computer – Moe Lane

WELL, THAT WAS A FUN AND INFORMATIVE ADVENTURE.

You know why I go to my computer guy? It’s because my computer guy doesn’t overcharge me for stuff. In this case, the guy goes, Yeah. That’s just your USB 3 port that got messed up*. I could replace the whole motherboard, or I could tell you to buy a ten buck hub on Amazon and use that. While I’m here, lemme just install that SSD for you… yup. Good to go.

So, we’re good. I need a new computer at some point, but not today, thank God. And I can get back to edits! Huzzah.

Moe Lane

*I still think that not turning on the computer after I messed it up was the right call generally, but in this specific case it would have been fine.

My computer is broken.

As in, the motherboard needs to be replaced. When will I be off of the Chromebook? Why, that is an excellent question. I have to hope that my computer guy isn’t taking tomorrow off. Or, indeed, that his company is still there, post-pandemic.

I’ve had better evenings.

Ah, a stroll down memory lane.

You know the road: it’s called The Damned Game Wouldn’t Download Because The Computer Kept Insisting That The Antivirus Program Said No And The Antivirus Program Said Nuh-UH And The Computer Said Uh-HUH And Then You Start Randomly Pushing Keys Like A Monkey And Suddenly It All Works Again. It’s such a lovely road. I couldn’t possibly tell you why I don’t travel it more often.

This is on the new computer.

Which is fascinatingly quiet. So very, very quiet. Whether it’ll stay quiet when I actually run games on it has yet to be seen. Nonetheless, I’ve done a weird combination of manual/automatic updates that seem to have worked reasonably well. Huzzah!

Weird posting for the rest of today, though.

Having successfully convinced myself not to try to install the new SSHD myself…

…I’m off to drop off the computer this morning. I just have no idea how long it’s going to take to get ‘er, as it is said, done. I suspect that cloning the drive may take more than five minutes. Then again, what’s really needed here is that the hard drive get installed properly: I could probably clone it myself, at leisure. I will talk to my computer dude.

But if I’m quiet for today and hopefully not tomorrow, that’s why.

Bit the bullet, got the new video card.

Accepted the will of the collective and snagged the GTX 1060 6GB, which should help. Also grabbed 2 8GB memory cards for the upgrade, thanks to a lucky combination of end of month funding refills and Amazon points. Hopefully, they’ll both appear tomorrow, so I can take them over to my computer guy Friday and have him install everything.

…I pretty much have to, at this point. I keep going over there, and he keeps finding ways to do the job for about one-tenth the expected price. I have to throw some business his way that’s worth his time, if only for my own honor’s sake.

Anyway, thanks for the computer advice. Much obliged.

…alternatively, the dang computer just needed a good cleaning.

Sort of. The video card is crap; it’s an AMD, and my computer guy flatly refuses to work with AMD cards. Which is actually fine by me, but he also didn’t have a NVidia card of the right type (I’ve got a AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB Video Card (Require Min. 600W Power Supply) in there now) to swap it out with. But the basic problem that was causing the CPU to crash were the fans; dust/gunk buildup was causing the overheating and subsequent shutdown.

For right now, the box has been cleaned thoroughly of dust and it’s running considerably quieter. It does still runs loud in Fallout, but it’s no longer shutting down. The plan is for me to go buy a new video card* and have the guy install it; yes, I could do it myself after I watched a few YouTube videos, but I had to spend five minutes convincing the guy to charge me anything for looking it over in the first place. This is why we have money, right? To make it possible to have people who can specialize in stuff.

Moe Lane

*I think that I should be looking at the GeForce GTX 960, or maybe the 1060; that’s roughly equivalent to what I have now, right?

Severely light posting tomorrow, maybe Thursday.

I have to take the desktop into the shop to see what’s with this loud fan/power goes out thing. Hopefully, at least one of these problems will be fixable, because it’s going to be a while before I can justify to myself getting a new machine. Although I may price some more RAM, just for the heck of it. Or putting in a second hard drive to get some more room. Haven’t decided yet. One thing’s for certain: if I have to replace the video card, it ain’t going to be with another AMD. It’s pretty much impossible to play Conan Exiles with one, and it’s apparently not the only game with that problem…

Computer issues today.

The darn thing seems to be having this issue where it sometimes runs the fan fairly loudly, then shuts down the computer, if I’m playing either Fallout 4 or Conan Exiles (I assume that overheating the graphics card is the problem). I think that it may be solvable by simply moving the computer tower: I’ve got the unit under the table, and I think that the waste heat is building up and causing the problem. Which would be spiff, because all the other alternatives are expensive.

But that’s been my day.

So the electrical socket AND the keyboard both stopped working.

Which meant that, after we moved the kids’ computer across the room, realized that the sofa had to be moved, moved the sofa, moved the grumpy cat, went down to the basement, brought up the desk that we we’ve been meaning to bring up for three months, sorted out the wires, rewired the computer, banged my effing head on the effing desk draw three times running, realized that the little item in one USB port was actually there for the wireless, and had everything up and running… the keyboard STILL wouldn’t operate and we’ve gone through all the spares already. Guess it’s off to Best Buy in the morning, then. Just as soon as I spent forty minutes in a steam room to clear out the dust clog currently blocking my nasal passages.

Shorter Moe Lane: WHEE!