What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

  • Thread starter tlowr4
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I don't have any rubbing alcohol, otherwise the whole thing would be back in one piece already - and I decided I might as well do it properly the first time :lol:

Oddly, the system fan itself wasn't clogged, although there was a rather considerate amount of fluff stuck in/around the socket where the copper heat pipes connect to the fan housing. That wouldn't have been helping matters, nor would the fact that the factory paste appeared to be mostly around the CPU and graphics chip instead of on them...
 
That's the problem with stock thermal paste; they put too much on there and it works more like an insulator. I would rather not use my computer a a heater.
 
Yeah I wouldn't even call it paste at that point. I redid the old stuff in a laptop for my parents recently and the factory stuff may as well have been cement. Rubbing alcohol didn't work, but the chisel was helpful (kidding... but the alcohol did nothing).

Got off as much of the old stuff as I could and the thing runs much cooler now. THe fan used to be on constantly before.
 
Yeah I hated that in older computers. It felt like as if you were gonna pull the CPU out of it's socket with the cheap thermal paste acting like glue.
 
Installed CoreTemp as my laptop had an overheat shutdown yesterday, not uncommon for Acer's but a great tool to check what's a happening.

Though I do find it infuriating that there's no standard warning that you're CPU is about to reach critical shut down temp, not exactly difficult or time consuming to make it a standard feature.
 
I spent four hours setting up a modem for my Uncle since the ISP does not support a third party modem that are a heck lot better(not to mention the guy on the phone never knew what he was doing). Doubled the speeds of the old router but that only solved half of the connection problem. So my Uncle is going to have a friend to check his physical connection. If that does not improve his speed then he will have to make a new contract with his ISP.
 
Installed my new PSU and SSD. PSU is an amazing piece of kit. Comes in a velvet case FFS. PC is now almost dead silent at idle now given the PSU fan shuts off. Haven't got Windows done on the SSD yet, but will later tonight and maybe post come pics.
 
Casio
Installed my new PSU and SSD. PSU is an amazing piece of kit. Comes in a velvet case FFS. PC is now almost dead silent at idle now given the PSU fan shuts off. Haven't got Windows done on the SSD yet, but will later tonight and maybe post come pics.
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It always makes me laugh that PSU's come in those things.
 
dchPSUone
It always makes me laugh that PSU's come in those things.
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Well, I plan on often taking out with me, going on romantic dinners, having some bedroom fun...Velvet adds some class and softens the edges.

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EDIT: Also forgot. Being the supernerd that my GF thinks I am, I spent a day setting up my own local UPnP stream for Live TV, so now I can watch Live Broadcast TV, with full control, to any DLNA capable machine in the house (Even things like iPhone). And eliminated my need to install Antenna outlets everywhere. Also handles HD fine if it's a Wireless N device. Pretty neat.
 
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Need a better camera...

Installed my new SSD and PSU. Got lazy with cable management, but will try to fix up on the weekend. Also swapped out my old 9800GT for a 7600GT with passive cooling I had lying around, so now my PC is almost dead silent. Yay.
 
Installed beta 11.7 drivers (listed as 11.6b on AMD's site, but they are preview 11.7), lost 8fps in the Unigine DX11 benchmark compared to 11.4. I know it's not 11.7 final, but come on AMD... at least it fixed my mouse issues in Race 07, although Dragon Age 2 won't start :grumpy:

Turned the 5770s up to 920/1350 from 850/1200 stock and while there was a small performance gain, Windows locked up around halfway through the Unigine bench. Bah. 900/1300 was stable during the benchmark run though, will try 910/1300 this time and raise each in 10MHz increments from there.

edit: okay, 930/1350 seems stable and after a complete reinstall + incremental patching DA2 now launches again. All is well :D
 
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After spending two hours with a support guy from my ISP, got nothing done or that fixes my bad ping which if it was better would be great when I'm playing minecraft online. So yeah I can't play minecraft because of bad ping and some problems server side. I just want to get that house done!
 
nick09
After spending two hours with a support guy from my ISP, got nothing done or that fixes my bad ping which if it was better would be great when I'm playing minecraft online. So yeah I can't play minecraft because of bad ping and some problems server side. I just want to get that house done!
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How bad are we talking? Have you tried the typical things such as Leatrix, Pingenhancer, etcetc?



For work? Well, I'm currently working on a customers computer that had some pretty serious infections on it. On the tail end of cleaning it up right now.

For me? I got myself a computer we had laying around in the shop and fixed it up with things we had lying around. I'm now a very happy owner of a Gateway FX530 Machine. Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Processor, ATI Radeon X1950 Crossfire Edition [singlecard(was supposed to be a second one I think? Might have been cannibalized from it while it was sitting in the shop)], 2GB of DDR2-800 Ram, 500GB HDD, and Windows XP Pro.

I've done almost all the setup at my work, and did a bunch last night after I got off work. It is definitely a beast of a computer for its age. I did a video stress test using HL2: Lost Coast. It ran it flawlessly with an average FPS of 103.

Best part of this computer? It only cost me 200$ I'll get some pictures when I'm off work.
 
bergauk
How bad are we talking? Have you tried the typical things such as Leatrix, Pingenhancer, etcetc?
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It's just that because of the extra ping is not helpful when I'm playing minecraft online when there is lag already from the server which makes for long waiting times for a block I placed down to appear(which can take 15 seconds or minutes in the worst case when there is lag).
 
nick09
It's just that because of the extra ping is not helpful when I'm playing minecraft online when there is lag already from the server which makes for long waiting times for a block I placed down to appear(which can take 15 seconds or minutes in the worst case when there is lag).
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Have you tried anything like the things I mentioned above? I do tech support on another forum for this one game, and normally the only lag you'll ever see is cause by the client end of the connection. I'd suggest using Leatrix/PingEnhancer if you haven't already. Because honestly, if you're getting that kind of lag, but it's ONLY while gaming, then it has to do with those things. Especially if everything else is super smooth. There are other tricks too. Those are the most common, and often do the trick for anyone.
 
I tried the Leatrix program but it did not help. My ping used to be 20ms(41ms ping to a server that is 30 miles away is not good by what I can tell) less than now and all games played great without lag.
 
I've created a bootable USB drive with a Windows 7 image to install it on a friend's netbook. Worked really well.
 
Overclocked my AMD Sempron 140 a reasonable 5%, causing the machine to shut down and now I can't even get into BIOS to return it to normal.
 
Ordered 2 one meter long SATA cables, a PCI diagnostics card, loads of thermal compound, a 1.8 meter long USB cable and a Micro USB cable and 2GB Micro SD card for my phone for less than 15 bucks US.
 
Got rid of a virus from my computer without using any third party software to help me find/delete it.
 

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