The General "Computer Issues" Thread

[Hanshotfirst1138]

Laptop or desktop? I've never had a problem like that happen before.

Desktop.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

The CD drive on my computer won't close. If is shut it manually or with the button the keyboard, it reopens. I can't see anything stuck in it.

Maybe the open button is stuck down.

 

[Hanshotfirst1138]

Maybe the open button is stuck down.

Possible, as the button on the CPU is hard to push and could be stuck, but it's a single button that serves both functions.

 

[ShadowGUN]

All right so the problem with my PC is it won't turn on. Instead all it does is spin the fan, like when is warming up to turn on, and that it. It been like that since Thurday. However on Friday it turn on normally but yesterday and today it won't turn on. Any guesses what the problem is ?I suspect the lithium battery since the internal clock keeps changing after I turn it off for two weeks now and I know the battery has other functions.

 

[MDawg]

All right so the problem with my PC is it won't turn on. Instead all it does is spin the fan, like when is warming up to turn on, and that it. It been like that since Thurday. However on Friday it turn on normally but yesterday and today it won't turn on. Any guesses what the problem is ?I suspect the lithium battery since the internal clock keeps changing after I turn it off for two weeks now and I know the battery has other functions.

It could very well be the CMOS battery. For most desktop computers it is relatively simple to replace.

This guide can help you get started:

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

Obtaining a new battery should be as simple as heading down to your local big box retailer or a local watch shop or battery store if you have one. They're under $5 to get typically.

Other things to check are simple as well. Do you hear any beeping coming from the computer? Do you ever hear the hard drive start up? It'll be like a slight revving sound followed by a click and some more activity.

If you can open the computer, another thing to check (if present) is your graphics card (if graphics are coming from the motherboard, don't bother with this). Examine the fan that may be on it (please do this while the computer is off, make sure to touch something metal to discharge any static before touching any parts). Does it freely spin when pushed or is it sticking slightly? If it's sticking, it's likely the fan has gone bad and this can cause the computer to refuse to boot up.

 

[wonderfly]

Mozilla Firefox has decided to stop working on me. It kept crashing last night every time I tried to open up the browser. I rebooted the computer to see what that would do, and now it won't open up the Firefox browser at all. I keep getting this message:

"The procedure entry point NSS_CMSDecoder_Update could not be located in the dynamic link library smime3.dll."

What. The. Hell. is going on here?

 

[MDawg]

Mozilla Firefox has decided to stop working on me. It kept crashing last night every time I tried to open up the browser. I rebooted the computer to see what that would do, and now it won't open up the Firefox browser at all. I keep getting this message:

"The procedure entry point NSS_CMSDecoder_Update could not be located in the dynamic link library smime3.dll."

What. The. Hell. is going on here?

Searching for that specific error produced exactly one result, the post here

That said, just looking up smime3.dll came up with some answers and they all seem to indicate that you're going to have to re-install Firefox.

So first, attempt to uninstall it from Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features (depends on your Windows version), if that fails, delete the Firefox installation directory and then download and re-install the software.

Don't worry about your bookmaarks and stuff if you have to resort to outright deleting the directory, they're safe and secure in an alternate location.

 

[ShadowGUN]

It could very well be the CMOS battery. For most desktop computers it is relatively simple to replace.

This guide can help you get started:

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

Obtaining a new battery should be as simple as heading down to your local big box retailer or a local watch shop or battery store if you have one. They're under $5 to get typically.

Other things to check are simple as well. Do you hear any beeping coming from the computer? Do you ever hear the hard drive start up? It'll be like a slight revving sound followed by a click and some more activity.

If you can open the computer, another thing to check (if present) is your graphics card (if graphics are coming from the motherboard, don't bother with this). Examine the fan that may be on it (please do this while the computer is off, make sure to touch something metal to discharge any static before touching any parts). Does it freely spin when pushed or is it sticking slightly? If it's sticking, it's likely the fan has gone bad and this can cause the computer to refuse to boot up.

Huzzah my computer work again. As I suspected it was the lithium battery and thank to you Matt I manege change it and fix the problem. I check my graphics card is bit rusty but it still works. The fans are okay too.. Again thanks Matt.

 

[Psychopulse]

Just when my desktop computer was cleaned, I get another possible infection.

The desktop wallpaper says "your computer may be infected" in front of a blue screen. We just had this cleaned like 3 months ago.

