In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
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Well, it seems that I messed up the screen or page that I watch the majority of YouTube videos on after I click on one of them. I don't know what I did but I guess I must have done it last night and just never noticed it until today.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Well, it seems that I messed up the screen or page that I watch the majority of YouTube videos on after I click on one of them. I don't know what I did but I guess I must have done it last night and just never noticed it until today.
Could you explain what you mean a little more? Maybe I could help you.
Good news and bad news on the PC front.
The bad news first.... Installing Windows 7 didn't help since it still freezes and crashes randomly. Drat. I'm assuming that Linux won't help that issue either since I never had any problems on this PC with Win7 before, but I'm going to figure out how to make a bootable flash drive and see if that helps at all.
Cooling was the MAJOR issue here. I'm actually surprised this thing didn't crash all the time given how hot the room it is in gets during the summer. I downloaded a hardware monitor program that will tell me all sorts of cool stuff about the various temps of different parts of the PC. It seems that I was regularly running super hot at well above 60 degrees Celsius for the CPU, which I just read was way above what you want it to be at. Everything inside my computer is SUPER dirty and really needs to be cleaned. I'm sure the heatsink itself is all but useless at this point.
Right now, I've got the case open and a house fan blowing right into it. I've down-clocked everything in the BIOS to run way below normal specs. This makes it load the system far slower than it used to, but once everything is loaded up it seems to be fine for a lot longer. Youtube videos run without crashing, but the PC still fails enough to not be usable right now. It's only running at around 45 degrees right now, but it will still fail. Instead of locking up like it did in Win10 though, it will just reboot for the most part.
Chances are there was some irreversible damage done to one of the mobo parts or the CPU itself. I'm not going to say the GPU isn't fried too, but putting an old one in didn't fix the issue, so it's not likely.
I'm going to take everything out and get the "gunk" out of the system and try Linux and see if this thing can be saved for at least another half year or so. I'm thinking once it cools off outside it will probably be okay until at least late spring. By then I should have enough saved up to buy a really nice rig without feeling guilty about spending the cash. It'll be nice to have my first SSD and see the OS boot up almost immediately. :)
EDIT: Oh wow!!!!!
I had started writing that before the last crash and just finished it up. Since then I did take out the heatsink and clean it really good and took out the CPU, re-seated it and put everything back.
I'm running at around 14 degrees Celsius now!!!!
That almost doesn't seem possible compared to how hot it was running before. I wonder if that's accurate?
Maybe I'm in luck and all she needed was a little TLC.
Finger's crossed. :)
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Dammit.... still crashed in Win7.
That could be an OS thing at this point though. Win10 is a hell of a lot more stable and able to withstand bad shutdowns a lot better than Win7 was. (For instance, I had to run a forced chkdsk on my Win7 setup this morning after a bad shutdown yesterday... It's been so long since I had to do one of those that it hadn't occurred to me until now that Win10 doesn't ever make you do that. Different FAT system and all...)
Running Win10 for about 15 minutes now and I'm bouncing between 20 degrees and 38 degrees. Well within the happy zone.
Been running some youtube content and haven't had any problems yet....
Why do I say such foolish things??????
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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SIX: Let's hope you didn't bring bad luck down on yourself by posting positive!
I hope you used silver heat sink compound to put that (those) heat sink(s) back on; it really does help with the heat transfer. Also, yes, those temp monitoring apps ... aren't they handy???
*****
Here on this homefront ... we have one of those fancy tankless/demand water heaters which is nice because it really DOES supply "endless hot water". (And then we restrict our showers to save on water, go figure!)
However, it developed a habit of shutting itself down, especially when we turn on the shower in the bathroom. The only thing that would make having to get re-dressed just to trot outside and push the "power" button back on more annoying would be if I had to do that in sub-zero weather! As long as it was a once-a-month event that was OK but it started turning into an everyday problem. so I thought I'd better fix it.
