Duranis

I only have a few games installed at the moment but it has happened with all of them, path of exile, Stellaris and euro truck simulator 2. It has crashed again tonight so borderless window/fullscreen probably not a factor. That was before I disabled any bios power management and sensors though. Used MSI afterburner to log useage while playing and everything seems to be ok. CPU temp maxed at 35C but was most around 25-30C, GPU temp maxed at 57C but was mostly around 50C, Ram usage was around 4GB, pagefile around 5GB and this was over a period of about 2 hours. I haven't managed to get a log that shows anything odd when it crashes so if something is spiking it is doing it before afterburner can write it to the log. Hoping disabling the bits in the bios will help but if it doesnt the only thing left I can think to do is remove the SSD and put my old CPU back in to see if the problem is still there. If it isnt then put both bits back one at a time and see if it triggers it. That of course wouldn't mean that the SSD or CPU was 100% the problem but at least it might give me some clues. Just so odd that benchmarking programs don't seem to cause a problem. I suppose it could be that I have just got "lucky" when running them and whatever is causing it didnt kick in then.

Thanks, the onboard sound was already disabled. I have tried turning off the temp sensors and any bios power management. Haven't got a UPS here unfortunately but might be something to try (could maybe take to someone else house to test). Is really frustrating. Even worse when I can't force it to happen by stress testing as I have to make a change then run a game for sometimes a couple of hours to test it.

That is pretty much the main point. Getting a decent quality, large (similar size to the IWB) format screen is going to cost more than an IWB/projector. If I was going to do a complete refresh of all the kit here it might be different but as some of the IWB are not that old I have to factor that in. I.E. If we pick IWB's we only need to replace the projectors and a couple of the really old boards. I'm also not 100% convinced on the lifespan of a lot of the touchscreens. Projectors/IWB are pretty bullet proof (excluding lamps) and are fairly easy to fix the things that do occasionally go wrong. Spares are also quite easy to source. If a touchscreen panel goes though there is not much I can do to repair it. IWB/projectors have a proven reliability and I don't think a lot of the large format touchscreens really have that yet (my opinion and I would be happy to be proven wrong). That is obviously not the whole story, you have to consider warranties, running cost over time, etc, which might level them out more but that is most likely what SLT will focus on.

In a similar position. Some of our IWB/projectors are probably going to need to be replaced within the next couple of years so have been weighing up the pros and cons between touchscreens and new IWB with short throw projectors. Still personally undecided to be honest and when it comes to it I will probably just write up a few different options for both and let SLT/teachers decide what they want. If with stick with IWB/projectors though I definitely want to swap them all to short throw as the standard ones we have now must be horrible to have shining in your face all day when you teach. Most of the classrooms now are running an IWB connected to a laptop, then they have a VHS player, DVD player and amplifier. I would like to replace the laptops with NUCS running the IWB (or touchscreen) and a secondary monitor and dump the rest of the kit which is just taking up space. In terms of "wow factor" gear things I would like to see: Class Tablets - Groups of tablets/hybrids that can be taken out and used for filming/photos/field work. I'm still working on this but the teachers here still mostly just use them as laptops. VR - Still costly and not a lot of educational software support but it is getting there. Being able to teach kids about mars for example while they are using some form of VR to see 360 videos from mars would be pretty awesome. It might even be a viable idea using cheapish Android devices+some version of cardboard and there are a lot of cool VR videos on youtube now that could be worked into lessons. 3D printers - I really love the idea of this but I still think the reality is that they are too slow, to finicky to use and to expensive for real classroom use. Large portable, multifunction, touch screens - The ones on electronic mounts that can be used as a table. could in theory be used for a whole number of group projects and they look pretty cool considering they are just a big touchscreen panel laying on its back. Pi's and robotics kit - So much cool stuff out there that would be great for teaching computer controls, programming, etc. The problem with a lot of WOW tech is that it isn't really practical for classroom use. Its a bit of a generalisation I know but a lot of teachers prefer the 10 year old tech because they understand how to use it and work it into their teaching. You could give every child an ipad, VR headset and personal 3D printer but I bet a lot of teachers wouldn't have the first clue about how to work there usage into the lesson plans.

