Support NeoGAF

[C.Dark.DN]

When I boot up my pc says something is wrong with BOOT.INI file. Under that I thing it says it's booting from c:/whatever.

It then boots up fine with no apparent problems.

I could write down what it says exactly later.


Edit: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairbootini.htm
should I follow that guide to repair?

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

I started the week with an HP 1000 netbook running the HP Mobile Internet Experience (this) and once I figured out that it was a "closed" system and couldn't install anything I downloaded Kubuntu 9.10 and installed it. Great. Awesome even. Everything installed except my wireless. Whatever, I can fix that, right?

So I Google some commands to figure it out and I find that Broadcom has released an official Linux driver with instructions. I'm set now. Or so I thought.

Two hours and one fresh install of Kubuntu later I give up. I install Ubuntu Netbook Remix (because the screen was cramped on the desktop software) and start from scratch. This time I actually get the drivers installed correctly and can access the wireless on my netbook. Yay! I ask it to download some updates and it does. It has to restart, so I say OK. On restart I don't have wireless drivers anymore. argh. How do I tell Linux to start those drivers every time it restarts? I even did the blacklist gedit thing, so I hope that's not the problem. The only thing I did was the driver install and the automatic update.

This is my first Linux install and I've learned a lot of stuff in the last 24 hours trying to get this driver running. Enough to be dangerous, at least. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Fatalah]

I moved a folder location on my computer, and now I'm unable to delete the album from my Windows Media Player library.

(Windows 7, WMP 12)

 

[Plywood]

Get new digital camera for Christmas. Can't copy large video files to compubox. Wat do?

Did it come with any software of its own?

Edit: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairbootini.htm
should I follow that guide to repair?

Sounds good, give it a shot.

 

[Relix]

When I reboot sometimes my PC doesn't display a thing. It either... freezes or it loads Windows without showing me any screen or image. Turning it off and back on fixes it (or unplugging too). What the fuck?

 

[corn_fest]

So I downloaded a driver for my wireless adapter and it came with a security catalog and setup information text file. I was going to dump the driver into the drivers folder, but what should I do with the other files?

 

[Dougald]

http://i50.tinypic.com/21ci0qo.png

So I downloaded a driver for my wireless adapter and it came with a security catalog and setup information text file. I was going to dump the driver into the drivers folder, but what should I do with the other files?

Those are the driver files - just extract them to a random place (as you have done), then open up Device Manager, go to your wireless adapter and update driver. Then manually point it at the directory where you extracted the driver.

Once this is done you can go ahead and delete the directory

 

[Tashi]

Ok so I was unable to do a system recovery for some odd reason and I just said fuck it and decided to do a Full System Restore where it formats the hard drive and starts the PC from scratch. However, early on in the steps while it was creating a partition, I get a disk error and I have to quit out. It happened a few times. I went into setup and ran a diagnostic on the hard drive and just 15 seconds in I get errors.

Test Status: #1-07 Fail

So it looks like my hard drive is fucked. I really don't want to lose this machine. How's the whole process of changing laptop hard drives? I could use an upgrade from the factory installed 100gb as well haha. This sucks.

 

[Dougald]

Ok so I was unable to do a system recovery for some odd reason and I just said fuck it and decided to do a Full System Restore where it formats the hard drive and starts the PC from scratch. However, early on in the steps while it was creating a partition, I get a disk error and I have to quit out. It happened a few times. I went into setup and ran a diagnostic on the hard drive and just 15 seconds in I get errors.

Test Status: #1-07 Fail

So it looks like my hard drive is fucked. I really don't want to lose this machine. How's the whole process of changing laptop hard drives? I could use an upgrade from the factory installed 100gb as well haha. This sucks.

Easy. On most laptops just remove the old drive, unscrew it from the caddy and put the new drive in the caddy - job done. Commiserations on the drive, if you're getting errors that soon into diags it's probably screwed. But at least you can get a nice upgrade out of it

Just make sure you have a Windows disc to install onto the new hard drive...

