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

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
D4Danger said:
update: fixed it (explanation for archive purposes and Google searches.)

When I install Photoshop CS3 it installs a service called Bonjour. From what I can tell this was loading before the network services and was setting my default gateway to 0.0.0.0 and messing everything up (that could be wrong). Anyway, I disabled the service and it all works.

http://heaths.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9415F61CBB1A8030!1819.entry

Yeah, fuck Bonjour. I had similar network issues with Realplayer's (ugh) autoupdate service. It's always a good idea to comb through msconfig startup services and disable anything that doesn't look like you need it. If it isn't "microsoft," "windows," "nvidia/ATI" or "Realtek/sound driver," chances are you won't break anything or even notice if you disable it. If you realize it was a service you needed you can always turn it back on.
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, I actually had this problem on Vista a few times but I thought it was just Vista being crappy because a restart would fix it.

On Windows 7 it seemed to totally cripple my system. I had it running for hours yesterday installing stuff so I couldn't pin it down.

Spent about 3 hours this morning trying to track the problem. ugh.
 
Timedog said:
no further comments on my hard disk issue?

TBH, id give Windows the benefit of the doubt. You dont want to chance it with data, ive seen too many HDD's test ok where I work only to be bad, How does the drive act in windows?
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
Agent Ironside said:
TBH, id give Windows the benefit of the doubt. You dont want to chance it with data, ive seen too many HDD's test ok where I work only to be bad, How does the drive act in windows?

normal. I mean, i've backed up the stuff I need on another drive, but what i'm wondering I guess is if I should rma it. Windows hasn't gave the same message again and it only happened after a hibernate reboot. Could the hibernation have had something to do with it?

Another Q. Is an external hdd the same as a normal hdd but in a case? Like could I take apart my external hdd and take out the actual hard drive part and put that in my desktop?
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
It could have had to do with the hibernate... since you've backed up, you just want to be on the lookout.

Depending on the external drive, yeah, you could do exactly what you described, unless it's a 2.5'' (laptop) external rather than a 3.5.
 

Tntnnbltn

Member
Can someone confirm this for me?

I go to http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar_preferences?hl=en in Firefox 3.5 and select "Show links to import citations into..." under Bibliography Manager. I click save, but the change does not take effect and returning to the page shows the original value. Any other changed options are saved however.

I do the exact same under Internet Explorer and it works as expected.

Is it the site or just me (/my FireFox plug-ins)?
 

j-wood

Member
I posted this in the windows 7 thread twice, but no one has answered. I'll try my luck in here

I have encountered a very nasty bug with windows media player 12.

In my case, if you delete anything that is in your library through windows explorer or something, wmp doesn't remove it from the library. Added to that, you can't delete it from the library either. Clicking the item (whether music, a playlist, anything) does nothing. If you try to delete it (either by right clicking and clicking delete or pressing the delete key) it does nothing.

The only way to fix your library is to delete everything and let wmp add it again.

Also, if I change the mp3 tag info of any mp3 file outside of wmp, the same thing happens. If you try to play it, it does nothing, says it can't find the file, and then you can't remove it from the library.

Has anyone else encountered this or better yet, found a fix?

Professional edition, 32 bit. Did a clean install.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
You're saying, when you click delete on something in windows media player (while it still exists on your hard drive), you don't get a message that says "Do you want to delete this from your library or your library and computer"
 

Meadows

Banned
Hey guys.

A couple of weeks ago I moved into my new University accommodation. It has super fast (speed test = 68MB/S) internet which is awesome. However, I can't hook up my PS3 to the internet for some reason. I'm not sure whether it's blocked or whether there is a tech problem, but when I do a connection test it tells me that my connection has failed.

It runs off an ethernet cable if this helps.

I'll try and give you some preliminary info:

- My room contains one ethernet cable, which is also used for my laptop. (but obviously not at the same time)
- I changed my PS3's connection settings to fit with the wired setup.
- I have heard rumblings around campus about changing my PS3's MAC address, but I honestly have no idea what that is.

Halp?

Thanks.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
I'm not familiar with the PS3 net interface, but did the console give you any more information than you posted about failing the connection test. At what point it failed, or anything?
 

Chris R

Member
You might be limited to a single MAC address per room. Did you have to register your PC in any way at all before you could get online with it?
 

Baconbitz

Banned
I've only noticed this is on youtube so I assume its the same on all video sites. So when I go to record a video on youtube my camera records upside down. Haven't changed any settings.
 

