Faiblesse Des Sens Posted March 1, 2012 Report Share Posted March 1, 2012 I get the feeling I may have gotten a lemon You did, it's a HP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madbassman39 Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Well my issues all returned and then some this weekend. First everything froze, then my computer shut off, restarted and I got this message "Your computer was unable to start: Startup repair is checking your system for problems..." It performed a system restore after 2 hours, and then it worked fine until today. What the hell? So I ran a virus scan... nothing... then I decided that this was bs, contacted HP and they said it sounds like a hardware issue. That's about all I got from him, but in the live chat it was obvious he was just an outsourced operator following a script. I take no issue with it, but it doesn't really pacify my irritation when the guy I'm talking to probably doesn't really know anything and can only give me generic solutions. I asked to get a new one and he said that they could not do that, so for now that's fine. If the problem returns after it's repaired, I'm going to make sure I get a new computer, even if that means selling this and buying a different brand. @FDS: I was under the impression that HPs were decent laptops, and I chose to buy it based off of the fact that it's a fairly large supplier of laptops, hoping to get as close to the Apple support as I could. I guess I was wrong. Both my sister and mother have HPs and they seem to run OK, but they wouldn't know if it wasn't working right if it would just randomly turn off in the middle of using it, so I think that basing my decision off of their experience may have not been the wisest. All in all, I think I'm going to avoid HP from here on out. Most people I know seem to be happiest with their Toshiba laptops. I personally like a lot of features on this laptop, but seeing as I'm done with school, getting a full time job, I don't need a laptop to do as much as I wanted even 6 months ago. I want a desktop small laptop combo (not really a fan of netbooks). If I wasn't so dead set on saving money and having the windows operating system, I would consider buying a mac, just for their tech support, but I don't really want to do that. For now, I'm sending this into HP asap, hopefully get it back before I possibly move out of my parent's house, and then go from there. Fingers crossed they can actually find my issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowKnow Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) This seems the closest and most recent thing to a hardware thread without invading someone's build thread.. So I've been looking to buy an ssd for a while now, was planning on buying a small and cheap one and use it for the OS and maybe some games. Been kinda weary though since I keep seeing reviews/comments about having issues on the firmware? side of things. I'm also have pretty limited experience in installing hardware... with an ssd would I simply be connecting the SATA cable and placing it in the hard drive slot/mounting it to some kind of bracket? I'm also wondering if there's anything I should know about installing OS's on blank hard drives... as I've never done it before. Current Rig ignoring the graphics card Currently I'm looking at these 2 hard drives though I haven't done that much research, any advice/suggestions would be welcome Patriot Torqx 2 Solid State Drive - 64GB, 2.5", SATA - 60$ This ones in the price range I wanted, has favourable reviews although I'm not a big fan of Mail in rebates. SanDisk 120GB Solid State Drive - 120GB, SATA 6 Gb/s, 2.5" This one would probably give me more leeway for putting non-essentials on the ssd, it shares "roughly" the same gb per $ and seems to be faster. Also has no MiR. OCZ Agility 3 120GB SATA3 6GB/s, Read: 525MB/s, Write: 500MB/s I think I've settled on this one Thanks in advance. Edited March 29, 2012 by CrowKnow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faiblesse Des Sens Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 The only reason you buy a SSD is for speed. Consider that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Installing the OS should be easy, usually you just pop the dvd in the drive and it should auto-run (though you might have to mess with your computer's boot order if it doesn't) and then during the installation process you choose which drive you want to install it to. If you're worried you might get the drives mixed up I have in the past disconnected all hard drives except the one I'm installing to so I only have the one option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strangelove Posted April 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2012 So, do HDMI cables carry sound or only video? I connected my laptop to my tv and it worked fine, except I got no sound. What the hell? If my PS3 can send sound through HDMI, why cant my laptop? My older laptop didnt have an hdmi port, so I had to buy this other cable that was thick as hell and I also had to connect the audio jack to my tv. So it was two wires. Am I going to have to do that again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleven Posted April 1, 2012 Report Share Posted April 1, 2012 HDMI carries both. Are you using windows 7 or xp? On 7, if you right click on the volume control thingy on the lower right and select "Playback Devices" you can see where it outputs your sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strangelove Posted April 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2012 Windows 7. Ok ill give it a shot. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted April 1, 2012 Report Share Posted April 1, 2012 Yeah it carries both, but if your laptop is only outputting video that's all it'll carry to your TV. I think you have to fiddle about to get a GPU HDMI-out to also carry a audio signal as well, most of the time you just get a double-ended 3.5mm jack to hook up the TV n PC for sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted April 6, 2012 Report Share Posted April 6, 2012 My PC has been giving me some trouble recently, got 2 BSOD that said PFN List Corrupt, then I got 1 that said Page Fault in Nonpaged area. Any help on what this means/how can I fix it? