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Author Topic: The Generic Computer Advice Thread  (Read 482866 times)

Lord Shonus

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3825 on: February 04, 2019, 03:17:04 pm »

That was  the problem. I was calling it a "shield" or "Dust cover". The term "bracket" didn't occur to me.
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On Giant In the Playground and Something Awful I am Gnoman.
Man, ninja'd by a potentially inebriated Lord Shonus. I was gonna say to burn it.

methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3826 on: February 07, 2019, 09:52:20 am »

Today I was compressing my old DF installs in 'parallel' (manually started compressing each folder as fast as I could). The part that confused me was the fact that my CPU (Intel Core i5-4460 @ 3.20GHz, if that helps) refused to go any higher than like, 2.7GHz during this process, despite the fact that utilization went up to 90%. I play and store my DF installs on an external USB hard drive, since I do occasionally play DF on my laptop. Is there a reason for this?
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Gentlefish

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3827 on: February 07, 2019, 09:59:18 am »

Probably throttled by USB read/write speeds if it isn't USB 3.0 and maybe even if it is.

methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3828 on: February 07, 2019, 10:13:35 am »

That, and DF seems to have some kind of obsession with generating thousands of tiny files in its worlds. It's a bit of a pain to transfer DF worlds despite their relatively small size.
Speaking of tiny files, what metric measures the number of 0-byte/very small files that can be read/written per second by a hard drive or other storage medium? After all, manufacturers seem entirely fine with reporting read/write speeds for a continuous stream of data, so what gives?
« Last Edit: February 07, 2019, 10:17:05 am by methylatedspirit »
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Starver

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3829 on: February 07, 2019, 11:04:04 am »

Different OSes deal with 'file boundaries' differently, often to do with whether they 'waste' a whole file-block with [0 or 1?] to [blocksize-1] file or file-end fragments, or save up all the fragments and pack them nicely into as many sub-indexable blocks as can be allowed for by that FAT-equivalent for sub-allocation and/or tail-packing.

And if transfered stream-wise, some flatfile-ish streams handle null-content files (and tailings) better than others, however the storage hardware and FS ends up optimising the actual emplacement of the received data.


Though, to be honest, it's been many a year since I've had to worry about the exact mechanics. It's mostly the human component that's the slower factor that could be sped up by changes to process, even if you're sat there waiting for a few hundred gigabytes of files to move between USB thumb-drive and external HDD while shuffling data across media. I used to know much more about the various FATs, NTFS, NFS, ext (and the earlier extNs), ADFS/GDFS (Acorn, not Microsoft, and Graduate respectively) but I'd have to dig up manuals or wiki pages to refresh my knowledge, and I've no idea how/if they've tweaked NTFS since anyway. Never mind how the USB drivers interact for streaming and hanshaking them through the serial bus. (I've been fighting for years with a Win2K machine over this. It should be non-caching when I move files onto a stick, for immediate removal upon completion, but after it has 'copied' if I do too much else it can suddenly pop up saying it is failing to copy one of the files. Best to leave it a few minutes during and after copying and go and do something else.)
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AzyWng

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3830 on: February 12, 2019, 09:57:00 pm »

There's an issue I have with the mic that goes with my headphones.

It no longer appears to work.

It won't pick up sound when it's selected as the default audio device (I can tell it's the device being used and not the laptop mic because my laptop mic doesn't pick up any sound at all when the headphone mic is active).

Audio troubleshooter hasn't been too helpful. Removing the mic from the headphones and putting it back in doesn't appear to help either. Restarting my laptop also hasn't had much of an effect.

I guess I'll shut the laptop down and turn it on, but I dunno how helpful that will be either.

EDIT: Mic is working now, but it only appears to be picking up one channel (The Right channel, that is). That means that only things on the right side are picked up...

DOUBLE EDIT: False alarm, it seems. The mic itself and both channels appear to be functinoing normally...
« Last Edit: February 12, 2019, 10:21:01 pm by AzyWng »
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Starver

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3831 on: February 12, 2019, 11:00:09 pm »

Assuming it's a standard 3.5mm audio jack (and not something like a cabled USB plug or even a bluetooth-to-USB-dongle setup) have you got any other audio devices that can take its input (dictaphone, perhaps a mobile phone that hasn't gone the proprietary connector root) through which you can debug what's what? Or another person's laptop?

Not sure about your removal of the mic from the headphones, because all mic/headphone combo sets I've had have been inseparable short of (possibly damaging) dissassembly.

Also, mics, regardless of the headset (sometimes stereo; sometimes mono, especially just-one-ear versions) are only mono. Overwhelmingly, at least, unless you've got something very fancy. I suspect that the mic jack is of a mono-form (the second in this image) rather than stereo (the third in that image) and it's the socket that's stereo-capable but isn't connecting properly with the internal left-leg that would normally be electrically equivalent to the right leg.

So now the question is have you got any other mics you can test? (The laptop mic is inbuilt, I presume, so not available to plug in, similarly, in any way.) It could easily be a bit of fluff stuck in the socket (I keep having to extract fluff from my tablet's headphone-out port, from the bottom of the various pockets it gets slid into) that at one point misaligned it to not work at all but now is merely misaligning it to the current problem. If it's exactly the same then I'd be seriously peering into the socket with some illumination (which you can do anyway, but before you think it is the problem you can spend ages trying to look there without thinking you ought to see something).

