemble a PC in 2025, I won't be able to use my current primary PC as a secondary PC. That'll be a first. I can of course convert it to a Linux machine, but it's sort of overkill for that: 32GB of ram, two M2NVME drives, SoundBlaster chip built into the motherboard, and so on.

*looks at Windows 7*


Yes. Totally not good. How ever will we manage?

Color me confused.

Watched an informative YT video on Win11 'secure boot' and 'TPM2.0' requirements. Learned that Win10 has an easy means to check TPM status. All you need to do is type 'tpm.msc' into Windows Search Bar. I did so. To my surprise, it tells me that yes, my PC has TPM2.0! Don't know why I can't find a settling for it in my BIOS. Well, other than a setting that says I don't have it. But...I now realize the setting in question tells me I don't have a TPM MODULE plugged into its TPM motherboard socket, not that I don't have TPM by some other means.

And of course TPM is, for the moment, beside the point as MS insists on excluding Intel 7xxx series CPUs from upgrading to Win11.

I am no PC guru….nor yet even one of the worshiping acolytes…..but it seems to me M$ are moving toward an Apple business support model. You know….the bit where you must have constant updates or the device slows down due to their chicanery and sabotaging packaged into ‘essential updates’ which can’t be prevented.

For this to gradually cripple your machine AND provide the means to uncripple it at a cost….the OS must be internet dependent.

Windows 11 is a great stride forward….for M$ that is. How long before, like their office package, the OS itself becomes a subscription service. Don’t pay your monthly sub?…the PC won’t fire up!

How close we are right now to that dystopia.…I don’t know….but it’s the path they are on.

Just a (chilling) thought

A.

Pushing people like me to Linux. And I have a feeling some enterprising soul out there will come out with a nominally-priced Linux install package for those who do not feel comfortable with DIY OS changes.

I agree, sort of. My auxiliary computer (typing on now) is Windows 8, and my gaming comp 8.1. Never had any problems. Why upgrade if everything runs super-fast and has been for years?

But that's not why I'm here. I am here to ask folks what they prefer for their backup drive? Both my computers are 8 and 7 years old respectively; I've been lucky so far. I never back anything up, which I know is stupid. But that's why I'm here.

I have a 5TB external conventional hard drive, connected to my PC via USB as needed. Putting anything on that drive is ultra s.l.o.w. compared to SSD. But I can't afford SSDs of that capacity. I recommend external for backups as those offer better protection should you get attacked by malware, ransomware, and so on. So long as you remember to keep them disconnected when not performing backups.

Like you, I am VERY remiss about backing up my partitions. My current backups are hopelessly out of date. My backup software likely is too.

It depends on how much "stuff" you have, to use the technical term. 1 or 2 Terabyte external USB 3.0 hard drives can be purchased for a relatively modest price. Those are useful if you are backing up large amounts of data (pictures and video come to mind). Advantage- lots of space for a small cost, portable.

If you mostly have such things as documents, genealogy files, saved games- a reasonable size (32 to 128 Gigabyte) USB "flash drive/memory stick" will suffice. Those can be purchased from reputable sellers for less the 20$ U.S. Advantage- super easy to use, cheap, portable

Either one has the advantage of being portable- you can keep your backup somewhere other than where your computer sits.

Another remote storage possibility is using cloud storage, which is offered by quite a few vendors (Amazon for example). If your PC suffers a catastrophe, your backed up files are out there on the vendor's server, ready for you to bring them back. Of course, if the VENDOR suffers a failure (or a hack or ransomware attack).... Or maybe just goes out of business... Advantage- storage is absolutely "off-site"- so if your house burns or floods or is attacked by rampaging yeti and you survive to get a new PC- you can retrieve your files. (As long as you remember how to log in to your cloud storage account).

The more technical option (for which I would recommend an external hard drive) is to pay for some sort of imaging or "mirroring" software, which can create a copy of your entire hard drive, programs, OS, and files included. The downside of most of those is that they are somewhat difficult to use, and not inexpensive.

As for the root of the issue "Support for this OS will be ending- run in circles, scream and shout, wave your arms and race about".... The only "problem" is Microsquash will stop issuing official patches and updates. But- if you exercise reasonable care- such as a good anti-virus program updated regularly- that is not a deal-breaker.

Yeah, I did that with Windows 7 for quite a while. You will be fine without updates so long as you take care in avoiding sites and downloads that might be malware susceptible. The only real stumbling block might be that Microstone will also stop making software that works on the older operating systems / versions of Direct X. For example Direct X 12 only works on Windows 10. So you can only play a DX12 game on Win10. I eventually did upgrade my gaming PC to Windows 10 because of that.

