I got a lot accomplished today...but just as I went to do some coding my main PC decided to act up. An Alienware update broke something causing the computer to not want to start. Anyway, I didn't get the stuff done that I wanted to today, and I'm not sure if I have a bad memory chip or not (why the original issue happened in the first place), so we'll try again this week to get the hardware set up.
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This is why I miss DOS and Win 3.x..... Seams like MUCH better reliability.. On the random and rare event, my desktop will want to be final setup again, and my Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop is overheating and going into sleep mode.
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on May 07, 2024, 05:33 PMThis is why I miss DOS and Win 3.x..... Seams like MUCH better reliability.. On the random and rare event, my desktop will want to be final setup again, and my Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop is overheating and going into sleep mode.
I'm still having issues with this PC. I booted it up after work and it said my memory or CPU changed and gave me options for what I could do. Neither has changed. Looks like I need to consider new RAM chips. Going to run MEMTEST86 tomorrow.
I changed my motherboard out not too long ago, with the SAME model, and my system threw a fit over it.... Windows pin had to be removed and redone, and ALL my normal logged in stuff, ALL got logged out.......
I suspect that I may have both a bad SSD and a bad memory module. Best Buy has my memory in stock, so I just may buy some and see what happens. OTOH, I was hoping to run MEMTEST86 first and see what happens. The memory / CPU message has come up about a half a dozen times already. Not cool. Sadly, my PC case sits in a spot where it isn't super easy to access the insides.
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I've received the new SSD for my PC. Yesterday I ordered new RAM. Today I need to get a disk cloning tool for the M.2 NVMe drives. The RAM should be in tomorrow. Once this is all done, hopefully I can start moving forward again.
Hopefully, this ACASIS NVMe M.2 Duplicator Dual-Bay Offline Clone USB C to NVME Docking Station for M2 SSD M Key Hard Drives (https://a.co/d/ioyEpiw) will do the job quickly.
Hope it works out better.
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on May 09, 2024, 11:13 PMHope it works out better.
We'll find out this weekend...I'm going to take it apart and clone the SSD and install new memory. I'll deal with the old parts later. Just want to get everything up and running as fast as possible.
The memory was supposed to arrive today, however I just got a notification that my package was "delayed". Ironically, I ordered the cloner yesterday and it was delivered in the wee hours of the morning (overnight).
Okay, so I spent ALL of Saturday messing with this computer. I would be accurate in saying that everything that could wrong, did! But I believe the worst part is over and now we can get back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.
I hope it is. Computers are such a P.I.T.A. sometimes!
WINDOWS computers, in particular, can be a P.I.T.A. (skip this if you're not ready to read a book).
This whole thing started when there were some Alienware updates that were listed as critical. One of them was a BIOS update. The BIOS has updated in the past with no issues. But in this case, that particular update never ran. The way the BIOS updates on this PC is that the image is stored in a special place on the boot drive and then initiated on restart. However, the PC failed to restart, so the BIOS never updated. This happened a few times in a row. Finally, I ran the System File Checker and it found problems. That's when it occurred to me...this PC is like 5 years old (or more). I figured the SSD was probably failing and that there were some bad blocks on it, so I bought a new one.
But, while trying to back things up and retry the updates in the mean time, I occasionally got some memory error beeps. As you can imagine, I was incredulous! So, I ordered memory too and an SSD cloner from Amazon. Everything was to be here by Friday. First, the disk cloner came and then the drive. When I went to clone the drive, it would NOT start. I was scratching my head and reading the limited documentation, when I noticed in the fine print that you could NOT clone to a drive of equal size. The target MUST BE a larger drive!!! That was NOT in the online description.
Next, just when the memory was scheduled to arrive, I got an email from FedEx that my package was DELAYED. I'm used to this from Amazon, but not usually from a third-party carrier (FedEx). The memory was coming from Best Buy. So this whole thing dragged on into Saturday. When the memory arrived, I installed it and fired up the PC. Memory error beeps. This memory was supposed to be compatible with this PC. So I readjusted and reinstalled the modules, same crap! I put the original memory back in and everything came up fine.
Finally, I decided to just return the memory to a local Best Buy and trade the 1TB SSD in on a 2TB SSD so I could use the disk cloner and get it all over with. When I got home, I installed the modules into the cloner and hit start. It was running! It finished much quicker than I expected, but I installed the 2TB SSD into the PC and tried to boot it. NOTHING!
Alienware has these diagnostic utilities that run when the PC fails to boot. It ran some memory tests and some windows repair, but ultimately it could not seem to get the computer to boot. I went looking for the two "recovery" discs I burned at one of my earlier backups. These are a CD-R that is essentially a Windows boot disc with repair tools. I have a backup of the PC from before this all started. The boot disc was corrupted. I have another one from my laptop. It too was corrupted! Now I'm super frustrated!
