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Desk top problems

Seek assistance with all types of tech. - computer, phone, TV, heating controls etc.
monabri
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Re: Desk top problems

#447709

Postby monabri » October 4th, 2021, 12:41 pm

BTW

Our 2 Dell laptops are 15 years old ( i5 first generation) and were originally W7. Both are upgraded to W10 and both have 500GB SSDs which made a massive difference. One laptop has 4GB RAM and the other 8GB. The SSD made a much bigger difference than the extra memory.

Both laptops boot quickly and are more than powerful enough to do what I want to do. Both machines operate smoothly and there is no waiting. Webpages load quickly ( not quite instantly but within a second or two).

So, it might be that there is hope for the old desktop....

Dod101
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Re: Desk top problems

#447710

Postby Dod101 » October 4th, 2021, 12:42 pm

monabri wrote:
Dod101 wrote:
I have checked the personal data on the desktop. Not much is the answer. Following Monabri's comments I think no more than 2.5GB, much of that photos.

Does any of that help?

Dod


You may find that it is cheaper to buy a 64Gb USB stick than one with lower storage ...I did. I was looking for an 8Gb stick and I found that the 64Gb was actually cheaper ( same make of USB memory stick and supplier). With 2.5GB of personal data, I'd copy it to a new stick and then copy onto your laptop. Thus your info is stored in 3 locations.

I like these USB drives, they sit almost unobtrusively in a USB port. The link is to a 128GB USB thumb drive but the 32GB drive is £7.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1


Out of curiosity, on your old desktop, if you go into task manager ( cntl-alt-del ) , is the disc running at 100% ?


It tells me that the CPU is running at 17/20% and the physical memory 72%. Does that answer your question?

Dod

Dod101
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Re: Desk top problems

#447711

Postby Dod101 » October 4th, 2021, 12:44 pm

monabri wrote:BTW

Our 2 Dell laptops are 15 years old ( i5 first generation) and were originally W7. Both are upgraded to W10 and both have 500GB SSDs which made a massive difference. One laptop has 4GB RAM and the other 8GB. The SSD made a much bigger difference than the extra memory.

Both laptops boot quickly and are more than powerful enough to do what I want to do. Both machines operate smoothly and there is no waiting. Webpages load quickly ( not quite instantly but within a second or two).

So, it might be that there is hope for the old desktop....


I always got the impression that the desktop has sufficient capacity but what bothers me is the unreliability as I have outlined in this thread and I really do not know how to address that despite many suggestions form all you patient people.

Dod

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Re: Desk top problems

#447713

Postby Infrasonic » October 4th, 2021, 12:48 pm

servodude wrote:
monabri wrote:I like these USB drives, they sit almost unobtrusively in a USB port. The link is to a 128GB USB thumb drive but the 32GB drive is £7.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1


I lost one of those exact ones a couple of weeks back
- just too small for carrying about

I'd had it on a keyring but I had to remove that because the port on my oscilloscope was recessed and the drive was so short I couldn't insert it
- otherwise excellent and quick drive (I expect to find it in the washing machine eventually)

-sd


Without going too off topic (although it could be relevant to the OP) there are ways and means of using your smart phone storage to save smaller amounts of data as an offsite backup (encrypted if needs be). As long as you don't lose your phone of course... :twisted:

monabri
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Re: Desk top problems

#447715

Postby monabri » October 4th, 2021, 12:49 pm

Dod101 wrote:
It tells me that the CPU is running at 17/20% and the physical memory 72%. Does that answer your question?

Dod


Actually, it is the disc utilisation that I referred to. It might not be an issue but I was just asking because I've seen disks running at 100% -ish and the net result is a very very slow computer.

Howard
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Re: Desk top problems

#447716

Postby Howard » October 4th, 2021, 12:51 pm

Dod101 wrote:
monabri wrote:BTW

Our 2 Dell laptops are 15 years old ( i5 first generation) and were originally W7. Both are upgraded to W10 and both have 500GB SSDs which made a massive difference. One laptop has 4GB RAM and the other 8GB. The SSD made a much bigger difference than the extra memory.

