Random Technical Talk
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Go Giants
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From: PA
I'm on my way to buy another for my boss. If you guys seriously want one shoot me a pm and if you PayPal me the money plus shipping, I'll send it to you. No 
s allowed. They got 4 left...
here it is on amazon http://amzn.com/B0053HCR4W
s allowed. They got 4 left...here it is on amazon http://amzn.com/B0053HCR4W
Thread Starter
Moderator Alumnus
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SSD makes a laptop fly for sure, that's how I gave life to my current laptop.
Sanest Florida Man
Joined: Aug 2007
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From: Florida
FYI this thing completely shuts off the optical drive when on battery power, though hitting the eject button does power it back on. That's supposed to help battery because apparently optical drives still draw a few watts even when not in use.
It took me a while to figure it out, I thought shit was broken or something then I remembered reading a news article about it a couple years back.
It took me a while to figure it out, I thought shit was broken or something then I remembered reading a news article about it a couple years back.
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From: Not Las Vegas (SF Bay Area)
Contemplating just picking up a chromebook for surfing the net on the couch/bed and then getting a new PC for the grunt work (ie editing photos)
I don't see myself editing pics not at a desk
I don't see myself editing pics not at a desk
Go Giants
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From: PA
Sanest Florida Man
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 45,850
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From: Florida
I think MS is going to be opening a specialty store in April where that Sony Store closed just closed. It's very close to the Apple Store in International Plaza. I hope they sell laptops. It should be a good place to go and get a good laptop, I think MS hand picks which laptops will be in their stores and then uninstalls all the crapware and installs MSE, etc. They pick laptops that are well made and do a good job of showing off the OS, not bottom of the barrel cheap shit like the other stores sell.
Go into a place like CompUSA now Tiger Direct and you'll see why Apple and now MS opened their own stores, it's such a shitty experience going to these B&M retailers because their goals are not necessarily the same goals as Apple or MS. B&M's most important goal is to get you to buy worthless accessories like overpriced shit Anti-virus, cables, extended warranties, etc.
Go into a place like CompUSA now Tiger Direct and you'll see why Apple and now MS opened their own stores, it's such a shitty experience going to these B&M retailers because their goals are not necessarily the same goals as Apple or MS. B&M's most important goal is to get you to buy worthless accessories like overpriced shit Anti-virus, cables, extended warranties, etc.
Sanest Florida Man
Joined: Aug 2007
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From: Florida
Sanest Florida Man
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 45,850
Likes: 11,669
From: Florida
Here's a helpful tool that any IT guy should have. It's called Fixshell from Prevx. Basically it's a tool that fixes many causes of the dreaded KSOD aka black screen with cursor. If you've run into this problem you know it can be a bitch to deal with. I've been dealing with it today and think I've finally got it beat with some persistence and the help of this tool.
I had a client get the KSOD which is during bootup before the login screen or loading of the desktop you get a black screen and white cursor and nothing else. Depending on how bad it is, you may be able to ctrl+shift+esc to open task manager or hit the shift key 5 times to enable sticky keys and from there run explorer.exe. Other times you can't do that and you're stuck on that screen. There are a few guides on the internet but none of them were working for me.
Causes can vary though for me I think it's often caused by shit getting fucked up during a windows update which then messes up permissions/ACL in the registry, also I've heard viruses can cause it. The PC I worked on today I think both were an issue. The client had been using system restore to get out of the issue for a few days but then that stopped fixing it (probably caused by last patch tuesdays updates). I ran this fixshell.exe and got it working and I was about to leave when I decided to restart the PC one more time to make sure it didn't come back after fixing it the first time. It came back on restart. So I took it home, took out the drive and ran it in a Hyper-V VM, thereby eliminating most chances that it was caused by hardware or drivers (another possible cause I found online).
I ran a full disk virus scan using Microsofts Safety Scanner, it found a bunch of shit and removed it. I then rebooted and it worked again after malware removal. So I did some more scans and ran patch tuesdays updates and restarted. And yeah it came back after that. So I booted back into safe mode and ran fixshell.exe again and started working again. I've restarted multiple times afterwards and it's yet to come back so I think it's fixed, for now.
