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ProfessorTomoe

Computer General Discussion and Tech Help

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Let's get this thread started again, as it's an important thing to have in any forum. I'll toss out the first question.

Have any of you ever had a system that has problems restarting? My laptop, without fail, will present me with a dark screen on a restart from an active session. However, if I give it enough time to get set up and then just touch the power button (don't hold it for 5 seconds), it will restart normally. WTF would cause this? I have the latest drivers for everything.

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No sleep, no hibernation. I'll be using the system and have a need to reboot, like a software installation  or something similar. Or, I'll just feel that the system's been up too long and want to reboot it. Cue problem on reboot.

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On 11/7/2017 at 8:25 PM, ProfessorTomoe said:

Let's get this thread started again, as it's an important thing to have in any forum. I'll toss out the first question.

Have any of you ever had a system that has problems restarting? My laptop, without fail, will present me with a dark screen on a restart from an active session. However, if I give it enough time to get set up and then just touch the power button (don't hold it for 5 seconds), it will restart normally. WTF would cause this? I have the latest drivers for everything.

Sounds like it's trying to clean up the scratch file while it's creating a scratch file.  I could be wrong however.    It's also possible that it's running chkdsk or system version of same.

If it's windows, try setting up you own virtual memory files, instead of letting Windows deal with it.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

Sounds like it's trying to clean up the scratch file while it's creating a scratch file.  I could be wrong however.    It's also possible that it's running chkdsk or system version of same.

If it's windows, try setting up you own virtual memory files, instead of letting Windows deal with it.

If Windows, I was trying to confirm or eliminate TDR as a possibility...

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I've tried another couple of things. I've set the Win10 swap file to a fixed amount (3072 MB, more than it was ever using). I've also disabled indexing for each file and set the index service to manual (didn't take too long—my only data drive in the system is an NVMe PCI-E 4x, not counting my DVD-RW). Rebooted after the changes—blank screen. Powered down & powered back up at the black screen—system came back up. Tried the reboot again after the system came up and "settled in"—blank screen. Power down, power up—system up.

It's as predictable as a clock. What am I missing?

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I should probably recap my machine for reference's sake:

System: Gigabyte P55wv5 Laptop - i7-6700HQ CPU - 16 GB DDR4 RAM - 512GB NVM.e PCI-E 4x SSD drive
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M with integrated Intel 530 Graphics, both running the latest drivers.

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17 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I've tried another couple of things. I've set the Win10 swap file to a fixed amount (3072 MB, more than it was ever using).

I can't remember, is it still a thing to need a swap file that's 1.5x larger than the amount of RAM you have?

 

Though I do remember when I had Windows 7, there was a time when it would hang for a moment while loading the desktop. Reinstalling Windows worked for a little while, but then it started bluescreening. I forget the error code it threw at me but the gist of it was that the hard drive was failing, it was an old drive though so it was probably expected. I dunno if that would be the case here though.

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So, anyone know what to do when your flash drive refuses to accept power? Because from what the Geek Squad experts can tell, mine isn't getting power when I plug it into a computer, and thus the computer doesn't recognize that I've plugged anything in at all. Is this gonna be a cheap fix, a pricey fix, or am I gonna have to give up on it?

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Have you tried plugging that flash drive into a different USB port?

Plugging a different device into that USB port?

In other words, verify that the problem is with the flash drive rather than the port.

A common problem with USB is that contact is maintained by a pair of springs that are really just bent aluminum - they tend to get bent back, so they don't do their job. Unfortunately, the standard USB A connection puts these springs *inside* the *socket* (not the plug) so they are a bit of a pain to fix (the mini and micro plugs put them on the outside of the plug - much easier). And make sure the computer is turned off while you do it. Here's a video on the procedure.

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Yes and yes. That flash drive doesn't exist as far as entire other computers are concerned, and other flash drives work fine. Still nothing.

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2 hours ago, Zorua said:

Yes and yes. That flash drive doesn't exist as far as entire other computers are concerned, and other flash drives work fine. Still nothing.

It's possible that the USB stem for the flash drive has been damaged in some way. It's probably not possible to repair it yourself as it would involve trying to resolder pins which would likely cause further damage if you're not absolutely careful. I don't know how much it would cost to repair the drive or recover the data for a new drive though, but if you must have that data, it's probably best to get someone who works with this kind of thing on a regular basis.

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And then, don't keep anything important in only one place.

My important stuff is file-synced between my computer, my phone, and my tablet - three places.

And then it's backed up from the computer to an external hard drive. With good backup software that keeps multiple versions. (I use BackInTime on Linux; Time Machine on OSX is pretty much the same, and Genie Timeline on Windows is similar. Among others.)

If I had reliable high-speed non-metered internet access I'd consider syncing (not backing up) to a cloud drive as well.

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This could go either here or into the "Things that make you sad" thread, but since it's about software I'm posting it here. I've just learned, about a week belatedly, that the software I use to create music (Cakewalk Sonar Platinum) has gone out of production. I've been using this software since Cakewalk for Windows version 2.0, back in 1994. I've gone through a ton of updates and have grown to love Cakewalk, to the point of writing menus for them.

Now it seems it's about to go away.

I'm going to have to find a crossgrade so I can continue to write. Problem #1: Mrs. Prof. She used the forbidden phrase that I'm "not really a professional musician." I had to bring that conversation to a screeching halt before I did something I'd regret. I'll admit that I'm not a professional writer, sure. Professional Musician? No one calls me that, not even my wife.

More to follow.

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1 hour ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

More to follow.

Prof, I played the CRAP out of Shadow Warrior in my day, together with one of my best friends. The one who passed away last year.

