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Tech Support GAF Thread: No Case Too Big, No Case Too Small

Symphonia

Banned
A D-link DIR868L
To reset your router find the tiny reset button usually located at the back of the router. While the router is on, use a pin or the end of a paper clip to press and hold the reset button. You will need to hold if for about 10 seconds. Generally, you will want to wait for the lights to change on the router. Depending on the make and model of your router the lights may start out blinking and change to solid or they may start out solid and change to blinking. When you let go of the reset button the router should be reset to the factory settings. You can then go about setting up a network.
 

Neptune

Member
I am having a similar wireless network connection issue – I have Macbook Pro with a Windows 7 partition, and since this morning I have had problems with the connection dropping every few minutes and taking several minutes to come back. Then, if I am lucky, I get to refresh a few webpages before the cycle begins anew. This problem appeared today with everything working fine just two days ago. I have not installed any new software or any updates since then. My phone, iPad, Apple TV, PS3, PS4 and my husband's PC running Windows 8 all manage to connect and remain connected just fine, and if I switch to OS X my computer is fine as well.

I have confirmed the power saving settings for the network adapter and I have booted in Safe Mode with networking, and the problem still persists. My Google searches have not proven fruitful in terms of finding solutions, and I am desperately hoping someone here can give me some suggestions on what to try next.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
 
So, I built my PC a few months ago and I love it and all, but the WiFi issues I'm having are ruining it for me... Some specs: (Core i5 4690k, 8gb RAM, GTX 760, 500gb SSD, Windows 8.1 64-bit, etc.)

The important part is my motherboard, which came with a WiFi card that I thought would be pretty good. The mobo is an MSI z97 mini-ITX, link here: http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Z97I-GAMING-AC.html#hero-overview

The included WiFi card is an Intel Dual-Band AC 7260.

My problem is as follows - while I get a consistent connection to my router via WiFi, the internet is either extremely slow, or not working at all. I have updated the drivers for the WiFi card, and have the OS all fully up to date.

Now, importantly, my iPad works fine with my router, and I've never had an issue connecting to the internet with it. Also, the consoles I have work very well (360, PS3, Xbox One) wirelessly, including from the same distance to the router as my PC. No slowness, no dropped connection, nothing amiss.

What's weird is that, on the occasions when the internet connection on the PC does work (and remember, the connection from the PC to the router itself is always on, and always at full bars) - the internet is blazing fast, and I can download from Steam and watch videos and all that without any speed-related issue - the problem comes from the internet only working some of the time (like 10% or so).

What could be going on here? If it's interference, wouldn't it also affect the iPad and consoles? If it's a faulty piece of hardware, wouldn't it also affect the connection to the router (and how would it work so well when it does work)? If it's a bad router, why does it work so well with my iPad/consoles? If it's Windows or software-based, wouldn't having the up-to-date drivers and OS and all that take care of it?

I've tried rolling-back drivers, and flushing the DNS via command prompt, and releasing/renewing the IPconfig, and all the other tips-and-tricks I could find online, but nothing has improved. Even troubleshooting the WiFi connection via right-clicking on the icon on Windows either gives me nothing back (as in, nothing's wrong!), or it tells me that the DNS sever is not responding (this happens seldom).

What could it be? What am I missing? I really don't want to have to go wired, as the cable would have to go across various rooms/hallways and drilling holes is not an options. Any help would be hugely appreciated.
 

Spacejaws

Member
Ok I have a spot of bother woth Steam here and after much internet searching I can't seem to find the answer so here it goes.

For the past 2 years i've been using a Windows 7 Laptop with the majority of my 2.5TB steam library on an external HDD as I travel alot. The library was all symlinked in the steamapps folder using steam mover.

Now I have updated to a fancy new Windows 8 laptop and the symlinks work...in explorer...steam however refuses to see files through a link and will redownload entire games, failing to verify. If I move the games to the steamapp folder ot will discover them, if I try to install them (new steam install, everything is grey) steam will delete all the data that the symlink leads to the proceed to put all the files on the symlink location and even play them fine until an update where is has to redownload the entire game.

