[Rant] Tech Whine Like a baby thread

Interesting... I downloaded MemTest64 and ran it through a couple of loops - but before the first loop, I may have found the problem.

Because I'm a cheapskate, I only upgraded my memory to 14 GB - keeping a single 2 GB RAM chip in slot 2 while 0, 1, and 3 all got 4 GB chips.

I wonder if WinTen gets confuzzled by this set up?
 
I don't know which board you have, but boards can get upset if both modules in a channel are of different sizes/speeds/manufacturers.

--Patrick
 
Speccy says it's a Gateway DX4870 Intel Sandy Bridge P75/B75 04.
So far all I’ve been able to tell is that your motherboard is made by Acer, model# IPIMB-AR, and appears to be the same motherboard used in Acer computers models M1935 and M3985. I can find pictures galore online, but nobody seems to have a service guide (publicly) accessible.

Absent any official docs, to test it I would take two of whatever sticks you have that are identical and mount them in the two blue slots, then run memtest. If that passes, move them over to the two black slots and test again. If that passes, then you know those two sticks and your board are working correctly.

When you are using an odd number of ram sticks OR when they are not all identical, there IS a specific arrangement you need to use, but without some kind of docs/diagram there’s no way to know for sure whether your board follows the usual order or whether Acer decided to go off-book for some reason.

Moral of the story, always try to use identical speed/mfr/size RAM modules across all populated slots.

—Patrick
 
Ok, here is the best I can tell, Assuming Acer DOES follow the same slot layout as everyone else (I checked against other Gigabyte and ASRock B75-based boards), you should install memory modules in the following order, based on distance from the CPU:

[CPU]——[4th]-[2nd]-[3rd]-[1st]

Additionally, the largest modules should be installed first, so in your case it would end up as CPU—2444, assuming it’s gonna work at all. If it does NOT work (and your computer DID pass the earlier set of memtest testing) then I would actually recommend putting the 2 identical modules like CPU—o4o4 (o=open) and running with just 8GB until you can find a place that can sell you a pair of (used?) modules exactly the same model/mfr/spd as the two you already have installed for a full 16.

—Patrick
 
Yeah, thankfully I didn't have to worry about it, and probably won't ever have to worry about it, but if I want 32GB of RAM in this thing, it's not as simple as installing four 8G sticks of RAM. I can only use all four slots if the RAM speed is significantly slower than the 2667 that I bought, so if I want RAM at a decent frequency I'm limited to one or two sticks.
 
Yeah, thankfully I didn't have to worry about it, and probably won't ever have to worry about it, but if I want 32GB of RAM in this thing, it's not as simple as installing four 8G sticks of RAM. I can only use all four slots if the RAM speed is significantly slower than the 2667 that I bought, so if I want RAM at a decent frequency I'm limited to one or two sticks.
It's actually pretty common that you can get higher RAM speeds if you have less modules installed (something about reducing the load on the memory controller), which is why it's best to check your motherboard manual ahead of time to know the maximum memory it can support. It's better to buy 2x8GB right away (even at a slightly higher cost) and wait and leave the two other slots open than it is to buy 4x4GB "for now" and then have to basically throw it away later when you want to upgrade past 16GB.

Fortunately, RAM speed has very little impact on actual gameplay and/or most things, so the only real reason to get specialized hi-speed memory is if you know ahead of time that upping your RAM speed will make an actual, measurable difference. Otherwise, you're better off saving money and getting something slower (and larger!) with your cash.

--Patrick
 
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In addition to the RAM issue, I'm now experiencing (again) the igdkmd64.sys "system thread exception not handled" issue. Which points to my graphics card.

Yeeeah.
 
Did you actually rule out the RAM yet? Would be good to know if it’s a conglomeration of separate issues, and memtest is text-mode, so it shouldn’t stress your GPU while it’s running.

—Patrick
 
I think the igdkmd64.sys issue is the same one I had last summer... Oy vey, I just moved to freakin' ARIZONA...
 
