PC Tech Thread

My C drive shows an empty partition, is there any good reason why I shouldn't expand the C:/ partition into this?

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Not if you know no reason.

But if you've dual booted, had a Linux partition for example... Then Windows may not recognise it, so it's not actually free

But if you've exclusively owned the machine and it's only ever being a Windows machine, go for it.

Cheers, that gives me a bit more space to play with.

I've also just moved 2x2TB drives from a External HDD to my PC in Raid1 configuration, so I've got a dedicated place for Archived projects and frame sequences and hopefully a little performance boost from the USB 3 drive, which seemed to be failing anyway.

Hmm, one of the disks seems kinda noisy, like a slight clunking when writing, probably not helped by the cheap case. Is this a sign of imminent failure? Windows error checking doesn't throw anything up.

Can I buy a complete (but unbuilt) PC for delivery? Was thinking my teenage sons could build up as a project during lockdown.

I've never heard of an unbuilt complete but you could look at the parts list of a custom complete one and just add everything to the basket individually, gives you the option to pick cheaper parts if you want too.

E.g. one of the cheaper ones I found.
https://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/range/novatechcoreember.html?s=PC-2569HP

Dis not very nice. Linus is good guy.

can anyone give me some troubleshooting pointers?

My pc freezes about 10 times per hour, for anywhere between 5 and 25 seconds. Audio (if it's playing) will sometimes continue (and sometimes not) but everything else stops and the system is completely unresponsive. After this it goes back to normal.

System temps are fine.(40c CPU temp)
Memtest reports no errors
Drivers are up to date.

I'm guessing it's software problem but i don't really know what else to try. Any advice?

No, not really.

Send him to pcpartpicker.com and design it there. Then buy the parts.

Building a PC is easy. It's just silicon lego.

@cake is 100% a virgin

I knew it!

Also @Fox my corsair H60 is loud AF

Yep. True. 3 years time they can make a film.

I'm guessing it's software problem

I'd guess it's a hardware problem.

Spinning hard drives? Are they close to failure?

This sounds like an I/O issue that then buggers everything else until it unblocks. But for it to affect most things sounds like something fundamental like the hard drive, or SSD, etc.

Ran SMART tools? Checked errors?

Does it run windows? Does the 'resource monitor' show anything useful, particularly in eth 'memory' section?

Have you tried a liveCD of some other flavour of OS to rule out drivers, software, etc.

running off SSD so shouldn't be a disk spin problem

everything here looks OK

@graunch - i haven't looked extensively (cause the system freezes so I don't expect to see anything useful) but also because it happens when i'm browsing and when I'm playing games. Resource use doesn't seem to factor into it.

@aggi - i haven't. My plan was to try and fix or rule out a hardware issue then fresh install of windows to see if that fixes it...

Ah cool. I wondered if it was swapping is all. Probably not if it does so sort if regardless of what you are doing

Which is your C drive?

drive1 - 240gb

running off SSD so shouldn't be a disk spin problem

Lots of reasons SSDs can do this:

• dead sectors and not enough space leading to blocking defrag
  
• old firmware (known bugs)
  
• generic Windows driver rather than correct driver
  
• incorrect connector or device config for the connector
  
• paging on an SSD without a lot of space
  
  

Those just the top of my head.

I/O is still the likely cause.

drive1 - 240gb

I suspected that.

I diagnose: Free up more space by moving files to another drive.

You never want only 10% free, the C drive reserves space for Recycle Bin, for Page files... and file operations you are doing is forcing Windows to stop, shuffle things around, and then carry on.

Can anyone recommend a cheap decent podcast mic or something similar? I live alone so I don't need headphone when teaching online, but we now have use a mic to "look" more professional... Gotta pay for it myself so the cheaper the better.

I mean if you're going for the look and you want cheap... you want a desktop mic with a shock stand.

All dedicated mics are going to be better than whatever is built-in, so it's not a waste of money at all.

If you are willing to spend £110 I would say get this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/HyperX-QuadCast-Condenser-Gaming-Microphone-Black/dp/B07NZZZ746

It's a lot cheaper then the Blue Yeti (which also doesn't sound good), and this sounds great and looks the bomb.

Super convenient mute button on top (honestly, these mics pick up so much that being able to mute is damn useful).

I have considered getting the cheapest set from eBay and not bother plugging in it, that's how much of a look we need. Lucky I already have some good Audio Technica headphones I can actually use...

Do you have this youself? It does look really good. :-)

I researched the hell out of it and concluded that was the best off-the-peg everything included desk microphone.

And then I purchased a traditional vocal studio set up 🤷

I have:

• Mic stand
  
• Shure SM7B
  
• SSL 2 USB Audio Interface
  
• Fethead
  
  

The HyperX is the best value mic and all-in... but I actually don't need something on show, and am going for near flawless audio to increase the human connection with the high number of meetings I do with direct reports.