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[sarcastor]

Finally boot to safe mode with dos prompt. But the dos prompt says command prompt has been dsisavled by administrator? WTF?

Hit control alt deleted to bring up task manager, started windows explorer, scanned system with malwarebytes, got 13 hits. Cleaned system, reboot and bam. Another fricken BSOD

Irql Not less or equal??? Google says that's an overheated CPU or bad memory. Bullshit I say.

 

[faceless007]

Sorry to say but even if MSE or MalwareBytes think they got it all, I would still nuke it from orbit and reinstall from scratch anyway. You never know from sure.

 

[sarcastor]

Justndid a Bootrec /fixmbr. And that did absolutely nothing.

I hate it that I have dozens of programmer and engineering friends but none of them know jackshit about fixing windows problems.

 

[Ashhong]

Need assistance...helping my friend fix his computer at the moment.

I plugged it in, it turned on, but no video. So I tried another video card and it comes up, then says something about ethernet controller drivers missing the DOS menu still, and says to restart and select proper boot device.

So I restart, and now no video???? I turn it on and off on and off and eventually get video again. Same thing happened again when I restarted once more.

Just realized (stupid me) that there isnt a harddrive in it. Could that be the reason why video doesnt show sometimes?

Advice?

 

[JaseC]

Just remembered I posted in this thread!

Use a Ubuntu CD/DVD or Windows PE (I.e. Bart PE) disk to do so.

Alternatively, you can just nuke the XP installation as it's on another partition, right? Did you install XP or 7 first?

Thanks for replying. At the time, I didn't have the HDD space to back up the data on the drive, which is why I asked if it were possible to delete the folder. However, I received another 1TB drive today so I'll do just that.

 

[X26]

chrome is being a bitch and hiding my taskbar when maximized. My taskbar is not set on auto hide. What's an easy fix to this?

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Just to cheer you up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRAIYtAGdU&feature=related

 

[ScOULaris]

chrome is being a bitch and hiding my taskbar when maximized. My taskbar is not set on auto hide. What's an easy fix to this?

Did you try locking and then unlocking your taskbar?

Open Chrome, then minimize it.
Right click on taskbar > Properties.
Check or uncheck Lock the Taskbar. Click Apply.
Re-check or re-uncheck Lock the Taskbar. Click Apply.
Maximize Chrome and see if your issue is fixed.

I've never run into this problem with Chrome, but I've heard of tons of people who have over the years. It must be a weird conflict with how Windows handles whatever class of window the Chrome browser is.

 

[Entropia]

I'm going to have to replace my hard drive, aren't I?

I'm getting an error when I restart/boot up that says something about S.M.A.R.T. failing. Also seems to be chugging a lot and making some ticking noises every so often.

If I do get a replacement, what's the easiest way to transfer any data from the old one to the new one? Just put them both in and transfer that way? (copy/pasta? lol)

 

[clav]

I'm going to have to replace my hard drive, aren't I?

I'm getting an error when I restart/boot up that says something about S.M.A.R.T. failing. Also seems to be chugging a lot and making some ticking noises every so often.

If I do get a replacement, what's the easiest way to transfer any data from the old one to the new one? Just put them both in and transfer that way? (copy/pasta? lol)

Yes, you need to replace your hard drive. You're lucky that S.M.A.R.T. caught it because most of the time S.M.A.R.T. isn't that smart as usually the hard drive fails before it detects it.

If you can, image it to an external hard drive using an image manager. Windows 7 does come with one built-in.

If you don't have a big enough hard drive, then just copy and paste the files you want to save.

Hope for the best.

Justndid a Bootrec /fixmbr. And that did absolutely nothing.

I hate it that I have dozens of programmer and engineering friends but none of them know jackshit about fixing windows problems.

Programmers and engineers aren't IT people. Granted I'm lucky that I can do a bit of everything.

Did you try a repair again?