 

[defunctzombie]

Maybe it's just a remnant. Delete it and see if it comes back.

 

[Psychopulse]

I could, but the computer's off limits...I did learn of a malaware program that can delete it, but I'm not sure if the the browsers are working (I have IE and Firefox, and I'm typing this from a Wii browser). Besides that, I'm not sure if it'll clean it fully.

EDIT: Found the problem - it's malaware which I can remove with Malaware Bytes. I'll give it a spin tommorrow and see what happens...

EDIT2: They took it to the shop before I can attempt to fix it... ah well...

 

[MDawg]

That's a shame. Malwarebytes would have likely finally purged the infection and not cost the upwards of $100 or more that wherever they went likely will to do the exact same thing.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

Yeah, Malwarebytes does a pretty good job. Nothing gets everything, but Malwarebytes seems to reach pretty deep. A big problem sometimes is that malware is designed to keep you from using Malwarebytes or downloading it, so it's good to download it before you need it and also keep a copy of it and some sneaky renamed software to kill bad proccesses like RKill around on a jump drive for the worst case scenario.

 

[MDawg]

A best practice for modern PCs is to just not use an account with admin rights. Make a secondary administrator account for UAC prompts and such as-needed, but for day-to-day stuff, give yourself normal user rights.

The handy thing in using this method is that when your normal account does get infected, it's contained to there due to lack of rights and you can just log into your administrator account, run Malwarebytes on the effected account's profile and clean out the infection rather quickly.

Most people have absolutely zero need to have administrator rights to begin with and it just leaves a door open to possible troubles if you're not too computer savvy (clicking any link in emails without thinking of ramifications, visiting "questionable" sites without any sort of blocking in place, downloading and installing software from unknown sources, etc).

 

[wonderfly]

I bought Microsoft Office 2010 to go with my new computer. I bought the product key card version, which allows me to download the program. As I started to download it last night, I noticed it was going to take my computer over an hour to download, so I just decided to go to bed.

I woke up this morning to discover the computer rebooted upon finishing downloading, and there was a message that the computer says that it's installed all sorts of updates.The Microsoft Office icon was not on my desktop like I expected though. I found the icon under "All Programs" clicked on it, and it asked if I'd like to install it, so I clicked yes, and it installed...and it still didn't appear as an icon on my desktop. I rebooted, and it's still not on my desktop as an icon...and now it's not even in my "All Programs". It's got to be somewhere on my computer because I can open up old Word documents that I transferred over from my old computer. Some help, please? Where's Microsoft Office 2010?

Also, when I opened up my old word files, the top of the word document was a dark, shade color...not sure what's up with that. Is that what a word document's supposed to look like now? I may just stick with Open Office at this rate...

 

[defunctzombie]

You bought an HP, right? Mine came with an Office Starter package, maybe that's how you can still open word documents.

Look under Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\ (or Program Files\Microsoft Office\) and see if the version of Office you installed is there. If the problem was only missing shortcuts, you should be able to make your own. Otherwise try reinstalling and worse case scenario, call Microsoft's line.

If you want Publisher, you'll have to stick with Microsoft. I use Open Office because it's more affordable, but it is sort of ugly compared to Office and has no Publisher.

 

[MDawg]

What may have happened is there was pending Windows Updates, so after downloading the file, it installed the updates and rebooted, never installing Office 2010. Is there an installer file someplace on your desktop or elsewhere? You may just have to double-click that to install the program.

 

[ShadowGUN]

It been two years since I last saw this error but this morning my computer told me about an error dealing with Data Directory. it said it couldn't access it or another program was using it. What exatcly does this mean and what causes it?

 

[DisneyBoy]

Taking a screenshot from a movie playing on a Mac...?

Okay, I know this is just a dumb techie question and not an especially stimulating one, but I need to take a screengrab from a DVD that I'm playing on a Mac, and many google searches later, the best I was able to come up with was a method using Terminal that doesn't work, and downloading the trial version of DVD Snap 2 that leaves an annoying watermark over all the photos I take.

On a PC this would be as easy as pushing the screenshot button. Can anyone offer me some advice as to what to do?

MANY thanks, y'all!

 

[defunctzombie]

Download VLC media player. It has an option to take snapshots without any watermarks, and it's a pretty versatile media player (I have yet to find a media type that it doesn't play).