The "Hey, So I Could use Some Computer Advice..." thread

[Squirminator2k]

Started because it might be Nice™ to have one of these threads, but also because I wanted to know if anyone here can tell me whether or not it's worth investing in a copy of TweakVista.

[M3ntal]

I'd advise against buying any software with the word "Vista" in its name.

[Squirminator2k]

...Except that Windows Vista is pretty golly gosh darn spiffy once you have it properly housetrained.

[bonz]

...Except that Windows Vista is pretty golly gosh darn spiffy once you have it properly housetrained.
Why the need to tweak it then anyway? :D

Seriously though, aren't there enough free tools that can achieve this?

[SupSuper]

And enough free trials anyways, since I doubt you'll need it more than once after every reinstall. I use TuneUp Utilities (http://www.tune-up.com) and it both cleans and tweaks your system.

[Xinos]

Hmm, my computer wouldn't start for a while. I got worried and thought my powersupply was broken. The first ~15 times of pressing the power button nothing happened, though sometimes the power led would shine for nearly a second. Then when it did finally boot up it was because I held the power button for a few seconds. Is this a bad sign? I was shutting down and starting up my computer quite a bit yesterday, and I've heard that's bad for the power supply..

It's a 400W supply, which is the minimum requirement for the graphic card I got. I've had this behavior before once or twice, but it didn't refuse to start for as long as it did this time.

[philby4000]

Does anyone know how to turn off the virtual keyboard/tablet imput panel in vista?

It sits on the edge of the screen and messes up the graphics in every single fullscreen game I play (all two of them).

It's amazing just how more annoying it is than the XP version, wich you could a) dock with the start bar, b) turn off.

This isn't even on my Tablet Pc, I just had the nerve to plug in my graphics tablet.

[SomePerson]

Does anyone know how to turn off the virtual keyboard/tablet imput panel in vista?

It sits on the edge of the screen and messes up the graphics in every single fullscreen game I play (all two of them).

It's amazing just how more annoying it is than the XP version, wich you could a) dock with the start bar, b) turn off.

This isn't even on my Tablet Pc, I just had the nerve to plug in my graphics tablet.

Open the display thing you want to get rid of. Go to Tools -> Options click the "Opening" tab and then uncheck the box next to "Show the Input Panel tab"

And then I like the "Show the Input Panel icon in the Taskbar" to be checked because that, in my opinion, is the most convenient and consistent way of bringing it up. But that's personal preference.


edit: A really really poorly done feature is the control of whether it slides into place or not. The check box for this only appears when you have the box checked for the annoying side thing, but it also slides when you click it in the taskbar, so to disable that you have to check the box for the annoying thing, uncheck the box for sliding, and then uncheck the annoying thing again...:rolleyes:

[M3ntal]

Hmm, my computer wouldn't start for a while. I got worried and thought my powersupply was broken. The first ~15 times of pressing the power button nothing happened, though sometimes the power led would shine for nearly a second. Then when it did finally boot up it was because I held the power button for a few seconds. Is this a bad sign? I was shutting down and starting up my computer quite a bit yesterday, and I've heard that's bad for the power supply..

It's a 400W supply, which is the minimum requirement for the graphic card I got. I've had this behavior before once or twice, but it didn't refuse to start for as long as it did this time.
It's possibly all fine. ATX power supplies do that sometimes, i once had a PC that refused to start up for 3 days, then worked fine from then on. It's due to the fact ATX doesn't have a direct link to the switch on the case, it relies on a signal being sent by the motherboard through the 20-pin connector to turn on, which imo is a design flaw. It means the PC can be powered on by anything the motherboard manufacturers want to include (wake on LAN, modem, keyboard, mouse, etc), but i don't see why they couldn't do both and leave the power switch on the case connected directly.

