Any computer wizz's here?

[Marty_d]

The money may come from our pockets but the tax on it paid in the Seychelles or somewhere...

[willedoo]

The laptop has been playing up for a while now. Two or three times a week at least, it would slow right down before freezing then crashing to the dreaded blue screen of death then rebooting. Sometimes it would crash three or four times in one session.

 

My best bet was that it was a hardware problem, maybe the RAM or the graphics. I unplugged everything and opened it up to see what sort of RAM it had, and discovered it was very dusty. I uses a soft brush and a lung powered mouth compressor to clear all the dust out and now 24 hours later it's working fine. Hopefully it was just dust and fluff shorting things out. Only problem is that since I did all that, the cable to the NBN modem isn't working. Luckily the wireless connection is working ok and even seems to be a bit faster than the cable.

[spacesailor]

'' and discovered it was very dusty. '' Over heating possible  .

 

Now mine : Galaxy tablet has lost it's side panels, meaning, no '' off topic ''  .

I have to fire up this old ' desktop to get '' offtopic '' .

spacesailor

[willedoo]

48 hours without a slow down or crash. The laptop is going like a Bondi Tram. Must have been the dust. There was crud spanning across the solder connections on the printed circuit.

[willedoo]

The dreaded BSOD strikes again. After cleaning all the dust out, the laptop ran great for five days until yesterday when it started crashing again with the blue screen of death. It would do it a few times in a session. It seemed to start after I downloaded a Windows update, so I uninstalled the update to see how it went. No luck there, it crashed again a couple of times today since undoing the updates.

 

Time to consult Professor Google. I found this webpage on Avast's website very informative. I use Avast's freeware antivirus programme. I skipped a few suggested fixes and went straight to the System File Checker and did a scan. It came up with a few system file issues and fixed them. Next, I ran the checkdisk scan and it was all ok. Ditto for the Windows Memory Diagnostic to check the RAM, no problems there. The computer has been running for several hours now without a crash, so hopefully the system file checker fixed it. Corrupt system files might be the culprit.

 

Luckily Windows 10 has some good troubleshooting and diagnostic tools accessible via the command prompt.

 

https://www.avast.com/c-how-to-fix-blue-screen-of-death

 

 

[nomadpete]

I haven't  seen  a blue screen of death since I installed Linux. Admitted, I have upgraded to newer Linux OS from time to time over the last 12 years, but it has always been a painless exercise. Now the laptop has a failed touch pad so it is time to bite the bullet and replace it.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I run a mix of both Linux and Windows. I haven't had BSOD for yonks.. I am typing this on a 6 year old laptop running Ubuntu 20.04; I have a desktop that must be as close as Nomadpete's laptop age still running Linux. It is noticeably slower than my current Windows desktop, which is like comparing a Trabant to a Ferrari in hardware specs, but not that much slower.

 

Unless one is running high-end processing, an old box running Linux is all most people will ever really need. If you can get one that works with a modern day GPU, then mist of the processing is offloaded to that for gaming and massive parallel programming for scientific applications and cryptocurrency mining. In fact, I am teaching myself programming the nVidea chipsets

[onetrack]

I've had a disastrous recent period with computers. I've got a desktop I built in 2017 running a decent Intel CPU and "cutting edge" computer technology with DDR3 circuitry - and I installed Windows 7 Pro.

But my mistake was not seeing how fast technology becomes obsolete. First off, WIndows 7 was becoming obsolete when I installed it, and it became totally obsolete in early 2020.

I should have upgraded then - but my "cutting edge" computer hardware was already obsolete and couldn't handle Windows 10.

 

So I've plugged along with my Model T desktop computer (and 2009 Toshiba laptop) - until a couple of days ago, when I got the Black Screen of Death. I'm guessing my video card has failed. 

Chrome has refused to update for the last 9 mths, telling me everything I'm running is totally obsolete.

 

It's pretty depressing, knowing that I'm up for a new desktop, and a new laptop in short order. I'm using the laptop as I speak, but it's slow (it came with Vista, but it also came with a free upgrade to Windows 7, so that's what I'm using), because it's only got a Celeron CPU.

 

But it's an absolute pearler of a laptop, and I know why Toshiba stopped making them - they were too good. Not a single thing has ever gone wrong with it in 14 years, and it's been dragged around the world.

 

So, I bit the bullet last night and started ordering components for a rebuild. A new i7 CPU with major DDR5 "grunt", off Amazon for AU$374 - normally $525. I can't believe just how much hardware prices have rocketed in just 6 years.

 

Now I'm looking for a DDR5 motherboard and sizeable video card as well, and I suppose I'll have to go with a new Power Unit and an SSD HD as well - not to mention having to fork out for a copy of Windows 11. Hopefully, I'll end up under the cost of a ready-built unit, but some of these ready built units are bloody cheap when you see what they now want for components - which makes me think we're getting rorted on components. At least my 22" monitor is still good - touch wood.