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterDex Posted April 6, 2012 Report Share Posted April 6, 2012 That could be a sign of bad memory. Run a few memory tests and see if anything pops up. http://www.memtest.org/ If you have more than the one stick of RAM, you could also try testing them one at a time and see if the problem disappears. If it does then you'll know which stick needs replacing. It could be a bad hard drive either so I'd run a test on that and see how it performs as well. http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html Best of luck, hope ya get it sorted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yantelope V2 Posted April 6, 2012 Report Share Posted April 6, 2012 Paging usually is an HDD thing regarding virtual memory. HDD may be going bad. BSOD's usually have to do with errors on the HDD also in my experience. Maybe try running a repair on your drive and maybe you will need to replace it before long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted April 6, 2012 Report Share Posted April 6, 2012 In my experience Page Fault in Non Paged Area is a RAM issue. I've never actually had memtest turn up a problem for me before, even when I know my RAM is bad (ie getting BSODs with a specific stick in, but not with any other sticks). Best bet to trouble shoot it is to switch out your RAM sticks and see if the problem persists on all of them or just one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted April 7, 2012 Report Share Posted April 7, 2012 Thanks for the help! Memtest has been running for a while now, this is what it looked like when I took the picture (posting from my father's PC ), a couple hours ago: I assume this confirms it's the RAM? Is there a way to know which stick is it without removing them and trying one by one? I kinda want to avoid removing my CPU heatsink/fan but it covers one of the sticks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterDex Posted April 7, 2012 Report Share Posted April 7, 2012 How many sticks do you have? If it's just the two and you can get one out of there then just test the one that's left, you'll know if it's the one that's gone. If it's any more than that, I'm not sure of any other way but I'm not ruling out the possibility that there may be one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted April 7, 2012 Report Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) I have 4 sticks, I'll try removing them tomorrow since right now it's too late for that and it's going to take a while. Edit: BSOD again, this time for System Service Exception. At least it's a new one. Edit 2: Right after I posted that got another BSOD, Memory Management this time, are these all related to RAM or is there something else wrong? Edited April 7, 2012 by MetalCaveman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted April 7, 2012 Report Share Posted April 7, 2012 System service exception is pretty general, but it CAN be a ram problem. What I would do is take out the 3 sticks that aren't blocked by the CPU and run memtest again. If it comes up clean then add one back and run it again. Just keep swapping out the second stick and running memtest until you find the problem stick. Hopefully it won't be the one that's blocked and you won't have to remove that at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted April 7, 2012 Report Share Posted April 7, 2012 Found the stick responsible for everything. It was the one under the heatsink/fan, but it was easier to remove than what I thought it would be. Thanks for the help! \m/ \m/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterDex Posted April 7, 2012 Report Share Posted April 7, 2012 Did the ram have any kind of heat shield on it? It's just a thought but if it's right under the heatsink, it could have received more heat than it could take at some point. It might be something to think about if you're replacing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted April 7, 2012 Report Share Posted April 7, 2012 http://www.corsair.com/memory-by-product-family/vengeance/vengeance-16gb-single-module-ddr3-memory-kit-cmz4gx3m1a1600c9.html That's the one I have, also, it turns out, it has more space than what I thought as I was able to remove the stick without touching the heatsink (heatsink is a Cooler Master V8). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleven Posted April 19, 2012 Report Share Posted April 19, 2012 It's my turn to hijack this thread! So... how do you pick a motherboard? I mean, all I really do is check things if my components could fit on it (processor, memory, video card, sata ports. what size it is etc - ATX, mini etc..). Is that really all? I mean, can the wrong motherboard gimp my system? I'm planning to fix my desktop, as I've been gaming on my laptop and so far only skyrim runs great on it, on high settings, among the most recently released. Now that the Witcher 2 EE is out, I tried to play it again, but then remembered the reason I stopped playing is that it just lags so much on my laptop. Anyway... is there anything I should be checking for on motherboards? Also another question: I want to eventually have the option to do SLI. So I need one with two PCI-E slots. I researched, and I think i could do that with a Standard ATX, which should be perfect since my case can only fit up to those sizes. Does that sound about right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted April 19, 2012 Report Share Posted April 19, 2012 One thing to look at is bus speeds and RAM standards, make sure they match. I mean, it will work if they're not the same, but if the mobo isn't up to the standards of the components then you won't get as much out of them as you could. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted April 19, 2012 Report Share Posted April 19, 2012 If you're wanting SLI the board should say it's SLI-compatible. Obviously you want to make sure the RAM n CPU sockets fit the RAM n CPU you want to be getting. And then it's case of finding one with whichever bells n whistles you want. I think USB 3.0 is getting pretty standard these days. And if you're wanting tons of PCI slots n USB slots that's up to you too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFlyingGerbil Posted June 9, 2012 Report Share Posted June 9, 2012 (edited) Can some help me with an entirely self-inflicted problem, please. I downloaded Chromium OS image file and used Windows Image writer to write the file to a 16GB usb drive (following the instructions here). That ended up not working (it said no OS found when I tried to boot from it) BUT that is a problem for another time as I'm not too bothered. The thing I'm worried about is now I'm back in Windows 7 the drive is only showing as 1GB, and if I right-click on it in My Computer and choose 'format...' it give the size as 1GB too. Does anyone know how I can get the full size back, please? edit: Never mind, I sorted it with the info on this page. Thanks for anyone that would have helped though edit again: though if any of you know why it may have shown up as "no OS found" when I tried to boot it, that would be awesome... Edited June 9, 2012 by TheFlyingGerbil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted June 10, 2012 Report Share Posted June 10, 2012 No idea why that didn't work, but when I was trying to install an OS from USB on my HTPC recently I was running into problems with image writing apps as well. I ended up just formatting the USB stick, opening the image file on my computer with Daemon Tools, and copying the files over and it worked fine, no special app required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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