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[cartoon_soldier]

Thanks, I saw that the cables were tight because they were wrapped using a plastic cord. Got SSD connected now.

Now, I just need to get it to show up in Windows.

lol.

Edit: Had to create a new Volume using Disk Management, shows up now. Awesome!

 

[IrishNinja]

quick question before i buy off of monoprice: DVI-D single and dual link cables are interchangeable, yeah? i need a short DVI to HDMI for this new monitor, just wanna make sure this cable will work, coming from an ATI 6870 to said monitor.

 

[Jzero]

quick question before i buy off of monoprice: DVI-D single and dual link cables are interchangeable, yeah? i need a short DVI to HDMI for this new monitor, just wanna make sure this cable will work, coming from an ATI 6870 to said monitor.

Yes. the graphics card takes in all dvi cables and since you'll be using hdmi on the monitor the pin holes shouldn't matter.

 

[IrishNinja]

awesome, thanks man!

 

[esquire]

Nevermind. I just ordered a replacement part from iFixit. Hopefully that will fix the problem!

 

[theinfinityissue]

Ok, my googling abilities have unsurprisingly failed me, so I'm going to throw what will undoubtedly be considered a slow ball around these parts.

I have a brand new 360 S, and just for kicks I plugged it into my newish 24' acer pc monitor via hdmi. I was pretty stunned by the result, and I want to make this a part of my life. What I don't have is sound. There's no audio port of any kind on the monitor, and now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get any audio at all. Is there maybe an adapter or something I can use to connect my regular ass brand pc speakers to the 360? maybe via this uh.. s/pdif... port? Or what's the best way to proceed here.

And speak slowly and clearly. It took me half an hour to find the power button on this new monitor. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Ashhong]

Ok, my googling abilities have unsurprisingly failed me, so I'm going to throw what will undoubtedly be considered a slow ball around these parts.

I have a brand new 360 S, and just for kicks I plugged it into my newish 24' acer pc monitor via hdmi. I was pretty stunned by the result, and I want to make this a part of my life. What I don't have is sound. There's no audio port of any kind on the monitor, and now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get any audio at all. Is there maybe an adapter or something I can use to connect my regular ass brand pc speakers to the 360? maybe via this uh.. s/pdif... port? Or what's the best way to proceed here.

And speak slowly and clearly. It took me half an hour to find the power button on this new monitor. Any help greatly appreciated.

How many plugs does your speaker have? Is it just 1 green plug? I think you will need these 2 things

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002P35JMO/?tag=neogaf0e-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001B8QUS6/?tag=neogaf0e-20

 

[theinfinityissue]

Yeah, they've just got the one green plug. Logistically, I can see how all that would fit together. Thanks! Would I have to do anything else besides just plugging it in? I saw a youtube video where some guy was talking about having to hacksaw a cable or something.

Anyway definitely going to try this, thanks a ton.

 

[Ashhong]

no...no hacksaw. Wait, how did you plug it into the monitor? HDMI cable? Just plug in the 2 things I linked, then you might have to go to audio settings in the Xbox

 

[Ken]

How do I install Windows 7 on a netbook without a DVD drive? I have the W7 Home Premium disc.

 

[Forearms]

How do I install Windows 7 on a netbook without a DVD drive? I have the W7 Home Premium disc.

You should be able to make a bootable flash drive with the image from the DVD on it, or use an external DVD drive connected via USB, or whatever other flavor of connection is available on the netbook.

How to video for the bootable flash drive idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98xlSjTyCaQ

 

[bengraven]

Probably really easy question:

1. Set my router for WPA2 due to neighbors using my wireless.
2. wife brought her laptop home from work
3. Laptop cannot connect to WPA2 ("limited or no connectivity" - which almost always means "you're not connected to shit"). I put in the proper key and password and it recognized it.
4. Tried to "repair" the network connection between the laptop and the router
4a. Now it shows the wireless card as disabled. I enable it through the control panel's "add hardware" function, but when I do an ipconfig it shows "media disconnected".

