Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 September 2

= September 2 =

Switching to Windows 10
I just switched from Vista to 10. However, my new PC keeps not responding for a while every minute or so. Task manager reports 100% disk utilization at these times. The culprit seems to be Macafee most of the time. Is there some setting I can adjust to stop this? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:47, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Your best bet is to back up your data, format your disk, do a clean install of Windows 10, install the latest versions of all of your apps from their websites, and restore your data. And BTW, drop McAfee. They keep having problems like this. And this. And these. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:56, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It is called McAfee. describes the procedure for earlier versions of Windows, in Windows 10 you can simply "reset" a pc. But reinstalling Windows 10 is probably not necessary, it is not unlikely that your problem will go away if you uninstall McAfee. &#40;&#40;&#40;The Quixotic Potato&#41;&#41;&#41; (talk)  08:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You should also check your disk for bad blocks. Ruslik_ Zero 08:31, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I found a list of suggestions to try. The third item, turning off superfetch, seems to fix the problem [cross fingers]. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:56, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Weird Google result
I did a google search for William Finley Semple (I was looking to see if I could find his vital dates to add to his WP article), and I got a result that says he was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Odd, I thought. Maybe his parents were visiting or working there at the time, I thought. So I checked further and I found zero confirmation of this. Apparently he was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio. And I could find no connection between Tashkent and anyone called Semple at all.

What could possibly cause Google to get it so badly wrong in this case? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:30, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I can't find the link on google which states that! Can you be more precise? Aspro (talk) 11:42, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Look at the Knowledge Graph box at right."William Finley Semple was a dentist from Mount Vernon, Ohio, commonly referred to as the first person anywhere to patent a chewing gum. On December 28, 1869, Semple filed Patent No. 98,304 with the U.S. Commissioner of Patents. Wikipedia