My first thought was the the upstream and/or downstream filters were clogged, causing a "flow" fault, so I bought replacements and changed the filters. The filters WERE dirty, but that didn't solve the problem: It faulted the very next time I tried to use the shower!
So I called the company which makes them, and was very pleasantly surprised to find that
1) They were still in existence
2) They provide support for old units like ours, and
3) They were willing to take me though a VERY detailed over-the-phone troubleshooting procedure, instructing me how to access and read off the error codes. In their view, the problem seemed to be some sort of "communication" problem to the controller, and the fault might be in the external keypad. Since the unit is designed to run without the keypad in "default" mode, they suggested that I simply disconnect the keypad from the unit and see if it solves the problem.
So far, problem solved!
If it continues to work for the next three or four days, the problem is definitively in the keypad, and we'll either replace it or just run without. However, if the problem rears its ugly head again, then they're willing to take me though an even more extensive troubleshooting procedure ... this time with me using a multimeter ... or send a tech if I need one.
I'm so happy that I found a company with true knowledgeable tech support!! Usually they just hand a script to some person with little knowledge of how things work, and instruct them to get the "customer" off the phone as soon as possible (problem solved or not) to boost their numbers.
The only downside to the whole thing is that our mosquito problem is back and bad as ever, particularly in that back corner. I ran out there without repellent on because I thought I'd just read off the serial number and they'd shuffle me off the phone, but I soon had about a dozen Asian tiger mosquitoes hovering around my legs and biting .... I literally had to go back inside and put repellent on partway thru the troubleshooting because they were unbearable; and now I have a half-dozen new EXTREMELY itchy bites.
So the next thing I did was contact Vector Control. AGAIN. They did something a month ago and fixed the problem, so maybe they can do the same thing again.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Well, it seems that I messed up the screen or page that I watch the majority of YouTube videos on after I click on one of them. I don't know what I did but I guess I must have done it last night and just never noticed it until today.
Could you explain what you mean a little more? Maybe I could help you.
Good news and bad news on the PC front.
The bad news first.... Installing Windows 7 didn't help since it still freezes and crashes randomly. Drat. I'm assuming that Linux won't help that issue either since I never had any problems on this PC with Win7 before, but I'm going to figure out how to make a bootable flash drive and see if that helps at all.
Cooling was the MAJOR issue here. I'm actually surprised this thing didn't crash all the time given how hot the room it is in gets during the summer. I downloaded a hardware monitor program that will tell me all sorts of cool stuff about the various temps of different parts of the PC. It seems that I was regularly running super hot at well above 60 degrees Celsius for the CPU, which I just read was way above what you want it to be at. Everything inside my computer is SUPER dirty and really needs to be cleaned. I'm sure the heatsink itself is all but useless at this point.
Right now, I've got the case open and a house fan blowing right into it. I've down-clocked everything in the BIOS to run way below normal specs. This makes it load the system far slower than it used to, but once everything is loaded up it seems to be fine for a lot longer. Youtube videos run without crashing, but the PC still fails enough to not be usable right now. It's only running at around 45 degrees right now, but it will still fail. Instead of locking up like it did in Win10 though, it will just reboot for the most part.
Chances are there was some irreversible damage done to one of the mobo parts or the CPU itself. I'm not going to say the GPU isn't fried too, but putting an old one in didn't fix the issue, so it's not likely.
I'm going to take everything out and get the "gunk" out of the system and try Linux and see if this thing can be saved for at least another half year or so. I'm thinking once it cools off outside it will probably be okay until at least late spring. By then I should have enough saved up to buy a really nice rig without feeling guilty about spending the cash. It'll be nice to have my first SSD and see the OS boot up almost immediately. :)
EDIT: Oh wow!!!!!
I had started writing that before the last crash and just finished it up. Since then I did take out the heatsink and clean it really good and took out the CPU, re-seated it and put everything back.
I'm running at around 14 degrees Celsius now!!!!
That almost doesn't seem possible compared to how hot it was running before. I wonder if that's accurate?
Maybe I'm in luck and all she needed was a little TLC.
