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12:01 AM
@Quonux I used to know one for flash games only
it would make flash games fullscreen (and usually much less laggy)
 
Prefetch has been disabled in the Registry.
...but should or can I empty the Prefetch folder?
 
Bob
> 74548272_6X_AZ_PA4__BankDocuments=5FFE0274A4593F58683C1949896834F3293985983594769‌​4653298321744361597236489231640913264.pdf.exe
Seems legit.
 
Anyone?
 
@DragonLord the files inside of a prefetch folder can be cleared at any time, many people were even doing it to figure out why things seem to go faster right after clearing it.
The Readyboot the logging file in it will not leave (easily), untill readyboot is completly shut down, which has some minor complications because shutting down parts of it results in system instability. Of course it is supposed to be off with a SSD , but it could be the logging of it continues anyways.
 
12:19 AM
Prefetch folder is emptied.
 
Christmas @OliverSalzburg's birthday is in 3 days!
 
Cleaning up the system before taking a system image backup.
I've also moved about 9 GB of data to the hard drive.
The HDD partition size is currently 20 GB for performance—I'll only expand it if required
 
1:02 AM
So, funny story... Except for me... I forgot my keys this morning, and it's slick ice at 0 degrees outside... So I called to get let into my work. I grabbed the master key at the reception desk, unlocked my door, and left it unlocked. At about 15 minutes before everyone left, I got called to another person's office to do some work. He left as soon as I finished, and I didn't realize the time.

The door to the offices where my office was, containing my car keys, wallet and cell phone, was locked. No one was left in the building. All the doors were locked.
6
 
lol
@CanadianLuke: I have things set up such that I'd be marooned without my keys.
 
1:24 AM
@CanadianLuke what is your wallet doing out of your pockets?
 
@Braiam everyone knows of the big tits bug by now :-)
 
1:39 AM
@Braiam @JourneymanGeek fat wallet, tight jeans...
 
@CanadianLuke: there's your problem.
 
Bob
@Braiam O_O
 
It comes from the silicon peristaltic vacillation, the chips being die-shrunk and all
 
2:04 AM
0
A: Trying to find a video card that's compatible

Journeyman GeekMost of the information you've given is pretty redundant, and I ended up using the marketing spec sheet for that model. I'm not going to suggest a card, since purchase recommendations are off topic here. I am going to cover the things you need to consider. A p IV is ridiculously obsolete in...

This should be a comment but...
 
2:23 AM
'Twas the nightmare before christmas and all through the place, no one could ask a question, but JourneymanGeek saves the face.
 
@Bob :D
 
Bob
How do you produce these beautiful screen-dump-patches? — DrKoch 15 hours ago
 
2:44 AM
Apparently North Korea's internet is down - wonder why
 
Bob
Note to self: speed up plans to set up own email server and ditch Gmail => bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=849540
As time passes, Google is becoming scarier for end users.
 
Bob
They can - and often have - changed and cancelled their services with no warning. Nothing you can do about it.
 
Yeah
Like reader
Though, I'm growing convinced we need something better than email
or talk -> hangouts
 
carrier pigeons
 
Bob
2:53 AM
@JourneymanGeek XMPP was a nice idea, but it's not stable, common or official enough.
 
@Bob: XMPP came closest
 
Bob
Email works decently well as it is. It just needs a lower barrier for entry without relying on a third-party service provider.
 
(and blah, it should be easier to run your own email, spammers ruined it for a lot of folk)
ya
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek Either that or it needs better regulation.
More like traditional mail.
Where, e.g., tampering with mail is illegal. Then again, that raises privacy issues.
 
@Bob: You could sign emails.
 
Bob
2:57 AM
@JourneymanGeek But the delivery guarantee is lacking.
 
Once again tho, barrier of entry + nothings common/official enough.
@Bob: By the time you fix all these things its a whole new protocol ;p
 
Stuff is lost in the mail all the time =p
 
or you're bolting wings into a honda civic and expecting it to be a fighter plane.
 