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

I started the week with an HP 1000 netbook running the HP Mobile Internet Experience (this) and once I figured out that it was a "closed" system and couldn't install anything I downloaded Kubuntu 9.10 and installed it. Great. Awesome even. Everything installed except my wireless. Whatever, I can fix that, right?

So I Google some commands to figure it out and I find that Broadcom has released an official Linux driver with instructions. I'm set now. Or so I thought.

Two hours and one fresh install of Kubuntu later I give up. I install Ubuntu Netbook Remix (because the screen was cramped on the desktop software) and start from scratch. This time I actually get the drivers installed correctly and can access the wireless on my netbook. Yay! I ask it to download some updates and it does. It has to restart, so I say OK. On restart I don't have wireless drivers anymore. argh. How do I tell Linux to start those drivers every time it restarts? I even did the blacklist gedit thing, so I hope that's not the problem. The only thing I did was the driver install and the automatic update.

This is my first Linux install and I've learned a lot of stuff in the last 24 hours trying to get this driver running. Enough to be dangerous, at least. Any help is appreciated.

Oh Google, how do I love thee. Let me count the ways.

Wireless does not work immediately. Using "sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source" in the terminal and rebooting will resolve this issue without further problems.

Let's hope this one is more permanent than the last fix I tried. At least this one had the blue wireless light come on on restart so that's a start.

edit: yep. restarted again and it's still working! I'm staying away from the terminal/cli forever now. I have what I wanted - a netbook running linux - and plan to not mess that up.

 

[Subliminal]

Hi,

Some weird things are happening, Occasionally when i visit Neogaf (and seemingly only neogaf) My Router turns itself off for no reason

I'm using Google Chrome Vista Sp1

With a Zoom X6 Router

 

[vehn]

My monitor for my PC keeps having horizontal lines moving up it all the time. Any ideas as to what is causing it?

 

[Dougald]

My monitor for my PC keeps having horizontal lines moving up it all the time. Any ideas as to what is causing it?

Do they appear at boot as well as in windows?

At a guess possibly the most simple explanation is a duff/improperly connected cable. Try another monitor if that doesn't pan out to check if possible

 

[IronFistedChampion]

Anyone know why my LCD seems to get burn-in extremely quickly? If I leave a pause menu or main menu screen (PS3) for a few minutes, I will have burn-in. It's pretty annoying considering they told me most LCDs don't suffer from burn-in. When I watch cable I don't have any problems though; it's only when I play video games. I have a 42" Samsung 720/1080p.

Also, what can I use to clean my LCD screen? There's some stuff that won't come off with a duster, but I'm afraid to spray something on it that will mess it up.

 

[adg1034]

My power supply's been having issues for a long while. (I assume it's the power supply, as nothing else really seems like it could have the same effect.) If I accidentally nudge my PC, or step on the floor in front of it just a little too hard, or breathe on it funny, it just... stops. The power stays on, the fans keep going, and hard drive activity seems to continue, but my monitor gives me a "no signal" message, and nothing actually happens on the computer itself (i.e. downloads stop running, music stops playing, etc). (A note: I'd previously thought that this was a RAM issue, but I replaced my RAM earlier this year and it still continued, so unless there's something majorly wrong with my motherboard's RAM slots, I feel confident naming the power supply as the cause of the problem.) I've gritted my teeth and just dealt with it since it started, but after I had to physically move my rig earlier today, it stopped turning on altogether. Except for once, but that seems to have been a fluke. I checked all the necessary power cables, I unplugged and reinserted all the required ones, and still nothing.

Situation A, I somehow fried my motherboard. Which would be practically disastrous.
Situation B, my power supply finally gave up the ghost. (I'm hoping it's this one, especially since I just bought a new one off Amazon.)
Situation C, it's something else, for which I have no means to test, since this is my one and only desktop and I don't have any spare core components lying around.

Anyone have any experience with something similar? I know there can be many, many causes for "The Computer That Wouldn't Turn On", but I'm just hoping I didn't overlook anything here.

 

[Fatalah]

On my Gateway netbook loaded with XP, I want the screen brightness at the highest level always. Even when on battery.

How do I set this?

