The PC building and repairing thread.

[wonko the sane?]

Cause I know there's a bunch of us who do tech work for either a living, or for family and friends (usually under duress.), and I wanted to share a strange experience.

So I built a cheap assed PC for my nephew. It was a birthday gift, it was mostly spare parts, and the intent was to give him an entry level machine to do homework, gaming and learn how to use and exploit a PC desktop.

Anyway, they put the desktop away when he re-arranged his room: they couldn't find a desk to fit the space that was left after he got a new bed. Couple of months later, they finally did it, I go in to set up the PC again: should be easy, install the new power supply, video card, and let her rip.

Nope, doesn't work. Won't post. At all. Just runs the fans when power it on. Strip it down to basics, and it still just spins. Can't even do the 5 second power off on the switch: will not work. I figure the board is dead.

Manage to get a replacement board, which is not easy to do, it's an AM3 chip. But I do it. It arrived today, I strip the old, and... why is the thermal paste still liquid?!?!? Because of the amount of time the PC case spent on its side: the never dried thermal paste seeped into the socket! Christ, no wonder it didn't work.

Clean it best as I can, set up the new board, and test it. Nope, does not work. Just spins, no post. Whatever, it's been a month of this jive already, and way too much drama, I'm just going to get an off the shelf and put the GPU in that.

Has anyone else seen thermal paste that didn't ever dry? Definite first for me.

 

[Caldwin]

Okay, so I'm trying to move things over from my old iMac to my new HP Windows 10 computer. I'm doing this via an External Hard Drive. I know the computer sees it and knows what it is because of this.

Yet when I try to open a folder to see the files, I get this.

Now this external hard drive has a lot of documents and pictures that can not be replaced. So short of anything that would in any way wipe the data I have on this thing...how do I open up a folder so I can see this thing?

 

[wonko the sane?]

The external started on the imac, right? Which means it's probably formatted for imac. You might need a some kind of bootcamp software to get it to play nice without putting EVERYTHING back on the imac, reformatting the external to something both systems can read (which you would need to double check, as I don't know it off the top of my head.) and then trying again.

 

[Caldwin]

I just talked with my father and did a bit of googling. I'm afraid the best option actually is going to wind up being putting everything back onto the Mac, reformat the external to something both computers can use (ExFat it looks like) and then move everything back over.

So it looks like I'm going to need to wait until I have a day off to do it, because, yeah, looks like a bit of a project. Good thing is, my iMac is still right there.

Thanks for the answer.

 

[Ungnome]

Might be another way. Do you know what file system it's formatted to? Likely HFS+ or APFS. I know there are some free utilities and/or drivers for windows that can allow access to files on those filesystems. Been years since I've used them, though.

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/ has a free 10 day trial.

https://www.owc.com/solutions/macdrive has a free 5 day trial.

The bootcamp drivers provided by Apple can also be installed on most windows machines, though it's read only and I'm not sure if they work on Windows 11.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Surprisingly, Microsoft doesn't provide a way to do this. You'll need third party tools. As far as I can tell, Paragon seems to be the most recommended for this sort of thing.

 

[Kalidor]

It's been so long since I've messed with in depth computer stuff I feel like a caveman. So many things that were once part of my identity feel like a lifetime ago.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Surprisingly, Microsoft doesn't provide a way to do this. You'll need third party tools. As far as I can tell, Paragon seems to be the most recommended for this sort of thing.

Why would they? As far as I know, both systems are friendly enough now that compatibility is pretty easy. It's only edge cases and older machines that cause problems since the apple/intel architecture update.

It's also why the various bootcamp softwares exist. Cuts out the middleman.

 

[Ungnome]

One of the nice things about switching from proprietary systems to Linux as my daily driver is how many filesystems it can read just by adding an open source filesystem module. Now only if game publishers wouldn't insist on throwing kernel-level anticheat into so many games....

 

[Pocket]

On my old system, when I was dual-booting, I had some special program to copy files off my Linux drive. It was the only way to actually do it, because while Linux would recognize and mount the Windows drive just fine, and let me pull files off it, it refused to let me copy files onto it, giving me some vague error message about permissions. I think because it recognized that the drive was my primary drive, because I was able to copy files onto a Windows-formatted external.

Manage to get a replacement board, which is not easy to do, it's an AM3 chip.

Dang, I wish I'd known; I've got three of the things lying around being useless. Although I guess you're going to try to return the one you bought, since you couldn't get it working?

 

[Ungnome]

On my old system, when I was dual-booting, I had some special program to copy files off my Linux drive. It was the only way to actually do it, because while Linux would recognize and mount the Windows drive just fine, and let me pull files off it, it refused to let me copy files onto it, giving me some vague error message about permissions. I think because it recognized that the drive was my primary drive, because I was able to copy files onto a Windows-formatted external.

Older Linux NTFS drivers were read only(I think it had something to do with how journaling worked on NTFS) and anything windows 7 and beyond defaulted to NTFS during install. External hard drives were often formatted as FAT32 or exfat instead of NTFS, which might be why you could copy files to it. Doesn't seem to be much of an issue anymore unless your NTFS partition is encrypted. I can easily copy files over to the NTFS partition windows is installed in. I do keep a windows install handy for said games and the occasional piece of software that I want to use that isn't playing nice with wine)

 

[CoffeeHorse]

some vague error message about permissions

This is why I don't Linux.

 

[Kalidor]

The polls glitch was a permissions issue!

 

[Pocket]

This is why I don't Linux.

(source)

 

[Caldwin]

I finished getting everything moved over to the new computer last night. So I'm in business. Thanks for the help, Wonko and Ungnome.

Now I just have to get all my folders organized. Everything's on the new computer, but the organization is a mess. But at least the hard part's done.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Dang, I wish I'd known; I've got three of the things lying around being useless. Although I guess you're going to try to return the one you bought, since you couldn't get it working?

Yup, we're just going to best buy and get him an off the shelf model, and I'll upgrade it with the new power supply and GPU.

Not an optimal solution, to be fair: but a fast and relatively affordable one.

 

[Caldwin]

Okay, so, here's my history with PC gaming.

It started out with the Tomb Raiders. Those were okay. They used the arrow buttons, which made sense to me. Everything made sense.

I eventually got a controller that worked fine with Super Street Fighter II, not so much for anything else. So my faith in game controllers for PC was pretty shakey.

I never did care for WASD controlls and round about 2001 was when I moved away from PC all together when it comes to gaming.

All that to ask this: what is PC gaming like these days? If I buy a random controller off Amazon, will things be good? Do people seriously still use their keyboards for games? Where do things stand?

 

[wonko the sane?]

You don't need to buy a random controller off amazon, all first party controllers (switch, xbox, playstation.) can pair and work on PC. Though there are some GREAT third party controllers with features the big three don't have. Lots of shitty ones too, so you need to pay attention.

PC gaming is basically console gaming+. Everything the console does, slightly prettier graphics (YMMV) and usually modding. Plus tons of titles that will never see a console.

Yes, people still use their keyboards for games. I just jumped off enshrouded; and I was using my mechanical keyboard for it. K/M are better for first person shooters, because the mouse offers quicker and more precise aiming. RTS titles (like warcraft and starcraft) are much easier to play with a mouse. Just don't play against koreans.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I would consider PC gaming if I can still use a Sony controller or something that feels like one.

 

[wonko the sane?]

I would consider PC gaming if I can still use a Sony controller or something that feels like one.

Playstation remote on PC.