Bartimaeus

Ooh, how I hate Windows. For some reason, after having started it up again, it suddenly decided to go into the Windows Startup Repair tool. Couldn't stop it because...you know, no keyboard...and by the time you're in it, it doesn't let you freaking cancel what it's doing - says the process cannot be stopped. Ridiculous. With the clocks at 1.1GHz, this is going to take forever for it to oh hey it just finished as I was writing this. Cannot find anything to repair. GEE, I WONDER WHY, GUYS. How about you let me decide if it needs to be repaired or not, eh? Have no idea why it suddenly let me go through without needing to set BIOS values...but it did. I switched the power supply back from my own to my brother's old one, (who actually owns the computer, in case you haven't been keeping up, ), and now it suddenly isn't requiring it...gosh darn I hate computers.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you didn't already own a copy of it. Uh...well...unless you were willing to go through more dubious methods because it's a stupid and arbitrary distinction between the two, there's not really a way to get around it.

Time to reformat!

Yeah. I'm pretty sure the motherboard is shot to at least some degree - I'm surprised I was able to consistently make it to Windows desktop before I cleared the BIOS, to be honest - in fact, that confuses me more than anything, really. What I really need is some random compatible motherboard to test out the CPU...but I just don't have one, and the cheapest one I can find online is like $60, which would be a bitter pill to swallow if the CPU is shot, too.

Sorry, I meant spending money in terms of only your GPU, too - that was unclear, though. At $80, this would be a pretty fantastic card for your build, (there's some additional 10% off coupon using MasterPass or something that brings it down to there - alternatively, use the $15 off of $50 iPhone promotion they currently have running). The card is equivalent to...a $150 or so 265, if I'm not mistaken. On the other hand, I hate PowerColor, so best of luck if you do go that route, (again, someone else should provide input).

What're you thinking of spending? You have one PCIE 2.0 slot, (x16, it seems), which should still be able to handle just about any single chip card. CPU's a little bit of a different story...but it's not too bad. Decent speed, dual core with hyperthreading. I'd imagine it should be handle to hand anything new under...$200, maybe a little more, maybe a little less? Someone else should chip in, though, before you decide anything.

That's a good idea, if you have something like that or a ps/2 keyboard try that. You might've missed it, but I already tried a PS/2 keyboard. Works on my computer, doesn't work on his. Unlike the USB stuff, it won't even power on. The ports might as well be completely dead for all I can tell. Stupid broken hardware...

But I cannot get past POST at this point. It asks me to hit either F1 or F2 to either enter setup, (the BIOS), or to just load the default values. I can't get a keyboard to work, so it just sits there, forever. Can't get past it. So even if I did make a flash CD or something, I wouldn't be able to boot to it, because it won't pass POST because I have to press a dumb key before it'll try to boot anything, haha. Only thing I can think of is...maybe a third party PCI USB or PS/2 controller? Not sure. I tried plugging in the front panel USB, just to see if that might work, but still nothing.

How would I reflash it without being able to get to desktop? (e: and without being able to press anything while outside of Windows, too...) I have no idea what any part of your second sentence means.

Oh, I forgot to say: I was finally able to clear the BIOS this morning. I had tried using the CMOS clear pins, but it would simply not work after having tried multiple times - so I took out the CMOS battery, and that finally did it. I no longer get that horrendous beep/30 minute long wait when I have USB devices plugged in, but now I can't boot to desktop: it says "Keyboard/Interface Error", "CMOS Time/Data Wrong", and "CMOS Settings", and then tells me to either go into setup, or load default settings. I can't do either, though, because again, none of my keyboards will work - they'll power on, but they won't actually work...and nor will my PS/2 keyboard. Can't do anything at that point. Ack...one step forward, two steps back.

Yeah, I physically inspected the CPU and the motherboard itself, but did not notice anything strange looking. Anyone know how good MSI support is? Just finished sending them an information/advice inquiry, and wondering if they'll actually help after having written about a page and a half's worth...

Hah. Yeah. The weird thing is the circumstances of the problem: it had been working perfectly...but one day, he decided to move it to a different room for whatever reasons, and upon trying to boot it up, it was "dead". I am guessing static electricity got the best of the poor thing...but the strange thing is, his video card is fine, his RAM is fine, his power supply is fine...only two things show any signs of having problems - his CPU and his motherboard, which I cannot swap out with anything, as I simply do not have the parts. I physically inspected both, and I don't see any signs of damage anywhere. That's weird, if it was static electricity that did something. So what's he to do...buy a motherboard and pray that the CPU is still good? It's still a pretty decent CPU in this day and age - not great, obviously, but decent...about equal to the Phenom II 970 I'm currently running, in fact. I think if he could spend $50 on a used motherboard and get it back up and running, it'd be worth it vs having to shell out a $250-350 on buying a "modern" equivalent motherboard and CPU. What to do...

