Techies, unite yesterday! [Computer Talk & Tech Help Thread]

[r00]

nice!  Sounds like it's gonna be a sweet rig.

[Aaron]

Hell ya gona be a beast! Can't lie I'm a little wet just thinking about it... Now the gov needs to hurry and send me my monwy!

[Goose]

Well, after seven years of fairly heavy use, one of the hard drives in my old computer finally kicked the bucket. Thank jeebus for RAID 5, as I hadn't had a chance to get a proper backup procedure going between the machine and my NAS yet. Got everything copied off in no time so it could be shut down nicely. Goodnight Starbuck, you served me well.

I'd been saving up for a new machine, but hadn't quite got the funds on hand for what I wanted. Decided to bite the bullet anyways and plunked down for a new beast. Just got it up and running last night (after installing Windows fuckin' twice, more on that later). We named it Talyn.

Intel i5 3570 CPU
Asus P8H77-V Mobo
16GB DDR3 RAM
Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Video Card
Asus Xonar DG Sound Card
250GB Samsung SATA3 SSD
500GB Seagate SATA3 HD
LG BD-RE Drive
Internal SD card reader
CoolerMaster Silencio 450 Case
CoolerMaster 650W Power Supply

With the SSD doing most of the work, and that Silencio case, the thing is practically non-existent in terms of noise.  But I do have a whole new reason to hate Asus. Their shitty drivers made me have to install Windows twice last night. I just put my brain on auto-pilot and did my standard procedure for new hardware, which is to hit up the download page for the mobo and install ALL THE DRIVERS!! Turns out a few of those aren't applicable to my motherboard at all (the setup wizard actually says "you don't have this hardware"), and one of them (probably either the chipset or one of the SATA drivers) actually caused Windows to blue-screen on reboot in such a way that Windows couldn't restore the boot procedure, causing me to have to format and start over with a fresh Windows install. This time, just the LAN, USB3.0, and Realtek sound drivers went in, and its still running.

Tonight's probably going to be spent installing actual software, and then Rage. I'll crank everything to 11 on that and splatter some shiny.

[Aaron]

Sucks the old HDD died. However the new beast sounds sexy! Congrats Goose!   

[r00]

very nice!   

[individualzero]

That is a beast of a rig right there. Nice!

[malkav]

I can't wait to build a computer with an SSD in it, but I don't have an excuse for a new one at this point (or the cash).

Goose, that sort of issue has really soured me on Windows; that you have to completely rely on the manufacture to get anything to work. I had to reformat the hard drive on my girlfriend's laptop and re-install Windows. It had 'Samsung Model No xxxx'  labeled on the disk it came with but it was just a completely vanilla copy of Windows 7. I've never been able to find the right software for the trackpad and get it back to full functionality.

[Aaron]

What anti virus are you people using? I was using AVG but it got annoying (however it's less annoying then Avira I might just switch back to it for the time being....)  But are there any other options out there that are as good?

[Goose]

Personally I use ClamWin, but that's not the best option for everyone.  Its not an active virus scanner, so it won't pick shit up on the fly.  You can schedule scans, or scan suspect files on demand, but it won't actively monitor your system.  For people who can remember to scan suspect things before opening them, that's fine. 

For free active scanners, Microsoft Security Essentials is probably the best of the bunch out there (mostly because it wasn't made by Microsoft, they just bought it and slapped their name on it).  AVG still works, but its getting into the scareware category, and its firewall (which it flashes a bunch of warnings and scary things if you turn off and use the Windows one) actually breaks a bunch of things like Windows file sharing (discovered that recently while trying to debug my parents inability to get files between a desktop and laptop).  Haven't really used anything else in ages, other than McAfee (thanks to work), which still sucks more balls than the Shine-o Ball-o.

[individualzero]

Security Essentials is great stuff.

Personally, I've been using Avast! for three years now and it works pretty great for me. It's an awesome active scanner that can also be used for impromptu system scans if you think you've caught something that the active 'shield' didn't pick up. It's also 100% free; it'll ask you to refresh your yearly license every 365 days or so, but that doesn't cost anything but the time it takes to click to say "Sure, I'll take another license key."

If you're careful where you poke your head around on the internet, Avast will be all you need, though you can always look into some other great, free programs to be rid of malware and spyware such as MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware free version or Spybot: Search & Destroy. CCleaner and Defraggler are also great for routine maintenance -- but they're not antivirus, just really nice to have.

[Aaron]

Thanks Goose and IZ.  I will look into Avast! I have Spybot S&D and MalawareBytes.

I just downloaded the Microsoft Security Essentials. Thanks guys.

[Aaron]

I think one of my HDD is crashing. Slowly...? I have two HDD one is my main with most of my music, and OS and game files. The other is just movies tv shows... When I was buying things with Torrent dollars utorrent said it couldn't write the files to the drive I open my computer and it doesn't show the drive, I restart and it's there and fine. This has happened a few times while torrenting stuff. I know I have the space like the drive is like half full ish. It just stops. But it isn't every time I dl something. I downloaded the newest ep. of Cosmos and it was fine. (watched it just fine to.)  So does it sound like there is something wrong with Windows (7 Ultimate) or is the HDD dying slowly? (I looked newegg has new ones of the same size for 100ish bucks.) So It own't be crazy spendy to fix. But ya.... In the mean time I'm gona back everything up again...

[Goose]

Be sure its the hard drive before you go replacing hardware.  Do a scan looking for bad sectors.  If you find a ton, its the hard drive.  If it doesn't, or the scan errors out in a weird way, it could be the SATA controller on your motherboard is the problem.

[Aaron]

Ok. Thanks.

And right now it's not even showing up. I don't hear any bad HDD sounds... So I might open up my box and change where it's plugged in at... And by showing up I mean I have My Computer open and it is only showing one HDD.  How do I fix the SATA controller? Or is it just getting a new mobo?

So I scanned it and it came back fine. It then vanished from the my computer icon list. So I'm going to unplug it and plug it back in a different slot on the mobo... Maybe that will help?


Thanks by the way you just saved me from buying a new HDD...

I switched where they are plugged in at and that hasn't done anything to change it. I was keeping the HDD open like a window open with it. And that doesn't do shit... It sounds like the noise when I unplug my phone from charging and it's gone...

[Goose]

If you can, scrounge up a different hard drive from somewhere and plug it in to the same port as the wonky drive on the mobo.  If it shows up and has no problems, then the hard drive's at fault.  If it goes in and out of service same as this one, then the problem's on the mobo.

It also sounds like there might just be a loose connection.  See if it shows up consistently in your BIOS/UEFI, and make sure all the cables are plugged in properly on both ends.