SRG01

Member
rhfb said:
You might be limited to a single MAC address per room. Did you have to register your PC in any way at all before you could get online with it?

I also reckon that this is the problem. The easiest way is to buy a cheapo router and use it to clone your PC's MAC address. After that, connect your PC and PS3 to it.
 

Dougald

Member
SRG01 said:
I also reckon that this is the problem. The easiest way is to buy a cheapo router and use it to clone your PC's MAC address. After that, connect your PC and PS3 to it.


Ditto, that should work. I'd be careful however, as I know my old University used to scan for that sort of thing as it was expressly forbidden in the terms of use

Do they also do any port blocking there?
 

clav

Member
Meadows said:
Hey guys.

A couple of weeks ago I moved into my new University accommodation. It has super fast (speed test = 68MB/S) internet which is awesome. However, I can't hook up my PS3 to the internet for some reason. I'm not sure whether it's blocked or whether there is a tech problem, but when I do a connection test it tells me that my connection has failed.

It runs off an ethernet cable if this helps.

I'll try and give you some preliminary info:

- My room contains one ethernet cable, which is also used for my laptop. (but obviously not at the same time)
- I changed my PS3's connection settings to fit with the wired setup.
- I have heard rumblings around campus about changing my PS3's MAC address, but I honestly have no idea what that is.

Halp?

Thanks.
Call your IT department. They usually can register as many MAC addresses as you wish.
 

Rickard

Member
My printer's being a whore. It sucks down the right side of the paper then gets jammed.

Not sure exactly what's happening. Will post a picture later.
 

clav

Member
j-wood said:
I posted this in the windows 7 thread twice, but no one has answered. I'll try my luck in here

I have encountered a very nasty bug with windows media player 12.

In my case, if you delete anything that is in your library through windows explorer or something, wmp doesn't remove it from the library. Added to that, you can't delete it from the library either. Clicking the item (whether music, a playlist, anything) does nothing. If you try to delete it (either by right clicking and clicking delete or pressing the delete key) it does nothing.

The only way to fix your library is to delete everything and let wmp add it again.

Also, if I change the mp3 tag info of any mp3 file outside of wmp, the same thing happens. If you try to play it, it does nothing, says it can't find the file, and then you can't remove it from the library.

Has anyone else encountered this or better yet, found a fix?

Professional edition, 32 bit. Did a clean install.

WMP12 has been a disappointment IMO since Beta/RC/RTM. Eats up a bunch of CPU cycles for no good reasons.

Just use something else like winamp or cowon.
 
N

NinjaFridge

Unconfirmed Member
Dougald said:
Ditto, that should work. I'd be careful however, as I know my old University used to scan for that sort of thing as it was expressly forbidden in the terms of use

Do they also do any port blocking there?

My Uni does this. They say its for security reasons but i call bullshit.
 
Let's see if any of you guys can help me. My Thinkpad T60 doesn't like to boot, and crashes when I try to bring it back from standby.

When I send it to standby, the little moon light comes on like normal, but when I hit the Fn key to bring it back, it dies unceremoniously -- no BSOD, no nothing; the light just turns off as if it's power source just disappeared. What's worse is that it refuses to boot afterward. When I hit the power button again all the lights flicker but then it just dies. I've tried a number of things including trying to boot with AC only (without the battery -- it's worked in the past). No luck.

It usually starts working again after a few hours. At that point I can just hit the power button and it starts up like nothing happened. Someone at the campus computer center suggested taking out the battery, holding down the power button for 30+ seconds, and then putting it back in. I've had some success with that, but I wouldn't call it a reliable solution.

As I said, the problem occurs mostly when I try to bring it back from Standby, so I use Hibernate now.

I know it's not an OS issue because this happens for both WinXP and Win7RC partitions. Does it sound like a BIOS issue? Power supply maybe?
 

Cheeto

Member
claviertekky said:
Call your IT department. They usually can register as many MAC addresses as you wish.
This... but if they for some odd reason don't allow this, you should be able to share your internet connection from a desktop or laptop.
 

clav

Member
Cheeto said:
This... but if they for some odd reason don't allow this, you should be able to share your internet connection from a desktop or laptop.
Some universities can detect IPs behind computers and will temporary ban you from service if you try to.

Just call IT and say I would like to register my Xbox 360/PS3 to your MAC address database.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Rickard said:
My printer's being a whore. It sucks down the right side of the paper then gets jammed.

