Reluctant Traveller

Apologies, I don't have a book........... just a KLM flight booking .

My wife has condemned her parents, in their late 60's to having to mortgage property they once owned,
and they now have to sell cooked food in front of the local 7/11, instead of a retirement.

This is how it goes-
Always kneeling and praying in front of the home Buddha shrine. 
Money for household bills goes missing.
You lose friends due to her always borrowing, borrowing from their wives.
Her phone is in hock yet again, so no contact for days. 
Stealing any cash left around even from her parents and daughter.
Renting cars and selling them (yes!!).
Shutting down her social media accounts many times (yes!!) 'cos people are chasing for repayments.
Continual lies, lies, and lies.
I can't wait to leave, and that would be my advice.... just walk away.
  
I have property in the UK and I've been treading water, waiting for our daughter to graduate.
Luckily she's in boarding to protect her from the negative domestic atmosphere.
Then we're off. My wife is not invited, as she is beyond my help.
Even getting a divorce here was a hurdle (3 attempts at the Amphur) as she wanted payment. 
But I have no assets here, so hey-ho I had to bribe her with just a few thousand baht. 

I totally agree with good hearted western people who (by nature) believe they can help.

Like drug abuse it's a disease.  
But remember where we are, there is not much charity or good will here.
Thais are not Christian so there can be no redemption, many are brought up thinking foreigners know nothing, and will deliberately be destructive rather than listen.

In my case kindness, to this day is treated with contempt. 

Unbelievable how this 'Butter Wouldn't Melt in my Mouth' decent, local village girl, who had two jobs when I first met her, morphed into this abnormal condition.

I've taken some time to pass on my situation, and I often get labelled a troll on here as they can't handle the truth about Thailand.

Sorry my solution may not help, other than the small comfort of knowing it's not your fault and you're not alone. 
  
  

A bit of levity?

https://youtu.be/_nVk25ZvTkU

I've donkeys years of Swift transfers from the UK to the K-Bank with no problems.
Now I'd like to do the reverse. As I don't have access to the Swift section of my K-Bank internet account,

looks like a personal visit to the branch staff.

Well I've kept copy of my last inward transfers to the K bank (which obviously shows the source my balance)  
Also I have all the Swift stuff  e.g.
Bank Identifier Codes/ Agent bank = MIDLGB22, also router bank = NAIAGB21 and last but not least my  IBAN number: GBxx NAIA xxxx xxxx xxxx  xx. 

Now I'm very reticent to do this as I know many things do go wrong here due individual interpretation of protocol.

Murphy's Law being the result.

So IF the funds get stuck up there in the banking cloud and my UK account has not been credited a week later-----

How would you begin to unravel the mess in Thailand, where helplines are mostly unanswered and there is a lack of responsibility?

Is it just me?  Why do I need to even think about hand carrying cash on a flight home in 2018?  

I'm considering carrying the equivalent of the 15k usd back to UK next journey.

Are the K bank and SuperRich both available 24/7 and in close proximity at Suvarnabhumi ?

As I live near Pattaya (with only small FX booths available) I would prefer using the airport's facilities.

8 hours ago, Lichiyado said:

Better two minds than one or less, OP.  I'm surprised you have only two minds about all this, given the many suggestions you've received here, many of them quite sound.  Upon checking the specs of your current rig, I can see why you might want hold onto it and go the upgrade path.  This is a solid high-end system, and a capable gamer that probably cost you a pretty penny back in the day.  Now that I've seen your specs, I might be tempted to forego my original suggestion of buying a new rig and try for the upgrade to squeeze in a couple extra years.  But I don't think you're going to get much mileage from a new CPU unless your i5 is truly blown (I don't think it is).

 

Regarding your overheating CPU.  Yes, as some have mentioned, use a CPU temp measuring and alarm program.  Also, have you removed your CPU fan and tried reapplying the thermal compound between the CPU and the fan?  And was it done properly?  I've found this is the most common problem with an overheating CPU.  The thermal compound deteriorates with time.  And I've found Thai technicians often slather on the (cheap) thermal compound like peanut butter on toast.  Not good.  You can find instructions on applying new thermal compound on YouTube.  I prefer Arctic Silver, but everyone has their favorite.  If your fan is dinky, then go out and get the biggest fan your tower can support.  There are some suggestions on good fans and cooling systems in this thread.

