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Stall_19 posted:Hmm, not really looking to actually build a computer. I don't really intend to use it for gaming, I just want something that handles things like firefox/streams like hulu or twitch/ and programs such as Photoshop better than the computer I'm using now. Like 2x better than mine seems ideal if I can get it for a good price. It's not like my current computer can't handle that but I'd just like something with a little more power and consistency that doesn't crash as often as mine. I've gotten a little too use to things like firefox not responding or flash crashing. The thing is that you bought a pretty meh PC before and you're looking to replace it with another terrible PC that's slightly better but still old and not very good. The clock speed being double doesn't mean much for performance. If you can stretch your budget a little there will be some inexpensive machines available on sites like the Dell outlet that will be perfectly capable and completely blow away what you're looking at. http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2202&c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh Ideally you want at least an i3, but the cheapest one at the time of posting is $409. That's not the best pricing and you will see a lot of flucuation in their stock. The great part about the Dell outlet is that you get a standard warranty against parts failing and you don't have to build anything. The parts picking thread is a better place for "what PC should I get" discussions in general, however, even if you're buying a prebuilt system. Get some more information and advice before you put your money down (but in the parts picking thread).
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Sep 15, 2014 09:57
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Factory Factory posted:Not only has positional audio simulation via DSP been a thing since the 90s, but some headphones actually do have full sets of surround drivers in them. I have two or three old Aureal Vortex a3d sound cards. It was a great technology killed off presumably by people who want to sell more physical speakers.
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Oct 14, 2014 21:27
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Massasoit posted:It seems any game I play I experience temporary FPS drops with corresponding CPU utilization drops. My video card and CPU are sub 55C and I checked my hard drive for errors. I can't seem to figure out what might be causing it. Any ideas? I did realize my power supply is kind of old and should be replaced, so I've ordered a replacement one. Could it be the power supply? Usually with power supply failures the PC will just turn off or sometimes crash. You may want to post in Haus of tech support with full system specs.
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Oct 19, 2014 22:34
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Titor posted:I'm curious, how did you exactly find the number count? Did you convert the RAW values? How would I go about finding the detailed numbered information you found? The raw values are in hexadecimal (base-16). You can convert it with most calculators that support hex (the windows one will do it in programmer mode, just hit the hex radio button and type in EA then hit the dec radio button) or you can do it manually. The rightmost place in base 16 is the one's place and the second is the 16s place (like the rightmost digit in base 10 is the one's place and the next is the tens place). So you've got E 16s and A 1s, (in hexadecimal, numbers above 9 are represented as letters - A (which is 10), B (11), C (12), D (13), E (14), F (15)). E 16s is 14 * 16 = 224 and A ones is 10 * 1 = 10. Add these up to get 224 + 10 = 234. Most programmers I know who work with hex regularly tend to just convert back and forth with a calculator because as you can see it'll get tedious when you get to the next digit which is the 256s place and beyond.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:54
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Titor posted:This is extremely informative. So if the RAW value of an Uncorrectable Sector Count is 00000000078B, would that mean it's 1931? That's an extremely high number so I'm concerned I might be making a major calculating mistake. You did the calculation correctly, and the drive with that many bad sectors is falling.
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Oct 24, 2014 17:55
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Fucknag posted:Are there any good recommendations for a micro USB cable? The one that came with my Galaxy is wearing out (stiff on the phone end, insulation splitting, goes into a charging-not charging loop occasionally when I plug it in.) I bought a random off-the-shelf one for my last phone when the same thing happened and it was lovely, had a loose fit and wouldn't stay plugged in. I've bought 10+ of various length monoprice ones and so far only one has had any trouble: http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=102&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030307 prices are low but there's shipping so I usually buy a few at a time.
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Oct 29, 2014 19:20
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Thello posted:Is there an easy way to mass block all websites but two or three? Every solution I found for my router only blocks specific websites, but what I want is zero internet access save for a few strict permissions during work hours. It will depend on the features of the router. You're basically looking for a policy where you block all but whitelist some, instead of allow all but blacklist some. What router are you using?
