Vecha Posted July 5, 2012 Report Share Posted July 5, 2012 Not sure this is in the right place...not exactly "PC Games." Anywho, Recently coming across some issues with my GPU, that I thought was my PSU and not getting enough wattage/ampage/whatever. Newer games crash to desktop over and over while displaying weird line graphical issues. Going to RMA my Zotac card and hope that fixes it. A past issue I once had, and the most aggregating for me at least, was a faulty RAM chip. Couldn't find out if it was CPU/Mobo or Ram...did a little trial and error and was able to replace the RAM. Back to the present, I replaced my PSU first because I have heard many horror stories about PSU failing and taking Everything out with it. Didn't want that to happen to me. So, might have wasted 70 dollars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted July 5, 2012 Report Share Posted July 5, 2012 My GPU fan derping on me. At least I had two... or else I would be pretty screwed. Eh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veldurak Posted July 5, 2012 Report Share Posted July 5, 2012 About a month ago while on vacation, my house got struck by lightning and it literally fried my gaming computer. I've had to deal with a Mac since then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vecha Posted July 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2012 My GPU fan derping on me. At least I had two... or else I would be pretty screwed. Eh. I have used stock fans for most of my gaming life. I don't OC though... Might want to think about getting modded fans though... About a month ago while on vacation, my house got struck by lightning and it literally fried my gaming computer. I've had to deal with a Mac since then. Thankfully it hasn't happened to me. But I know what it is like to deal with a company with repairs/refunds/etc. Just sent out my GPU today... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted July 5, 2012 Report Share Posted July 5, 2012 Apparently the TV I use as a monitor goes up to 1080i, not 1080p. DirectX11 doesn't play nice with interlaced displays, so it only lets me go up to 1260x820 or something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted July 5, 2012 Report Share Posted July 5, 2012 Oh god, lightening. I've a surge protector tower thing. But atm my PC, TV n PS3 are wierd up to a shitty normal extension plug. And there's been a ton of storms of late. I should really swap them around to use my tower, but it all runs behind a super heavy wardrobe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veldurak Posted July 6, 2012 Report Share Posted July 6, 2012 Better safe then sorry. The weird thing in my case was that nothing was protected, but the gaming setup was the *only* thing killed. Ugh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vecha Posted July 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2012 Apparently the TV I use as a monitor goes up to 1080i, not 1080p. DirectX11 doesn't play nice with interlaced displays, so it only lets me go up to 1260x820 or something like that. Ugh...that stinks man. I hope a new TV falls into your hands(in a non-violent way.) Oh god, lightening. I've a surge protector tower thing. But atm my PC, TV n PS3 are wierd up to a shitty normal extension plug. And there's been a ton of storms of late. I should really swap them around to use my tower, but it all runs behind a super heavy wardrobe. Yeah....get on that ASAP. The ram issue I mentioned may have been caused by a surge...sometimes the surge doesn't cause apparent damage. Better safe then sorry. The weird thing in my case was that nothing was protected, but the gaming setup was the *only* thing killed. Ugh. Maybe because it requires more wattage?(I'm totally talking out of my ass). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuchikoma Posted July 6, 2012 Report Share Posted July 6, 2012 I finally grabbed a UPS last year and it's been great. The 750VA version of this - it's pretty cheap. Maybe there's an equivalent in the British market? The other day the power went out and I heard it kick in, so I finished the article I was reading on my desktop and shut it down. And Vecha - if you bought a good supply, it's never a waste since it'll take out that much more guesswork later. My video card frequently flips out and takes the whole system out, requiring shutdown, wait, and cold boot. So I got a Kingwin Stryker STR-500 PSU. It's way more efficient than my last one, has no fans at all so it's nice and quiet, and it definitely has power to spare in addition to supplying clean stable power on every line. Sadly that didn't fix the video card issue, but now I know it's not that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vecha Posted July 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2012 And Vecha - if you bought a good supply, it's never a waste since it'll take out that much more guesswork later. My video card frequently flips out and takes the whole system out, requiring shutdown, wait, and cold boot. So I got a Kingwin Stryker STR-500 PSU. It's way more efficient than my last one, has no fans at all so it's nice and quiet, and it definitely has power to spare in addition to supplying clean stable power on every line. Sadly that didn't fix the video card issue, but now I know it's not that. I'm not sure I did. Bought an Apevia 700W. The reviews were decent, but after I had installed it I read that it is better to get name brand PSUs. We will see if it lasts.