Blocked PC scam

[enaiman]

I can only say one word: "prevention".
Keep a good antivirus running on your computer, don't click on everything (including links in emails) and don't open email attachments/files if the sender is unknown to you.
If you manage these 3 things, you'll avoid being infected by 99% of viruses/malware.
If you fall into that 1% cathegory, use every advice given in this thread

[arith]

Delay again Adrian; I'm getting a bit paranoid since the items are all from different sources via Amazon, apparently they will all come back into stock on the same day. The electric toothbrush looks like a freebie to me, but it could be a mistake.

The instructions with the case is just a picture, but after going on the internet and seeing someone build one in a review I quite like it, filters everywhere. I've only been able to fix the risers and PSU and backplate, got to wait now. Last I'll say on it, promise

[Geoff F]

I did get an offer flash on my screen recently. You have won a free mobile phone - click here.

I just exited the site immediately. From my experience, at best, that sort of offer just means a load of spam and quite possibly a virus.

[arith]

I did get an offer flash on my screen recently. You have won a free mobile phone - click here.

I just exited the site immediately. From my experience, at best, that sort of offer just means a load of spam and quite possibly a virus.

The emails from parcel couriers are the worst. They say you have a parcel held up in customs because of tax problems, incorrect discription of contents or something. But the only public email I have is never used to buy things with, and never gets downloaded unless it is from a known source.

It is a sort of red herring, the inbox gets filled full of crap everyday. Hundreds of them. My main mail is secret, and hardly ever gets any crap in it.

[Geoff F]

I started to get some spam a little while ago but I use a server and a browser which are both very tough on questionable e mails. So I get very little now.

In order to reach me, everything must have a sender e mail address so if I do get sent anything I just send them a return message, in fact several messages, telling them exactly what I think of their company and their marketing technique.

It doesn't take long for them to stop when they get time wasting return e mails from you.

[arith]

Cor Adrian; got all the bits apart from chassis speaker, put the all in doing a neat job on wiring, put the power on and this monitor and....... nothing.

Not a dicky bird. After a look inside checking polarity ect cannot find a fault, memory looks secure, graphics look secure, optical works, don't know about hDD, but I do know that the cpu fan is slow to start. For some reason it doesn't start until after about ten seconds. All USB's light up a light, so I'm a bit stuffed until I get the speaker.

My monitor is very strange since it will only work with both dvi and vga fitted, and then only on digital. So I wonder ??????

Of course it could be a fried cpu, it's insured for accidental damage but how do I know ?

[Tygart]

Cor Adrian; got all the bits apart from chassis speaker, put the all in doing a neat job on wiring, put the power on and this monitor and....... nothing.

Not a dicky bird. After a look inside checking polarity ect cannot find a fault, memory looks secure, graphics look secure, optical works, don't know about hDD, but I do know that the cpu fan is slow to start. For some reason it doesn't start until after about ten seconds. All USB's light up a light, so I'm a bit stuffed until I get the speaker.

My monitor is very strange since it will only work with both dvi and vga fitted, and then only on digital. So I wonder ??????

Of course it could be a fried cpu, it's insured for accidental damage but how do I know ?

I sent you a PM...

[arith]

I think it is a short circuit. I've had the board off and found a spring clip bent back and under the board, one that was attached to the backplate.

Removed it but still no beeps. Never mind.

[Tygart]

I think it is a short circuit. I've had the board off and found a spring clip bent back and under the board, one that was attached to the backplate.

Removed it but still no beeps. Never mind.

Don't feel too bad, I fried my last motherboard, I was trying some new ram (did not work) and I guess I drooped something in the RAM slot and when I hit the power button I seen a puff of smoke. I haven't replaced it yet.

[Nomadr]

talking of scams, i got one of those telephone calls saying my computer was infected by a virus, i played along for an hour pretending i had logged onto their site and done everything they said, then i got bored and told them my computer had just blown up and it was their fault,when i asked for their credit card number so i could bill them for a new computer they hung up, at least i wasted some of their time and hopefully stopped some gullible person from signing up for their non existent PC fix.cheers martyn

[Ady]

Hi Steve,

sorry, not been around much recently. Dare I ask how it's going?

Cheers,
Ady

[arith]

Hi Adrian; I found out that although the FX_8120 is listed as compatible by Gigabyte, it has been known a long time in America that it isn't, unless you have a brand new board GA 970A UD3. But I got the oldest GA 970A UD3 so I have to first have an AM3 processor to get it running, which aren't on offer at the moment.

So I'm sending it back to the dealer and I even have to pay the postage. On top of that, before I found out about the motherboard I had a technician list the parts that didn't work and he said he couldn't find anything wrong with anything, he couldn't say why it didn't work.