Im using windows 8.1 pro and I've deleted steam, checked if I have the correct redistrubatles installed etc.

Any ideas?
 

Aiustis

Member
So my computer won't launch windows.
It goes to the menu for start up options.
Tried safe mode but the windows symbol appears; then it disappears and nothing happens.
Same thing happens with any mode.
I'm not getting the option for start up repair.

I do not have the disk.

What are my options.
 
So my computer won't launch windows.
It goes to the menu for start up options.
Tried safe mode but the windows symbol appears; then it disappears and nothing happens.
Same thing happens with any mode.
I'm not getting the option for start up repair.

I do not have the disk.

What are my options.

Have you tried booting from an Windows live usb?
 

Jindrax

Member
So I'm going to get a new TV, I and I was wondering.
Can I plug it into my pc and manually select the output when I want to use it on tv.
Put it remains plugged in of course.

Here's why I think it might not work.

I have an nvidia 660Ti.
I already have two screen plugged into the gfx card via DVI.
The card does support HDMI. But will it recognize three outputs?

If not is there like a dongle I can purchase?
 

Ramma2

Member
Do any of you do office support? Gotta problem with Excel 2013 and converting numbers to thousands. The guide here http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/format-numbers-in-thousands-and-millions-in-excel-.html says Format cells -> Custom -> #,##0

But when I do it the only effect is that it enters a thousands separator (') taking me from 172461 to 172'461.

What on earth am I doing wrong here?

3 days late here, but you're missing the last comma on the custom formatting. Should be #,##0,
 

Irobot82

Member
I have finance works on my banks webpage. In Chrome I get this error.

Unable to resolve the server's DNS address.

but it works in both Firefox and IE. It used to work in chrome but it stopped one day. Any suggestion and/or what kind of extra data do you need?
 

Wvrs

Member
Just bought an iPhone 5 from my friend.

Transferred my 4's content over to it, all good. Except that the phone inconsistently shuts off, and will then display the 'you need to charge' symbol until I put it on charge, whereupon it will boot back up and be on like 34%.

It's proving pretty inconvenient, I'll be in a phone call thinking I'm good and suddenly it's turned off until I can get to a charger.

Any ideas what it could be? iOS 8.3 btw.
 

Aiustis

Member
So I'm going to get a new TV, I and I was wondering.
Can I plug it into my pc and manually select the output when I want to use it on tv.
Put it remains plugged in of course.

Here's why I think it might not work.

I have an nvidia 660Ti.
I already have two screen plugged into the gfx card via DVI.
The card does support HDMI. But will it recognize three outputs?

If not is there like a dongle I can purchase?

It should work if it supports 3 outputs.
 

Kinokou

Member
3 days late here, but you're missing the last comma on the custom formatting. Should be #,##0,

Never to late, but it didn't work got any other suggestions? Can regional settings on windows affect the issue? Also doesn't seem like any formatting I tried work.
 

Ramma2

Member
Never to late, but it didn't work got any other suggestions? Can regional settings on windows affect the issue? Also doesn't seem like any formatting I tried work.

When I try this, it flips instantly. When you add that comma just nothing happens?

I go from this:

bFB2YmV.png


To as soon as I type in that last comma the sample number changes to 3 digits:

71ePtah.png


If that doesn't happen for you then I'm stumped. You could try changing your region to the US to see what happens? (If you're not in the US)
 
My laptop's hard drive just crapped out completely. I kept my files on an external so I never made a backup (mistake, I know). Windows 8 was preinstalled on it which was then upgraded to windows 8.1. I bought a new hard drive and I know the UEFI will supply the product key. However, I'm unsure as to which windows version I should install and I can't find windows 8 installation media
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
Really frustrating problem, would greatly appreciate someone helping me out.

A few weeks ago AVG hit some false positives and locked up some of my system sound files in the Vault. I lost sound and it took me a while to put the pieces together. By that time the Vault was emptied and the files were irretrievably lost. I rage uninstalled AVG. Have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the sound drivers to no avail. No system restore point which precedes the incident.