Yeah the way borders/empire area is worked out isnt how i expected it to be. I don't think it is a fixed "object X adds Y amount of border around it". It seems that different objects add a different border value which is then all pooled together to work out where your borders are within X distance of that object. Kind of like if you have a puddle of liquid, as you add more it expands outwards and as you take it away the edges contract.

I feel this whole pun thread is a bit fishy and is just people angling for thank posts. I suppose it stops people being shellfish and derailing other threads though.

I know what you mean. Also I love Lumley, one of my favorite authors.

I picked this up last night and played for much longer than I should have I don't expect to do great on my first run through but so far it has been a lot of fun. Concentrating on maxing my mineral production at the moment but have hit a snag in expansion as there are no inhabitable worlds within my borders and I don't have enough influence resources to build another outpost. Trying to build more in the systems I have to push the borders out but it is slow going. Next time I will be more careful with where I place that first outpost

Didn't know if I should post this here or in the hardware section as it is my home PC. Basically I upgraded my home rig a few months ago with a new gfx card, cpu and an ssd and started with a clean win10 install. The problem is that occasionally it crashes, the screen goes a solid green/lime green colour and the computer completely locks. Sometimes it can go hours without doing it, other times it will do it twice within 10 minutes of first turning it on. Also it has never crashed when running stress tests/bench marks (tried a bunch of different ones), only while gaming. There is nothing in the windows log other than an improper shut down. Because it completely locks the PC it is hard to get a log of what is going on as it crashes but manually watching temps and voltages seems to show no big spikes in temp or voltage dips just before it happens (can add temp logs later if needed). I haven't manually tested voltage with a multi-meter yet and on board voltage sensors are never that trustworthy so it may still be a power issue. Spec: AMD FX-8320 R9 380 Windforce 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 Socket AM3+ Corsair 750w PSU 120GB SSD X2 1TB WD HDD What I have done so far: Updated all drivers for everything. Updated BIOS with latest version. Tried the last 3 versions of the GFX card drivers. Clean reinstalled Windows 10, again. Unplugged all but the system drive (SSD) and the harddrive with the game on. Moved the game to the SSD and had this as the only drive plugged in. Completely took all the hardware apart, cleaned contacts and rebuilt. Replaced the GFX card with my old one. This actually seemed to solve the problem for awhile but then it started happening again. Sent the R9 back under RMA, they tested it and said it was working fine so probably not the GFX card. Put a 12cm fan on the Northbridge heatsink as it was super hot. Apparently that is pretty normal though for the AMD 970 chip. Unplugged every USB device except the mouse and keyboard. Tried various combinations of 3D settings. Added extra support to the GFX just in case it was too heavy (cable tie to case). Run with 1 stick of ram, when crashed run with just the other. Calculated voltage/ampage usage for the pc and compared to what the PSU should be giving (assuming it is working fine). In theory the PSU is more than capable. Googled for answers and found a few people that mention their PC crashing to a solid green screen but no real solutions. Run stress tests overnight (8+ hours) and not had issues. Run memory checks and hardrive checks, again everything appears to be fine. I thought I had solved this until last night when I bought a new game and it started happening again within an hour of playing it. After taking everything apart again and trying different in game settings I noticed 2 things. When I switched it to full screen it then run for about 3 hours and hasn't had a problem. The Northbridge heatsink gets hot enough to burn you (which is apparently normal). So it seems like running processor/GFX intensive games in a borderless window might be the cause? Load usage, temps and voltages for CPU/GPU don't seem to be any different between borderless and fullscreen though so not sure why it would make a difference. Just really looking for ideas of where to go with this next. I don't have spare components to swap out for testing and I cant afford to buy a new parts when that might not even be the problem.