 

The laptop will have to wait for a little while longer, as I don't use it as much as I used to. However, SWMBO bought herself a nice ASUS 15.6" laptop just a few month ago from JB Hi-Fi for $1000, and it's a pretty impressive machine.

 

JB Hi-Fi were chucking it out as it was listed as a model they no longer stocked, and I suspect that was because it was a slow seller, because it's RRP was around $1399, and that level of $$'s stops a lot of people, when it comes to laptop outlay, I reckon.

I recall I paid $799 for the Toshiba in 2009, and that was a "bargain find", back then.

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by onetrack

[willedoo]

I've wanted to try Linux for a long time now but still haven't ventured out of the comfort zone to do it.

[Marty_d]

If you do most things online a Chromebook is usually cheaper than laptop. My wife picked up a nice Asus from JB the other day, on sale half price so $589.  Big screen,  fully foldable, 256gb SSD.

[red750]

My laptop is an Acer Swift. My kids bought it for me for Christmas 2020. It was an ex-demo from JB HiFi. I think they paid about $350 for it. Still going strong, has done at least 80% of my aircraft profiles. I sling it in a bag and take it to the Men's Shed occasionally.

[Jerry_Atrick]

8 hours ago, willedoo said:

I've wanted to try Linux for a long time now but still haven't ventured out of the comfort zone to do it.

Depending on how powerful your laptop is, you can either:

• Set up a bootable disk. Depends on your computer  if it has a BIOS that allows bootable memory sticks, you can download a bootable onto the memory stick and set your BIOS to boot first from a USB drive, and then your min disk drive. This will be slow, as it will only write to and from the USB drive, even if using USB3. However, you have the benefit of not overwriting any part of your disks, and you can save files, etc to the memory stick. Ideal for low to mid powered computers if you don't mind waiting for things and slower operation (as it will go to the USB for loading programs, paging, etc).
• For low to mid powered systems, you can set up a dual boot. Using that same bootable media, you should have an option to install a dual boot system. MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM WITH AN IMAGE COPY UTILITY IN CASE. Select install dual boot (note Windows tries or at least tried hard to prevent this) and it will ask you how big you want your Linux partition to be; Allocate a decent amount, and then follow the rest of the install. It will repartition your disk to two partitions; it will set your Windows into one partition, and Linux into another. It will install a boot manager into the Master Boot record that will allow you to select your Windows or Linux OS at boot time. I you want to go from one to the other, you will have to re-boot.
• If you have a reasonable to fast performing computer, install VMWare Workstation (free for personal use). This is a virtual machine container, and you can create virtual machines. Create a new Linux VM (use Bridged network or something similar), and install a Linux Distribution into that VM (virtual machine). You can boot it up from Windows any time, and on half-decent machines, it still runs very well. You have to pre-allocate the memory and CPU it will use, but remember it is being hosted by your WIndows machine, so don't over-allocate, or Windows can slow right down (I think there is now protection to stop that happening too much).

It does take a little getting use to and because of licensing, I think you still have to manually install drivers to play some multimedia formats., but you have available to you all sorts of free software and development environments. You can use it to learn a lot about computing, run open source apps that do everything that proprietary apps do (albeit mostly not in as polished a way), or you can surf to your hearts content.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

16 hours ago, onetrack said:

I've had a disastrous recent period with computers. I've got a desktop I built in 2017 running a decent Intel CPU and "cutting edge" computer technology with DDR3 circuitry - and I installed Windows 7 Pro.

But my mistake was not seeing how fast technology becomes obsolete. First off, WIndows 7 was becoming obsolete when I installed it, and it became totally obsolete in early 2020.

I should have upgraded then - but my "cutting edge" computer hardware was already obsolete and couldn't handle Windows 10.

 

So I've plugged along with my Model T desktop computer (and 2009 Toshiba laptop) - until a couple of days ago, when I got the Black Screen of Death. I'm guessing my video card has failed. 

Chrome has refused to update for the last 9 mths, telling me everything I'm running is totally obsolete.

 

It's pretty depressing, knowing that I'm up for a new desktop, and a new laptop in short order. I'm using the laptop as I speak, but it's slow (it came with Vista, but it also came with a free upgrade to Windows 7, so that's what I'm using), because it's only got a Celeron CPU.

 

But it's an absolute pearler of a laptop, and I know why Toshiba stopped making them - they were too good. Not a single thing has ever gone wrong with it in 14 years, and it's been dragged around the world.

