It reared its head again. I am aware that there is fairly good evidence that my house has degraded or damaged phone wiring. Ever since that one storm had screwed with the copper phone lines nine months ago, things have been bordering on the edge of stability where DSL is concerned.

Things like Far End CRC Interleave errors became a thing, and receiving phone calls made those errors go up. For a time we couldn't even use the modem that was sent to us.

I even got a Netgear modem with OpenWRT to use, but due to screw-ups on my part I failed to write down the password for it. And I will have to do a failsafe reset before I can finish configuring it.

My quest to stabilize our connection seemed to be getting difficult. Tracing down the problem felt like it could entail cutting holes in our walls and tracing the phone wires all over the place.

The closest I've gotten to a potential answer was one RJ-11 jack that had a strange brown discoloration on the contacts and a wad of clear soft gunk in it that could've been some kind of glue. The best course of action I could think of was to replace that jack, something we have to do once we've obtained a replacement wall-mount jack.

And now we get to today...

Things looked okay for most of the day. But then we received two strange calls in the space of an hour that had dead silence on the other end. It could've been someone working on the lines, or a thunderstorm north of us (that apparently happened) I dunno.

Soon afterward, I started noticing "Near End CRC Interleave" errors popping up for the first time. It was particularly concerning since it happened around mid-afternoon. And the line attenuation went from 36 dB to 38 (40 and up is unstable/bad territory)

So I chat with Verizon and they suggest a technician come by to investigate. I've informed them that we have wiring issues, and that the "Near End" errors are at the DSLAM according to what I could learn about the terminology. But I did not neglect to mention the possibility that it could be my home's phone wiring getting more degraded.

Now I've been in the process of changing service providers from Verizon to Xfinity, since they are the only other wired provider in my area (my family doesn't trust wireless or satellite, end of discussion). Its been very slow, made worse by my father's medical bills and having to pay that off. But I need a working phone and internet service to last us up to when we actually switch to Xfinity. That's hard to do if it decides to crap out now.

But my parents don't like the idea of a technician showing up. My mother doesn't like strangers poking around, and my father took an irritated "oh geeze, here we fecking go" tone (especially given that I had looked up prices for a new jack at his request almost 8 hours ago). This makes me anxious and fidgety.

So I'm watching the WAN status display page of my modem's dash board like a hawk. I'm nervous about downloading or uploading anything right now, as that could make things a bit worse? It just makes me nervous and maybe a bit paranoid. :/

I hope we can make this DSL stretch until we get Xfinity's stuff installed. My next door neighbor got theirs hooked up, a gigabit plan. But they've also got their own problems do deal with regarding their home... So asking them to share may not go well.

EDIT: The phantom call issue has been identified. Somehow, the "ringer" voltage near our line was higher than it should've been. So when a call came in for someone else, it tripped our ringer as well.

But we still have CRC errors in both directions. There is not a lot that can be done about that right now. We have to wait until June 3rd at the earliest to get a surface-mount RJ-11 phone jack to replace the one that has the brown-ish gunk on the contact pins (and the glue-like gunk in it).

9939 3134 6083

I thought it wouldn't hurt to put my Pokémon Go friend code out there. I play on a tablet, so I can't wander beyond the range of my home's Wi-Fi. Its especially limited given that my house acts like a faraday cage. But I can still catch pokemon that appear near my house.

I kind of dislike that my tablet doesn't have a gyroscope, so the AR feature doesn't work properly if at all. And the accelerometer is a little silly, but I can play the game on and off while I'm dealing with more misbehaving PC bullcrap.

I need some alternative payment methods. It has to allow me to link a bank account, it has to be a method that artists accept, and I have to be able to use it on sites like Steam.

Besides that, are there credit or debit cards someone with Social Security (disability) income can use?

It's been about 4 days and I still can't add money to my account. It's ridiculous. They haven't told me that I can't spend what I still have in my online balance, but they keep asking that I wait for this to clear up before trying again. Well, it ain't clearing up. I even waited 2 whole days since my last attempt and it is still not working.

How am I supposed to pay artists, support them on Patreon, or buy things if I can't add more money to my account?

Its been fine until now. So what the hell gives?! I know I've heard stories of them being flakes in the past and pissing off both artists and customers. Is it my turn now?

I know my online wallet has had its problems over the years, but this one in particular frustrates me.