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Oct 30, 2014 20:37
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Teledahn posted:I was cleaning my rather dusty computer, wiping down fans and such. In a misguided attempt to get at the CPU fan better (with a microfiber cloth, no vacuum cleaner involved) I ended up loosening the heat sink. Once I realized this is secured it back in place. I don't conclusively know if the thermal paste was dislodged or shifted or something, but after finishing my cleaning and reconnecting everything my computer gave me a temperature warning in the bios startup. At this point I had a choice to 'press any key to continue' or just switch my computer off. I opened the case, all the fans seemed to be giving good airflow, so I let it continue to boot. It shut itself off about twenty seconds after windows was fully running, before I got a chance to check temperature sensors. If you don't have thermal paste handy, pretty much any brand works (until it heats up and gets weird, stuff like toothpaste and mustard are comparable to many thermal compounds: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-January-2012/1468/5 ). So pick up whatever you can find easily and don't spend a ton on THE BEST because it may be a couple of degrees difference from generic stuff (which is about the same as mayo?) I typically use arctic silver 5 or arctic silver ceramique because I bought syringes of them for 8 bucks or something years ago that seem to be nearly endless. To clean off the old thermal paste, mechanically unmount your heatsink (how you do this depends on what kind of socket and cooler your system has). Clean the top of the CPU and the bottom of the heatsink with something lint free (coffee filter, good quality paper towel, avoid things like tissues) with high % rubbing alcohol. If it's goopy I tend to do a lifting-rolling style to get the bulk off, then get a clean paper towel and wipe down to get the surfaces clean. After they're both clean and dry (should be dry very quickly with rubbing alcohol) put some thermal paste on the cpu lid in a pea sized dot in the middle and remount the heatsink. Don't put it down and pick it back up as you'll get air bubbles which may be your current problem (also your old paste likely hardened up some to make this more likely). Just put it down on there and do the mechanical stuff to get it stuck down. If a tiny amount of compound squeezes out of the sides it's fine. If a lot does then you may have used too much. Here's a little video of a guy doing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rn0BqMyXBM Note that when he removes it to check how the paste spread he's just doing it for the video and would then have to clean and reapply it to use his system.
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Oct 31, 2014 07:40
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csidle posted:I have a Lenovo Edge S430, but it's a bit slow compared to the Macbooks around me. I'm thinking of upgrading it by replacing the SATA hard drive with an SSD. The computer came with a 16 gig SSD drive used for cache and some other stuff, but I'm wondering if it'd be feasible and/or even possible to either put in a larger SSD in place of the 16 gig one, or just replace the SATA drive. I'm not sure if it'd fit. Anyone know? You can do either or both. Right now you have a 2.5" sata hard disk and a mSATA SSD. Your model of laptop's specs are on pg 26 of: http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/edgebook_WE.pdf The easiest thing is to replace the regular hard disk with a SSD. It would go something like this: docs: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/pd024447 movie: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/videos/pd027000 plus moving the installation over with drive imaging software and a USB to sata adapter (or using desktop computer with two free sata ports). If you want to replace the cache SSD in the mSATA slot that is also an option. You'd disable Express Cache software to stop it from using that as a cache disk and install another SSD in the slot. The msata replacement is under the keyboard, see the bottom 1/3 of this page: http://support.lenovo.com/en/documents/pd024451
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Oct 31, 2014 15:50
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everythingWasBees posted:So I have a SilverStone PS07W Case, and it has a ultra-bright blue LED whose light bleeds through the side vent of the case. Is there anyway to dim the LED? Alternatively, is there a reason why I can't just unplug the LED from the motherboard. You can just unplug it most of the time.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:23
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Ximen posted:I've currently got 2x http://www.kingston.com/us/hyperx/memory/predator dual channel because I hosed up when I first bought them some time ago. Their total capacity should be 16GB, but only 7.96 GB Ram is usable. Can someone here help me? It could be a number of things, although if the memory's plugged in correctly you should have 16gb available. Do you have the memory in the correct slots? I notice it says it's running in single channel. The manual for that motherboard has an atrocious online version but you usually would put the ram in slots 2 and 4, or 1 and 3 (1 being closest to the CPU socket) to operate in dual channel. Have you reseated the RAM and tried it in different slots? Also, what voltages are you running at and what speed?
