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PCs for dummies


Strangelove
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  • 2 months later...

Ok so since upgrading from 7 to 10 file explorer has been a absolute nightmare! Everything was either incredibly slow, didn't happen or only partially load. After enduring this to this day I have decided enough is enough and started diagnosing by limiting the startup services using MSconfig.

 

After going through enabling startup services groups at the time and restarting the computer everytime! Eventually I found the service that was causing the problems with file explorer. The service is called Windows search and once disabled it restored functionality to file explorer. The search function in file explorer works but the search in the taskbar doesn't.

 

Step by step guide:

1. Hold Win+r to open run

2. Type msconfig and hit ok or enter

3. Click Services

4. Navigate to Windows search (you can sort the list in descending alphabetical order)

5. Uncheck tickbox

6. Click apply then ok

7. Select to restart now

 

Hope this works for you.

Seems to have solved his and several replier's problem.

Edited by TheFlyingGerbil
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Try to show the problem to someone else and it'll disappear. That usually works for me.

Oh god I hate this at work. I'll end up getting our web dev, who works remotely, on Hangouts with a screenshare set up going "this function isn't working right, look see...oh..well works now toodles". (though he understands the concept)

 

And I'll give TFGs fix a shot when I'm back home.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Out of nowhere Witcher 3 GOG copy stopped launching from Steam. I click it, steam says I last played it right there, my screen flickers and then nothing. I can launch the game fine via GOG but Steam stopped launching it. The worst part is I had it working until recently. I removed the game from steam and added it again but nothing, any suggestions?

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In my search for ways to remotely connect to my PC at home, I found out that Chrome is fucked in Windows 10. Any Google related stuff is slow as balls and I can't sign in. I never noticed until now since I use Firefox. So back to the drawing board to find a way to do remote desktop.

Anybody here ever had success?

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Is there any application that tracks game time? Like, purely game time? Raptr works, but if it doesn't detect your game, and it's not in the manual games list either, then you can't track anything. I wonder why there isn't just some application that can track how long you're running an .exe file or something.

 

Edit:

 

Well, it looks like this is possible through AutoHotKey. After a bit of searching, I stole the code from here and edited it a bit so that it can:

 

1. Keep track of the time your selected window (game) is running.

2. Once the game is closed, it writes the stats to a csv file.

3. If you run the game again, it'll restart counting from 0 seconds. If you exit again, it'll write to the csv file again, keeping track of the total number of seconds you've run your game.

 

Then you just open the csv file in excel and sum up all the seconds. Convert to minutes or hours or whatever and add that to your darkadia page. Then delete the csv file so you won't count double hours the next time you track your game (the script will just create the file again later). Sure it's still a lot of manual process. But all I really want to do is have something that automatically tracks time of any program in some way, without any online requirements/accounts to manage.

 

If anyone's interested to try it out, you can get the stuff here:

 


1. Download the ahk script here.

2. Install AutoHotKey (link)

3. Create folder C:\Apps (because I hardcoded the directory where the csv file is created. you can edit the script to put it somewhere else)

4. Run the script (just double click the ahk file)

5. Run the game (in this sample, I'm tracking notepad. Just open notepad and you can see the counter on the upper left increase).

6. Exit the game. The csv file will be created in C:\Apps

 

If you want to track your game, first figure out what it's window title is. This is the title showing on the taskbar. Then copy the script to a new file, edit it in notepad, and search for any occurrences of "Notepad". Replace that with the window title (the window title i'm tracking for notepad is "Untitled - Notepad", so you have to replace "Untitled - Notepad" with "The Witcher 2" for example if you want to track Witcher 2 instead of Notepad.. Then run your new script.

 


Edited by Eleven
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Hmm.. I already have it uninstalled, but I checked my Raptr profile online and Life is Strange was added... So maybe it was missing in the list (because I'm 100% sure it wasn't there) because it was already in my library? But there were only 3 games on the sidebar in the main interface and Life is Strange wasn't there...

