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New computer first world problems
- Thread starter Baggsy
- Start date
kwtoxman
Well-known member
My DD family room entertainment laptop HD totally crapped out. I spent a few days doing escalating fix attempts and not even a new USB boot clean Windows install would work, the HD was too corrupted. I got a free repair service estimate that came to the same conclusion with bench testing. Ugh. My first full failure of a computer/laptop HD. Maybe I was due, it's been 30+ years of computer ownership.
The computer was worth saving and new computer prices weren't very appealing, so I went with repair and a 1 TB Crucial SSD for $155+ tax. This new drive is a nice upgrade to the old regular hard drive. And a lot cheaper for this tech than 10 years ago. Picked up and installed myself (easy stuff). I then spent the last few days since getting the computer back up and running (that USB bootable 1909 W10 installation drive I made to try to fix it earlier came in handy) and reloading old files and multimedia. All drivers and W10 updates installed again, plus many supporting programs added. PITA.
Because it was my entertainment lap top I was lazy with back ups; I lost some stuff but nothing of high importance and overall it's okay thankfully. All my music and 99.9% of my photos are back. I transferred back my cell phone pics (on the phone over USB, I never recommend this way as it's ugly) since the phone was new late 2016... it was over 10K photos.
In disassembly I found a loose wire that I reattached to a chip... it turned out to be the WiFi antenna which has been a godsend. The WiFi never worked well for very long on the computer which I attributed to a bad design since I oversaw at least 20+ driver updates for that piece over the last few years. It turns out the antenna was partially disconnected and the WiFi now works perfectly. It was so bad I had given up on WiFi on this computer and went with ethernet.
I hope things go smoothly now... and highly recommend people keep data and important files backed up. Always.
The computer was worth saving and new computer prices weren't very appealing, so I went with repair and a 1 TB Crucial SSD for $155+ tax. This new drive is a nice upgrade to the old regular hard drive. And a lot cheaper for this tech than 10 years ago. Picked up and installed myself (easy stuff). I then spent the last few days since getting the computer back up and running (that USB bootable 1909 W10 installation drive I made to try to fix it earlier came in handy) and reloading old files and multimedia. All drivers and W10 updates installed again, plus many supporting programs added. PITA.
Because it was my entertainment lap top I was lazy with back ups; I lost some stuff but nothing of high importance and overall it's okay thankfully. All my music and 99.9% of my photos are back. I transferred back my cell phone pics (on the phone over USB, I never recommend this way as it's ugly) since the phone was new late 2016... it was over 10K photos.
In disassembly I found a loose wire that I reattached to a chip... it turned out to be the WiFi antenna which has been a godsend. The WiFi never worked well for very long on the computer which I attributed to a bad design since I oversaw at least 20+ driver updates for that piece over the last few years. It turns out the antenna was partially disconnected and the WiFi now works perfectly. It was so bad I had given up on WiFi on this computer and went with ethernet.
I hope things go smoothly now... and highly recommend people keep data and important files backed up. Always.
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That was my old setup. Now that internet has gotten faster and netflix and prime exist, I dont bother keeping the nas populated with current content. It still gets fired up occasionally. Given the time when the content was ahem, acquired, it is mostly 720p, some 1080p, some super ugly, no 4k.
When a hard drive gets retired from active use, I fill it with important content and give it to someone. There are now backups in at least four houses in ontario. Sure you may lose some current stuff if you arent staying on top of it, but you arent at risk of losing you entire digital life.
J_F
Guest
yup
looking at the, ahem library
a lot of it needs replaced....anything with .avi extension is being retired
1080P is still good enough for me but can't stomach 4x3 SD stuff
same with most of the .mp3 stuff....being replaced with .flac
was looking the other day to listen to a great sounding old 90's album
it's not on Spotify, or Amazon Music or any of the streaming services I have access to
a couple of tracks are on youtube, but the quality sucks
the notorious old sailing ship makes it available still
I have the CD, somewhere, so I have bought the license to listen
kwtoxman
Well-known member
Been a few weeks now and my new 1TB laptop SSD is killing it, the computer is fast, responsive, and far better than it ever was with the old hard disk drive. I recently transferred some music/video with a 64 GB USB3 flash drive and saw 70 mb/s write speed... (and read is near 10X higher). Great prices now and I highly recommended this tech upgrade for any computer... no more HDDs for me with a system drive.
