Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Cobra on December 15, 2006, 08:33:41 pm

Title: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Cobra on December 15, 2006, 08:33:41 pm
Somehow my operating system's booting operations got ****ed up. First it was preceeded by a few random lockups while I was playing Medal of Honor Allied Assault. In the second mission that I played after noticing these strange lockups, the lockups started getting longer, until finally the entire computer locked up and shortly following that I got the Blue Screen of Death.

I had to freaking format and repartition my drive and reinstall Windows. So now I've lost homework, videos, projects, and Pathways material. :hopping:

Well, at least I know what it feels like.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Mefustae on December 15, 2006, 08:34:40 pm
You didn't back it all up externally?
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Cobra on December 15, 2006, 08:38:24 pm
Nope, too poor to afford external drives. I've got a CD/DVD drive burner but no blank DVDs.

[EDIT] And it turns out I can't find my monitor's driver CD. ****.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Quest_techie on December 15, 2006, 09:08:40 pm
external drive enclosure, you can pick up 20 gb ide's pretty cheap <like $5 some places> and the enclosure you can get on sale for $20, GET AN ALUMINUM ONE NOT PLASTIC

edit: also when you get another drive available, totally scalable
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Getter Robo G on December 16, 2006, 01:17:23 am
what's scalable mean?

Incidentally I just reinstalled all the FS2 tools cause of my crash and tentatively started work again... Damn virus kiddies and fake security programmers selling their "Protection"... KILL THEM ALL!





Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Unknown Target on December 16, 2006, 08:49:07 am
I suggest AVG antivirus. It's free and very good.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Janos on December 16, 2006, 08:53:52 am
pour coke on your keyboard
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Quest_techie on December 16, 2006, 01:43:54 pm
what's scalable mean?

Incidentally I just reinstalled all the FS2 tools cause of my crash and tentatively started work again... Damn virus kiddies and fake security programmers selling their "Protection"... KILL THEM ALL!







scalable, means if you want to put a 20gb hard drive in there you can, if you want to put a 500 gb hard drive in there you can, if you want to have 50 20 gb hard drives that you swap out, you can do that too
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Cobra on December 16, 2006, 02:10:12 pm
pour coke on your keyboard

I could, I have about 3 backup keyboards from previous PCs. :D

Anyway, I'm considering buying an external HD but i'm more concerned with getting a better video card, preferrably AGP, as once again I don't have a PCI-E motherboard.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 16, 2006, 02:17:39 pm
imho i hate pci graphics in any form, its slow, causes more errors, can give you the finger then the blue screen of death, frequent lock ups. and the list goes on because you have a pci-e or pci graphics card in your machine.

im staying with AGP. alot less hastle and the top range AGP cards are becoming alot more cheap :nod: soon enough in a few months i can get rid of this ATI Radeon 9550 modded, 9600 XT Pro. in favor for ATI X1600 AGP.

i have a secondary HDD on standby online everytime. so atleast i can transferr valuble music and files over without too much disruption. and saves money too.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Scuddie on December 16, 2006, 04:07:50 pm
imho i hate pci graphics in any form, its slow, causes more errors, can give you the finger then the blue screen of death, frequent lock ups. and the list goes on because you have a pci-e or pci graphics card in your machine.

im staying with AGP. alot less hastle and the top range AGP cards are becoming alot more cheap :nod: soon enough in a few months i can get rid of this ATI Radeon 9550 modded, 9600 XT Pro. in favor for ATI X1600 AGP.
Are you serious?
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Cobra on December 16, 2006, 04:11:26 pm
imho i hate pci graphics in any form, its slow, causes more errors, can give you the finger then the blue screen of death, frequent lock ups. and the list goes on because you have a pci-e or pci graphics card in your machine.

im staying with AGP. alot less hastle and the top range AGP cards are becoming alot more cheap :nod: soon enough in a few months i can get rid of this ATI Radeon 9550 modded, 9600 XT Pro. in favor for ATI X1600 AGP.
Are you serious?


I agree, are you nuts? PCI-E is the most advanced graphics driver to date. The bugs have been worked out, and AGP is slower than PCI-E.

Plus, I use a PCI card and the only trouble I've had is not being able to play the better games. :P You must have had a really crappy PCI-E card.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 16, 2006, 04:25:37 pm
i hate pci, PEDIOD. so yes im serious 8)
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Scuddie on December 16, 2006, 04:34:19 pm
You do realize that the PCIe architecture has absolutely nothing to do with PCI, do you?  AGP, however, does have alot to do with it.  So basically you're saying PCIe sucks because it shares the same initials.  Well done.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 16, 2006, 04:41:27 pm
do you mind. all card might have the same bloodlines, butthier coding tells me otherwise.

now people who come upto me and act all smart i will be hostile toward, so in a friendly tone, dont go there.
because i dont want it. and i know full well about whats in a pc and what is not, so cut the crap.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Scuddie on December 16, 2006, 05:38:35 pm
When you supply a valid argument that doesn't contradict itself, then I'll cut said crap.

