n3ta

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.

best of luck

the most fun things, times

Bruce Sato wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 5:39 pm 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!

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.

have you tried headbutting it

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

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!

Nice one!

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

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

Heh! I loikes!

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.

Mairo strikes again

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

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.

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.

yes. good luck bruce

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.

Did you try headbutting the RAM?

Bruce Sato wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:53 am Hooray-ish.

My experience with computers in a nutshell, there.

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

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

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

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

docx? dogeggs more like!!!

Surprisingly accurate

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.

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*

Bruce Sato wrote: Thu Sep 05, 2024 2:52 pm 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Think about furniture?!?

#You must be out of your brilliant mind#

(obscure pop hit jokk!)

Our fridge freezer is making some peculiar noises.

It probably needs defrosting.

Also exorcism.

It turns out I can effectively use new monitor as a docking station for the laptop, so I've got my keyboard and mouse 'wired' (wirelessly) into the monitor, and when I change inputs they automatically work with whichever computer I've selected. This means I need no longer destroy myself trying to use the laptop on the sofa.

Meanwhile said laptop is currently receiving Windows 11, as I am the designated guinea pig for this process. Since I am also currently unwell, I might go back to bed while it's setting itself up. I do not look forward to Windows 11 from what I have heard.

ooh that's fancy. I managed to set up something similar at my old house but it was a lot of hassle with additional boxes etc, having a monitor that can handle it on its own is very nice indeed

Hope you feel a bit better soon, Bruce!

blombluss wrote: Thu Sep 05, 2024 7:56 pm 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*

I have bought myself a new printer for Chrimas. An Epson XP 2205 for £40 (Argos). You can buy unofficial ink cartridges for it, so when you run out of one colour, it doesn't cost a billion puon to replace.

Not having a functioning printer has been an unsettling experience, because I've always had one since 1996!

Following an amazingly successful rearrangement of furniture, I'm thinking I might actually get a new PC before I get any new furniture, since more and more things are becoming unreliable on it. I'm distinctly unhappy with what I hear about Windows 11 (which I'm using on the office laptop because I have to, but haven't really engaged with because I don't have admin rights), so I'm wondering whether to get a smaller PC that will run some species of Linux, and then a bigger PC for gaming and very little else. The two main downsides to this are (1) the cost; (2) my total lack of experience with Linux. The meta-problem, as always, is the fact that I don't really know what I'm doing with anything like this.

Any thoughts or suggestions about any aspect of the plan would be gratefully received. Even if it's just how I can beat Windows 11 into submission (no MS account, absolutely no fucking AI bullshit, maximum possible security from general MS cretinism).

You can play lots of steam games on Linux - the steam deck thing is Linux anyway

That is all I know about Linux

i am getting closer to moving to linux as well

learning it on a raspberry pi is probably the simplest way to start. i have a couple of old ones I keep meaning to start practicing on

and there are versions of linux that are more user friendly for beginners, with windows style interfaces and shit

Re: Technology has failed us

Especially if you spill tea all over your cheapo wireless keyboard.

Bugger!

Last sunday (ten days ago or whenever), the day before we were going to cornwall for a week, BT sent us an email saying "oh yeah we're turning your phone off in a week and replacing it with "digital voice" and there's nothing you can do about it", which was pretty annoying, because i assume that whatever digitial voice is (just another name for VOIP i suppose), its bound to be much shitter than normal phones, due to all the compounded shitness of various digital technologies interacting with each other in increasingly inept ways, as always.

also it won't work in a power cut, which is helpful, but "just use your mobile phone in this case"

also then in tiny print at the bottom it said "oh yeah and your phones won't work anymore because you're router's incompatible and you need to plug them all into your router no matter wher ethey are in the house why have you even got phones all over your house anyway its not the 1980s any more just use mobiles mobiles mobiles" which seems kind of strange as a selling point when we've presumably still got a phone in the house because we don't want to rely on mobiles all the bloody timein the first place

anyway then we got them to send us a new router, but told them not to deliver it until today because we weren't here, and they said "okay, but also don't worry because if we do deliver it early our technology is so good now the routers tiny and can easily fit through your letterbox"

so then we got home and discovered that the router was twice the fucking szie of our old one, and also came in a box 2 and a half inches deep, and it didn't fit through the letetrbox at all, because it was so absurdly huge, so they'd left it in the garden on top of the recycling bin in a big puddle of water all weekend when we'd just had the worst storms in 20 years and about 80 fucking inches of rain

when we got it inside and opened it the box was full of worms