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viscerasmoothie · 3 months ago

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The Shitty Laptop: How Has It not Fucking Died Yet

Aka the story of this piece of shit, how it's doing, and why I want to mail it's life support to the sun. Also, warning for massive walls of text ahead.

The Specs

So, in case you haven't decided to stalk as much of my Tumblr account as you physically can, The Shitty Laptop is a 2016 HP ENVY x360 with an Intel i5 6200U CPU, an Intel HD 520 GPU (that I'm pretty sure is an integrated GPU which is kinda shit but eh), 12 GB of RAM, a 918 GB HDD, and a touchscreen with 10 touch points and some lighter spots around the edges and one that only appears on white for some reason. So in other words, it's actual garbage even disregarding some of the other weird issues I have with it!

Let me break that down: Some Intel i5's are decent, mine absolutely isn't. Integrated graphics are bad because corners have to be cut to keep the CPU small (which is kinda fine for modern shit but this is FAR from modern in terms of gaming). The RAM is fine, it'll run most things but 16 is probably better (Yes yes, bigger number better but I don't need 64 GB of RAM for anything other than opening Steam /s). An 8 year old HDD is REALLY bad though, it's not like, say, your Xbox where you need to replace that things hard drive like a decade ago, but it's an active bottle neck as far as I can tell. I LOVE the fact that this has a touchscreen but the screen issues (Okay, light spots aren't that big of a deal imo but this thing is NOT real color at all bc I opened TF2 and thought that they put a sepia filter over the bw images until the menu screen popped up lmfao) and the fact that this thing is GIANT (picture below) make this thing SUPER awkward to draw with (Not even mentioning the fact that I have no stylus sadly). Also this thing has a couple of dents (pictured below as well) and the left Ctrl key if fucked because I've tried cleaning this things crusty ass keyboard and I broke both of the plastic things on the key so it stopped staying secured (but it WAS fine cus I didn't move this thing around much) but then after the battery swap the thingy above the contact left like how my mom left me and so now the key sits flush with the keyboard and pressing the contact works like 50% of the time :(.

Anyways breaking up the wall of text with a wall of photos

Not copy and pasting the image descriptions here so read those for context or die idk I can't make you do shit lol.

Anyways, if you know fuck all about computers and their components like a goodish chunk of people, then basically nothing above the photos makes any sense to you, so let's look at the practical side of things:

How Shit Runs

Firefox (and any browser as per usual) eats up my resources, mostly my RAM. Roblox depends on the game, but it has crashed about 3 times, twice in TPRR (Please play it if you're into FNaF I beg you) and once in Royale High Campus 3, specifically the entrance, although both games are a bit demanding. Also note that I almost always keep my graphics settings on either the lowest they'll go manually or auto. Here's some 2 games you wouldn't expect an almost 14 year old to play or even know of; Koikatsu Party runs fine, it eats up my GPU and a good chunk of my CPU when in Chara editor,but according to the FPS plugin it runs at around 40-30fps. Koikatsu Sunshine on the other hand runs around 15-20fps in the Chara editor and also eats up my resources. I don't know why there's such a performance discrepancy when they're almost the same exact game, but since I've had Rivatunner running on Sunshine, my CPU hovers around the 170's to low 180's (Fahrenheit) or the mid 70's to low 80's (Celsius), with CPU usage being around 1/3 I think, and GPU probably hanging around over 50% but not over 75% (Source for these numbers: my shitty memory and estimates made from said shitty memory). I'll probably reblog this at some point with better specifics, but while my CPU isn't actually melting, I still like to say it is because I could probably cook something on it. Also, forgot to mention this earlier and feel like mentioning it now: PCGame Benchmark ranked my laptop at 8% which is very terrible.

Why I Want to Kill It With Hammers

Disclaimer: I don't actually want to kill it, but I definitely need a replacement.

I'm gonna be honest, I've been bitching and moaning about this hunk of junk for a while because it gets hot, it's too big, it runs terribly and even blue screened after trying to sign in once (It hung on this picture of seals for a couple of minutes before it decided to blue screen). It also used to be my Aunt's, where she got it for college, mostly used it for the Sims (Which CAS runs fine with higher settings and laptop mode but I currently need to fix my mods), then left it to rot in her closet for a couple of years until around June/July 2021 when she gave it to me as an early 11th birthday present. I, being an idiot 10 year old who didn't know that this was a TERRIBLE idea, decided to keep it plugged in ALL the time, which lead to it having an abysmal battery life which exacerbated the problem, which lead to it giving me the old blinking caps lock issue which rendered it literally useless for a little while until one Wednesday when my grandma brought the issue up to my uncle, a tech enthusiast, while babysitting his kid because he was sick, and he said that he had the right screw (A torx t5 if I remember correctly) so when she came over to see if I wanted food, I decided to go back with her to open this shithead up (Btw I did get sick bc of him, and considering the fact that I'm not hospitalized it wasn't COVID, probably just a head cold). I'll add the photos in a reblog because of the stupid 10 pic limit in the app, but this thing was FILTHY AS FUCK after it was opened. Of course the battery was a complete mess and a free fire hazard, but this thing was just dirty as shit. I forgot to bring my phone so I took photos with my grandma's phone and I learned that only 1/3 of the back vent thingy is functional, with the remaining 2/3 being blocked off for some reason. Also I got a free bootleg classic snes with stuck power buttons and the opening for the controller ports feels AWFUL to open, so that's fun I guess. So we went a week later on Friday to pick it up but when we got home it was still giving the same error. At least it served as a good power bank for my shitty tablet I got for my 8th birthday because my grandma takes away the electronics I usually use at night (Laptop, phone, chromebook) on school nights but the laptop wasn't actually booting and I don't usually use the tablet (It literally has 2gb of RAM, why the fuck would I lmao) so she didn't take away either of those. Anyways the next day we went over, he fixed it with a YouTube tutorial by force rebooting it with the power button (Yes I know that turning it off and on and holding the power button is basic IT knowledge but if my brain doesn't see a straightforward path to whatever I want to do then it gets really confused unless someone else helps) and then it pulled up the updating thing because it was doing that before the old battery decided to go fuck itself. The weirdest thing about the old battery though was that it was providing enough power to make the fan spin and for the caps lock light to blink but apparently not enough to properly boot I guess. Anyways uhh yeah the only thing I've really changed in relation to usage is to unplug it whenever I notice that the battery is full and plug it back in when the battery saver kicks on, it's still sitting on top of a plastic laptop cooler that's too small for it because my grandma forgot how to measure this shit (I love probably toxic fumes coming from the heated plastic/j) that needs cleaning again. Also, I usually keep the external cooler plugged in, but there's only 2 USB ports on this thing and I'd rather die than live the dongle life so it's either I sacrifice that or my wireless mouse and I would rather not navigate through Windows file explorer with ONLY a touch screen.

