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Erkki

Damn it, but computers have become really complicated

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i heard rumblings that the last few nvidia driver releases were problematic either for performance - or convenience

 

my nvidia tray icon has a ! asking for update...but im weary.  i think i'll let others test these out first

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I had to upgrade to the newest for Forza, and I haven't noticed any problems. However, i finally just got rid of the Nvidia tray icon, since it was always saying I needed an update even when I didn't.

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The tray app's issue is it will tell you when you need EITHER a driver update or there's an app update but it won't tell you which until you open it and find out.

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I tried one more repair of my monitor and it made zero difference. So I went to Amazon and got a replacement. The new one works perfectly!

 

Well done Amazon, and not-so-well done Samsung - although your warranty repair set-up is pretty good, you really should have just offered to replace once it was obvious you couldn't fix whatever it was you broke, rather than making me call you up every time.

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I have an external hard drive that's definitely on the fritz. Twice now it's randomly been failing to show up as an actual drive. Appearing to be "unidentified" in disk management.

 

I managed to temporarily reconnect it by waiting a day and retrying. It was denying me access at first. I got in by changing the permissions to "Everyone" and it worked for today but I'd be surprised if that solved the actual problem.

 

I ran a full disk check, by right clicking the drive, going to Properties > Tools > Check now... I ticked both options ('Automatically fix file system errors' and 'Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors') and let it run. But it concluded by saying there were no problems. I don't... particularly believe that. So what should I do to further try and identify the issue? I backed up all the data, so I can format the drive if necessary but I'd like to know what's actually going on before trying to fix it. Does anyone have any ideas of how to diagnose further?

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I did that when it wasn't working yesterday and had the same trouble at the time. Seems to be fine with that machine right now.

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I did that when it wasn't working yesterday and had the same trouble at the time. Seems to be fine with that machine right now.

 

Try to find a tool to do a SMART check. It might be disk failure, that's what happened when my old WD external started being finicky about how and when it was connected.

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Sounds like the interface circuitry either on the USB interface or the drive itself could be bad. Most disk checks are still going to pass that, right up until the interface fails. If you can pop it open, you might be able to hook the drive directly to a PC and get stuff off that way.

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Sounds like the interface circuitry either on the USB interface or the drive itself could be bad. Most disk checks are still going to pass that, right up until the interface fails. If you can pop it open, you might be able to hook the drive directly to a PC and get stuff off that way.

 

Yeah I would grab that data and get a new drive, it sounds like something is failing.

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I got a SMART tool and it said my drive was "Good", you can see for yourself here in case there's something I missed in the dump of info.

 

post-34425-0-25956200-1476738616_thumb.png

 

It's obviously now unreliable at the very least. :/ I did already grab anything necessary off of it as soon as it was working enough to do so. This was mostly me trying to find out how to identify whether the problem was fixable software stuff or actually broken hardware. Seems like it's the later, thanks for the help folks!

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It's obviously now unreliable at the very least. :/ I did already grab anything necessary off of it as soon as it was working enough to do so. This was mostly me trying to find out how to identify whether the problem was fixable software stuff or actually broken hardware. Seems like it's the later, thanks for the help folks!

 

Nah, all of those values look normal. I agree with Dewar that it's probably the interface circuitry, which is actually replaceable but probably not worth the cost and effort.

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Come to think of it the hard drive actually has a detachable base it plugs into (it's a Seagate GoFlex if that means anything). So when buying a new one, I could possibly get a matching one to at least salvage the storage itself.

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Come to think of it the hard drive actually has a detachable base it plugs into (it's a Seagate GoFlex if that means anything). So when buying a new one, I could possibly get a matching one to at least salvage the storage itself.

 

Do you have a desktop, or just use a laptop?  You could also always strip the drive out of it's container and just install it in a desktop if you wanted, it most likely is a standard drive. 

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It is a desktop, but I probably wont do that because I just recently added a second hard drive from an older desktop into my current one anyway. :P

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Moo, a recent win10 update has done something to my PC. I left the update finishing on Friday and on Saturday when i turned on the PC it booted directly to the ASrock UEFI screen. Anyhow, been trying to get things fixed, tested and figured and i'm in the following situation. 
 
With no GPU the computer boots as normal. Windows install is a clean one on my SSD. All data is stored on a separate drive.
 
(Edite)With GPU, the computer goes to a blank screen. This is even if my monitor is plugged directly into my mobo. Changing ports wakes up my monitor to a black screen, but it then goes back into power save. Keyboard and mouse are powered and i can toggel caps lock ect. 
 
My guesses are that either my GPU is fried, or my PSU is dying and can't power it at the same time as everything else or the mobo.  Is there any way to check at this point exactly which component is gone wrong? I'm a little hesitant to plug a possibly broken GPU into someone elses computer.
 
 
Specs
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9
Antec Truepower New 650W
ASRock Z68 Pro3 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 (not overclocked)
Sapphire HD 6950, 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express

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5 minutes ago, dibs said:
Moo, a recent win10 update has done something to my PC. I left the update finishing on Friday and on Saturday when i turned on the PC it booted directly to the ASrock UEFI screen. Anyhow, been trying to get things fixed, tested and figured and i'm in the following situation. 
 
With no GPU the computer boots as normal. Windows install is a clean one on my SSD. All data is stored on a separate drive.
 
With GPU, the computer boots directly to the ASRock UEFI screen. It asks me to select between my DVD drive, my SSD and Windows boot something. If i select the ssd it just goes to a blank screen with blinking cursor. Selecting the windows one just brings me back to this screen. Note: this is not the same boot screen that you get if you press F2 on startup. I'm just booted directly into this on. 
 
My guesses are that either my GPU is fried, or my PSU is dying and can't power it at the same time as everything else or the mobo.  Is there any way to check at this point exactly which component is gone wrong? I'm a little hesitant to plug a possibly broken GPU into someone elses computer.
 
 
Specs
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9
Antec Truepower New 650W
ASRock Z68 Pro3 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 (not overclocked)
Sapphire HD 6950, 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express

 

Wow, that's really odd. Have you tried switching the slot you currently have the GPU plugged into?

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Only got the one slot for it.

 

I forgot to add, i had a BSOD a few weeks back and ended up with weirdness that was solved by reinstalling windows as well.

Also, my GPU was only working out of one of the outputs since that time (how quickly i forget things)

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You did try to factory reset your UEFI right? UEFI is notoriously fragile with all the weird shit software (like windows) can do to it.

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That didn't do anything murt. 

 

I updated as well, my info was a bit wrong. 

 

update: I put the GPU in again and tried to remote into the computer using teamviewer, but it wasn't able to find the PC, so i'm guessing it doesn't boot. 

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1 hour ago, dibs said:

That didn't do anything murt. 

 

I updated as well, my info was a bit wrong. 

 

update: I put the GPU in again and tried to remote into the computer using teamviewer, but it wasn't able to find the PC, so i'm guessing it doesn't boot. 

 

Happen to have another PC to try the GPU in?

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