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Nov 2, 2014 10:00
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Ximen posted:Thanks for the reply! Here's a paste with all the cpu-z info: I've done a little research and the main list of issues that it could be are: 1) You have Windows 7 Home Basic installed which has an 8gb memory limit - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_7 2) Your CPU has a broken off pin - http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20120513011344318&board_id=1&model=SABERTOOTH+990FX&page=1&SLanguage=en-us 3) You have a faulty motherboard 4) You need to increase the RAM voltage - in your pasted CPU-Z link it shows the DRAM voltage is currently 1.49 (probably 1.5 in actuality). So you're not using your XMP profile but with 4 sticks of ram sometimes systems need a little more voltage to help. Go into the BIOS and up the RAM voltage a little bit. The XMP Profile will set it to 1.65 so that may be one way to go, but it's not guaranteed to work since it's supposed to be 1.65V to remain stable at the higher clock speed that ram is rated for. I don't even know if it's possible to buy Home Basic so that may not be it. In the linked thread from the ASUS support forum the guy finally found that he had broken a pin on his CPU and was actually able to get a jeweler to solder it back on, but the other suggestions were made in various posts in that thread as well with regards to a bad motherboard or needing a voltage bump. As an aside, you should definitely stop by the PC Parts Picking Megathread before you build your next PC. You've made a number of questionable choices with your current build.
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Nov 2, 2014 10:58
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Papercut posted:Yeah gonna try that with very low expectations. I did the freezer trick with a dying drive a couple of months back. It worked alright. All disks are different but I got maybe 90% of the files off just doing a blind copy of everything with the Roadkil's Unstoppable copier (trying to use windows file copy caused the disk to unmount or other weirdness): http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P29/Unstoppable%20Copier
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Nov 5, 2014 22:57
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Away all Goats posted:Bad memory can lead to a computer shutting down, right? Sometimes it reboots, sometimes it stays off. Bad memory can cause that, although usually you'd see a windows bluescreen that you could look at in the windows event log to see the cause of. Shutting right down tends to be more related to power supplies. That said you can test your memory. Create a Memtest86+ boot disc and run it for as long as you can stand and see if there are errors or bad PC behavior: http://www.memtest.org/ I like to give new PCs 20+ hours of burn-in time with it but I've personally never seen a problem show up beyond 5 hours into a run. Overnight should do it. If you get any errors or crashes there's some kind of hardware problem. With memory errors it's usually the RAM, Motherboard or CPU. If it shuts off it could be those or more likely the power supply.
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Nov 11, 2014 06:22
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Away all Goats posted:Uhh so my computer just rebooted(not a shutdown) in the middle of the memtest, before it could even complete 1 pass. The test ran for about 24~ mins It's probably the power supply. There's a small chance it's got something to do with the motherboard (bad caps or something), but I'd try another power supply first.