So I go to my laptop and I create a USB Boot Drive. When I try to boot to it from the Alienware, it tells me that it is missing system files. So, I get another thumb drive and create a more complete one, with system backup and everything. This takes over an hour. Meanwhile I am trying to figure out what happened to the cloned image and why some stuff isn't working. Finally I come to the conclusion that the cloner failed and I go get my new complete boot drive and once again, the PC says there are missing files. After booting into safe mode, everything looked okay, so I rebooted. PRESTO! Windows booted and everything looks good. But, not everything was running right.
As you can imagine, I am tired, frustrated, and it's now midnight on Saturday. The Alienware PC has a recovery tool on it in a special partition and that seemed to work after getting it back into failed boot utilities, and I decided to try and use that to restore from my backups. That took much less time than backing up did and I was done by 2AM and ready for bed. The next morning I tested as much as I could before I had to leave for several Mother's Day events and by the time I got home I was too tired to mess around. Best I can tell, my Windows backup is working, though it did bother me that once the backup was completed, the system would not boot on its own again until I went into the recovery system and entered Safe Mode again.
Finally, I incrementally updated the BIOS manually using a thumb drive and the boot menu (F12) at startup. Everything seems to be running now and the side panels are back on the PC and all the USB cables have been reconnected. One more weird thing happened that is noteworthy...ALL my PCs have been running Windows 10 Professional, but only the Alienware has been nagging me about upgrading to Windows 11, saying it is ready to go and I keep denying it. But NOW, after all of this, I checked for Windows updates, and now it says this PC is NOT compatible with Windows 11. I'm inclined to say that's a good thing, but I honestly don't know why this happened. I know on my development PC it's because that Dell doesn't have the TPM module and on my laptop it is disabled in the BIOS. But the effects on this Alienware have me confused.
One last note and it was the one thing I did last night before going to bed. When you clone or restore a backup from a smaller drive to a larger drive, the larger drive appears the same size as the smaller drive because the partitions are backups up exactly as they were. Normally on Windows 7 or later you can go into Disk Management and expand the system partition to use up the extra space on the larger drive, however, this doesn't work if there are additional partitions on the drive AFTER the system partition. In this case, there were three "recovery" partitions. I made the difficult choice to remove them in order to expand my drive.
The caveat being, if I cannot get a working boot disk, I may never successfully be able to restore the system again from my monthly backups. OTOH, I am considering that Windows 10 is slated for EOL (I forget the date). So I may just prepare for eventually having to fresh install Windows 11 on this PC. The Alienware is primarily used for gaming, video editing and music editing. Still, this has been a learning experience for someone who ran a computer shop from 1991 through 2005.
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Quote from: Chris Savage on May 13, 2024, 08:45 AMWINDOWS computers, in particular, can be a P.I.T.A. (skip this if you're not ready to read a book).
THAT was a read! lol Yeah, that would be VERY frustrating. TOTAL PITA!! Sadly I am unable to offer any suggestions on helping... Looks like Win 10 gets the axe on 10/14/25, but might just need a fresh install... that's my only idea..
Right now, just redid thermal paste on my laptop, which now keeps freezing, so off to repair center....
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on May 13, 2024, 01:30 PMTHAT was a read! lol Yeah, that would be VERY frustrating. TOTAL PITA!! Sadly I am unable to offer any suggestions on helping... Looks like Win 10 gets the axe on 10/14/25, but might just need a fresh install... that's my only idea..
I warned ya...I mean, the PC is back up and running. I was just discussing everything I went through to get there, which shouldn't have happened. I back my data up monthly. Restoring everything
should have been the easy part.
Pain thats for sure....
Quote from: Chris Savage on May 13, 2024, 01:48 PMI warned ya...I mean, the PC is back up and running. I was just discussing everything I went through to get there, which shouldn't have happened. I back my data up monthly. Restoring everything should have been the easy part.
Interesting. I learned from you so now find myself questioning things. I have not tested my own recovery discs. I made them and that was that. I have two Dell computers and they have the recovery tools included. I do still image the main drive every month.
Quote from: Commander Data on May 14, 2024, 01:59 PMQuote from: Chris Savage on May 13, 2024, 01:48 PMI warned ya...I mean, the PC is back up and running. I was just discussing everything I went through to get there, which shouldn't have happened. I back my data up monthly. Restoring everything should have been the easy part.
Interesting. I learned from you so now find myself questioning things. I have not tested my own recovery discs. I made them and that was that. I have two Dell computers and they have the recovery tools included. I do still image the main drive every month.
I had a Dell desktop like 2005-2006, biggest hunk of junk I EVER owned. I installed a 3 1/4 FDD and it litterally threw a total fit about it.... I blame the design after that. First and LAST Dell product I will own.
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on May 14, 2024, 07:13 PMI had a Dell desktop like 2005-2006, biggest hunk of junk I EVER owned. I installed a 3 1/4 FDD and it litterally threw a total fit about it.... I blame the design after that. First and LAST Dell product I will own.