 

[Entropia]

Yes, you need to replace your hard drive. You're lucky that S.M.A.R.T. caught it because most of the time S.M.A.R.T. isn't that smart as usually the hard drive fails before it detects it.

If you can, image it to an external hard drive using an image manager. Windows 7 does come with one built-in.

If you don't have a big enough hard drive, then just copy and paste the files you want to save.

Hope for the best.

Thanks. My other HD is only 160GB while my main one is 1 TB with 2 Partitions for windows/programs and the rest is for media.

Guess I'm off to get a new HD!

 

[Macho Madness]

Thanks. My other HD is only 160GB while my main one is 1 TB with 2 Partitions for windows/programs and the rest is for media.

Guess I'm off to get a new HD!

At least you caught it so you can still recover most if not all of your data. Most people couldn't be so lucky.

 

[Entropia]

Awesome - trying to create a backup image..

"The backup failed.


The system cannot find the path specified. (0x80070003)"

Alright. Going to get a new one now. Thanks guys.

 

[Sanic]

I purchased a used computer about 2 months ago that i'm having a bit of an issue with. I wiped it clean, installed Windows 7, and put a few games/apps on it immediately after purchasing it. Since then, i've done almost nothing with the computer outside of browsing the web and downloading/installing updates for windows.

The other day, after having the computer on for about 15 minutes, i'm greeted with a blue screen that flashes very quickly before the screen goes blank. The computer stays on, but the fan appears to, I guess, cycle from its highest speed to lowest. Since this first occurred, every couple of times I try to start the computer, it never boots (and the fan does what I previously mentioned), and the other times it'll boot and everything will work as normal, but a couple of minutes later it'll crash to a blue screen again. I can't make out any of the text, as it flashes so quickly.

I assume some piece of hardware is dying, which would be disappointing seeing as I just bought this thing.

 

[clav]

I purchased a used computer about 2 months ago that i'm having a bit of an issue with. I wiped it clean, installed Windows 7, and put a few games/apps on it immediately after purchasing it. Since then, i've done almost nothing with the computer outside of browsing the web and downloading/installing updates for windows.

The other day, after having the computer on for about 15 minutes, i'm greeted with a blue screen that flashes very quickly before the screen goes blank. The computer stays on, but the fan appears to, I guess, cycle from its highest speed to lowest. Since this first occurred, every couple of times I try to start the computer, it never boots (and the fan does what I previously mentioned), and the other times it'll boot and everything will work as normal, but a couple of minutes later it'll crash to a blue screen again. I can't make out any of the text, as it flashes so quickly.

I assume some piece of hardware is dying, which would be disappointing seeing as I just bought this thing.

Check the RAM. Windows 7 contains one called "Windows Memory Diagnostic." Just type it after clicking the Windows logo or hitting the windows key.

If your RAM checks out OK, then check your power supply voltages preferably with a multimeter. If you don't have access to one, then use something like "Hardware Monitor" (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) although it's much more reliable to measure them yourself.

If all of this fails, then check your cable connections and replace the motherboard.

 

[Sanic]

Check the RAM. Windows 7 contains one called "Windows Memory Diagnostic." Just type it after clicking the Windows logo or hitting the windows key.

If your RAM checks out OK, then check your power supply voltages preferably with a multimeter. If you don't have access to one, then use something like "Hardware Monitor" (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) although it's much more reliable to measure them yourself.

If all of this fails, then check your cable connections and replace the motherboard.

Greatly appreciated. Would there be another way to check the RAM, by chance (without taking it out and placing it in another computer)? I'm actually not sure the computer will stay on long enough for me to check it.

 

[clav]

Greatly appreciated. Would there be another way to check the RAM, by chance (without taking it out and placing it in another computer)? I'm actually not sure the computer will stay on long enough for me to check it.

You can grab yourself a copy of Ultimate Boot CD and use Memtest86.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

Boot the computer from CD. If there's something wrong with the RAM, it should appear by test 3-4 with a list on the lower half of the screen displaying the error.