(the previous PSU wasn't brand name and lasted me over 6 years. It was a 530W) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luftwaffles Posted July 6, 2012 Report Share Posted July 6, 2012 The thing about name brand vs. non-name brand PSUs (in my experience) isn't how long they last, as they seem to be relatively the same in my experience, but how they die. All of my Antec, Coolermaster, Corsair, etc. PSUs have just fizzled out when they hit the end of their lifespan. The non-name brand ones (or one, in my case), when they died, took something with them. In my case it was my entire system, but I had a friend whose PSU overloaded just his GPU. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vecha Posted July 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2012 The thing about name brand vs. non-name brand PSUs (in my experience) isn't how long they last, as they seem to be relatively the same in my experience, but how they die. All of my Antec, Coolermaster, Corsair, etc. PSUs have just fizzled out when they hit the end of their lifespan. The non-name brand ones (or one, in my case), when they died, took something with them. In my case it was my entire system, but I had a friend whose PSU overloaded just his GPU. Hmm...interesting. Guess I'll try to replace it in 2 to 3 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted July 8, 2012 Report Share Posted July 8, 2012 I've never made it to end of life on a PSU before, I've always ended up upgrading my graphics card and having to upgrade the PSU to support the new one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuchikoma Posted July 8, 2012 Report Share Posted July 8, 2012 At my last job I replaced dozens of PSUs, though in almost every case, it was just because the fans were starting to grind and buzz and annoy the users - we could try to blow them out and clean them, but it usually comes back. Could have removed the supply and opened it up to take the fan apart and clean it, but that has real potential to kill if a mistake is made, and also a good chance of not fixing the problem... But these were cheap, old hp-Compaq towers with "generic" supplies (or brands like "Sparkle"). We actually used to order whole boxes full of replacements, equal or a bit better, for around $10-12 each. I think we had one batch that was from LiteOn. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted July 8, 2012 Report Share Posted July 8, 2012 Not my personal woe (well to a degree I guess it was). Was over at my aunts yesterday. She collared me to help get he photos off her android to her laptop (I had shown her how using my netbook, but when she'd gone home to do it herself the drivers wouldn't auto download). It became a bit more of a job than just "get driver, copy images over". Turns out the laptop is pretty old, rocking Vista on a 30GB HDD. With just a few hundred megs free. I ended up running ccleaner and giving it the first clean it must have had in some years, gaining it 2GBs. I mentioned about her getting a external HDD, which she does reckon she has one somewhere, so that does help. It was her daughters so it has a bunch of assignment work n software on from her, which she's not removed as she's unsure what she can remove and not. Next time I've got more hands on with it I'll probably be seeing on clearing up a bit more space, deleting unneeded files and software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Pirate Posted July 8, 2012 Report Share Posted July 8, 2012 I think my worst case scenario was back when I was still with my parents and we all shared one computer. Needless to say certain family members weren't too smart about what sites they visited and one day we got a super virus. This thing was NASTY. It would disable all anti-viruses from running, would block you from the registry editor completely, as well as task manager, and upon start up would automatically load the internet and open a bunch of spam sites. Even running in safe mode was a nightmare, it still managed to get access to the internet and demanded that we pay for its antivirus software. I tried to sneak-install antivirus and malware remover programs through a USB transfer and it would actually stop the .exe processes in its track, and when you tried to reinstall it, the program would just vanish completely. It was a NIGHTMARE. I think my parents still have the computer but it was rendered completely useless for the internet because the program