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I'd imagine a less fiddly hacked together way of tracking games would be one of the freelancing tools. Never had to use em myself cos I don't charge for the hour, but you can definitely get time tracking tools for like graphic designers and the like. I figure if they'll track how long you're in Photoshop n the like wouldn't be much harder to track Witcher or whatever.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I managed to put together one that even has a GUI to view the stats! Tracks any app time spent to the second and logs each gaming session! It's super cool! Well, not really, but doing stuff like this is something I enjoy (it's like DIY stuff, but with software).

 

----

 

Anyhoo! I'm thinking if I should upgrade my GPU now, or wait for better prices later and splurge on the really good ones (like wait for a card with 2x the performance). I have a GTX 560 Ti, and my only options right now are a GTX 960, or a GTX 760 (not even a Ti!). I could also get a 970 but I don't like the price difference. But that benches at around 8000+ so it definitely will give me twice what I have now.

 

Here's the comparison stuff.

 

That tells me I'm not getting 2x the performance of my current card (really? I feel like my card's so old now), so looks like it's not worth it. What I really want is playing games on 1080p though, even on Medium settings. Right now I can't run games on 1080p without sacrificing a lot. But if I switch to 720p my card seems to perform really well till now.

 

EDIT: Lol. It's pretty dumb getting a "BUY NOW!" tag on my card there. They should automatically remove that for cards that old!

Edited by Eleven
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Yeah it looks like a good upgrade choice, though I hate waiting. Especially when I have games to play on PC now. And holiday break is coming soon...

 

Maybe I'll give it till Tomb Raider comes out... I wonder if that'll be enough to handle the hair physics as well...

 

I'd say go with a 960 if it's in your budget. I'm on a 760 at the moment, and likely looking to do an upgrade later next year. I'm not super into the cards at the moment but I think the new gen is due pretty soon, which'll drop the cost of the 9-series.

 

Can the 760 run current games on 1080p at 30fps?

Edited by Eleven
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  • 3 weeks later...

Original Post

 

Quick question, I had a friend help me out installing my SSD. He installed a new version of windows on it (not what I asked for) and partitioned the drive. I'm going to clone my existing drive to that new SSD but because he paritioned it I'm not sure how to format the new drive to eliminate all the partitions.

Is deleting the partition and formating the drive in Windows 7 efficient? I want to format the drive and eliminate all partitions.

 

 

Alright, I formatted it and threw caution to the wind. Now I used this guide to clone my drive. It was working and all of a sudden it stopped and said it could not access part of the drive in mid clone and to try again. I went to try again and lo and behold my new 500GB SSD is no longer any where to be seen. The computer doesn't recognize it at all.

 

Any idea what to do now?

Edited by madbassman39
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So far its been only with TF2 and CS:GO but I've been having these random full comp restarts that I haven't had since pre-patch Fallout 4. I guess it's some sort of memory leak somewhere but I dunno...this could be a symptom of lots of things. I don't know if its something about Source games or something deeper than that. I've looked at the processes running and nothing seems out of the ordinary- Steam and Chrome seem to take most of the memory. But I know its not the combo of the two since it's rebooted on me when i had Steam and foobar 2000 (which uses a fraction of what Steam and Chrome uses). It's really weird and it has me kind of spooked. Could this be a sign of harddrive failure? I haven't made the switch from mechanical to SSDs yet (because of pricepoint at the time). Or maybe the power supply? All I got so far is speculation. : /

 

tl;dr my computer is haunted and I'm gonna update my backups

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Too bad FDS isn't around; he's better at diagnosing this sort of thing.

 

But if it's a random restart of the whole system, I think that it's something physical, rather than software related Like, a short between the case and mobo, or on the mobo, or a bad PSU. The only times I've had random restarts were when I had a faulty PSU. it tended to be weird stuff that would trigger the restarts, too, rather than something that amounted to a smoking gun. It was not as if all games that taxed my GPU/CPU would cause the restarts, just certain, odd ones, like Civ V and Far Cry 3, but not Witcher 2 or Dwarf Fortress.

Edited by Mr. GOH!
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