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Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

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Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Building my new PC - help needed!

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  • #61
    Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

    Originally posted by MAStamper View Post
    Regarding the overclocking, it's being done essentially automatically (I only changed one single setting in the UEFI/BIOS) by the motherboard (which handles all of the details so a layman like me doesn't go in and screw anything up), which is a model designed for enthusiasts/overclockers, and it's barely upping the speed of a CPU and a specific model of RAM known for and/or designed for overclocking in the first place, so while I freely admit this is new territory for me, it doesn't strike me as a real threat (hopefully I'm not wrong about that).

    Regarding updating the UEFI/BIOS of the board, I may still do it, but to be honest I'm kind of scared of the risk right now. I'm sure it's normally no problem, it's just that other than this annoyance at boot, the PC is otherwise entirely what I expect, and I'm very very happy with it in that regard, so I'm feeling like the potential risk may not outweigh the potential reward with regards to trying to update the UEFI/BIOS. I will add that from the research I've done thus far, if I do decide to try the update, people recommend setting the motherboard back to where nothing is overclocked before doing so, and that's advice I will definitely follow if and when.

    And in any case, I wouldn't call this problem an 'instability'; it consistently does this every time, and once Windows loads it does so quickly with no issues, and the OS itself runs flawlessly thus far. So I suspect it might just be a setting issue or configuration (soft or hardware) issue. Hopefully it is and it's something relatively simple to fix that I just haven't discovered yet.

    I still would like to solve this, but I'd prefer to explore other options/possibilities besides updating the BIOS for the time being.
    I wonder if its just your memory self test taking forever. Go into BIOS, look under boot and see if "Full Screen Logo" is set to enabled. I'd turn that off and see what happens in the background.

    http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...74_P8Z77-V.pdf See page 103 for what I'm talking about.
    "Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

    "And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "

    Comment


    • #62
      Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

      Won't that just show me a black screen for 2 minutes instead of the logo for 2 minutes? Or will it show what it's actually trying to do with text?

      Comment


      • #63
        Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

        It should show you 'stuff' if you turn off the screen... That might show you what is taking a while which would then be your clue to what needs to be 'fixed'.

        I'd still turn off/roll back any and all overclocking until I was booting fine.

        FWIW, and you know this, but your boot up time isn't really 'fast' if there is a 2min hang involved in the process. There's an answer... somewhere... You just need to find it. Sometimes it's hard to find that answer without a lot of back and forth. Especially with a first time builder.

        One piece of advice I can give you is if someone here or some other forum has some advice or something to try, try it exactly how they say. Don't skip steps or discard the advice because you can't see the point in it. I know from personal experience there have been times when I've told someone exactly what they needed to do to fix an issue and they reported back 'it didn't work'. Then after that lots of back and forth and much time and thought it turned out they skipped some steps that didn't seem to matter to them because _____insert non-valid reason here_____.

        I wish I could be more help but I haven't built a system in a while. ...But I've haven't purchased an off the shelf desktop since about '94 or '95. And that was the last one. Every desktop since then has been a custom build. So I can certainly cheer your efforts from the sidelines here.
        Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

        ------

        "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

        -John Wooden

        Comment


        • #64
          Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

          Originally posted by Bball View Post
          One piece of advice I can give you is if someone here or some other forum has some advice or something to try, try it exactly how they say. Don't skip steps or discard the advice because you can't see the point in it. I know from personal experience there have been times when I've told someone exactly what they needed to do to fix an issue and they reported back 'it didn't work'. Then after that lots of back and forth and much time and thought it turned out they skipped some steps that didn't seem to matter to them because _____insert non-valid reason here_____.
          I wish I could thank this 1000 times. Reminds me when I was training a tech at a certain place that starts with an N and ends with an A and is in the spotlight primarily in March. He came to me one day and said he needed to reimage a machine because an in house written application wasn't working. I try to get him to tell me what is happening, he describes the issue. Being the tech who wrote the documentation on how to fix the exact issue, I know immediately what was happening.

          Me: "Did you update Java?"
          Him: "We need to reimage the machine."
          Me. "But did you update Java yet?
          Him: "No, we need to reimage the machine?"
          Me: "Did you even try to update Java?"
          Him: "No, we need to reimage the machine?"
          Me: "Take me to the machine."

          He takes me to the machine, I update Java, vio-la! the application magically works and I save him the trouble of rebuilding the PC and the user the inconvenience of needing a loaner laptop.

          Did I mention I was basically training one of my replacements?

          Needless to say he lasted about 60 days after I had moved on to my next site location.... because he materialized as one of the tech support phone people at THAT LOCATION that we absolutely HATED.
          "Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

          "And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "

          Comment


          • #65
            Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

            Fair enough. I don't want to be "that guy". I'll turn off the overclocking that I needed to get my RAM up to its proper 1600 setting as soon as I next try to troubleshoot this boot issue. I might take a look tonight after work.

            Comment


            • #66
              Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

              Actually I think I might check this at halftime.

              Comment


              • #67
                Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                Restarting just now, I'm noticing that my mouse and keyboard, both USB, do not light up for about a minute or so but they do, in fact, light up BEFORE the initial 'stuck' screen disappears, not AFTER like I originally thought.

                Also, I just had an idea: when I removed the excess SATA cable that was meant for my hard disk drive that isn't here yet, I left the solid-state drive plugged in to the second SATA 6 Gbps port, not the first port. You would think it wouldn't matter, but do you suppose if I switch that cable from the second port to the first port instead that it might help?

                Comment


                • #68
                  Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                  Well, that wasn't what I expected.

