General Computer Gripe Thread

[Gegenji]

Figured a thread about computer issues might be something that be nice to have. Complain or identify issues with your machine, and maybe even get some hints and fixes. I'm pretty sure we've got some tech-savvy folks amongst us, after all...

 

This is inspired by the issue I currently have. Computer's been "lagging" and hanging up for a little while now. It came and went so I just dealt with it. After all, I could still play FFXIV and surf the net. I just figured it was some program like Firefox bloating up and slowing things down.

 

Surely that would work. I checked the Task Manager, shut down any extra stuff that didn't need to running, and continued on. Which seemed to work well enough...

 

Until today. Restarted my computer for updates to my antivirus software... And got "no boot device available." Not the best way to start off a Sunday. Used the built-in Alienware ePSA Pre-Boot System Assessment application to see what was up. Everything is fine... Except for the hard drive, which is suddenly giving me this error message:

 

Error Code 2000-0151

Validation 71117

Msg: Hard Drive 0 - S/N Z1F22T1K

Incorrect Status = 32

 

So yeah, I have Best Buy looking into it now. They agree that it's something with the hard drive, but whether it's just a software issue or my HD suddenly fubar-ing itself royally, we don't know. Down $200 as they look it over and hopefully find a solution within their 2-3 day time window.

 

I still have my install disk if it's really needed, but I hope my stuff can be salvaged. Preferably something that can be resolved same day. Because, until then, I'm computer-less. Wee. 

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I. Hate. AMD. GPUs.

 

No experience with anything that requires Catalyst Control Center has ever gone well for me. Whether it's because CCC thinks my nice 1080p monitor needs to be underscanned to make it look "correct" or when it decides it has compatibility issues with other software on my computer, I can expect the shitty software to crash at least 100 times a day, usually bringing the graphics driver with it.

 

In-game, I found that if you have a recent R9-series AMD card, you better turn on those LOD and LOD streaming settings or places like Coerthas and Mor Dhona will give crippling, unplayable lag because they make the GPU flip out.

 

...it doesn't help that a R9 290 consumes double the power and generates double the heat as an nvidia GTX 980. The lights in my apartment would flicker when I used AMD cards (that I've mostly pawned off by now).

[FreelanceWizard]

So yeah, I have Best Buy looking into it now. I still have my install disk, but I hope my stuff can be salvaged.

 

Ouch. When my hard drive crashed, I was able to get a lot off by using The SysRescueCD. Linux can often mount and recover things from hard drives that give Windows a fit.

 

Now I run RAID 1 SSDs.

 

My gripe: since about patch 2.4, my computer does this weird "stuttering video, then 'DirectX error' crash" thing if I tab out a lot, particularly in high population areas like Mor Dhona. It's super-annoying.

[Coatleque]

I had posted a similar thread a while back with some basic troubleshooting steps. The first one being the Windows Event Viewer. If you don't know where that is, just click "start" and start typing "event". It should pop up in the list. The Application and System logs are the two main ones to check for critical errors or application warnings (In Vista and later, expand "Windows Logs"). Application log will show program specific errors or failed services. System log will show faulty hardware, network, and driver errors.

 

Logs are displayed automatically by timestamp, most recent first. Most of the informational stuff you can ignore. Right-click the log (application/system) in the nav menu and chose "Filter log". From there you can just check Critical, Error, and Warning then Ok. That should clean things up considerably.

 

Another thing is the Task Manager which you can reach by Ctrl+Alt+Del, or by right-clicking the task bar and choosing it from the menu. The "Performance" tab will show how many system resources are in use. If your CPU is constantly pegged at 100% or you have 75% of your RAM in use, that signals a problem. Either an application is hung, a virus maybe slowing you down, or you have too much stuff open at one time for the limitations of your hardware.

 

Worst case scenario to recover a frozen Windows desktop if you can get into task manager, find the "explorer.exe" task and end it. This will close out the Windows GUI. Then you go to File->Run new Task and type explorer.exe in the box to restart it. You may actually be able to avoid a hard reboot doing this in some scenarios.

 

Hope this helps.