Good job Comcast, just broadcast all those passwords and SSIDs for the whole world to see, why don't ya? I don't exactly feel a lot better about being on Spectrum, since I have no guarantee that their wifi routers aren't just as poorly provisioned as Comcast's. If only that new Linksys router I picked up a couple years back didn't require my old iPhone to sign in and didn't have that "smart" technology as a requirement.
Seems like this only affects people that rent their router from Comcast, so I should be unaffected. Own the modem and router, since they paid for themselves in under a year. They charge for paper bills (or rather, give a paperless discount), and none of their e-mails to me have included the full subscriber # (last 4 digits at most), so you'd need to compromise my Comcast account (in which case you can do far worse than get my subscriber #).
 
This is one of the reasons why I don't use the wifi of the provider - the primary reason is that I would change providers, I'd have to re-set everything with the new WiFi info - with owning my own wifi router, I just have to plop everything in place. I'd own my own modem, but right now I'm leasing it for free from Spectrum, so it doesn't cost me anything to use theirs.
 
My Chromecast bit the dust this week sometime. I've been running it pretty much nonstop for two years straight, so I'm not really upset that it died, but the replacement process is turning out to be a bit... interesting. Go on Google store to buy a new Chromecast, choose standard (free) shipping because the date they gave for that is June 1 - 2, or I could pay $12 to get it here May 31 - June 1, or I could pay $15 to get it here May 29 - May 31. I'm not going to pay 1/3 the price of the device in shipping just to get it maybe three days earlier, so screw it. Then I finish checkout and it tells me that my device won't likely arrive until the middle of June. Oh, and it's being mailed to me from a location almost eight whole hours away, by bus.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Who would have thought that it was Empyrion that got me more viewers on twitch than any previous game? I've had two streams now that had 10 viewers for measurable amounts of time, and average viewership of 3 across the board! Aaaand that's how I discovered that the requirement for becoming an affiliate of "3 average viewers" is not just a bar to be met in one video, but an average you must maintain for an entire month. Doh. You gotta stream at least 7 days out of 30, totalling more than 8 hours, and have over 50 followers... I got all that. But 3 average viewers on every single stream is gonna be tough. I'm not exactly SovietWomble here :p
 
SovietWomble puts much more effort into his videos than you do. Also, he has a cast of regular characters. He’s like a video game version of a morning radio talk show host & crew.

—Patrick
 

GasBandit

Staff member
SovietWomble puts much more effort into his videos than you do. Also, he has a cast of regular characters. He’s like a video game version of a morning radio talk show host & crew.

—Patrick
Well, yes, I was using him as an example of that exactly. For example, if I'd said regards to a radio show, "I'm not exactly Rush Limbaugh here," it'd have meant the same thing.

That aside, I may not put as much effort into all my youtube videos, but I certainly put as much, or even more, effort into my twitch streams :p He wouldn't even PLAY Vermintide because he saw "UGH IT USES LOOTBOXES" and gave it a hard pass without actually looking at how they work, just wrote it off as co-op overwatch with swords.
 
Keep Dave around for the comedy that the two of you fire off of each other non-stop and Aislynn and I around for the shot-to-the-back-of-the-head hijinks and you should have a good start.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Keep Dave around for the comedy that the two of you fire off of each other non-stop and Aislynn and I around for the shot-to-the-back-of-the-head hijinks and you should have a good start.
Maybe I need to get a Commissar hat.
 
Well, my mouse problem continues. And my keyboard problem only seems to act up while the mouse is acting up, so I did a little more digging through device manager and it looks like Windows is puking on everything that's connected to USB 3.0, and just keeps reinstalling HID compatible controllers over and over again trying to fix it. Anyone know how to troubleshoot a USB 3.0 compatibility issue in 1803?
After noticing that my keyboard has also decided to start rebooting itself more or less exactly every 15min, I found this article, and am trying what it says:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2900614/some-usb-devices-do-not-recharge-in-windows-8-1

--Patrick
 
After noticing that my keyboard has also decided to start rebooting itself more or less exactly every 15min, I found this article, and am trying what it says:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2900614/some-usb-devices-do-not-recharge-in-windows-8-1

--Patrick
Well, crap. Now I don't know whether my issue was solved by switching to the USB 2.0 ports from 3.0 or by disabling all of the power savings crap that Microsoft wanted to put on this computer that it thinks is a really, really big handheld device.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
AGH, I just checked on colocation service through a guy I know... they charge $50/mo per U, and my server is 2U... Spending $100/mo kind of would defeat the purpose of having bought my own server in the first place! Guess it's going in the closet after all.
 