Anyone wanna take a crack at this?
 

oneida

Cock Strain, Lifetime Warranty
Update:
RGM79 recommended that i run sfc /scannow from cmd. I did that, and got this result:
Windows resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log.

Contents of log are far too long to post and a pain to read.
CTRL+F "audio" yielded these lines:
2015-06-12 20:50:39, Info CSI 00000128 [DIRSD OWNER WARNING] Directory [ml:520{260},l:90{45}]"\??\C:\WINDOWS\diagnostics\system\Audio\en-US" is not owned but specifies SDDL in component Microsoft-Windows-AudioDiagnostic.Resources, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_AMD64 (9), Culture = [l:10{5}]"en-US", VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral
2015-06-12 20:50:53, Info CSI 00000131 [DIRSD OWNER WARNING] Directory [ml:520{260},l:78{39}]"\??\C:\WINDOWS\diagnostics\system\Audio" is not owned but specifies SDDL in component Microsoft-Windows-AudioDiagnostic, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_AMD64 (9), Culture neutral, VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral
 

RGM79

Member
My laptop's hard drive just crapped out completely. I kept my files on an external so I never made a backup (mistake, I know). Windows 8 was preinstalled on it which was then upgraded to windows 8.1. I bought a new hard drive and I know the UEFI will supply the product key. However, I'm unsure as to which windows version I should install and I can't find windows 8 installation media
What model of laptop do you have?
 
okay GAF I'm currently having a pretty large issue: My Windows 8 installation won't boot.

I have Windows 10 on my SSD, and Windows 8 on my HDD, whenever I try to boot into my HDD I'll have a chkdsk check, and then it will boot instantly to Windows 10. Bootmgr recognizes it on Windows 10, but the Windows 8 CD repair tool won't recognize it at all, only my Win10 installation.

I use the same user folders (Documents/Music/Videos) for both (I actually regret this mistake, I have a feeling that is what has caused this) and used them side by side for six months. This happened recently and I'd love to have Windows 8 working asap
 

TheContact

Member
okay GAF I'm currently having a pretty large issue: My Windows 8 installation won't boot.

I have Windows 10 on my SSD, and Windows 8 on my HDD, whenever I try to boot into my HDD I'll have a chkdsk check, and then it will boot instantly to Windows 10. Bootmgr recognizes it on Windows 10, but the Windows 8 CD repair tool won't recognize it at all, only my Win10 installation.

I use the same user folders (Documents/Music/Videos) for both (I actually regret this mistake, I have a feeling that is what has caused this) and used them side by side for six months. This happened recently and I'd love to have Windows 8 working asap

If you disconnect your sata cable from the mobo connected to your SSD and only leave the hdd in there, will it boot to windows 8?
 
If you disconnect your sata cable from the mobo connected to your SSD and only leave the hdd in there, will it boot to windows 8?

I'll try that now.

Thanks for the advice!

EDIT: It originally didn't work, but the Windows 8 CD recognized my installation and allowed me to boot into it, now I have it working fine!

Thanks!
 

Saprol

Member
Windows Update being a pain to deal with. Have updates for Windows Defender, the April 880MB one for 8.1, and some smaller ones including the Win10 reservation update KB3035583. The April one doesn't install, the other 4 tell me it's installed and then they just show up again when I check for updates. The stupid diagnostic tool keeps "fixing" the same problems.

Their solution to 0x80073712 went nowhere. KB2975061 is already installed. They say to remove a package using DISM but it doesn't exist. sfc /scannow says everything is cool.

I'd normally just abandon trying to update the moment it starts acting like this but apparently Microsoft won't just give a proper way to upgrade to / clean install Win10.
rage.gif
 
Windows Update being a pain to deal with. Have updates for Windows Defender, the April 880MB one for 8.1, and some smaller ones including the Win10 reservation update KB3035583. The April one doesn't install, the other 4 tell me it's installed and then they just show up again when I check for updates. The stupid diagnostic tool keeps "fixing" the same problems.