I also got this yesterday when I got home from work and yes, lets just say I'm feeling very sleepy this morning

Even if it turns out to be a cornfield I'm impressed that a 15 year old knew enough about the Mayans to come up with a theory and a way to being proving it true.

I never realised how much I wanted this until you just put the idea in my head! I really like the look of this game. I have tried a few 4x games in the past and while I enjoy them I never really got into them properly because the learning curve and lack of in game help was too much. Looks like this game does a better job of guiding you through the early stages and telling you what is what.

Reinstalled this last night and gave it a go with the mouse and keyboard to begin with. After killing a few other road users I set up the xbox one controller and it is much more enjoyable. Only made about £15k so far and hit lvl 2 doing the quick jobs but starting to see the appeal

Yeah I think I might have had it set up wrong so it took an age to actually move the camera fully left to right and by the time you had on some junctions there was then traffic that wasn't there before. Is it possible to have it so one button will look left, another will look right and when they are released it will auto center the view? I could be wrong but I do think the issue I had was more about having to spend more time faffing with the camera view than with actually playing the game. It was a long time ago though so hard to remember exactly what I was doing wrong that put me off it Off topic but I use a lot of courseplay in farming sim so no cutting corners and lots of very careful, thought out driving by me in that (first time at least while I record the course, than the AI does it ever time after ).

I really should give this game a go again. I did try it before but found the controls horrible, I vaguely remember something annoying me when trying to look left and right at junctions, think it was maybe really slow and had more then one thing drive into me because I couldn't see it. Will have to stick an xbox controller on there and spend a bit of time setting it up properly then try again. Still think it wont be better than farming simulator though

From the sounds of it Pearson messed up and published the paper to the secure area of their site too early and one of the markers who had access to it tried to then pass it to the media. Yeah to be fair it should not have been anywhere that people could get to it yet but the real fault is with the person working as a marker who was supposed to be under contract to not be an idiot and leak confidential documents. Don't take this the wrong way but kids are a LOT better educated now then they were 50-60 years ago. My youngest is in his last year of primary and is learning stuff that I hadn't been taught until I was 2 or 3 years older than he was (and I had a pretty good education). They learn things faster and better than I ever did and that was "only" 20-30 years ago. Honestly as long as the teachers and parents are doing things right I think the kids can cope just fine with it.

Generally council run recycling centers wont let you take anything. Check if there is a local for sale and wanted facebook group as I'm sure there would be more than one person that has a few stashed away.

I actually quite love this game. My mrs wanted it for the xbox so I got it for her awhile ago thinking it would be rubbish. It is a surprisingly fun and engaging game. I ended up buying it for the PC so I could mod it. I highly recommend using courseplay if you are playing it solo, this lets you automate pretty much everything so you can end up having lots of equipment running all at the same time Also quick tip, silage for the biogass plant is where the money is at and doesn't take too much equipment (front loader with scoop, mower attachments and a grass collector).

Jeez, £30 for a couple of bits of aluminium and 2 pairs of nuts and bolts! Is he interested in anything else? Might be worth taking a look for "experience days" to see if there is anything he might really like. My Mrs had got me a couple over the years and they where brilliant fun. One was a day flying falcons (something I had always wanted to do) and the other was off roading in a humvee which was both terrifying (massive, steep, hill climb sections!) and enormous fun I dont play golf so not sure what is actually good and what is overprice junk that nobody actually wants but it does look like there are some fun tech toys to play here https://www.golfonline.co.uk/golf-gadgets/viewall Laser ranger finders sound awesome, even as a non-golfer I still want one

