Computer Issues

What about cpu temps ? Maybe you bumped the cooler and it's throttling the cpu.

If they're identical you can take the hdd from your wife's comp and try to boot in yours or at least give it a quick test.

Did you try to boot an ubuntu live cd or hirenbootcd (iptorrents this one) ? Do you encounter the same slowdowns ?

edit : and you should change your Storage mode or whatever to AHCI on both computers.Here's how you can do it on yours, and just reinstall windows with ahci enabled on your wife's computer.

Alkorin_sl said:

Generally speaking, changing the mode after installing Windows isn't a good idea, especially not if you're running something pre-Vista (I'm looking at you, Windows XP people). In XP and earlier, it will cause a blue screen (0x7B, inaccessible boot device) as the proper storage drivers aren't present.

In any case, the performance issues you're seeing wouldn't have been suddenly caused by this setting as the setting has been this way all along, yes?

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Generally speaking yes, it's certainly not advisable to tinker with those settings. However, I'd much rather discover the settings were wrong when I've only got the OS on the disk rather than a whole bunch of applications/updates/data. It's very strange your drive isn't detecting at all now though.

I'd definately suggest sticking it in your machine as a second drive and seeing if you can copy data off it at a reasonable pace. If it doesn't detect in yours, then you have a disk/cable failure. If it detects but is very slow you could try formatting it and repeating the test.

And yes, the performance issues wouldn't have specifically been caused by that setting, the recommendation to reset the BIOS was because I wasn't sure what diagnostic steps had been taken thus far.

Win!

I have an issue that isn't so much a computer issue as an "I'm retarded" issue.

I formatted my hard drive into 2 partitions, 116gb for OS, and 332gb for other/storage. I don't know why I did it; it was a couple years ago. Well now I have severe storage issues because of games. I have to constantly remove a game every time I buy a new one or want to reply an old one.

I don't know how hard drives work at all. Is there a way to somehow merge the partitions? The storage partition has plenty of extra space. I don't mind losing the storage partition, but I can't lose the OS one. If not, can I install games on the other partition? Are there consequences to doing so? What are my options for fixing this disk space problem?

Lastly, is there a way to see what files take up the most space on your hard drive? For example, once I was cleaning out garbage on my computer and found some 10gb zip file buried deep in my downloads folder that I never would have known about if I didn't go searching for it. Is there an easier way to find big files to clean out?

Yes, you can install games on your second partition. Everything will work ok. To see how much space your shit is using, try thishttp://windirstat.info/.

You can also resize your partitions but there's a small risk something will go wrong. For that you can tryhttp://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Dabamf_sl said:

Is there a way to somehow merge the partitions? The storage partition has plenty of extra space. I don't mind losing the storage partition, but I can't lose the OS one. If not, can I install games on the other partition? Are there consequences to doing so? What are my options for fixing this disk space problem?

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You can grow/shrink partitions, so you can shrink your storage one and grow the OS. If you don't feel like doing that, you can always just install stuff on the storage partition. The software (probably) won't work if you reformat the OS drive, but all you have to do is delete the installation folders. No big deal either way.

Dabamf_sl said:

Lastly, is there a way to see what files take up the most space on your hard drive? For example, once I was cleaning out garbage on my computer and found some 10gb zip file buried deep in my downloads folder that I never would have known about if I didn't go searching for it. Is there an easier way to find big files to clean out?

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Check outhttp://lifehacker.com/5835082/five-b...pace-analyzers
I've used WinDirStat and it did the job well enough for my purposes.

Awesome, thanks guys. Installed windirstat and found a 7gb planetside2 file in users/public. Weird. That is a fantastic program and great recommendation.

I'll try that gparted program once I do some backups.

That WindDirStat application is tight. I had no idea hibernation enabled and taking 7GB of space on my SSD.

The Dauntless One_sl said:

That WindDirStat application is tight. I had no idea hibernation enabled and taking 7GB of space on my SSD.

