Sorry to hear you had so much trouble but glad that it all worked out in the end.

Getting memory to install correctly can be a lesson in frustration, as I have experienced on occasion. Thankfully, it came out well for you in the end.

Yeah, memory so finicky.

Ya can't win.

Yesterday evening, end of my so-called active day, shutting down computer. Pressed power button at monitor bottom right corner. If fell off. Monitor remained on. Found fallen (tiny) button. Pressed it into monitor power-button hole. It met resistance and flew out of my hand. A semi thorough search failed to find it. Monitor remained on. Created makeshift power hole insert from old wire tie. Pressed it into power button hole. Success, monitor off.

Early this morning. Turned on computer. Pressed makeshift insert into monitor power button hole. Monitor turned on. Problem . . . makeshift insert is, by necessity, rather small. Area of desk below monitor is cluttered with lots of stuff used frequently. Due to accessing some of it, I've already lost, at least misplaced, makeshift insert.

I'd ideally like to find the actual broken-off monitor button power button and see if Supergluing its handle will fix the problem. Finding it is theoretically possible, but so far hasn't panned out.

I can of course use this as an admittedly poor excuse to make the jump to a 27-32" IPS 1440p monitor, which I hope to do eventually in any case. But . . . I pretty much exhausted this month's luxury-item funds on the RTX4070. It's something to ponder. And while I can't afford a super-high quality monitor, I do want to spend enough to get one that is a substantial improvement over what I have not, which for a 24" TN panel is quite a decent monitor. Besides, using makeshift inserts may inconvenient and bit finicky, they get the job done.

(ADDENDUM: I found the broken off original monitor power button.)

Aw man that sounds like that was annoying! Glad you found the button!

For lack of an actual desk I am currently using our living room tv as a monitor. Just slide a coffee table in front of it when I need to use a keyboard and mouse. Makes my neck kinda tired looking up at it though.

It fell off! Ok, that has never happened to me!

And after all that, you find the button. Sheesh! You need to make a sacrifice to the digital gods, for they are angry with thee!

Glad you found the recalcitrant button. I hope supergluing it into position is drama-free.

My experience of gluing back buttons is that they tend to glue back too well, and the item is permanently ON. Hope that doesn't happen to you.

Seems like Youtube is cracking down on adblockers. Went from Adblock Plus to Ublock origin and it seemed to work. But now I got that message window again

Yeah, for a couple of days I'd occasionally get the YT AdBlock warning when launching videos. My blocker of choice, currently Adblocker Ultimate on Firefox, seems to now be updated to restore sanity. I suspect it's gonna be an ongoing struggle between YT and the various AB creators from here on out.

(I also fired up my secondary browser, Brave, just long enough to see that its built-in blocker continues to perform like a champion.)

Thanks for the tip on Brave, Decrepit. I might try it if uBlock stops working.

Just updated my main flashdrive and backup Win7 computer (Fallout 3, Oblivion and IRL pics) which I'm btw currently on. Remember Doom 3 guys; always backup your files!

It appears I can no longer rely on uBlock Origin to stave off that Youtube popup that demand I stop using adblockers. So I just downloaded Freetube. Not the same but it seems to work.



"##¤%¤&%/&/ you, Google!

(link) Here's a video on how to insure uBlock Origin is up-to-date for combating YT's anti-adblock attempts (link)

I use a different adblocker (which so far works well) so can't attest to the effectiveness of the above. Also, the video is housed on YouTube, so care must be taken when assessing it if you still have YT adblock issues.

I did that, didn't help. As usual however there is no issue whatsoever at my parents' computer, cannot fathom why.


What adblocker du you use then, Decrepit?


Edit: Seems fixed for now! Changed from uBlock back to Adblock and engaged a filter designed to block script bypassing the adblocker. What happens now it seems to run the ad superfast, don't even have time to see anything at all, and then the video plays normally. We'll see how long this lasts.

On Firefox, my blocker is Adblocker Ultimate. Works as advertised, for me. Then again, maybe I have the good luck your parents' computer has.

Yeah, I don't know what's different. They're basically the same although mine is more powerful.


Anyway, the situation seems ok for now but I will have Ultimate in mind. Thanks!

Boy did I have some issues with my PC the other day. For some reason when I downloaded apps like Epic Store or Steam it seemed my PC was still thinking it still had that external drive attached there go, I couldn't download them, so I had to do a complete factory reboot which fixed the issue, but I had to spend the ENTIRE DAY redoing some of my passwords!

Needless to say, I wanted to "play football' with my computer but choose not to. I really need to upgrade my PC.

Oof. Doing a factory reset does not sound good

Gosh that sounds frustrating all right, Reaper. Urg.

It solved some problems and created others lol . At least I got everything going again .