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Nov 12, 2014 02:56
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Comrade Flynn posted:So I'm getting gigabit fiber installed next week and want to have a media center PC that can hook up to my TV and serve media through my house. Those Dells are pretty good and it should be fine for that. I've recommended and set up a couple of them for clients. It doesn't leave much room for expansion, they usually have 1 free hard disk bay. To add more than that you'll have to get creative. If you wanted cheaper there's some systems like the Lenovo Thinkserver which is a bit more bare bones and comes with no OS or hard disk at all but costs a good bit less: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859106529
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Nov 21, 2014 06:17
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Serperoth posted:This isn't just a hardware issue, but I'm not seeing a better place to ask so I hope it's not too bad to post here. I've had good luck with Roadkil's unstoppable copier on a sd card and also a hard disk that was developing bad sectors as it was used (freezer trick): http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P29/Unstoppable%20Copier If you're not ready to copy your stuff off of your disk yet turn it off to prevent further damage; just being on could be destroying it as you've most likely had a head hit the platter, which not only damages both but pollutes the inside of the drive with bits of stuff. They're built in a clean room environment to extremely tight tolerances and don't like random stuff rattling around inside them.
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Nov 24, 2014 22:03
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Serperoth posted:Seems to be working, I set it to copy my main university folder and it's making progress. Thank you very much. Only do the freezer trick if you can't get the files you need without it since the drive tends to get condensation on it while thawing out which is generally a bad thing and only meant as a last resort. Lucky for you there are a lot of external drives on sale. Also while I know this seems obvious now, keep anything important in at least two places. Online backups or multiple backup disks are easy to setup. Disaster recovery is much easier if you already have a second copy of everything.
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Nov 24, 2014 22:22
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Just had a weird thing happen and was wondering if anyone can explain it. I have my home PC set to automatically recover in the event of a power loss as I run a couple of things off it. We had a power cut today that knocked out the power for about 45 minutes, but the PC didn't come back up. When I got home I tried powering it on at the button - no joy. Did the normal stuff - checked the surge protector, fuse in the plug, etc, all okay. Really cheap USB powered hubs will push power into the PC even though they're not supposed to. This can cause issues with the motherboard and because of weird problems with a couple of PCs, I've replaced all of my cheap powered hubs with better ones. You can either open up the powered hub and cut the traces for 5v and ground to the PC, letting the onboard power handle all of the devices, cut the power and ground wires in the cable that goes from the hub to the PC, or get a better USB hub. I've come to like the Monoprice ones which are also sold as "Plugable" brand on amazon, they haven't given me any trouble. They do cost a bit more than the cheap ones, though.
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Nov 25, 2014 02:57
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Some hard disks just keep going forever, but always have backups! This guy was one of the oldest I could reach easily that actually has SMART data: The 85mb one didn't want to work with a usb adapter.
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Nov 25, 2014 10:41
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Serperoth posted:A bit of an update on my drive situation, today it won't let me in the drive at all. I got the replacement HDD, no issues there, but the external is getting stuck at 'loading', it won't even show how much space is used (it got to that point yesterday, that's how I got the more important stuff via Roadkil's). Currently I'm trying to get R-Studio to do anything to the external, but it's being hell, with the drive plugged in it won't open, and after I take it out and it opens, when I put it back in, it fails when I click Scan or Refresh. All of the drive scanning and stuff you were doing to the drive was causing more damage. If it mounts at all just use roadkil's to try to get data off of it. Just being powered on is likely destroying sectors so you have a limited window to recover anything. You can try the freezer trick but don't expect miracles, sometimes it can just let you get 10-20 minutes of mostly good copies after 12 hours of freezer time which is a pretty bad ratio.
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Nov 25, 2014 18:38
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Snowy posted:My dad needs a printer that can feed a stack of papers to scan into jpg or PDF. He's got tons of old paperwork to digitize so I'm trying to help him speed up the process. He also usually likes to keep it cheap when possible. The sheet feeders on most cheap multifunction printers will only do 10 to 20 pages at once and they're also not great and sometimes pull in the pages crooked or don't scan quite right. I spent a while looking for something to do this for a client. They opted for the not cheap but extremely good option of a Fujitsu Scansnap sheet feeding scanner. They only seem to dip down to around $400 on sale but they're really really good at what they do. http://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-ScanSnap-Instant-Sheet-Fed-Scanner/dp/B001V9LQH0 Maybe another goon will have used a multifunction with a good sheet feeder they can recommend, but this was my experience in trying to find something that can have 50 pages dropped into it and make a pdf.