I went to add my monthly entertainment (art/computer) allowance to my account and got met with this message: "There's a problem adding money into your account."

I called their support line and they told me that they had to refresh things. They also told me to try again in 24 to 48 hours. The only immediate effect I saw is that I had to complete an alphanumeric captcha thing before I could log in proper.

Now, this could become a more serious problem. If I can't add money from my bank account to my online wallet, I can't quickly pay artists for their services (if I can pay at all). It also will stop me from buying pretty much anything online, since I don't have a bank card or a credit/debit card. I used to have a GreenDot pay-as-you-go card, but that has expired years ago, I think.

I've seen reports in their community forums from people with the same problem over the years, but no actual answers that seem satisfactory. Just something about giving it up to 48 hours because of some security thing. I tried to read up on the problem a little further and two of the potential reasons I've found include:
- In one case, a user was able to add the funds from a different location and their normal IP address was somehow blacklisted.
- In another case, it was because the site's IP one user was connecting to was in Amsterdam and their bank doesn't allow transfers to foreign countries.

There's been a few mentions of the transfers working through the site's mobile app, but I don't have a working mobile phone, so that's out until I can rectify that proper.

If it still doesn't let me add new funds to my balance after that 48 hour period passes, I'll have to call them about it again... It seems to be an issue on their side, I guess? I don't know... But it may force me to cancel my Patreon subscriptions. I might even have to find some other way to pay online that works with Patreon, Tigerdirect, Newegg, Steam, GOG, Bethesda.net, ect.

I've used this online wallet since 2007, and this is the first time this particular issue has happened to me. I'm pretty frustrated about it right now.

Phone service, and my DSL connection by extension, has been a bit unstable lately. The landline went dead silent twice in the past week it feels like, and the DSL went with it. The first time it lasted a whole day. The second time, we got phone service back in 20 minutes while it took 13 hours for the DSL to come back on.

The weather has damaged some of Verizon's network which is causing disruptions like these. I don't know how long this kind of thing will continue. But for those who follow me on discord... Well, I'll say if my absence is from these disruptions or not.

This is potentially going to twist the pants of a lot of artists and writers.

Yesterday a certain online payment processor made an announcement about upcoming policy changes that will go into effect on March 12th, 2020.

The policy update that stands out the most is the one where merchants must supply customer service contact information including a phone number.

There is some confusion over who would be classified as a merchant in the changed policies. According to  kayla-na,  nawka was on the phone with these people and had been told "if you're a seller, you're a merchant". So selling art or story commissions makes you a merchant in that sense.

Yet when I talked to customer support, I was told that it seems to affect only the ones who have business accounts. This kind of conflicts with what Nawka was told, and it indicates that their customer service representatives are once again sending mixed signals with their conflicting responses. Either that or I'm reading it wrong.

Yet this policy change has the potential to upset a number of people. But the definition of who is and is not a merchant in the fandom is a cloudy one. We can only wait for more information or move to another payment processor.

EDIT: The policy is not final, as it is still being discussed by the payment processor's legal people. At the moment the wording of the policy only makes it mandatory for people with business accounts to supply "customer service contact info". But they suggest not worrying and keeping an eye on the policy for changes as we get closer to March 12th. They are also aware of the number of people that have personal accounts and use them to receive payments for goods and/or services, but their legal team has not discussed nor disclosed any other information on wither or not this will impact such users.

As of two days ago at least. Two and a half at most.

The damage was limited to our DSL modem, two TVs, two surge protectors, a power outlet, the oven's control board (for the digital temperature controls), the oil furnace's control board, and my mother's computer PSU.

I had a spare PSU handy to get her computer up and running again, so I ran file integrity checks on it. Thankfully it came out clean. My PC came out clan on its own integrity scans. Though I am using an older DSL modem for the time being until a replacement arrives in the mail.

But the expensive part was fixing the oil furnace. As I recall, it was something between $450 and $475 to repair it. $150 just for the technician to make the trip out here, and the rest for the new control board. That hurt... But its better than being cold at night and sitting by a propane floor heater.

We still have to see about replacing the dead power outlet and getting a new pair of TVs, but they aren't a major priority right now.

At least we can still use the stove-top part of the oven. Woohoo.

Back home. Damn its chilly in here; its 45 degrees and I can see my breath. That propane floor heater can only be used at certain times for a short length of time.