Their solution to 0x80073712 went nowhere. KB2975061 is already installed. They say to remove a package using DISM but it doesn't exist. sfc /scannow says everything is cool.

I'd normally just abandon trying to update the moment it starts acting like this but apparently Microsoft won't just give a proper way to upgrade to / clean install Win10.
rage.gif

I had the same problem. There is a tutorial online to solve this kind of issues. You basically delete the update logs.
 

Joe

Member
How can I safely format a hard drive before recycling it? I have 5 hard drives that I want to get rid of but I'm worried about my information lingering on them somehow.
 

Excko

Member
I have a computer issue that is driving me nuts. When I play games, I will randomly get a hard lock with the last sound stuttering over and over. The computer is completely frozen and nothing will work. I have to reset the computer to use it again.

Here are the computer specs. Nothing is overclocked.

Windows 8.1 Home Edition
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
Asus P5Q Deluxe
Samsung 850ECO SSD 256GB (the issue was present before I changed the HDD to this)
OCZ 2*2GB RAM (OCZ2P8002G)
NVIDIA GeForce 660 TI
Corsair 620HX power supply.

I have a suspicion that the issue is either heat related or power related, but it could be any other thing.

I have reinstalled the OS and drivers several time, no change. issue is still present. BIOS is updated to latest version.

Any help in finding what is causing the issue would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
So I have a built PC I wanna sell with Windows on the SSD. How exactly to I go about prepping this thing to sell off? Just format the drive and make the purchaser buy their Windows to reinstall on the drive?
 

moka

Member
How can I safely format a hard drive before recycling it? I have 5 hard drives that I want to get rid of but I'm worried about my information lingering on them somehow.

There's this thing you can do that writes over your entire hard drive with zeros. Google it.

So I have a built PC I wanna sell with Windows on the SSD. How exactly to I go about prepping this thing to sell off? Just format the drive and make the purchaser buy their Windows to reinstall on the drive?

Do you mean you want to leave a clean install of Windows on the SSD? Just do a fresh install of Windows on it then which will remove all of your applications, files and settings.
 

Kinokou

Member
Do any of you do office support? Gotta problem with Excel 2013 and converting numbers to thousands. The guide here http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/format-numbers-in-thousands-and-millions-in-excel-.html says Format cells -> Custom -> #,##0

But when I do it the only effect is that it enters a thousands separator (') taking me from 172461 to 172'461.

What on earth am I doing wrong here?

I solved this now, and since I got no google results for how to fix it maybe people can find this post in the future: To use the show thousands command you need to use your local thousands separator, so in my case I had to (on another computer) use space (or apostrophes most likely on the first computer) instead of commas with the #'s to make it work.
 
Strange problem I've been having with Windows 7


Lately whenever I reboot there is a good chance that my system just hangs on a blank screen after the windows loading screen, the hard drive light keeps blinking but the system never gets to the enter password screen

Usually I can just turn the computer off and on until it does get to the login screen and everything works fine but it's probably not a good idea to be doing that

The computer does boot up in safe mode every time

Any ideas?


Edit - Oh and it seems I have no system restore points and I can't create one, I know it used to work, what can I do?
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
My system:

-- Processors -- Intel Corei7-920 Processor (8MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz)
-- Memory -- 6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
-- Video Card --ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Got it in 2008-2009. I think the video card is busted.

What should I do with it? Just dump it in green recycling or anything worth salvaging?
I think I need to upgrade the whole thing to update the video card no?

Thanks GAF.
 

aravuus

Member
This is a weird one: Chrome keeps putting gifs after everything else in HTML elements/blocks/whatever, like so

80300cd4f5.jpg


The gif is supposed to be between the two sentences, but it's rendered like that. Big OTs with lots of gifs look stupid with a bunch of blank spaces throughout the posts and a big row of gifs at the end etc etc

Firefox and IE work fine, re-installing Chrome hasn't fixed it. Absolutely no fucking idea what could be causing this.
 

bomblord1

Banned
So my exchange server is not syncing new active directory thumbnailPhoto pictures. We recently upgraded to server 2010 from 2003 and I believe that this issue has been going for a while but just caught.