AGH, I just checked on colocation service through a guy I know... they charge $50/mo per U, and my server is 2U... Spending $100/mo kind of would defeat the purpose of having bought my own server in the first place! Guess it's going in the closet after all.
I want a server "out there" for various reasons, too...but every time I check pricing (to buy, to colo, to share, whatever), my wallet just says, "Nope!" and does that cartoon wounded dog yipe-ing thing while it runs away.

--Patrick
 
I want a server "out there" for various reasons, too...but every time I check pricing (to buy, to colo, to share, whatever), my wallet just says, "Nope!" and does that cartoon wounded dog yipe-ing thing while it runs away.

--Patrick
How much space/power/bandwidth do you need? It can be pretty affordable nowadays. My Scaleway VC1S does what I need for my hobby stuff, and costs me slightly less than $5/mo:
1527708323420.png
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Figures. My new router is supposed to get here today, so like magic, my old router suddenly starts functioning normally again. Mindful of all the "all your routers are now russian spambots" pieces in the news over the last few weeks, I gave it a thorough going-over, and it seems perfectly fine. Ah well, now I have a spare.

I'm wondering if I was getting DDOS'd.
 
I'm wondering if I was getting DDOS'd.
Wasn’t me!
...though if I haven’t already said, I’m speccing out a (hideously overbuilt) pfsense box to mitigate that sort of thing (and the Russian thing) at least until the final death of IPV4.

—Patrick
 
The wifi in my half of the building peaks at ~20Mbps down/12 up. That's another issue which is being addressed above my level. In my room, the speed drops to ~10Mbps down at the desktop PC no matter which USB port I plug the wifi stick into. I picked up some 6ft USB extension cables, and strung three of them together to have the stick closer to the door. I'm able to get close to the full bandwidth that way... for about half an hour. Then the stick disconnects and cannot find an access point until I physically disconnect and then reconnect it. At the desktop ports, the connection is more or less stable for as long as I'm using it.

I haven't yet tried removing any of the cables in the chain to see if one has gotten flakey. I'm thinking the setup just isn't viable and I should seek other options until the new access points arrive.
 
The wifi in my half of the building peaks at ~20Mbps down/12 up. That's another issue which is being addressed above my level. In my room, the speed drops to ~10Mbps down at the desktop PC no matter which USB port I plug the wifi stick into. I picked up some 6ft USB extension cables, and strung three of them together to have the stick closer to the door. I'm able to get close to the full bandwidth that way... for about half an hour. Then the stick disconnects and cannot find an access point until I physically disconnect and then reconnect it. At the desktop ports, the connection is more or less stable for as long as I'm using it.

I haven't yet tried removing any of the cables in the chain to see if one has gotten flakey. I'm thinking the setup just isn't viable and I should seek other options until the new access points arrive.
I've only tried this once, and it didn't work for me, but that was because none of the people at the hotel could give me any of the connection's data - but have you considered plugging in a wi-fi router near the door and using it as a wifi bridge and connect your computer via ethernet cables?
 
I've only tried this once, and it didn't work for me, but that was because none of the people at the hotel could give me any of the connection's data - but have you considered plugging in a wi-fi router near the door and using it as a wifi bridge and connect your computer via ethernet cables?
I'm not sure if that would work, because I need a web browser to complete the connection. PCs, tablets, and phones can handle that. I had to have the GM call in to the service provider to get my blu ray player connected because it couldn't connect the regular way.
 
As for a whine of my own - my cable internet was suspended this morning due to an overdue balance. Easy enough to fix, just log in to the provider's site (since that's the only place they'll let you connect) and pay the... what do you mean security certificate error?! OK, i'll use my cell phone. Security certificate error. Aislynn's phone - security certificate error. OK, I'll call the number on the router that says "For help, call Spectrum at 1-888-438-2427." Call them, get the "Thank you for calling Spectrum, this call will be monitored for quality assurance purposes," and then instead of anything about Spectrum it immediately went to an ad for Senior Assisted Living, then an ad for AT&T/DirectTV, then an ad for addiction counseling, then an ad for meeting sexy singles in my area, and then I hung up. Then I went and got the bill and was finally able to find an actual Spectrum phone number that would work without an internet connection.
 
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