Not sure exactly what's happening. Will post a picture later.

Probably a bad/stuck roller. Not much you can do besides open it up and try to tinker. Luckily printers are pretty cheap these days? :-/
 
I have another one:

Zune 4.0 wont install on my computer. Not at all. When I try to install it, it says either preparing computer, or checking for updates. Ive tried everything on the internet to get it to work, but never does. I installed 3.1 hoping to update, but after I got 3.1 to install, it says there is an update to download, but never downloads it. I had to cancel my Zune pass because of this, and cant put music on my Zune HD because of it.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
Bananakin said:
Anyway, to follow up on questions asked in that thread: It's certainly not browser related - the cpu usage spikes even with no applications running. Also, my hard drive is pretty new (5 or 6 months old), so I wouldn't have thought that would be the problem. Also, I did a scan with Malwarebytes Anti-malware and got nothing. No clue other than that.

btw, great idea for a thread.

Well the cpu spike must show in the processes view, organise it by CPU percent and identify the offending process.
 

Veidt

Blasphemer who refuses to accept bagged milk as his personal savior
Really strange thing is going on with my PS3. I bought The Mask on Blu-ray ( UK version, and I live in the UK ).

I've watched it for a few days. But now, it doesn't work anymore. It's just that blu-ray? Because all of the others seem to work.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
Quick question regarding partitions.

Am I right in assuming defragging will solve my problem?

Problem:
On my NFTS drive, I have 40GB free, but when I tried to create a partition by freeing up 6 gigs (via shrinking) it only allowed me about 2GB in total.

I haven't defragged my drive regularly so I'm assuming there's data scattered about all over the disk so that the disk doesn't have more than 2GB empty space on it's surface, which I think may be solved if I defrag and clean up all that scattered data.

I'm not the biggest techie, but I'm pretty sure that common sense explains this problem and solution and just wanted to check with those that would know for certain.
 

Baconbitz

Banned
Baconbitz said:
I've only noticed this is on youtube so I assume its the same on all video sites. So when I go to record a video on youtube my camera records upside down. Haven't changed any settings.
It works fine on programs. Ive tried to find a driver but, I have the most up to date one.
 
Hey dudes, I have a question about my laptop. It's a relatively new Vaio if it matters. I'm getting beep warnings (I think that's what they're called) pretty frequent, at least twice a day. All I've done is re seat the ram but that didn't change anything. I don't know how to distinguish these beeps as they are never the same.

I want to upgrade to Windows 7 soon and I would love to get rid of this before I do so. Thanks for any help.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Dani said:
Quick question regarding partitions.

Am I right in assuming defragging will solve my problem?

Problem:
On my NFTS drive, I have 40GB free, but when I tried to create a partition by freeing up 6 gigs (via shrinking) it only allowed me about 2GB in total.

I haven't defragged my drive regularly so I'm assuming there's data scattered about all over the disk so that the disk doesn't have more than 2GB empty space on it's surface, which I think may be solved if I defrag and clean up all that scattered data.

I'm not the biggest techie, but I'm pretty sure that common sense explains this problem and solution and just wanted to check with those that would know for certain.

Mmm... no. Fragmentation is probably not what's going on.

Can you open up Disk Management, (right click Computer, Manage, then go to Disk Management) and take a screenshot of the whole thing?
 

clav

Member
Tntnnbltn said:
Can someone confirm this for me?

I go to http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar_preferences?hl=en in Firefox 3.5 and select "Show links to import citations into..." under Bibliography Manager. I click save, but the change does not take effect and returning to the page shows the original value. Any other changed options are saved however.

I do the exact same under Internet Explorer and it works as expected.

Is it the site or just me (/my FireFox plug-ins)?
Try it in Firefox's Safe-mode feature to determine it.

You might have to reset your settings completely if that is the case.

j_k_redtail said:
Let's see if any of you guys can help me. My Thinkpad T60 doesn't like to boot, and crashes when I try to bring it back from standby.

When I send it to standby, the little moon light comes on like normal, but when I hit the Fn key to bring it back, it dies unceremoniously -- no BSOD, no nothing; the light just turns off as if it's power source just disappeared. What's worse is that it refuses to boot afterward. When I hit the power button again all the lights flicker but then it just dies. I've tried a number of things including trying to boot with AC only (without the battery -- it's worked in the past). No luck.