Disclaimer, not a doctor, etc, etc. I also would recommend going to an optician as well and explain that you have started spending more time working on a computer and have been getting headaches. There is apparently an anti-glare coating they can apply to glasses that is supposed to be good for people that work on computers for long periods of time. I don't know how much difference it makes but it probably wouldn't hurt. Also make sure you are taking plenty of eye breaks. I know its not always easy but staring at one fixed spot for extended periods of time is really not good for your eyes. Even if you take 5 minutes every hour or so to go take a look around and get your eyes focusing at different lengths will help. I would also start making a diary of when you are getting these headaches (dates and times), how long they are lasting, how bad are they, what were you doing at the time. If you can, also keep a diary of what you eat and drink and when (including any medications). This is a pain but can help to see if there is a food related trigger. Between the two diary's you might start to see a pattern of when you are getting them and if a certain activity or food is causing them. One more thing, are you taking pain killers regularly (maybe to help with the headaches)? A few years back I was getting constant headaches and had put it down to being really stressed all the time with work (it was a super busy and stressful period). I had been taking paracetamol and ibuprofen to stop the headaches but it got to the point that they did nothing and the headaches were there from when I woke up to when I went to bed. When I went to the Doctor he told me to stop taking all pain killers as they can actually cause headaches if taken for long periods of time. I was pretty skeptical but after a few weeks without them the headaches went away.

Watched Captain America Civil War on Friday with my kids. Was an ok film and I quite enjoyed it but the plot is really weak, its basically Hollywood's answer to every 10 years old's question of "who would win in a fight between X super hero and Y super hero". I still have enough of 10 year old me sitting in the back of my mind to still find it enjoyable but some might not I actually really enjoyed the actor playing Spiderman and the way the character was written, very different to how it has been done in other Hollywood films. I don't think this is giving anything away seeing as everyone already knows the basic plot of the film but, spoilers: So a group of people that have fought off an alien invasion and stopped a self replicating super powered AI kill bot (and much more) basically get to the point that they are willing to risk killing each within the space of about 2 days for no real reason. The reasons for the disagreements are there but seem flimsy compared to what this group of people have been through. Alternatively they are not really trying properly to stop each other and all sense of danger or tension goes out of the window (there is a scene between Black Widow and Hawkeye when they are fighting that shows this). Tony Stark's character is developed nicely and there is a bit of development on Vision's character but everyone else seems to just be in the film for the action scenes. I enjoyed it but did have a little bit in the back of my mind that kept saying "these characters would just not act like this".

@smithson83 They have been working great. Have half a dozen here now and will replace the rest of the old ones with these as they break. The picture quality is a lot better than the expensive Lumens ones we previous had and they work fairly well to capture moving objects as well (the lumens ones ghosted badly if anything moved). Not sure when they would ever want to use it to show a moving object but its nice that they now have that option

Good Luck! Even if you don't hear anything don't let it put you off. In the short term what is the structure of your current position like. Do you have an NM you get on well with? Maybe worth chatting with them and seeing if they can get you involved with more complicated projects? Maybe look at things that you guys are missing that might be useful to everyone that you could take the lead on (helpdesk, network monitoring/alert system, etc). If you can show initiative and the ability to plan and carry out useful projects you are much more likely to be asked to get involved with the higher level stuff. I would also say in my limited experience (only edu position I have worked in is this one) that if you do want to widen your knowledge you might want to look outside of the education sector. Most schools have fairly limited budgets, user sizes and facilities which means you are limited to what you are exposed to (like i said though, I could be wrong in this opinion). The best place to get IT experience IMO is working for a company that provides IT support to businesses. This will not only widen your IT experience by exposing you to lots of different kits and ways of setting it up it, it also gives you a small amount of experience of how different businesses and industries work. the other plus point is as you are dealing with multiple companies you are also dealing with lots and lots of different people which helps your people management skills as well. Edit: Doh didn't see this had been bumped from Feb. Good to know you got the job though, well done

Really sad to hear this. I loved Prince growing up and his music still sounds fresh and amazing today. If I was a celebrity the was famous in the '80s I would be pretty worried right now that I'm either going to die or get investigated for sexual offenses any time now.

lol