AWKWARD ZOMBIE

On the CPU thing, did you do any research into graphics cards? Because I believe most will say the same about the difference between AMD and Nvidia cards. Stepping back, I seem to be turning into a bit of a fanboy, but I believe the general consensus is that NVidia has better performance and better drivers.

I have a question for y'all. What is the K at the end of some processors' names? I heard tales of a 4570K when I bought my 4570 but couldn't find one by searching, and someone mentioned the 4770K to me and searches still only turned up a plain old 4770. Does the K mean anything at all, or is it just there?

K is how Intel designates processors that come factory unlocked so they can be overclocked.

boooooring

I'm sorry, I meant the K stands for "TOTALLY SIGNIFICANT PROCESSOR YO THIS SHIT TAKES YOU TO SPACE AND BACK CHOOSE ME OKAY"

yup

Seriously, don't overclock. It makes the system a lot more unstable and likely to suffer damage.

Thanks CN, I can now once again sleep at night.

I've oc'd both my GPU and CPU. If it makes your system unstable, it means your clocks are too high and/or PSU can't keep up. It doesn't cause random instability.

Still reduces the life of the parts, which is not something to do when on a budget to build a rig in the first place.

So I've heard, but I've never seen any actual statistics about it. I very much doubt it'll cause your components to die on you before you make the next upgrade.

I'd guess it depends on how far you over clock it and how good your cooling system is, just based on intimations from CPU reviews I've read.

None of this matters for any of the users in the thread really. The best advice I could give is this:

Don't overclock unless you know what you are doing. You are more likely to damage something or not get any real benefit out of it if you don't have any real knowledge of how it works. This forum is not the place to get this knowledge. Try a computer specific forum/website.

Okay so, last night, I had a screw fall out on my laptop that caused the hinge to go all wonky, so I located the screw, put it back in, and everything was fine.

Except now the monitor won't work. When I go to boot up the laptop, the keyboard icons for things like caps lock light up, and the fans run and you can even hear the start up tunes playing, but the monitor remains blank.

I looked up stuff on how to fix it online, and I even opened the hinge part back up to see if a wire got pinched or severed somehow.

The most concerning thing is that the laptop won't export the visuals to an external monitor at all. Which means that it's not just an issue with the monitor, and like this, a fix without seeing anything seems almost completely impossible.

I have the laptop under warranty with a third party service provider that'll take care of it, but doing so will result in at least 2 weeks of it being gone, and I may not get my laptop back (they pay it out if it's too much of a hassle). This is in addition to losing whatever's on the laptop (I won't miss much).

Any ideas on simple things that I can do that might help figure out what to do or how to diagnose it without tampering with the laptop too much?

Does the problem persists if you take the screw back out?

It's possible, if a bit unlikely, that something shorted out on your video card. Since laptops virtually only have integrated graphics cards (and you'd know if yours didn't) your best bet at a repair is going to be a warranty claim. Even if they refund you instead of fixing it, it's better than being stuck with a laptop that doesn't work.

My fan has been making weird noises for a while, what would be the best way to clean it?