Yes...unfortunately, it's worse and worse: roughly half of them will not power on anything at all - the other half will give power, but not actually work. At this point, I'm pretty sure there's something terribly wrong that I can't really fix with the motherboard - what I'm really trying to ascertain is whether the CPU is salvageable. Not sure how to figure that out at this point.

Sorry, I guess I should've expounded upon the "but I'm at the point where I can now successfully boot to desktop" - I swapped out the PSU with one of my own, switched out the GPU for a low powered 6450 to reduce any strain the system might be having, tested the RAM in my own system and tested my RAM in it, (both are fine), am using my own OS HDD, (none of his drives are connected), a different SATA cord, reseated the CPU as well as reapplied thermal paste and then reseated the entire motherboard to boot in case there were any objects underneath it causing it to short...which lead me to where I am now, which is better than I was then, but not exactly where I'd ideally be. I actually did just wait about half an hour after that long beep occurs when I have a USB device plugged in, and it finally went to an actual visible POST, and then repeated the beep again, but then gave me this simple error: "Keyboard/Interface Error", and then tells me to either hit F1 to continue, press Delete for the BIOS, or F11 for the boot menu. And now I can't do anything, because my USB devices will not work before Windows is actually booted up, (and my PS/2 keyboard will not work no matter what).

Trying to get my older brother's computer to work. It's an old Intel i5-750 build that is having...problems. It would not boot or post or give error beeps when I first got it, but I'm at the point where I can now successfully boot to desktop. However, there seems to be something wrong with the CPU, or how the motherboard is handling it, as it seems to be unable to get out of idle speeds. It also takes about five minutes to actually get to desktop, which is unusually long. After hitting the power button, it spends a few minutes completely dark - absolutely nothing shows up. Then, it suddenly shows the motherboard start screen, and posts. Then, a few more minutes in blackness, and then suddenly the Windows desktop shows up. Additionally, I cannot get into the BIOS in any manner, as having a USB device plugged in when it's booting causes the motherboard to scream bloody murder and give me one huge long beep that lasts for about 30 seconds straight, and then freezes at the motherboard startup screen. I tried using a PS/2 keyboard, but no matter what I do, I can't get the PS/2 ports to work. I also tried resetting the BIOS, multiple times, but to no avail. Anyone have any ideas?

Yeah, the game runs perfectly on max settings with me running an old quadcore Phenom II and a 5770...on the other hand, I think the game looks (stylistically) worse than Dark Souls 1, so you win some, you lose some, I guess. A lot of the active lighting looks completely awful and ruins the look of certain areas - they should remove a lot of the environmental torches and such and reduce the overall brightness of the game, IMO. Why the heck can't anyone but Valve properly animate faces? The opening cutscene sequence...oh man, that was awful. Those stupid firekeepers were animated (and voice acted) terribly, so let's do close up their faces while they talk so we *make sure* everyone knows how bad we are at doing this. And then let's have them repeat the same random, stupid crap several times. I nearly quit then and there. I pray that the only remaining cutscenes in the game are the ending cinematic(s), and non-dialogue ones of bosses when you meet them for the first time.

Have they fixed the item durability bug on the PC version yet? Always wanted to play Dark Souls games, but I have no intention to reward companies that do horrible PC ports. If they ever make HD versions of them for PS4, I just might get the console just for that. Getting PS3 now would be somewhat dumb. Can't say for sure. I don't think so, though, based on the fact that my beginner weapon broke almost immediately - like, within a half hour - for some reason, but since getting a different weapon, it's taken only 2 durability damage in the past two hours of playing... (e): Ah, it seems I didn't understand durability. I thought it worked like in DS1, where you have to repair stuff at a blacksmith - apparently, it's automatically repaired at bonfires. That explains why I was unable to make it through the tutorial area without my weapon breaking - no bonfire for a while - but my current weapon is doing fine. haha

Dark Souls 2 is not very CPU intensive. When I go to bed, I change my power policy to a custom power savings mode, where my CPU has a maximum frequency of 800MHz vs its default 3.5GHz, (because I have to have it on for various reasons through the night, but I don't think it should use more power/create more heat than necessary). I forgot to change it back this morning, and played for like two hours and didn't notice the difference. I only realized belatedly, yes, it was a little laggier than normal, but not bad at all, and in fact ran better than Dark Souls 1 does when I have my CPU clocked at 3.5GHz... Why am I upgrading to a 4770k, again? I have a bunch of complaints about Dark Souls 2, but I'll save them for a while more, yet.