You can just download memtest86 only, but if you're going to use a CD, you might as well fill it up although the download is a lot smaller.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

 

[Vox-Pop]

any way i could have better way to control my wireless internet/router. i use a pc but have a apple router. i have another person using my internet but i want to limit their speed so they won't make my internet slow.

 

[Entropia]

To follow up from my earlier issue...

I went out and picked up a WD Caviar Black 1 TB drive, and a couple other upgrades: 2x2GB Patriot RAM and a eVGA GTX460. Total Damage: $419.

Anyway, I got home, put Windows on the new drive as the image attempt failed earlier. I went to grab some stuff off the old drive and... sadly, I should've backed up some more stuff to my 2nd HDD(only 160GB) before I left. The old HDD's main partition with all the programs(and some files) was not accessible. So I have to re-download WoW and such. Thankfully, the other partition on the drive which had media on it was accessible so I nabbed all that.

So, this drive is only like a year or two old. It's a Seagate. Can I get it replaced through them?

 

[DonMigs85]

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is finally out, only 70+ MB but the servers must be getting hammered since the download's pretty slow.

 

[$1148 Jack]

click for larger version.

When watching youtube, all videos will not display at all, only sound plays. The progress bar duplicates on top of itself, and I get copies of the time when hovering the cursor over the progress bar.

One weird thing is, all other flash video works ie gametrailers, and I have tried chrome and IE too which do the same thing. The second weird thing is if I go to the actual users youtube page, the videos work fine. Only video's from the main youtube site will not play. I have current versions of flash and firefox. No youtube specific addons, and as I said both chrome and IE do it too.

Any ideas?

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Strange issue here: when someone connects to our router the connection goes in and out for about 2 or 3 minutes after they connect. This happens every time a new connection is made. An Xbox is connected to live and everyone disconnects, someone's laptop goes online and everyone disconnects. You get the picture.

It's a D-link WBR-1310 Hardware Version: B1 Firmware Version: 2.00

 

[Rubashov]

Strange issue here: when someone connects to our router the connection goes in and out for about 2 or 3 minutes after they connect. This happens every time a new connection is made. An Xbox is connected to live and everyone disconnects, someone's laptop goes online and everyone disconnects. You get the picture.

It's a D-link WBR-1310 Hardware Version: B1 Firmware Version: 2.00

Is everyone using DHCP to get IP addresses or does this happen with devices that use static addresses too? Make sure you have enough addresses available in the DHCP pool to cover every connection, and that idle leases eventually expire and release the address.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Is everyone using DHCP to get IP addresses or does this happen with devices that use static addresses too? Make sure you have enough addresses available in the DHCP pool to cover every connection, and that idle leases eventually expire and release the address.

It happens with both. My 360 is the only thing with a static ip.

 

[Ashhong]

Will try asking this again...

My computer does not always boot. I booted it right now after a few days of being off and it boots fine. I then restarted it and the components turn on, fans start spinning, but theres no video. The light on my keyboard goes on and then turns off and nothing happens on screen. Is this a failing PSU?

 

[Chairhome]

Help wanted!
My laptop no longer turns on. The indicator light that shows that it is plugged in will light up when I plug in the power supply, but when I try to turn it on, it starts up for a second then shuts down. If I try it with the battery in, it won't even try to turn on. I'm guessing that the power supply and/or battery might be bad? I also heard that the DC jack could be the problem. Just want suggestions of what I should try first so I don't waste money. Thanks!

 

[Binabik15]

In the last three days my computer would sometimes boot up and no sound would come out of my tv to which it is hooked up via HDMI.

After turning the tv on and off and shutting down and starting the pc again, it´d work again. Yesterday that didn´t work anymore- Now it doesn´t work, either.

Windows 7 problem analysis simply tells me that there´s no speakers, headphone or whatever plugged in. Nothing was plugged in or out, nothing was changed in the audio setup/Realtek audio manager/whatever.

