Computer problem

The hell? Are you sure they are actually IT guys?

I get asked a lot what laptop/computer someone should buy. Questions 1 thru 7- “what do you want to use it for”

-edit- also a general rule to note, if you can do everything your job requires on an iPad or Surface, your job is incredibly expendable.

Consultants.
Seemed to have very little knowledge of computers, zero interest of what specs were required, a huge amount of arrogance around doing the groundwork required, and charged the company a lot of money to tell us to buy a popular off-the-shelf product at a pretty uncompetitive price.
Definitely IT consultants.

Ah that makes way more sense

We have exactly 1 (o-n-e, one) piece of in-house software.
Take a wild guess if they tested it on the new hardware.

Deadset no way they should’ve been paid.
Essentially charged 5 figures for about 2 hours’ work, and I’m fairly sure they got a commission on each of the ~50 devices we bought too.

And the higher tiers of management are on a cost-cutting bent…

Put as much RAM into it as you can (it’s a simple DIY job).
Rip out the old optical HDD, and put in a solid-state HDD (again a simple DIY job, once you’ve cloned the original HDD).

My 6-year old Macbook Pro was running like a bag of ■■■■ with the latest OS. Finally it dropped it guts when the dedicated GPU died (apparently a common issue for 2012 models). Ended up doing the following:

  • upped RAM from 2 x 2GB to 2 x 4GB (DIY, cost about $160)
  • replaced 750 GB optical with 1 TB SSD (DIY, cost about $300 including the cloning cradle)
  • had it rejigged to boot from the integrated GPU (yes, the Macbook has two GPU’s in it for some reason… about $200 by a computer shop in Bentleigh)

It now has a slightly less hi-res screen (not a prob… don’t use it for hi-res purposes anyway) and runs like a dream. Faster (and runs significantly cooler) than when I bought it. A helluva lot cheaper than ponying-up the moolah for an equivalent new model too (~$3500).

Oh, and trust me I am no computer boffin. This was the first time I have ever gone into the guts of a computer. It really was a piece of cake. Well, the cloning part was a little fiddly, but that was because corrupted sections of the optical drive were causing the cloning software to stall. The physical removal/installation of RAM and drives was a doddle.

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Not optical, mechanical drive. Optical refers to CDs and DVDs.

Quite right… like I said… no boffin here, here be no boffin…
Yes, for the above, wherever I said “optical drive” read as “old mechanical, spinning drive”

Well, sounds difficult, probablybgive itba go, not much to lose as it’s almost cactus

Sinking $650 into a 10yo device sounds mental to me.

In his case maybe so (though he doesn’t need the gpu fix). In my case, I had a pantload of unfinished projects in a piece of software which Apple has now updated and (in their infinite fucker-ness) made:
a) the previous version unusable on the current os
b) it not completely backwards compatible with previous versions (importing v9 projects into v10 is a clusterfuck leading to all sorts of instability)
As such, it was easier for me keep the computer alive to complete those projects on that version of the software.
I will eventually update to a new computer and the newer software, but need to make it a clean break.

Has anyone here had any experience with / use Linux or Ubuntu, or both??

Interested in the Pros/Cons of them, . and drawbacks - eg: programs that will/won’t run Limitations Vs Windows etc.

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It looks real nice, always the right price, and runs on bugger all resources, but I’ve never really found it worth the hassle on a personal computer. (Had 2 or 3 installs at different points, ubuntu & mint I think)

In my experience it’s a pain to set up, then a bunch of little pains along the way. Every time you think “I can just do that with…” there’s another 3 steps. Nothing insurmountable, not even anything all that technical, just inconvenient. Again and again.

You, being a contrary bugger, will probably love it.

Deal with it professionally for a particular purpose-built PC for a particular (graphics heavy) application, and it’s beautiful. Fast, stable, nothing superfluous.

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Yep. I’ve used Ubuntu and Mandrake, and absolutely agree.

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Same problem I have been encountering with my HP Laptop. After installing the printer driver when I saw that my canon printer offline windows 10 was appearing every time, I could not print anything.

So, after my NBN has been back on, I suddenly can’t access a number of Websites I used to all the time. (ERR Timeout, … not responding etc)

I can’t access them through laptop OR my phone via wifi, … so the problem HAS to be in the Modem right?

I’m assuming the answer is to reset the bugger? :thinking:

Dns issue?

Ipconfig /all from cmd window says what?

Says a lot :open_mouth: ???

What bit should I look at / check (Thanks btw) :wink:

I did change DNS server to 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4 but it didn’t help, … also did a "Flush DNS that I found as a possible remedy.

If you are on Windows open a cmd window then type

Ipconfig /all

That will list all your connections and show current dns

Maybe paste what you see here? Look for the bit with DNS servers. I get this :

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 202.142.142.142
202.142.142.242

This will show you what DNS servers you PC is currently using. BTW some ISPs now supply NBN routers preconfigured to get DNS automatically when establishing a connection.

Yeah, I can see the DNS servers show 8.8.8.8 etc, …

I can take snips, … should I remove any info for security, . such as physical address / IP etc?