[Coatleque]

My gripe: since about patch 2.4, my computer does this weird "stuttering video, then 'DirectX error' crash" thing if I tab out a lot, particularly in high population areas like Mor Dhona. It's super-annoying.

 

Are you running in exclusive full-screen or Windowed mode? FFXIV has an error when tabbing out in full-screen mode. For that reason I run in borderless-windowed now. Haven't had an issue since.

[Gegenji]

Updated the OP with a little more information... Since I'm basically hanging out until I get the diagnostic results call in an hour or so.

 

I think what bothers me the most is that it was more or less working as usual until I restarted for the update. And I had restarted the machine a couple times earlier this week with no issues. So I'm straight stumped as to why it messed up now. And hopeful it's just a messed up boot system and not the entire HD burning out and becoming unrecoverable or something.

 

Again, something I hope can be fixed same day. Until then, I'm gonna play my DS or something and lurk by the phone.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

My gripe: since about patch 2.4, my computer does this weird "stuttering video, then 'DirectX error' crash" thing if I tab out a lot, particularly in high population areas like Mor Dhona. It's super-annoying.

 

Are you running in exclusive full-screen or Windowed mode?  FFXIV has an error when tabbing out in full-screen mode.  For that reason I run in borderless-windowed now.  Haven't had an issue since.

 

SE never really figured out how to make exclusive fullscreen ever work. It'd crash the game if you alt-tabbed in 1.0. Every. Single. Time.

[Coatleque]

Error Code 2000-0151

[...]

Incorrect Status = 32

 

Per Dell's own error-code reference, this issue may be a bad SATA connection. Did you open it up and make sure all the cables are plugged in? Or try replacing them if you have spares?

 

Another thing to do is try booting to the Windows recovery disk and running a system repair. Or trying to boot to the command line and manually run a chkdsk.

 

Running diskpart then using the command "list disk" will show all attached and detected drives.

[Gegenji]

I checked the connections, yeah. I didn't try using the recovery disk to repair it, though. I... Kinda panicked and just took it to the Geek Squad. My actual knowledge in the inner workings of a computer are pretty lacking. As is my knowledge of procedures to follow.

 

Hence this thread, I suppose. Even if I did make it after the fact. :blush:

[Coatleque]

It's okay. I do this for 40+ hours every week. I hate computers.

[Steel Wolf]

Not a gripe, per se....but something I felt would be suitable for posting here.

 

On the very not-often occasion, the fan of what I assume is my GPU suddenly runs very high. The hum of my machine overall is pretty soft, so when that fan queues up for what I assume is an emergency heat spike, it's very noticeable.

 

It doesn't have me too worried, and I do keep my sinks as clearn and unobstructed as I can without taking a brush to the vents...but it does make me go when it happens.

[Coatleque]

Not a gripe, per se....but something I felt would be suitable for posting here.

 

On the very not-often occasion, the fan of what I assume is my GPU suddenly runs very high. The hum of my machine overall is pretty soft, so when that fan queues up for what I assume is an emergency heat spike, it's very noticeable.

 

It doesn't have me too worried, and I do keep my sinks as clearn and unobstructed as I can without taking a brush to the vents...but it does make me go when it happens.

 

An unfortunate side-effect of active cooling. Older nVidia cards were much more noticeable. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the fan the quieter it will be.

 

For example, this card is very quiet (I speak from experience):

 

This card is very noisy:

 

Those sideways blowing gear-looking fans are horrible in my experience, both for cooling and from a dB (noise, decibels) perspective

 

---

 

Depending on your brand of video card, you may have access to 3rd party software which MAY help the noise issue. Note, you need to be very careful doing this! MSI Afterburner, for example, should work with any nVidia cards, and if I recall it has the ability to limit the fan speeds to the % of maximum that you specify. You could cap it at 80% if that is a more pleasing experience. Just keep in mind that if your card starts to overheat, games will start having graphical glitches, followed by crashing

 

(The machine will probably crash before you actually damage the card, but there is always a risk)

[FreelanceWizard]

My gripe: since about patch 2.4, my computer does this weird "stuttering video, then 'DirectX error' crash" thing if I tab out a lot, particularly in high population areas like Mor Dhona. It's super-annoying.