 

So, I bit the bullet last night and started ordering components for a rebuild. A new i7 CPU with major DDR5 "grunt", off Amazon for AU$374 - normally $525. I can't believe just how much hardware prices have rocketed in just 6 years.

 

Now I'm looking for a DDR5 motherboard and sizeable video card as well, and I suppose I'll have to go with a new Power Unit and an SSD HD as well - not to mention having to fork out for a copy of Windows 11. Hopefully, I'll end up under the cost of a ready-built unit, but some of these ready built units are bloody cheap when you see what they now want for components - which makes me think we're getting rorted on components. At least my 22" monitor is still good - touch wood.

 

The laptop will have to wait for a little while longer, as I don't use it as much as I used to. However, SWMBO bought herself a nice ASUS 15.6" laptop just a few month ago from JB Hi-Fi for $1000, and it's a pretty impressive machine.

 

JB Hi-Fi were chucking it out as it was listed as a model they no longer stocked, and I suspect that was because it was a slow seller, because it's RRP was around $1399, and that level of $$'s stops a lot of people, when it comes to laptop outlay, I reckon.

I recall I paid $799 for the Toshiba in 2009, and that was a "bargain find", back then.

 

I always look at these events as a blessing in that it is an excuse to get new kit 😉

 

I would try and book your Toshiba with Linux; It may come back to lie. Often Linux identifies hardware faults in the registers and codes around them. Also, you may be lucky and have a separate graphics card to the motherboard. So, they maybe able to fix it, or there may be a secondhand motherboard knocking about somewhere.. check ebay.

 

I always advise people to get the best tech they can afford, but if they can't afford much, then maybe look second hand. as a 21st birthday present, I set my son a budget for what he wants. He is buying components and building his own. I have cautioned him that if something goes wrong, the supplier may blame the other supplier, so video all the work you do on it... And preferably build in one sitting so there are no edits to the video.

[onetrack]

Jerry, yes my desktop has a separate video card, I've already replaced it once, it seems video cards are the weak point in computer systems.

 

Interesting what you say about Linux giving my old Toshiba a new life. I know that MS products are full of "bloatware", and continually getting worse for it.

 

Google are no better, it's all about engineering the "captive customer" so you're continually redirected to Google or MS products or programmes - or worse, you can't go to anything else because Google or MS have locked other programmes or systems out.

 

The part that really sh**s me is that every new operating system, programme or product, entails a completely new learning exercise, and having to retrain yourself how to find stuff and operate it.

I don't see why MS have to continually "hide" things that you use regularly, or why every new MS product has to have an entirely new layout where you can't find anything.

 

It's like buying a new car and finding they've shifted the handbrake to a new and hidden position and operating method.

[rgmwa]

What is it about Linux that would make it a better choice than Windows for the typical user?

[spacesailor]

Please ' show ' how to make that " bios " disk or ' bootable usb stick " ? .

spacesailor

[nomadpete]

For me, my old laptop was getting slow after a couple of years and countless windows updates. So I tried out a simple Linux on a thumb drive. The whole operating system will fit on a thumb drive - from that, set the computer to boot from USB and you can run the Linux without changing anything on the computer. A great way to see if you like it.

 

The general screen was a little different but that wasn't hard to find everything. It has similar basic programmes as windows included.

 

The best thing is it made the old laptop run faster.

 

And since the old windows was no longer supported, there were no new security patches available so there was a high risk of malware or viruses. Linux is less receptive to viruses, etc. It still gets the occassional updates though.

[nomadpete]

11 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

Please ' show ' how to make that " bios " disk or ' bootable usb stick " ? .

spacesailor

I'm sure Jerry can help.

He might need the promise of a bottle of encouragement  though.

[red750]

I was reluctant to switch from Win7 to Win10, but did eventually. Haven't upgraded to Win11.

 

I "missed" a few of the old tools (MS Paint, Snipping Tool, etc) but found they were still available from the Start menu by typing P, S, etc. The tools can then be pinned to the toolbar. However, I do use Snip and Sketch for screen grabs. Didn't like Paint 3D at all.

 

I use Brave browser and Duck-Duck-Go search engine. Both are free. For photo editing (resizing, rotating, cropping, exposure adjusting, cloning, adding text ,arrows etc., I use PhotoScape which is also a free download.

 

These two photos are from the same original, with the flags cloned out of the second image.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

2 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Please ' show ' how to make that " bios " disk or ' bootable usb stick " ? .

spacesailor

It depends on the bios. When you start up the computer a message usually flashes to say something like press escape for menu. It may ask to press F2 or F8 or some other key sequence. You only have a couple of seconds to do that and then it will bring up the bios menu. You will have to find the boot options and you will be able to select the order of bootable drives you want the bios to search for boot nedia.

