Fifth Avenue Forum

I might do some dry runs anyway on a test site. Just to see how it all works.

Petition to make @Kane an honorary mod if he upgrades the site.

Unearthed an old Dell laptop that my wife sparingly used for a few months about 5 years ago. 4GB of RAM, 5400RPM HDD, 10 minute boot up times in Windows 10, etc. Horrible PC.

So she wants it gone, I’d like to upgrade it on the cheap with a SSD and double the RAM.

Plug it in, press the power button, and the HDD spins up for a half a second and then nothing. Nothing on the screen etc. Battery charging light is on, HDD and power light up briefly when attempting to boot.

HDD is installed correctly, as is the RAM. Reseated the CMOS battery, even replaced it. Same deal. Any suggestions? I’m not going to spend any money getting it repaired, and I’ve tried what I know to do with a dead PC. Next stop is probably my IT department’s electronics recycling drive....

Do you get any POST beeps? If this is the 5400 rpm drive, does it matter since you want to install an SSD?

No beeps at all. The HDD spins up for 3 seconds or so and then nothing. Screen doesn’t even flicker.

Sounds like the motherboard is toast in that case.

Yeah, that’s I thought.

Question...

We have a pretty large library of documents that are all technical pieces. I'd like to set up some sort of either database or system that a non-technical person can go in, click a button or two to sort by type of document (powerpoint and word mostly), industry (which we would assign to that document as we put them into the software, and each document would likely span multiple industries), and a few other filters, and then as it brings a list of documents up, if it's too big of a list, it's searchable by keyword(s) as well. Is there something out there that's ready to go like that?

Microsoft SharePoint is the only thing that I can think of that may fit the bill, but it’s a complicated setup and configuration if you’ve got a vanilla IS team.

We have sharepoint, and that's currently where the files are stored, but I don't know how to set-up something that's usable for our sales team. Currently the files are just sitting in folders in sharepoint. It's certainly searchable, but it's currently not sortable like I want it to be.

OneDrive may work.

Yeah, the issue isn't so much of storage, it's more usability. Essentially, I'd like something like this: https://psu.summon.serialssolutions.com ... !/advanced

Sorry for the PSU link, but that's where I first got inspired to put this thing together. Notice how you can sort by content type, discipline, you can limit publication date, etc.

Here's a better example of what I want:

https://www.phenomenex.com/Home/TechnicalDocuments

Those are probably running on large document management systems. If they are, I know they’re a bit of a pain to get up and running in an established environment. We set one up many years ago and had to re-upload boatloads of documentation, associating the correct keywords, categories, etc.

Do you work at Penn State or another college?

If so, they might use ContentDM, which is basically an archiving/content management solution. It's very expensive to buy by itself, but if your employer already uses it, they might be able to build you out a repository. Here's what U of SC's interface looks like: https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/coll ... h/advanced

Another product is JSTOR Forum (which used to be Shared Shelf): https://www.artstor.org/jstorforum/
We use this to archive student art and other 3D objects. Very easy to use on the backend, and user friendly on the front end. Again, not cheap, but your institution may already be using it.

Those are probably running on large document management systems. If they are, I know they’re a bit of a pain to get up and running in an established environment. We set one up many years ago and had to re-upload boatloads of documentation, associating the correct keywords, categories, etc.

That’s why I want to set it up now. We’re only about 40 documents deep so far, but the goal is to be in the thousands in a decade or so.

The meow family needs a new laptop. Just for me remoting into my office pc and my wife to dink around the internet.

Less than $1k preferably
Is this SSD thing a good thing?

SSD is a great thing.

An SSD should be a requirement on anyone’s list, regardless of what you intend to use the computer for.

Why would a monitor/GPU stop giving me the option to use 144 hz refresh rate?

I bought a Dell 27" monitor in June that has a refresh rate of up to 144hz. I have a R9 390 GPU. After messing around with cables, I was able to get it set to the high refresh rate.

Booted it up yesterday to play some Battlefield V, and it didn't load fullscreen, which happens once in a while. I checked the video options in game, and noticed that the refresh rate was 60 hz in game. I know I hadn't touched that in a while, but the game does reset video settings on occasion. I set it back to 144, saved/applied settings, but it reverted back to 60 hz.

Back out to Windows, and I no longer have the 144hz option.

DDU uninstalled the GPU drivers, tried new drivers, added the Dell monitor driver, changed DisplayPort cables, no change.

Hooked the monitor up to my other PC with a 1050ti, and the option for 155hz (the monitor can overclock, but not with the 390) was right in settings. Swap that card into my PC, and the 155hz was listed in Display settings.

No Windows update since 11th, and I used it to play BFV the day before.

I have been playing with voltages with the GPU via MSI Afterburner, but I reset all of it to no avail. The GPU has been flickering when loading BFV and the screen blacks out in game once in a while as well, but it's done that since getting the monitor.

Probably time to upgrade GPUs, right? 60 hz is no bueno for this old man's eyes now.

That's spot on.

Ever accidentally click on IE, or even worse, Edge, and you get mad at yourself for it? As soon as you open the thing it wants to reconfigure your whole system.

I get pissed at the lame default homepage, with all of the clickbait articles from msn.com. Then the nag screen to make Edge your default browser. The whole thing pisses me off.

One of the first things I do in our build process is change the default browser to Chrome. That nag screen that you get when you search for Chrome is the worst.