 

Are you running in exclusive full-screen or Windowed mode? FFXIV has an error when tabbing out in full-screen mode. For that reason I run in borderless-windowed now. Haven't had an issue since.

 

I take a pretty severe performance hit (by my standards ) running in any windowed mode, which is why I run in full screen. I accept the crashing as the unfortunate consequence of my choice. It does annoy me that SE can't get it together and deal with rebuilding a render context, though.

[Gegenji]

Update on my end with regards to my hard drive. According to Geek Squad it's screwed up and they have to replace it, and are going to try and recover whatever information they can from the HD. So, I figured I'd put the question out: what causes a HD to go bad?

 

Because their first question to me was if I was doing "a lot of hardcore gaming." I've played TF2, FFXIV and some other smatterings of Steam games (XCOM and BoI come to mind) on a relatively daily basis on it. However, my last machine (which I had since tech school in the military, back in... 2006-ish?) had me playing WoW just as frequently and lasted for years!

 

... I think it might have something to do with Iolo System Mechanic - which I used for antivirus and overall system maintenance. Part of its functionality is clearing clutter, backing up registries, and defragging the HD. I forget for how long, but I used to have it set to that it compressed and defragged on EVERY restart (because I am a dumb). Do you think that's what played in the HD's early demise? Because I heard you should really only defrag once a month or so to ensure optimal performance.

 

Basically, what steps can I take to keep my HD from running as it should, and what to avoid to keep from having to deal with this situation again.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Update on my end with regards to my hard drive. According to Geek Squad it's screwed up and they have to replace it, and are going to try and recover whatever information they can from the HD. So, I figured I'd put the question out: what causes a HD to go bad?

 

Because their first question to me was if I was doing "a lot of hardcore gaming." I've played TF2, FFXIV and some other smatterings of Steam games (XCOM and BoI come to mind) on a relatively daily basis on it. However, my last machine (which I had since tech school in the military, back in... 2006-ish?) had me playing WoW just as frequently and lasted for years!

 

... I think it might have something to do with Iolo System Mechanic - which I used for antivirus and overall system maintenance. Part of its functionality is clearing clutter, backing up registries, and defragging the HD. I forget for how long, but I used to have it set to that it compressed and defragged on EVERY restart (because I am a dumb). Do you think that's what played in the HD's early demise? Because I heard you should really only defrag once a month or so to ensure optimal performance.

 

Basically, what steps can I take to keep my HD from running as it should, and what to avoid to keep from having to deal with this situation again.

 

Most of the time, I see a hard drive got back for physical issues. Like the motor burns out or the read/write head scratches the actual disc. Assuming your computer likely isn't causing earthquakes and isn't being shook/shaken/falling, it could have just been a shotty piece of hardware.

[LiadansWhisper]

Basically, what steps can I take to keep my HD from running as it should, and what to avoid to keep from having to deal with this situation again.

 

How long had you had the HDD?  They only usually last from 2-4 years.  I had a hard drive that lasted for 5 years, then randomly went out (without warning).  And when it died, it was so fucked that we couldn't pull anything off it the standard way, so now it's a paperweight.  I could have sent it to a professional lab to have them make an attempt, but that usually costs about $1500-3000.

 

Some hard drives are just bad.  Some of them get damaged over time (remember, it's spinning at a really high rate of speed for years at a time), or just wear out.

[Coatleque]

So, I figured I'd put the question out: what causes a HD to go bad?

 

Incoming wall of text.

 

I can echo what's already been said here. The Hard Disk (unless you get a Solid State Device) is the only physically moving part in the computer. With any mechanical device, the longer it moves the greater the chance of failure.

 

If you've never seen the inside of a hard disk drive, here you go:

 

Those large metal disks are usually made of ceramic and covered in a magnetically sensitive film. The little armature over top of it is not actually resting on the disk, but hovers at a fraction of a millimeter above it. This particular drive has "three platters". There is an armature between each of the platters as well.

 

When a drive reads or writes data, that armature swipes in and out across the disk. That is the grinding sound you hear when loading software. The platters themselves are spinning at typically 7800 RPMs.

 

How do these things typically fail?

