Technology has failed us

[Bruce Sato]

I am mildly to moderately grump, because my PC is messing about. Yesterday, in a fit of impatience with Firefox eating so much memory that I couldn't even close it down, or launch the task mangler to do it for me, I hard-reset the PC, and ever since then it has been suffering from some sort of memory issue, with programs not loading at all, or (in the case of Firefox) loading without any user profile, the antivirus program not updating a lot of the time, etc. A full AV scan brought up nothing, and nor did Malwarebytes etc., so I don't think it's a malicious thing; and when I run CCleaner, everything works perfectly fine for a while. But then I'll try to launch something and it'll shout 'failed to create working directory'.

It's not a huge annoyance, because I'd been thinking about doing a format and reinstall for a while; I've been running this thing more or less daily for the last seven years, and it's noticeably slower, and Windows Update's been a bit broken for a while, etc. But it's just a bit of a faff to do, which is why I kept putting it off. But I've ordered a USB drive so I can back everything up without using any of the other USB drives (just in case it is a virus), so when that arrives tomorrow it'll be backup / format / install Windows / install other things / run antivirus / restore backups / run antivirus again / see what happens.

Computers are excellent.

[endar]

best of luck

the most fun things, times

[blombluss]

Yesterday, in a fit of impatience with Firefox eating so much memory that I couldn't even close it down, or launch the task mangler to do it for me, I hard-reset the PC

That is very, very 'me' behaviour. I usually accompany doing such a thing by saying "Oh, piss off!".

Yeah, and good luck, Sir!

[blombluss]

I am currently in a state of heightened technology alertness, as I switched both the phone (30 years with BT) and the internet (10-ish years with Plusnet) to NowTV on Monday, and 20 minutes of radio silence aside on Monday afternoon, everything is fine. But I'm just waiting for summat to conk out in the next few days.

[richschnauzer]

have you tried headbutting it

[vom]

Seven years before serious issue is pretty damn good to be honest!

[Bruce Sato]

Ves, I'm fairly sure I had to do this twice on my old PC (10 year lifespan)

Anyway, it seems to have worked, and the only casualty so far is a year's worth of sent emails from one email account. And even then I think I might be able to get them back. Also I've discovered an extra 1 TB of space that I didn't know hadn't been allocated properly 7 years ago. I thought I'd bought a 3 TB drive and been sent a 2 TB one. So that's good!

[blombluss]

Nice one!

[richschnauzer]

Just want Windows XP back https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

[blombluss]

Ves. If it's good enough for our nuclear submarines, then its good enough for running me web browser.

[richschnauzer]

https://cdm.link/2022/02/artist-uses-ai ... nd-titles/

[blombluss]

Heh! I loikes!

[Bruce Sato]

Aaargh, PC has broken again. This time it threw a fit and crashed horribly when I was searching my inbox to see if I had a Nintendo account, and it hasn't booted up since, just clacking on and off and on and off till I turn it off. This time I left it on and it went through to a screen where it says the BIOS is corrupted and that it's recovering from a backup, but the recovery's been stuck at 54% for about twenty minutes now and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Pissssss.

I suppose at least this suggests that the hard disk is OK, but I really hadn't intended to replace the thing for at least another six months, so this is a bloody nuisance. And minkee is no longer around to provide PC build advice by proxy.

[An Unicorn]

Mairo strikes again

[Bruce Sato]

My desire for those NES pad Switch controllers will be the death of me

[Bruce Sato]

I turned it off and on, and this time the BIOS recovery went all the way to 100% and it's booted into Windows. I am now desperately backing everything up.

[Bruce Sato]

Little was backed up before it rebooted, and then it rebooted earlier and earlier, so now it's rebooting before it's loaded anything at all, again.

I am going to try changing the CMOS battery, on the basis that if it's not that, I've only wasted about 3 pouns. At least when I did manage to get to Windows everything seemed to be working, so the hard drive should be salvageable if need be.

Computers are the best things in the world.

[dng]

yes. good luck bruce

[Bruce Sato]

Changing the battery got me as far as the BIOS, but then it crashed repeatedly. However, removing one of the RAM sticks has got me all the way to Windows, and the PC has stayed working for over six hours (and I'm now using it to post, rather than the work laptop), which at least gave me enough time to finish backing everything up. Hooray-ish.

[An Unicorn]

Did you try headbutting the RAM?

[blombluss]

Hooray-ish.

My experience with computers in a nutshell, there.

[The Robotic Anomaly]

It's 2022

Computers are everywhere

Phones can do anything

Yet people still insist on sending me forms to "sign" in DocX format

I DO NOT HAVE WORD

[dng]

90% of everything I submit to publishers has to be in docx for some reason, even though I'm pretty certain every single person in publishing only ever uses macs because they're all incredibly posh

[dng]

and i only use a mac also because i'm obviously also incredibly posh

[dng]

everyone having to constantly convert things to docx to send and then convert them from docx to read and then convert them back to docx again to send and so on in a never ending spiral of conversion errors and formatting death

[blombluss]

docx? dogeggs more like!!!

[dng]

Surprisingly accurate

[Bruce Sato]

After weeks of taking longer and longer to switch on each time, today my monitor has decided not to switch on at all, but just to sit there blinking its blue light at me. After four hours I snapped and got my old 1024x768 monitor out of the cupboard, which is still working ten years after I last used it. It is safe to say that this is not an enjoyable experience.

[blombluss]

My printer is borken, and I was just about to order a replacement, when an electric bill for £75 dropped through the door. An electric bill for last Chrimbus, that is, so no new printer for Blombluss. *sighs*

[blombluss]

After weeks of taking longer and longer to switch on each time, today my monitor has decided not to switch on at all, but just to sit there blinking its blue light at me. After four hours I snapped and got my old 1024x768 monitor out of the cupboard, which is still working ten years after I last used it. It is safe to say that this is not an enjoyable experience.

I'm usually rocking 1920x1080, so yup, 1024x768 would take me a bit of getting used to.

[Bruce Sato]

After a brief rally over the weekend, when it only took 15 minutes to switch on, the monitor failed to come on once in a 9-hour spell yesterday, so I've splashed out on a UHD LED monitor with lots of ports, including one that will hopefully mean I can connect my work laptop up to it. It arrives tomorrow, and I look forward to buyer's remorse, but it seemed to make sense to get one with an eye to a future PC build (that can actually take advantage of UHD). Hopefully this one will last 10 years as well.

[dng]

MY computers 12 or 1 3 years ld now (and my laptops 10 and a half)

I really don't want to have to buy new ones for a multitude of reasons but i'm going to have to soon aren't i

[dng]

my laptops still mostly genuinely actuallyf ine in every way except for the battery, which only lasts about two hours now. obviously, due to being a mac, it is utterly impossiible to replace the battery in any way, even through apple themselves, at any price

[dng]

my computers completely terrible shit that barely works at all, but it still has photoshop on it so i need it really

[Bruce Sato]

Weeeep

Well, the new monitor is set up and working. It has two HDMI ports so I've been able to dispense with the HDMI junction box and just plug the PC and bluray player into it directly, and despite being an inch bigger than the old one, actually fits better into the desk alcove (to my surprise and delight). It started up in UHD, but I've had to lower the resolution to 1920x1080 because the onboard graphics on my PC run at such a low refresh rate that it was painful. Now I shall start thinking about the graphics card that it will eventually be plugged into, and the PC that the graphics card will be plugged into. But first I need to think about furniture.

[blombluss]

Think about furniture?!?

#You must be out of your brilliant mind#

(obscure pop hit jokk!)