Computers hate me, and I hate them

[Dieselboy]

For many years, probably over 10 years computers have given hope to making my life easier; only to fall short on most occasions.

Last week I moaned that my work laptop was playing up with 100% disk utilisation on Windows 10. I reverted back to Windows 7 and had the same issue so I'm now using another laptop which was spare. I've had plenty of issues with the new laptop as well. Again 100% disk utilisation, this time which is due to Windows updates and indexing after copying my data. Disk utilisation is mostly 0% now but Microsoft Outlook has given up with indexing and so I'm unable to search my emails. During the issues there were a few times where I was unable to use my laptop at all. Something critical came up, so I jumped on my mates laptop next to me whilst he was making a coffee. Google Chrome then crashed on his laptop and of course the blame fell on me. All I done was join a webex meeting.

Now my temporary replacement latop is running fine, I can't use any of my network drives because trying to copy a file shows "discovering" for what seems like forever, with copy percentage at 0%. When it does eventually start to copy, the rate is 0kbps and sometimes 355kbps before going back to normal. No one else getting this issue. I did have this problem before at another company and turned out to be internet explorer network settings had the "automatically detect settings" checked. I've unchecked this but no change.

All in all, I hate computers because they come with false promises but only give me no end of issues. When people get me to fix their computer because "That's my job" my life makes a down-turn to a low-point. I don't "do computers". In actual fact, they do me. Both frequently and painfully.

I think the only way to resolve these issues is to remove the problem entirely. I.E. remove the user from the computers and devices. I.E. give up using computers.

Yours unhappily,

Tony.

[deanwebb]

Dang.

How's your personal PC holding up?

[Dieselboy]

Some keys on the keyboard don't work since my friend used a airline from his compressor to blow the dust out of the fan vent slots. I was about to take the keyboard out but did the above instead. Dropped one of the keyboard screws.
Other than that it's okay. It's an i3 with an SSD so is pretty fast for a crappy laptop with 4GB RAM. The only thing though when there's a bit too much dust inside, the CPU de-clocks to reduce heat. When it does this, there's not enough CPU to play MP3 music or record into MP3 and so the music skips a bit.

The desktop PC I don't really use since I left it in my garage a few years ago when it was 44c / 111F. The expensive graphics card I bought for it warped and so wasn't detected when I first powered it on. I've cable tied the end up in the case to give the back of the graphics card some support and it's working perfectly now for a few years. Not sure what will happen if I remove the cable tie, though.

PS4 giving me trouble as well but I think the majority of these problems are caused by the crappy ISP router I'm using. I should buy a decent home-grade router but don't want to spend money.
Mobile phone does what it wants. It is never remembering my wifi keys so every time I go home or to the office I have to select and enter the PSK manually.

It's not me, it's technology!

[deanwebb]

Sounds like you would benefit from a custom built laptop. I go with builders that don't advertise and get some great deals on really quality hardware.

My current laptop, now almost 3 years old, is from xoticpc.com and it's working great. It's an ASUS with 12GB RAM. 17" screen, as well. Got the coolant thingy that keeps the wrist rest cool during hot games and I absolutely love it.

[SofaKing]

I agree with Dean - I bought a MSI GS60 from xoticpc.com a couple of years ago and it has been rock-solid.  It has 16GB RAM, 2 128GB M.2 SSDs in raid 0, and a larger SSD for storage.  I've had no problems with it.  I have not tried to move it to Windows 10 just yet but it runs great on Windows 8.1.

[Dieselboy]

I've just ordered a Lenovo T560 with 16GB RAM and a separate 500GB SSD to put in it (SSD was on promo at $189AUD). It's got some fancy up to date stuff like 802.11ac wifi card.

I tried windows 8.1 and I hate that too.

[icecream-guy]

I feeel your pain, I was auto scheduled for Microsoft upgrade to win 10 on the 21st, and I took the bulls by the balls and did it on my own terms, ran system image, 3 hours on Friday only to hit errors, and after much research, 6 hours on Saturday finally got me there,  plus another 3, trying to get stuff right (from a win7 viewpoint) several reboot later as, well another 2 hours on Sunday, to get file history right, finally seems all good. got a win10 system image and repair disk, but still trying to figure out out to get my win 7 games back, tried the manual route with the hex editor to change the version search in the .exe but couldn't find the recommended hex string, still makes me more productive, like me popping in here on s Sunday, while I copy files....

[Dieselboy]

With mine, I had to let the original OS be upgraded. This went as smooth as anything. After that I just wiped and re-installed from the Win10 DVD I made with the Microsoft media creator tool.

[icecream-guy]

... but still trying to figure out out to get my win 7 games back, tried the manual route with the hex editor to change the version search in the .exe but couldn't find the recommended hex string,

figured it out last night, pretty easy edit, there is a difference in the HEX edits between the 32bit and 64bit game versions, once I found the HEX modification for the 64bit, issue resolved. there is also a different HEX edit for Majhong and minesweeper vs the cards games.

[deanwebb]

I've simply been doing 64-bit since a while ago, so no issues for me on that front.