Still no word from AEP, and the family suspects we won't see head nor tail of them until next Monday.

With a branch still on the power line and a risk of a fire the longer it is there, we don't have many options. We can't keep going back to the motel, we can't afford it.

And I'm having a mental break down because I can't use my PC. I get short windows to use Discord, but only small ones. It doesn't help alleviate my anxieties over being in a death-silent house.

This laptop doesn't have the best battery. My sister's e-reader on the other hand has a web browser and can handle youtube to a point. However, part of my breakdown has more to do with not knowing what else in the house will explode from a power surge. It won't take much. That branch could decide to fall off the rest of the way and then what?

Part of the reason the family thinks AEP won't be here until Monday is because the electric company seems to be doing their rounds in lots and we're an isolated case since we're the only house in this neighborhood that's lost power from a fallen tree, while everyone else the next county over has had power outages from ice or idiot drivers. So we might be "low priority". Also, it's raining and while they do work in the rain, they don't like working in potential flood conditions.

I want to scream, but that won't do any good. The neighbors aren't the sort to share internet either, but they might let me charge this laptop. Maybe...

Have to wait for the next trip into town I guess, whenever that is. Goody gumdrops. A minimum of two more days of me going crazy (and by crazy, I mean crying on and off).

Seeing secondary power surges. They caused the living room TV to fry with a belch of smoke with no warning while it was still off. It also took out the TV Antenna signal booster.

We're waiting for AEP to show up and replace the damaged power line. We've got a 240 line that's only running at 120 right now.

So far AEP is occupied elsewhere, so it may be a couple of days or a week before we see them out here. In the meantime the house is maddeningly silent outside of the occasional use of a portable radio. It drives me crazy, I'm not used to being in such a silent house.

We've had to go to a motel tonight, which is how I am typing this status update. I'll be heading back to the silent and cold house in the morning. I charged what I could, but I'm still going to be twitchy due to the silence of the environment and lack of accessible internet.

A tree branch nearly ripped a power line off the pole. Caused a surge that may have fried both computers through the surge protectors.

We have some lights, but no heat or refrigerator, and a circuit or two may be out. I'll be going bonkers in the meantime. I don't know if my computer is fubar or not until I can get stable power to check.

I don't want to have to replace my computer. Thats a lot of cash. Hopefully the old one still works, if I need a backup plan.

Yesterday was a trip. The yard was quite a collection of puddles, lakes, and rivers from the rains (which came down hard and fast sometimes). It was still raining when I went to bed at midnight.

Its now early into "day 4" and the worst seems to have passed. There's going to be scattered showers through the day with enough additional rain to keep flash flood watches posted over in the Roanoke and New River valleys. Some roads are still "washed out", but they'll recover.

I was more worried about mud slides over here than anything. But the worst, it seems, is over and its just the scattered remains that linger.

Day 1 wasn't too bad. It rained, but it was between a drizzle and a shower, too light to be a shower, but too heavy to be a mere drizzle. It was a "so what" kind of thing, but the breeze was actually appreciated since this house likes trapping heat and humidity in the summer (aluminim siding and lack of house-wide air conditioning).

Its day 2 now. I woke up at 3:50 in the afternoon to a strangely quiet and "dry" looking yard. That didn't last long as the rains came back 2 hours later and in audible "the roof is a drum" force. The yard quickly turned into series of muddy rivers and puddles and I could smell the wet grass within the first thirty seconds after the rain started pouring down.

The "hard rain" let up within 5 minutes to more of an average shower, but it could become hard and heavy again at any time. There's been flood warnings issues an hour ago for four counties in my viewing area. I'm still waiting for power outages in my town, though I have my fingers crossed against that possibility. The "hurricane" (now a tropical storm) is losing strength rapidly and the nearby mountains are ripping it apart as the day goes on.

But its still marching slowly inland at a walking pace (last I heard, anyway) and the worst of it is supposedly still to come because the weather forecasts are still pegging Sunday as being the "peak" of the winds and rains.

The wind is picking up a bit outside. Crossing my fingers.

Florence is due to make landfall down in NC sometime later today, but its moving at a walking speed and it may linger for up to two days.