So yeah Fixshell.exe can be had here
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/S...reen-Fix.shtml
And the Microsoft Safety scanner which is basically manual AV scanner that uses MSE's definition database and works well can be had here
http://www.microsoft.com/security/sc...s/default.aspx
I had a client get the KSOD which is during bootup before the login screen or loading of the desktop you get a black screen and white cursor and nothing else. Depending on how bad it is, you may be able to ctrl+shift+esc to open task manager or hit the shift key 5 times to enable sticky keys and from there run explorer.exe. Other times you can't do that and you're stuck on that screen. There are a few guides on the internet but none of them were working for me.
Causes can vary though for me I think it's often caused by shit getting fucked up during a windows update which then messes up permissions/ACL in the registry, also I've heard viruses can cause it. The PC I worked on today I think both were an issue. The client had been using system restore to get out of the issue for a few days but then that stopped fixing it (probably caused by last patch tuesdays updates). I ran this fixshell.exe and got it working and I was about to leave when I decided to restart the PC one more time to make sure it didn't come back after fixing it the first time. It came back on restart. So I took it home, took out the drive and ran it in a Hyper-V VM, thereby eliminating most chances that it was caused by hardware or drivers (another possible cause I found online).
I ran a full disk virus scan using Microsofts Safety Scanner, it found a bunch of shit and removed it. I then rebooted and it worked again after malware removal. So I did some more scans and ran patch tuesdays updates and restarted. And yeah it came back after that. So I booted back into safe mode and ran fixshell.exe again and started working again. I've restarted multiple times afterwards and it's yet to come back so I think it's fixed, for now.
So yeah Fixshell.exe can be had here
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/S...reen-Fix.shtml
And the Microsoft Safety scanner which is basically manual AV scanner that uses MSE's definition database and works well can be had here
http://www.microsoft.com/security/sc...s/default.aspx
Last edited by #1 STUNNA; Apr 19, 2013 at 07:28 PM.
Sanest Florida Man
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 45,850
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From: Florida
No, Panda. I replaced it with MSE also.
Oh and I spoke too soon on that post. As soon as I put the drive back in the PC and booted it up I started having issues again and fixshell wasn't working anymore.
So I ran a combination of secedit full permission reset and fixshell and it seems to be working after all that.
I dropped it off to her today and ha no issues. Though I wouldn't be surprised if I got a phone after May's patch tuesday.
Oh and I spoke too soon on that post. As soon as I put the drive back in the PC and booted it up I started having issues again and fixshell wasn't working anymore.
So I ran a combination of secedit full permission reset and fixshell and it seems to be working after all that.
I dropped it off to her today and ha no issues. Though I wouldn't be surprised if I got a phone after May's patch tuesday.
Suzuka Master
Joined: Jan 2009
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From: SoCal
edit: i wanna figure something out first.
Whenever I wake up my macbook pro from sleep it usually takes 30 seconds to connect to my home internet. I have no clue why. Restarting it the computer and deleting the network (although I dont think i completely deleted it) from the computer hasn't changed it. All other devices, phones and ipad seems to work perfectly fine. This is something thats started over the last couple weeks randomly.
Whenever I wake up my macbook pro from sleep it usually takes 30 seconds to connect to my home internet. I have no clue why. Restarting it the computer and deleting the network (although I dont think i completely deleted it) from the computer hasn't changed it. All other devices, phones and ipad seems to work perfectly fine. This is something thats started over the last couple weeks randomly.
Last edited by speedemon90; Jun 11, 2013 at 12:35 AM.
Suzuka Master
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 9,012
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From: SoCal
Interesting today it seems fine.
And I think it was both plugged in or not plugged in whiskers. But I dunno what happened but its fine now... I dunno what it was, I'm guessing the router. I'll just restart it if it happens again.
And I think it was both plugged in or not plugged in whiskers. But I dunno what happened but its fine now... I dunno what it was, I'm guessing the router. I'll just restart it if it happens again.
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What browser are you guys using on your desktop?
Considering going back to Firefox. The add-ons were better last I remembered even years ago, and youtube is poo on chrome. Heard that optimization is better on FF
Considering going back to Firefox. The add-ons were better last I remembered even years ago, and youtube is poo on chrome. Heard that optimization is better on FF