FAQ Except Nobody Asked These Questions and I Made Them the Fuck Up

Q: What laptop alternatives have you looked at?

A: Whatever is at display at the local Walmart and Best Buy (Though the former has had issues with there not being ANY display laptops), though it's not a "serious" browsing as anything decent (and some things that are absolutely garbage) are almost certainly out of me and my grandma's price range (Thank Charlotte for getting her own fur stick in her intestines twice).

Q: What about used laptops?

A: My first Chromebook used for online learning was a used Chromebook from Best Buy, but the E key force turned it off, a couple of the other keys were also fucked (One of the Ctrl keys also turned it off), And eventually the hinge died and fucked the screen, and I'd likely have to order a used laptop online which means that sellers could lie about it's condition and I don't wanna go through some shitty websites support because I got scammed, also used usually means that it's old, somethings (somewhat commonly) very wrong with it, or both so I think I'll pass. /nm

Q: Why not get a PC

A: Idk, I just prefer the keyboard being attached to the screen.

Q: Why not make The Shitty Laptop not shitty?

A: Because the CPU is soldered to the motherboard which either means get a new motherboard or let my uncle desolder it, and if I do get a new motherboard I'd have to make sure that it fits in the case. And again, this thing has other issues (Fucked screen, fucked left Ctrl key) and I'd just rather get a new one.

Q: Where can I give you money for a new laptop?

A: I do technically have a Patreon account but I haven't set up payment on it so you can't shove your money in my face sadly.

Q: Can I mail you a new laptop?

A: Fuck no, that would require either getting a PO box or giving you my address and if you're not in the immediate area one of us is gonna have to pay for shipping and/or gas.

I ran out of question ideas anyways uhh i took way too long to write this shit out lmao (I think it was around 3 hours as the first photos timestamp is 7:43)

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huginsmemory · 2 months ago

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Not the prettiest schematic but decided to put together the timeline for the pre-series events, for fanfic writers and other folks like me who were curious at what exactly was going on, since a lot of it is explained vaguely, even in journal 3 itself.

Comments below (additional added day after posting):

Schematic technical comments:

Time is not to scale

Red = events with unconfirmed dates within the last two (black) concrete dates given. Structured so that earlier events are listed earlier with a '-', going off the position within the journals (before/after other events)

The events that occur in 1983 all occur when it's clearly winter, so early in the year

F refers to Fiddleford, because it's easy and shorter.

Sources: Journal 3, Book of Bill and the GF fandom wiki timeline.

Length of time comments:

Ford is in GF for 8 years total (1975-1983).

Journal 3 begins after Ford has been there for six years, thus each Journal spans roughly 3 years.

Ford knows Bill for about 4 years (1979-1983) and 2 years of that (1981-1983) they work together closely

A date given for Ford's investigation into ghosts and the Northwests, something seemingly unimportant, I would theorize is likely due to that directly after the ghost investigations Ford is frustrated about his work, and Bill offers the portal schematics. This suggests sometime in the fall/winter of 1981 the portal is proposed.

The portal is worked on likely for just over a year (likely late 1981-january 1983)

Fiddleford only works on the portal for 6 months (August 1982-January 1983).

Directly after it is noted that Fiddleford is joining Ford and the pages on Fiddleford, is the visit to UFO and gremloblin event. This suggests that it is early in Fiddleford's stay that he makes and begins to use the memory gun. The entry about the memory gun occurs right before an entry on a carnival, which Ford chooses them to go to as a distraction for Fiddleford. The carnival includes mention of a human-Squash, suggesting potentially an early october time frame (at the carnival Fiddleford also speaks to the man who becomes Blind Ivan) . This suggests that perhaps the gremloblin event occurred early-mid September and memory gun event about a week or so after.

This means that Fiddleford for the majority of the time he works on the portal, for about 4 of the 6 months, is using the memory gun. And by the time he creates the Society of the Blind Eye, he's already been using it for about 5 months, and has potentially been keeping in touch with the man who becomes Blind Ivan during that time.

It's late into the building of the portal that Ford lets Bill possess him; considering it's after they visit the carnival, it suggests around October or later of 1982 that Ford lets Bill possess him, which is only at most 3.5 months of possession before the test.

It's suggested heavily that the night of the test Ford confronts Bill, which would mean as he witnesses the Society of the Blind Eye, that he's dealing with Bill's abuse for at least 4 weeks.