Anyway, it's still probably a good idea to check all the connections are in properly, these are generally:
Any number of 4-pin (4x1) white molex connectors into hard drives, dvd drives, case fans, and graphics card in newer PC's (if it's PCIe, this will be 6 or 8 pins rather than 4).
Smaller 4-pin (4x1) white plugs into floppy drives if you have them, and in some cases the CPU fan.
Large 20-pin (10x2) molex into your motherboard on the upper right hand side, and in newer boards also a 4-pin (2x2) molex into the motherboard, usually to the lower left of the CPU.
The black 1-pin power switch connector from your PC case to the motherboard, usually at the very bottom of the board towards the right on the same block of pins as the reset switch, hdd led, power led, and PC speaker.

[Xinos]

I'll definitely check if that happens again, but it's been running fine since. It's good to hear that it's not just my power supply that does that sometimes. :)

[Splapp]

"A drive in RAID 0 volume is failing. Try to back up data immediately."

Give it to me straight, doctor. Am I... doomed? :(

[Squirminator2k]

Are you able to take the drive out and pop it in a different system as a Slave drive to pack up data?

[bonz]

If your motherboard/BIOS and your USB flash drive support it:
www.pendrivelinux.com

[Squirminator2k]

A co-worker gave me a GeForce 8600. I know I'll need to upgrade the PSU on my computer to use it, but I forget what voltage (or wattever) I'll need to get. Does anyone know? Also, what other information do I need to know when buying a PSU?

[bonz]

A co-worker gave me a GeForce 8600. I know I'll need to upgrade the PSU on my computer to use it, but I forget what voltage (or wattever) I'll need to get. Does anyone know? Also, what other information do I need to know when buying a PSU?
Check out this power consumption table of various 8600 models:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-8800-gt,1714-14.html

I'd say you need at least a 550-600 watt power supply unit if you have a bunch of HDDs, optical drives and other hardware to run.

IIRC, those newer graphic cards consume so much power that they need a second (4-pin?) cable from the PSU.
Also, if you intend to reuse the PSU in the future, make sure it has SATA power connectors (if you don't already have SATA HDDs).

The newer PSUs also have a modal connector main power connector to the motherboard (20 or 24 pin).

My 3 years old PSU has all the above, so I think the current ones contain all those features.
The manufacturers usually print some average computer system configurations on the boxes to see what you can run with a certain wattage.

[Squirminator2k]

Okay, so the card is now set up and installed and running fine. Well, apart from a few problems. Specifically:


BioShock no longer works. It'll load the menu fine, and the "Direct X 10 Surfaces" option is now available, but a request to start a game is met with a black screen and the ambient ocean sounds from the menu playing. Bringing up the Task Manager reveals that the game is no longer responding. I'm uninstalling and reinstalling to see if that'll solve the problem, which is a ruddy pain as it's the Steam build and I'll have to download the thing again.
Despite being a DirectX 10 compatible graphics card, none of the other games I have seem to be aware of the DX10 compatibility. Team Fortress 2, for example, says that the Hardware level is "DirectX 9.0+" and that the software level is DirectX 9.0, however one of the first things I did after I installed the card and downloaded the newest drivers was to re-install Direct X 10. TF2 isn't DX10 compatible. Just tried CoD4 and it works fine.

Can anyone suggest possible solutions to these problems this problem?

[Test Zero]

Does anyone know if it's possible to call functions from another page in PHP?

Ideally, I'd have functions.php from which all other pages can call from.

[MrBunsy]

I'm uninstalling and reinstalling to see if that'll solve the problem

Otherwise, just clearing bioshock's graphics/everything settings might help.

Does anyone know if it's possible to call functions from another page in PHP?

Ideally, I'd have functions.php from which all other pages can call from.

http://uk2.php.net/include/

I used to think I knew a fair bit about PHP, then last week I met someone who'd written some really swish page loading and database handling classes.

[SomePerson]

Does anyone know if it's possible to call functions from another page in PHP?

Ideally, I'd have functions.php from which all other pages can call from.
Nice to see you back, even if it is just to ask a question. :)

[Plutonic]

Yup,
include "functions.php";
should do what your looking for.