The General "Computer Issues" Thread

[defunctzombie]

Not an issue, just a question. Those of you who use wireless routers in your houses, how far can your signal go? My internet cable is on the third floor of the house, and I'll only get a wireless router if I can get signal on the first floor.

 

[cohenmarioman]

Mine can go a few meters outside my 2 story house. it is a 2wire though, don't know if that makes a difference. And it is a router and modem combo if that makes a difference too.

 

[MDawg]

You might want to run the internet calbe down to the second floor then that way the third and first floors can have equal coverage. Opposing that, you can always buy a range extender or an additional wireless router and bridge it, thus extending your range if you run into problems. You'll only know for sure though once you buy and place one in your house.

 

[cohenmarioman]

I have been having this weird message appear at the end of my forum posts in around 3 forums, and I don;t think it is the forum's fault. I don't know if it has to do with firefox, or my computer. if it appears on this one, I will leave it along. If not, I will put a quote in soon after posting.

if you could tell mew what you think it is, that would be great, and how to fix it.
593BD438-B473-DE0C-9CA6-83E6FFED2950
1.03.01

 

[defunctzombie]

I've noticed that before. I'm not sure what could be causing it. Go to Firefox's website and download and run the installer so that you have a clean install (it will keep your settings and add-ons for you). Before that, go to Tools -> Add ons and delete any extensions that you didn't add yourself or that you don't recognize.

It wouldn't hurt to run a virus scan as well.

 

[cohenmarioman]

Well, did all that, or at least disabled most of the add-ons I don't use. Hopefully it worked. If it doesn't happen on this post, then it will take a few posts for me to tell.

 

[wonderfly]

Anybody have Gmail? For some reason, I'm having trouble saving my text documents as "Google documents" in my gmail account? I used to be able to do it with no problem, but it doesn't save them that way anymore. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

For the record, I have Open Office, not Microsoft Word...

 

[mgr91686]

I need help with my DVD drive.

So long story short, my Toshiba A215-S4817 DVD drive is being stupid.. it will not read pressed DVD's but it has no problem reading DVD-R's.

And being the obviously tech-savy person that I am, I failed in my search to find relevant information using Toshiba's site and the almighty google. I thought the combined knowledge base of Toonzone might be of help to me.

 

[defunctzombie]

Did the drive ever read pressed discs? Drives need decoders to read DVD video. You either didn't have one, or it somehow got uninstalled. If you have Cyberlink try reinstalling or repairing it.

 

[mgr91686]

Did the drive ever read pressed discs? Drives need decoders to read DVD video. You either didn't have one, or it somehow got uninstalled. If you have Cyberlink try reinstalling or repairing it.

Yes it read pressed discs as of yesterday, but today it refused to. I found my Cyberlink disc... let's see if it works. that failed.

 

[defunctzombie]

What do you usually use for playing DVDs? Download and try using VLC media player. That usually plays discs for me.

Alternatively, make sure the region of your drive is set to the region you live in. For the US it's 1, UK is 2.

 

[mgr91686]

What do you usually use for playing DVDs? Download and try using VLC media player. That usually plays discs for me.

Alternatively, make sure the region of your drive is set to the region you live in. For the US it's 1, UK is 2.

Actually the problem was that DVD drive was not registering there was any DVD in there at all.

But at any rate, the solution was so simple that I feel absolutely like stupid.. the tray was a wee bit too dusty.

 

[Jacob]

Well... I didn't think my iPod Touch could get any worse... but it did.

About a week ago, it cut off - like it always does when the battery wears down. I plugged it into my computer to charge but it wouldn't cut back on. The apple logo appeared when I pressed the home button but after about ten seconds it just cut off again completely (it usually goes to the welcome screen, y'know, with the little slide bar thing). I Googled the problem and I figured out how to fix it (press sleep/wake and home simultaneously, load iTunes and "restore" your iPod) but this turned out to be only a temporary fix. The iPod turned on again, yes, but I lost about $100 worth of content (should've backed it up on my computer, I know) and yesterday it cut off again.