I've got a new submission to work on, and I'll be saving the draft frequently. Hopefully I won't be sent into a blackout this early in the storm's "assault". Its already disrupting several TV stations over here, so keeping up to date on the hurricane will be a little harder.

While I don't have to evacuate and I live in a "zone x" area (according to FEMA) as far as flooding is concerned, there's still the possibility for power outages and mudslides (not-quite-mountain very nearby).

It's already rained a bit over here from a storm system in the area, and a high pressure system pushed Florence towards North Carolina, but I'm still expecting some pretty heavy rains and power outages. We've got some food, and stored some bottles of water from our well, so we should be okay for a day or two. I just have to watch my ADHD and anxiety.

The good news so far is that Florence got knocked down to a Cat 2 hurricane. So here's hoping that it doesn't do too much damage to anyone in its path let alone clipped by it.

I'm not going to have to deal with more than rain for now, and the forecasts are just calling for muggy weather with fog to go with it. We're going to be clipped by the outer bands of the storm between today and the weekend, which carry the potential for flash floods elsewhere in my area. The worst I'll have to potentially worry about will come on Sunday and Monday in the form of wind.

I've dropped down to a low-ish quality wireless laptop mouse today. The reason for this is my usual mouse decided to expire.

For those wondering, my usual mouse was a Gamdias Demeter (GMS5010) 6-button laser gaming mouse which I've been using since mid-2016. It featured an RGB scroll wheel, a DPI switch (with 5 default modes between 200 and3200 DPI), and adjustable polling rates up to 1000 Hz. It had two side buttons (one on each side) which were programmable macro keys.

Durng some routine cleaning, I opened it up and noticed that one of the wires in the USB cord just inside the shell had lost its insulation and frayed. I presumed that its proximity to the scroll wheel may have had something to do with it, and it indicated poor internal wire placement. The frayed wire very soon caused scrolling with the mouse wheel to fail to register, freezing up the mouse pointer for a second before working again. This quickly degraded to Windows itself disconnecting it several times with an error: "The last USB device connected to this computer has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it."

While I could try a DIY repair job on the cable, the way they connected the USB wires to the mouse's PCB means I'd have to re-solder them to those points as well, and who knows how long that would last. It feels easier to just get a new mouse. So that's where I need some suggestions on gaming mice.

I'm looking for corded gaming mice (laser preferred) with at least 6 buttons. RGB isn't required. And I'm not looking to exceed $60. I can't buy a new mouse right this second, of course (due to buying a Windows 10 Pro license some time in the next two weeks), but I'll spend the time looking at reviews for the suggested mice to help me pick a decent-looking one, so it helps knowing the particular models to make sure I'm reading the right reviews.

Oh, as an aside... I'd like to move up from coloring practice with a mouse to an actual graphics tablet. But the cost of entry is pretty high and yet there are some supposedly dirt cheap graphic tablets out there. If anyone knows of one for a noob like myself, I'd like to hear about it.

I'll give this another go. So the ask box for Caitlyn is open once again until the 26th. Post your questions, if you have them, here!

Okay so here's the deal. With the first stage of a particular meme completed, I figured that the expressions therein don't have to be limited to just the meme.

With that in mind, I am opening up a kind of "Ask Box" for Caitlyn. This will be treated like an in-character AMA, so questions should be related to the Fallout: PCA universe as revealed so far. I'll answer what I can one question at a time.

The "ask box" will close at this time about two weeks from now, or when I've answered at least a dozen questions, whichever happens first.

And with that, the box is now open. You may ask questions or post comments below. Comments directed at the character may count as a "question" to answer.

My online wallet provider has updated their policies and will put the updates into effect on April 18th, 2018.

But the content of the changes contains some alterations that may rub some people the wrong way. These are:
* The removal of the variable fee on sending money to non-U.S. countries, replacing it with a flat fee depending on the country of residence of the recipient.
** If the money is sent using a credit or debit card, an additional transaction fee will be incurred and calculated based on the total amount sent. This is on top of the fees to convert your money into the currency of the recipient's country.
* They're changing the balance management functionality of the account. If you haven't verified your identity with them, you will not be able to send or receive money. The only thing you may do is transfer your money to or from a linked bank or credit/debit card.
** If your account is verified you can continue to use your account as normal, barring the fees on sending money outside the US.

They're also removing one of their services. Specifically the service that pays the person/vendor after your goods have been delivered.

