QUESTION THREAD!

Message

Udedenkz · #16 Post by **Udedenkz** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:26 pm

Huh... so are you saying that having a slower hard drive with a faster one = having two slow ones?

80 wire connectors look the same as 40, don't they?

Weird, I always thouhght there was only one type of PCI, and a bunch of types of PCIe... But then again, from the link you gave me it seems that there is a 2 key/ divider thingy version?

And now my video card stopped giving output... after I took that picture? [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] >.<

#17 Post by **avwolf** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:57 pm

Udedenkz wrote:Huh... so are you saying that having a slower hard drive with a faster one = having two slow ones?

Not quite. It's more interface speed. So an ATA-100 drive with an ATA-66 drive would be forced to operate at ATA-66. This is so that the parallel operations remain synchronized properly. But two ATA-100 drives, where one is 7200 RPM and the other is 5400 RPM would not affect each other's performance...Sort of. The second drive would slow the first one down, but only under certain circumstances, not all the time (the controller would lock during access to the slower drive, so the faster one has to wait for it in order to do its data access; though that can be worked around using an asynchronous interrupt-based architecture instead of a synchronous architecture, though it ends up being much more difficult and expensive to implement. I'm not sure what sort of an architectural scheme hard disk controllers use, I didn't ever have to actually interface with a hard disk so I never looked up a datasheet for an IDE controller). Computers are very complicated devices.

Udedenkz wrote:80 wire connectors look the same as 40, don't they?

Yes, they're both forty pin connectors. ATA-100 cables have the extra wires to help reduce errors due to the frequency they operate at. In fact, you can use the two types interchangeably, but your 80 wire connector (which, as you noted, tends to have a blue connector on the controller end and looks finer grain) will produce more reliable data (you'd probably only notice that it's faster -- ideally any data errors are caught before they'd be apparent to the user).

Udedenkz wrote:Weird, I always thouhght there was only one type of PCI, and a bunch of types of PCIe... But then again, from the link you gave me it seems that there is a 2 key/ divider thingy version?

Yes and no. There aren't actually two different kinds of PCI for the consumer. When you look at the slot, it's got a bit of plastic dividing the slot into a longer part and a shorter part. Some cards don't use the shorter part, or don't have connections on it, only using it for stability's sake. Unlike PCIe, there are no physical difference in the slots on the motherboard. If I'm wrong here, it's something I've never come across.

Udedenkz · #18 Post by **Udedenkz** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 12:10 am

Motherboard

Motherboard Name FIC K7M-NF18G (AU31)

ATA Device Properties

Model ID HDS722516VLAT20
Device Type ATA-100
Parameters 319120 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector
Buffer 1794 KB (Dual Ported, Read Ahead)
Active UDMA Transfer Mode UDMA 5 (ATA-100)

ATA Device Physical Info
Manufacturer Hitachi
Rotational Speed 7200 RPM
Max. Internal Data Rate 757 Mbit/s
Interface Ultra-ATA/100

Uhh... how come I am getting like 30MBps out of this configuration?!

benched via FreshDiagnose... system specs thanks to Everest

SpinnazDawg · #19 Post by **SpinnazDawg** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:34 am

Something is wrong with my computer. Here's the story:

I was playing FFXI and then my computer froze for the first time ever. This made me paranoid since my last computer froze constantly because of a burnt out motherboard (I really hope this isn't the case on this one), but I thought it's the first time, so I'll be cautious and try again. I restarted my computer and logged back into FFXI. This time it started making weird sounds and lagged when somebody used an ability. This freaked me out. Shortly after it crashed again.

I restarted and didn't log back in, and now I sit here typing this message to you as I run Ad-Aware SE on a full system scan. What do you think it may be/what should I do?

#20 Post by **avwolf** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:40 am

When it crashed, did you just restart, or did you power down, let it clear the RAM, and then restart? It might help to take the whole system to power off for thirty or so seconds if you haven't. Clears the RAM.

Any problems besides FFXI crashing or is it isolated to the one program?

SpinnazDawg · #21 Post by **SpinnazDawg** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:43 am

I just held the power button in for a few seconds and then restarted immediately.

So far it has just been FFXI, but I haven't experimented with Second Life or anything else yet. It hasn't crashed since I wrote that message.

#22 Post by **avwolf** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:56 am

I'd give it some time, and maybe open some other programs before trying FFXI again. If it just had a gremlin, then that ought to fix it. Some programs use their memory caches very aggressively and don't always reinitialize them very well. If FFXI was given the same area in memory, and it had somehow gone bad without being reinitialized, then it could easily produce strange and unpredictable behavior. If you start to look at system-wide instability, then you might be looking at something more serious, but I wouldn't attach it too much significance just yet.