Awesome, thanks Decrepit and Trey! Yeah I need to get an external drive this week. Maybe an excuse to drive those 40 minutes up to Micro Center, if we have time.

I think we're safe from rampaging yetis, but I'll keep an eye out from all those other calamities...

As to backup software, depending on your needs you may not need any. If you do need backup software, I recommend ToDo Backup Home Edition. Sadly, it ain't free. However, if you get on their email list, they often run quite decent discounts on the 'lifetime updates' version, which is the only sane way to buy it. But again, you might not need the extras the paid version offers. And ToDo also offers a stripped down free version.

Compaq Presario CDS 520 with Windows 3.1 - The Saga Continues



We left off in 2018 with the ole Compaq getting the definite Sorry mate; tis too scratched from two computer "experts" and one prior to them. Well, it just so happens we just had a tech guy coming in to work to help us with the CNC and I just asked him if he cared to take a look too. He accepted, and thus the computer with only bout 25 years of active service is now getting yet another chance. I'm not holding much hope but I just couldn't pass up letting him have a go as well.


Fourth time's a charm!

Booted the PC this morning. Launched Firefox. Launched YouTube. No sound. Checked sound settings. All OK. Launched Brave Browser. Launched YouTube. Sound. Returned to Firefox. Sound. Played a video. At its end, I moved the progress bar to about the midway point to rehear an instructive statement. No sound. Closed video. Launched another YouTube video. Sound. At some point, the video froze. I got one of those circles indicating slow data transfer rate / buffering. Buffering over, video resumes. No sound. Closed video. Launched new video. Sound. That's where it stands now.

New machine's issues turned out not to be new machine. Monitor was not auto-detecting input and was stubbornly expecting DVI, not hdmi. Now I just have a weekend's worth of re-installing to do.

That sounds like good news, ghastley - I think. Glad to have you and your PC back!

The good news is that I can run perfectly well on just the center monitor, so I'm able to play ESO, and attend the next meets.

The bad news is that I just can't get all three monitors working at the same time. The RTX3080ti has two HDMI and three display port outputs. My monitors have HDMI, but not display port inputs.

The ugly was trying to use two monitors. If I use both with ESO, then the middle of the image is right on the bezels, and trying to run windowed on one of them gets the cursor stuck on the one that's blacked out when the game launches, meaning that I can't interact with the game.

For only nine hundred bucks I could get an ultra-wide 49 inch monitor that would be equivalent to two (3849x1080, without the seam), but that's a 33 percent reduction from what I had. OK, so it would have a faster refresh rate, too. Not sure I want to go there yet. Nobody is doing triple-wide, but there are higher-resolution double-wide ones (5120x1440) at triple the price.

OR you could get one of these. Assuming the input/output are correct for your configuration.

We have to use DVI to VGA or VGA to Display port adapters quite frequently at work, as the monitors come with DVI or VGA, but many of the computers no longer have VGA- or have HDMI- but no D-Port.

I have one, but when the third is attached that way, it's not recognized.

If that's the only monitor connected, the bios logo and boot sequence show in VGA mode, and the screen goes black when widows starts. I.e. something is getting through, but it's not proper HDMI. It could just be a faulty adapter, of course, but it's brand new.

Hmmm. I kinda seem to recall something similar happening with one of my colleagues... it MIGHT be something you can change in the BIOS, or it may be that the card is not reading through the adapter for whatever reason. With 3 native Display port sockets, it should not be balking at three outputs....

ETA- If one of the monitors has an SVGA output, a VGA to HDMI or to D Port adapter MIGHT work- assuming you have not already tried that....

So here's a fun story to tell. Last week I finally got an external storage device so I can finally start backing up all my gaming stuff, okay? It holds a terabyte of data. I decided to start by backing up all the saves on my gaming computer.

I hook it up to my gaming computer. I have two computers, so I started by making two folders: one for my gaming computer, and one for my auxiliary computer. I then made a proper folder path which goes Gaming Computer > My Games, and in the My Games folder, I copied all the folders in my gaming computer's My Games folder. So this is Fallout 3, Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Sims 3, and a smidge of Baldur's Gate.

Finally, I pasted the copied folders into the storage device. And it said 0%. I waited. ZERO percent. I waited. Went and got a glass of water. Now it said 1%. Wow, this sure is taking a long time!

Part of the reason is that it's not a super-fast connection, okay? But there was also the fact... that when all was said and done, a total of thirteen THOUSAND saves had to get transferred over. 13,056 saves in total! ... I mean, I knew I did a lot of gaming over the past 7 years, but not that much!

