The Computer Thread

I finally managed to keep the card mounted long enough to backup everything important. I'll try the air blaster next time it dismounts.

Edit: which, as it turns out, is right now.

edited 21st Jun '18 9:49:51 AM by Yinyang107

@Fighteer: It's the first time this ever happened. Thankfully, the vast majority of my personal data (documents, images, videos and other kinds of files) is on my multiple external drives, which so far haven't shown the slightest hint of any problems. About the only major downside of losing the main drive is that I'll lose all the Internet browser tabs, certain important text files that I use for tracking certain things (e.g. Steam purchases), and the list of installed programs (you can't expect me to remember all of them on my own, right?).

Of course, even if there signs of impending failure, I can't really back up several terabytes of data when I don't have anywhere near that much free space to begin with. If I'm gonna go as far as to buy new drives to use for backup, I might as well permanently transfer all the data to the new drives.

edited 21st Jun '18 9:52:22 AM by MarqFJA

Does anyone on this thread use Cyberlink Power Director 12? If so what settings that I could use that will allow me to compress huge video file sizes without losing the quality?

Forgot to update you guys on my laptop's situation... It started acting up again some time after my last post, just as I was starting it up, so I promptly shut it down and took it to a computer repair shop that I usually go to whenever I need my laptop cleaned ^note I'd do it myself, but the screws are too hard for me to open with any available tools, and I'm somewhat paranoid of accidentally breaking something due to inexperience, plus I don't know if I might run into something worse than a clogged up ventilation port and accumulated dust.. Diagnosis: The graphics card is probably overheating. Incidentally, the guy found that the ventilation port and fan had too much dust; he cleaned those out and told me to see if that solves the problem, if not then I can just come back and he'll do a full clean-up (I guess he was a bit busy at the time and so hoped that's enough to solve the issue).

Almost a week later, and generally it did improve things a bit, but not by much. I did, however, figure out a major factor that compounded the problem: I typically leave my laptop in the living room due to it being where I get the best WiFi reception and finding it a hassle to unplug and take it back to my room every time I go to sleep. Unfortunately, it's summer around here, and we only turn on an AC unit if we're using the room it's in for a considerable time; as a result, the room gets rather warm by the time I wake up and come back to it... which means that the laptop's internal parts (graphics card included) have already accumulated quite a bit of heat. The AC unit takes about an hour to sufficiently cool down the room ^note optimal temperature setting is apparently around 21 degrees Celsius; I'm ~2-3 meters away from the unit and it's an open room with no door, but I found it much more practical to just unplug the laptop and take it into my room when I sleep while leaving all the peripherals in the living room. Still, this is only a makeshift solution; I'm planning to take it to the shop for more extensive cleaning tomorrow, since I couldn't spare the time during the past few days.

Edited by MarqFJA on Jun 28th 2018 at 9:45:25 PM

Ok so I am getting a really strange issue going on with a particular online store. All day today, I could not access the store on Chrome and this is after I had it reset everything to the defaults as well as turning off extensions. I try visiting the store's site in cognito mode and it works with no issue. I don't get it.

NVM

Edited by Steven on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:57:25 AM

NEED HELP: audio is cracking and buzzing. Just started. I reinstalled the drivers - no luck. HDMI is great but the onboard speakers sound like ass. Yes it's a laptop hp envy m7 n100 with the bang & olufsen speakers.

This is a new computer, right? Is it under warranty?

Not under warranty.

Edited by TairaMai on Aug 9th 2018 at 6:03:36 PM

The obvious answer is that the speakers suffered mechanical failure. However, it's also possible that there are software issues. If you have a Windows restore point from before the problem started, try reverting to it.

Drivers have not resolved the issue and it sounds great under headphones and HDMI so I strongly feel that my speakers have given up the ghost.

As I can't have this compy away from me too long (too much sensitive PII^note  Personally Identifying Information) I'll get external speakers until I can get it sent off for repair.

Edited by TairaMai on Aug 9th 2018 at 10:09:55 PM

So I'm having issues with slowdown on a relatively new computer. The first time it happened as a result of my computer needing updating. It ran smoothly for awhile but started slowing down again after a few days without rebooting. Looking at the Task Manager it doesn't appear to be an issue with Memory or the Disk. With my last laptop I could use it for weeks without restarting and not experience slowdown but my new laptop seems to slow down if I go more than a few days without restarting. Is this normal and if not is there any way I can fix it?

If it's new it should still be under warranty, right? Take it to get inspected.

We dug up an old computer in the basement, and I'd like to see what files are still on it. What's the best way to do that?

Also, it may be the PC we had to abandon because it was infested with viruses, so what precautions should I take?

An old computer with unknown contents which might be full of viruses?

Kill It with Fire.

Okay, seriously, you should properly dispose of the thing.

Or remove the hard drive and get an USB-Adapter to turn it into an external drive.

That would be sligthly safer because it wouldn't run the startup of the old OS and whatever nasty old software might be inside.

Alternatively boot it up with a linux rescue disk/usb that allows you to browse the H Ds content.

Edited by Kiefen on Sep 1st 2018 at 10:24:41 AM

There's also the easy first option of "just connect it to a mouse and/or keyboard and monitor, then turn it on".

But do not let it connect to any vulnerable network least it "Call home" and form a botnet

Edited by Ultimatum on Sep 1st 2018 at 1:23:27 PM

Yeah, make sure it can't connect to anything external.

Is it possible to truly erase files from your computer or do they still linger somewhere?

"Deleting" a file from your computer basically marks the sector on your drive that holds the data for overwrite meaning that new data will eventually replace it.

There are tools that can read and reconstruct data from your hard drive.

If you want data to be irrecoverably deleted there are tools like C Cleaner that have a function that overwrites your free sectors with Zeroes between 1 and 10 times so all remnant data will be overwritten.

Edited by Kiefen on Sep 26th 2018 at 9:59:24 PM

Note that this applies to traditional hard drives. Solid-state drives may work differently in this regard.

Solid state drives just kind of shuffle the data around on occasion, so even when it is market for deletion.... well it never goes away fully, no mater how much you try recoverable parts of file remain.

Which is why it is a good idea to encrypt them.

Its actualy a really interesting read, but to sanitize them they need to be built for it from the onset

Edited by Imca on Sep 26th 2018 at 4:09:38 AM

SSD usually avoid truly deleting the data, instead they fill all the space in the disk and mark the deleted data as open for rewrite.

Recovering data in SS Ds is really easy, as long as the entire drive hasn't been filled from the beginning to the end with new data.

If I had an easy access to a SSD I'd have to add a whole new chapter in my data recovery final graduation work, but it would be remarkably easy to write about it, unless I actively devised means to completely erase the data.

Alternatively, destroying a SSD is easier than a Hard Disk Drive, unless you completely destroy the disk, you can still recover some data with the right hardware.

Microwaving a SSD for a few minutes usually does the trick.

Even CC Cleaner can't completely erase the data, every hard disk has still a magnetic footprint that allows the previous data, or at least fragments of it, to be recovered.

Edited by AngelusNox on Sep 26th 2018 at 10:37:31 AM

Isn't microwaving an SSD a fire hazard?