I know Vista/Win7 make it easy to set, but XP isn't as clear.

 

[Ronok]

Having a few problems with my Dell Vostro 1500. The past few days my laptops performance has drastically decreased. My CPU is all over the place with the multiplier constantly jumping between 6 and 8. I assume this is due to Intel's speedstep, however turning it off is freezing the multiplier at 6 and leaving it on seems to be setting it to 8 when idle and 6 when under stress. :-/

Additionally my CPU usage is jumping up to 50-70% under strange circumstances such as scrolling my browser window and watching a very low quality video in flash. Again though, this is also causing my cpu multiplier to drop.

My CPU is also at 47C idle. I never really checked it before, but that seems pretty high for idle.

 

[Ettie]

I have an 8GB flash drive that has 7.6 GB of Unallocated space in disk management. When I try to create a partition in that space, it goes all the way to the end of the wizard and fails with an error.

"The operation was canceled due to an internal error."

Previously, I had Ubuntu on this flash drive, and booted from it several times without problem. When I booted from the XP disc and tried to delete the existing partition, it let me. I then tried to create a partition and XP setup said that wasn't allowed on removable discs.

Any help?

 

[mAcOdIn]

Anyone know why my LCD seems to get burn-in extremely quickly? If I leave a pause menu or main menu screen (PS3) for a few minutes, I will have burn-in. It's pretty annoying considering they told me most LCDs don't suffer from burn-in. When I watch cable I don't have any problems though; it's only when I play video games. I have a 42" Samsung 720/1080p.

Also, what can I use to clean my LCD screen? There's some stuff that won't come off with a duster, but I'm afraid to spray something on it that will mess it up.

Are you sure you have a LCD? Sure they didn't sell you a plasma? In all honesty I've never seen a LCD get burn in.

About cleaning, I just use windex and a soft cotton t-shirt in all honesty, never had a problem. I don't know if that's recommended but it's softer than that damn lcd cleaner Monster sells.

 

[IronFistedChampion]

Are you sure you have a LCD? Sure they didn't sell you a plasma? In all honesty I've never seen a LCD get burn in.

About cleaning, I just use windex and a soft cotton t-shirt in all honesty, never had a problem. I don't know if that's recommended but it's softer than that damn lcd cleaner Monster sells.

This is the TV I have:

Samsung 40" 1080p LCD

Note: Mine's a 42", but it's the same model.

 

[Schrade]

I have an 8GB flash drive that has 7.6 GB of Unallocated space in disk management. When I try to create a partition in that space, it goes all the way to the end of the wizard and fails with an error.

"The operation was canceled due to an internal error."

Previously, I had Ubuntu on this flash drive, and booted from it several times without problem. When I booted from the XP disc and tried to delete the existing partition, it let me. I then tried to create a partition and XP setup said that wasn't allowed on removable discs.

Any help?

Delete the partition in Windows Disk Management. Delete all partitions on the drive... then format it using Disk Management.

 

[pistolpete2940]

Just bought a Vizio VO370M. I plugged the cable directly into the tv (no box) Now, when I go to program the channels, it won't scan past 135. Will I not be able to watch all my channels without a box?

 

[beelzebozo]

simple request here:

just got CONTEXT SEARCH for google chrome, and i want to create some custom searches for it. a couple of the searches i'm trying to make are acting a little funky, like searching for % instead of plugging in the thing for which i want to search. can someone shoot me a pm and help me out with this?

thanks!

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

The 4850 beats the GTS240 by a fair margin. I'd make the switch. 1gb is overkill at that performance range....


Are you sure there isn't a function key on your laptop's keyboard that handles this? They changed up the Catalyst Control Centre so it's hard for me to navigate now.... but IIRC almost all laptops/netbooks should have this option.


AFAIK, this happens when you set your resolution above your monitor's max (usually native) resolution

If you know for sure that you monitor supports a higher resolution than this, it may be a goof up in the driver. Use PowerStrip to modify the max resolution.

It's definitely not going above max resolution since it's a 24" monitor that does 1920x1200. Is there a driver cleaner I should try or ? I tried one but it didn't do anything to help.