I think I just tracked down the cause of spurious CTDs in Oblivion that was bugging me for over half a year of longer! I haven't solved it yet, so I may be off again, but I think I got it. It's in one of my private mods, fortunately not an essential one - it adds various idle animations to NPCs and the player. I think one of those animations is off, and since they are chosen at random, it was really hard to pinpoint why the game would crash. Because of course it could be a thousand other reasons!

Phew. I feel like this is solvable now.

Awesomesauce!

Yeah, always great to figure out some problem. Take NOTES on this sort of stuff, too. I document all the fixes I do, because in two hours I might not remember how whatever prob got fixed!

An example in my Oblivion: Long ago when I first began PC gaming I installed a very small mod (not even an .esp) which was supposed to make going uphill slow us down, you know, like going up hills becomes more of a tedious thing. Hey, I was new to PC gaming, so at the time this sounded kinda cool. I installed that piece of crap, and then forgot about it.

For years I wondered why I couldn't make characters go up certain staircases, not without jumping anyway. There was also a problem with standing up. My guy or gal would sit in a chair just fine, but whey they stood up sometimes they skate across the floor, like all the sudden the floor was made of ice. I dealt with this lunacy for years, tolerating it because it didn't always happen.

And then one day I remembered that very small add-in I installed way back in 2014. What would happen if I removed it? GOOD THING I save all those zip archives in the Downloads folder! Now I could go through all of them and try to find the culprit.

I did find it. Took just a few minutes, because I've got an Animations folder in my Oblivion Downloads. 💻 Removed that sucker, and wow, no more jumping up staircases. No more skating across the floor after standing up.

Oof. Sounds like me when I had to tolerate the Abomb before knowing what it was and how to fix it. Tremendous relief when I finally got it sorted.

YouTube Shorts are becoming more and more intrusive/bothersome. There is, as I understand it, an official way to disable them on mobile, that can then be applied to desktop. As I don't have mobile, I'm out of luck. Just finished doing something I ought to have thought of long ago; checked Chrome Extention Store (I'm running Brave Browser at the moment). Sure enough,a number of extensions promise to remove them on desktop. I'm still debating which to try. The one that, as of now, interests me most is customizable and quite extensive. Maybe too extensive. I'll ponder it these next few days before making up my mind. One way or another I want those gods-awful things gone.

Yes; you can download an extension on both Firefox and Chrome that blocks Youtube Shorts. Did it myself just yesterday.

Which extension(s) did you settle on, and are you totally happy with it/them?

What do you mean by shorts? Do you mean the commercials? Or something else?

I'm on Chrome and chose one called "Youtube shorts block" and yes; quite happy with that. This one blocks it all while another blocked the clips themselves but left the heading "Shorts" still visible. Linky


Youtube shorts are Youtube's version of very short videos in an attempt to compete with TikTok. They're not ads.

My primary PC is again operational . . . barely. Windows is reinstalled. Enough "essential" non-gaming software is reinstalled so I can browse the web here rather than on the secondary PC. I've still a long way to go before things return to normal, but can relax and take my time with the rest of it.

Rather than a long, drawn out narrative, I'll just say that the tiny hidden partition Windows stores its boot data in somehow corrupted. Due to SNAFU after SNAFU, it took me the better part of two weeks to get back up and running again, to the limited extent I'm up and running. I almost gave up hope of ever getting the darn thing to install Windows with network accessibility until night before last, when I stumbled upon a quick fix by sheer happenstance.

What scared me most (so far) was not finding my MS Money user data files, where all my financial transaction for the past 30+ years are contained. Thankfully, just a few hours ago I unearthed a recent backup of that file on my now nonfunctional saved copy of C-drive. I'm guessing my TurboTax yearly returns are stored there too. <crossesfingers> Maybe finding those will be tonight's project.

Yikes! Glad you're up and (sort of) running again.

Found my TurboTax return copies, housed in a document subdirectory within G:\ partition, the first partition on the second of my primary PC's two M2.NVME drives. Thank goodness. Searching the entirety of my "old" C:\ partition's Windows directory unearthed nothing useful.

My primary computer boots into Windows ultra-fast now, as expected. By the time I add back all the programs and utilities I intend to, it'll likely slow down again. A slow boot doesn't bother me, so long as the computer runs acceptably fast once booted.

About Youtube's war on adblockers

I've seen another of his vids touching on this issue, but not your link. Well worth watching.

I think he makes some good points.

Btw, did you try a Youtube Shorts blocker?

That I did, the one you recommend. It works as advertised on my recommendations page. I doesn't seem to do much of anything when I do a search. There, Shorts still appear. Still, I'm better off than I was, Shorts wise.

You know, I never noticed that Shorts still appear when I do a search. I most often just refresh the home page. Maybe you can combine with another blocker?

I still don't know what y'all are talking about. Maybe it's good that I don't! Shorts sound annoying.

Not a computer issue per se, I am trying to be proactive, so I can prevent a computer issue. My gaming computer is almost 10 years old. The CD/DVD drive fried maybe 4 years ago, but that's it. Never had any problems with it. I think maybe it's because I don't push it too hard, I don't force it to do things that are stressing its components, right?