So I'm doing the whole reset thing again, but I'd like a more permanent fix. I'm afraid the real answer is my iPod's just dead now (I've had it since mid-2008 - 1st or 2nd gen). It would be nice if I could get this one working again because I don't want to have to buy a new iPod - or go back to using my 2007 iPod Video! Help!

By the way, defuctzombie, I appreciate the reply (two months ago). But, no, unfortunately, I don't think disks are compatible with this iPod. But when I had to restore the iPod I believe the latest software was installed.

 

[Psychopulse]

Apparantely, people skipped over my issue a couple of months ago...

The computer has trouble starting up!

About a week ago, the computer wouldn't boot on start up, and I had to use system restore whenever it acts up. Now, it's harder to even turn on, because I have to shut it off a few times whenever it wouldn't boot up until it got it's act together and finally uses system restore. It's a Dell PC, and the operating system is Windows Vista.

Also, my antivirus program, BitDefender, may be out of date. Should I update it? I'm only asking because it's been like that for a little while...

Oh, it's worse than ever. Now it takes around 30 minutes to an hour to boot up, and it tells us that a recent hardware/software change is the cause everytime it does decide to work. It's gotten to where it has to use the CHKDSK on startup (System restore doesn't work as effectively, since everyone else clicks on "Start Windows Normally.) I'm not sure if a system restore is needed or not, but I'm not risking losing stuff unless it's preserved on a flash drive or something...

What else? Oh yeah, everytime When I start up the computer now, it says "Unsupported video configuration detected" or something...I know a wire is plugged in the wrong spot, but I don't remember where, I don't know where the manual is (Which could really help at a time like this).

My computer is a Dell, the OS is Vista, and it's a Intel Core 2 Duo.

Oh yeah, before I forget...the personalize window isn't working, it closes as soon as soon as I right click, and it can't open from the control panel either.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

Your computer is very sick, Psychopulse. It's possible you have damaged registry items caused by malware or a virus or even physical damage to your disk. You really shouldn't have to use system restore to start the thing. Is it unstable when it is running? I had a computer recently that would BSOD on startup about half the time and crash when I looked at it funny when it was running. The tech guy at work couldn't fix it, he just gave me another one. I'm not sure corrupted registry items were the problem because he couldn't figure it out, but he said it was a possibility.

 

[Silverstar]

Hmm, Psychopulse, that sounds very similar to what my old computer started doing back in July; one night it said that there had been a new system configuration before it booted up, and from then on it started taking longer and longer for it to boot (frequently I would get that same new configuration message before the Windows screen, and while I could simply change the settings back to default, they would always switch back whenever I turned the computer back on after it was switched off) to the point where I stated leaving it on unless I was going to be away from it for a long time, like after I went to sleep.

It turned out that the computer's battery was running down. You could conceivably get a new one, but first you'd have to identify which kind of battery your computer takes, then you'd have to take it apart and go inside it in order to replace it, and if you don't insert the new battery in a brief increment of time after taking the old one out, you could lose all of your settings and would have to do a clean install.

For anyone who's not hardware-savvy, I would recommend just getting another computer, which is what I was ultimately forced to do.

 

[Psychopulse]

We're planning on taking it to the shop. There's the matter of payment, though, since I know repairs aren't cheap.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

You're talking about the CMOS battery. Most computers have a simple CR2032 battery. You can buy it at Radio Shack for about two bucks and it's often not that hard to switch out and not that dangerous because it only saves your CMOS settings, it's not responsible for all your data.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000239.htm

But if you don't have the common battery, it can be more difficult.

 

[Wounded_Dragon]

You might try asking them if they'll just diagnose the problem and how much that costs. Cost me 75 bucks to confirm my old computer was past the point of repair (motherboard was over half dead)

 

[Jacob]

You could always restore your computer to factory settings. I had to do that yesterday because my computer wouldn't start either... and it's working fine now.

I know you hit F10 when you turn on the computer if you have a dell... I think it may be different for other brands, though.

You should know, all of your files will be deleted, but sometimes restoring to factory settings is the only (free) solution.