Uh, what? How would increased RAM help your HDD/SSD load the necessary files for level transitions? RAM would help if those files were *already* loaded, as in, if you've already been to the area you're transitioning to and already had the files loaded in your RAM, but that information is cleared away for efficiency in most cases anyways, even if you have way enough RAM for it.

That's awesome. I'll have to try that...and, uh, probably get destroyed because I'm only okay at best. Thanks.

Age of Empires II: HD Edition. Played against four moderate AI opponents, (if I recall correctly, moderate is the hardest version of the AI, and the subsequent difficulties just give them ridiculous starting resources...possibly other bonuses, too - at least it was that way in the non-"HD" edition of this game), with the four of them divided into two teams, and then myself. I ran into framerate issues...at first, I thought it was because, you know, huge amount of units being individual controlled by each AI would probably hurt my CPU, especially considering this game is almost absolutely single-threaded. But I realized towards the end of the match, by which time I'd killed off three of the four, that it was not as I thought - whenever I was personally directing a large amount of units, my game would lag, particularly if it were ships I was moving, it seemed. So that's pretty weird - never ran into that in the original game, as far as I can remember. There's also not really any good reason for my GPU to be struggling... The AI really needs to learn to bunch up their units together into an actual army - it's ridiculous that they still have the horrible vulnerability of throwing each of theirs *individually* at their foes, instead of as a group, so if they're fighting a group of cavalry archers, the cavalry archers are able to just pick off each unit as they come, while slowly backing up or slowly advancing, depending upon how thick the stream of units coming at them is. The previous point also plays into my next issue with the AI: they burn through their resources, particularly their gold, (which is extremely finite!), much too fast, and their economy crashes and burns as a result. It doesn't help that they're unable to make any real dents into my cavalry (archer) army thanks to the previous point, and they're constantly trying to replace their own units that were recently slaughtered. Eventually, they run out of gold, sometimes even wood, depending upon the map, (and then food, too, as a result), and then just sit there like buffoons, unable to do anything. I looked at their economy scores at the end of the game, (economy score consisting of both the value of all their remaining units/buildings on the map, as well as their remaining resources), and they just had nothing left. By the end, I had kill about 900 units, lost sub-50, razed around 300 buildings, lost less than a handful, and they had lost 200-300 units each, and 50-100 buildings. Pretty dumb. Also spotted a stupid bug that I've known about since the release of the *original* AoEII expansion - in the Attila campaign, in the first mission, you can make an ally with another band of nomads called the Scythians against your Persian and Roman foes - except, by the time you do that, the Romans are already dead, (necessitated by the fact that you must destroy them to become allies with the Scythians), and the Persians are, for some reason, allied with the Scythians, yet the Scythians are not allied to the Persians. Ergo, the Scythians attack the Persians constantly, and you can sit back and relax while the Persians have their base destroyed, as they're unable to attack the Scythians in kind. Pretty stupid that that was never fixed...in the first mission of that campaign, nonetheless.

Maybe I'm using my SSD wrong, (120GB PNY XLR8 as my system drive), but...I honestly haven't noticed *that* big of a difference switching from an HDD to an SSD. And from an extremely old HDD to boot, (a ten year old 80GB SATA 1 drive that had a maximum read speed of like 20MB/s...eugh, that thing was slow, ). Sure, boot up is about...uh...I'd say...five to ten times faster, but, I mean, you bootup maybe three times *at max* in a day, so I don't feel like that's that big of a deal - and also it's an unfair comparison, given the datedness of my previous system drive. My browser loads up in about the same time it used to - but maybe that's because it's usually cached in my 8GB of RAM, anyways. Um...searching through my registry editor is faster, but I don't do that too often. ...Control panel usually loads instantly - that's neat, I guess. So what're the other huge performance benefits everyone else seems to see from just using their computer normally?

Killing myself in World of Goo. I've gotten really OCD...doing the OCD requirements. That, and going beyond them - doing the absolute best in the levels that I can envision there being. On a level I just did, (Chapter 5 - Weather Vane), the OCD requirement was saving 42 goo balls - with a harebrained scheme, I got more than double that with 88. Over ten minutes and 200 moves on that single try, (if you don't know, that's really ridiculous for a single try - a more typical OCD try would probably be closer to 2-3 minutes and maybe 50 moves, at least for that level). And now I have a headache. Luckily, since I'm in Chapter 5 out of 5 and I've already done all the previous chapters, I'm almost done.

The graphics look like a huge ripoff of Minecraft...

Ha! I actually didn't have too much trouble with the game - I made it to like day 20 without ever really having any problems, (I think a family member got sick once, but I had enough money to cover it). I think properly setting things up before the day starts and making sure you don't get frazzled is probably one of the biggest factors to not falling behind, (being good at memorizing stuff so you don't have to keep checking through the stupid book is great, too).