But I want to be proactive. What should I be looking at, to prevent any typical failures?

Motherboard: MS-7826 (Kaili)
Processor: Intel Core i7 4770
Memory: 16 GB DDR3
Storage: 128 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD
Video graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760, and Intel HD Graphics 4600 integrated graphics

MAKE BACKUPS!!!!!

This. Cannot be overstated or overrated.


Be a good marine; always backup your files

Over a 30-year period I’ve a few failures; the HDD (twice, one was the Cdrive), the power supply (twice), the CMOS wafer battery on the motherboard (once), and a video card (once).

Other than the hard drives, they were all easily fixed just by swapping in a new one. The HDDs spent weeks recovering data, luckily successful each time.

As a computer room supervisor for 15-years and plus 5-years on the disaster recovery team, one would think that I would know the value of backups. On the job is one thing, operating at home is well… But being the dummy that I am, do as I say not as I do.

You can get a 2TB USB external SSD drive large enough to backup your entire system for around $100-$150. 1TB drives $20 or more less. Get one or better yet get two, backup everything, make a backup copy, and update them on a regular schedule.



Shorts are difficult to explain.
This is a short Solaire never misses #darksouls #eldenring - YouTube. Notice the vertical format and that it repeats like a meme. Scroll down and you’ll see and almost endless string of Shorts. Some good, some bad, and many leave you feeling that there is more to the story.

Now compare the short to the actual full content
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blSXTZ3Nihs]Solaire the Sun Bro - Git Gud - YouTube[/url].

And not just when you hear about your friend's computer going up in smoke... Not that I would personally do that, of course...

(I promise - tomorrow's backups day!)

This is what I've been doing for a long time albeit with flashdrives. Three to be exact, and I store them in safes in three different locations. This makes it a bit harder to update them all at the same time regularly but then again, it's mostly savegames and pics so nothing too important. And I do update the flashdrive I have at home quite frequently and then at intervalls I bring the other two up to date.

I also copy everything over to my backup Win7 computer whenever I start it up which I do from time to time. Speaking of which, think I should do it this evening.

Almost cra**ed myself when I couldn't log into my bank just now. Reason was the screen got semi-greyish and I couldn't click on anything. I could still see what I needed to see but like I said, I couldn't do anything. Turned out to be the adblocker cause as soon as I turned it off it all worked again. But the realisation didn't come before I tore up heaven and earth; I called my local computer tech guy, then my internet bank support and was put on hold, and I was THIS close to mailing my personal bankwoman.


Sigh. I'm starting to really hate everything computer related

I know what ya mean. Almost nothing has gone as expected since finally getting Win10 to reinstall itself with net access. Just about every app I've reinstalled since then has some hiccup that didn't exist on my prior Win10 installation. Some I've found solutions for (that weren't needed before). Some not. At least I've got MS Money Sunset up and running (with a minor glitch I can easily live with), and found last year's Turbotax returns. Other stuff too, but no games except Train Simulator. Even there I've a glitch, with an "essential" third-party add-on. The bloody thing won't load. Says it can't find a needed requirement, despite me installing all requirements its manual specifies, several times. On the other hand, I'm fairly well along getting both Firefox and Brave up to speed with most of the same bookmarks and new-page icons and extensions as before. It's a real shame the De-Mainstream YouTube extension is no longer available for Firefox, but I can live without it. (My secondary PC's Firefox has it, installed in the ever-dimmer past.)

I GOT LOCKED OUT OF PS4!!!!!

Phew... sorry about that. Ready to breathe fire here.

So, start again. I got locked out of ALL PS4 games!!! It tells me that I've got to buy the license because the license owner is... me. Umm...

And I am not alone in this misery! I already tried the work-arounds suggested in that article, and no joy. So then, the solution is... turn it off and go do something else.

So I came to post this here.

That's just bull. How can that even happen?

Apparently it's been happening to various people since the summer. Sony usually fixes it in a few days... That's just great, innit?

I am now downloading The Witcher 3 onto my computer from GOG. I bought it on sale last year but it's so big (50GB) that I never downloaded it. It is a bit too heavy for my PC too... but I'm hoping I'll be able to run it on some low-ish graphical settings. According to the spec, the PC should just about scrape by. But at least I won't be locked out of that one! Also, I can then install a mod that would allow Geralt to actually sit down. Can you believe the game doesn't let him do that? Poor Geralt, he can't sit down, he can't lie down, he can't even kneel to meditate - it's done with a "wait" menu screen and I had expected better since they could do it already in Witcher 2. But not anymore. He's got to stay on his feet 24/7...

Anyway, since I can't play I did a backup. Also needed to make room on the hard drive - 50GB to download the zips, plus 50GB to install the game, then you can delete the first 50GB. So you need 150GB in total. You know that's exactly how it works.