Been tweaking things bit by bit for the last two months. Managed to find a deal on an RX 580 that was somewhat close to its MSRP. I wanted a GTX 1060 6GB, but it was outside the budget I was willing to work in.

After getting the hardware settled in and the new GPU installed, I decided to sum up the price tags in the invoices I received over the last six months. And what I ended up with threw me for a loop. Glad I did it one or two parts at a time over time instead of all at once. That's a lot of money. But on paper this should be a pretty solid Gaming/Rendering PC.

AMD RYZEN 5 1600X CPU - $249.99
ASUS Prime X370-Pro AM4 Motherboard - $139.99
CoolerMaster MasterLiquid 240 AIO Liquid Cooler - $87.99
G.Skill FlareX 2400 DDR4 RAM (2 x 8GB) - $125.99
SanDisk X400 256GB M.2 SSD - $103.99
Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM HDD - $74.99
MSI Radeon RX 580 ARMOR 4GB OC - $249.99
EVGA BQ 650W Semi-Modular 80+ Bronze PSU - $67.66
Corsair Carbide 300R Mid-Tower Case - $89.99
Total: $1190.58

This is the build log for my new PC. The purpose behind this build was to "pass the torch" from my current Windows 7 gaming/editing rig to a more modern hardware platform. My Windows 7 machine had a good run, but its stability is getting more questionable and the AM3+ CPU platform is falling behind.

Pictures were taken using the built-in camera on my Nintendo 3DS, so that's why they look so horrid. Nothing I can do about that right now.

First let's start with the components. To date, this build cost roughly $868.49 and I began hoarding cash at the very start of the year. Build planning began mid-year. Actual purchasing began around Mid-June.

The components are, in no particular order:
* Ryzen 5 1600X
* ASUS Prime X370 Pro Motherboard
* 16 GB (2x8) G.Skill Flare X 288-pin DDR4 RAM @ 2400
* Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 AIO CPU Cooler
* Samsung X400 256GB M.2 SSD
* Corsair Carbide 300 R Mid-Tower Case
* EVGA 650-BQ 80+ Bronze Semi-Modular PSU
* All together: http://tinyurl.com/y7jlrpzq

My sister assisted in getting things situated and in the assembly. She got a little too excited and about it to the point that she was fawning over it because of its "new car smell". That was just weird. Seriously.

Unpacking the motherboard was nothing special. After an examination, my sister decided she wanted to use my 3DS to "log" the build. Called it insurance if I put a cable in the wrong way or something.
* Motherboard: http://tinyurl.com/y8juzfnu

Sis felt like being silly. So "showcasing" the CPU was next on her agenda. In hindsight my 3DS' camera quality made it less than ideal for taking pictures. There's blurs everywhere and the quality is like early low-res webcams.
* CPU: http://tinyurl.com/y96osanb

This was a more practical progress shot to include in a build log. I told her the details of putting together a build as I worked, from the "line up the triangle on the CPU with the etched triangle on the socket" bit to how to install the RAM without breaking the board (firmly but not forcefully).
* Stage 1 (Pre-Build): http://tinyurl.com/y8m5rekf

Unpacking the case happened next. Nothing special. Though what I didn't realize at the time was how much of a hassle it would soon be. :p
Case: http://tinyurl.com/ybc2zkgx

At this point I had the critical pieces situated. I went around double-checking the screws to make sure they weren't too tight.
* Stage 2 (Mobo Installed): http://tinyurl.com/ybokcx66

This is where things became more of a hassle. There was no room for a 240mm radiator at the front and certainly not in the back. The top made sense except that the heatsinks on the motherboard's top edge got in the way of the radiator fans. That took some creative wiggling and tweaking to fit in there.

Once that was done, the pump itself had to be seated on the motherboard and that took some effort (and obviously care). I'd almost swear that the included AM4 adapter for the pump wasn't meant to fit on the default mounting bracket of the motherboard.

After the stress and frustration of getting the pump installed was finally over, it was half past 2 in the morning. That was enough work for one day.
* Stage 3 (Pump Installed): http://tinyurl.com/y9valnd4

Day two came along and I had a few things to do still, like install the power supply. I settled on installing the PSU with its fan facing up so I wouldn't have to deal with cleaning the PSU filter on the bottom of the case all the time. Two cats, a dusty house, and at least one "moderate" smoker all combine in such a way that ends with me cleaning out filters, heat sinks, and fans several times per month.

