Posts by Jack Cook7

It could be
- a busted voltage/fan speed controller on the GPU; there’s no fixing that once it's gone.
- some shorts or blown switches in the motor itself; you can grab an ohmmeter and check that out.
- a warped bearing because the motor shaft has been cooking for too long; try cleaning it up and hitting it with some high-quality machine oil or even watchmaker's oil. It's also possible the self-lubricating material in the sleeve bearing just wore down to nothing.

Honestly, the smartest move is to just swap out the fan before you end up frying the actual graphics card. Then we'll see what happens.

Michael Phillips8 said:Look, I've got a weird situation with my Microsoft memory right now. One stick is 4GB and the other is 2GB. If I try running just the 4GB one, the laptop starts up and immediately dies. Same thing if I try just the 2GB stick. Even swapping their slots doesn't change anything. Sadly, I don't have any spare sticks lying around to test out.

Man, I went through the exact same thing.

I’d say just unplug everything—pull the Microsoft modules, the hard drive, even the DVD drive—and do a cold CMOS reset (unplug the power, pop the battery out, plug the power back in, hold the power button to clear the CMOS, then pull the power again; keep going without the battery)

In the beginning, I actually thought about pulling the CPU too.

When you boot it up, listen for those beeps, right? They tell you stuff like "hey, there's no memory installed."

So, toss in one module, reset the CMOS, and give it another shot.

Keep swapping the modules and the slots until you figure out which specific stick or which specific slot is acting up.

Then plug the SSD back in and try again. Then the DVD drive.

Finally, put the battery back in, let it charge all the way up, and see if it lives.

My old laptop was about 6 or 7 years old. After fighting with it like this for a whole year, I ended up tossing it for parts—though I did have some spare modules, an extra hard drive, and a battery to make it worth it.

If both of those Microsoft modules are glitching out regardless of how you combo them, it's probably the motherboard. Maybe check the heatsink to see if it's clogged with dust; a good cleaning might help, but honestly, it sounds like thermal damage has already kicked in.

Your best bet is to take it to a Dell service center; they'll run diagnostics and give you a quote for maybe around $67. If it costs more to fix than it's worth, you might be able to sell it for parts to get some cash back.

Michael Phillips8 said:I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this weirdness: I hit the power button, the fan kicks in and things seem to be running, but it won't boot macOS. There’s nothing on the screen—just total blackness. After a while, it finally starts booting and everything works fine.
Then I shut it down. Next time I turn it on, it boots perfectly.
But then I shut it down again, try to turn it back on, and boom—same old story. Black screen for what feels like an eternity, just waiting for it to kick in. I end up force-shutting it down. Then I try again, and it’s the same headache. It goes on like this all day before it finally decides to wake up.

I'm guessing it isn't a macOS issue since it doesn't even get to the loading stage. Probably not the Intel either, because I swapped them out and had the same result. Doesn't seem like the Hard Drive is the culprit, since it's an upgraded unit, and if that were dying, it would probably just quit entirely.

Anyone got any bright ideas? Maybe something's cooked on the motherboard? The laptop is about 6 years old now, a Dell Inspiron with a dual-core i5, upgraded with a Hard Drive a long time ago.

Man, I dealt with something almost identical years ago with a different brand. Turns out there was a massive manufacturing defect with the motherboards on that specific model. My temporary fix was clearing the CMOS, but honestly, I just tossed the thing after a year of dealing with it.

Maybe your Intel modules or the Hard Drive have wiggled loose? Try reseating them and see if that does the trick.

It sounds like your processor is probably overheating, man. Most likely your fan is either totally shot or just isn't spinning as fast as it should be. You should crack it open and take a look—while you're at it, blow out all that dust with some compressed air.

Honestly? Just grab a new one. If you manage to get the old one running again, keep it around as a backup or for light tasks that won't kill it.

Did someone just bring up Leaving Las Vegas?

For me, nothing beats that scene with the waitress:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke6k...=youtu.be&t=99

Larry Walker24, don't get me wrong here. You gotta live by that old saying: Per aspera ad astra.

Basically? It means through thorns to even bigger piles of crap, and then everything just goes sideways.

Don't you dare quit on us, Larry Walker24. You're our guy, our rock. We're rooting for you. Keep messing with the mods as long as you're breathing—and maybe even after!

Larry Walker24, you're a total Muhammad Ali! Look at these moderators, just picking on the hardworking American people!!

Manchild's Life Matters! 🙂

Trailer Forum/Eurovision: the horror movie subforum. If you're naive or green, enter at your own risk—everyone else is gonna pay a heavy price. In return, you get a whole year of pure suspense where, just like in any great slasher flick, the ending is already written. Big egos, dirty secrets, backstabbing, and family drama. Oh, and we've even got fountains lined with ermine fur. Yeah, seriously. Everything you never knew you needed is right here in one place.

Here’s a little anthem to support Larry Walker24 for the Eurovision Song Contest. If you don't like it, you're just being stuck up.

Tump, tump, tumpa-ti tumpa ti tump,tump tump

Yo brothers, fellow forum dwellers, what is gooooooooiiiinnng on,
our boy Larry Walker24 is lost without his forumeeeeeees...

Tump, tump, tumpa-ti tumpa ti tump,tump tump

It's a disaster, the world is falling apart, we have no right
without Euroviiooooon!!