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Nov 26, 2014 03:41
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:Update on my old unused hard drives. If you want to see if your disks are failing take a look at them with CrystalDiskInfo. It allows you to view the SMART data on them and see if there are any bad sectors or other problems the drives are having: http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html Get the Standard version and either get the portable version or if you get the installer make sure to do a "custom" install to avoid installing the adware it's bundled with. Shizuku edition has anime girls for some reason.
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Nov 26, 2014 19:26
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:Ok, my hard drive issues are getting weird. You're probably right, it sounds like the enclosure to me, too. The only way to be sure would be to connect them inside the PC or with another enclosure.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:55
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PRADA SLUT posted:Is there a specific type of USB drive that would be used for archival? You're basically looking at data rot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rot This is a page from a company selling a super long term storage solution: M-Disc claims 1000 years of use because it's "engraved in stone" http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/ Since they haven't existed for 1000 years there's no way to verify their claim but I'd give it a shot if I wanted something to be around for my lifetime, but I'd probably burn more than one of each thing just in case. The M-Disc website says flash drives 8 years, hard disks 5 years and dvd-rs 7 years for archiving data, but they're also trying to sell M-Discs so I don't know how accurate those figures are. Since they burn as blu-ray discs the m-discs hold 25gb.
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Nov 28, 2014 20:24
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SlayVus posted:What folders should I look at backing up when reinstalling my OS? I got my whole Documents folder. I use chrome with my google account to save all my bookmarks as well as LastPass for password management. I have a lot of programs installed on my HDD, with only a few things installed on my SSD OS drive. No pictures or music or anything like that. I usually grab the whole users directory since most of the appdata lives in there as well as the documents and desktop (many people consider the desktop a good place to keep important files). It sounds like you got the important stuff, though.
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Dec 2, 2014 04:22
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Yvershek posted:A power connector to a hard drive sparked and melted on me. Now it looks like two bronze columns on the side have black gunk on them and the next two seem to be missing. Haven't had any problems with the PSU on anything else. It probably depends if the short circuit was caused by the plug from the PSU or the connector on the HD. It sounds like it's probably the HD side of it, in which case it's likely to happen again. I wouldn't hook it back up to my PC for fear of it possibly killing the whole machine but there are relatively inexpensive USB adapters for hard drives that include power supplies and a molex connector. One of those would be less expensive to risk: http://www.amazon.com/i-Ever-Adapter-Converter-Optical-External/dp/B00JP4PX5O You're probably not going to have much luck if you're not willing to spend money, however. For example, if I was in your situation and needed the data back I'd buy a hard disk of the exact same model and try to exchange the controller boards. It would still be iffy, however. If it was valuable data I'd send it to a data recovery place, which get very expensive very fast, but they would probably do what I just described or possibly move the platters to a transplant drive just to get the data copied off in a clean room environment.
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Dec 2, 2014 04:28
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Yvershek posted:Thanks a lot for the advice. I'll order one of the adapters and see what happens. A friend of mine's pc just died, so I can also test the drive on that first. Not really, that's pretty normal. Most of the time if you need angled ends they're for sideways facing drive cages where you might bump against the case side with one sticking straight out. It's pretty common to get both straight ends or one angled end.
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Dec 2, 2014 05:00
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Blue Train posted:I bought one of these with the intention of using it with my monitor so I can turn it on and off with the remote. Will interrupting the power like that a couple of times a day be bad for the monitor/cause it to break? I doubt it will cause any harm. Monitors are fancier than they used to be but they're still pretty much dumb devices. The main issue with yanking power from a computer itself is unsaved data and possible corruption of things that were in-use on the disk. Monitors don't really have that problem.
