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| Post Number: 11
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^Oni^ 
Flagellate
Group: Members
Posts: 209
Joined: Jun. 2002
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Posted on: Jul. 05 2002,14:55 |
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When the controller on the drive itself starts to get flakey, sometimes drives will just spin and spin and spin for no apparent reason. Especially after a simple action like opening "My Computer" which accesses only the FAT and early sectors of the drive but gives it instructions to carry out.
Hard drives notoriously do strange things as they age. Much like people. 
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Would you rather have perfectly developed trapezius muscles and shaky moral grounding or be able to generate complex shadow puppets but comprehend absolutely nothing said to you between the hours of 3 and 4 pm?
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| Post Number: 12
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WillyPete
Tired
Group: Members
Posts: 413
Joined: Dec. 2000
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Posted on: Jul. 05 2002,16:51 |
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If you can post a copy of your processes page (CTRL ALT DEL - 2nd tab) then we could have a look to see if you got something odd running.
Best bet is to keep tabs on your autoexec, config files and the RUN/RUN ONCE/RUN SERVICES area of your registry
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| Post Number: 13
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RadioActive
BioHZRD
Group: Members
Posts: 483
Joined: Jan. 2002
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Posted on: Jul. 05 2002,19:36 |
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<Arafelis> Er, can anyone help me get rid of a virus?
<Arafelis> I sort of need to before it takes out my computer.
<Arafelis> It's creating a junk file called WIN386.swp
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
-Albert Einstein
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| Post Number: 14
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WillyPete
Tired
Group: Members
Posts: 413
Joined: Dec. 2000
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Posted on: Jul. 06 2002,00:43 |
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Haw!
You mock, but 2 days ago, our tech who's always moaning about how our desktop team create shit images, went and set C:'s swap file to 0 before setting one on D: Win2k(helps performance, even more so if it's on another physical drive)
Kerplunk.
No virtual mem at all.
Anyways, I sussed it for him, but if you guys ever (god forbid) have the same issue, restart using safe mode command prompt.
Browse to c:\winnt\system32 and do a dir to check the names of the .CPL files. They're the control panel ones.
They run in the dos safe mode for win2k.
Run the sysdm.cpl and you got your system properties page page.
Set a swap and you're off.
Fun exercise. Humbled him for a while.
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| Post Number: 15
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forumwhore
Fear Me, I Am Change.
Group: Members
Posts: 3282
Joined: Dec. 2001
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Posted on: Jul. 06 2002,03:06 |
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Lesse, D:drive is slaved to C:drive, and I just remembered after reading you guys that I moved the swp file there a long time ago (D).
Am I incorrect in stating that the swp file is only used when the computer runs low on RAM?
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Posting from; El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula
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| Post Number: 16
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Wiley
©0®ÞØ®4+3 whØ®3
Group: Members
Posts: 1268
Joined: Oct. 2001
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Posted on: Jul. 06 2002,03:13 |
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Speaking of fun with .cpl files try this little bit of joy.
When at the home of your wifes close girlfriend, place a disturbing picture as the desktop wallpaper (I used a picture of a girl sucking off a horse) and delete the desk.cpl file. Then watch the drama unfold as they can't change the desktop picture. I'm telling you it hours of fun. ...until the wife turns on you.
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| Post Number: 17
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Wiley
©0®ÞØ®4+3 whØ®3
Group: Members
Posts: 1268
Joined: Oct. 2001
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Posted on: Jul. 06 2002,03:15 |
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| Quote (forumwhore @ 05 July 2002,19:06) | | Am I incorrect in stating that the swp file is only used when the computer runs low on RAM? |
What kind of utopian world do you live in?
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| Post Number: 18
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forumwhore
Fear Me, I Am Change.
Group: Members
Posts: 3282
Joined: Dec. 2001
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Posted on: Jul. 06 2002,03:36 |
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One where no one is bothered that I'm a tard.
One where the girl in my 'tar will come and sit on my lap... someday...
One where my freaking email works for more than 2 months at a time.
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Posting from; El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula
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| Post Number: 19
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Bob_the_Cannibal
Anonymous Coward
Group: Members
Posts: 313
Joined: Feb. 2002
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Posted on: Jul. 06 2002,10:25 |
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technical explanation: Virtual memory is temporary HDD space that is used like RAM. it is slower than physical memory, however.
Items in memory are "swapped" into it when you run low on RAM, or, when items in memory are not needed for a while. (hence the name "swap file"...)
The reason we have virtual mem, is because we haven't got enough ram for heavy tasks, like photoshop, Half-life, Quake 3, TMPGENC, VirtualDub, and other tasks, which require heavy amounts of storage space. This is why your disk "thrashes" when you are loading the memory too much.
IE: you start TMPGENC, and recode an AVI to mpeg. while that's running, you start up a game of Half-Life, and start rendering that 20 trillion poly/frame, 120FPS extra hi-res, hour long MAX file you've been working on...
this is, of couurse, not possible. you'd run out of CPU power if you started that MAX file... just the render alone would cause your virtual memory to be flooded. you'd need gigabytes (not singular) to process the scene effectively.
this is why we have swap files. so that boneheads can do large operations, with just a time and performance hit, and making their computer all but unusable until they're done...
in reality, you aren't doing any of that, are you? get more ram. this should alleviate some swap problems. otherwise, it might be your controller...
(Insert BOFH solution here)
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| Post Number: 20
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forumwhore
Fear Me, I Am Change.
Group: Members
Posts: 3282
Joined: Dec. 2001
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Posted on: Jul. 06 2002,18:51 |
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I've 512 mb RAM.
I rarely do any photo work that would need more space, my file sizes are small for the 'net.
Thankyou, though
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Posting from; El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula
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