SpinnazDawg · #23 Post by **SpinnazDawg** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:05 am

I'm starting to think it's just something wrong with FFXI, I've been on Second Life for about 10 minutes now (which lags much computer much much more) and it's working fine.

Thanks for your help, I'll wait a bit before logging back in.

FastChapter · #24 Post by **FastChapter** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 3:42 am

Sounds a bit basic, but it happened to me with World of Warcraft.

Try cracking open the case and run the computer with it open. Make sure all the fans, especially the ones on the graphics card and m-board are spinning. I had an issue with my graphics card fan dying without me knowing, hence major overheating issues whenever I turned the graphics up to max.

Beyond that, I'm useless, :3

SpinnazDawg · #25 Post by **SpinnazDawg** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:03 pm

Ugh, the problems never end. T_T

First here's what happened:

We had a power outage, when I tried to turn my computer on after the power came back on, it wouldn't. I thought it was something to do with the power supply and was ready to take it apart a few days ago.

About 4 days ago, I switched the outlet that my computer is hooked to, hoping it would fix it, and it wouldn't turn on still. I figured I'd mess with it the next day. I went up to my room that night and my computer was on and the monitor was all screwed up (looked like a 3 year old was playing in MS Paint using only the spray can). I force restarted my computer and it worked fine for the most part.

There are still issues. I got the blue screen of death a couple times but after talking with some friends, I narrowed the problem down to my video card. They think I have a couple files missing and told me to download some driver. They told me how to do it but I forgot kinda >>. How do I fix the problem? According to System Requirements Lab, my video card is an ATI RADEON 9250 (RADEON 9200 Series (0x5960)).

By the way, the file that the blue screen of death says there's a problem with is ati2dvag.

#26 Post by **avwolf** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:10 pm

SpinnazDawg wrote:There are still issues. I got the blue screen of death a couple times but after talking with some friends, I narrowed the problem down to my video card. They think I have a couple files missing and told me to download some driver. They told me how to do it but I forgot kinda >>. How do I fix the problem? According to System Requirements Lab, my video card is an ATI RADEON 9250 (RADEON 9200 Series (0x5960)).

By the way, the file that the blue screen of death says there's a problem with is ati2dvag.

Yeah, new drivers might fix that. Sounds like the file might have gotten borked in the outage. *shrug* Fortunately, getting new drivers is easy as pie. Go to the Drivers page at ATI/AMD Make the right selections on the table, and download and run the driver package. (It's probably this one, but I don't know for sure that your system is 32-bit XP, so I thought giving you the selector's probably the best route.)

Flying Cats (Ion) · Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:23 pm

You got the BSOD??? With a better card then me??? Wow... mines like 3,6,or 9 something... and its just enough to play 3D CD games...

When in doubt, call the customer services e-mail and give it a shot. They type like robots, but it helps a lot. (Except for MS when I lost my drives and thye gave me some 40-step horse**** fix that I didnt bother to do... Turns out it was a loose connection, but they couldnt possibly think of such a small problem, oh no)

I have a weird wi-fi problem for my PSP. During the afternoon (~3:45PM to ~ 2:00AM), everythings slow to load, but when i woke up once at 6:02AM everything loaded in seconds with no failures... Anybody got an idea why this happenes? My guess is because someone is always leaving her Jewl Quest game on EVERY day, despite me being not allowed to leave one OFFLINE MS IE browser up...

Even odder still, I usually get 63% connection to it from my 2nd floor room, and now i get 90-100%, and it hasnt moved an inch, AND i put WLAN Power Save ON... usually it gives me better OFF, and eats my battery while its at it...

SpinnazDawg · #28 Post by **SpinnazDawg** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:13 pm

......this is getting [censored] old. I went to turn on my computer this morning to update my driver and it wouldn't turn on again. What the [censored].

yrfoxtaur · #29 Post by **yrfoxtaur** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:18 am

Question:
Why is the C++ thread locked?

I wanted to inform the people talking about PHP that PHP is an interpreted language that is geared towards the net to a degree, but still perfectly usable for writing programs for internal use (however, it will never be as fast as C, because C is a compiled language

Ashpool · #30 Post by **Ashpool** » Sun May 25, 2008 6:17 am

yrfoxtaur wrote:Question:
Why is the C++ thread locked?

I wanted to inform the people talking about PHP that PHP is an interpreted language that is geared towards the net to a degree, but still perfectly usable for writing programs for internal use (however, it will never be as fast as C, because C is a compiled language

The php issue is old and done. Don't post unless you really have something new to bring to the discussion.