PC fettling and repairs thread

[DCBassman]

Decided to build a new PC into a new case, a Bitfenix Prodigy M 2022. New-to-me motherboard, Asus CS-B. Business board, so more conservative at what it does. While waiting for the parts to arrive, managed to bag an i7-4790 as well, so barring one or two bits, it is a completely different PC. Built it, cloned my venerable OCZ Vertex 4 onto an mSATA card, and fired it up. Nowt, due to fancy new USB-C card being duff. Removed that, all good. Even the license transferred, so one less problem. Came with a complete ARGB fan/light setup. Er, no, my son can have that. Corsair TX650 psu is a problem. Ordered an RM650 to replace it, smaller physically, and modular cabling, which will tidy things up significantly. And a Noctua cooler to quieten things right down. ✅️
Spoilt by the iMacs, which run silently!

 

[MrGrumpy]

Been playing about with HAOS and Proxmos on a relatively old laptop . Anyway did get HAOS installed eventually but the BIOS was a PITA . Only boot with acpi=off in Grub . Proxmos just would not install , gave up with it . I may look for small ITX type thing of the bay .

Was wanting to have a play around with some home automation but half my stuff isn’t compatible lol ! I’ll think again .

 

[PeteXXX]

Happy birthday 🎂

 

[DaveReading]

Sadly, I remember Windows 1.0 (and not on an IBM PC).

 

[MontyVeda]

What is this issue on my monitor called and how do i fix it?

I have a two monitor set up, one is the PC screen, the other is the 'telly' and there's what might be described as ghosting that appears only on the 'telly'; a visual echo coming out of the RH side of the VLC window (above). It's not coming off objects on the wallpaper, just the windows. It also doesn't occur when using the Xbox on that monitor.

I've ordered a new VGA lead to see if that helps (currently it's two joined together to make up the 5 meter distance between the PC and 'telly'). I don't have an option to try DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort so I'm stuck with VGA.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DCBassman]

What is this issue on my monitor called and how do i fix it?

View attachment 714240

I have a two monitor set up, one is the PC screen, the other is the 'telly' and there's what might be described as ghosting that appears only on the 'telly'; a visual echo coming out of the RH side of the VLC window (above). It's not coming off objects on the wallpaper, just the windows. It also doesn't occur when using the Xbox on that monitor.

I've ordered a new VGA lead to see if that helps (currently it's two joined together to make up the 5 meter distance between the PC and 'telly'). I don't have an option to try DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort so I'm stuck with VGA.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

New cable seems a good move, otherwise no idea, TBH...

 

[DCBassman]

Decided to build a new PC into a new case, a Bitfenix Prodigy M 2022. New-to-me motherboard, Asus CS-B. Business board, so more conservative at what it does. While waiting for the parts to arrive, managed to bag an i7-4790 as well, so barring one or two bits, it is a completely different PC. Built it, cloned my venerable OCZ Vertex 4 onto an mSATA card, and fired it up. Nowt, due to fancy new USB-C card being duff. Removed that, all good. Even the license transferred, so one less problem. Came with a complete ARGB fan/light setup. Er, no, my son can have that. Corsair TX650 psu is a problem. Ordered an RM650 to replace it, smaller physically, and modular cabling, which will tidy things up significantly. And a Noctua cooler to quieten things right down. ✅️
Spoilt by the iMacs, which run silently!

In addition to all this, my son has gifted me an EVGA GTX980 Superclocked graphics card, which will actually make this a moderate gaming box. Not that I game anyhow, but that is certainly a considerable step up from a GT1030 fanless!

 

[Dadam]

What is this issue on my monitor called and how do i fix it?

I have a two monitor set up, one is the PC screen, the other is the 'telly' and there's what might be described as ghosting that appears only on the 'telly'; a visual echo coming out of the RH side of the VLC window (above). It's not coming off objects on the wallpaper, just the windows. It also doesn't occur when using the Xbox on that monitor.

I've ordered a new VGA lead to see if that helps (currently it's two joined together to make up the 5 meter distance between the PC and 'telly'). I don't have an option to try DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort so I'm stuck with VGA.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

It's probably interference. VGA is an analogue connection. A digital connection would fix it 100% but you've stated that's not an option.

A single decent quality cable will certainly not hurt but first try resetting the connection on the TV settings.

Go into the TV's menu and find the settings for the VGA input (where you set the contrast and brightness etc for that input) and see if there is an option for Auto Adjust. This tunes the pixel clock and phase and other gubbins to the signal coming from the PC via the VGA lead. It's the same idea as fine tuning a station on an analogue telly but there's usually an automatic option.

Also you could try routing the cable so it's not near power supplies or other devices.

 

[MontyVeda]

New cable sorted it. I suspect the source of the issue was this coupling...

...which is clearly unshielded.

 

[DCBassman]

...which is clearly unshielded.

It may actually be shielded, but the extra joints themselves can wreak havoc on a high-frequency signal. A single long cable always preferable.

 

[CXRAndy]

After a virus scare on the wife's laptop the other day it reminded me we should have a backup of our files.

We have a WD my cloud NAS unit which I had not used in over two years due to Western Digital doing the dirty on it operating software by conning it users to upgrade to a newer OS then removing vital features, like auto back up from PCs. They passed it onto third parties to offer solutions which came with a subscription.

Anyhow I started the Nas up connection to network and after finding my password to access the unit, it did several updates and began to work. Today I moved it to a location outside the main house, but still able to access the network. I was then able with a bit of Googling get full access to all the files stored on it.

I'm going to replace the MY Cloud unit, but hope to make it a fallback NAS backing up a main Synology NAS unit in the near future

 

[cyberknight]

laptop back, apparently the cable to the screen was coming loose and shorting , fixed and no charge

 

[classic33]

Has anyone run ViperOS on a tablet?

Or anything similar.

 

[Profpointy]

Sadly, I remember Windows 1.0 (and not on an IBM PC).

Windows was essentially useless and unusable until 3.0 or 3.1

 

[DaveReading]

Windows was essentially useless and unusable until 3.0 or 3.1

Don't remind me !