Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[classical_hero]

I can't send email from my thunderbird account. When I go to my host website and send it from there it sends no problem When I do try and send it says my password isn't being recognised and yet I haven't changed it and only now it doesn't want to work. What could be the problem?

 

[leif erikson]

Had that problem a while ago. Turned out that the internet host changed the password security scheme. Suggest you go to your internet provider's web site and check for security settings for your account.

 

[classical_hero]

It seems to have solved by itself. Since I can send emails again, but i will check that out if it continues.

 

[_random_]

So the GPU on my laptop is pretty much kaput, and it's soddered to the motherboard. Does anyone have experience replacing a laptop's motherboard? How easy is it to eff up?

 

[Zelig]

Never made economic sense for me. Can you get a replacement motherboard cheaper than an equivalent used laptop off ebay?

 

[_random_]

I think so. I found this which claims to be just the graphics card, not the motherboard, so I'm not sure if I could actually install it or what. I'm well out of my depth, if that's not clear.

 

[cardgame]

Generally for a laptop the only modular parts are the battery, RAM, and hard drive. RAM is starting to be irreplaceable as well on ultrabooks.

You could replace the entire logic board (mobo + gpu) but it's probably going to be hella expensive. I know for Apple at least it's like 70% of the cost of a new laptop.

If it's soldered onto the mobo, you'll need to solder your replacement GPU on there as well probably?

I couldn't find an ifixit page for the laptop.

Here's lenovo's official hardware thing for your laptop https://download.lenovo.com/consume...y400y500_hmm_1st_edition_sep_2012_english.pdf

1100 System board

For access, remove these FRUs in order:
• see “1010 Battery pack” on page 35
• see “1020 Dummy card” on page 36
• see “1030 Optical drive” on page 37
• see “1040 Hard disk drive(HDD)/Memory/Mini PCI Express Card slot
compartment cover” on page 38
• see “1050 Hard disk drive” on page 39
• see “1060 DIMM” on page 41
• see “1070 PCI Express Mini Card for wireless LAN/WAN” on page 42
• see “1080 Keyboard” on page 44
• see “1090 Keyboard bezel” on page 47

I don't see anything at all about the GPU, so I'm assuming it's attached to the 'system board'.

In the part list, it's item #40, "QIQY(5/6) VGA board". Nothing else is mentioned about it.

Good thing you still have Intel integrated graphics, right?

 

[_random_]

Yeah, I'm grateful the computer works fine for the most part, but I do miss video games.

 

[madviking]

i have a problem with my macbook pro that's kinda hard to describe. every now and again, i have this problem where the computer kinda stops working: games don't save, chrome doesn't work, irc doesn't log, i can't take screenshots, etc. once i restart the problem goes away. does anyone have any ideas what's causing this?

 

[cardgame]

Is your drive full? Is your ram overflowing?

 

[madviking]

i've had my macbook for only a few months so i don't think it's the former. i'm not really sure how to know if it's the latter.

 

[Zelig]

I've seen similar on both Windows and OS X... my assumption is low-level software bugs, either OS or drivers.

I realize it's tough to diagnose because of how intermittently it happens, but I'd try running without any peripherals, if any are connected (from personal experience, any DisplayLink devices trash OS X performance and stability), and/or disabling sleep mode.

 

[cardgame]

If it's only a few months old maybe bring it in to a local Apple store next time it reproduces the issue.

 

[r16]

what happens when ı run out of disc space on a Windows 8 Laptop ? There's this bug that annoys me greatly whenever ı do something on the computer . Any action , say opening a saved thread (.html) , or starting windows media player to listen to the songs , or a pdf file something about 40MB gets lost . The bleeding thing ı have mentioned elsewhere . There's this "clean your disk" button where you look in the properties to see the disk space . ı had 142 MB worth of mistakes that could not be e-mailed to Microsoft for want of a web connection at home . ı used it and got only 30 MBs , must have been 3 actions ... The city where ı live knows it's like photocopying , taking an image of sorts of the disc , or something to that effect . ı once loaded 3 GB woth of saved stuff on the lap-top for transfer to an external harddisc it cost me almost 4 GBs of discspace . So , if ı run out of space will my laptop seize , and cost me everything inside ?

 

[shadowplay]

Recently, one of the websites I visit has started giving me a popup saying it's detected I'm using an ad-blocker, and requests that I stop using it. How do they detect the presence of an ad-blocker in the first place, and can I "block" the detection?

 

[Princeps]

So I'm having these problems with my PC. They occurred before but quite rarely, and now they're grown more frequent. The symptoms are the following:

- the PC turns on at night, always. Well actually it turns on after any extended period. It goes straight to the pre-bios screen or whatever. It doesn't actually load windows.

- likewise the PC will suddenly power down if left idling for extended periods.

- the PC runs fallout 4 smoothly with high frame rates. But once I turn fallout 4 off, the PC will power down pretty much immediately if not constantly used. I can't see how overheating could be an issue there. The PC is warm to touch, but not alarmingly hot. CPU temperatures are ok and the PC actually crashes when temps are coming down from running an intensive program (I.e. Fo4)

- when the PC powers down, especially if it does do on its own, it will not boot again until several hours have passed. The motherboard led is visible.