 

Best to Google or YouTube search your model of computer bios settings

[Jerry_Atrick]

4 hours ago, rgmwa said:

What is it about Linux that would make it a better choice than Windows for the typical user?

There are many reasons, to be honest.. there are distros that have bloatware and Ubuntu comes in for criticism these days.. but generally, the op system is written much more cleanly using more advanced techniques from the ground up. Although Windows has been rewritten, it is rarely done entirely from the ground up and their paid workers operate under pressure to get the product out the door for commercial reasons. 

 

The kernel of Linux is based on the POSIX standard, written by dedicated volunteers often students of comp science using latest algorithms. In addition, these days industry heavyweights such as IBM contribute as well.As far as I am aware, Linux Torvalds still QA's every bit of new kernel code and doesn't hold back.

 

The Linux kernel is the same for the x86 chipset  for the oldest computer to big power servers.. well, some companies such as redhat alter it and on sell their distribution..  but that is not the standard. Windows server has a similar look and feel to Windows desktop, but under the hood they are entirely different beasts.. and you can guess which version you get on your pc.. otherwise their business model would come under significant strain.

 

Even Windows Desktop has two versions, the personal version used to be a detuned and bloated version of thei pro edition.

 

Open source is by default peer reviewed and one is holding their code up for critique, so you tend to get better written code. I believe Microsoft employs psychologists to contribute to the user experience of their software.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[spacesailor]

My " Aldi Media pc " has been " ransumware " by altering the " bios " to make ' C ' drive read ' X ' .

No-one can reset that ' bios ' without the cost being ' more ' than the PC'S purchase cost .

It's got a lot of pictures on the Hard drive , that I would like to. Save .

spacesailor

[nomadpete]

12 hours ago, spacesailor said:

My " Aldi Media pc " has been " ransumware " by altering the " bios " to make ' C ' drive read ' X ' .

No-one can reset that ' bios ' without the cost being ' more ' than the PC'S purchase cost .

It's got a lot of pictures on the Hard drive , that I would like to. Save .

spacesailor

I'm not sure Spacey, but it is just possible that your PC could be made to boot up from a USB. As per Jerry's posting. In that case a boot up of a simple Linux on a USB might allow you to get the PC up and running, and you could get your pictures off that 'X' hard drive.

 

[spacesailor]

It Wil boot from 'A ' 'B 'F ' ( F usb ) .' C D & E are the. hard-drives.

As there is four ' usb ' add g h I!  A is standard floppy   B is super floppy 

BUT that bios is looking for ' X ' .

I remember the Old ' boot ' disk had only five lines of command as it usually had 

 ' A ' and ' C ' only .

spacesailor

 

[willedoo]

On 22/11/2023 at 5:08 AM, Jerry_Atrick said:

Depending on how powerful your laptop is, you can either:

• Set up a bootable disk. Depends on your computer  if it has a BIOS that allows bootable memory sticks, you can download a bootable onto the memory stick and set your BIOS to boot first from a USB drive, and then your min disk drive. This will be slow, as it will only write to and from the USB drive, even if using USB3. However, you have the benefit of not overwriting any part of your disks, and you can save files, etc to the memory stick. Ideal for low to mid powered computers if you don't mind waiting for things and slower operation (as it will go to the USB for loading programs, paging, etc).
• For low to mid powered systems, you can set up a dual boot. Using that same bootable media, you should have an option to install a dual boot system. MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM WITH AN IMAGE COPY UTILITY IN CASE. Select install dual boot (note Windows tries or at least tried hard to prevent this) and it will ask you how big you want your Linux partition to be; Allocate a decent amount, and then follow the rest of the install. It will repartition your disk to two partitions; it will set your Windows into one partition, and Linux into another. It will install a boot manager into the Master Boot record that will allow you to select your Windows or Linux OS at boot time. I you want to go from one to the other, you will have to re-boot.
• If you have a reasonable to fast performing computer, install VMWare Workstation (free for personal use). This is a virtual machine container, and you can create virtual machines. Create a new Linux VM (use Bridged network or something similar), and install a Linux Distribution into that VM (virtual machine). You can boot it up from Windows any time, and on half-decent machines, it still runs very well. You have to pre-allocate the memory and CPU it will use, but remember it is being hosted by your WIndows machine, so don't over-allocate, or Windows can slow right down (I think there is now protection to stop that happening too much).

It does take a little getting use to and because of licensing, I think you still have to manually install drivers to play some multimedia formats., but you have available to you all sorts of free software and development environments. You can use it to learn a lot about computing, run open source apps that do everything that proprietary apps do (albeit mostly not in as polished a way), or you can surf to your hearts content.

 

Thanks for the valuable advice Jerry. I have a USB stick somewhere with a Linux distribution on it, so I'll get organised and give it a go.