AGP uses the PCI bus.  It shares its resources with other PCI cards at the chipset.  If you have an audigy that spams the PCI channel with noise, it will affect your AGP card (though not as much as if it were a PCI card).  AGP is said by experts as well as myself is far more unstable at 8x than 4x, and is the most stable when its GART functionality is disabled.  Essentially, AGP is a dedicated PCI channel, which is overclocked by splitting the voltage across the cycles.

PCIe does not use the PCI bus.  Its resources are entirely independant per channel, and PCI noise is non existant from one lane to the next.  Because of the nature of power/signaling being separated from the datapath, a device does not become more stable by using more or less PCIe lanes.  Essentially, PCIe is the successor to a strategy that is over 11 years old.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: IceFire on December 16, 2006, 07:13:34 pm
imho i hate pci graphics in any form, its slow, causes more errors, can give you the finger then the blue screen of death, frequent lock ups. and the list goes on because you have a pci-e or pci graphics card in your machine.

im staying with AGP. alot less hastle and the top range AGP cards are becoming alot more cheap :nod: soon enough in a few months i can get rid of this ATI Radeon 9550 modded, 9600 XT Pro. in favor for ATI X1600 AGP.

i have a secondary HDD on standby online everytime. so atleast i can transferr valuble music and files over without too much disruption. and saves money too.
Just to support everyone else...I would suggest doing some reading about the PCI-Express technology.  Its new but becoming very mature in the motherboard lineups.  It has nothing to do with PCI at all and in comparison between AGP and PCI-E performance, PCI-E will win every time. I've built a multitude of systems now using PCI-E video cards and have had expected results (no issues).

So what exactly are you on about?
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Nix on December 18, 2006, 02:48:59 am
do you mind. all card might have the same bloodlines, butthier coding tells me otherwise.

now people who come upto me and act all smart i will be hostile toward, so in a friendly tone, dont go there.
because i dont want it. and i know full well about whats in a pc and what is not, so cut the crap.

Oh lol... oh wow.. someone's britches are too big too big for their britches..... 

Anywho, do you realize that those shiny AGP cards up there in ghe X1600+ range are all bridged, and lack the performance of thier native PCI-Express counterparts?  You're running an extra step right there at the hardware level with an advanced card that's built to PCI-Express specifications.  Tell me that's not efficient, rather than running natively at what the card's designed for.  Plus, you can expect AGP cards ro actually raise in price as PCI-E becomes the mainstream graphics port.  All it takes is a little bit of research, and a little history lesson from when PCI-E came out, watching price trends as they've progressed, and just a little bit of common sense. 

And Cobra, Start partitioning now, this way if your system goes, you can just reformat the system partition, rather than losing everything if you need to reformat.  That's only if you start saving your homework and important things to a seperate partition.

Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: CP5670 on December 18, 2006, 03:30:52 am
I doubt formatting was a good choice there anyway. Crashes in games point to a hardware fault of some sort (often memory related) and Windows files can occasionally get corrupted on an unstable system. You haven't necessarily solved your problem yet.

The most reliable insurance against losing stuff is to make external backups (DVDs or whatever). Partitions won't do anything against hardware issues and even extra hard drives are vulnerable to power related issues if they're always plugged in.

On a related note, I found out last week that my Dell laptop's hard drive has somehow gotten hosed (bad sectors all over the place), although there was nothing important on there anyway. The warranty expires in February so I better get it replaced quickly, although I use that laptop maybe once in three months these days.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: aldo_14 on December 18, 2006, 05:33:46 am
do you mind. all card might have the same bloodlines, butthier coding tells me otherwise.

now people who come upto me and act all smart i will be hostile toward, so in a friendly tone, dont go there.
because i dont want it. and i know full well about whats in a pc and what is not, so cut the crap.

To be fair, it's hard to have too high an opinion of someone who doesn't use capital letters or punctuation. :)
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Cobra on December 18, 2006, 03:03:32 pm
I doubt formatting was a good choice there anyway. Crashes in games point to a hardware fault of some sort (often memory related) and Windows files can occasionally get corrupted on an unstable system. You haven't necessarily solved your problem yet.