Born: 1832, Tashkent, Uzbekistan Died: 1923, Ohio, United States"So yes, definitely an error :-) I initially thought it was a problem derived somehow from us, but the "Wikiblame page history search" found neither Uzbekistan or Tashkent, and his Wikidata page, d:Q8008874, doesn't have a birthplace and never has.  Nyttend (talk) 11:51, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * First thing I checked was the page history, thinking that vandalism of the article might have introduced Tashkent, which got stuck in Google's brain.  But no such luck.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  14:34, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * By the way, JackofOz, the birth year appears to be wrong; he was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania in 1834 and grew up at Steubenville, moving to Fredericktown (near Mount Vernon) at age 22. See page 799 of History of Knox County, Ohio, which is available FUTON from several different sites.  No death year, since this is an 1881 publication.  My copy of Filby found a couple of other sources: Past and present of Knox County, Ohio of 1912, also easily online, and the Knox County portions of History of north central Ohio of 1931, although he's not in the latter book's index.  These are your typical Ohio county histories: published by major history publishers from local materials, and therefore highly reliable for local events and people but not hugely useful for the non-local topics on which they touch briefly.  If you want more information, you would do well to contact the library at Kenyon College just down the road from Mount Vernon and Fredericktown, or contact the library at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.  Kenyon's far older (1824, versus 1968 for MVNU), so they're more likely to have relevant documentation.  Nyttend (talk) 12:05, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for all that, Nyttend. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  14:34, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. I hope it's useful and that you're not merely being polite :-)  Nyttend (talk) 02:07, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * O, ye non-believer! Gaze upon the article and observe it transforming before your very eyes (when I get around to it) .  :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:35, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Well that was the issue; I saw that the last human edit (other than vandalism or vandalism-reverting) was 28 February 2014, so I was guessing that my information wasn't going to be put to use :-) If for some reason you need to research Ohioans, let me know and I can help you find county histories; they're amazingly useful, especially for people from middle-population counties, although they're sometimes good for lower-population counties (where fewer histories were printed, and often with lesser detail) and for the most populous counties (where there are so many people that there's no room for ordinary people and places), and I've worked a good deal with them.  Nyttend (talk) 02:49, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I thanked you for your data just 2 hours after you posted it. My interest in Semple is twofold: (a) a private purpose; and (b) converting years of birth/death in his WP article to full dates, if they're available - in that order. It was never my plan to do a full-scale revision of his article.  Now, through this process of checking his birthplace, you've come up with improved data about him. That's good. That's why I thanked you. Because I don't like seeing productive research time (mine or others') go to waste, I will put your data to use, but in due course when my schedule permits.  Thank you.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:38, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The birth location wasn't copied from Wikipedia. See HD/GKG for the stock reply to many posters who think the whole Google Knowledge Graph is from Wikipedia. I don't know where they got Tashkent from. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:11, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for finding that template. As soon as I'd checked the Google result, I thought of that template, but it's not on Help desk templates, and I couldn't think how to find it otherwise.  Nyttend (talk) 19:06, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * HD is linked at the end of Help desk templates. HD/GKG is one of many subtemplates. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:41, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Age of laptop death
Can someone help me find statistics on the average age when a laptop is discarded because its physical condition has deteriorated to the point that sustained use is unlikely or is dangerous to one's data (due to high risk of catastrophic failure), or outright impossible due to a complete failure? It's easy to find documentation on when people like to replace their computers, but that typically talks about someone who replaces a computer because he likes a newer machine's greater capabilities or wants to have the newer machine as a status symbol. I'm talking about situations like my previous HP Pavilion, 2007-2011 (replaced because the power supply failed when the motherboard was already at high risk) or my current one, 2013-date (lots of small problems, plus assorted breakages here and there, including the cover for one of the hinges, the covers for several of the fan ports, and three of the USB ports), not necessarily something immediate like "oops I dropped it". Note that my experience may not be representative; I've visited more than 500 counties in 21 US states since buying the current one, and I take it everywhere with me in the car. Nyttend (talk) 13:17, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Isn't the reason to discard a laptop usually a combo of the two ? For example, if the pointer device goes bad, you could just plug in an external mouse, but if the laptop's obsolete anyway, this might make you decide to upgrade. StuRat (talk) 15:04, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * A combo of which two? Nyttend (talk) 15:21, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Hardware failure and obsolescence. Compare it to a car.  If the transmission needed replacing on a brand new car, you'd probably do it.  But if the car's an old heap of junk, you'd just scrap it. StuRat (talk) 15:22, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * My laptop does what I need it to, so I keep it until I can't trust it to keep doing what I need it to; I'd be happy to keep it into the 2020s if it were physically robust. Am I weird in that?  I just figured that most owners of laptops or desktops (other than gamers who need the latest high-performance model) would replace their computers either as soon as they could afford newer models or would keep the old ones until they couldn't function reliably.  Nyttend (talk) 15:29, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I have a really old IBM Thinkpad laptop that runs Windows 98. The pointing device failed, the battery failed, so it only works plugged in, and the backlight goes off if I open it to the wrong angle.  I do use it, on rare occasions, because it has some classic games that I don't have on my newer PC. StuRat (talk) 17:01, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * With how long computers have come it is not weird to keep computers longer. When it comes to laptops the biggest factor in users upgrading aside from harsh abuse like a cracked screen or a design flaw like broke screen hinge is usually ether due to: HDD failure, battery problems or in need of OS upgrade which requires purchasing a new license in the case of Windows/Mac. All of these issues can be resolved without buying a new laptop, but a lot of people feel like if they're going to have to buy a new drive, new battery or new license, they figure they might as well just put that money towards a new laptop that comes with a new drive, OS license, battery etc so they are solving their problem and getting a upgrade at the same time. This of course is also usually dependent on how much was spent on the laptop in the first place. Those who spent more on a laptop are probably more likely to want to repair where as those who spent much less on a laptop may be more inclined to just get a new laptop. This information is from working in the IT sector, I've built hundreds of computers, servers, repaired desktops, servers, laptops, phones, you name it I've probably done it at one point or another.
 * With that said laptops that have a HDD are prone to HDD failure. The drives take a toll from being moved around a bunch. One of the best upgrades for a laptop is investing in a SSD. HDDs have moving parts and are usually the first thing to go on a laptop and most people are caught off guard when it happens, since it could be working fine one day then the next you hear the drive clicking and you lose access to all your data on the drive. A SSD has no moving parts and is just a array of NAND flash memory so no moving parts so you can move the laptop around all you want without having to worry about causing damage to your drive from the movement.
 * I'm not saying SSD don't fail though, because they do, just as all electronics can fail SSD can too. They're just less susceptible to damage compared to a HDD in situations where the computer is moved around a bunch like laptops are. If you already have a SSD and the laptop does what you need, I'd say use that thing till it is worn down to a tiny nub. Offnfopt (talk) 16:21, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I just send my old Dell Precision M90 to the electronics recycler because [A] the internal cooling fan stopped working (which I can fix; it went bad once before) and [B] Dell doesn't have Win10 drivers for such an old model (I dual boot Windows 10 and Linux). I ended up buying a Lenovo ThinkPad N22 ($230 on Amazon) It comes with an internal 64GB SSD which is big enough for both operating system, but I splurged and added a 250GB internal M.2 SSD for $90, 200GB Micro SDXC for $80 and a 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive for $40. I have another, more expensive desktop system that I use for CAD, but the Lenovo connected to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse works so well that I find myself using it for most things. It's pretty rugged, but if I was using it in my car a lot I would consider adding a protective case for $40. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:08, 2 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The Acer 5630 laptop on which I am typing this reply (and do most of my editing and other work) is more than ten years old and has been running continuously (hybernating overnight) for nearly all of ten years. Physically, it is falling apart, but the electronics are still working perfectly except that it is a bit slow sometimes, and tends to overheat.  It still runs its original operating system which has never needed to be reinstalled.  I have been expecting the hard drive to fail for several years, so I do regular backups of important data.  ( Yes, I know that one example is not the statistics you were looking for. )   D b f i r s   06:18, 3 September 2017 (UTC)