 

[clav]

How do I install Windows 7 on a netbook without a DVD drive? I have the W7 Home Premium disc.

4GB Flash disk.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

Probably really easy question:

1. Set my router for WPA2 due to neighbors using my wireless.
2. wife brought her laptop home from work
3. Laptop cannot connect to WPA2 ("limited or no connectivity" - which almost always means "you're not connected to shit"). I put in the proper key and password and it recognized it.
4. Tried to "repair" the network connection between the laptop and the router
4a. Now it shows the wireless card as disabled. I enable it through the control panel's "add hardware" function, but when I do an ipconfig it shows "media disconnected".

What's the wireless card?

Usually #3 happens from outdated drivers.

 

[Ken]

You should be able to make a bootable flash drive with the image from the DVD on it, or use an external DVD drive connected via USB, or whatever other flavor of connection is available on the netbook.

How to video for the bootable flash drive idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98xlSjTyCaQ

Thanks, I'll look into that.

4GB Flash disk.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

What's the wireless card?

Usually #3 happens from outdated drivers.

It says I need the ISO file? I only have the disc and I didn't buy a digital copy from the MS store.

 

[clav]

It says I need the ISO file? I only have the disc and I didn't buy a digital copy from the MS store.

You can use imgburn to make an ISO or you can try this freeware tool called LC ISO Creator:

http://www.lucersoft.com/freeware.php

 

[AndyD]

I am trying to make a fan array for something. I want to use two 80mm or 120mm case fans. I have a power plug from an old dead router, puts out 12v 500mA. Is that enough for two fans? Should I put them in series/parallel?

 

[bengraven]

What's the wireless card?

Usually #3 happens from outdated drivers.

What's strange is that it was just working a few hours before on another router.

 

[Jzero]

What's strange is that it was just working a few hours before on another router.

Was the other router WPA2 as well?

 

[clav]

I am trying to make a fan array for something. I want to use two 80mm or 120mm case fans. I have a power plug from an old dead router, puts out 12v 500mA. Is that enough for two fans? Should I put them in series/parallel?

What's the power rating on the fans? There is usually some small print text indicating the power stats.

What's strange is that it was just working a few hours before on another router.

Routers have different wireless radios usually marked by the CPU types (e.g. Broadcom, Atheros, RAlink, Realtek). A computer that works with one router doesn't necessary mean it will work on another router.

 

[Fatalah]

This should work.
http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent..../X15-65733.iso

It worked, I'm all activated and checked out! Thanks friend.

 

[madmook]

What's strange is that it was just working a few hours before on another router.

Make sure the laptop's wireless supports WPA2. Some older wifi hardware does not, i.e. laptops from like 5+ years ago.

If its not that, could've just bugged out. Try re-booting the machine.

Did the wireless card get kicked out of the device manager? Otherwise, why are you "re-adding" it? Many laptops have either a hardware switch or a software Fn+F# button combo to turn on/off the wireless radio.

 

[AndyD]

What's the power rating on the fans? There is usually some small print text indicating the power stats.

12V .13A

 

[PGamer]

I've had this issue ever since building my PC. My internal hard drives are showing up in the "Safely Remove Hardware Media and Eject Media" option. As far as I can tell this isn't really causing a problem but I don't like having the notification always there and it takes me a bit longer to find what to eject when I actually have something external plugged in. If anyone knows how to fix this or knows if I've setup something wrong any help would be appreciated.

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about:

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

Hey PC Gaf, I was wondering if you could help me on a bizarre bug I've encountered on Windows Home 7 64bit version. Within the last week, I've noticed that my PC seems to think that I have another hard drive now known as 'Drive Q'. I only have 2 hard drives. This phantom hard drive just sits there and I can't get rid of it. The OCD in me needs to remove it!

Any thoughts?

 

[Reseil]

Hey PC Gaf, I was wondering if you could help me on a bizarre bug I've encountered on Windows Home 7 64bit version. Within the last week, I've noticed that my PC seems to think that I have another hard drive now known as 'Drive Q'. I only have 2 hard drives. This phantom hard drive just sits there and I can't get rid of it. The OCD in me needs to remove it!