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Dec 4, 2014 21:15
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Takes No Damage posted:Any recommendations for UPS's? I'm looking for something to put behind my PCs so they don't hardboot whenever the power blinks. If I happen to be sitting right there when the power goes out I want to be able to shut them down gracefully, but I don't plan on actually using them off battery power for any great length of time. Any well-received brands/models I can be on the lookout for? Cyberpower, Tripp-Lite, and APC are pretty good. I've got 4 Cyberpower units, an APC and a couple of Belkins (they're awful). The main things to look at when buying one is getting one with sine-wave output so that it works well with modern computer power supplies. There have been a few posts about it that I can't seem to find, but the basic rule with UPSes and modern computer equipment is to either get a sine-wave unit or get a unit that can handle at least twice the power draw of the equipment hooked up to it. The other thing is that the rated volt-amps (VA) that gets listed on the UPS is never the same as the amount of Watts it can handle, despite the fact that Watts = Amperes * Volts. There should be a separate listing for estimated power output in watts on the product page. For my main PCs I use 1000VA and 1200VA cyberpower units. For the NAS and networking equipment I'm using 685VA units. The big ones are 8 and 11 years old and I replace the batteries every 2-3 years. The smaller ones are newer. They all have AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation, it steps low power up as well as just being a battery backup). If I had to buy a new one I'd likely get: http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP1000PFCLCD-Sinewave-Compatible-Mini-Tower/dp/B00429N192/ in whatever size seemed appropriate. Definitely shop around because there are often sales on UPSes. Look for free shipping or buy at a store also because they're really heavy because of the lead in the batteries. They're sold in consumer electronics stores like best buy but also office supply stores like Staples which usually have good deals on shipping and often $ off $amount coupons and the like. Rexxed fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Dec 9, 2014 |
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Dec 9, 2014 02:06
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lollybo posted:I'm currently building a computer with this parts list It's not okay to try to get your PSU to supply more power than it's rated for. I'd get a 500 or 550 80+ gold rated just to be sure.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:18
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SlayVus posted:Friend is having problems with his laptop. Here is his CDI. https://kb.acronis.com/content/9133 quote:Current Pending Sector Count S.M.A.R.T. parameter is a critical parameter and indicates the current count of unstable sectors (waiting for remapping). The raw value of this attribute indicates the total number of sectors waiting for remapping. Later, when some of these sectors are read successfully, the value is decreased. If errors still occur when reading some sector, the hard drive will try to restore the data, transfer it to the reserved disk area (spare area) and mark this sector as remapped. Basically the disk has bad sectors that are being remapped. If the number's increasing then going back down it's getting more bad sectors and remapping them to reserved extra space that exists on the disk just for that. Beccause it's getting more of them it's likely that the disk is dying and the controller is attempting to save it by remapping, but it's probably not going to get better without a disk replacement. I don't know how much he uses the laptop but with only 734 hours on the disk it might be pretty new and should be under warranty if so. If he can afford it, it may be worth replacing with an SSD since you're going to be taking the disk out anyway.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:18
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SlayVus posted:It's new, he bought it brand new in box from Lenovo's outlet store. It's only a few months old. From what I gathered from Lenovo's site it did come with a 1yr warranty since it was still BNIB. I'd definitely contact them about replacement, then, the disk is going bad. If they won't do it western digital might, they have a warranty checker online.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:25
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SkySteak posted:I asked this in the PC Part Building thread, hope it is OK here. The basic rule is to touch a grounded thing every so often, usually before you touch a static sensitive thing. A power supply that's plugged in but not turned on is grounded (the housing literally has a wire that goes to the ground from your outlet and isn't controlled by the switch), so it's a good choice. Plumbing in your house is usually also grounded so you might be able to touch a metal faucet as well, assuming you have copper pipes (I don't know anything about plumbing but the faucets here give me a shock if I've been walking around in fleece). You can wear a wrist strap if you want but I usually go by this checklist: 1) don't wear fleece or other material that build up static really fast, I usually go with jeans and a t-shirt for computer building. 2) touch a grounded thing before I touch computer guts (basically before I put in the CPU, RAM, and mount the motherboard inside the case, or pick up my video card I touch a grounded thing each time) I have an ESD strap but I rarely use it unless I'm doing something that's really sensitive or expensive. If you're really concerned about static get a wrist strap and wear it, it will just be always attached to the ground in an outlet like the housing of a power supply will be. Static damage can be really bad but the only time I've had something die to static that I can recall was putting token ring cards into pentium 133 machines as a summer job. They didn't give us wrist straps but they had to have a motherboard exchanged because the system was just DOA after putting the network card in. I think it was in 1996.