It usually starts working again after a few hours. At that point I can just hit the power button and it starts up like nothing happened. Someone at the campus computer center suggested taking out the battery, holding down the power button for 30+ seconds, and then putting it back in. I've had some success with that, but I wouldn't call it a reliable solution.

As I said, the problem occurs mostly when I try to bring it back from Standby, so I use Hibernate now.

I know it's not an OS issue because this happens for both WinXP and Win7RC partitions. Does it sound like a BIOS issue? Power supply maybe?

Could be your BIOS. Check for an update.

Jibril said:
Really strange thing is going on with my PS3. I bought The Mask on Blu-ray ( UK version, and I live in the UK ).

I've watched it for a few days. But now, it doesn't work anymore. It's just that blu-ray? Because all of the others seem to work.

Try playing the disk in another Blu-Ray player. If it works, then it's your PS3.

gamerecks said:
I have another one:

Zune 4.0 wont install on my computer. Not at all. When I try to install it, it says either preparing computer, or checking for updates. Ive tried everything on the internet to get it to work, but never does. I installed 3.1 hoping to update, but after I got 3.1 to install, it says there is an update to download, but never downloads it. I had to cancel my Zune pass because of this, and cant put music on my Zune HD because of it.

Someone in a Zune thread to try this. It worked for him.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313222

user friendly said:
Hey dudes, I have a question about my laptop. It's a relatively new Vaio if it matters. I'm getting beep warnings (I think that's what they're called) pretty frequent, at least twice a day. All I've done is re seat the ram but that didn't change anything. I don't know how to distinguish these beeps as they are never the same.

I want to upgrade to Windows 7 soon and I would love to get rid of this before I do so. Thanks for any help.

Do you have your Windows Vista disk or a Windows 7 disk? You can try running the Windows Memory diagnostic tool on it to check if your memory is bad.
 
claviertekky said:
Do you have your Windows Vista disk or a Windows 7 disk? You can try running the Windows Memory diagnostic tool on it to check if your memory is bad.

Vista was pre-installed and I didn't get a disc from BestBuy. I'll run the memory diagnostic once I buy Windows 7. I was going to buy it anyway, it's $7 for the Ultimate 32bit :)
 
ok guys, for a couple of weeks now the computer has been running fine, but last night as i pressed the power button it would power on for a second and then power off.
i checked all the connections and re-installed all the components then it turned on fine.
I re-installed vista and it kept doing shutting down without warning. HELP!!

EVGA 780i SLI
NZXT PP 800 PSU
GTX 260 in SLI
G.Skill DDR2@800 RAM
asetek liquid cooling
Q6600 quad core

WIN7 premium (student discount version)
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
evil solrac v3.0 said:
ok guys, for a couple of weeks now the computer has been running fine, but last night as i pressed the power button it would power on for a second and then power off.
i checked all the connections and re-installed all the components then it turned on fine.
I re-installed vista and it kept doing shutting down without warning. HELP!!

EVGA 780i SLI
NZXT PP 800 PSU
GTX 260 in SLI
G.Skill DDR2@800 RAM
asetek liquid cooling
Q6600 quad core

WIN7 premium (student discount version)
Unplug everything. Only leave the motherboard plugged in. Start it up, if it stays on longer than a few seconds keep plugging new things back in one by one until it works or until it turns it self off after 1 second like it does now.
 
So, I'm looking to upgrade my RAM. How can I find out exactly what ram I have, and what ram is compatible with my MoBo?

I have a desktop, btw.
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
SundaySounds said:
So, I'm looking to upgrade my RAM. How can I find out exactly what ram I have, and what ram is compatible with my MoBo?

I have a desktop, btw.

download CPU-Z

Go to the "memory" tab and look for Type and DRAM Frequency. if you go to the "SPD" tab it will give you the make/model of your current ram with a part number you can Google.

you can also use CPU-Z to look up your motherboard make/model. Go to the manufacturers website and it will tell you what type of ram it supports and at what speed.
 
Is EEC ram that important for gaming? I was under the impression it was mostly for servers. Is EEC ram worth more than regular ram? this desktop came with it.

Also, what I've got right now is (4) 512 sticks. I'm pretty sure my MoBo is a DIMM setup. So I could keep two of the 512 sticks, and replace two of them with 2Gig sticks, and that would work, right? as long as I keep the (2) 512s and the (2) 2gigs paired.
 
