General computer talk/advice

Sadly doesnt work on MSDOS. Ive tried and i just couldnt adapt it to work. Which sucks because i have a couple laptops that would be PERFECT for it, and is the whole reason i made the game. One is a bondwell b200. has a cherry mx blue keyboard. The other is a zenith zfl 181-92. It has a alps keyboard

heres a picture of the zenith

 

No no no, GPT partitioning is supported by every major Linux distro, and is highly recommended by almost every install guide. Outside of odd dual boot configurations, there is no reason for anyone to use MBR.

 

Probably should take that out of my Pentium 3 build.

 

That's where my first deathstar was

 

Are IBM ones okay? I have one Hitachi and one IBM, same models.

 

The hitachi's havent given any problems yet. The original IBM ones was the problem child
I think hitachi bought out the deskstar name

 

I'm trying to partition my drive in 2 (boot and files), but it wont let me shrink more than 2 gigabytes. It's 1Tb and has 470Gb free. I've tried defragging, but can't fix it.

 

If you thought drivers for windows were bad, wait till you see Linux, absolutely awful in most cases

 

Use a utility like Ultimate Defrag (there is a version in public domain, use that) to make sure that all of the data is on the inner sectors of the drive.

 

Defragmenting now, will update this post when it's done.

 

Anyone know about the exclusivity of Windows 10 S? I can see it being a nuisance if manufacturers install it on normal laptops, because my family won't want "me messing around" on a new computer if we ever get one. I can see how Windows 10 S can be more protective over viruses, but removing the ability to install .exe files is stupid. But it also should stop tech illiterate people installing junk programs.

 

Hold on a second! Microsoft is removing the ability to install exes??

 

Not at all. Just for some stupid light version of Windows 10, which is designed for business and school.
Microsoft Edge is also forced as the only browser and you have to use Bing.

 

Just got around to working on this 80s Acorn AKF18 CRT. Got it from my old high school science room when they were upgrading them last year, think it came with one of the Acorn A3000 computers.



Its receiving no power at all and the LED power indicator isn't coming on, Poped it open and the internal glass fuse is basically solid black so clearly is at least some part of the problem if not the whole problem. Ordered a replacement for that already. While I was in though I noticed one of the capacitors is also buldged like a balloon. May still work as is but better to just get it over with and replace it while I'm in here.

I'm not great at this stuff but I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me work out which capacitor this is. There is no mention of the microfarads rating or voltage anywhere on it. The only text is "CE 85C LQ (M)" and that it was manufactured by a company called nichicon. Don't have a voltmeter or anything for reading it manually either, if there even is a way to work it out otherwise.

Pic:

 

I quickly searched for that text and found an eBay listing with an image that shows that the volts and microfarads are on the other side of the stripe.

 

Oh yeah you may be right, I'll probably just desolder it tomorrow and see. Can't see the other side at all as is.

 

85c means it's rated for 85 degrees the LQ is the model of the cap. Nichicon LQ's the voltage and capacitance ratings will be on the other side of the caps. Not common for Nichicon's to fail they're a pretty good brand, not saying they never fail but I'd be looking at components further on in the circuit too. Caps usually fail like that due to excessive current draw, could just be that they're old but I have stereo's that are 50 years old with "good" nicicon caps *slight current leakage and drifted in value*. I don't think that monitor is from the "bad cap" era but I wouldn't rule that out either.

 

My WIP Pentium 3 machine that I plan to install lubuntu on.

 

What clock speed?

 

500 mhz. Got the CPU and Motherboard for $5 at a thrift store. Everything else I got free. Just bought some ram so I can install Lubuntu. (128 Mb is hardly sufficient.)