Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[Methos]

Previous Thread

As the title says, this thread is for computer questions that don't rate their own thread.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

In general, is it true that a computer is only as fast as the slowest component?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Depends on what task its doing. If you're manipulating some data in that can fit in RAM, as soon as you load it from your HDD and into RAM, the slowest component, the HDD, stops being relevant.


Although most often it is true, considering the slowest component is the person behind the keyboard.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Sometimes on the lousy school computers I type faster than the computers can handle and the letters lag behind.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Sometimes on the lousy school computers I type faster than the computers can handle and the letters lag behind.

What the heck does your school run, 286's? Last time I saw that was on my first computer when I made the poor P3 in it do some heavy multitasking.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I don't know, but most of those computers run Windows XP SP3 and a ton of creepy programs to spy on students on 256 MB of RAM. I know because when I ctrl+alt+del it shows me some weird dialog instead of the task manager.

EDIT: Oh and they removed both WordPad and Notepad so there's choice but to use M$ Word.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Not a question, but just something I'd like to share. I made this for multimedia class, because currently we're creating websites, and part of it was to create an imagemap for the index.

Spoiler :

If you look closely, you'll notice that the left edge is a little rough (right under the "R" in "READY") but otherwise I think I did a good job.

 

[Atticus]

Nice page, Aimee!

Question: I found a computer in dumbster and took it home for post mortem. One of the screws that fasten the motherboard to the case seems to be unopenable. The screw's other end seems to be completely flat, it's apparently flattened with some kind of machine. Is this typical for MoBos? The tight screw connects MoBo to a part of case that seems to be separate from the rest, but I haven't yet figured out how to take it out. Any hints?

It's HP computer, if that's got anything to do with it.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Do you have a picture? Im thinking its something along the lines of a rivet, done by HP so that you couldnt replace the motherboard.

 

[Cutlass]

Can you get the other side off the case to get to the back of it? Might be able to free it from that direction.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Drop it off the third storey of a building!

Sorry, couldn't resist. But maybe there's some way to pry the case off. Or get some really thin thing underneath the screw and yank it out.

 

[Atticus]

Incidentally I live in a third storey, so that's not a bad option

Here's picture from the front, it isn't of too good quality:

And here's the other side, the red arrow indicates the "screw's" other end and green the hole of normal screw for comparison:


Ironsaw's blade is an option, but I doubt that iron dust is good for the MoBo. I don't have a drill, and the thing seems to be made of much harder metal than normal rivet.

Ps. Does someone know how to resize images with IMG-tags?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Looks like it is a rivet. You could try drilling or punching it out, but that is very likely to damage the mobo

 

[Atticus]

Ok, thanks! One more question: What's the reason behind this? Why on earth they want to make repairing and upgrading more laborous and expensive?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

So you would have to send it to them, and pay for their repair service, which is horribly overpriced. Additionally so you couldnt take their crappy mobo, replace it with one of your own and be happier with it. Instead, they want to lock you in into their once again, horribly overpriced repair parts.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Question: I have 4 gigs of RAM, Windows says 3. Something to do with system limitation. But is the missing gigabyte going to waste or just being used by the system?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

waste pretty much

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

thanks.

On moms computer, I thought I had downloaded flash for her, but it turned out to be some weird "DLM" download manager. What the heck?

 

[GVBN]

Adobe uses DLM for their downloads

 

[Cutlass]

Ok, thanks! One more question: What's the reason behind this? Why on earth they want to make repairing and upgrading more laborous and expensive?

I'd say that since the PC was junk when you got it, try carefully drilling out the rivets. You lose nothing if you fail.