Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[hobbsyoyo]

For the last couple of hours, my laptop has been randomly putting itself to sleep. It's happened about 5 times in the last 2 hours, while I'm sitting here in front of it, although not while I'm actually typing or moving the cursor. I checked my power settings, nothing changed there that I can see, and it's set not to go to sleep on it's own for at least an hour.

What would be causing this behaviour?

Is your charging chord working correctly? If it's plugged in but the power chord is delivering unreliable power, it may be causing the laptop to go into and out of powersave mode.

 

[shadowplay]

Hmm. Nothing seems amiss with the charging cord and power supply as best I can tell. I'll keep that possibility in mind though.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Have you tried hard resetting it?

 

[shadowplay]

Not yet. I'm hoping it won't come to that.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I would definitely save all your work then force it to shut down completely, interrupting any ongoing processes if necessary. There is a good chance that will solve your issue.

 

[warpus]

try googling keywords describing your problem and your laptop manufacturer's name and/or make, model, etc. If nothing comes up, repeat but take out the laptop details and replace with the word "laptop"

 

[ainwood]

For the last couple of hours, my laptop has been randomly putting itself to sleep. It's happened about 5 times in the last 2 hours, while I'm sitting here in front of it, although not while I'm actually typing or moving the cursor. I checked my power settings, nothing changed there that I can see, and it's set not to go to sleep on it's own for at least an hour.

What would be causing this behaviour?

Are you completely sure that it's just sleeping, and not shutting down? I was thinking heat related.

What are the power settings for what to do when the lid closes etc? It is possible that the lid sensor is damaged, and might be causing it to do something unexpected.

 

[shadowplay]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I still don't know what caused the problem, but everything cleared up after a reboot, and the issue hasn't recurred.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Glad to hear it fixed itself.

 

[Samson]

Is it sensible to buy a copy of Windows 10 on ebay?

I have an old computer that I have had linux on for a few years that I want to make a windows machine for running Civ 4 (I may try Civ 6 but I hated Civ 5). To buy Windows from microsoft it is £190 (or £100 if you want a limited "home" edition). You can get what appears to be the same thing from ebay for ~ $20. It seems to me that with ebay buyer protection there is not much risk, if it does not work I complain and would expect to get my money back.

 

[Zelig]

A physical copy should be fine, I've purchased off ebay before. The "software swap" reddits and such where they just sell/trade software keys are typically not legitimate.

I wouldn't avoid the home edition unless it's specifically missing features you need. Off the top of my head the only real features missing that don't have to do with enterprise device management are remote desktop hosting, bitlocker, and Hyper-V support.

 

[Samson]

A physical copy should be fine, I've purchased off ebay before. The "software swap" reddits and such where they just sell/trade software keys are typically not legitimate.

I wouldn't avoid the home edition unless it's specifically missing features you need. Off the top of my head the only real features missing that don't have to do with enterprise device management are remote desktop hosting, bitlocker, and Hyper-V support.

Thanks. The one thing that I may use that was on the list "missing from the home edition" is virtualization, I tend to use Oracle virtual box for a lot of things, I did not know if this meant I could not install this on the home edition, or if the home edition did not come with a microsoft hypervisor built in.

 

[Zelig]

VirtualBox would be fine, it's only Microsoft Hyper-V that's not included with Windows Home.

Although on a related note, I recently dumped VirtualBox for Hyper-V. I'm now completely free of Oracle, and expect to never again use any of their software. Would highly recommend.

 

[Synobun]

I'd recommend getting the Pro edition if only because Microsoft has taken to a habit of locking you out of features they didn't before in Home. Some straight forward changes or fixes now require convoluted work-arounds if you're trying to do them in Home. The total lack of the group policy editor is a sore point.

 

[AdamCrock]

I think my HDD is about to die S.M.A.R.T indicates that there are 4222 rellocated (bad) sectors and 1 sector pending to be rellocated. This number did not change since I've started to notice problems. read/write seems to work just fine for now. ( I even managed to install some games ) but I noticed the problem quite recently. Here is a screen from Defraggler :

I know I should buy a new HDD or at least store important data on another device ASAP but I have some questions though. Is 4222 sectors a lot ? If 1 sector is 512 bytes than 4222 sectors are ~2 MB right ? I also don't know if those are physical bad sectors or logical. If they are the latter maybe I could try "zeroing" the disk using software like MHDD - should I bother with that ? Is there a way to tell if those bad sectors are physical or logical other than zeroing ? (disk did not sustained any physical or magnetic damage -like vacuum cleaner or magnet or anything- so I think they might be logical. Still 1702 days of power on - might as well be physical. What are Your opinions/suggestions ?

 

[caketastydelish]

I'm in the market to buy a laptop as long as the following criteria are met:

1) It can use a decent word processor
2) It can access most internet sites easily
3) as cheap as possible.
4) portable and easy to carry.

That's it

Any suggestions?

 

[leif erikson]

Try this site.

They are refurbished but I bought one for me and one for my wife and they have been excellent computers. We've had them more than a year so far.

 

[caketastydelish]

Perfect. Thank you!

 

[leif erikson]

Your welcome, best of luck.

 

[caketastydelish]

new dilemma: I am having MAJOR carpal tunnel syndrome on my left wrist. Can only type with right hand. I want to be a writer as a career. I have been writing hours a day for the past month, it has finally caught up to me. What is the best speech to text software I can buy? Must work with Windows 10 and Microsoft Word.