The dirt problem aside, I ran into the next hassle in that the CPU power connector wasn't able to reach its port on the motherboard because a radiator fan was in the way. I had to remove the fan entirely to get the CPU power connector in place, and putting it back on the radiator forced me to omit one of the fan screws because the CPU power connector blocked that tiny space the screw needed to pass through. Oh well.

Some cable management concerns popped up while hooking up the other cables. The "its not going to be entirely possible to avoid having a rat's nest in there" kind of concerns. I did what I could though. Creative use of a twist tie or two kept the cables from being all over the place, even if I couldn't fit all of them (except the pump's tubing ofc) behind the motherboard tray.

The moment of truth came pretty quickly. The computer was built, it felt lighter than my Phenom II X4 build by a considerable margin, and it looked less like a mess on the inside. But will it post? There were some concerns about scratches on the mobo when I was securing it to the standoffs in the case, but I didn't see any visible damage. Still, I was nervous. Something could still be fubar'd.

The motherboard didn't have a DVI port nor did it have its own on-board graphics, so I had to borrow the Sapphire R9 270X from my primary computer. I then plugged in the bare essential things (keyboard, mouse, monitor), and hit the power button. ... Nothing. I felt a little alarmed.

I remembered a comment I got from a PC shop in town about how I got the front panel connectors for the power button reversed. I checked the connectors and sure enough, I had a few of them backwards. Again. But it still wouldn't power on. So then I thought "is the PSU even on?" The answer: no.

Feeling a bit like an idiot, I flipped the PSU on and then tapped the computer's own power button. The AIO's logo lit up, but nothing else happened for a long tense minute.

I was ready to give up on it when the monitor's status light went from orange to blue and the words "ASUS® - IN SEARCH OF INCREDIBLE" appeared on the screen. Mazel tov! We have a pulse! Now to update the BIOS... And get ready to install Windows.
* Stage 4 (BIOS update): http://tinyurl.com/ybzmvkpg

In my excitement I missed that the motherboard has its own RGB lighting, but it was only on the far side near the I/O ports. RGB usually isn't my thing, but its still neat to look at. Its barely visible here, but its the greenish lights at the bottom left corner of the case and the blue one on the left-middle.
* Mobo RGB: http://tinyurl.com/y8en4o6x

I was curious about the other features in the BIOS, so I looked around a bit. Having a built-in system monitor is rather neat. The CPU temperature monitor was saying something like 38 or 40 degrees Celsius. That's slightly warm, but then the pump hadn't been running for more than about five minutes. Not long at all. I was surprised that the BIOS knew the date and time right out of the box though. Surprised enough to make a joke about it being psychic.
* BIOS (EZ Mode): http://tinyurl.com/ybzqgb9k

So in the end, the new PC is ready for service. It still needs two HDDs and a GPU, but its usable. Windows is installed but it needs to be updated and I have to install drivers for the audio, LAN, USB 3.1 ports, and chipsets. That may take a while, given how my wired connection has been acting up lately. I may also just move the radiator to the side panel. It has mounting points for it, though it also means the panel would not come all the way off if I have to dig around in there. I'll give it some thought later.

I think I'll name this thing "Sylph Tec"... I thought about "Sexy", but my sister gave me a dirty look that said "don't you dare defile my Dr. Who".

Back on my own computer, but only for a short time. I am going to be doing a memory test next to check for errors, since bad memory can result in corrupted data being saved to the disk.

By the by, there were no bad sectors on the HDD, so this makes me think that one of the 4 GB RAM sticks is sending corrupt data to the disk. I examined one of the files it reported as having "bad clusters" and while it still displays its contents in the preview pane, the bottom three rows of pixels (for it is a brush texture) is missing as it trails off into green pixels and then blank. I could reinstall the affected files, but I kind of want to move the data to a new HDD first.

The "technical" work continues!

I'm tapping this one out on my 3DS right now. My PC is doing a very long dskchk on the 1TB HDD. The 60GB SSD has already been scanned and came up clean.

A short while ago my PC locked up. First it was only the web browser that stopped responding, then the task bar stopped working, then discord. I was forced to reboot.