What a mess, what a total mess, the world is crumbling!
without Euroviiooooon!!

Tump, tump, tumpa-ti tumpa ti tump,tump tump

Oh you modern moderrrrrraaaators, listen up riiiiiight now
let Larry Walker24 play or we'll sing at you all day longgggg!!

Let Larry Walker24 play or we'll sing at you all day longgggg!!

Tump, tump, tumpa-ti tumpa ti tump,tump tump

I've got more, but I'll save it for later. Just dropping this trailer so you guys realize the absolute chaos headed your way. 🥳

I just want you guys to see what the politics subforum / world must deal with on a daily basis. No malice here, I promise—just straight-up facts.

Boom, boom, boom, boom... The Republican Party knows

I’m intentionally leaving out the lyrics to this timeless anthem just to keep you all in a state of creative suspense, wondering what's coming next. Is the Republican Party going to fleece the taxpayers? Hire 10,000 cousins? Pass laws that basically auction off the whole country and drive away every talented, honest person left?! What, seriously, what’s gonna happen???

And that is exactly why we need the Eurovision subforum! A place where everyone knows exactly who is stealing from whom and why. Let's go ahead and steal together! 🙂

Ugh, since when did ladies start using parentheses?

help me out here, someone shut him up.

Anthony Nguyen81 said:Better to go out in a blaze of glory than to just slowly fade into nothingness. 🙂

Heh, I bet half the ladies out there would start a riot over that!

Honestly? I’d much rather just fade out quietly into nothingness than go out like that. Give me a slow, graceful slide into oblivion any day over some big, messy exit. Better to just slip away unnoticed, you know?

Benjamin Taylor90 said:Man, besides acting like a know-it-all and being stubborn, there’s also the issue of wasting years of your life. 🙂

Hey, it is what it is. We make it work.

Unlike some folks who think they're absolute geniuses and ended up totally wiped out because of it.

PS: When was the last time you actually swung a golf club, buddy?

Benjamin Taylor90 said:Oh, come on, don't go all "offended princess" on me now. 🐔

Personally, I think embed content is a total pain, but hey, like they say, it's not the 90s anymore. I can live with it, as long as autoplay is turned OFF! ☕

Sure dude, I GET it. 😉

Listen, buddy, you better go chase a ball or something. You’re gonna need some serious spatial awareness in 3D, and don't even get me started on 4D or 5D.

Psst... did those few GET GET GET commands actually crash the forum?


Man, talk about an expert. He even started messing with his own Regex. 👍 (I actually managed to type a smiley face!)

Honestly, sometimes the stuff you stumble upon online kind of creeps me out. People say there are folks out there with absolutely zero sense of humor. I don't buy it personally, but the rumor keeps going around. Just another internet urban legend, I guess. Brrr... 🙂

Benjamin Taylor90 said:Wait, hold up—could you break that down for me? I’m totally lost and honestly have no clue what you're trying to get at.

Don't sweat the embedded content—it’s not gonna murder your server. Most of that stuff is just JavaScript running on the client side anyway. It's all happening right there in the user's browser! clientsideYeah, exactly. It just puts all the heavy lifting on the end user's hardware. At the end of the day, how fast everything loads or runs comes down strictly to how much horsepower they have in their rig and how solid their internet connection is. ☕

So, when vBulletin takes a YouTube link and flips it into an embed or some HTML code, it’s all running on Regex. Honestly, PHP can chew through that stuff millions of times a second without even breaking a sweat—your server won't even notice it's happening.

Honestly, the biggest drag on this server right now is that ancient, bloated member list. It’s totally useless. We've got GoogleBot and the rest of that crew constantly crawling all over the place 24/7. It's a mess. 🙏

The forum is absolutely tanking right now because the database is a total mess. Honestly, vBulletin is straight-up garbage—it uses MySQL in ways that go against everything the engine was actually designed for. It’s wild. I could literally crash this entire site with nothing more than a couple of GET requests. No joke. Pure hardcore chaos. 🙏 🙏

Seriously? Check out this robots.txt file! It’s basically just the ground rules for how search engines should crawl the site. Standard stuff, really. Just tells the bots where they can hang out and where they need to stay away from. Simple as that! 🤣

Whoever wrote this clearly hasn't a clue what they're doing. GoogleBot doesn't even acknowledge the delay. 🤣

Yes, master!

Ashley Vaughn79 said:I don't really care about every single thing on the list.
Basically, I just pick and choose the battles. 😬

It’s you two again. 😍

So, what’s the actual bottom line with these links?
Before you guys totally wreck this thread. 😁

I feel like we’re running out of time now that you two have crossed paths here again. 🙂

Here’s the final word on behalf of Jack Cook7 and wikiceh

Anthony Nguyen81 said:Digital literacy can be such a massive headache, especially when it’s laid out in those weird, repetitive intervals, like some kind of pattern 😲

Some things seriously need fixing, just so 😁

To mumble... I guess us old-timers are still stuck in the dial-up era. I'm talking ymodems and xmodems, man.

Man. I swear I remember back when we used to carve pictograms into birch bark. Some days I really feel my age. 😢

Thank god I don't remember too much of it. 😁

Come on, Gerald Chavez7, this is actually the first time I've ever heard anyone complain about you.
Admit it, you're loving this. 👍