I tried using the powershell command Update-GlobalAddressList -identity 'Default Global Address List' but it returns an error

WARNING" The recipient "" is invalid and couldn't be updated.

I found this article http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Email_Servers/Exchange/Q_28362844.html

And tried the steps listed there to update the address books invalid alias but it did not seem to resolve the issue as when I try to go into the public folder management console it tries to connect to a non-existent server and won't let me manually enter an address. Opening folders produces another error "you can't perform this operation because the folder isn't mounted". I'm guessing this is because it's trying to connect to an old server that is no longer on our network. I'm about at my wits end here not sure what to do.
 

Apt101

Member
So my exchange server is not syncing new active directory thumbnailPhoto pictures. We recently upgraded to server 2010 from 2003 and I believe that this issue has been going for a while but just caught.

I tried using the powershell command Update-GlobalAddressList -identity 'Default Global Address List' but it returns an error

WARNING" The recipient "" is invalid and couldn't be updated.

I found this article http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Email_Servers/Exchange/Q_28362844.html

And tried the steps listed there to update the address books invalid alias but it did not seem to resolve the issue as when I try to go into the public folder management console it tries to connect to a non-existent server and won't let me manually enter an address. Opening folders produces another error "you can't perform this operation because the folder isn't mounted". I'm guessing this is because it's trying to connect to an old server that is no longer on our network. I'm about at my wits end here not sure what to do.

Call Microsoft. For real. Don't fuck around with that, get them engaged.
 
My system:

-- Processors -- Intel Corei7-920 Processor (8MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz)
-- Memory -- 6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
-- Video Card --ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Got it in 2008-2009. I think the video card is busted.

What should I do with it? Just dump it in green recycling or anything worth salvaging?
I think I need to upgrade the whole thing to update the video card no?

Thanks GAF.

I'm still running an i7 920. It's a fantastic CPU and I've got mine overclocked to 4.0GHz. Honestly, just replace the video card and you should be fine until Skylake comes out.
 

kogasu

Member
Ok I'm hoping GAF can help me here as my Google skills have failed me and I'm really not computer savvy.

Sooo I have a Windows 8.1 HP (UGH!!) laptop and for the past week or two, I've had this problem where Windows Installer or "msiexec.exe" would start up and pretty much freeze my computer completely. If I restart my computer, it works efficiently for several hours but the same thing happens again.

So far, I've found that it apparently bumps my CPU usage up to 100% and uses over a gig of memory. If I wait for about 10 minutes, the computer unfreezes but two instances of Windows Installer stay in the process list. One taking up about 50-60% of CPU and still over a gig of memory and the other not doing much at all.

In the Task Manager I'm seeing that I think it's getting hung up on a particular process.

This is it:

I'm not sure where to go from here. I don't know how to view what particular program it's getting hung up on or where this process is embedding and I don't even know if that would help me.

I'm a dumb! Please help me GAF.
 

Ramma2

Member
Ok I'm hoping GAF can help me here as my Google skills have failed me and I'm really not computer savvy.

Sooo I have a Windows 8.1 HP (UGH!!) laptop and for the past week or two, I've had this problem where Windows Installer or "msiexec.exe" would start up and pretty much freeze my computer completely. If I restart my computer, it works efficiently for several hours but the same thing happens again.

So far, I've found that it apparently bumps my CPU usage up to 100% and uses over a gig of memory. If I wait for about 10 minutes, the computer unfreezes but two instances of Windows Installer stay in the process list. One taking up about 50-60% of CPU and still over a gig of memory and the other not doing much at all.

In the Task Manager I'm seeing that I think it's getting hung up on a particular process.

This is it:


I'm not sure where to go from here. I don't know how to view what particular program it's getting hung up on or where this process is embedding and I don't even know if that would help me.

I'm a dumb! Please help me GAF.

Next time it's happening, check your scheduled tasks in the control panel and see if there's any tasks that are running. That would be the first place I'd check.
 