still runs wild. I hope my own computer never has to experience such a thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Heat Posted July 8, 2012 Report Share Posted July 8, 2012 I miss being able to have all my audio devices playing in unison. Prior to my mobo/CPU upgrade last December, I was able to adjust what jack did what so two of them were set for Speaker Out (my two monitors) and I had my headset plugged into two of the four remaining ports (as headphone and mic respectively...obviously). Not the case for the new mobo, so I had to buy a splitter for the speakers and a brand new headset. I think my worst case scenario was back when I was still with my parents and we all shared one computer. Needless to say certain family members weren't too smart about what sites they visited and one day we got a super virus. This thing was NASTY. It would disable all anti-viruses from running, would block you from the registry editor completely, as well as task manager, and upon start up would automatically load the internet and open a bunch of spam sites. Even running in safe mode was a nightmare, it still managed to get access to the internet and demanded that we pay for its antivirus software. I tried to sneak-install antivirus and malware remover programs through a USB transfer and it would actually stop the .exe processes in its track, and when you tried to reinstall it, the program would just vanish completely. It was a NIGHTMARE. I think my parents still have the computer but it was rendered completely useless for the internet because the program still runs wild. I hope my own computer never has to experience such a thing. This brings back horrible memories of being a teenager and living with my older sister, brother and mom. All of whom had no idea what they were doing. KaZaA and Limewire were constantly being re-installed despite my warnings (usually countered with 'Well what if YOUR stuff is giving us viruses?') and I pretty much gave up on troubleshooting until we acquired a second computer (which especially became mine because I took care of it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luftwaffles Posted July 8, 2012 Report Share Posted July 8, 2012 So I tried to go to google this morning and got this wonderful little error. Completely confused, and unable to google the problem, I tried bing, tried yahoo, until I finally (somehow) ended up at a page saying my ISP had implemented a bandwidth cap and I had gone over it. (156/150GB). Unfortunately, now it wants to notify me when I hit 80% of usage, but it needs my account number, that's on my statement that I don't have. So now I'll have no Google until I get my next monthly statement and am able to get rid of this goddamn notification. I mean, the bandwidth cap is 150GB, but in a house with 2 computers + 1 PS3 that are all on almost constantly plus a renter using Skype for her main phone, that goes fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleven Posted July 9, 2012 Report Share Posted July 9, 2012 So now I'll have no Google until I get my next monthly statement and am able to get rid of this goddamn notification. I was going to suggest Blackle temporarily but what about google+, gmail, and docs? Do you get blocked out from all of google's stuff? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luftwaffles Posted July 9, 2012 Report Share Posted July 9, 2012 So now I'll have no Google until I get my next monthly statement and am able to get rid of this goddamn notification. I was going to suggest Blackle temporarily but what about google+, gmail, and docs? Do you get blocked out from all of google's stuff? Luckily I can still get to Gmail on my phone. Firefox lets me add an exception as well, but yeah, blocked out from all Google's stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted July 9, 2012 Report Share Posted July 9, 2012 I think my worst case scenario was back when I was still with my parents and we all shared one computer. Needless to say certain family members weren't too smart about what sites they visited and one day we got a super virus. This thing was NASTY. It would disable all anti-viruses from running, would block you from the registry editor completely, as well as task manager, and upon start up would automatically load the internet and open a bunch of spam sites. Even running in safe mode was a nightmare, it still managed to get access to the internet and demanded that we pay for its antivirus software. I tried to sneak-install antivirus and malware remover programs through a USB transfer and it would actually stop the .exe processes in its track, and when you tried to reinstall it, the program would just vanish completely. It was a NIGHTMARE. I think my parents still have the computer but it was rendered completely useless for the internet because the program still runs wild. I hope my own computer never has to experience such a thing. Sadly, the answer to that situation is just completely wipe the