PC/Technology/Audio Thread

So the ageing (now Win 10) laptop is stuck in an automatic repair loop, just won’t boot up. Combed the internet and watched some YT vids, but don’t know wtf is going on.

I put some repair commands into Command Prompt, and this came up, says no errors found. But on another command (c: dir) it said ‘file not found’ for C drive 🤷

The wifi on it has been dropping out a lot of late, could it be the chipset driver for that?

unlikely to be drivers or anything, since then it would normally at least boot to safe mode.

The scandisk there looks like it’s not the actual main drive, since there’s simply not enough files in it, the disk may be so knackered that it’s completely corrupted to there’s nothing to find to fix, you’re just looking at the recovery partition.

I’d take the drive out, stick it in a caddy and see what is on it on another computer, but that assumes you have the bits.

What does diskpart; list disk say when you’re at the recovery prompt?

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I assume you’ve tried turning it off and on again?

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At least a dozen times!

Bugger, that’s my 20 years of IT experience used up.

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This is what we say in the trade as “Its fucking fucked mate”

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Fatty’s leg

Yeah, it’s had a good life tbh; 9 years of physical abuse, been dropped numerous times and carries many scars. I would recommend HP laptops off the back of it! Fortunately the other week I was fearing the worst and made sure all the files/pics we never look at on it(!) are backed up on an external HD.

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HP laptops are pretty good, Definitely my first choice (as i sit here on one of my 2 Dell laptops :wink: )

last 2 laptops we’ve had - incl current one Mrs FB is using - have been HP.

Okay, last ditch, I’m going to replace the coin cell battery; how has it lasted this long? I believe these are used to maintain certain system settings?

looks after the BIOS settings on older systems I believe

Okay, had a bit of a look. Whilst I do like HP a lot, I have a Discount code for Dell from a friend who worked for them until recently. It works!

So really all we do with it is video streaming & Zwift. Biggest thing for me really is SSD, HDMI & Ethernet RJ45 ports. Do I really need anything better than Core i3 4GB RAM for Zwift?

I can get this for £381 (i3 128GB & 4GB RAM)
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops/new-inspiron-15-3000/spd/inspiron-15-3501-laptop/cn30148sc?view=configurations

Or this which is closer to outgoing HP spec for £509 (i5 256GB 8GB RAM)
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops/new-inspiron-15-3000/spd/inspiron-15-3501-laptop/cn30112sc?view=configurations

@Hammerer @Poet ?

The modern equivalent processors will be much much better than the one in the outgoing laptop. Even those which are lower down the spec list.

Yeah, I’ve no doubt that’s true. Plus we will not load this new one up with crap.

Ha ha ha - not me!
I couldn’t care less about PCs and stuff.

Ah, you’re a data scientist right?

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There is a Facebook group specifically for building Zwift PC’s with guides on exactly what to buy, it’s called ZPCMR - Zwift PC Master Race
You can get a very good Zwift setup for £150 as you don’t need to activate windows for Zwift. Could be worth having a dedicated rig for Zwift and then just get a laptop for your other needs.

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This. i3 on its own means nothing, you need to see what gen the CPU is. I think 4GB ram is going to struggle with Zwift, and will probably only let you have 2 chrome tabs open, especially with on board graphics as well.

I dunno. The dead laptop was built late 2011 from what I can gather, and it still ran Zwift, albeit the HDD made things slooow to get started-up! In game it seemed fine though (it had 6GB RAM early Core i5).

My wife’s old Surface Pro 3 will run it too, but it’s a PITA as connections are limited. So will my Moto G7 Plus, but that’s obvs a crap experience, and I can’t connect to both PM & HRM simultaneously.

Sorry, not trying to do a ‘tin pot’ here, I’m just wondering if I’ve gotten so used to stuff working at a lower performance because I don’t buy new stuff, it shows that the new higher end isn’t actually as necessary as we think. Geez, we don’t even have a smart TV, not until this one breaks!