PC fettling and repairs thread

[MrGrumpy]

issues with Apple HomeKit and the Home app . I’m guessing this is Apple forcing me to purchase a HomePod or Apple TV 4K . However to cut along story short I used to share our HomeKit enabled accessories, namely our Garage door opener . It appears that’s now not the case , I cannot share the device now with those in my family etc . It used to be the case that you could set up an old IPad as a home hub but that’s now taken away ! Anyone got info on here maybe a bit niche ?

A bit of googling and indeed they have “improved” the software , which now means no more iPad acting as a Homehub . Boooo . Now wondering if I should go full Home Assistant now , would that be shareable between different people ?

 

[MontyVeda]

Mmm, dunno. Onboard graphics are usually ok for general work, how old is the cpu?

let's say it's retro... Intel i5-3470

it's a relatively new PC that I concocted from various vintage parts to accommodate an old soundcard i 'needed'. I didn't bother bunging the graphics card from its (slightly less-retro) predecessor as on-board had the connections i needed... but that may be an option. I'll have to look at the slots.

 

[Grant Fondo]

let's say it's retro... Intel i5-3470

Aha! Most likely the problem, over 10 year old Intel HD graphics. Its also using your old RAM to 'give it a hand' .
One of these for £20 sorts it.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/17611936...RQeI8F_6huC5kle7QOw5YO-UleYlCaH0aAsv6EALw_wcB

 

[MontyVeda]

Thanks for that
I do have a graphics card in my old (newer) PC but it depends what available/compatible slot I've got on the board.

Oddly, since installing the GPU-Z monitoring software, it's barely flickered at all.
I believe my PC is sentient and knowing that it's being monitored, is behaving itself.

 

[Grant Fondo]

Thanks for that
I do have a graphics card in my old (newer) PC but it depends what available/compatible slot I've got on the board.

Oddly, since installing the GPU-Z monitoring software, it's barely flickered at all.
I believe my PC is sentient and knowing that it's being monitored, is behaving itself.

I had similar issues with a 2nd gen Intel pc i built for my daughter, frequent lock-ups using an HD monitor and 4GB of RAM (oh, and a really old HDD).
The introduction of one of those GT730 gpu's, another 4GB of RAM and cheap SSD was like night and day. Cost a few bob more than I wanted but ran almost as snappy as my main 10 core gaming pc which cost £££'s.

 

[ColinJ]

Oddly, since installing the GPU-Z monitoring software, it's barely flickered at all.
I believe my PC is sentient and knowing that it's being monitored, is behaving itself.

Something like that is happening with the puzzle game that I am writing.

I noticed that a simple animation got juddery on the higher levels when there are lots of objects on the screen. I put some debugging in and found that it was taking about 80 ms per frame, so only about 12 frames per second.

I fiddled about. No change. More fiddling. Still no change...

I decided to have another look the next day. Hang on - smooth animation! I checked the debugging messages - 10-25 ms per frame, or 40-100 frames per second!

I am almost sure that I didn't do anything to make that significant a difference!

I still haven't worked out what is going on. I worry that the problem will return at random unless I can track it down.

 

[ColinJ]

Something like that is happening with the puzzle game that I am writing.

I noticed that a simple animation got juddery on the higher levels when there are lots of objects on the screen. I put some debugging in and found that it was taking about 80 ms per frame, so only about 12 frames per second.

I fiddled about. No change. More fiddling. Still no change...

I decided to have another look the next day. Hang on - smooth animation! I checked the debugging messages - 10-25 ms per frame, or 40-100 frames per second!

I am almost sure that I didn't do anything to make that significant a difference!

I still haven't worked out what is going on. I worry that the problem will return at random unless I can track it down.

Ha - I just found the cause... A combination of power-saving when running the laptop from battery, and allowing Windows to decide the performance/power-drain trade-off! I changed the settings so my app gets full CPU/GPU power and the juddering went away. This only applies to the laptop - the app runs fine on my phone. There is very slight juddering on my tablet, which is a bit low-performance, so I might try to optimise things a bit to smooth graphics performance on that.

 

[MontyVeda]

Aha! Most likely the problem, over 10 year old Intel HD graphics. Its also using your old RAM to 'give it a hand' .
One of these for £20 sorts it.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/17611936...RQeI8F_6huC5kle7QOw5YO-UleYlCaH0aAsv6EALw_wcB

Looking at the 3.8gb of system memory being used... would that mean I'd be best looking for a 4gb graphics card rather than 2gb?
(this stuff is slightly beyond my tech knowledge)

 

[DCBassman]

View attachment 717359

Looking at the 3.8gb of system memory being used... would that mean I'd be best looking for a 4gb graphics card rather than 2gb?
(this stuff is slightly beyond my tech knowledge)

No, the 2GB will cope just fine. A GT1030 with 2GB GDDR5 memory will even future-proof it somewhat.

 

[MontyVeda]

Thanks @DCBassman

 

[Grant Fondo]

Another alternative @MontyVeda is this with 4GB of vram, but GT1030 will also do just fine as @DCBassman says.

https://www.ebuyer.com/1883008-powe...9r8TbqjLrJ5lxBggxLapvdX7cm8kjY0BoCUgwQAvD_BwE

 

[Svendo]

Fairly mundane for the experts, but today I’ve doubled the RAM in our laptop without bricking it. I however was bricking it until it booted and confirmed 16GB of RAM.
I’ve been looking at upgrading the HDD as it’s full of kids films etc., abd sooner or later it will fail. Looking at YouTube I saw our Lenovo has easy access to the RAM and HDD underneath. I also found out how to use command line thingies to check the max RAM for the motherboard and the number of slots and current configuration. I also got the spec of the current RAM card, so bought an identical one and slotted it in this morning.
Next is to decide on wether to push the boat out for a 4TB ssd or for 1/2 the price a 2TB. Definitely going with a crucial, Samsung or WD though.

 

[ColinJ]

Fairly mundane for the experts, but today I’ve doubled the RAM in our laptop without bricking it. I however was bricking it until it booted and confirmed 16GB of RAM.
I’ve been looking at upgrading the HDD as it’s full of kids films etc., abd sooner or later it will fail. Looking at YouTube I saw our Lenovo has easy access to the RAM and HDD underneath. I also found out how to use command line thingies to check the max RAM for the motherboard and the number of slots and current configuration. I also got the spec of the current RAM card, so bought an identical one and slotted it in this morning.
Next is to decide on wether to push the boat out for a 4TB ssd or for 1/2 the price a 2TB. Definitely going with a crucial, Samsung or WD though.

My Lenovo's 8 GB of RAM is soldered in so I am stuck with that. It only has a 256 GB SSD, and that is getting pretty full so I think that I will upgrade that to a 1 TB drive.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Connections are DVI and VGA so no change there from the previous dual set-up.

DVI cable length limit at that resolution is about 4.5 meters. Which connection goes to the other side of the room?

 

[MontyVeda]

DVI cable length limit at that resolution is about 4.5 meters. Which connection goes to the other side of the room?

the DVI is shorter than it used to be... the VGA is now going 5m. Formerly it was a 7m DVI with no issues. The issue (as pointed out by Grant) is my onboard GPU running at or around its limit.

And as I've notice in the last few days, the Ventusky weather page with its wind animation was pushing the limit, turning that animation off vastly reduces the load on the GPU and CPU... also those sodding snowflakes some sites put on in December have put a similar load on the GPU, thankfully gone now

Dedicated graphics card is the way to go... just need to check what available slots and space I've got in the box.

[edit] ...and if I've got a suitable one in a cupboard somewhere. Hmmm.