- sometimes its possible to boot the computer earlier by switching power off, waiting for the led to turn off, and then immediately reintroduce power while simultaneously pressing down on the start button.

- if the PC is powered down, it can be rebooted successfully, but only if I do so within minutes.

I'm really confused by this problem. I've disassembled and reassembled the PC several times and tested different parts... But no dice.

 

[Zelig]

Recently, one of the websites I visit has started giving me a popup saying it's detected I'm using an ad-blocker, and requests that I stop using it. How do they detect the presence of an ad-blocker in the first place, and can I "block" the detection?

Which ad blocker? Suggest using uBlock Origin and enabling Adblock Warning Removal List and Anti-Adblock Killer, they're both in the default list selections.

Possibly also disable scripts entirely, and don't whitelist that site.

If that doesn't work, desist using that website.

So I'm having these problems with my PC. They occurred before but quite rarely, and now they're grown more frequent. The symptoms are the following:

- the PC turns on at night, always. Well actually it turns on after any extended period. It goes straight to the pre-bios screen or whatever. It doesn't actually load windows.

- likewise the PC will suddenly power down if left idling for extended periods.

- the PC runs fallout 4 smoothly with high frame rates. But once I turn fallout 4 off, the PC will power down pretty much immediately if not constantly used. I can't see how overheating could be an issue there. The PC is warm to touch, but not alarmingly hot. CPU temperatures are ok and the PC actually crashes when temps are coming down from running an intensive program (I.e. Fo4)

- when the PC powers down, especially if it does do on its own, it will not boot again until several hours have passed. The motherboard led is visible.

- sometimes its possible to boot the computer earlier by switching power off, waiting for the led to turn off, and then immediately reintroduce power while simultaneously pressing down on the start button.

- if the PC is powered down, it can be rebooted successfully, but only if I do so within minutes.

I'm really confused by this problem. I've disassembled and reassembled the PC several times and tested different parts... But no dice.

Sounds like a faulty PSU, possibly mobo.

 

[cardgame]

PSU failure should be occurring under heavy load, like when he's playing FO4, right? Not afterwards. Sounds like the motherboard is being a problem to me. Test both if you can.

 

[Princeps]

Well, according to an IT guy I've been talking to, the problem might still be found in the PSU because when the PC gets very warm, and metal expands, the power connections actually improve, and when I close the intensive application, and the PC cools and the metals shrinks, it might be causing the crash. I did find out that in fact the PC crashes after closing fo4 even if I use the PC. Perhaps the continued use merely slows down this shrinkage.

 

[Quintillus]

what happens when ı run out of disc space on a Windows 8 Laptop ? There's this bug that annoys me greatly whenever ı do something on the computer . Any action , say opening a saved thread (.html) , or starting windows media player to listen to the songs , or a pdf file something about 40MB gets lost . The bleeding thing ı have mentioned elsewhere . There's this "clean your disk" button where you look in the properties to see the disk space . ı had 142 MB worth of mistakes that could not be e-mailed to Microsoft for want of a web connection at home . ı used it and got only 30 MBs , must have been 3 actions ... The city where ı live knows it's like photocopying , taking an image of sorts of the disc , or something to that effect . ı once loaded 3 GB woth of saved stuff on the lap-top for transfer to an external harddisc it cost me almost 4 GBs of discspace . So , if ı run out of space will my laptop seize , and cost me everything inside ?

Nothing will be deleted if you run out of space; you simply won't be able to save anything else. You'll likely receive error messages about being Out of Disk Space, or something similar, if you attempt to do so. Windows will continue working pretty much as normal after you run out of space; although it won't be able to save new logs and so forth to disk, it will use physical and virtual memory space in the interim so it can keep running. If you run out out of both hard drive space and memory space, you will have a problem and Windows will likely start closing your programs without warning (or the option to save your work-in-progress), but it still shouldn't delete what's already saved on your hard drive.

While I haven't tested the out-of-disk-space and out-of-memory scenario myself, I have tested the out-of-disk-space scenario on both Windows 98 and Windows XP, and in both cases Windows continued to run as usual. I would highly advise deleting unnecessary files if you run into this, since many programs work better when they're able to save temporary files to disk and you probably want to be able to save your work, but Windows won't start deleting your files without asking. I would expect that Windows 8 would handle this just as smoothly as 98 and XP do.

As for 3 GBs worth of files taking up close to 4 GBs worth of space, that is possible, particularly if there are lots of small files. By default, at least on recent versions of Windows (XP and later), the minimum file size is 4 KB, or 4096 bytes (I think it may have been 512 bytes on earlier versions). So if you have a 1 byte file, it actually takes up over 4000 times that much space on disk. Similarly, all files must be multiples of 4096 bytes on disk, so a 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes. With large files this difference isn't noticeable, but if you have lots of small files it does add up.

If you are running low on disk space, you may want to consider enabling compression on your drive, if you haven't already done so. You can go to My Computer, right click on your drive, choose Properties, and then Compress drive to save space in the General tab. It will take a long time to compress it (possibly up to half a day if you have a large drive), but will save 15-20% of the space or so, depending on what type of data you have on the drive.