Hardware and Software Discussion, For bragging about your PC, or if your 'puter is misbehaving. Options

[The Solo Rollo]

Ive watched a couple movies and some HD videos on youtube and it ran with no problems.

Gaming wasnt my top priority, since the only things I will probably be playing are minecraft, TF2 and some WoW. So far TF2 and WoW work, but I cant get minecraft working.

Its the dreaded "HS_ERR" problem. if anyone knows a solution, please help.

[Thomas Kaira]

Yay... TDRs.

Looks like I am running into a well known and very well documented bug with nVidia GTX 400/500 cards: browsing the web occasionally (though for me, thankfully infrequently) causes my GPU drivers to time out, causing Windows to deliberately hang them and restart them.

It's a feature called Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR). For some reason, lots of people have been experiencing TDRs being tripped numerous times while doing nothing more GPU intensive than browsing the web. For me, they only seem to happen when I am browsing. When playing a game, the GPU functions as it should.

I am now experimenting with ways to get around the problem until nVidia discovers the cause of the fault and fixes it. My first experiment: setting my driver profile for Firefox to prefer maximum performance.

[King Coin]

I used to have that crap happen a lot. I don't remember when it quit though... perhaps with an update...

[Thomas Kaira]

I just had an episode where one of my hard drives simply didn't work. As in, I start the PC, and it didn't even see the drive (my HDD access light didn't flash).

This means I may have a hard drive that is on its way out on my hands here. I was able to get it working again after fiddling with the connections, but with hard drives, better safe than sorry.

Tomorrow, I'll be looking into finding a way to back up the data and start looking for a replacement. I am not taking any chances here, even if this was a fluke, the hard drive is seriously THE last PC component you want to have malfunctioning (as it is THE most important).

While I'm at it, I'll also be looking at updating the tech, as well. My MoBo has SATA 6.0Gb/s (SATA III) support, so I'll probably be shopping for those specific drives. And a capacity upgrade would be nice, but it might also complicate the disc backups (I'm at 500Gb now, so upping that would bring me to 1Tb).

[SubRosa]

Yay... TDRs.

Looks like I am running into a well known and very well documented bug with nVidia GTX 400/500 cards: browsing the web occasionally (though for me, thankfully infrequently) causes my GPU drivers to time out, causing Windows to deliberately hang them and restart them.

It's a feature called Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR). For some reason, lots of people have been experiencing TDRs being tripped numerous times while doing nothing more GPU intensive than browsing the web. For me, they only seem to happen when I am browsing. When playing a game, the GPU functions as it should.

I am now experimenting with ways to get around the problem until nVidia discovers the cause of the fault and fixes it. My first experiment: setting my driver profile for Firefox to prefer maximum performance.

I just had this happen to me a few hours ago, while I was writing an email. Nice to know what it is! It happened while a notification message was popping up in my email app's window (I use Thunderbird). So I think that is what tripped it.

[Thomas Kaira]

I just had this happen to me a few hours ago, while I was writing an email. Nice to know what it is! It happened while a notification message was popping up in my email app's window (I use Thunderbird). So I think that is what tripped it.

Oh, by the way, that proposed solution worked. You will use more power, but it should stop TDRs from occurring. Best you can do for now, since nVidia has no clue what is wrong (and they've been looking really hard, too).

[haute ecole rider]

I am now eyeing a new laptop to replace my fried MBP (2006 model), and am curious to know what y'all think of the specs:

Processor: Intel Ivy Bridge Quad Core i7 2.6 GHz with Turbo Boost to 3.6 GHz and 6 MB shared L3 cache
Graphics: Intel HD 4000 plus NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with Kepler architecture (not sure what that means, will have to research it) and 1 GB GDDR5 RAM and auto-switching capability

RAM: 8 GB 1600 MHz

Storage: 512 GB Flash drive

Display: capable of resolutions from 1024x640 up to 2880x1800 (twice the resolution of a HDTV).

Comments? Questions? What d'ya think?

[King Coin]

Processor sounds like a winner, I have a desktop variant of the i7 and I love it. I wouldn't expect it to turboboost to 3.6 very often if at all due to it being a laptop.

I don't know much about mobile graphics, but it looks like the memory for it should be good. I consider my card to be mid to high range and it has 1GB of DDR5. I have no idea what the processing power of that model is though.

512 GB Flash drive? Do you mean Solid State? I've heard those are iffy. They are fast, but have a high failure rate it seems.

This post has been edited by King Coin: Jun 12 2012, 05:56 PM

[haute ecole rider]

here is a linky for the GeForce 650M graphics chip:

I will talk to my techies and see what they say about the solid state drives and confirm what you said. I'm still a fan of the ol' platter drives, but these specs, especially that display, are making me drool soooo much!

[King Coin]

here is a linky for the GeForce 650M graphics chip:

I will talk to my techies and see what they say about the solid state drives and confirm what you said. I'm still a fan of the ol' platter drives, but these specs, especially that display, are making me drool soooo much!

If it were me, I'd risk it. But I don't want to tell you to go for it and then have it fail.

I'm right there with you drooling over those specs! I'd expect that thing to handle Skyrim very nicely.

[SubRosa]

I am now eyeing a new laptop to replace my fried MBP (2006 model), and am curious to know what y'all think of the specs:

Processor: Intel Ivy Bridge Quad Core i7 2.6 GHz with Turbo Boost to 3.6 GHz and 6 MB shared L3 cache
Graphics: Intel HD 4000 plus NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with Kepler architecture (not sure what that means, will have to research it) and 1 GB GDDR5 RAM and auto-switching capability

RAM: 8 GB 1600 MHz

Storage: 512 GB Flash drive

Display: capable of resolutions from 1024x640 up to 2880x1800 (twice the resolution of a HDTV).

