The "Quick Questions That Don't Deserve A Thread"...Thread. v5 - Hardware & Software

That is the SSD I'm getting and my board does support M.2 as well. I'm not too worried about losing the SATA port either.

My hard drive seems to be making a lot more noise than usual, including high pitch clicking noises and a shitload of noise whenever I boot up minecraft. Is it on the way out? It's a Seagate Barracuda 1TB. I've backed up everything of value and I'm generally working on stuff loaded from my external drive just in case. If it does fail, is it likely to affect anything else I should worry about, or will the HDD just break and leave my other hardware alone?

I'm considering a purchase of loudspeakers (since sometimes I have friends over and playing music on 100 volume from headphones just doesn't cut it). What specifications should I be looking for, if any? Is there anything I should look for?

[QUOTE=FloaterTWO;49122430]My hard drive seems to be making a lot more noise than usual, including high pitch clicking noises and a shitload of noise whenever I boot up minecraft. Is it on the way out? It's a Seagate Barracuda 1TB. I've backed up everything of value and I'm generally working on stuff loaded from my external drive just in case. If it does fail, is it likely to affect anything else I should worry about, or will the HDD just break and leave my other hardware alone?[/QUOTE] I feel like this is my #1 solution for any hard drive issues at this point, but it works well Download a program called "Crystal Disk Info" and run it. It should tell you if there are any errors with the drive. If there are errors and you readily have another computer available to you, as well as a SATA to USB cable (or a computer with a free SATA slot), remove your hard drive and plug it into the second computer. Now run chkdsk with the commands /f /r on the drive and let it do it's thing. It should fix any errors you have on that disk. This is only a temporary solution, as it'll keep that drive going for a bit longer, but as with all drives they have a limit of usage before entirely breaking down. I simply use my old faulty drive that I repaired as an external drive for files I don't want on my computer, but also ones that I wouldn't be terribly afraid of losing. To answer you other questions, the hard drive should not affect any other part of your computer unless something crazy happens (like the clicking turns out to be the disk's magnetic arm and it somehow catches fire), so you should be fine. I'd look to get another drive immediately, or upgrade to an SSD.

I've just ordered another HDD as a backup plan incase this one dies soon, but I'd love for this HDD not to fail so I don't have to reinstall everything again only 5 months after I built this PC. I'll give crystal disk info a try. I had a look with SeaTools and they found nothing wrong, but I'm getting paranoid about it and i'm not easily reassured. EDIT: Crystal Disk info says the health status is "good". Should I still be concerned about all the noises?

At that point, the clicking is probably being caused by the magnetic arm not moving properly, it's not exactly a "hard drive failure"-type issue, it's just a faulty piece of hardware. You ca get someone at Best Buy or other places to get the issue fixed, unless you're really willing to open it up yourself and do it.

I'd prefer not to do it myself, but I'll look into getting it fixed elsewhere, thanks. There are some computer stores around here that probably do repairs, I'll have to get some opinions on what they're like. Out of curiosity, if I just left it and let it be noisy, would that cause any damage to the drive? I would like to get it fixed, I'm just wondering what's likely to happen if I don't fix it.

From what I've researched, noisiness and clickiness hints that the magnetic arm hitting against the disk platters (AKA really bad), which could possibly break the drive at any given moment (especially during high Read/Write times). Most people have said to stop using the drive entirely until you get it fixed or replaced, so I'd recommend replacing it ASAP.

The new one is in the post, so I'll swap it out when it gets here.

Is there any reason to stick with windows 7? Will most drivers work on windows 10 if they are only available for windows 7?

So far what i noticed was that drivers that I needed to install on windows 7 work out of the box on win8 and 10, though you gotta get the proper drivers for things like your GPU and maybe cpu if you're using some Intel specific stuff like quick sync.

[QUOTE=highvoltage;49122951]Is there any reason to stick with windows 7? Will most drivers work on windows 10 if they are only available for windows 7?[/QUOTE] Most Windows 7 drivers will work, and compatibility with Windows 8 drivers is even better. I think the only Windows 10 drivers I'm running are graphics drivers, and that's because there's actually new graphics features on W10. One warning: Windows 10 will try to automatically update drivers for you. Sometimes that goes wrong - like on my laptop audio chipset. It tried to install the regular VIA drivers, but Asus, being staffed by sentient dick-turds, modified the hardware (to let them install a 1" subwoofer), but didn't change the device ID. So the drivers didn't work with half of the sound. It was an epic quest to get it to actually work, because W10 would check for updated drivers as soon as I uninstalled the current ones (that didn't work) and automatically install those exact same broken ones (which in fairness to Microsoft, came from the maker of the actual chips and would actually work on unmodified setups). I did eventually get it sorted but it was not easy. Everything else works fine though. If you're on a desktop, where proprietary hardware mods like that are nonexistent, you should be perfectly fine.

Any help regarding [URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1428989&p=49123224&viewfull=1#post49123224"]this[/URL] problem I'm having would be much appreciated. Figured some of you geniuses could get to the bottom of the crash log and figure out what exactly it is that's setting off the crash.

What is automerge and why do I see so many people saying "muh merge"? Is it some kind of forum plugin?