Both laptops boot quickly and are more than powerful enough to do what I want to do. Both machines operate smoothly and there is no waiting. Webpages load quickly ( not quite instantly but within a second or two).

So, it might be that there is hope for the old desktop....


I always got the impression that the desktop has sufficient capacity but what bothers me is the unreliability as I have outlined in this thread and I really do not know how to address that despite many suggestions form all you patient people.

Dod


Isn't it time to invest a small amount of money on an expert to sort out your problem? See my earlier post.

I find it useful to value my time. Say £50 an hour. Haven't you spent enough of your time on this? Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result? :)

regards

Howard

monabri
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Re: Desk top problems

#447717

Postby monabri » October 4th, 2021, 12:51 pm

Infrasonic wrote:
servodude wrote:
monabri wrote:I like these USB drives, they sit almost unobtrusively in a USB port. The link is to a 128GB USB thumb drive but the 32GB drive is £7.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1


I lost one of those exact ones a couple of weeks back
- just too small for carrying about

I'd had it on a keyring but I had to remove that because the port on my oscilloscope was recessed and the drive was so short I couldn't insert it
- otherwise excellent and quick drive (I expect to find it in the washing machine eventually)

-sd


Without going too off topic (although it could be relevant to the OP) there are ways and means of using your smart phone storage to save smaller amounts of data as an offsite backup (encrypted if needs be). As long as you don't lose your phone of course... :twisted:



Or a free 15Gb Google cloud space.... but I don't like having personal files on the cloud. The data can then be accessed by laptop, desktop, phone, tablet from anywhere.

monabri
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Re: Desk top problems

#447718

Postby monabri » October 4th, 2021, 12:54 pm

The desktop might be unreliable as a result of an incomplete W10 upgrade....

If you can get your desktop to fully upgrade then you might find the unreliability issues disappear.
Last edited by monabri on October 4th, 2021, 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Infrasonic
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Re: Desk top problems

#447719

Postby Infrasonic » October 4th, 2021, 12:55 pm

Dod101 wrote:I always got the impression that the desktop has sufficient capacity but what bothers me is the unreliability as I have outlined in this thread and I really do not know how to address that despite many suggestions form all you patient people.

Dod


It sounds like a hardware or corruption issue to me.
As Howard suggested it may be time to bite the bullet and see if a service engineer could diagnose the fault and advise on the economic viability of a repair. If they gave you a basic fault report you could still enjoy fixing/upgrading it yourself if possible... :D

I'd persist but that's because I enjoy fixing these kind of problems - if it just winds you up pay someone else to have a look!

Infrasonic
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Re: Desk top problems

#447722

Postby Infrasonic » October 4th, 2021, 1:03 pm

Cloud storage.

There are free end to end encrypted zero knowledge services out there like Sync.com which will cover you for basic needs up to 5GB.
https://www.sync.com/

Google Drive and OneDrive have encrypted 'vaults' with the free tier but they have file limits on them (unless you zip a load together) and aren't zero knowledge - so could be decrypted and snooped on with a court order...

monabri
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Re: Desk top problems

#447723

Postby monabri » October 4th, 2021, 1:12 pm

Infrasonic wrote:Cloud storage.

There are free end to end encrypted zero knowledge services out there like Sync.com which will cover you for basic needs up to 5GB.
https://www.sync.com/

Google Drive and OneDrive have encrypted 'vaults' with the free tier but they have file limits on them (unless you zip a load together) and aren't zero knowledge - so could be decrypted and snooped on with a court order...



Is Dod is an international crime master on the QT .... ? ( from his lair in Scotland).

;)

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Re: Desk top problems

#447724

Postby mc2fool » October 4th, 2021, 1:14 pm

Dod101 wrote:
mc2fool wrote:
Dod101 wrote:I do wonder about the hard dirc because I have had instability problems for a long while including occasional BSODs. Some say that the BSOD can be caused by a faulty driver but I have no idea nor do I know how to fix that.

