PC fettling and repairs thread

[DCBassman]

What with the motherboard failure on the big box, I've decided to retire it completely. I'll recycle the RAM and CPU into the now-redundant small-form-factor box previously used as a movie cache. Younger son will have the Titan X back. All the rest will be sold off. Anyone need a really big PC case?

 

[Bonefish Blues]

The iMac with the jerry-rigged second screen seems now to be working reliably for my daughter (albeit the original Mac screen's more off than on, so peace returns.

 

[yello]

In truth I like the fact that so much is on the cloud with the clever syncing and back-up - I was never very good at doing that and have lost lots of stuff in the past with other platforms.

This is a big consideration - and plus for a Chromebook.

The amount of stuff we store these days on our hard disks (as the world becomes increasingly, supposedly, paperless) I've now got all manner of utility bills, tax returns, etc all stored on my laptop. As I'm a bit techie, I do have 3 layers of back up (all automated) but I'd guess most people wouldn't even know where to begin with something like that. Auto-syncing cloud backups DO have their place, even if I remain a little cautious about it and prefer to do it all myself.

 

[midlife]

Seems a bit over the odds even with current lunacy- this one is £1600. Marginally- very marginally- slower perhaps, but rather less poor (better would be the wrong phrase) value.

Out of stock unfortunately as is the case for a lot of graphics cards.

Didn't realise the one we ordered was coming from Germany and now been stung for import duty!!

 

[StuAff]

Out of stock unfortunately as is the case for a lot of graphics cards.

Didn't realise the one we ordered was coming from Germany and now been stung for import duty!!

Extra ouch! Having checked AWD right now, they do have stock on a few other 3080 Ti models…too late for you unfortunately.

 

[Blue Hills]

This is a big consideration - and plus for a Chromebook.

The amount of stuff we store these days on our hard disks (as the world becomes increasingly, supposedly, paperless) I've now got all manner of utility bills, tax returns, etc all stored on my laptop. As I'm a bit techie, I do have 3 layers of back up (all automated) but I'd guess most people wouldn't even know where to begin with something like that. Auto-syncing cloud backups DO have their place, even if I remain a little cautious about it and prefer to do it all myself.

I was quite good but still came to grief - apart from the complications of various sorts of backups to get your head round (am still amazed how simple chromebooks make all this and my two current chromebooks sync with two android tabs plus a smartphone on a separate account passes all its pics to that lot) I also had back-up media failure. Remember Zip drives (I think that's what they were called) and the dreaded "click of death" or whatever it was called.?

 

[ColinJ]

I was quite good but still came to grief - apart from the complications of various sorts of backups to get your head round (am still amazed how simple chromebooks make all this and my two current chromebooks sync with two android tabs plus a smartphone on a separate account passes all its pics to that lot) I also had back-up media failure. Remember Zip drives (I think that's what they were called) and the dreaded "click of death" or whatever it was called.?

I started taking backups more seriously after several serious failures at work. The killer for me was when one of my colleagues suddenly screamed and started punching his desk... He had lost more than a year's worth of work in a hard drive failure! I couldn't believe that somebody would not keep at least one other copy of his/her work. But no - he had no backups, nor even any printouts. IIRC the company sent the hard drive to a specialist company which removed the platters and built a new drive with them so eventually the work was retrieved, but it caused weeks of delays and cost thousands of pounds.

We all had our own backup folders on the office server and that was backed up daily. I wrote a simple batch file which I ran every day so (unless the backups (and the backups of the backups!) failed) I could never lose more than a day's work.

Which reminds me... I need to backup my laptop!

 

[Blue Hills]

Which reminds me... I need to backup my laptop!

Get a chromebook.
Whenever I have to dig the old unecessarily big windows laptop out (only for garmin updates) it feels like a return to the dark ages.

 

[ColinJ]

Get a chromebook.
Whenever I have to dig the old unecessarily big windows laptop out (only for garmin updates) it feels like a return to the dark ages.

I am creating, not consuming!

For consuming, yes - Chromebooks are great.

 

[ColinJ]

Oh... I stand corrected!

But... the Chromebook he is using is one of the more upmarket ones which actually costs about the same as my Windows laptop.

 

[Blue Hills]

I am creating, not consuming!

Ooh get you

 

[ColinJ]

Ooh get you

It doesn't take a lot of computing power to browse websites, write emails, etc. but development systems can be more demanding.

It turns out though that I had overestimated how undemanding this development system is, and underestimated how good some Chromebooks are!

I was thinking back to 1990 (-ish?) when I had to spend £2,000 to get a PC powerful enough to run the software that I was using at the time. That would be equivalent to spending about £6,000 now.

 

[Blue Hills]

It doesn't take a lot of computing power to browse websites, write emails, etc. but development systems can be more demanding.

It turns out though that I had overestimated how undemanding this development system is, and underestimated how good some Chromebooks are!

I was thinking back to 1990 (-ish?) when I had to spend £2,000 to get a PC powerful enough to run the software that I was using at the time. That would be equivalent to spending about £6,000 now.

yep - computers/comms has come on massively. I was a very early adopter.

 

[yello]

I couldn't believe that somebody would not keep at least one other copy of his/her work. But no - he had no backups

It is surprisingly (or perhaps not that surprising) common. I'm sure hard disc recovery must be amongst the most common task that IT people have to perform these days.

And these days, the amount of 'stuff' people have on there phones is (to my mind anyway) astounding. Cloud backup (despite my own concerns, as I said before) is a godsend. Indeed, part of my backup tiers is an automated rclone sync to google drives.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

It is surprisingly (or perhaps not that surprising) common. I'm sure hard disc recovery must be amongst the most common task that IT people have to perform these days.

And these days, the amount of 'stuff' people have on there phones is (to my mind anyway) astounding. Cloud backup (despite my own concerns, as I said before) is a godsend. Indeed, part of my backup tiers is an automated rclone sync to google drives.

Our computers, tablets and phones are like our homes and collect clutter just like our homes do.