Bob
Probably the most annoying is the amount of reliance we place on having a fixed email address.
I probably have dozens of accounts on assorted websites that assume my email address will never, ever change.
That is a scary thought.
When the day comes that Google decides to charge for Gmail, or discontinue it, etc....
 
Yeah
lol
With my dad, the only reason we keep his old company domain is that.
 
Bob
2:59 AM
It took me four+ years to get Nexon to change my email address from a defunct provider (!).
@JourneymanGeek I really want to move my email to a domain I legally own.
A domain that can't be taken away from me on a whim.
 
Granted, I saved my dad a ton of money by switching from a (crappy) shared host, to hosted email at our new dns provider
 
Bob
The main problem I'm facing is reliability.
I simply do not have access to a server (or email server) I trust to be reliable enough.
 
Bob
I could set my own up on the dedi. Spend a day or two.
But I don't even have backups set up for that thing.
 
lol
I've considered this
and oh, how much does a decent dedi cost?
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek Define "decent" :P
@allquixotic's paying something like 120 USD/month for his.
 
@Bob: good point.
 
Bob
Mine is 69 USD/month.
 
I'd just use a VPS at Linode
 
3:02 AM
Honestly? I'd be happy with 2-3 ip addresses 4+gb of ram, and a 2-4 core atom processor
 
That reminds me I need to get my digitalocean account activated
 
Bob
@DragonLord Considering I've recently run model-checking jobs that eat up 48+ GB of RAM, I don't think that's feasible.
 
@Bob Wow
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek ...**you** should know better than to say "2-4 core processor".
 
I'm surprised you need this much compute
 
3:03 AM
@Bob: Even an atom ;p
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek May I interest you in a first-gen?
Oh, how about a 2005 Opteron?
 
@Bob: If its cheap? Possibly!
 
Bob
@DragonLord Compute was relatively light. The RAM usage for the search state was crazy -_-
Then again, it is exponential scaling with the number of nodes simulated.
@JourneymanGeek I think you can get one of those Atom grab-bags for maybe 20 USD/month.
Maybe even lower.
 
Oh, that would be perfect
 
Bob
Remember the Kimsufi one?
But at that rate, you really should consider a VPS :P
@JourneymanGeek 7 USD/month one here: kimsufi.com/us/en
D425. Single-core, with HT.
Nice big HDD, but that's about its only good point.
 
3:07 AM
@Bob: no ipv4 at all tho
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek Yes there is.
 
hm?
Its not mentioned
 
Bob
14 USD/month for the N2800, which is decent-ish.
 
Bob
But a VPS would be better for both CPU perf and redundancy.
21 USD/month for the i3, which I'd actually consider :P
 
3:09 AM
@Bob: I'm not cpu bound in any way, but yes, the i3 makes more sense
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek Apparently Kimsufi has no additional IPs, but you do get one IPv4.
 
meh. That'd do, I suppose. Bookmarked for now ;p
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek My current provider => wholesaleinternet.net/dedicated
They're not tooooooo bad, but there's zero communication initiated by them.
 
Bob
Power outage (brief or not)? No mass email. Nope. No news page. We'll tell you if you ask us.
As far as value for money, though, they're decent.
And overall uptime is alright.
 
3:13 AM
Their pricing is a little odd 0_0
 
Bob
They cost more than Kimsufi, but they also better suit my purposes because Kimsufi is (eastern?) Canada, or Europe, and I really need west-coast America for acceptable latency.
 
Dual core atom is more expensive than a core i5?
IRC websites and IRC servers are not allowed. :(
Granted, that's something I can self host easily
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek Wait what?
o.o
 
Oh, the atom has twice the storage
 
Bob
That's probably it.
HDDs are surprisingly expensive with these guys.
 
3:16 AM
and 250gb isn't particularly large.
 
Bob
Then again, the P4 storage server is considerably cheaper with 2x 2 TB.
 
Bob
> 8TB SATA
O_O
 
But PIV? I'd be worried about the reliability of a roughly 10 year old platform.
 