 

[Ashhong]

In the last three days my computer would sometimes boot up and no sound would come out of my tv to which it is hooked up via HDMI.

After turning the tv on and off and shutting down and starting the pc again, it´d work again. Yesterday that didn´t work anymore- Now it doesn´t work, either.

Windows 7 problem analysis simply tells me that there´s no speakers, headphone or whatever plugged in. Nothing was plugged in or out, nothing was changed in the audio setup/Realtek audio manager/whatever.

Happened to me before with HDMI as well. What TV? Mine was with a panasonic plasma.

I forgot the exact that thing that fixed it but I basically fooled around in the settings. Disabled the standard lineout ports in device manager not being used, and played around with various settings. Sorry can't help further.

 

[ZombieFred]

Help wanted!
My laptop no longer turns on. The indicator light that shows that it is plugged in will light up when I plug in the power supply, but when I try to turn it on, it starts up for a second then shuts down. If I try it with the battery in, it won't even try to turn on. I'm guessing that the power supply and/or battery might be bad? I also heard that the DC jack could be the problem. Just want suggestions of what I should try first so I don't waste money. Thanks!

It's likely the battery's had it, and the power supply likely could be damaged. What I'd suggest is to take it to a laptop repair shop first and get them to try out another power supply on the laptop to see if that is the problem. If the same results then it has to be the battery. Batterys for laptops shouldn't be that expensive (power supplys are reasonable cheap too) so you only going to look around the £40/50 range for buying both things new if that has to be the case.

In the last three days my computer would sometimes boot up and no sound would come out of my tv to which it is hooked up via HDMI.

After turning the tv on and off and shutting down and starting the pc again, it´d work again. Yesterday that didn´t work anymore- Now it doesn´t work, either.

Windows 7 problem analysis simply tells me that there´s no speakers, headphone or whatever plugged in. Nothing was plugged in or out, nothing was changed in the audio setup/Realtek audio manager/whatever.

Sounds to me that either something could be loose or a bad driver. What I suggest is to quickly check inside your tower to see if anything is loose and just replug it back into the motherboard. After that, reinstall and update the right drivers for this. This shouldn't take that long but it will resolve any issues you have.

 

[$1148 Jack]

click for larger version.

When watching youtube, all videos will not display at all, only sound plays. The progress bar duplicates on top of itself, and I get copies of the time when hovering the cursor over the progress bar.

One weird thing is, all other flash video works ie gametrailers, and I have tried chrome and IE too which do the same thing. The second weird thing is if I go to the actual users youtube page, the videos work fine. Only video's from the main youtube site will not play. I have current versions of flash and firefox. No youtube specific addons, and as I said both chrome and IE do it too.

Any ideas?

bump, anyone?

 

[Jedeye Sniv]

Kind of a weird but possibly easy problem I hope someone can help with.

I connect to the web through my belkin router. For some reason today the pc can't contact the web, even though my 360 and my iPhone can (using it to post this in fact). Can anyone think of a reason it could have lost the connection?

I've checked the ip address and it's the same as it was (2.2) and the router's ip is 2.1 so they're different. Not changed or installed anything. Fining it weird that my phone and xbox are able to connect through the router still.

Any ideas?

 

[EatChildren]

I'm pretty sure the cause of my issue is my graphics card, but I want some input anyway.

I've noticed in games, after lengthy periods of play, I get jittery text. Two good examples; the score board in Team Fortess 2, and the subtitles in Bulletstorm. In both of these games, after a certain amount of time of playing, parts of the text appear to glitch and jitter.

I suspect it is my graphics card overheating and/or dying, as I also had problems in Dead Space 2 where the graphics went completely haywire.

But the text thing is the one I just want to get some confirmation on.

 

[Drkirby]

Any way to take scratches out of a plastic screen?