 

[mosaic]

Does anybody know where I can get an underclock utility for a Compaq Presario CQ50 laptop?

My friend's is overheating like crazy and until we can get it and really clean out the innards, we'd like to be able to slow it down a bit.

 

[Phantast2k]

/edit
nvm. Youtube is my friend.
--------------------------------------------
What the best way to do a table on content in Word 2007?

My dot dot dot version is just plain ugly

 

[Ganhyun]

hopefully tech support GAF can help me.


I have 2 computers, an XP Home Service Pack 3, and Vista machine.

The Vista has a printer attached to it.

I need the XP machine to be able to print to the Vista machine's printer. Both are workstations and cannot be moved unfortunately.


The Vista machine can "see" the XP machine, but not access it. The XP machine cannot see or access the Vista machine via the network neighborhood/whatever they call it now.

I have disabled the firewall on the XP and Vista (Both use Trend Micro 2010). Both are in the same workgroup. I added the XP hotfix so the Vista machine could "see" it.


What am I missing GAF? I know something on the XP is screwy, otherwise it would be able to at least "see" the Vista machine. (There are actually a few other Vista machines in the same workgroup as well, but not viewable by the XP Network places. Funny enough, Trend Micro's network scan, with the firewall off, does see the Vista machines.

 

[Gowans]

ok this is techish???

lets see if GAF can sort it.

How do i get my Facebook account to auto post my status updates onto twitter but if I post a tweet I don't want it to update Facebook?

 

[Zero Hero]

You have to share the printer before it can be seen. Right click on the printer in the printers folder and click properties. Then choose the sharing tab. Name the share name to something short like "printer". Go back the the XP machine and click start then run. Type \\vista machine name(the name of your computer) and everything shared on that computer should show up.

 

[Ganhyun]

You have to share the printer before it can be seen. Right click on the printer in the printers folder and click properties. Then choose the sharing tab. Name the share name to something short like "printer". Go back the the XP machine and click start then run. Type \\vista machine name(the name of your computer) and everything shared on that computer should show up.

Sorry, forgot to mention that the printer is shared already. We have another XP machine that can print to this Vista box, but I dont have any access info for it as it belongs to someone higher in the food chain than me and he isnt here.

Also, Im getting a network path not found error

 

[Baker]

My laptop is about 1.5 years old and it's already starting to act up.

- During normal use (coding, web surfing, etc.) every 15-30 seconds the hdd will start clicking and every action goes to a crawl for about 3 seconds.

- Playing HD wmv's through media player is impossible now. The hdd will start clicking then Windows will say I'm out of memory even though I have 4 gigs and the widget is saying only 45% of it is being used.

So is the hdd just dying? I've backed all my shit up in case it decides to blow up soon.

 

[SundaySounds]

Just built a new pc with 64bit W7 and using chrome as my browser. When ever I try to watch videos on Hulu in fullscreen, my pc will get the BSOD and crash.

Did I do something wrong or are there compatibility problems with 64 bit windows and flash?

 

[Baker]

Just built a new pc with 64bit W7 and using chrome as my browser. When ever I try to watch videos on Hulu in fullscreen, my pc will get the BSOD and crash.

Did I do something wrong or are there compatibility problems with 64 bit windows and flash?

I used Chrome once and it acted up with flash files. You might want to try FF instead.

Even if I closed the window, the sound would keep playing forever.

 

[SundaySounds]

I used Chrome once and it acted up with flash files. You might want to try FF instead.

Even if I closed the window, the sound would keep playing forever.

Well I downloaded hulu desktop, and that runs it better. But I still can't play fullscreen videos without my pc crashing.

 

[Alucrid]

Edit: Moved to mac.

 

[Schrade]

My laptop is about 1.5 years old and it's already starting to act up.

- During normal use (coding, web surfing, etc.) every 15-30 seconds the hdd will start clicking and every action goes to a crawl for about 3 seconds.

- Playing HD wmv's through media player is impossible now. The hdd will start clicking then Windows will say I'm out of memory even though I have 4 gigs and the widget is saying only 45% of it is being used.