Kudo

Member
I got new SSD for my upcoming Skylake build today and when I was unboxing it had it on my table I somehow knocked it off the table and it hit another tables metal leg. Poor luck is with me today, but I'm here to ask any chances my SSD is okay?
No scratches or dents on the outside and when I shake it can't hear anything so would hope the insides are intact too..
I've read that SSDs are shock resistant and the force of the drop wasn't that big but just making sure if I should start preparing money for another SSD.
 

xptoxyz

Member
Looking for help finding out what's breaking, can't debug it easily... I formated and the issue is still present so it should be hardware. Problem shows up as hard lock, only way to resolve it shutdown via is power button. Display keeps the same frame stuck. Have been able to play a game for hours without the issue cropping up, yet simple browsing tasks have made the issue happen in fast succession.

CrystalDiskInfo is saying disk is ok, not sure how reliable it is.

Should add this is a laptop, so other than HDD and Ram it probably won't be worth fixing in terms of cost. Would still like to find where the issue is coming from.
 
Strange problem I've been having with Windows 7


Lately whenever I reboot there is a good chance that my system just hangs on a blank screen after the windows loading screen, the hard drive light keeps blinking but the system never gets to the enter password screen

Usually I can just turn the computer off and on until it does get to the login screen and everything works fine but it's probably not a good idea to be doing that

The computer does boot up in safe mode every time

Any ideas?


Edit - Oh and it seems I have no system restore points and I can't create one, I know it used to work, what can I do?


Anyone for the first part?
 

kogasu

Member
Next time it's happening, check your scheduled tasks in the control panel and see if there's any tasks that are running. That would be the first place I'd check.

That was a great idea but I didn't actually find anything relating to this process in the Task Scheduler. Thank you though.

Hmm, hopefully there are more ideas??

edit: Ok, as of this moment, I haven't been able to reproduce the Windows Installer process so it kind of just fixed itself. I'm thinking it had something to do with AVG update as when I ended one of the processes, an error message came up from AVG saying the update failed which had never happened before. Now AVG is up to date and the process hasn't popped up again. I'll stick by this thread just in case I get another problem. Thanks anyway TechSupportGAF!
 
I've read that SSDs are shock resistant and the force of the drop wasn't that big but just making sure if I should start preparing money for another SSD.

They don't have moving parts so you would have to be very unlucky for it to have become damaged.

Anyone for the first part?

Try checking the event log for errors. You find it by typing "even viewer" in the search field (or just run eventvwr.msc directly). Windows will log startup errors under Windows Logs -> System. If your boot process gets far enough, there might be clues to why you system fails to boot in there. It will flag them with "warning", "error" and "critical". The ones that say "information" are usually not relevant.
 
What brand is it (or is it custom)? If it's a dell try hitting f12 before the system boots (hit it repeatedly) and run hardware diagnostics to see if your HDD is going bad.

You might also want to have windows check the HDD for errors with this http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/check-your-hard-disk-for-errors

Lenovo ideapad

Thanks


I looked at the event log and there are errors where various programs or services are timing out or aren't starting, not sure which are important and which aren't
 

Armaly

Member
I guess i'll also post this here.

Can anyone here recommend me a good internal sound card? I'm trying to listen to my friends on ts while playing console games so I decided on using spdif cable to connect my tv to my dac and a usb to connect my pc to my dac. Problem is my dac only plays one input at a time. I was able to use red and white cables and a 3.5 mm converter to connect it via line in to my mobo and sent everything to my dac but I could hear a ton of white noise from the tv. The spdif in cable eliminated the white noise so it seems like the best option for me. So i'm looking for a good internal pci sound card that has a spdif in port. Don't really want something too pricey but i'm willing to splurge. Thanks!
 
I'm getting terrible fluctuating FPS in Minecraft after swapping my GTX570 for a 280X. I've tried Googling to see if there's some AMD specific issue, but nothing. I did however find I can get some FPS back by switching to a higher res texture pack, but not really a good solution. Anyone have any ideas?

Some additional info:
Drivers - 14.12
CPU - i5 2500
RAM - 8GB (4GB allocated to Minecraft)
Running off of SSD.
 
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