When I got stuck in a loop and winodws said that a hardware or software change prevented the start up?

I had to format anyways so I could reinstall windows.

And Nix, I don't know how to partition my drives. :nervous:
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: CP5670 on December 18, 2006, 03:06:28 pm
Did you try just reinstalling it on top of your existing install? That often fixes any corrupted files.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 18, 2006, 04:06:11 pm
partition is found on the windows xp dos installation. and something called fdisk.exe

partition makes a seperate area for operating systems. and a certain amount of gbs to that area. otherwise without the partition and you install 2 os on one then it fuks everything up

edit: as for you aldo i cant be bothered so you want to try something, read my writing. your problem otherwise dont read.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: perihelion on December 18, 2006, 04:42:16 pm
 :wtf: @ Centrixo
<--  Doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

@ Cobra, man, I wish you hadn't given up so quickly.  Even if the OS itself is smashed, there are usually diagnostics you can still run to get the data off the hard drive itself.  Bart PE has worked wonders for me in the past.  I strongly recommend looking into it or any of the other bootable CD's out there to help you offload data from a damaged OS install.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Col. Fishguts on December 18, 2006, 04:52:51 pm
I know, the mature thing would be to step back and ignore it, but...

partition is found on the windows xp dos installation. and something called fdisk.exe

... this is just awesome.

Please, tell me what this Windows XP DOS installation is. Don't hold back with technical details.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: aldo_14 on December 18, 2006, 04:55:46 pm
partition is found on the windows xp dos installation. and something called fdisk.exe

partition makes a seperate area for operating systems. and a certain amount of gbs to that area. otherwise without the partition and you install 2 os on one then it fuks everything up

edit: as for you aldo i cant be bothered so you want to try something, read my writing. your problem otherwise dont read.

You're displaying a level of arrogance far in excess of your stated knowledge.  It's inevitable someone will pick up on it, and you should probably be glad it's me and not someone outright hostile.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Scuddie on December 18, 2006, 05:03:13 pm
partition is found on the windows xp dos installation. and something called fdisk.exe

partition makes a seperate area for operating systems. and a certain amount of gbs to that area. otherwise without the partition and you install 2 os on one then it fuks everything up

edit: as for you aldo i cant be bothered so you want to try something, read my writing. your problem otherwise dont read.
Wow...  Ya know, I've not often used fdisk to create an NTFS partition.  Even less so to modify an already existing NTFS partition.  Probably because fdisk is not capable of such actions.  And what's this I read about dos in an XP installation?  I've never known it was there, but now that I do, I will have to start looking for it.

How old are you, kid?
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 18, 2006, 05:04:46 pm
talk my advice or not, its up to you if you wantto accept. as for arrogant so thats the way i am so what you complaining at?

edit: as for aldo, you got a big mouth but nothing to fill it with.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: perihelion on December 18, 2006, 09:01:45 pm
Screw arrogance.  How about the rampant ignorance you are trying to pass off as wisdom?  You've been corrected multiple times in this thread alone and been provided with all the information you need to go forth and educate yourself.  Instead of displaying even a modicum of humility, you are sticking your ground in the face of plain facts and a body of experts.

Let me put it to you simply:  You.  Are.  Wrong.  Fact, not opinion.  We're not debating philosophy here.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Kosh on December 18, 2006, 09:54:37 pm
Quote
partition is found on the windows xp dos installation. and something called fdisk.exe

:wtf:

Quote
otherwise without the partition and you install 2 os on one then it fuks everything up

Not if you do it right.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: CP5670 on December 18, 2006, 10:00:41 pm
Quote
Screw arrogance.  How about the rampant ignorance you are trying to pass off as wisdom?  You've been corrected multiple times in this thread alone and been provided with all the information you need to go forth and educate yourself.  Instead of displaying even a modicum of humility, you are sticking your ground in the face of plain facts and a body of experts.

Heh, he reminds me a bit of the guy here (http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=1974429&enterthread=y) in that respect. :p
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Ford Prefect on December 18, 2006, 10:04:09 pm
(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b319/Mistah_Kurtz/hetmeel1.jpg)
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Nix on December 18, 2006, 11:14:49 pm
Seriously, you're going up against people who might actually have certifications and degrees related to diagnosing these problems.  Your word is not law.  Now, I sense a bit of a language barrier here, and I don't mean to make fun of you because of that, but honestly, I wonder if we're on the same page here.  At any rate, you're still arrogantly saying your "advice" is correct, despite backing it up.  I used to be exactly like you, proclaiming that my methods were law, and it got me nowhere.  If you actually can take some criticism, and just know when to quit and start observing, perhaps you'll actually learn something, something you can be confident to offer, without having to fight people who actually know what they're talking about.