[QUOTE=Kinky Frog;49123624]What is automerge and why do I see so many people saying "muh merge"? Is it some kind of forum plugin?[/QUOTE] If you make a new post in a thread where the last post was by you, the forum will automatically merge the two posts.

It'll look like this. Edit: Or it would have, if [I]someone[/I] hadn't posted in the middle of it.

[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;49123642]GMAN YOU [editline]16th November 2015[/editline] well we fucked that up[/QUOTE] We fucked that up [I]so bad[/I].

Is there a way to change my Windows OS HDD letter to C: without doing a reinstall? I'm currently backing up all my documents onto another drive (my F: drive) and will go ahead with the reinstall since that's what I know how to do. But any other ways would be great.

What are the cool kids using for benchmarking these days?

[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;49123858]3DMarks Firestrike(and extreme) Witcher 3 Metro Last Light GTAV[/QUOTE] This whole system is running on a 32GB SSD because I don't have my 2TB in the building at the moment, so I don't have room for games but i think i can get firestrike and/or extreme

Which is the real website? [url]http://www.realtek.com.tw/[/url] or [url]http://www.realtek.com/default.aspx[/url]

[QUOTE=Richard Simmons;49119086]I never have much luck with the KC-CL. When I do find a card, or when a coworker is selling one, its some POS with w/ 1GB, and they want $170 for it. Ill go through my usual avenues. But you're right, much better deals here and there. The Chi-CL was usually some POS gaming rig from 2008, or recycled office workstations. Occasionally, a decent GPU will show up. As for the Phenom II cores (Deneb/Thuban), I honestly think where of fantastic design. I heard reports that the 1090T compared against the 8130 in terms of processing power. Now I'm just a little worried about the PCIX slot (2.5) and the chip wont be bottle necking a R9-390. Would any of those features be of use? PhysX still even a thing? [editline]fresh_cockold_split_in_two_by_jackhammer.mpg_____.exe[/editline] I'm really eying the 390, I just need verification that the CPU would not hinder the cards performance. 3.2GHz/6cores seems suffecient, but is it fine with PCIX 2.5?[/QUOTE] The performance hit would be small if at all significant

[QUOTE=Sweet Berries;49124107]Which is the real website? [url]http://www.realtek.com.tw/[/url] or [url]http://www.realtek.com/default.aspx[/url][/QUOTE] Realtek is a Taiwanese company, and .com.tw is the first result on Google, so I'm going to say .com.tw is their "official" presence .com could just be a mirror though

They're both real. Also were both updated last in like 2003. A+ work for one of the biggest computer component manufacturers in the world.

Does anybody here have experience with a capacitive switch keyboard? I'm considering buying one since this cheap membrane switch keyboard is not doing the job anymore, making my hands rather tired and I've been doing more and more typing on this. [editline]16th November 2015[/editline] I'm considering getting the original Japanese version of this: [url]http://www.amazon.com/Topre-Realforce-Keyboard-English-XF11T0/dp/B00B5SEHNC[/url]

[QUOTE=loopoo;49123828]Is there a way to change my Windows OS HDD letter to C: without doing a reinstall? I'm currently backing up all my documents onto another drive (my F: drive) and will go ahead with the reinstall since that's what I know how to do. But any other ways would be great.[/QUOTE] 1)start menu 2)search 3)"create and format hard disk partitions" 4)right click on drive you desire to change the path/drive letter 5)click "change drive letter and paths..." 6)once the window opens, select the drive 7)click "change" 8)select desired letter 9)save 10)close program [QUOTE=lavacano;49123846]What are the cool kids using for benchmarking these days?[/QUOTE] unigine heaven(gpu) furmark(gpu) IBT(cpu) aida64extreme(cpu/gpu/ram/storage/whatever) cpu-z

[QUOTE=Slippery-Q;49125634]1)start menu 2)search 3)"create and format hard disk partitions" 4)right click on drive you desire to change the path/drive letter 5)click "change drive letter and paths..." 6)once the window opens, select the drive 7)click "change" 8)select desired letter 9)save 10)close program [/QUOTE] You can't change the drive letter of your OS HDD since you're using it. People said there are finicky ways to do it, but the safest route is a fresh install. I already tried changing the partition letter. Says it "cannot access parameters"

[QUOTE=loopoo;49125930]You can't change the drive letter of your OS HDD since you're using it. People said there are finicky ways to do it, but the safest route is a fresh install. I already tried changing the partition letter. Says it "cannot access parameters"[/QUOTE] good point, didnt even check that just tried it right now, didnt prohibit me from doing it, but i was also given a warning that things may function incorrectly given that a lot of things on my C drive depend on that path

[QUOTE=Slippery-Q;49125965]good point, didnt even check that just tried it right now, didnt prohibit me from doing it, but i was also given a warning that things may function incorrectly given that a lot of things on my C drive depend on that path[/QUOTE] If you actually went ahead and clicked past the warning, it would have given you a "cannot access parameters" error and not changed the drive letter. I get to the warning bit but after that it doesn't go forward.

[QUOTE=loopoo;49125968]If you actually went ahead and clicked past the warning, it would have given you a "cannot access parameters" error and not changed the drive letter. I get to the warning bit but after that it doesn't go forward.[/QUOTE] have you considered cloning your OS?