so i'm really computer dumb and i was wondering: (i hope this is a simple question )
i have this old ass comp with windows XP and every time i boot it up i get this dumb black screen that says a whole bunch of confusing things:
Floppy Diskette seek failure Strike F1 to continue or F2 to run the utility setup
and when i do press F1 it goes "beep" and then starts up. (i don't press F2 cause im worried it'll make it blow up or something, ive got a lot of important shit on this comp)
now this wouldn't be a problem normally except whenever i watch streams on TL or Hulu (but not GOMTV or Youtube for some reason) the comp will work for a while and then it will freeze and start going "beep...beep....beep... gzzzzzccht (repeat)" and then i have to shut it down manually by pulling the plug.
i'm wondering 1) does this black screen mean anything? and 2) does it have anything to do with the freezing problem?
(if this sounds stupid... sorry i am stupid.)
edit: huh, i never actually read the stupid prompt cause they are usually irrelevant as far as i can tell.
On July 15 2012 06:26 ShaunO wrote: I am running a intel dual core g860 3.0ghz processor with 4gb of ram, until I can afford a nice GPU, I am running integrated graphics (i know, the horror). I can run sc2 fine on low graphics right now, but I was wondering, what other games are fun and run easily on intel's integrated HD graphics? thanks for your time!
Anything made by blizzard or valve should run fine on lower settings.
FML, fuck lightning, and thank whatever relevant deity for surge protectors.
As it turns out, lightning can still do damage if you have a surge protector, and I got damn lucky. Only lost SATA 6Gb and IDE when a nasty storm showed up while we were at the movies.
Do you really have a surge protector or just a power strip you plug everything into that says its a surge protector. because it isn't.
Also a surge protector doesnt protect against lightning bolts. Surge protectors protect against surges usually caused by your company turning the power back on. As power companies have advanced, surge protectors have typically gone out of style, at least in 1st world nations.
Meh, maybe I should research surge protectors then. Mines probably the semi-fakey type, it's kinda old. But it claims it's a surge protector. Either way, I was damned lucky to only lose less than critical features.
Yeah. I was lucky as hell. Granted, windows repair doesn't like being on a different SATA port, so I'm having to reinstall windows, and finally had an excuse to ditch the retarded IDE DVD drive I've had too long.
I dont have any media drives. I was planning to install an IDE optical drive into this computer, but the motherboard had no place for it, so now I just have a hole there.
so i'm really computer dumb and i was wondering: (i hope this is a simple question )
i have this old ass comp with windows XP and every time i boot it up i get this dumb black screen that says a whole bunch of confusing things:
Floppy Diskette seek failure Strike F1 to continue or F2 to run the utility setup
and when i do press F1 it goes "beep" and then starts up. (i don't press F2 cause im worried it'll make it blow up or something, ive got a lot of important shit on this comp)
now this wouldn't be a problem normally except whenever i watch streams on TL or Hulu (but not GOMTV or Youtube for some reason) the comp will work for a while and then it will freeze and start going "beep...beep....beep... gzzzzzccht (repeat)" and then i have to shut it down manually by pulling the plug.
i'm wondering 1) does this black screen mean anything? and 2) does it have anything to do with the freezing problem?
(if this sounds stupid... sorry i am stupid.)
edit: huh, i never actually read the stupid prompt cause they are usually irrelevant as far as i can tell.
You should unplug your 3,5" disk drive, if the pc has one. Also, you could try to disable all booting devices expect your windows hdd and maybe cd/dvd. You could unplug the powercable off them as well.
If the problem continues, probablly your booting hdd/windows installation is defective.
I thought surge protectors (well the ones with any such electronics, that aren't just power strips) helped with voltage spikes from lightning strikes? Some may have more energy than the surge protector can handle though.
The components wear out over time, reducing spikes over the years, so if you have an old one that just had to deal with a large surge, you should probably get a new one.
On July 16 2012 09:59 Myrmidon wrote: I thought surge protectors (well the ones with any such electronics, that aren't just power strips) helped with voltage spikes from lightning strikes? Some may have more energy than the surge protector can handle though.
The components wear out over time, reducing spikes over the years, so if you have an old one that just had to deal with a large surge, you should probably get a new one.