Well maybe he should have looked a little harder. Waiting for the post to collect it now

[Ady]

Sorry to hear of your ongoing woes. It's just typical that you do all the work and spec what appear to be a bunch of perfectly compatible components only to have it all unravel, yet someone can order a random bunch of stuff from Amazon without checking anything and by pure chance ends up with a perfect system

On the 'couldn't find anything wrong with anything' front that may have just been exceptionally unlucky. I used to be a technical manager for a solution provider/system builder, with a build floor chucking out £8m to £12m of kit each year. Just occasionally we would find that a combination of components that had been quite happily put together hundreds of times in the previous couple of weeks wouldn't run at all or was very unstable, but move those parts into different systems and they would all function perfectly well. After extensive testing we would usually find that each component was running within spec but towards the limits of their specified tolerance, so this particular card on that particular motherboard using a particular PSU would fail because of a cumulative effect of each component running at the limit of it specified tolerance. Swap a single component and everything would be fine because the new component was at the opposite end of it's range of tolerance compared to the other components, more often than not it would be down to input and output voltages or clocks.

Not that any of this of any use to you at all, but I thought it may be of interest.

Well good luck and I really do hope you end up with a spectacular machine at the end of it all, despite the pain and aggravation it takes to get there.

Cheers,
Ady

[arith]

Cheers Adrian. Motherboard GA 970A UD3 manufactured after October 2011 is ok, but Mobo GA 970A UD3 before that date might not work. But no difference in the number.

It is back with the supplier and I don't know what they are doing with it because an email merely states tested awaiting replacement.

Cheers

[arith]

It is actually working now, for gods sake. I can only use one pc at a time cos my brother managed to break an avg cable cos I asked him for a monitor and it seems he has to break something. Also my disc partition program 'partition manager 9' doesn't work because it needs drivers for a mouse.

You can't make it up, but ultimate boot did work, and closed temperatures on idle look like 30 25, on optimum settings, so maybe it is ok.

I'm a bit surprised it worked given the abuse it has had, now I have to work out how I get 100GB C drive, 2TB-200GB D drive, and 100 GB unallocated so that the Gigabyte recovery will work. Sheez, I aint doing this again.

[Ady]

I don't know if I should because it's working! Or because you have had so much trouble.

BUT I am glad it's getting there and once the pain is beginning to fade I hope to see a post exclaiming how much nicer/faster it is to work on. If not I'll feel like* giving you a refund for all you effort, sometimes this industry really needs to have a rethink about making such things much more straight forward.

*I did say 'feel like' Much as I'd love to give everyone a well built, fast, upgradable PC using only the best quality parts I haven't won the lottery yet. When I do I'll give you a shout!

Cheers,
A

[arith]

I don't know if I should because it's working! Or because you have had so much trouble.

BUT I am glad it's getting there and once the pain is beginning to fade I hope to see a post exclaiming how much nicer/faster it is to work on. If not I'll feel like* giving you a refund for all you effort, sometimes this industry really needs to have a rethink about making such things much more straight forward.

*I did say 'feel like' Much as I'd love to give everyone a well built, fast, upgradable PC using only the best quality parts I haven't won the lottery yet. When I do I'll give you a shout!

Cheers,
A

Got myself an IPS panel today; well it has taken all day to get it working. My old monitor has to have all cables connected and it has taken that long for me to realize maybe I only need 1 cable on the new one,

I've just completed the first stress test on Prime 95 for 15 mins, and it is a bit confusing, but no errors with system temp <27C and cpu temp <38 C on 100% load 3.2Ghz in 19C ambient.

It is boring a bit now though; had to update backup BIOS and upset the supplier staff I got it from for not doing that and selling an old board, but I don't care. If it needed backup with a cpu that doesn't boot in original BIOS, what are the chances the recovery would fail.

I also got backup windows working; so it won't be long now.

[arith]

3200 iso snapshot of my new pc; still got to get some anti virus before going on the web. Got no room so it has to run on the floor in front of the tv.

[Marty]

This all sounds horrible!!! The threat of virus was one of the main deciding factors in my decision to switch over to a Mac 3 years ago. I was assured that I would never be bothered by a virus. In fact they told me not to bother installing any anti-virus on the machine at all. So far I've had nothing untoward at all happen.

I just wanted to ask if anyone on the forum happens to know if it's still true (or was it ever true?) that Macs are "immune" from viruses, or are there some Mac viruses out there in the wild now?

marty

[C24]

This all sounds horrible!!! The threat of virus was one of the main deciding factors in my decision to switch over to a Mac 3 years ago. I was assured that I would never be bothered by a virus. In fact they told me not to bother installing any anti-virus on the machine at all. So far I've had nothing untoward at all happen.

I just wanted to ask if anyone on the forum happens to know if it's still true (or was it ever true?) that Macs are "immune" from viruses, or are there some Mac viruses out there in the wild now?

marty

My limited knowledge is that spammers/hackers do not bother with Macs because there are Trillions of PSs out there.

On a different tack.
When I bought an hp pavilion recently the Tecky hp guy told me that although the motherboard could have 4GB additional RAM added the CPU would not handle it. I bought it 'cos it came with 4GB anyway.

Comments, please.