The reboot stopped at an "I/O Error" with a STOP code, which is not good. In fact, it happened twice. I swapped the SATA cables for the SSD and HDD which restored the multi-boot menu. This is when I started scheduling disk checks.

Right now the HDD is reporting "bad clusters" in two folders during the fourth stage of the disk check. It is early in this stage at just12% of the way through and it already found bad clusters. Guess that means the HDD is failing and I should copy its good data to a blank drive.

I have a spare blank1TB HDD handy for this reason. But I have the feeling that the motherboard wouldn't throw an I/O error if a slave drive was having issues. Or would it? It does have a master boot record on it, but the SATA cable arrangement always loaded the SSD first until that error appeared. Curious.

Anyway, I'm forced onto my 3DS to post journals since I can't remember my FA password to get logged in on my Mother's computer across the room. I'm also unable to use Skype or Discord while I'm borrowing said computer.

Here's hoping the scan doesn't take all night. Heh.

EDIT: Now it is up to three bad clusters, one per file. Two of them are in Steam while the other is in PowerISO. It is at13% which does not compute since it has scanned 545k files out of 657392.

EDIT x2: Now it is up to 8 files, but it has moved on to stage 5 now and is at 20% progress.

So two things. First, my new PC build may be stalled due to having to "pitch in" for repairing the family car.

Second, I think my video card is dying. As in I loaded Elder Scrolls online and started collecting hireling mail (crafting material suppliers) when the screen turned black and I heard a repeating loop of sound from the game (dodododododododo). The system rebooted, but the monitor was displaying "No input detected".

This is when I entered diagnostic mode. I tested the motherboard's on-board DVI port. That worked fine, so it wasn't a motherboard issue. Next I dragged out an older video card, the Radeon HD 6850. That also worked, so it wasn't the PCI-E slot. I figured it might be a power delivery issue so I tried both 6-pin PCI-E power connectors separately (the HD6850 only needs a single 6-pin connector) and didn't see a different result. At this point I was feeling pretty damn sarcastic.

I wasn't going to rule out a problem with the PSU, but it looked like my R9 270X GPU was at fault. I gave the 270x another shot and it decided to work again, but that's no cause for celebration. It may have overheated for all I know, but I saw no dust clogs when I inspected it. Nor did I see any burst capacitors, which is curious. I didn't feel like taking its shroud off to look for bulging capacitors, so I won't know if its a case of capacitor rot or not for the time being.

Whatever its problem may be, my R9 270X is almost ancient at 6 years old. Its seen some seriously heavy game time in its life, including lots of 6 hour binges in MMO's or single player games as well as lots of video rendering. This system crash and my test point to it as failing and as such I shouldn't trust it for my gaming anymore. In fact, I should replace it ASAP. I planned on the Radeon HD 6850 to be my fallback GPU, but I noticed its exhaust port in the back was slightly discolored (a dark rainbow-ish discoloration) by excess heat from its use in my last gaming PC. SO I probably shouldn't trust that either.

So if it pulls that system crash stunt again, I may switch to the built-in GPU of the motherboard, as much as that ancient iGPU sucks. However, the car repairs mentioned earlier may put the brakes on my new PC temporarily, and this is on top of having to get a new video card.

Man, my video card just had to have a heart attack today. I'm kind of feeling like Cave Johnson and his lemon rant. Also feels like all I'm doing lately is complain.

Edit: Here's the parts list on the new PC build for those curious. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/J7hD9W

Power supply and OS. That's all that's left. I've bookmarked a list of 80+ Bronze and Silver power supplies on NwEgg, but the OS remains the last and most expensive chunk I need to worry about.

Since it is a Ryzen system, and thus on a modern AM4 board, I can't use Windows 7 on it without jumping a few hoops like its lack of USB3 support and disabled updates (which I'd have to bypass). It's the same story for Windows 8. *Nix is out since I'd have to run a VM to run Windows to run my MMOs, Skyrim, and Fallout4.

I can get Windows 10 without a license for free, but I won't be able to personalize jack squat or turn off its "spyware" crap like search logging and location tracking. Getting a copy with a license will cost about $199 (yes, I prefer Pro over Home).

And getting that plus the PSU together may run me about $300, and I will likely fall short this month in that goal. So it is one or the other. I am thinking PSU first. It will let me assemble the system and get BIOS updates at the very least. I just won't be able to use it until I get an OS installed. Hmm.