Bob
That... that's a single drive?
In a c2d machine??
I... what?
 
3:18 AM
8tb drives do barely exist...
0_0
oh
 
Bob
@JourneymanGeek Yea, but...
 
4x 2tb
 
Bob
huh
everything else on that page is listed in quantity * capacity
 
Great question:
15
Q: Why are my games slower on battery power, even with the power set on High Performance?

Egghead99My laptop is capable of running most games on high settings at a decent FPS. However, if the power cable gets unplugged while I'm playing, the game immediately starts slowing down, even if my power settings are set to High Performance. Why is that? Is the battery not able to keep up with the powe...

 
Came across this when looking up that question I linked earlier anandtech.com/show/6670/…
(I think I have something of that era as our shared box ;p)
 
4:26 AM
looks like a pretty legit satellite setup
 
Bob
O_O
Two legacy Windows features (now dropped) that I only just learned about now...
Well, I might've stumbled across the first at some point.
The second? Never seen it.
 
@Bob I actually remember using scraps in Windows Me
 
I knew about the folder bar and the desktop pattern, but not 'scraps'
scraps actually sounds kinda useful
 
Bob
And another one o.O
these are fun
I think I stumbled on the Task Manager one at some point too
The QuickEdit thing is interesting, considering they're going to be making that big change for Win10.
 
4:45 AM
took me 2 days to find out that the tea wouldn't come out of the pitcher because of a vacuum..
granted I never tried to fix the problem prior to this =p
 
TIL Oracle has a standalone tool to build JavaFX UIs
And I can use CSS o.0
 
bad-fi.com on the single-channel architecture: I met a guy at a conference in Pittsburgh that built a large university/government network somewhere in South America, and insisted that having all of the APs on the same channel wouldn't hurt anything, that their own noise wouldn't effect each other
 
Arrgh i am no good at building UIs
 
5:01 AM
> apparently someone was trying to bruteforce one of my routers on campus
If I catch them doing that during school I might try to have some fun with them =p
 
4
A: Why are my games slower on battery power, even with the power set on High Performance?

DragonLordRunning a high-performance GPU at full speed while on battery can damage the battery or require more power than the battery can safely supply High-performance mobile GPUs can require significant amounts of power to operate at full speed. The GTX 765M requires 75 W, while top-of-the-line mobile ...

Laptops with high-end GPUs throttle down when running on battery because not doing so can be dangerous
I actually wondered about this myself when my laptop's GTX 780M refused to run at full speed on battery and came to this conclusion
 
Bob
@DragonLord Li-ion batteries can sustain a surprisingly high drain.
Probably not quite enough, but still surprisingly high.
 
@Bob Depends on the chemistry.
Ordinary LiCoO2 cells generally cannot handle more than 2C continuous discharge.
 
Bob
@DragonLord And that is plenty when you have enough cells in parallel.
"gaming" laptops tend to have rather beefy batteries
 
Mine has a 77 Wh battery and running it at full load pulls about 160-180 W
 
Bob
5:14 AM
At 2C, you're looking at up to 5A per cell.
...I forgot typical laptop battery voltages :S
Oh, here. Approx 10V nominal.
That's 3 cells in series.
To keep the current draw acceptable at 180W, you'd need a total of 9-12 cells.
Sounds about right for a large battery.
 
My battery is 8-cell, 4S2P configuration
5200 mAh, 14.8V
 
Bob
@allquixotic (and note to self), I need to take a look at FF/Nvidia with VMMap sometime.
@DragonLord So about 6 A drawn from each cell at most. That's fine.
 
@Bob That's more than 2C, which is 5.2A—that load is outside of specification
Besides, my battery gets very warm under a 1C load (I've been there) and a 2C load will cause it to overheat
 
Bob
@DragonLord Heat is another matter, and will definitely affect its lifespan.
shrug not saying you should run at full power off a battery
just the battery can supply a lot of power
Often a higher current than the charger.
 
I have a 32Wh battery
No wonder I have a poor battery life
 
Bob
5:26 AM
@HackToHell ...that doesn't really mean much by itself
You're not going to be using 100+ W off it.
 