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Dec 24, 2014 10:15
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SkySteak posted:Fair enough. I have to admit even though it'd be off at the PSU/plug socket, the idea of attaching a wristband to the PSU/case while something is connected to the mains (which is a higher voltage in the UK) makes me a little uneasy. You can touch a grounded thing or a ground wire all day, it just goes into the ground/earth. The housing of the PSU connects to the metal on your computer case which is also in theory grounded because of it. The thing to do is to not touch the powered lines, but you don't have access to those from the outside of the housing unless you're messing with the plug itself.
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Dec 24, 2014 14:15
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SkySteak posted:So potentially having the the PSU plugged in, while being off at the plug socket while also being off at the PSU itself and having the wrist strap attached to a bare metal case screw is safe enough? Yeah but I'd attach it to the PSU if you can because the screws into the housing from the case don't always break all the paint/powdercoat on the PSU. Does your ESD strap have an alligator clip or a ring thing or what?
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Dec 24, 2014 14:29
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SkySteak posted:Alligator Clip My wrist strap is also one of those and when I use it I just clip it onto the grate of a plugged in power supply or into the middle hole of a computer power cord (do the former, not the latter). You're just grounding out static not sending high voltage anywhere and while the PSU is off there won't be any live voltage unless you open it up and specifically look for wires to short or capacitors to gently caress with. It's hard to mess up grounding yourself unless you go looking to do so.
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Dec 24, 2014 14:53
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Auron posted:Is mixing two different speeds of RAM a no no? I received 8 gb (2x4) g skill ripjaws ddr3-1600 and another set of 8gb ripjaws ddr3-1833 . If I can use both (even if limited by the slower set) I will, but not sure if that's advisable Most memory controllers will be happy to run all that ram at 1600. Just put the 1600 in one channel and the 1866 in the other.
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Dec 25, 2014 07:19
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Capn Jobe posted:Based on a recommendation in the Parts Picker thread, I picked up an ASUS GTX 970 today. Specifically this model: I've had this happen on occasion and every time I was usually able to get it to go with a little force. I don't have that specific case so it's if really bad, this may not be sound advice. Obviously you don't want the card pulling forward out of the pci-e slot or anything, so you may need to loosen the motherboard mounting screws slightly and shift the whole thing back for a tiny amount of extra play. You definitely want the thing to be attached to the case since it's so heavy, it will need the support. On that model the fans don't turn on until the card gets under load, usually in 3d applications. It's a feature! The PCI-E 6+2 cable is the same as the 8 pin when you attach the 2 to the 6, so you should be set there.
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Dec 27, 2014 04:41
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Professor Moriarty posted:I have an Antec P180 tower, and just bought a new 3.5" HDD. However I seem to have misplaced the HDD mounting screws the case specifically uses (they're shouldered screws, half-threaded, with large flat heads), and can't seem to find an exact alternative via Antec's site nor anywhere else. What's my best option here to get my new HDD installed securely? I'd contact Antec support, they may send you some for free. There's a picture of them in this thread: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22948  It looks like you want the big ones in the middle. I couldn't find any shouldered 6/32 9/16" screws online that looked like the ones from the pictures, unfortunately. There is a box inside the case that the mounting hardware came in, could you have put the extras back in there? There's a picture in the review of the case: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article255-page2.html
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Dec 28, 2014 08:57
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