 

[faceless007]

Something a little weird has been happening on my new install of Windows 7-64. I've re-installed it a few separate times, and each time after about a week, the Frequent Jump list for Explorer adds a link to this folder:

c:\Users\Me\Desktop\癤㩤⼯㩅

The folder doesn't exist. In Properties the Created, Modified and Accessed dates are all blank. It's 0 bytes. And of course, I don't see anything on my desktop with that name. If I browse manually to the \Desktop folder, it's not there. The active language has always been English (US) so I have no idea where that came from. Google Translate doesn't even know what those characters are (first one is "boil"). It doesn't seem to be affecting anything but it's kind of weird.

 

[CrankyJay]

How do I know which DVDs I need for my DVD burner on my laptop?

I'm looking at the tray and it says DVD+RW...so...buy discs that are DVD+?

Why is there even a + and a -? What is the difference?

 

[CrankyJay]

Is there such thing as a web browser that can render different versions of IE?

I need to test something in IE7 and I don't want to downgrade from IE8. Can you run different versions of IE side by side?

 

[Shazzam6999]

How do I know which DVDs I need for my DVD burner on my laptop?

I'm looking at the tray and it says DVD+RW...so...buy discs that are DVD+?

Why is there even a + and a -? What is the difference?

Well DVD+RWs are reusable. So you can burn something on them, erase the information later, and then burn new information. DVD-Rs write the information permanently. The + and - are a compatibility thing. In your case you should be fine with anything, however, if you had a DVD-RW drive then you would be forced to use DVD-R/RWs. Technically + is superior for data transfer, but - is the DVD player standard I believe. So in your case, you want to avoid the +s.

 

[xero273]

I googled my question but I want to make sure everything I read is correct. I originally bought win7 ultimate 32 bit from my school. I installed and activated the cdkey. Now I want to go to 64bit edition. google says 32 bit cdkey will work for the 64 bit installation. I can get a copy of windows 7 ultimate 64 bit. So will my cdkey that came with the 32bit win7 work on the 64bit even though I activated my 32bit win7?

Thanks.

 

[daoster]

I can't figure this out, and its driving me crazy, especially since I'm going to be moving soon, and will be temporarily away from my PC!

I have Ubuntu 10.10 installed on my laptop...last week, I tried to change something in the alsa-base.conf in order to make sound come out of my headphones only, as opposed as to coming out of both the laptop speakers and my headphones. Not only did it not work, but sound has disappeared from my laptop altogether.

I've since deleted whatever modification I had in the .conf file, and I can still access that file, but sound has not come back to my poor laptop. Any idea what's up ?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Barrett2]

Netbook won't connect to home router, says 'limited or no connectivity,' but my iPad and iPhone still seem to be connected fine.

What are the first two or three things i can do to troubleshoot this? Thanks!

 

[Sanic]

You can grab yourself a copy of Ultimate Boot CD and use Memtest86.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

Boot the computer from CD. If there's something wrong with the RAM, it should appear by test 3-4 with a list on the lower half of the screen displaying the error.

You can just download memtest86 only, but if you're going to use a CD, you might as well fill it up although the download is a lot smaller.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Following up on this:

I ran memtest from the Windows installation CD and it reported a problem. Instead of messing with my RAM I decided to try a system restore first, to a couple of weeks before I started having the issue. Oddly enough, everything has been fine since then. No problems at all in the past week since I did that, and memtest is no longer reporting any problems.

So now my question is, is it possible to determine what update from Windows Update caused this problem without going through by date and installing everything one by one? At least, i'm assuming an update caused the problem, because as I said previously, that's all I had done on this computer outside of internet browsing.

 

[Askani]

Older PC. Athlon 4200+ Dual Core, 2 GB of DDR2 RAM across 4 sticks, 8600GTS video card, Win XP SP3.

I'm having some lockup/rebooting issues lately. With in about the last month or so, my PC will either hard lock and sit there until I reboot it or it will give me a BSoD with a different message each time and reboot itself. The BSoD says anything from memory errors to IRQ errors. Also, I'm never doing anything specific. Sometimes I'll just be playing Catan online, or streaming Netflix, or playing WoW, or even just watching a DVD with nothing else running.