Well dragon lord has a 77Wh battery ;p
comparatively, it sucks :P
 
Bob
@HackToHell And a much beefier machine. One with a dGPU, IIRC a 17" screen...
His laptop isn't really portable
 
17" o.0
 
Bob
A large battery is damn heavy.
 
That's uhm huge
 
5:28 AM
@Bob 15.6-inch, GTX 780M
 
Bob
@DragonLord Oh, must've mixed you up with someone else :P
someone who comes into this room now and then has a 17" laptop.
Mine draws 90-100W max under full load, IIRC.
6x Wh battery IIRC, but it doesn't last all that long
An efficient Bay Trail CPU can last over twice as long on a battery with half the capacity. A smaller screen helps too.
 
only 6/53 AVs picked up f6115b4804c61c610389a326f75aa6ed .. wonder if it's because it can be used for ethical purposes or if it's been altered
 
Bob
@ekaj ?
 
My old laptop peaked at about 65 W full load and has a 9-cell 93 Wh extended battery
 
5:31 AM
It's willing to run at full power until it drops below 50% when the CPU starts throttling
 
it's a hash for a remote access shell
 
I have a Haswell ULV 15W TDP and my battery life still sucks
I suppose it's because of the screen
 
Bob
@DragonLord Yea, I had one like that. Funny little bulge on the battery :P
Angled the machine nicely, actually.
@HackToHell Define "sucks".
I can easily drain my battery in under an hour.
 
@Bob It's four years old by now and is down to about 80% of original capacity
 
Bob
With light usage, maybe 2.5 hours max.
 
5:33 AM
@Bob Friend has a HP laptop, same specs
 
Bob
It was nearly 3 hours at one point, but it's aged now.
 
But lower resolution screen
We let both idle
His lasted an hour and a half more
 
Bob
@DragonLord My brother is using that one now, and there's no appreciable drop - but he rarely uses the extended one :P
 
Same processor, he has more RAM though
 
Bob
After a year of heavy use, I couldn't really tell a difference.
@HackToHell More than what?
 
5:34 AM
And we both a dedicated GPU, mine's a 820m he has a 840m I thinl
 
Bob
You still haven't given an actual time.
Despite my heavy hinting.
 
@Bob 3 hours idle !
 
Bob
That's fine.
 
If I use it, it's around 2 hours
If I am browsing
 
Bob
Protip: disable the dGPU.
 
5:35 AM
Doesn't Optimus already do that
 
Bob
Make sure it's disabled.
 
@Bob It's an HP MU09 battery
@Bob Not a problem for me, I have Optimus
 
Bob
Lots of seemingly innocuous programs will fire up the dGPU.
Adobe Flash is one of them.
 
@Bob My laptop actually has an indicator that tells you if the dGPU is on
 
Bob
@DragonLord ...what a coincidence O_O
 
5:36 AM
Oh, do you go to the nvidia settings page and check if an app is using the dGPU ?
 
Bob
I believe that's the exact same one I had...
 
Wait you guys have a light ._.
> Total power consumption: 3.7W
 
@HackToHell It's a Clevo P157SM built by Sager
 
That's not bad for a 1080p screen
 
Bob
@DragonLord Yea, my current one has an AMD dGPU. No light, but it does list current usage on the control panel.
It's alarmingly common for programs that should not need the dGPU to start using it.
 
5:37 AM
@Bob Optimus is not as dumb as Enduro
 
Bob
Enduro?
I don't think I've seen that name for it.
Huh. Apparently recently rebranded.
 
@DragonLord Sweet lap
 
Bob
@DragonLord Incidentally - if you're going to make that claim, please back it up.
In any case, I'd rather disable the dGPU as much as possible, no matter how "smart" it tries to be.
There's simply no need for the minuscule performance gain over the IGP.
 
@Bob My apologies—flagged for a mod to delete.
 
Bob
@DragonLord Well, there's no need for that.
I'm just curious if anyone's ever tested or directly compared the two.
 