computer and reinstall the OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuchikoma Posted July 28, 2012 Report Share Posted July 28, 2012 (edited) Well, this is a weird one... Has anyone seen Win7 or Vista insist on fading to black several times when you unlock the PC? I had this problem before, but it went away for months... now it's back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyaq7Jmh-Kw Using an EVGA GeForce GTS 450. This doesn't seem like a hardware issue, though it's hard to tell if it's triggered by one - this card always had an issue where sometimes when using video overlays, especially on Youtube, I'd get a few errant green pixels on the screen, then the screen would go black, the desktop would return, saying the nVidia display driver kernel recovered from a crash, then the desktop and all windows would look like two triangles with distorted, flickering textures on them... if pushed for another few moments, this soon results in a BSOD involving NVLDDMKM.SYS (which on further research can be caused by just about anything, with nVidia blaming MS and MS blaming nVidia.) When that happens, the system has to be powered completely off and left to sit for at least a few seconds before cold booting, or it will surely happen again in the next hour or two. UPDATE: It was caused by my Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet driver of all things... My old driver had stopped working for some reason, so I grabbed the newest Vista/Win7 32-bit driver and put it on Win7 and... this happened. Took it off and everything went back to normal. Edited August 1, 2012 by fuchikoma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Rat Posted July 30, 2012 Report Share Posted July 30, 2012 Oh boy, this is going to be a list... PC #1 Problem: my first PC had an issue that half the games I ran would either feature no sound, or would have delayed sound (1-2 second delay). Solution: turns out, the store I bought the PC from installed Windows 98 on a motherboard which had the "Designed specially for WinXP". Reasoning I got was "Windows XP is still new, thus unexplored. Who knows what kind of errors you'll get. Stick to tried and true." I installed Windows XP and the sound issue never happened again. Problem: lightning struck the modem. Problem: power surge melted the HDD. Problem: intense Summer heat without an AC literally made my motherboard and CRT monitor go bye-bye. PC #2: Problem: insane, constant, beeping. To give some context, because my dad "knew the store owner" (same person who sold us PC#1), so we got the PC more easily than we otherwise would have (like, on a 3 year payment, which otherwise wasn't an option). But since I lived 400km away due to college, we moved the PC 400km. And we had to deal with whatever we got. What we got was a constant high-pitched software (not hardware) beep. To work around it, we had to literally restart the PC and turn it back on again right away and hope it would stop. It was a 1 in 20 chance, so you can imagine how frustrating it was. To this day, I have no idea WHAT it was about. It seemed to be motherboard related, since I've swapped out some components, and at one time, a certain combination completely removed the beeping, but when I removed one of those new components (and left everything else there), it returned. Problem: Most recent one that murdered the old PC was very odd. I have no idea what had happened, but the PC would start up and just show the desktop and icons. You had to boot up Windows Explorer manually via task manager > new task. Even then, it refused to install almost any application. It refused to run almost any application, and even stopped supporting the DVD-Drives (it would work, but just tell me the device doesn't support UDF). Nothing I did worked, and I tried everything from safemode, to attempting to boot up via USB. I couldn't even reinstall Windows after a HDD wipe. It was THAT bad. Note, this happened 6 months after I stopped using said PC and left it to my brother and roommate. PC #3: None so far *knocks on wood* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baconrath Posted July 30, 2012 Report Share Posted July 30, 2012 Heat fatigue makes for sad days and annual blue screens when your laptop isn't warm enough. Poor GARY... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
excel_excel Posted August 1, 2012 Report Share Posted August 1, 2012 (edited) I was getting around 37 idle temps on my GPU, now I'm getting from 40 to 45. I hate that! GO BACK TO NORMAL!! Also yeah my RAM was fucked when I first got my PC. So I sent it back and now everythings been fine. I get paranoid though......LIKE IS FIREFOX MAKING MY GPU HOTTER EH? And all those random times the fans just seem to go crazy for no reason. Why? I'm not doing anything different, they just do it for no reason. Urgh. Edited August 2, 2012 by excel_excel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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