Are external 3.5" HDD's known to be fragile?

Broke two (expensive!) 3TB drives within a day of getting each. First one was sat on floor and being written to. Knocked on side once, dead. Second one was pulled off a desk by power cable by dog, it was powered on but idle - dead

Luckily not my drive nor money and owned by a reasonable person, but rather painful to do

Craton

United States17303 Posts

January 23 2014 03:42 GMT

#8622

I always understood it to be an exceptionally bad idea to have an operating HDD not firmly secured.

Cyro

United Kingdom20345 Posts

January 23 2014 04:26 GMT

#8623

They unfortunately don't ship straps with the things :D

wptlzkwjd

Canada1240 Posts

January 23 2014 04:32 GMT

#8624

I had one that sat on the table and used occasionally for 2 years until it broke for no reason other than collecting dust and maybe moving it around.

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

January 23 2014 21:15 GMT

#8625

Getting knocked once on the side -> death seems more like a case of bad luck. (think of how many laptops, albeit with 2.5" drives, get jostled that badly during use) Getting pulled off a desk by the power cable seems a bit worse, especially considering the loss of power too.

Some decent percentage of drives ship or arrive mechanically imperfect and may be exposed as unreliable after testing all the sectors. Maybe you just accelerated the testing process to find bad samples?

evilfatsh1t

Australia8941 Posts

January 23 2014 22:08 GMT

#8626

when playing dota in aus my ping fluctuates between 20-1000
im pretty sure my sis and/or my dad is streaming stuff during this time, but does streaming really make this big of a difference?
the ping hardly stays on 1 number, its changing constantly

Craton

United States17303 Posts

January 23 2014 23:57 GMT

#8627

I would think being inside the laptop would provide extra stability and dampen the force of impact when dropped, rather than just falling over itself and eating the whole impact.

I have no empirical basis for this.

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

January 24 2014 00:18 GMT

#8628

On January 24 2014 08:57 Craton wrote:
I would think being inside the laptop would provide extra stability and dampen the force of impact when dropped, rather than just falling over itself and eating the whole impact.

I have no empirical basis for this.

Yes, and also the difference in weight and size and so on. But anyway, I sure as hell don't have good knowledge or intuition on mechanical systems. Your guess is as good or better than mine.

evilfatsh1t

Australia8941 Posts

January 26 2014 03:13 GMT

#8629

On January 24 2014 07:08 evilfatsh1t wrote:
when playing dota in aus my ping fluctuates between 20-1000
im pretty sure my sis and/or my dad is streaming stuff during this time, but does streaming really make this big of a difference?
the ping hardly stays on 1 number, its changing constantly

wptlzkwjd

Canada1240 Posts

January 26 2014 05:27 GMT

#8630

On January 26 2014 12:13 evilfatsh1t wrote:

Show nested quote +

What download speed internet package are you paying for? Streaming can make a huge difference and 2 streams going at the same time will probably hurt if you don't have a very quick internet speed.

Cyro

United Kingdom20345 Posts

January 26 2014 05:37 GMT

#8631

The way this router allocates bandwidth by default takes me from ~38 ping to ~400 if somebody clicks on a youtube video, i'm sure many inferior routers have stupid things like that and no QOS

Craton

United States17303 Posts

January 26 2014 05:43 GMT

#8632

I've never met a residential router that had decent QoS, unfortunately.

evilfatsh1t

Australia8941 Posts

January 26 2014 05:44 GMT

#8633

so as long as someone is streaming anything i cant play dota. gg aus net

Craton

United States17303 Posts

January 26 2014 18:58 GMT

#8634

As of pretty recently my full screen flash (in Chrome at least) has rounded corners, meaning I can click through the video on any corner. This is extremely annoying, because it results it me constantly hitting the show desktop window instead of the exit fullscreen button for streams.

It's probably from a dumb update of Adobe. Any ideas how to remove this behavior?

hacklebeast

United States5090 Posts

January 27 2014 01:24 GMT

#8635

I bought a new net work card, rosewill NRx- n250. If I don't plug it in, then the computer works fine. If I plug it in, the computer crashes within 60 seconds. What do?

The catch: I don't have internet or the original cd to be able to download drivers.

Edit: The computer now only freezes when I go to type in the password for the wireless.

Doodsmack

United States7224 Posts

January 27 2014 02:45 GMT

#8636

Planning to build a HTPC w/ Linux as a little project, will be my first time using Linux. Once Steam OS comes out I will probably switch to that. These are the parts I already have:

Radeon 6970
1TB HDD
4GB DDR3 1600
AMD Phenom ii x4
ATX Gigabyte mobo

This is what I plan to buy to complete the HTPC:

Corsair 650W Modular PSU
3.5" card reader
HTPC Case
5.25" Blu-Ray Drive

That case will fit my 11" GPU, if I remove one of the HDD cages, but the airflow inside the case will probably be terrible. But I want a horizontal case that resembles an audio component like that.

Anyone have any tips for different parts to get?

Cyro

United Kingdom20345 Posts

January 27 2014 04:43 GMT

#8637

^ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182261 way better psu

even the 650m is the same price as tx750m

Cases.. you have to be quite picky with small cases, even if everything fits, you only have 2x 80mm fan on that.. Basically a closed environment with less than a strong 120mm fan as your entire airflow

blade55555

United States17423 Posts

January 27 2014 04:56 GMT

#8638

Ok guys so I want to upgrade my cooling on my current motherboard as my CPU gets way to hot (85 degrees when playing BF4). I know this isn't uncommon for the stock cooling on this CPU and just want to get it replaced. Yes I made 100% sure fan is going and all the pins are in. Idles fine (35), but once I play bf4 it just sky rockets.

So my process is
i7 4770k (I got this for 115$, I don't really care for overclocking no reason to right now)
Motherboard is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157372
Case is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008HD3EFA/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I just want a cooler that is easy to install (no back plate). Thanks in advance! I just want to be able to use my CPU without it hitting 85 under full load.

skyR

Canada13817 Posts

January 27 2014 05:03 GMT

#8639

Coolermaster Hyper TX3? Though you'd be much better off buying a better heatsink that requires a backplate... not sure why you're opposed to one since you have a Define R4 and a K suffix processor along with a Z87.

blade55555

United States17423 Posts

January 27 2014 05:06 GMT

#8640

On January 27 2014 14:03 skyR wrote:
Coolermaster Hyper TX3? Though you'd be much better off buying a better heatsink that requires a backplate... not sure why you're opposed to one since you have a Define R4 and a K suffix processor along with a Z87.

Well looks like a huge pain in the ass to install and I don't want to take my motherboard out of the case.