Any thoughts?

You sure it's a phantom hard drive or just a drive? Did you happen to hook up a peripheral lately? Printer, digital camera, etc. Something with a card slot or other writeable media basically.

 

[Reseil]

I've had this issue ever since building my PC. My internal hard drives are showing up in the "Safely Remove Hardware Media and Eject Media" option. As far as I can tell this isn't really causing a problem but I don't like having the notification always there and it takes me a bit longer to find what to eject when I actually have something external plugged in. If anyone knows how to fix this or knows if I've setup something wrong any help would be appreciated.

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about:

http://i.imgur.com/STePe.png

When you built it, did you do the OS install in AHCI mode or IDE?

 

[AgentChris]

My HP laptop died and I'm getting a new laptop soon; If I use my old HDD as an external HDD, can I still get my old docs, music and pics that were on that HDD?

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Getting ready to install OS on my SSD.

If I use the Windows Installation Disk to do that, do I do that first then boot up and then reformat my HDD?

Or, should I disconnect my HDD and boot up using Windows 7 CD, install it, then reconnect HDD and reformat it?

 

[Hero]

So I got this nasty malware the other day that was something like Vista Home Security 2012 and holy shit was that thing a pain in the ass to get rid of. It literally tried to take control and block everything related to internet access or even my anti-virus software.

Unfortunately even though I got rid of it I think it had a chance to get some other stuff installed. Randomly whenever I'm opening up a new link in a tab of Firefox I get an additional tab with some bullshit link about Google stay at home internet jobs or something from Consumer Reports.

I've ran full scans through Malware Bytes and Spybot and got rid of some other junk but still hasn't fixed this issue. Anyone familiar with this?

 

[Kritz]

I'm relatively familiar with some real basic, but real common forms of fake antivirus software. It has been ages since I last dealt with it (I've not worked in IT for a year now), but if I remember correctly, and this may not be any help to you at all. If I remember correctly, if you go to...

It's either

%appdata%

OR

%localappdata%

The thing usually sticks itself into a folder that is approximately 12 characters long, consisting of random letters and numbers. Something like "Ax3vt232egmpd". If you see anything like that, go into it, and see if there's a .exe with the same string, or a different string with the same naming structure.

With that, pop open task manager's process list, and see if anything by that name is running. Kill it, delete the folder. Pop open your registry, run a search for the .exe string, see if anything matches it. You're prooooobably good to nuke that stuff too. But, I am not a computer lawyer, and this may not be the safest thing to do.

This advice may be completely useless to you, but in my experience, I've solved about 30 people's problems with shit like that through those steps. Most of the time they haven't been able to even stop the shit coming up, so there's that.

I will stress that the best way to be sure is to nuke your computer from orbit. Back up important data - the malware / fake anti-virus stuff I've seen isn't smart enough to jump over to usb drives and crap. Then just pop a fresh coat of Windows 7 over your HDD and you should be okay.

As a general suggestion that isn't as drastic, also give Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 a spin. I find it's pretty good for finding nasty .exes. I use it over spybot and malware bytes (mostly because I dislike multiple security applications, and I'm pretty cautious / aware with my browsing and don't click on stuff / go to sites / let scripts or flash run / etc without my knowledge).

I hope any single thing from this helps you. Advice is not guaranteed to work, don't sue me if your shit breaks, if I'm totally wrong please feel free to yell at my stupid ass for giving bad information.

 

[Jzero]

My HP laptop died and I'm getting a new laptop soon; If I use my old HDD as an external HDD, can I still get my old docs, music and pics that were on that HDD?

yes sir

 

[decaf]

I'm on Windows 7 Pro x64 with a Japanese keyboard and I've tried setting it both to the Japanese and Microsoft IME Keyboards in the Keyboard Input settings. Neither of them are working properly.

Instead of getting !"#$%&'() for the shift alternates for 123456789 I'm getting !@#$%^&*(

...any ideas?