 * For the very few that may be  interested, my Psion Organiser II still works perfectly well over 25 years on. Very robust too – impossible to end up with a crashed hard drive by dropping it. My earliest slide rule must be now into its 50's and so far ( fingers crossed) and I haven't had to replace its batteries even once. Aspro (talk) 16:32, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I, too, have a slide rule of 1960s vintage, but I haven't checked its batteries recently. I think it was powered by a thumb drive.    D b f i r s   12:05, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I can't help you with statistics unfortunately. But anecdotally, it very much depends on your expectations and what you use it for. A friend of mine once bought a new 200 euro laptop (3 years or so ago) and then was surprised that after 2 years plastic parts were falling off and he had trouble running the latest versions of Windows which he needed for some program for work, and the battery would last just an hour or so. But you get what you pay for. If you only have 200 euro to spend, it might sometimes be wiser to spend that on a second hand machine that is two years old but was pretty high end when it was released rather than on a brand new piece of cheap plastics.
 * Do not underestimate the benefits of choosing robustness, speed and screenquality when you intensively use a computer. I look at a screen for so many hours, that screen quality is important, especially as I'm no longer in my 20s. If you carry something every day, robustness is critical, as inevitably with so much usage you will drop it, trip over a wire, break a key etc.. And just not having to curse at the thing because it's taking 3 hours to upgrade something, while you scramble to find the power cord because the battery is almost dead, saves hours in frustration and productivity.
 * My upgrade strategy now is to buy once every 5 years. I buy relatively expensive (Macs), but after those 5 years, I still have resale value so that can be discounted from the price. I've been doing this for 11 years now, just on my 3rd cycle and I've been very happy. I've since also decided to 'splurge' for a color laser printer. I got annoyed by having to replace an inkjetprinter every 2 years. This will take 4 years before it's less expensive than inkjets, but at least i'm not stimulating the throw away economy of inkjet printers. I decided to use my machines, instead of having to fight with them. Even though I spent a bit more money it's been worth it (if you use commercially, it would have been worth it in the extra hours you actually get stuff done a hundred fold). My previous machine was almost 6 years old, but still had another 4 years or so in it for someone who just browses the web or does similiar low end stuff. It has more life left in it than that 3 year old 200 euro machine my friend bought at least... I think that mostly, whatever you buy, its a game of quality vs features (especially in the windows world with the huge diversity of systems). I personally would never buy the cheapest line of any brand. I'd rather trade in some features for a bit better quality line of their product. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 10:28, 4 September 2017 (UTC)