D4Danger said:
download CPU-Z

Go to the "memory" tab and look for Type and DRAM Frequency. if you go to the "SPD" tab it will give you the make/model of your current ram with a part number you can Google.

you can also use CPU-Z to look up your motherboard make/model. Go to the manufacturers website and it will tell you what type of ram it supports and at what speed.

When I go to the memory page, everything is blank except fir the size window.
 

Dougald

Member
SundaySounds said:
When I go to the memory page, everything is blank except fir the size window.


I believe crucial.com have a browser-based scanner which will tell you what you have installed and what your system will take
 
captive said:
Unplug everything. Only leave the motherboard plugged in. Start it up, if it stays on longer than a few seconds keep plugging new things back in one by one until it works or until it turns it self off after 1 second like it does now.


take out the RAM as well? this is very frustrating on how it can be fine one day crap out the next.
 

jehuty

Member
This thread is awesome. Let's see if you guys can help me out.

I have a linksys wireless-G usb network adapter. On my old computer that was running on xp it works like a charm. But now I have a new computer that runs vista( as soon as I can windows 7) and a prompt comes up that it can't find the drivers to make the adapter work.
I've tried some suggestions that other forums and websites have given me, but still no dice. How do I get it to work? and if there is no solution should I just buy a new adapter (the one I have currently sells for $50).
 

Garou

Member
SundaySounds said:
So, I'm looking to upgrade my RAM. How can I find out exactly what ram I have, and what ram is compatible with my MoBo?

I have a desktop, btw.

Use SIW to gather such information, it is probably the best system-information tool out there:

http://www.gtopala.com/

Then just go to hardware and look at the memory-tab.

You can also look up the maker and model-number of your motherboard with SIW, so you can go to the website of the maker, get the manual and see how many GB your motherboard can take.
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
evil solrac v3.0 said:
take out the RAM as well? this is very frustrating on how it can be fine one day crap out the next.
I would start just by unplugging everything but the motherboard. If it still wont turn on then i would take out all the ram and put them in one by one.
 

Garou

Member
jehuty said:
This thread is awesome. Let's see if you guys can help me out.

I have a linksys wireless-G usb network adapter. On my old computer that was running on xp it works like a charm. But now I have a new computer that runs vista( as soon as I can windows 7) and a prompt comes up that it can't find the drivers to make the adapter work.
I've tried some suggestions that other forums and websites have given me, but still no dice. How do I get it to work? and if there is no solution should I just buy a new adapter (the one I have currently sells for $50).

Look at your adapter to check for the correct model-number. Then go to http://www.linksysbycisco.com/ , go to the support-area and download the latest vista-drivers for your adapter.

Also make sure, that you have Service packs 1 and 2 installed on your system, there have been quite a bit of incompatibilites with Vista and Wi-Fi-hardware without the service packs.
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
evil solrac v3.0 said:
ok, and the cooler as well?
No the cooler shouldn't affect whether the computer turns on or not.
Usually if a computer turns off before it does a POST test something isn't hooked up correctly to the motherboard and it freaks out and just turns off.

Happened to me when I made my dad's PC. Ended up just unplugging everything and plugging everything back in one by one making sure each connection was secure and it worked after that.
 

Roders5

Iwata een bom zal droppen
The problem: I have 8 external hard drives, various sizes up to 1.5tb. Currently I swap them about using a single enclosure when I need the data from them (3D scan point clouds, large file sizes). It's getting cluttered and annoying.

What I would like: Basically I want to make a tower that holds 8 drives and have it accessible over a network (cheaply). I don't know whether this is called a server or nas or whatever. Everything I've read talks about raid this and redunancy that, it all seems overly complicated. Can it not just let me access each drive separately? Then if one fails it doesn't affect anything? I don't care if a drive fails, the data is backed up elsewhere. It would be great if the drives spun down when not in use and I could schedule start up/shut down times and wake from lan etc.

What next: Do I just buy a case, some components, get some software and build something? Is it relatively simple? Any help or steps in the right direction would be much appreciated.
 
captive said:
No the cooler shouldn't affect whether the computer turns on or not.
Usually if a computer turns off before it does a POST test something isn't hooked up correctly to the motherboard and it freaks out and just turns off.

Happened to me when I made my dad's PC. Ended up just unplugging everything and plugging everything back in one by one making sure each connection was secure and it worked after that.


but the times it shuts off are very random, sometimes its a few seconds sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 30. but it's always shutting down. very random. werll, i'll try unplugging everything tonight.
 
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