I can relate. For years now I have been moving most of saves out of their regular save folders and into subfolders that the game won't recognize. I only keep the ones for my active character, and the last one for each of my older characters in case I ever want to start them up again. Otherwise it would take forever scrolling through the games load menus to find specific ones.

I can beleive it. for my current Oblivion character alone I have over 3500 saves. Then there are other saves from OB. Morrowind, Skyrim, and Daggerfall. So yeah I can see you having 13,056 save files.

I just checked, and I have 5,381 saves for Oblivion. 7.18 gig drive space.

I know Wyrd makes New Saves every time. I do sometimes, but I also overwrite (and use quicksaves) plenty as well. So therefore if I didn't overwrite / make quicksaves, that 13,000+ total would be waayyy higher.

My Oblivion second-playthrough saves are stored on DVDs, so I've no quick way to count them. However, I can readily see that I have 23 DVDs crammed full of saves, plus an unremembered number of as-yet not archived saves on my secondary PC.

As to SAVE method, I always create them via console command, never overwriting a previous save. I also tend to save at intervals. Not time intervals, but distance / goal intervals.

Say the gang is patrolling the Gold from the Emperial City to Anvil. I'd begin play from an existent save made in their Weye home, likely around bedtime the night before, or just after my decrepit avatar wakes the morning of the patrol. He eats (usually on his private balcony), dresses, travels solo to the city, gathers merchant delivery assignments, grabs a tax assignment IF available, gets the patrol (in White-Gold tower), and begins his walk back to Weye. MY fist SAVE is made, just prior to him exiting the City.

My second SAVE is normally made back in Weye, as he and Vil are about to exit their home to begin the patrol proper. SAVE 3 is made when they are about to exit Skingrad, where they paused for lunch and to handle merchant deliveries. There might or might not be a SAVE on the road between Skingrad and Anvil, depending on how near they are from the destination at dusk. There's a SAVE as soon as they set foot in Anvil and the Patrol completion announcement appears on-screen.

Since the gang travels at a walk, even when mounted, except in dire need, a good chunk of time passes between saves.

Interesting. I usually make saves during moments when my character is activating something. Closing a door, receiving a blessing from an altar, casting a spell, and so on. Whenever I see a door or a gate or an altar (etc.) those are like Save Points for me!

You have an interesting way of approaching saves, Decrepit, but wow, quite a lot of time goes by as your Avatar moseys about.. I'd be worried about the game crashing if I had to wait that long to make a save!

Crashes are not only a worry, but an actuality. I've gotten where I endure them in semi good grace, except when losing a particularly memorable patrol segment, one that in some way stands out as being appreciably above the norm.

Back when my avatar experiments more monumental adventures, I adhered to a save routine more akin to yours, saving right before i expected something important to happen and, conversely, right after something important happened. But road patrols? Much as I love 'em, I know nothing will happen that has a game-changing consequence for my avatar. Not at this stage of his career. Unless his heart gives out on him mid-route. (Which is how I've long envisioned his unlimate retirement from active service to the Empire, if not necessarily his immediate demise. Alas, the game isn't sophisticated enough to visually depict such things. In reality, I'll likely be the first of us to go. When playthrough 2 began we were both old, he the elder by some years. I now surpass him in age, despite his faster timescale.)

Color me cautiously relieved.

A banner has been appearing atop YouTube Studio telling me I need to enable 2-step verification or lose access to Studio on 1 Nov 2021. This would be quite disheartening to me. I quite enjoy making and publishing video. That almost no one watches them is beside the point, much as I wouldn't mind them getting more views.

My stumbling block (discounting that I actively dislike the hassle of 2-step verification, even on those few sites I visit where I admit to it being it beneficial) is simple. I own no cellphone, smartphone, tablet, or any other device YouTube lists as an option. Nor do I plan to invest in one, for monetary reasons and because I don't want them. YT, alas, does NOT list traditional phones as an option. (All other sites I am required to use 2-step verification with DO allow traditional phones as an option.) In other words, I'm sunk.

Or so I thought until just a few minutes ago.

After extensive research, I've unearthed info from several sources, at least one of whom appears to be 'authoritative', that claim 2-step verification will be mandatory only for those in the YouTube Partner Program. In other words, those who monetize and make money for YT. If true, I'm in the clear. Do I 100% believe I'm safe? No. But at least there's hope, however faint it might prove to be.

In other happy new, MS still insists my i7 7700k isn't powerful enough to run Win11.