                  I turned the overclock setting back to its original default, and then I went over and disabled "Full Screen Logo".

                  It was nothing but black screen for the minute or two it usually freezes on that logo screen, THEN it showed what it hid before; the text status information/whatnot, that lasted all of 5 seconds, then Windows booted up.

                  I took video of this boot, but I'll spare you staring at black for so long and just type up what it said in print:

                  "
                  American Megatrends (with its triforce-looking logo to the left)
                  AMIBIOS (C) 2012 American Megatrends, Inc.

                  ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE ACPI BIOS Revision 1015
                  CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz
                  Speed: 3430MHz

                  Total Memory: 16384MB (DDR3-1333)

                  USB Devices total: 1 Drive, 1 Keyboard, 1 Mouse, 2 Hubs
                  USB Drive #0: WD Ext HDD 1021 2021

                  Detected ATA/ATAPI Devices. . .
                  SATA Port2: Samsung SSD 840 PRO Seri
                  SATA Port5: ASUS BW-12B1ST
                  "
                  I hadn't mentioned the external drive earlier, but that was plugged in after this problem boot problem had already surfaced.

                  As far as I can recall, this long boot started immediately after Win8 was installed; it didn't hang like that when I was still trying to install the OS. But then why would an OS installation effect something that happens BEFORE the OS boots?

                  So what do we make of this? Does this mean it's taking a long time before/during/or just after the POST?

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                    Originally posted by MAStamper View Post
                    I left the solid-state drive plugged in to the second SATA 6 Gbps port, not the first port. You would think it wouldn't matter, but do you suppose if I switch that cable from the second port to the first port instead that it might help?
                    It wouldn't hurt.
                    "Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

                    "And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                      Originally posted by MAStamper View Post
                      As far as I can recall, this long boot started immediately after Win8 was installed; it didn't hang like that when I was still trying to install the OS. But then why would an OS installation effect something that happens BEFORE the OS boots?
                      I would imagine Windows 8 actually DOES write to the BIOS...

                      I'd make sure I have all the latest drivers/patches/updates from the mobo website (if you haven't already done that) and I would update the BIOS.

                      I'm leaning towards an issue between your current BIOS and Win 8 based on what you've said so far.
                      Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

                      ------

                      "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

                      -John Wooden

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                        It's just that I'm spooked that if I update my BIOS it's somehow going to go wrong or otherwise screw things up. Doesn't help that I don't believe I ever had to update my BIOS on any of my older PC's, either.

                        Is there anything I can know to talk me off of this ledge? I'm willing to do it in theory, but the concept of this potentially bricking my motherboard is slightly terrifying...

                        Also, from what I can tell, ASUS does have a way to update BIOS from within Windows... but it doesn't work in 64 bit Windows for some reason. Bummer.

                        Maybe I just need a more detailed understanding of how this is going to work and what snags I should expect to deal with before the PC is back to loading up Windows 8 again (whether it fixes the slowness or not). I just want to feel more confident that I can get it back to loading the OS again in any scenario that doesn't involve power failure mid-update or something catastrophic like that. I need to know what to generally expect.

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                          It's scaring you way more than it scares me... but then it's not my computer

                          The odds of you bricking your motherboard are fairly remote. If you doublecheck and triple check that you are downloading the proper BIOS file for your motherboard the odds get even more remote. If you have a UPS the odds are even more remote (no worries about power failures). If you read the prompts on the screen and think before you act it will even be more remote.

                          Then if something does go wrong the most likely problem will be caught by the loader program and inform you of that fact before anything actually happens (like you're trying to load an older BIOS or checksums don't match).

                          I guess it should go without a saying to download a manufacturer BIOS update and not some hacker's version from a forum (although I've used some hacker's BIOS/firmware updates in the past and was very pleased with the results... but that is another discussion).

                          And if you would somehow manage to screw something up there's still a good chance a "clear CMOS" routine will get you back going. That is involves either temporarily removing the battery from the mobo or a jumper setting/removal (check your manual for info).

                          And if you do somehow manage to do the nearly impossible and brick your motherboard even though you followed all the rules and info, one word: warranty. Just tell them the motherboard died, end of story.

                          But that's so far down the list of potential things to happen that I would barely think about it at all. I'd be more worried that it just won't fix the problem... but even then I'd be happy to know I had the latest BIOS installed now.

                          Plus, there's always the fact that if you need a BIOS upgrade, then you need a BIOS upgrade. Of course we're not sure that is in fact your issue but if it turns out it is then this is the only fix you'll likely find for it.
                          Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

                          ------

                          "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

                          -John Wooden

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                            I think I am looking at the right mobo here:
                            http://support.asus.com/download.asp...CFmLeMZdeMER8x

                            Have you downloaded and installed all the latest updates? There are several...
                            Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

                            ------

                            "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

                            -John Wooden

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                              Yes, that's my motherboard (ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe). No, I haven't downloaded/installed any of that. I'd seen that, but I was only paying attention to BIOS. I guess I have tunnel vision with motherboards and only considered BIOS with regards to what might get an update.

                              So regarding the other things that are available there, which ones do you recommend I download and install, first of all? Secondly, should they be able to run within Windows (meaning I can execute those updates while within Windows 8)?

                              Thanks once again.

                              Comment


                              • #75
                                Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

                                Definitely install the chipset drivers for sure. And yes, the installers will run inside Windows, but I've noticed a couple of BIOS updates that specifically mention Windows 8 compatibility improvements beyond the version currently installed. I got a stupid idea for updating the BIOS, do you have a copy of Windows XP and an old hard drive laying around?
                                "Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

                                "And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "

                                Comment

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