5:42 AM
From what I understand, though, Enduro is a bit erratic compared to Optimus
 
Bob
But, yea. In your case, a 780M is powerful.
In my case, and @HackToHell's case, our dGPUs are more of a token effort.
Oh, hey, look, there's a dGPU!
...it just sucks power without really providing a useful performance boost.
Intel's IGPs are more than sufficient for typical web-browsing, videos, etc..
Especially when you're power-constrained.
 
@Bob yeah, it's useless
It was an extra 20$ for the dGPU
 
Bob
The dedicated graphics memory could be helpful, but, again, not for general desktop use.
 
So i was like why not ;p
 
Bob
The 820M is simply too weak to do much good.
 
5:45 AM
@Bob You too have the 820m ?
 
Bob
@HackToHell No. An AMD one.
 
Bob
The 820M benchmarks barely better than the HD 4400 for 3D graphics, and considerably worse for 2D: videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2785&cmp[]=2643
Though, if your processor has the GT graphics then that's considerably worse.
 
@DragonLord I'm not sure who flagged this, but if one of y'all could kick him in the nuts, it would save me some effort.
 
@HopelessN00b That was actually me
I think I jumped the gun here
 
5:48 AM
Well, then that would be some impressive acrobatics.
2
 
Bob
Heh.
 
@HopelessN00b I am very, very surprised to see you got elected as a mod at Server Fault despite your questionable nomination at the last Super User mod election
 
Bob
@DragonLord Pretty sure his SU nomination was more of a joke.
 
You and me both. Confirms the theory that it's rep, and nothing else that the vast majority of voters look at. If I thought for a second I was gonna get elected, I never would have gotten drunk and nominated myself.
@Bob Actually... it was pretty much the same platform.
 
Bob
@HopelessN00b ...yea, I just re-read your SF nom.
Which makes me think both nominations are supposed to be jokes.
No offence intended... not that I think you'd be offended by that :P
 
5:51 AM
@Bob That's ..... :( :(
 
Well... I wouldn't say jokes, so much as trying to prove a point. Unfortunately, getting elected kinda proved the opposite of what I set out to prove, so... I'm all confused.
 
I didn't know my GPU was that bad
Temped to disable it in the BIOS
 
Bob
@HopelessN00b It's more... while truthful as far as your opinion goes, it's the kind of thing you wouldn't expect to be elected on.
Well, the kind of thing I wouldn't expect someone to be elected on.
But I didn't vote at all in the SF election, and didn't vote for you on the SU one, soooo...
 
Yeah. proving wha I'd been hearing, but refused to believe about elections being basically decided along the lines of who has the most rep. :(
 
Bob
5:53 AM
@HopelessN00b And who you know.
 
> GeForce Performance Score1 : 2.5x
 
Bob
People know you. See you around. Vote for you.
 
According to nvidia it's 2.5x faster
;p
 
@HackToHell That's relative to Intel HD Graphics 4400
 
Bob
@HackToHell The graphics memory is likely a large advantage over the shared system RAM (which is also considerably slower).
 
@Bob Nah, not even that. If you look at the number of active Server Faulters vs the number of voters, there were at least three times as many voters as active members. And those people who weren't active, but voted, basically looked at who had the higest rep, and voted for that person. :( Proof that democracy doesn't work or something.
 
@Bob yeah there's that
 
Anyway, back to my Batman movies and Rum and Coke.
 
Bob
@HopelessN00b So what you're saying is EC needs more rep?
 
Though I have no idea why they paired 2 gigs of GDDR3 ram with a useless GPU
 
5:56 AM
@Bob I'm saying that if EC had 35k rep on Server Fault, he'd be a mod now, yeah.
 
@HopelessN00b I read what they say and then I vote
 
Bob
Well, I suppose that'd be amusing for a week or two.
@HackToHell I only vote on communities I actually put effort into, or spend time in. Pretty much just SU.
 