 
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Descenterace on December 19, 2006, 12:36:13 am
Scuddie: FDISK will handle NTFS partitions, reason being, NTFS is merely a partition format and thus only concerns the internals of the partition. Filesystem type is determined when you format a partition, not when you create it. OK, so FDISK may not actually recognise the partition type, but it'll let you delete it or display location info.
DISKPART is WinXP's partitioning tool, though.


partition is found on the windows xp dos installation. and something called fdisk.exe

partition makes a seperate area for operating systems. and a certain amount of gbs to that area. otherwise without the partition and you install 2 os on one then it fuks everything up

edit: as for you aldo i cant be bothered so you want to try something, read my writing. your problem otherwise dont read.

You're displaying a level of arrogance far in excess of your stated knowledge.  It's inevitable someone will pick up on it, and you should probably be glad it's me and not someone outright hostile.

Like me.

Centrixo, how long have you been using computers, and at what level? I have been using DOS and Windows for the last eleven years, been programming for fourteen years (nine years in assembly code), been building IBM PC-compatibles for five years and now have a job as a .NET developer and Windows sysadmin (not my first choice of OS, but what the hell). Additionally, I have a degree in Computer Science from one of the best Universities in Britain, and I studied mainly the lower-level, technical details of computer systems in that course.

Therefore, I'm in a pretty good position to tell you that you should stop giving out advice on subjects that you do not understand.

I'm sure there are many better-qualified people on HLP too.

I've had a bad week, and it's only Tuesday. All Hardware Sucks, All Software Sucks, yadda yadda yadda.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: aldo_14 on December 19, 2006, 03:11:18 am
talk my advice or not, its up to you if you wantto accept. as for arrogant so thats the way i am so what you complaining at?

edit: as for aldo, you got a big mouth but nothing to fill it with.

I'm complaining at you spreading poorly phrased misinformation and responding like a petulant child when it's pointed out that you're only making a fool of yourself.  I'm not sure what your academic background is - after all, some people just get lazy posting on the internet - but I'd suggest you seriously rethink acting the smartarse. 

For one thing, I'm pretty damn sure that Descenterace and myself aren't the only people with Computer Science degrees (If you really want to know what I have to 'fill it with', it's a 1st class degree with >80% average exam results combined with postgraduate work experience as both a contracted consulatant and in my current job with Cisco).  In fact, I know we're not.  So perhaps when you have a go at people for gently hinting you should drop the arrogance and respond in this sort of way, you should point out exactly what makes you qualified to do so?
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Mefustae on December 19, 2006, 05:13:34 am
Centrixo should take a page from my book: When a discussion of computer mechanics breaks out; silently realise you know ****-all about what everyone else talking about, post a stupid joke or whatever, and move the **** on to the next thread.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 19, 2006, 07:47:49 am
ive love this hehe. anymore? now ive told you, its up to you if you want to accept it or not.

keep your personal opinions to yourself please.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: redsniper on December 19, 2006, 07:58:24 am
language barrier, definitely
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 19, 2006, 08:00:05 am
thought so.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Fragrag on December 19, 2006, 08:03:54 am
Note: Totally offtopic but still in tune with the 'I'm pissed'

My damn girlfriend managed to lose our tickets to the Muse concert tonight, I've been looking forward to it since the summer :( Sorry, needed to vent that out
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Centrixo on December 19, 2006, 08:05:12 am
go ahead. unless i miss read 'well, im pissed' topic name.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: aldo_14 on December 19, 2006, 08:09:12 am
Note: Totally offtopic but still in tune with the 'I'm pissed'

My damn girlfriend managed to lose our tickets to the Muse concert tonight, I've been looking forward to it since the summer :( Sorry, needed to vent that out

Checked down the side of the sofa?
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Nix on December 19, 2006, 12:23:24 pm
ive love this hehe. anymore? now ive told you, its up to you if you want to accept it or not.

keep your personal opinions to yourself please.
I got a few questions. Here, I'll even make it easy to reply to.

So what education do you have? 

What technical experience have you gained, and from where? 

What still baffles me, is that you say something, and it's up to us if we accept it.  The overwhelming majority of us believe that you're giving us mis-information, meaning that it's false, or made-up information to make you look or sound good.  Yet, you keep saying that your word is totally valid, but it's not.  You haven't told us where you get your information, whereas two people have clearly outlined their professions and have refuted your "viewpoints".  So this brings me to my last question. 