My laptop just died. I'm using the wife's laptop, and she's getting sick of wrestling me for it.
So I ordered a Surface Book 2. A bit old, I think they are coming out with a Surface Book 3 soon, but it was $700 off...
15" detachable touch screen, 8th gen i7, 16GB, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 w/ 2GB GDDR5.
Can't wait!
So I ordered a Surface Book 2. A bit old, I think they are coming out with a Surface Book 3 soon, but it was $700 off...
15" detachable touch screen, 8th gen i7, 16GB, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 w/ 2GB GDDR5.
Can't wait!
If you have an integrated SD card reader that's not used much, another worthy upgrade is a full-time micro-SD drive in the reader. You can add 400GBs of Class 10 solid state memory to any laptop for $75:
SanDisk 400GB Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - 100MB/s, C10, U1, Full HD, A1, Micro SD Card - SDSQUAR-400G-GN6MA, red: Amazon.ca: Computers & Tablets
SanDisk 400GB Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - 100MB/s, C10, U1, Full HD, A1, Micro SD Card - SDSQUAR-400G-GN6MA, red: Amazon.ca: Computers & Tablets
www.amazon.ca
I also got this SD card reader that sits flush with the laptop, so it's not sticking out like most readers do:
BASEQI Aluminum MicroSD Adapter for Microsoft Surface Book/Surface Book 2 / Surface Book 3 (Surface Book/Surface Book 2 & 3 13.5" (model-350A)) : Amazon.ca: Electronics
BASEQI Aluminum MicroSD Adapter for Microsoft Surface Book/Surface Book 2 / Surface Book 3 (Surface Book/Surface Book 2 & 3 13.5" (model-350A)) : Amazon.ca: Electronics
www.amazon.ca
I've never had good luck with SD cards being written to often (dashcams, security cams, phones, etc) and they don't give you warning or fail gracefully. Make sure nothing you care about or need to run the computer is on the SD card.
Good to know.
So funny enough my suspended work notice came down the same day all my new parts arrived (upgrades all around).
Something about putting together a new PC still gets me giddy after 20+ years.
Sad to report my motheboard network adapter is DOA. RMA to Newegg issued. Not that I'm in too much of a hurry but I managed to spot the fact that best buy is still doing in store front pickups on reserved items (no window shopping). So I pulled the trigger on a new motherboard at a few locations and we'll see what sticks for tomorrow.
Worst case is I'll score a new one locally tomorrow at BB and just sell the replacement from Newegg. Anyone building an AMD machine in the near future? ?
Oh and what the heck is with RBG these days, this is the damn stock cooler..
Something about putting together a new PC still gets me giddy after 20+ years.
Sad to report my motheboard network adapter is DOA. RMA to Newegg issued. Not that I'm in too much of a hurry but I managed to spot the fact that best buy is still doing in store front pickups on reserved items (no window shopping). So I pulled the trigger on a new motherboard at a few locations and we'll see what sticks for tomorrow.
Worst case is I'll score a new one locally tomorrow at BB and just sell the replacement from Newegg. Anyone building an AMD machine in the near future? ?
Oh and what the heck is with RBG these days, this is the damn stock cooler..
I love those things. they are awsome.
Congrats, You will enjoy it.
Where did you get it from?
Thanks!
I'm impressed with the build quality. My previous ASUS machines, while they've held up really well over time, always felt a bit plastic and flimsy.
I haven't had a chance to test out the GPU, but what I really like is the 3:2 aspect ratio of the screen. For as long as I can remember, all my laptops have had 16:9 screens and while they're great for watching movies, most of the time I'm reading articles, and the higher screen height means less scrolling.
Also loving the tablet mode. The detach mechanism is pretty slick and it's incredibly light and reading on it feels like reading a newspaper.
Amazon (as well as a few other places) had a special on them, I think I snagged the last one on sale, because right after, the price jumped back up to MSRP.
I think they're trying to shed inventory before the launch of the Surface Book 3, probably later on this year.
I bought a Surface 3 Pro a year ago and am very happy with it. Cost about $500 as it was an older model and used, but definitely does the job for my needs.
Have a Surface GO from work for site / field work and really like it. Just wish it had the 8GB RAM instead of the 4. But still more than enough for light duty.
Have a Surface GO from work for site / field work and really like it. Just wish it had the 8GB RAM instead of the 4. But still more than enough for light duty.
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