We both loved the game and the soundtrack. It was awesome. You helped give us some of the best laughs we ever had playing computer games together. As far as I am concerned, you are damned well a musician and a bloody good one. Composing in electronic media is just as valid as any other. And if the involved music gives good memories, it is art at its finest.

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With most software, you can continue using it at least as long as there's an OS that supports it. Perhaps longer, if there's enough demand that emulators get written.

Security-related software needs regular updates, because the thugs keep developing new techniques, but authoring software doesn't become outdated in the same way. (It can become outdated, but more slowly, and differently.)

The one thing I'd strongly recommend is to find, or help establish, a community-support forum that is NOT hosted by the publisher. Make sure that said forum has at least two full-authority administrators and at least two people (who may or may not be administrators) keeping local archive copies.

 

Edit: it would be nice if the community-support forum also supports attachments. The archivists need to copy the attachments too.

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4 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Prof, I played the CRAP out of Shadow Warrior in my day, together with one of my best friends. The one who passed away last year.

We both loved the game and the soundtrack. It was awesome. You helped give us some of the best laughs we ever had playing computer games together. As far as I am concerned, you are damned well a musician and a bloody good one. Composing in electronic media is just as valid as any other. And if the involved music gives good memories, it is art at its finest.

@The Old Hack, you and your late friend have my eternal gratitude. That was my first attempt at doing an ethereal soundtrack. Now that I think about it, pretty much every game I worked on was my first attempt at doing a certain genre. :D

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3 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

@The Old Hack, you and your late friend have my eternal gratitude. That was my first attempt at doing an ethereal soundtrack. Now that I think about it, pretty much every game I worked on was my first attempt at doing a certain genre. :D

You know, I can best illustrate how effective the soundtrack was with a particular anecdote from the game.

From time to time we decided to switch from co-op to deathmatch for variety's sake. During one of these matches we for some reason started to use proximity bombs a lot. Very soon it turned into a sheer proximity bomb grudge match. The consarned things got placed everywhere we felt the other would be likely to run past and soon the entire map had turned into a minefield. We didn't even really know where the other was anymore, the only hints we got was periodic distant explosions from the other setting the bombs off. And of course the beeps and BOOMs from the bombs we ourselves ran into.

Above all, there was the soundtrack. Usually it would be frequently drowned out by weapons discharges and the screams and howls of various monsters. Not this time. It played on uninterruptedly, punctuated only by the occasional BOOM of one of us stepping too close to a proximity bomb. It was utterly hilarious. Kind of like the 1812 Ouverture only with game music and proximity bombs instead of cannon discharges. :)

Jens and I laughed so hard. Funniest thing of it all was the score at the end of the match. When we ended it, it stood at 20-20. :)

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Thanks again for the kind words. I'm glad to hear about the fun experience.

I had to shut down the previous thread thanks to our friend Dilaudid and his blurry vision. Anyway, I'm now looking for a suitable replacement. It needs to have these attributes:

  • MIDI equivalency with SONAR Platinum.
  • VST2 and VST3 compatibility, both 32 and 64 bit.
  • Compatibility with iLOK keys and WAVES plugins.
  • Can handle 32GB RAM and booting from SDRAM cards.
  • Compatible with Windows 10 64-bit.
  • Unlimited audio track handling.
  • Multi-threaded processing.
  • NO SUBSCRIPTION PLAN.

Basically, it needs to be as much like SONAR as possible, but with no subscription plan (or with a lifetime one-time purchase plan). Can any of you help me do the footwork on finding a compatible program?

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There doesn't seem to be much hope for Cakewalk SONAR Platinum. I'm still using it, though, until something breaks it, and I'm not the only person doing this. There are a lot of loyal SONAR users out there. I'm one of them, and I'm keeping it on my computer.

As of today, my computer will have a new sound interface. My generation-two Focusrite 2i2 USB audio interface arrived a day early—shipped from Walmart, no less! I'm going to try to slip it into the chain in all of it's 24-bit/192 kHz glory tonight. Should be a plug-and-play swap, since the outputs are identical and since the unit is sitting on top of my mixer box. I'm still going to wait until Mrs. Prof comes home before I get started, because the last pain medicine dose has me a bit cross-eyed.

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So much for the plug-and-play swap. I hooked up the new Focusrite 2i2 Gen.2 tonight. Reboot, voila! Sound. Play a random sound. Pristine. Try to load SONAR. Error - no driver that matches a sound device.

I had to download new drivers for the new sound interface, of course, which meant I had to uninstall the old ones. I got a BIG full-page error message when I tried to uninstall. However, the process completed, as did the install of the new drivers.

Reboot again. Try to load SONAR. No dice. Find and run the ASIO diagnostic - no device connected. [expletives deleted]

I'm going to have to get Mrs. Prof to help me put the USB terminal into a USB 3 slot, I think.

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Been having problems with FiOS again for the past week. We've been getting super-slow downloads at times (as slow as 20 KB/sec, sometimes less than 10 KB/sec) on a 50/50 plan. I reported it almost a week ago. They sent out a new router - no joy. Reported the problem again. Finally got someone to come out. He said that the router the sent me was obsolete and replaces it with the latest version. Still no joy. He then replaces the ONT (Optical Network Terminal). Same result, except my landline phone is dead. He finally gets that fixed and tries to get the speed fixed. Says it's fixed, using Ookla's speedtest to prove it. Unfortunately, a Frontier Rep earlier in this saga told me that ONLY Frontier's speedtest was valid for their purposes. Then I download Clonezilla from Sourceforge and showed him that I was still getting 40KB/sec. He finally escalates the trouble ticket to the next level and leaves.

FiOS, when it works, is wonderful. When it doesn't, it's a nightmare.

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