I stopped building custom computers in 2005 to go work at Parallax. After that I bought an Alienware, which, at the time was an independent computer company which made high-performance machines. The next Alienware I bought was after Dell had acquired the company. I enjoyed it so much I bought another (the PC shown in the previous photo). My development PC is a Dell. My laptop is an HP ZBook.
I ran my computer shop from ~1991 through March of 2005. In that time, the worst PCs I worked on were Compaq and HP, followed by Gateway, Toshiba (laptops) and Sony (laptops). While I did get a few Dell bad apples, most of the were pretty solid, even back when they were mostly proprietary. Dell has improved their quality so much that most places I have worked have used Dell computers. Most hospitals I have seen run Dell micro / mini PCs and two of the companies I worked for used Dell Compact Desktop computers. Companies that use a lot of laptops tend to use the HP business class units like mine or Lenovo (used to be IBM ThinkPad).
Not many choices these days. Like every company, Dell has sold it's share of lemons, but for now I technically have two, since the Alienware is a Dell subsidiary now. I helped my wife get an ASUS laptop with Windows 11. It's a newer PC and a great brand. It's SLOOOOOWWWW!!! My Windows 10 Dell refurb is much faster, even though it is much older. It also cost me 1/3 of her laptop.
As a note, when I build new computers I used MSI motherboards for the standard PCs and ASUS for the high-end PCs. I always use ASUS monitors. Usually Crucial, Corsair or Kingston memory, Intel CPUs, NVIDIA video cards and I sometimes switch between WD and Seagate for drives, although my newer machines have Samsung NVMe SSDs in them.
I build my own computers, minus laptops. I have my Asus Nitro 5, fixed now, too much thermal paste..... probly shouldn't be electricly conductive...., and some thermal pads deteriorated on it....quality! and the Nitro 5's ones are known for lid closing sensor malfunction.... random sleep mode issue... windows setting should fix that with a quick disable, and an little bit older Win 7/8/10 era Dell gaming, problem with HDD in that one and battery issue... my old ones are my favorite ones. Lol
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on May 16, 2024, 11:58 AMI build my own computers, minus laptops. I have my Asus Nitro 5, fixed now, too much thermal paste..... probly shouldn't be electricly conductive....
Solder paste is not supposed to be electrically conductive. ???
as for building my own computers; Knight Designs Computers, my former computer business, ran from 1991 through 2005 when I moved to CA. The first years were spent repairing Commodore and Apple / Mac PCs. I also used to mod Commodore computers. But when Commodore went under, I scrambled to keep my business going by moving to PC repair. I had never even USED a PC at that time. I ended up buying a couple of pallets of "scrap" PCs from General Electric in Schenectady, NY. Mostly XT and 286 machines, which were before there was really a standard for things. But it allowed me to pay my rent and I kept going from there. I just got burned out after all those years.
Moving forward, I will build my own again. But this time, my focus will be on very small footprint PCs (probably microATX). Gone are the days of massive tower cases loaded with hard drives, etc. Now I just need a PC for more basic use. Chances are that I will eventually decommission my Alienware. That case is massive and weighs 62 pounds!
I'd reuse the case lol
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on May 17, 2024, 11:55 AMI'd reuse the case lol
My problem is that I have a back injury which severely limits how much weight I can lift. A computer that weighs 62 pounds is hard to work on when you need to. Because it's so big, I usually try to hide it behind everything, as shown in the photo earlier in this thread. So just to work on it I have to disconnect a dozen or more cables and then pull it out of there.
Perhaps when I move I will be able to arrange things to make it easier to do maintenance. We'll see.
Oh no doubt. My back hurts too
So, I'm happy to report that 3 months later the PC is functioning well. I've started downsizing some of the crap I have installed on it to focus on my projects and start making videos again. I stopped playing World of Warcraft, so I uninstalled that. Probably got back 40+GB on my SSD. ;)
Time to backup again...
Good! Is that just from 1 game?? Lol. Bad part is, in todays age, that would NOT surprise me a bit! I need to get back on the Elder Scrolls Online. I been wanting todo videos myself again, and thought of an electronics channel as well as my gaming.
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on Aug 14, 2024, 09:49 AMGood! Is that just from 1 game?? Lol. Bad part is, in todays age, that would NOT surprise me a bit!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's around the size it took up. I have many games that are 10+GB. Most are FPS games, like the Call of Duty Modern Warfare / Black Ops games, or the Far Cry games. I have a few smaller ones like Portal, etc.
Just playing less games and trying to get more productivity done.
I know that feeling. I got ALOT of games, i been trying to get my desk done so i can continue my electronics stuff
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on Aug 14, 2024, 01:10 PMi been trying to get my desk done so i can continue my electronics stuff
We'll be moving any week now, and then I have to take everything apart, move it, and put it all back together again. So yeah, I feel your pain.