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Just from thinking about this a little bit, and from my many checks to Digg and Slashdot, it seems to me that a more technically savvy user might want to install some freeware software on their PC in order to monitor such things as processes and power usage to be able to sooner detect hardware failure. Granted there is no way to detect all hardware failure, but if we were to monitor more things closely, we might have a better chance of detecting problems before they become too serious.
Yesterday, I found an interesting piece of software, freeware of course, that throttles back any process that starts to take over a system. All processes in Windows have a priority and what this software does is demotes processes using up large amounts of the CPU. I dont remember what the name of the software was right off the top of my head, but I'll go looking for it when I have a moment and try to figure out what it was.
Its always been my opinion to never use something in its first generation and I know Greg and I practice this a lot with newer versions of Windows. However, I know we're both guilty of forgetting this for other things, even though we try to be conscious of the fact that its first generation. Seems to me that anything thats “first generation” is still beta, as it hasnt been in the field that long. And Greg and I both have experience with breaking things that have just been released.
Im thinking of having a “Lets see how we can break Vista” party as soon as its released, as im going to start testing it anyway for some work related projects.
Update: I found the link for the process program I mentioned previously.
http://www.lifehacker.com/soft…..221204.php
Enjoy
I would say take out that power supply as soon as possible before it blows and takes out your hard drives again.
I currently have a weird problem with my nvidia drivers, every time I play a game nvidia resets the video color settings Gamma to -8%, so whenever I want to watch an avi or a streaming video I have to open the nvidia control and reset the gamma to 9% which is (oddly) normal looking. Also I can't play any of the battlefield games or world of warcraft with sli enabled.
Greg, Scott's right, change the power supply. And one thing you shouldn't forget, even though the possibility is remote, back up all of your stuff. Sure as hell beats paying about a grand a piece to have your hard drives sent in
Yes I remember it as if it was yesterday, playing Serious Sam on my laptop on Andy's writing desk and Greg playing it on his computer when all of a sudden his PC just died. No problem we both thought, that kind of thing happens all the time. Little did Greg know of the horror that was in store.
Oh boy did I ever, and $1100 and 2 years later I fixed that. Anyway, I plugged in an ATX tester, and it says my PS is fine. I don't know whether to trust that or not. I need to go put my PS outta my workstation into that computer and try it. Been working so much this week, I haven't had the chance to sit down and do it. So, for the time being, I'm just gonna be on my old 950MHz computer. I tell ya, the board and CPU to this one is almost 7 years old, and the PS in it is almost 8 years old, and they're all still running strong. Goes to show how more reliable older hardware seems to run (not to mention the fact that it's not draining nearly as much from the PS as newer computers do).
Ok, I got in my old PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 510 ATX power supply (Scott'll remember be spending $250 on it and getting it shipped overnight cuz I had projects and needed a running computer as soon as possible) in my 64-bit machine, and everything seems to be running great right now. I've only had it running for a few hours, but so far, no problems. So it would seem that the Ultra X-Connect I had in here could no longer supply enough juice to run this computer.
So, looks like now I have to save up for another PS. And from now on, I'm not using any type of power supply except for PC Power and Cooling power supplies.
Tim already knows about this, but I'm posting it here just so people know about the issue, and possibly may be able to avoid it in the future. Ok, I'm having serious issues with my computer again. Basically, what happens is, at some random point, for no real reason, my video will get corrupt (the GUI ghosts itself 4 or 5 times across the screen, and I get these vertical lines across the screen about every 150 pixels or so), which makes it a pain to see, but then after a few moments, the whole system will llock up. It used to not be such a big deal, as it would hardly ever happen (twice at the most the first time), and rebooting solved the problem. But now, it's happening all the time, and now rebooting doesn't do a thing — it'll either stay corrupt afterwards, or Windows won't even load. I first noticed the problem in August. I had just bought FlatOut 2, and had played it many times, but then one night I go to load it up, and the nightmare began. I rebooted, and everything was fine. The problem didn't come back until a month later. I uninstalled my video card drivers, rebooted, and reinstalled the drivers. Problem solved. Now, here's the real kicker — the problem didn't pop up again until around the middle of November. This time tho, I would reboot, and it would still be there — I would unload the drivers, boot into safe mode, nothing would seem to work. Even if I could get my computer booted, it would only stay running for about 2 minutes. I got so frustrated with my computer, I was about to throw it down the hallway, then kick it down the stairs, until I decided to take my video card out and reseat it. Of course, I had to unplug it from the power supply first (it's an ATI Radeon X850 Pro, so it requires extra juice from the power supply). After I put it back in, and powered it up, it was working just fine, and stayed that way.
Present: At home, the problem has been haunting me 3 or 4 times daily. It's almost getting to the point that I can't stand it anymore. I keep having to pull the card out and putting it back in. So, maybe my video card is going bad? I hope not, it's only a year old at this point, and I don't have the money for a new gaming card. But wait, the problem seems to go away for awhile when I unplug the card from the power supply, and plug it back in, or when I move the power cable into another slot on the power supply (I have an X-Connect PS, so I can move all the molex cables around). So, does that actually mean, that I may have a failing power supply? It's possible. . . I've been told, from someone that owned one, the first generation of Ultra X-Connect power supplies had a flaw, they died really quickly. This guy had put a lot of load onto his PS, and it failed really fast. My system isn't that demanding, or wasn't, until I got the video card last year. And, it may just now be catching up, my PS could be on it's way out. I mean, the blue UV lights in it died last year, and I'm suspecting that it can no longer keep up with the demands of my video card. Of course, I can't test this theory until I can get my hands on a GOOD 350W or higher power supply to try out.
I love having computer issues, cuz it interrupts my daily life, and have to spend all my free time that I could be using to play games, to fix the problem. Anyway, if this PS is bad, I've already selected it's replacement:
http://www.pcpower.com/product…..how=T51ASL —
this sucker is a monster!!Hey, I've had good luck with the Turbo Cool 510 ATX on my workstation (that thing is a power house of a PS), so why settle for anything less than the best? Of course, I could always shell out for the 1KW power supply:
http://www.pcpower.com/product…..how=T1KWSR —
now that would be one hell of a power supply!!Anyway, this should be at least good documentation for anyone having similar issues as I am.
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