Finger's crossed. :)
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I had the main video I would be watching overlapping onto the others that come up with it. You should you wish to watch any of those. That's the rest of it.
As it was I left that page I was watching and YouTube in general and went to another site and came back later and everything had was back the way it was the day before. So I think I just have to be more careful.
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My landlady is truly an idiot. Ran into her walking up the hill as I was going down to run some errands.
She couldn't fire out the haze in the sky or where the smoke was coming from. I had to explain each of these to her.
ARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I HATE STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I didn't put any new thermal paste on it because I don't have any at the moment.
All that I did yesterday didn't solve the problem. :(
After doing some reading I tried messing with voltage regulation settings on the mobo to no avail. I wasn't really holding out hope on that since I've never done it before.
I also altered "Startup" conditions in Win and the BIOS to turn off any quick booting, but that didn't work either.
Further reading is leading me to believe that this may very well be a power issue. I think that the outlet in the room I use the computer is wonky. I've already burned through 2 PSU's since I've lived here. Granted, they were both about 10 years old, so I didn't put much thought into it.
I tried using another very old surge protector, but almost immediately froze again. Then, dangerously, I plugged it directly into the wall and it actually worked for about a half hour of heavy load before failing again.
I think I'm going to do some research and order a new cost effective PSU with high ratings as well as a new surge protector. I have a heavy duty extension 50 foot cable that I use for big power tools as well, and I'm going to try that from an outlet that I've never had any issues when I get the parts.
I'm also going to get the thermal paste, a can of air spray and really clean this thing out good as well. It's probably a good thing this all happened because it was running super hot and would have broke eventually anyhow.
There may still be a chance that the PC is fine if I replace these lower-cost parts, and if I find out that it's still bad they'll all be things I'd need to buy with a new PC anyhow and if I buy the right PSU it should be compatable with a newer mobo if I have to buy a new one.
Once again.... fingers crossed.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Exactly this situation with electronics, for a company, not an individual, was covered in the comics:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
There may still be a chance that the PC is fine if I replace these lower-cost parts, and if I find out that it's still bad they'll all be things I'd need to buy with a new PC anyhow and if I buy the right PSU it should be compatable with a newer mobo if I have to buy a new one.
Once again.... fingers crossed.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Repair or Replace
Just make sure all your friends and family are out of the car, or that you've made backup friends and family at home.
https://xkcd.com/2033/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Out to do my laundry in a bit.
Then when I get back spiders to try and vacuum up.
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I wish hubby could take a look at if for you. But heat ... yeah, now that it's summer if your 'puter has an air circ problem it will definitely show up now!
The first thing hubby would do is look at how your PC was physically put together. Dust is the most common cause of heat buildup, but "bad build" is the #1 root problem. When we put PCs together (dear daughter and I do the assembly, he supervises!) he is EXTREMELY careful to pick cases that breathe, breathe, breathe; total air exchange once per second. So typically, there are at least five fans in each case. He is also EXTREMELY careful how to route all of that internal wiring... ties the wires together well up and out of the way so that internal airflow is not impeded. Not only must the CPU be well-ventilated, but also the northbridge, southbridge, and hard drives."Hot spots" can get up to 200-300 F.
We had two Dells in the lab that "came with" instruments (instrument manufacturer's choice) and when I told him about them he just kind of rolled his eyes and commented that they would probably die in a year because Dell at the time was stuffing everything into teeny-tiny cases, with the hard drive in a corner somewhere with no air circulation. Sure enough, within a year one failed, and the other failed one month later (hard drive failures).
You really need that paste.
Oh, also 14C is not realistic.
EDITED TO ADD Hubby says don't rely on the internal thermometer. They're highly non-linear. Also, what temp was that? The CPU core temp? Or the CPU die temp? 14C is a ridiculous reading, you might get that right after startup but if that's what you're reading when you're running forget it: Your thermosensor is dead. Use your "digital thermometer" (your finger). Touch the heat sink near its base ... if it's uncomfortably hot to leave you finger on, it's too hot.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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