Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

complicated site. what do I click there to download it?

 

What OS? If windows:

Windows users can download an .exe file and place it in any location on their PATH except for %SYSTEMROOT%\System32 (e.g. do not put in C:\Windows\System32).​

 

Does RAM have to be like, of the same type?

I had two 4 GB RAM pieces, and now have two new 8 GB ones, but my computer has 4 RAM slots, so I'm wondering if I can like use all 4 at the same time. But as I said two are 4 GB and two are 8 GB and I don't know if they're from the same manufacturer

 

^Yep, that happened to me when improving this machine which has DDR2 slots for RAM. If they aren't the exact same speed the computer might decide to reboot on its own or just not start in the first place. Since it's DDR2 I had to make do with what was available at a second-hand parts shop.

I think that you could just try using all four slots for a rather monstruous 24 GB of RAM, although I wonder what the hell you'd be running that would require that.

 

Civ 3

 

Civ3 runs well on 1 GB of RAM on Windows XP.

 

Virtual machines. VMware has a free VM player, and I fire up Linux Mint operating systems in it, essentially just for the browsers: one VM for webcomics and other less-safe web browsing, another for shopping where I'm entering my credit card, and another for my banking exclusively.

 

Do you know how Civ 4 does in a VM?

 

I don't, as the last time I played Civ4 was before I started my VM approach, but I suspect it would do okay because one can allocate quite a lot of CPU and RAM toward a VM, and Civ4 is isn't graphics-intensive by current standards.

 

Somehow my computer got back 80 GB of storage space (thankfully), but I don't know how it happened.

Clicking on 'This PC' was showing '30 GB free of 218 GB' for several weeks. Then one day I noticed it suddenly dropped to 11 GB free, so I was panicking. Cleared browser history, junk files and ran optimization, but that didn't help much at all as that stuff had been done pretty recently so I deleted some games I don't play anymore that used several GB. Got back to over 30 GB free but wanted more, but didn't seem that any games or progams left that I don't really use, used more than a few MB. Was back to over 30 GB for several days.

Then suddenly this morning it says I have 111 GB free. Unless something I deleted a few days ago it took the system time to realize I had deleted it (which doesn't make sense as I would think restarting the computer and checking the storage space again would have updated it well before this morning, since the values did change slightly, I figured it had.) So I have no clue where this 80 GB came from.

 

Laptop is only 6 months old. Not doing your suggestion (new hard drive) unless I have a better idea what happened (I lost stuff I, or the laptop needs), or computer starts acting funny.

Going from '30 GB free' to '111 GB free' is only thing weird that's happened.

Is it possible the available storage space was previously 'tricked' because of an error, thinking that space was being used when it wasn't, and removing a program eventually fixed the error? (or a new error making the computer think that space is now available when it really isn't).

 

Perhaps windows or some program had by error an enormous amount of temporary files and cleaned them up?

Making back ups of your data is always a good idea. Especially with a laptop. If you already have backups just watch your computer's behaviour and if it doesn't return I guess you don't have to worry about it.

 

What's a good and affordable gaming PC?

 

What you want to you want to play on it? I'd recommend you define the performance envelope first and go from there. Also laptop, desktop do you want to build it yourself (that alone is worth a 10-20% discount)?

 

That's a broad question. Depends on what games, laptop/desktop. Arguably the most important question you can ask yourself is, "what's my budget?"

 

Is there a way to "debug" bluetooth connections on a phone?

I have a closed source app, and a device than connects to it by bluetooth. I am supposed to connect every day, but I leave it working for hours with the devices close together and it usually connects at some point over the day, but not all the time. Is there a way I can investigate what is going on? Just a log file of bluetooth connection attempts and their result would probably do, but I cannot find anything with a quick google.

 

Is there a tool that will alter the computer volume depending on how "loud" the audio file you are playing is?

Different audio files sound like they have different volumes. This is mostly dependant on quality, but not solely. If the primary determinant of the volume you play music at is not to disturb your neighbours, this can cause problems. It seems it should be possible for your music player to analyse the music it is playing, and alter the volume accordingly. Is there such a tool?