So is the hdd just dying? I've backed all my shit up in case it decides to blow up soon.

It could be possible that your swapfile is trying to be written to an area of the drive that has a disk or filesystem error.

I'd recommend running HDD Regenerator on the drive. But be aware, you need to let it run for a long time (it's not fast on large drives...). You can always stop it when it finds and fixes a bad spot on the HD and goes a little past that.

HDD Regenerator is pretty awesome in what it can do to revive a drive.

If you can get a hold of Hiren's BootCD, it's on that.

 

[J Tourettes]

My work PC randomly restarts, which is a real pain in the arse and causes me to regularly lose work and it's work that I can't save. I'm pretty sure it started when my memory was upgraded but I've tried it without the extra ram and it still happens.

I've scanned with Avast, Spybot and malwarebytes and nothing has been found, any ideas? An error report is produced when I reboot the PC after this occurs.

Thanks.

PS I should add that I've asked IT but they're woefully understaffed in my organisation.

 

[Tashi]

Hi GAF,

So I just bought a new replacement hard drive for my laptop. I emailed HP and had them give me the exact specs of the hard drive that I need to buy. I did exactly as they said and bought a hard drive that fit the requirements. The physical installation went very smoothly. I booted up my laptop and have the boot order set to the CD/DVD drive so that I can begin the Windows XP installation. It's a recovery disc. Then I get an error saying "Hard Drive not detected!" I go into the setup menu and do the Hard Drive self diagnostics test and it cannot be performed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136197

That's the drive.

Any tips with the physical installation or anything I maybe have missed would be great. Thanks.

-Tashi

EDIT!!!!!!

So, after sitting there wondering why the fuck the laptop wouldn't recognize the hard drive. I took both drives and look at them right next to each to see if I can see any differences and sure enough I did. There's this rubber pin connector that was connected to the old drive that wasn't on the new drive. I took that off and put it on the new drive and was able to connect it. I'm now reinstalling Windows XP. PHEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. OH man. I'm so happy now, I was really bummed out about 5 minutes ago hahahahha whoooooooooooooooooooo

 

[Cheeto]

My work PC randomly restarts, which is a real pain in the arse and causes me to regularly lose work and it's work that I can't save. I'm pretty sure it started when my memory was upgraded but I've tried it without the extra ram and it still happens.

I've scanned with Avast, Spybot and malwarebytes and nothing has been found, any ideas? An error report is produced when I reboot the PC after this occurs.

Thanks.

PS I should add that I've asked IT but they're woefully understaffed in my organisation.

I'd run memtest just to be sure. Get it on a boot cd like UBCD or Hiren's

 

[Baker]

Well I was right. I opened up my laptop this morning to be greeted with "internal hard drive not found." This thing has thoroughly pissed me off and I don't just want to replace the hdd. So do I want...

1) A new gaming laptop that will end up being $1400-1700

2) Build a new desktop

I really hate desktops after finally getting used to owning a laptop, but dropping $1700 on a laptop just seems crazy.

 

[Entropia]

ok this is techish???

lets see if GAF can sort it.

How do i get my Facebook account to auto post my status updates onto twitter but if I post a tweet I don't want it to update Facebook?

http://www.facebook.com/twitter/

I haven't used this, not sure if it doesn't put tweets onto FB. I know there's a facebook app that you have to put #fb at the end of your tweets for it to be on facebook.

 

[J Tourettes]

I'd run memtest just to be sure. Get it on a boot cd like UBCD or Hiren's

Thanks. I ran the memtest and no errors were reported then was working on something this afternoon, only to be met with a blue screen with the following message:

Hardware malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
NMI: Parity check/Memory parity error
The system has halted

So i rebooted the pc and it worked again but there's obviously something not quite right.

Looks like I'll have to frig about trying one piece of ram at a time to try and isolate the problem.

 

[Cheeto]

Thanks. I ran the memtest and no errors were reported then was working on something this afternoon, only to be met with a blue screen with the following message:

Hardware malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
NMI: Parity check/Memory parity error
The system has halted

So i rebooted the pc and it worked again but there's obviously something not quite right.

