Grim's PC Repair Thread

[dderek123]

Ahh I see. Thanks Pomona.

I enjoy building computers as well. But I'm a total novice. What helps is to have my Dell laptop handy while I am building so I can run to google when I fuck up.

I haven't built anything in a while. But within a year I want to build a HTPC for my living room. I just got to get a big LED TV first.

[PomonaCA]

Ahh I see. Thanks Pomona.

I enjoy building computers as well. But I'm a total novice. What helps is to have my Dell laptop handy while I am building so I can run to google when I fuck up.

I haven't built anything in a while. But within a year I want to build a HTPC for my living room. I just got to get a big LED TV first.

dderek, you seem like an ok guy. Dell computers are pretty sweet. What is nice about building PC's is that even poor people like us can build them.

[robertlouis]

Come on guys, buy a MacBook. You know it makes sense lol.

[dderek123]

^Macbooks are nice. But expensive. The initial cost of a mac can be justified but if the thing breaks the repairs cost way too much. I'm too frugal to even pay for the software that I us. I think the Apple TV is pretty cool I am considering getting that instead of the HTPC. You can even load XBMC on the thing which is awesome.

[dderek123]

dderek, you seem like an ok guy. Dell computers are pretty sweet. What is nice about building PC's is that even poor people like us can build them.

Thanks Pomona. Yeah I like Dell and Lenovo now. Those would be my first choices if I were to buy a new notebook PC.

Not only is it more cost efficient but you get better warranty coverage. Hard drives typically come with 3 or 5 year warranties. Also, you can shop around for exactly what you want. Want quad SLI? No problem. Want a cheap server box? No problem. I love it. It's like lego for grown ups!

[bulldog]

This is what I am running right now

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.7GHz
Mainboard : Asus M4N98TD EVO (Both PCIe16 Slots run at x16 speed, even when both filled)
Memory: 8GB (2X4GB) of Corsair Dominator 1600MHz
Video Card: MSI GTX 460 Cyclone 1GB X2 SLI
PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 1000W SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 (3 230mm, 1 140mm Fans)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II (Soon to be CoolerMaster V6 GT when I finally install it)
Monitor: Samsung 23 in LCD LED Backlit HD
Hard Drives: ------
Boot Drive: 100 GB OCZ Agility 2 SSD
Data Drives: 750 GB Western Digital Green, 500 GB Western Digital Blue



I am skipping the 500 series of Nvidia and waiting for their next gen 600 cards which are supposed to be twice the power of Fermi or more, along with a 6 core AMD Bulldozer series processor when they come out.

[kukm4]

will you come over here and be my dads personal pc fixing slave? im getting tired of repairing his fucking pc ever few days

install it once, make a restore img

[GrimFusion]

will you come over here and be my dads personal pc fixing slave? im getting tired of repairing his fucking pc ever few days

lol, no kidding. I gave up on fixing family computers a long time ago. Like kukm4 said, look into drive imaging software like Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. Both apps can take a complete snapshot of your drive. Afterward, you can burn the image files to a DVD or two and you've basically made a custom set of restore discs. 20 minutes and no pay sounds better than three hours without pay, right?

The other alternative is something like Faronics DeepFreeze. DeepFreeze allows you to circumvent the use of antivirus and antispyware apps by completely restoring a selected partition on reboot, but there are some pretty annoying drawbacks. Software won't update, apps and games won't actually install, antimalware scans can't be run on the selected partition, and having to reboot into a "thawed" state to make changes can get a little annoying after a while. Those issues can be circumvented if DeepFreeze and all installed apps are properly configured, but it's a lot of little nit-picky work.

[GrimFusion]

This is what I am running right now

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.7GHz
Mainboard : Asus M4N98TD EVO (Both PCIe16 Slots run at x16 speed, even when both filled)
Memory: 8GB (2X4GB) of Corsair Dominator 1600MHz
Video Card: MSI GTX 460 Cyclone 1GB X2 SLI
PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 1000W SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 (3 230mm, 1 140mm Fans)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II (Soon to be CoolerMaster V6 GT when I finally install it)
Monitor: Samsung 23 in LCD LED Backlit HD
Hard Drives: ------
Boot Drive: 100 GB OCZ Agility 2 SSD
Data Drives: 750 GB Western Digital Green, 500 GB Western Digital Blue



I am skipping the 500 series of Nvidia and waiting for their next gen 600 cards which are supposed to be twice the power of Fermi or more, along with a 6 core AMD Bulldozer series processor when they come out.

Damn you and your 100GB SSD. I'm jealous. I've been thinking about slapping a 40GB or 60GB SSD as a primary and deferring the page file to a little 8GB or 16GB SSD scratch drive I can use for temp files too.

[TempestTS]

lol, no kidding. I gave up on fixing family computers a long time ago. Like kukm4 said, look into drive imaging software like Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. Both apps can take a complete snapshot of your drive. Afterward, you can burn the image files to a DVD or two and you've basically made a custom set of restore discs. 20 minutes and no pay sounds better than three hours without pay, right?

The other alternative is something like Faronics DeepFreeze. DeepFreeze allows you to circumvent the use of antivirus and antispyware apps by completely restoring a selected partition on reboot, but there are some pretty annoying drawbacks. Software won't update, apps and games won't actually install, antimalware scans can't be run on the selected partition, and having to reboot into a "thawed" state to make changes can get a little annoying after a while. Those issues can be circumvented if DeepFreeze and all installed apps are properly configured, but it's a lot of little nit-picky work.

Acronis is a good product, I largely gave up on Ghost after it started having issues with manufacturer pre-installed special system or restore partitions but they may have fixed that by now. Also look into Shadow Protect (desktop or server) it can create incremental bare metal restore points while the system is running so you get multiple fall back points. DeepFreeze causes more problems than its worth and its pain in the ass to work around when they come up.

Skip imaging to DVD media, it takes too long and one scratched or bad DVD in the set and your image set cant be restored and is now useless. You can get a 500 Gb USB drive for about 50 bucks and a 1TB is only $100 and is much faster and more stable than a bunch of DVD's. (youll still need to use a utility Boot disk but since they arnt unique like the image disks you can always make another.) If you go ESata youll cut down your imaging time even more or get a nice little NAS unit running on a gigabit LAN and use that for incremental every 3 hours and youll always have a fall back point.

Id list off my system specs but thats like so much dick waving LOL... Besides my day job is a Network Admin for 3 Airports, a large main office facility, a retail chain administrative office and a Medical specialist placement firm so if I listed all the systems I take care of it would take up a whole page.

BTW since your just getting started into the PC support thing you should look into getting TeamViewer for remote support on client systems, unlike other remote software like RDP or VNC ect... you dont have to worry about IP addresses or most firewall settings (unless they are really strict on allowing internal traffic get out of the network) The client is free and easy to have a user download and can be ran without installing. You can try it out completely for free and it generates a unique session and password for the client every time so people dont have to worry about you having access to their system after you complete the work. Ive got it installed on about 200 systems for remote management and love that I can connect to the client system anywhere Im at regardless of firewalls on either end as long as network access is available.