I'm fairly confident it at least didn't hurt. But yeah, I'ma replace it. Just glad I only lost non-critical features. My boot SSD will be a touch slower, but that's net loss.
I dunno. Considering that your average lightning bolt is like a billion volts and up to 100,000 amps, I can't imagine any electronic store dithering that much should it decide to ground through your house.
Usually we just ground it away from us with cages and whatnot, surge protectors are a more bruteforce solution.
On July 16 2012 10:06 Medrea wrote: I dunno. Considering that your average lightning bolt is like a billion volts and up to 100,000 amps, I can't imagine any electronic store dithering that much should it decide to ground through your house.
Usually we just ground it away from us with cages and whatnot, surge protectors are a more bruteforce solution.
I don't expect it to stop it completely, but I'm at least reasonably certain it didn't step the amperage up any, and since I lost some shit, and not a ton of shit, I'ma assume paying $8 for a new one is the better alternative than potentially buying a new mobo next time it happens.
It's been a while, but I thought lightning bolts were pretty much current sources (a large charge differential builds up, and then suddenly a lot of charge carriers start moving to correct that difference). You're just looking at controlling the current path so ideally if any is coming your way, the vast majority takes a path to ground that doesn't involve going through any of your electronics.
Thousands of amps shouldn't be a problem if they're going through something with very low impedance, like hopefully the MOVs in a surge protector during a strike. It's not like the lightning is going to strike directly into your home AC wiring and nowhere else, so whatever the electronics see is not going to be the entire energy of the strike.
btw JH, "stop" is maybe the colloquial and accepted description for the action, but it's probably better to put it another way. They're supposed to be avoiding (stopping? I guess) damage by redirecting the current elsewhere.
Its a common myth that you can get protection from an actual strike of lighting. You might think that a device that physically disconnects when overloaded would help but the simple truth is that a strike is so ridiculous the only way to have protection is to unplug all of your devices in a lightning storm.
On July 16 2012 10:19 Myrmidon wrote: It's been a while, but I thought lightning bolts were pretty much current sources (a large charge differential builds up, and then suddenly a lot of charge carriers start moving to correct that difference). You're just looking at controlling the current path so ideally if any is coming your way, the vast majority takes a path to ground that doesn't involve going through any of your electronics.
Thousands of amps shouldn't be a problem if they're going through something with very low impedance, like hopefully the MOVs in a surge protector during a strike. It's not like the lightning is going to strike directly into your home AC wiring and nowhere else, so whatever the electronics see is not going to be the entire energy of the strike.
btw JH, "stop" is maybe the colloquial and accepted description for the action, but it's probably better to put it another way. They're supposed to be avoiding (stopping? I guess) damage by redirecting the current elsewhere.
Lightning really likes to take one path to the earth. The branching out is sort of different.
Lightning does this thing where the branches stretch out. The first one to find the earth wins and everything pours into that one lane.
And yeah you can attempt to redirect the potential difference to somewhere else but this is a billion volts of potential difference. Lots of basic computer parts break at 2 volts. You would have to dither 999,999,998 volts -.-
At $8 I wouldn't expect much either (I'd get something a little better), but there's a key difference in phrasing: I said "helped" and whatever random article that is says that "nothing can guarantee absolute protection."
Just because the equipment can't protect the electronics from damage in every situation, or even most really bad ones, doesn't mean that it's not helping. Redirecting more current means less going through your stuff. There should be cases where the "less going through your stuff" is enough to make a difference.
And even with everything disconnected, you can still have plenty of energy arc through the air from a wall socket and go through your electronics anyway.
Also, it depends on the type of surge protection, but many won't really do much of anything about spikes from the utility company switching stuff on and off, because the voltages there are not sufficiently high enough. e.g. an MOV in this application won't conduct much until a much higher voltage than the nominal.
I said that the lightning wouldn't strike directly into your AC wiring (unless your lightning rod is connected to that instead of the ground), not that it doesn't take a single path down. It would more likely strike something else, but a significant amount of current would still be entering the home via some inlet.
Is the 450 W really necessary? Because if i remember correct i´ve seen a test with a much bigger system than mine and it never took over 300 something W. But maybe im wrong and don´t really have a clue about PS...
EPT
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