Ugh, that does sound like your hard drive could be on its way out.

Open My Computer (or whatever it's called on your desktop) and right-click on the C drive and select Properties. Then choose the Tools tab and check for errors. Do it now! ;)

Done that but it will not do a back up and asks me to schedule it for the next time my PC reboots.Then the whole thing disappears. It was at about this level of frustration that I gave up last time.

Dod

I think you mean a full disk scan for errors, rather than a backup, as that's what gets scheduled under those options.

It's not clear what you mean by "Then the whole thing disappears". What "whole thing"? It'd be helpful if you were more explicit about the issues you get.

All that aside, look, I don't want to sound overdramatic, but if it is indeed your hard drive that's the problem then you are on a countdown to losing everything on that system.

Stop posting, stop reading, ignore all other suggestions for the moment, and DO A FULL SYSTEM MACRIUM IMAGE BACKUP to your Seagate drive NOW, and before doing anything else!

You can investigate further for disk errors, and run the full CHKDSK on reboot, afterwards, and if the disk is not the problem then there's no harm done and you've got a backup anyway. but if the disk is the problem, you could lose everything at any moment, so get that backup done immediately!

Urbandreamer
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Re: Desk top problems

#447728

Postby Urbandreamer » October 4th, 2021, 1:30 pm

Sorry to be late back to the party.

My work PC (Win 10) was unresponsive because it was running a visus scan while updating Micrsoft Edge, Chrome and Ms Office.

I think from Dod's answers we can hazard a guess that the desktop should perform a lot better than it does on the given hardware. My suggestion of linux was based upon getting something to run on poor hardware.

I would agree with those who are suspecting the hard disk and recommending a swap to a SSD. Dod, you could pay someone to do this, or given your rural location do it yourself.

To do this unplug the computer and open the case. This is to identify the physical dimensions of the hard drive and if there is a location to mount a 2.5 hard disk. You can then put the covers back on and use it until bits arrive.

If you can mount a 2.5 disk then that is the way to go.
If you can't mount a 2.5 hard disk then you need an 2.5 mounting kit (or use gaffer tape), here is an Amazon link.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=2.5+inch+t ... doa-p_2_10

Buy a 2.5 SSD and a USB caddy or addaptor.
Here is some Amazon links for addaptors, I'm not picking a SSD capacity for you.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=usb+hard+d ... doa-p_10_7
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=2.5+inch+h ... doa-p_2_13
Personally I'd go for something like this as it's cheap.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Multibao-Exter ... OR_STORAGE
You can then use macrium to clone your hard drive to the SSD.
Then you simply unplug the old hard drive, plug in the new one and mount it (attach it with gaffer tape if needed).

Job mostly done.

Now you just need to figure out a better backup method.

Dod101
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Re: Desk top problems

#447730

Postby Dod101 » October 4th, 2021, 1:37 pm

monabri wrote:
Dod101 wrote:
It tells me that the CPU is running at 17/20% and the physical memory 72%. Does that answer your question?

Dod


Actually, it is the disc utilisation that I referred to. It might not be an issue but I was just asking because I've seen disks running at 100% -ish and the net result is a very very slow computer.


I see. No there is loads. There is about 370 GB free out of 455 GB

Dod

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Re: Desk top problems

#447731

Postby BobbyD » October 4th, 2021, 1:38 pm

Howard wrote:
Dod101 wrote:
monabri wrote:BTW

Our 2 Dell laptops are 15 years old ( i5 first generation) and were originally W7. Both are upgraded to W10 and both have 500GB SSDs which made a massive difference. One laptop has 4GB RAM and the other 8GB. The SSD made a much bigger difference than the extra memory.

Both laptops boot quickly and are more than powerful enough to do what I want to do. Both machines operate smoothly and there is no waiting. Webpages load quickly ( not quite instantly but within a second or two).

So, it might be that there is hope for the old desktop....


I always got the impression that the desktop has sufficient capacity but what bothers me is the unreliability as I have outlined in this thread and I really do not know how to address that despite many suggestions form all you patient people.