 

The USB3 ports should be able to recognize and power your external hard drives with no trouble.  Have you tried a different USB HD to see if powers up and loads?  If it does, then It sounds like your troublesome USB HD or the HD controller built into the enclosure of the USB HD is kaput.  Can you pop the HD out of the USB enclosure and try to mount it into your tower using a SATA cable?  If it works then that would point to a kaput USB HD Controller in your HD enclosure.  A new enclosure is pretty cheap and would be suitable for your upgrade/repair path.

 

If you can't get any USB HD to power up and load then you have to determine if you have a software or hardware issue.  Some folks here mentioned some programs to use to test your hardware, but I'm not sure they would work in your case.  If you're having trouble ejecting ALL USB devices, then uninstalling your USB drivers and letting Win 7 reinstall them could provide a fix.  Or not.  A reinstall of the Win 7 OS is an option...essentially zeroing out your current system and starting from scratch.  This would reassign system resources that could have been mucked with or corrupted in a 4 year old system.  A pain, but worth consideration.

 

If you have a spare formatted HD and a Win 7 CD disk, you can pull your current C drive, install the spare HD, and do a basic installation on the spare HD (without a Microsoft validation attempt) and see if you can get your USB ports working.  If they work, then you know something is screwed up with your OS and the programs you've installed over the years.

 

If none of this works, then you have a hardware issue.  And since the USB ports are built onto the motherboard, then it's likely a failing motherboard.  You could replace it, and use your current tower, CPU, RAM, Video card, and power supply.

 

Now, please tell me your system is running at 64 bit?  With Win 7 Home Basic from 4 or 5 years ago, I wonder.  If it's running at 32 bit, your RAM is going to waste.  32 bit Windows can only recognize and use about 3.5 GB of your RAM.  If this is the case, I would certainly start with a fresh OS install and go 64 bit.  A 64 bit OS can use as much RAM as you throw at it, depending on the OS, up to 512 GB.  Windows 7 Home Basic 64 bit can handle 8 GB RAM max.

 

Or...forget everything I've said and get a new rig!

 

Forgive me for any redundancy or assumptions in my post.  It's late and I'm tired, and I didn't want to go back through the entire thread for a read.  Lots of options for troubleshooting.  At this point it's a process of elimination that all geeks go through when trying to repair a rig.

 

Keep us posted on your many minds, would you OP?  We're all curious about which mind is going to win.

 

Thanks for taking the time and using a language many can follow - also good humour.
 

I could justify replacing the whole thing as it's my time bandit.
However with youtube and the terrific support on here, a lot of the tech is slightly demystified and folk get encouraged to 'have a go' .
Being retired and the strong baht has gifted me a patience.

10 hours ago, damole said:

https://www.techspot.com/article/1532-pubg-cpu-benchmarks/

 

The last paragraph of the conclusion suggests your CPU will suffice for now if properly cooled.  I just upgraded my gaming PC from a GTX760 to a GTX1060 earlier this year and it's still paired with a Core i5-2500K.  For the games I play, Dirt 4/Dirt Rally/Grid Autosport/PES the combo is fine at 1080p. 

I just got given free copies of BF1 and PUBG with my new laptop as part of Intel's software offer and I noticed BF1 does max out the CPU.  Still looks pretty good on my TV though.

I will upgrade the CPU later in the year but it means motherboard and RAM too so I've been putting it off as long as possible.

Good info, I should mention the only game that is causing a problem is FarCry 5.

After 5 minutes the CPU goes over 100c ???? 

On 10/1/2018 at 9:50 AM, atyclb said:

can op post specs of computer here and what the shop will do?

cpu   -   Intel  i5 4670k                     
mobo -  AsRock  Z87 Extreme 6      
gpu  -   Nvidia GTX 780                 
hdd  -   WD Blue 1Tb   x2                    
ssd  -   Samsung 840 evo 250Gb    
psu  -  Raider FSP 790 750w           
ram -   8gb                            
Windows 7 Home - Basic.   