Comments? Questions? What d'ya think?

It looks pretty good. I have a desktop with an i7, and have had not complaints. The graphics card looks decent too. 1gb of ram seems a bit small these days. I have not shopped laptops in a long time though, so I am not sure what they usually come with.

The flash drive also sounds iffy to me. Do you mean it has flash memory, like on a thumb drive? I would never go with something like that. It is not very stable. If you mean a solid state drive, I have never had one, but I know they are the best thing out there for performance, so people seem to like them for high end gaming rigs.

[haute ecole rider]

The hard drive is a solid state drive. Like I said, I'll consult with my techies and see what they say about its stability. Otherwise I'm getting a more traditional external hard drive as backup!

Yes, compared to the desktop equivalent, 1 GB of RAM for the graphics card seems puny. But compared to the other laptops in the lineup, it is high end. And if it can drive a 2880x1800 pixel display like I've seen it in the demos, it is more than enough to become my main photography machine.

My 2008 Mac Pro (my desktop) has an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB of video RAM, and it runs Oblivion (and Nehrim) fine at higher resolutions. Native resolution is 1680 x 1050, and that's what it runs TES IV on.

I'm still on the fence regarding Skyrim. I don't want a Steam account just to play the game, so I may still pass. But I am considering running Windows under Parallels or VMFusion and trying TES IV just for the heck of it.

[ghastley]

SSD's in laptops are a better bet because they're much more shock-resistant than HDD's. Platters are good for bulk data, so desktops and servers will keep using them. An SDD has a limited life because of the maximum number of rewrites any cell can take, but that's more than the lifespan of the rest of the laptop these days, so irrelevant.

I'm about to order a new desktop for gaming, and I'll almost certainly get both. SDD for fast loading, and HDD for bulk storage. I want to get a multiple-monitor setup, anyone have experience of using that?

[Acadian]

Just make sure that whatever system you get has blue lights. My puter works wonderfully and I'm convinced it is because of the pretty blue lights. Oh, and fans - nice little whirling fans that hum along with the in game music!

[King Coin]

SSD's in laptops are a better bet because they're much more shock-resistant than HDD's. Platters are good for bulk data, so desktops and servers will keep using them. An SDD has a limited life because of the maximum number of rewrites any cell can take, but that's more than the lifespan of the rest of the laptop these days, so irrelevant.

I'm about to order a new desktop for gaming, and I'll almost certainly get both. SDD for fast loading, and HDD for bulk storage. I want to get a multiple-monitor setup, anyone have experience of using that?

I know someone that bought a SSD for his desktop and it failed in less than a year. The manufacturer send them a new one at no charge, but still...

H.E.R. should talk to her friends about it like she said.

I have never tried multiple displays. I use one BIG monitor instead.

[ghastley]

I'm using a "Main + auxiliary" setup with a 21" CRT and a 15" LCD at the moment, and I like the way I can have a full-screen display of an image on the 21" while all the tools are on the small screen in GIMP. There are several other programs that let me work the same way, and drag the tools over to the small screen.

But that machine is failing, and needs replacing, so I'm think of getting an nVidia Surround setup with 3 x 24" LCD's which will let me have a logical extra-wide display for games, as well as the main + aux setup for "work".
I've had issues with the ATI cards on my current machine, mainly with not supporting DirectX and OpenGL properly in the same driver. I'm reluctant to use their Eyefinity alternative.

I have other machines, so my current workflow runs Blender and NifSkope on a machine where OpenGL works (but the CPU is slower and the video memory is insufficient for gaming) and play-testing under Directx on the faster one (where OpenGL fails). It will be nice to work on only one again.

[haute ecole rider]

My techies tell me they've seen very few, if any, issues with SSD's since the MBA first came out.

My only issue with them is the cost per GB - to get anything close to reasonable storage size is outrageous. But maybe this new laptop will be the beginning of a serious price drop on those things.

ghastley, you are absolutely right about SSD's in laptops - I actually recommend the MBA for families with small children because I have a mental picture of two little tykes yanking that laptop between them in a struggle for ownership. As I see it, the MBA can withstand that kind of trauma much better than the MBP, which still used the platter drive. The MBP's are better for college students in spite of its greater weight, and for serious professionals and hobby gamers (the Mac Pro's and high end iMacs are better for the serious stuff). One of my techies actually plays Call of Duty on a 17 inch MBP, but he did trick it out to the max.

I got my hands on a demo of the new laptop I'm looking at yesterday, and I have to say that I'm impressed by it. The decision has been made, I will be getting a new one soon!

I'm not horribly familiar with the multiple display options open to you, ghastley. I think it depends on the graphics cards you have. I know the Mac Pros (the professional level desktop that requires a separate monitor - like the one I currently have) have slots for two graphics cards, which theoretically can allow up to four monitors to be connected at one time (each card handles two). I have never tried connecting a second monitor to my Mac Pro to see how it handles it (NIVIDIA GeForce 8800GT w/512 MB) simply because I've never felt the need for one. I did have my old MBP connected to the HDTV via a DVI-HDMI adapter and it worked great. Speaking of which, the new laptop I'm looking at has an HDMI port!! Whoo hoo!

[King Coin]

Sounds great. It may have been an issue with a specific manufacturer then.

Now I want to start looking at new GPUs.

[King Coin]

I'm checking out a GeForce GTX 670 which calls for a PCIe 3.0 slot. My Motherboard only has 2.0 slots. Anybody know if the card will still work? Some quick googling suggests they will, but does anyone here know? I'd be disappointed to drop $400+ on a card only to have the damn thing not fit or work.

[liliandra nadiar]

If my own experiences with PCI2 cards in my PCI1 slots is anything to go by, it will work for a month or so before it fails.