I did take my PC to a friends house about 5-6 weeks ago, but that may just be coincidence. I reseated my card and moved/reseated my RAM, ect, just to make sure everything was still connected well. It's just a little too convenient and makes me think it's the HDD.

I'm curious if this is a HDD problem, a RAM problem, or if I have a deeper problem. Tonight I'm going to see if I have an extra HDD around and put a fresh install of XP on that and run Memtest and swap out RAM sticks and see what happens. This is just a "what am I in for?" post. Which one is the more likely culprit?

Also, is it possible it's a graphics card problem? I never see any artifacting or issues, but I just want to rule it out and narrow my problems down.

 

[Askani]

Just ran Memtest86+ with no errors. It just did one pass. Is this something I should let run multiple times? Onto the HDD now.

 

[PaulLFC]

Is there such thing as a web browser that can render different versions of IE?

I need to test something in IE7 and I don't want to downgrade from IE8. Can you run different versions of IE side by side?

Try BrowserShots, you enter a URL and it'll render it in whichever browsers you select - it has options for IE6, IE7 and IE8, plus Chrome, Firefox and others.

http://browsershots.org/

 

[CrankyJay]

I thought when you unplug a laptop the screen brightness should get dimmer. Mine gets brighter. When I plug power back in, it gets dark.

Doesn't this seem backwards? Is this a setting I can change?

Windows 7

edit: NVM...found it in the control panel. Odd, it was set backwards in my opinion. Setting was called "Adjust plan brightness" and had a slider bar for both battery and AC power.

 

[esquire]

Is there anyway to disable the multi-touch volume slider in VLC but not the video scrobbing? I hope I'm describing this the right way. It's OSX VLC and I'm talking about the trackpad feature that allows you to slide your fingers to adjust the volume or fast forward a track. I just want to disable the volume part of it. Does anyone know how? It's a pointless feature in my opinion, don't know why it's defaulted that way.

 

[Professor Beef]

I had some connection problems recently with my new D-Link Router and my PS3. I'm not exactly savvy with this sort of thing, so any help is appreciated.

It's a DIR-615, and our PC and my PS3 are directly connected to it, with two laptops connected wirelessly. They are rarely (if ever) all powered on at the same time, but I have noticed that when my laptop, PS3 and main PC are connected, the PS3's connection seems to suffer the brunt of it and will drop the connection, then reconnect within seconds like nothing ever happened. This makes it hard to play games during the evening when the PC sees the most use. The PC's connection infrequently gets dropped as well (even when it's the only thing on), but it also picks up just as quickly so it's barely noticeable. In fact, if it wasn't for the help bubble in the corner, you'd never know the connection was dropped at all.

I was wondering if there was anything I could do to keep the router from dropping the connections for the PC and PS3. It's getting annoying, and I while I don't mind having to "share time," I'd like to find a way to have all of them connected without problems, if possible.

 

[Ashhong]

Will try asking this again...

My computer does not always boot. I booted it right now after a few days of being off and it boots fine. I then restarted it and the components turn on, fans start spinning, but theres no video. The light on my keyboard goes on and then turns off and nothing happens on screen. Is this a failing PSU?

Any ideas? I replaced the PSU and it still doesnt boot if I try to restart my PC

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

Hoping someone can help me with this, it's beginning to frustrate me. I bought Vantec NexStar Drive Dock, plugged it in and put in a 2.5" SATA drive. The little notification thing in the corner said that the mass storage drive has been installed and is ready for use but I can't find it anywhere on the computer. The usual pop-up that opens the folder to let me store things on it hasn't opened. I have no clue what to do. Can someone help here?

Edit: Never mind, I seem to have got it for the time being.

 

[Jill Sandwich]

How do you stop Windows 7 from popping up the Libraries folder every time on startup?