 

[clav]

I've had this issue ever since building my PC. My internal hard drives are showing up in the "Safely Remove Hardware Media and Eject Media" option. As far as I can tell this isn't really causing a problem but I don't like having the notification always there and it takes me a bit longer to find what to eject when I actually have something external plugged in. If anyone knows how to fix this or knows if I've setup something wrong any help would be appreciated.

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about:

http://i.imgur.com/STePe.png

It's a feature since SATA drives in AHCI mode are hotswappable.

I'm on Windows 7 Pro x64 with a Japanese keyboard and I've tried setting it both to the Japanese and Microsoft IME Keyboards in the Keyboard Input settings. Neither of them are working properly.

Instead of getting !"#$%&'() for the shift alternates for 123456789 I'm getting !@#$%^&*(

...any ideas?

Looks like Windows 7 is in Western Keyboard mode.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927824/en-us

Read this and run the fix it program.

So I got this nasty malware the other day that was something like Vista Home Security 2012 and holy shit was that thing a pain in the ass to get rid of. It literally tried to take control and block everything related to internet access or even my anti-virus software.

Unfortunately even though I got rid of it I think it had a chance to get some other stuff installed. Randomly whenever I'm opening up a new link in a tab of Firefox I get an additional tab with some bullshit link about Google stay at home internet jobs or something from Consumer Reports.

I've ran full scans through Malware Bytes and Spybot and got rid of some other junk but still hasn't fixed this issue. Anyone familiar with this?

If you haven't tried already, use a copy of combofix.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/combofix

Important! Run this in safe mode ONLY.

 

[Reseil]

Getting ready to install OS on my SSD.

If I use the Windows Installation Disk to do that, do I do that first then boot up and then reformat my HDD?

Or, should I disconnect my HDD and boot up using Windows 7 CD, install it, then reconnect HDD and reformat it?

Different schools of thought on this. Considering the goal is to cut down on writes to the SSD, I went a different route. I had the HDD preformatted (you can always use the utility in the Win7 startup to do this if needed) before the installation.

Have both drives connected during the install process, then when it gets tot the step where you name the PC.. stop. Enter audit mode and relocate the destination of user and programdata to the HDD, then proceed with the rest of the install. Will cut down on a ton of SSD writes. Only other thing to remember is to have BIOS set to AHCI mode when installing the OS on the SSD.

 

[Shorty11857]

Just got a new laptop and can't seem to get it to recognise my external hard drive, I just finished copying files from my old laptop onto it and the old one still sees it, so any idea why my new one isn't picking it up? They're both windows 7 by the way

Edit: Problem seems worse than I thought, windows explorer seems to randomly crash when accessing the hard drive, well not randomly it crashes everytime I try to get to the driver folder and in a couple of other places

 

[Fatalah]

My new laptop sports an ELAN trackpad, and I sorely miss Synaptics.

Is there a way to force Synaptics software to install?!

Or perhaps, is there an open source project for trackpads? The world needs a universal trackpad software solution, as good as Synaptics.

 

[overcast]

Well shit. Windows 7 won't start on my laptop, unless I use basic mode. I tried regular boot up, and it goes to a black screen.

Help me GAF, you're my only hope.

This is what I get for procrastinating my paper for the final night.

 

[hateradio]

Two things.

A. Why does Windows convert perfectly awesome PNGs into shitty JPGs for the desktop? Why? Why!?

Is there a way to go around this?


B. I need a simple, low-footprint firewall software. Something that lets me block or accept programs from accessing the internet. Freeware plz.

 

[Garou]

I'm on Windows 7 Pro x64 with a Japanese keyboard and I've tried setting it both to the Japanese and Microsoft IME Keyboards in the Keyboard Input settings. Neither of them are working properly.

Instead of getting !"#$%&'() for the shift alternates for 123456789 I'm getting !@#$%^&*(

...any ideas?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927824

 

[Jzero]

Two things.