1.) Physical Shock (dropping, or vibration) - If enough shock is sustained, the armature may skip or touch the platter. At the speed it is moving, this will actually carve a groove in the disk which will destroy the head making it unreadable.

 

Another aspect is dust. Drives are typically sealed except for a small port which has a dust filter over it. If anything should get on the platter and collide with the head, again it will scratch the surface and destroy the film.

 

2.) Faulty Circuitry - On the bottom of each drive is the controller board which interfaces with your computer. Sometimes bad solder connections may cause chips to malfunction and render the drive useless.

 

3.) Bad Blocks - Sometimes the magnetic film simply fails on the platter. This causes the area to be unreadable and a CHKDSK will flag this as "Bad Blocks" or "Sectors". This is a good indication your drive may die at any moment.

 

4.) Motor Failure - I have rarely ever seen this become an issue, but the DC motor could fail if the bearings go bad or the coils burn out. Chances of this are extremely low for the life of the drive. If this was to happen it would be as the drives spins up or down since it draws much greater electrical current at that time. You can avoid it from even spinning down by going into your power management software and telling it to keep your drives on 100% of the time.

[Tali]

I. Hate. AMD. GPUs.

 

No experience with anything that requires Catalyst Control Center has ever gone well for me. Whether it's because CCC thinks my nice 1080p monitor needs to be underscanned to make it look "correct" or when it decides it has compatibility issues with other software on my computer, I can expect the shitty software to crash at least 100 times a day, usually bringing the graphics driver with it.

 

In-game, I found that if you have a recent R9-series AMD card, you better turn on those LOD and LOD streaming settings or places like Coerthas and Mor Dhona will give crippling, unplayable lag because they make the GPU flip out.

 

...it doesn't help that a R9 290 consumes double the power and generates double the heat as an nvidia GTX 980. The lights in my apartment would flicker when I used AMD cards (that I've mostly pawned off by now).

 

I'll take that complaint, and raise you the problem with stock, reference 290X's.  I've recently downvolted it to keep the temperature down, else that cruddy little single fan that AMD shipped with the first batch of cards whines up to such a point it's comparable to a washing machine, in regards to decibels.

 

Imagine sitting right next to a really loud, angry hair dryer every time your PC did something strenuous.  A loud, angry hairdryer that had to limit what it could do because it was getting too hot.

 

A third-party fan arrived Friday, and heatsinks for the RAM arrive tomorrow, hoping to get to get a quiet, overclocked GPU again soon :3

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I. Hate. AMD. GPUs.

 

No experience with anything that requires Catalyst Control Center has ever gone well for me. Whether it's because CCC thinks my nice 1080p monitor needs to be underscanned to make it look "correct" or when it decides it has compatibility issues with other software on my computer, I can expect the shitty software to crash at least 100 times a day, usually bringing the graphics driver with it.

 

In-game, I found that if you have a recent R9-series AMD card, you better turn on those LOD and LOD streaming settings or places like Coerthas and Mor Dhona will give crippling, unplayable lag because they make the GPU flip out.

 

...it doesn't help that a R9 290 consumes double the power and generates double the heat as an nvidia GTX 980. The lights in my apartment would flicker when I used AMD cards (that I've mostly pawned off by now).

 

I'll take that complaint, and raise you the problem with stock, reference 290X's.  I've recently downvolted it to keep the temperature down, else that cruddy little single fan that AMD shipped with the first batch of cards whines up to such a point it's comparable to a washing machine, in regards to decibels.

 

Imagine sitting right next to a really loud, angry hair dryer every time your PC did something strenuous.  A loud, angry hairdryer that had to limit what it could do because it was getting too hot.

 

A third-party fan arrived Friday, and heatsinks for the RAM arrive tomorrow, hoping to get to get a quiet, overclocked GPU again soon :3

 

I think I'd cry. Or my wallet would.

 

...with my CCC issues, I'm much happier living with nvidia again. (Even if I hate Geforce Experience, it at least can figure out my resolution without resorting to modded registry files)

[FreelanceWizard]

It's a little bit of a thread necro, but the very recent 350.12 nVidia drivers largely fixed my crashing issues when tabbing out. So, if you're experiencing the same problem, 350.12 and 352.86 seem to fix it!