Looks like I'll have to frig about trying one piece of ram at a time to try and isolate the problem.

Well, I doubt a parity error would result from faulty memory in a desktop PC. So, if I were you I'd start removing things on the PCI bus and see if it clears up. If you can't isolate it there, you might want to open it up and make sure that it's not caked in dust... overheating can cause weird issues.

 

[pseudocaesar]

OK so I am getting a CPU cooler as I am about to start my endeavor in Overclocking my Phenom II. I have it narrowed down to the Coolermaster V8, and the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme. From the reviews I read it seems the v8 performs a slight bit better, but I can get the Thermalright for $75 AUD, compared to ~$90AUD for the V8. Which is the better option?

Also, the Thermalright doesn't come with a fan, which would be most suitable?
This one is on sale at $9 AUD,
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?...ducts_id=11558
it has a good RPM and pushes 57 CFM, but is a little loud. Is that fan even compatible? Any help is appreciated.

I'm leaning towards the Thermalright, as for some reason that site has it for $49AUD, whereas the average price is on or around $100...

 

[Vanillalite]

How can I turn a docx file into a legit image file and not just a screen shot?

 

[Hawkian]

OK so I am getting a CPU cooler as I am about to start my endeavor in Overclocking my Phenom II. I have it narrowed down to the Coolermaster V8, and the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme. From the reviews I read it seems the v8 performs a slight bit better, but I can get the Thermalright for $75 AUD, compared to ~$90AUD for the V8. Which is the better option?

Also, the Thermalright doesn't come with a fan, which would be most suitable?
This one is on sale at $9 AUD,
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?...ducts_id=11558
it has a good RPM and pushes 57 CFM, but is a little loud. Is that fan even compatible? Any help is appreciated.

I'm leaning towards the Thermalright, as for some reason that site has it for $49AUD, whereas the average price is on or around $100...

Coolermaster never did me wrong, but that's not a bad deal for either of the two in that price range.


Isn't a docx file a word document? You want to extract just an image of that?

Sorry I haven't been keeping up in here; was a good month, though.

 

[Baker]

How can I turn a docx file into a legit image file and not just a screen shot?

I'm sure there is a 100% saner/easier/not stupid way, but could you save it as a pdf and then get photoshop/etc. to convert it into an image?

 

[EarsOfASnake]

Ok, I have been having this PC problem for about 3 years now and I just can't seem to solve it other than doing a fresh install of windows. Here is a rundown of events:

- An install of any kind will trigger the PC to be stuck on the 'Windows is Loading' screen (Blue bar moving across the bottom)
- I have to go in to safe mode and delete the graphics driver (Nvidia) before the PC will load up normally.
- I then have to install an older driver first and then update to the latest one otherwise I go back to step 1.
- This temporary fix lasts for a couple of a days to a week and then my PC will start freezing (no BSOD) at random points after start up ( I can't see any consistency with the lock ups)
- I deal with this for a couple of days, which brings along intermittent BSODs and then just decide to reinstall windows
- Ordeal ends

The most recent one however didn't react to me uninstalling my graphics driver and the only way I could get it to work was to do a system restore from safe mode. Now I say I have been dealing with this for 3 years but it isn't something constants, it seems to pop up on a yearly basis and comes out of the blue. Between virus scans, memory tests, removing my overclock and other computer maintenance I cannot find the cause of this.

I am running Windows XP SP3, 3Gb Ram, Nvidia Gforce 7950GT and my Intel CPU is overclocked from 2.4ghz to 2.7. Not sure what else will be of help so let me know, help me GAF your my only hope!

 

[Hawkian]

Mike, I would definitely start with clocking your CPU back to stock- see if this makes any impact on the frequency of the errors as you work with it for some time.

 

[Mercury Fred]

OK, so I just started using Google Calendar along with iCal and set up syncing via Google's step by step tutorial. Changes I make in GCal seem to show up in iCal, but not the other way around. I added some events in iCal, updated the refresh rate in iCal, but they're still not showing on Gcal.

Any ideas?