Cleaning anything out is tricky. I use a pin, the head, not the point, to carefully see if I can 'hook' any fibres out of the recesses with the "mushroom head" shape, but I know it's possible to damage the innards. Caveats apply, which is why I'd encourage you to see the fluff before picking away with increasing severity in hopes of finding it. It may be possible to damage the make-to-detect microswitch or alternate centre-pin detection at the base of the socket hole that governs the behaviour of the switch (mechanically or logically) to override the inbuilt mic, that's obvioysly working.


The other option to inward sound being only on the right channel is that you've moved the (software) setting stereo bias full over when you were trying to fiddle the (for other reasons?) original non-workingness. Having inadvertently repaired the original issue (e.g. switching off and on again, having cleared the badly set bit in the driver's working memory) you are now suffering from your other fiddlings.  But I don't think that's likely for you to have missed (seen it and fiddled with it while fiddling, missed it entirely when re-fiddling), just putting it out there.


That's the sort of sequence of investigation I'd attempt if you brought it to me with that problem (maybe without quite so readily poking the socket, if it wasn't my device to take my own risks with). If the tests come up weird (only that mic works improperly with only that laptop, every other combination working and there being no obvious physical difference between plugs to perhaps be a borderline failure with the inscrutable insides of the slightly different laptop socket) then I'd have to look for another approach. Ditto if I'm wrong about it being a 3.5-phono connector from the start. (But if it's a composite stereo-out/mono-in three-channel 3.5 plug handling all audio IO in one ("TRRS", Tip/Ring/Ring/Sleeve, or even "TRRRS" with another ring) then it could yet be the same as per misalignment, but I'm not entirely sure which Rs and which of the T and S actually does what, without looking it up of hooking one up to test.)
« Last Edit: February 12, 2019, 11:11:25 pm by Starver »
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BigD145

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3832 on: February 14, 2019, 08:06:43 pm »

A physically loose headphone/mic jack motherboard connection will also cause your problem. It's the simplest cause. It can be an intermittent problem. Working for awhile and then not.
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methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3833 on: February 14, 2019, 11:51:32 pm »

Is it safe to use a PC if the mains power coming into the PSU is unstable? (That is, the input voltage isn't constant, but varies drastically over time)
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wierd

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3834 on: February 14, 2019, 11:55:15 pm »

Not without a sacrificial UPS to buffer the power.

A cheapie "power strip" 5-minute special would do.  I used to use one for this purpose when I lived out in super rural-land USA.  Wind + overhead power lines + Neglect from the county electrical commission because "County is rural and poor" == Very unstable power at various times during the day.  After destroying a few 60$ PSUs, I decided that a sacrificial UPS was called for.  Worked great.  It will just beep all the damn time.
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methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3835 on: February 21, 2019, 09:49:41 am »

My PC has a tendency to crash (no response to input, loops last few samples of audio played), sometimes managing to progress to the Windows 10 BSOD, most of the time not. When it did, the error I usually get is THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER or something similar. For reasons unknown, it's most common when the PC is idling, which means that I have to keep an instance of a game open, framelimited to 3 FPS, to get any semblance of stability.
I've tried updating the BIOS and drivers, and they're all up to date, so what else could be the culprit?
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wierd

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3836 on: February 21, 2019, 09:52:39 am »

what hardware is in that system?  I will look for any problem children.
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methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3837 on: February 21, 2019, 10:06:57 am »

Can't answer now, my keyboard decided to be a PITA and broke. Expect me to update in around 23 hours.
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wierd

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3838 on: February 21, 2019, 10:08:08 am »

ok.
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methylatedspirit

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Re: The Generic Computer Advice Thread
« Reply #3839 on: February 22, 2019, 09:30:25 am »

I just got a replacement because (membrane) keyboards don't appear to be user-serviceable.
Anyway, this is the list of hardware:
Motherboard: (how and where do I get the exact name?)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460  CPU @ 3.20GHz, 3201 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
Installed RAM: 8GB, 1/4 slots filled
GPU: AMD Radeon R7 200 Series, @1075 MHz, 1GB VRAM
Network adapters: D-Link DWA-566 Wireless N 300 Dual Band PCIe Desktop Adapter
Disk drives:
  • TS128GSSD370S (SSD, 128GB, is (C:), main boot device)
  • ST9500423AS (Laptop HDD, scavenged from laptop, is Second Disk (F:), used mainly to redirect Documents (savefiles are huge), Downloads and Pictures to save space on the SSD.)
  • StoreJet Transcend USB Device (External USB 3.0 HDD, 1TB, is Transcend (E:))
  • ST500LT012-1DG142 (Laptop HDD, 500GB, taken directly from another (now-broken) laptop, is (H:) and System Reserved (D:), still contains an install of Windows ...10? 8.1?)
DVD Drive: ASUS DRW-24D3ST (I don't use this thing much, is (Z:))

What have I missed?
« Last Edit: February 22, 2019, 09:38:08 am by methylatedspirit »
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