Why do you consider your word as law?

Why do you exaggerate when it comes to your knowledge?  Are you afraid of not knowing something?  It's okay to not know everything, because you're human, just like the rest of us. 
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Cobra on December 19, 2006, 06:35:56 pm
ive love this hehe. anymore? now ive told you, its up to you if you want to accept it or not.

keep your personal opinions to yourself please.

I chose not to heed your advice in any way, because your first screwup was stating that Windows used a DOS program. Windows XP doesn't support it.

Anyway. It turns out there wasn't any trouble with the hard drive at al, but there was a faulty RAM stick that was transferred from my previous computer to this one. Apparently this RAM stick was actually screwed up from all the power surges that ruined my old motherboard and hard drive. So it basically held on for another 3 months and finally died. It's probably only a matter of time until my video card fails, I guess. I surely hope not, because my grandmother won't freaking pay online for me to get a faster, more capable video card. Like $60 for a GF6200 is terribly expensive. Won't pay online either, she's too afraid people will steal her credit numbers. Like her numbers will be stolen out of a few hundred million people.

[EDIT] And I forgot to mention I've lost 256 MB of memory, so I'm down to 512. :sigh: At least it's better than just having 256 MB.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Mefustae on December 19, 2006, 09:54:36 pm
[EDIT] And I forgot to mention I've lost 256 MB of memory, so I'm down to 512. :sigh: At least it's better than just having 256 MB.
The memory gnomes are after you!

Memory -> ? -> Profit.
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: CP5670 on December 19, 2006, 10:59:02 pm
I guess I was right about the memory. :p Formatting is overkill in most situations and I see a lot of people do that unnecessarily. (some actually do it every time they change a piece of hardware)
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Nix on December 19, 2006, 11:29:20 pm
Anyway. It turns out there wasn't any trouble with the hard drive at al, but there was a faulty RAM stick that was transferred from my previous computer to this one. Apparently this RAM stick was actually screwed up from all the power surges that ruined my old motherboard and hard drive. So it basically held on for another 3 months and finally died. It's probably only a matter of time until my video card fails, I guess. I surely hope not, because my grandmother won't freaking pay online for me to get a faster, more capable video card. Like $60 for a GF6200 is terribly expensive. Won't pay online either, she's too afraid people will steal her credit numbers. Like her numbers will be stolen out of a few hundred million people.

[EDIT] And I forgot to mention I've lost 256 MB of memory, so I'm down to 512. :sigh: At least it's better than just having 256 MB.

You should be able to get your own bank account with a debit card, which will allow you to purchase anything that you want online, all by yourself. That is if you are old enough to have one.  I thought you were though...?

Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Descenterace on December 20, 2006, 12:22:34 am
ive love this hehe. anymore? now ive told you, its up to you if you want to accept it or not.

keep your personal opinions to yourself please.
I got a few questions. Here, I'll even make it easy to reply to.

So what education do you have? 

What technical experience have you gained, and from where? 

What still baffles me, is that you say something, and it's up to us if we accept it.  The overwhelming majority of us believe that you're giving us mis-information, meaning that it's false, or made-up information to make you look or sound good.  Yet, you keep saying that your word is totally valid, but it's not.  You haven't told us where you get your information, whereas two people have clearly outlined their professions and have refuted your "viewpoints".  So this brings me to my last question. 

Why do you consider your word as law?

Why do you exaggerate when it comes to your knowledge?  Are you afraid of not knowing something?  It's okay to not know everything, because you're human, just like the rest of us. 

plz do not feed the troll, kthxbye. :D
Title: Re: Well, I'm pissed.
Post by: Cobra on December 20, 2006, 12:47:04 am
Anyway. It turns out there wasn't any trouble with the hard drive at al, but there was a faulty RAM stick that was transferred from my previous computer to this one. Apparently this RAM stick was actually screwed up from all the power surges that ruined my old motherboard and hard drive. So it basically held on for another 3 months and finally died. It's probably only a matter of time until my video card fails, I guess. I surely hope not, because my grandmother won't freaking pay online for me to get a faster, more capable video card. Like $60 for a GF6200 is terribly expensive. Won't pay online either, she's too afraid people will steal her credit numbers. Like her numbers will be stolen out of a few hundred million people.

[EDIT] And I forgot to mention I've lost 256 MB of memory, so I'm down to 512. :sigh: At least it's better than just having 256 MB.

You should be able to get your own bank account with a debit card, which will allow you to purchase anything that you want online, all by yourself. That is if you are old enough to have one.  I thought you were though...?



Two years from now I will be. :P