All assembled by JIB March 2014   

My problems = The bank of 4x 3.0 usb connections will work only with small usb sticks+keyboard+mouse but won't recognise 500gb/1tb (I've done the Youtube first aid stuff- only as far as I trust myself)
Also they won't eject cleanly (I have to wait until power off to pull the usb drives)

The overheating CPU may need replacing if I want to continue with newer games.

I'm in two minds about it all now !  ????

Thanks howto ????      that is exactly the first aid that I have already done.

I'm using an app called  "CAM" to monitor the CPU and GPU ( unfortunately it won't let me take a screen shot to show people)

Useful comments, extra cooling is an option, however the rig is about 5yrs old now.

thanks

Great response, sorry for not giving a fuller picture - the upgrade would be to install a new CPU Intel i7 replacing the i5 which keeps on burning up with newer games.  Also the USB 3 ports are not being recognised.

Detaching the HD sounds good, would that effect the bios or windows explorer - maybe another problem?

Since the days of floppy discs, any porn and private data has been on external drives, no worries. ????

thanks folks.

The time has come for my desktop to go in to a shop for an upgrade.
There is a SDD for C drive and 2 x 1 tb drives with my music / films / Tv shows.
I don't feel inclined to share my 2 media drives ( booo!! hiss !! )????
It's all backed up on external drives, so delete / format is an option but there are recovery apps available.
So what would be a way to make the data unavailable to the technician? 

I'm returning to LOS soon and thanks to another thread, I've got a list of money saving stuff to help fill my empty suitcase.
What about over the counter drugs from the supermarkets or chemist?
Personally I don't need anything as *touch wood* I'm healthy enough so far.
Any suggestions or ideas as this will probably be my last UK visit.

Best of luck and enjoy the scenery.?‍♀️?‍♀️

I hope they don't get the yards and metres mixed up again.

I'm going along for my 90 day this week and I'll also request a "single entry re-entry permit".

I haven't booked my flight yet (dithering about).

Is the departure date required before I request this permit ?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/deadly-chinese-poultry-flu-could-spark-worldwide-pandemic/

On 5/17/2018 at 8:50 AM, fredob43 said:

Arrived at Swampy yesterday time 3.30pm. The peeps waiting for passport check (Mostly Chinese) were in their thousands. Estimate time to get through would have been well over 2 hours. Have never seen it like that before.

 

As luck would have it I had fast track that took less than 2 minutes. Just a heads up.

Do you recommend any of these "VIP" type services ?

I'm seriously thinking of this  on my return. 

I mean what if your travelling alone and you need the toilet?

Lose your place in some monster queue?

Hi Argus 
           hoping to fly late June into July.
I haven't bought a ticket yet as I'm waiting (for ever) for surface mail regarding this years tax return.
This involves a code sent to my Thai phone, so that's that.

I've now found the "open return" ticket is outdated online and I have give a return date.
That's today's project.

Good tips about the powerbanks, I can remove it from plans.
My youngest will get good use of mine whilst I'm gone :)

Thanks Kinnock for such a comprehensive reply.
I can actually picture myself following your instructions :))
Nice bit of humour too.

Hi again
After reading about the 'new' security checks and limits on toiletries, fluids etc etc - I just won't take anything.
Just keeping it simple :))
Any experiences with carry on electrical stuff ?
e.g. laptop, external drives, phone+power bank, and a kindle.

Thank you for the info folks. I just like to keep things simple by being prepared and not lookin' a <deleted> - especially with all the new security stuff.

Last time I flew it was >travel agent, get a ticket, pay cash > then go check-in.
It's different "nowadays"with the internet,  I get the simple stuff > pay+download+print ticket.

What I don't get is the check-in. How is that done online?

The last thing I want is a phone app.
Surley the baggage weight needs to be accurate? 
How can I choose a seat?

I still need to physically queue & go thru the check-in procedure don't I ?
So why online? Is there a benefit? 

Also which part of Suvarnabhumi should I request to get dropped off for the KLM departures?

Lots of questions, 'cos I'm briefly returning to UK.
Anyone have the patience to update this old fossil ?

No intention of bumping this thread, but

Thank you for the expert advice folks.