@HackToHell Well, you're a thoughtful, informed voter. And an insignificant minority of the voting population. :(
 
Bob
I have enough rep to vote on SF and SO. Maybe other sites. But I don't.
Why should I help decide a mod of a community I'm not really part of? How can I make an informed choice? (we all know how election promises can be quickly forgotten) I'd end up voting for the few people I know, not necessarily who might be objectively best.
 
I lost to Mokubai (who had far more rep) by less than 15 points last election
The tight margin suggests that reputation is not the only factor
I have a strong record of spam-fighting and cleanup
 
Bob
6:00 AM
Then again, the whole not-voting-in-other-communities kinda falls apart when everyone else does anyway.
 
...and I've dramatically ramped up my activity recently as part of a commitment I made more than a month ago
 
@DragonLord Not the only factor, but by far, the most important one. I didn't believe it either... until it happened to me.
 
Bob
@HopelessN00b You also have an advantage in other stats. e.g. far more helpful flags than other candidates.
That seems to be the first issue pointed out against low-rep candidates: their meta/flagging participation is basically nonexistent.
What we need is someone with your meta/flag stats but ~1k rep to nominate themselves :P
 
<shrug> I heard some convincing historical data from people in the know. It was both convincing and depressing.
 
It's been really eventful these last few months
 
6:19 AM
sob my router is full of ants ._.
 
??
rm -rf *ant*
 
@Bob I feel obligated to vote because of the notification ;p
 
...and I might well hit the rep cap today
 
Bob
@HackToHell huhwha
PSA: do not rely on removable storage media as your only copy of important data
2
Q: Is all her data lost from her 32GB SanDisk microSD card?

RockPaperLizardI am trying to help a friend who is very concerned that she has just lost all of the data on her 32GB SanDisk microSD card. I told her I would post this and see if anyone could offer help. Here are the details: The SanDisk microSD card is less than two years old. Probably only about a year o...

In fact... don't rely on any single medium.
HDDs crash. DVDs fade and scratch. SSD controllers die.
Tape becomes unmagnetised.
Nothing is foolproof.
 
6:35 AM
Having 1 Terrabyte of disk storage ~$100
Having 32Gig flash chunk ~$35
Not putting tiny little flash chunk on big fat disk as at least one backup ~$priceless
 
"I have used two type of network in my department. I have LAN and wife network" - he must really not trust his wife
 
@Bob You don't get it ? o.0
 
Bob
@HackToHell ?
 
I meant the notification
nvm
 
Bob
6:52 AM
...notification?
 
Do any of you actively use a password manager? I've been thinking about starting to use LastPass
 
Bob
7:19 AM
Oh you were talking about voting.
@ekaj KeePass here.
 
Happy overall?
 
Bob
Composite key. Password in my brain, keyfile on local machine. Encrypted database on Dropbox.
Works well for me.
 
When I get my laptop fixed I think I'm going to format it / change passwords for all of my websites while I'm at it. It's getting to be too much of a hassle to remember them all
 
Doesn't @allquixotic use Lastpass ?
 
I've reorganized this answer as part of an ongoing effort to increase answer quality and readability
Some of my longer answers can read like walls of text and this is not acceptable to me
The new style is based on what Thaddeus uses for his answers
What are your thoughts on this post and on my most recent answers? I haven't gotten much feedback on these changes.
 
7:31 AM
Whoa 111k rep in scifi
 
Read the log in my feedback room to see why I'm doing this
 
Anyone have Amazon displaying broken images and fonts?
Were they DDOS'ed?
Or I have problems on my side?
Try searching because that's where it shows.
Kay, it's me...
 
7:46 AM
This question, and my answer, are going viral and I'm going to hit the rep cap
 
Do you remember me Kay?
;D
 
The new answer style seems to be playing a huge role here
I'm getting consistently good scores from my recent posts and one seems to be going viral
 
 
1 hour later…
8:58 AM
Anyone want to help me track down why my Windows laptop is so painfully slow and constantly running the fan?
I have too little knowledge with Windows to know where to start.
It's been like that for a few weeks, and the system is really slow, even when just Outlook and Chrome are open.
 

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