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The majority of people running Windows 7 will find that, as it's there by default. Opening up a command prompt and entering "powercfg -h off" will immediately disable hibernation and free up the space. \o/

I fucked up.

I decided to upgrade my mostly fine and wonderful computer to be good for the coming years. I got a new video card to make sure it was DX11 ready and all that, which was fine and all, no problem. I bought my computer right before Win7 came out and said fuck, probably should upgrade to Win7 before games start requiring it. I had a copy of Win7 Home Premium Upgrade, threw it on and everything went to shit.

I figured it would just upgrade Windows and life would go on. Of course not, it set it up as a whole new OS and pissed the old one to the side. I can handle most of this, obnoxious, but I can deal. What I seem unable to deal with is this and can use help on is:

1. When I boot, it always asks if I want to load Win7 or Vista. Either choice loads the same version of Win7, but I'd like to stop it from asking, anyone know how?

2. My Microsoft Mail seems lost to me. I didn't export it (thinking Win7 Upgrade was clever enough to handle it, foolish me) properly, it is all there, I can see it on the drive, but of course I can't run Mail (as it is Vista Only) and I can't access the files and none of the new (Windows Mail for Win7 or the Outlook in the office I have) will look at it. Any way I can salvage it?

And yes, I know I'm an idiot, was expecting too much of Windows and fucked up already. After several days of trying to work with it, just hoping someone may have an answer where I haven't found one.

1. Start > System Configuration (type this in to search bar) > Boot Tab > Set Win7 to default, or if that doesn't work. Rewrite your master boot record.
2. Download windows live mail and import the file from your windows mail after setting up.

edit: for easier things.

Also you can just grab the files you want from your Windows.old folder and then zap the entire thing freeing up like 20 gigs of windows files.

Sutekh_sl said:

1. Start > System Configuration (type this in to search bar) > Boot Tab > Set Win7 to default, or if that doesn't work. Rewrite your master boot record.
2. Download windows live mail and import the file from your windows mail after setting up.

edit: for easier things.

Also you can just grab the files you want from your Windows.old folder and then zap the entire thing freeing up like 20 gigs of windows files.

Click to expand...

My god, days of pain gone. Thank you magical cranky anteater! You're wonderful!

Anytime!

This will definitely be handy for fixing the computers of inept relatives. Google Hangouts now has a remote desktop control feature.

http://www.geekosystem.com/hangout-r...sktop-feature/

This is a weird HDD issue, and isn't a huge deal, but is incredibly annoying.

My system's running Win7 64 Professional off a 120 gb SSD. It kicks ass, never had problems with it whatsoever.

Problem is with the data HDD I'm using- 1 tb seagate 7200 rpm (exact model SEAGATE ST31000526SV SV35 SERIES 1TB 7200RPM SATAIII 6GB/S).

I use it for storage of all my movies/music/ebooks/pictures/random documents/etc. Also use it to run games I don't play very often (all relocated through Steammover, all run fine).

The issue I have occurs only occasionally when playing a movie or music file, or opening a picture, document, or folder for the first time in a few hours. In the case of music or movies, whenever I either start the movie or the first song in a playlist, or very infrequently after an hour or so of play, I'll experience a slight hitch, no more than a second or two in length. This is followed by a weird click sound from an audible from the physical HDD (not in software). In the case of pictures, documents, or folders opening, there will be a momentary pause (again a second or so long) before the files, thumbails, or file contents display.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what to google, as "momentary pause during music playing followed by clicking sound from hard drive" doesn't really turn up much of use.

Dunno if it's a hard drive or software issue, and it's really not even that big of a deal, but it is annoying. More than anything, I'm just curious as to what the hell is causing this than anything else. I built this rig and everything else has worked flawlessly for years except this one weird quirk. Note that this has been occurring since I put the machine together AFAIK.

In sum, wtf?