Dod


Isn't it time to invest a small amount of money on an expert to sort out your problem? See my earlier post.

I find it useful to value my time. Say £50 an hour. Haven't you spent enough of your time on this? Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result? :)

regards

Howard


Given the relatively meagre computing needs indicated by the existing hardware, Dod's lack of proficiency, and the amount of time this is/will take up it might be more efficient to just buy a new box, and pass the hardware on to a person or organisation with more computing knowledge and less money.

Dod101
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Re: Desk top problems

#447733

Postby Dod101 » October 4th, 2021, 1:42 pm

Howard wrote:Dod

You are a wealthy man. You've written about your investing success and recent purchase of a fancy Audi. I'm guessing you are a millionaire!

You are realistic in suggesting that you know little about computers. This is borne out by your not upgrading to Windows 10 years ago!

In this situation, surely it's worth investing a few pounds in calling in a local IT expert who specialises in helping people like you. Make sure you check his/her credentials by looking at customer reviews or talking to local customers.

Recently I had an SSD hard disk failure in my desktop. (No problem with lost files as I regularly back up). Here in the expensive South, I called Gerry our local expert, who fixed my ethernet card back in 2007 after it had been knocked out by a lightning strike. He replace the SSD disk and recovere the files in a couple of days and charged me just under £90. The desktop is now back to lightning speed (faster than the modern Apple and W10 laptops that I use as a volunteer in a couple of local organisations).

There is a time to admit that one is never going to be an IT expert and waffle on about Linux ;) .

Spend a few pounds on an expert, he/she will advise you if your machine is suitable for an upgrade or, if not what to buy.

Good luck!

Howard


Thank you very much. I missed this at first but have picked it up from your later post. I think you are right. I do not know about £50 an hour but I always reach the same stage when I decide to do something about this problem and I am not far from that now.. I do appreciate all the helpful people here but i never seem to get past the stage that I am currently at.

Dod

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Re: Desk top problems

#447734

Postby ReformedCharacter » October 4th, 2021, 1:43 pm

Good advice from mc2fool if I may say. However, I'd suggest running chkdsk before using Macrium as it's likely that a successful image will be made without any chkdsk errors. If Dod is finding it difficult to get chkdsk to run on reboot then I'd suggest starting in Safe mode with Command Prompt:

https://www.alphr.com/operating-systems/1000145/how-to-boot-to-command-prompt-in-windows-xp-7-and-8/#:~:text=Booting%20to%20Command%20Prompt%20in,%2C%20you've%20missed%20it.

Then when at the command prompt typing 'chkdsk /f' (mind the space) and Enter. Then Macrium.

Hopefully this isn't a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth :)

RC

Dod101
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Re: Desk top problems

#447739

Postby Dod101 » October 4th, 2021, 2:03 pm

Have tried CHKDSK but it stops at about 8% telling me 'errors found cannot continue in read only mode' . To my simple mind that means that there are at the very least errors on the C disk. I have of course had this before with the BSOD where it asks me to run the disk check. It usually finds errors and corrects them accompanying the message with a long code. I give up, and will either buy a new PC or as Howard has suggested find a local computer man who can help me.

Dod

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Re: Desk top problems

#447741

Postby Midsmartin » October 4th, 2021, 2:07 pm

Bsod errors are nearly always caused by drivers. In most cases it's the graphics driver.

Easiest is to open device manager in Windows, right click the display adapter and click "update driver".
If that finds nothing, then:
If it is a Dell ,bthe dell support webpage maybe well have updated drivers for you if you tap in your service tag to identify your pc.
If that is no good, then try to find the latest drivers from the display adapter manufacturer: intel, Nvidia, AMD.

monabri
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Re: Desk top problems

#447746

Postby monabri » October 4th, 2021, 2:25 pm

Making a clone of a possibly corrupted windows installation with a view to closing to a SSD is not wise.

I'd suggest backing up the valuable ~3 GB of personal data should be done first.


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