A. Why does Windows convert perfectly awesome PNGs into shitty JPGs for the desktop? Why? Why!?

Is there a way to go around this?


B. I need a simple, low-footprint firewall software. Something that lets me block or accept programs from accessing the internet. Freeware plz.

What do you mean? if you save it as a png it's a png and if you save it as a jpeg its a jpeg hahah

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

When you built it, did you do the OS install in AHCI mode or IDE?

I certainly haven't hooked up anything new to my PC. I occasionally hook up my mp3 player by USB but I have no idea how my comp would start construing that as a hard drive.

 

[TheBaldEmperor]

I apologize in advance because I'm sure this is a stupid question.

Do I need to disable the DHCP server on my router to set static IPs on any devices that connect to the network?

I'm wanting to give my 3ds a static IP address and I'm not sure exactly if the DHCP overrides that.

 

[clav]

I apologize in advance because I'm sure this is a stupid question.

Do I need to disable the DHCP server on my router to set static IPs on any devices that connect to the network?

I'm wanting to give my 3ds a static IP address and I'm not sure exactly if the DHCP overrides that.

Depends on the router's firmware.

Most routers are smart that they recognize a device has a static IP.

 

[TheBaldEmperor]

Depends on the router's firmware.

Most routers are smart that they recognize a device has a static IP.

Okay, thanks. My next question is if I do disable DHCP will only the devices with a static IP be able to access the network?

 

[hateradio]

What do you mean? if you save it as a png it's a png and if you save it as a jpeg its a jpeg hahah

I mean I have a folder full of PNGs.

I set Windows to rotate through these images for my wallpaper, but it compresses them into JPG.

 

[bengraven]

Does WEP even WORK with laptops?

My PC is wired into the router and my wife has been using her laptop with our wireless connection for years. But suddenly I added WEP security and now I can't log in with the laptop, even with the WEP key.

 

[Jzero]

Does WEP even WORK with laptops?

My PC is wired into the router and my wife has been using her laptop with our wireless connection for years. But suddenly I added WEP security and now I can't log in with the laptop, even with the WEP key.

Most internet capable devices are able to connect with WEP. WEP is pretty useless now though. Update it to WPA or WPA2 and see if that works.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

When I did my SSD OS Install and formatted my old HDD it has a 100MB Partition "System Reserved" that I didn't format.

Can I now remove that or should I keep it?

 

[Davidion]

I'm requesting some help with hard drive recovery.

Yesterday one of my drives suddenly disappeared from recognition in the middle of general usage. I went in and reseated the sata cables, thinking it was some loose connection. Now, upon boot the computer detects issue with the hard drive and runs chkdsk, which basically goes into a loop trying to insert an index entry into a file. Now windows is recognizing the drive but cannot read anything from it. Also, there are no audible clicks so I'm thinking it's not mechanical failure.

Any tips?

 

[clav]

Does WEP even WORK with laptops?

My PC is wired into the router and my wife has been using her laptop with our wireless connection for years. But suddenly I added WEP security and now I can't log in with the laptop, even with the WEP key.

WEP was perhaps the first wireless security setup, so yes, it should be since it's the most basic encryption that can be cracked within 5-10 minutes.

What router is this?

When I did my SSD OS Install and formatted my old HDD it has a 100MB Partition "System Reserved" that I didn't format.

Can I now remove that or should I keep it?

Maybe. Assuming that your SSD is the first in your boot order, I would say yes.

Since Windows Vista, Microsoft has implemented a 100MB partition in front of the main system partition to manage the boot loader.

I'm requesting some help with hard drive recovery.

Yesterday one of my drives suddenly disappeared from recognition in the middle of general usage. I went in and reseated the sata cables, thinking it was some loose connection. Now, upon boot the computer detects issue with the hard drive and runs chkdsk, which basically goes into a loop trying to insert an index entry into a file. Now windows is recognizing the drive but cannot read anything from it. Also, there are no audible clicks so I'm thinking it's not mechanical failure.

Any tips?

Run SeaTools v2.23 to check for errors.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=480bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD