The General "Computer Issues" Thread

[Hanshotfirst1138]

its all in the link i gave before.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060

Wow. It worked! THANKS! Now, the printer...

EDIT: Maybe not. iTunes still says that it can't read discs. I'm trying to update it now.
EDIT: Now it seems to be. Head hurts. Still can't get the printer working though. Tried "Last Good Configuration," no such luck.

 

[En Sabah Nur]

Hate to bump my own thread, but I must admit a certain personal tenacity on my part. I want to beat this sucker. I got the CD drive to load again, at least into iTunes, though each time I open iTunes it tells me otherwise, but I'm still a bit hung up on the bloody printer.

Repost your printer problem so everyone knows exactly whats wrong without reading the last 4 pages to find out.

 

[Aces 21]

Which is Best?

I've been thinking about something for quite a while now, and I need an opinion and/or recommendation.

I was wondering, "What kind of Antivirus software is the best?" I need an upgrade, I believe.

I need something that is current and a bit affordable. I've also noticed that the latest version of Norton Internet 2009 is $40 and is guaranteed for up to a year with a subscription fee while shopping around.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback.

 

[En Sabah Nur]

I've been thinking about something for quite a while now, and I need an opinion and/or recommendation.

I was wondering, "What kind of Antivirus software is the best?" I need an upgrade, I believe.

I need something that is current and a bit affordable. I've also noticed that the latest version of Norton Internet 2009 is $40 and is guaranteed for up to a year with a subscription fee while shopping around.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback.

Norton internet Security 2009 is one of the best, it received 9 Kickass award from Maximum PC, and protects you from simplest to the most complex threats. Staples sells it for $60 for 3 PCs for 1 year. It is the best investment you can make. NIS 2009 (UNLIKE PREVIOUS VERSIONS)has one of the fastest installs ever, and takes very little of system resources. It has pulse updates that makes critical updates every few minutes.

 

[Hanshotfirst1138]

Well...

I can't see to get Firefox to open unless it's in Safe Mode. I have a nagging feeling that I'm missing something glaringly obvious in this case. My printer is sort of working again after updating IE. It no longer prints the last page first and then stacks the papers, as I would like, and when I just tried to print something, it was mysteriously twitchy. I can't print it at all with Firefox, but that might be because I'm running it in safe mode, as it just tries to get me to save the page (or something?) as file (I think?). The plot thickens....

 

[Russkafin]

Losing my mind with iDVD... DVDs freeze and crash

Hi everyone. I am the relatively new owner of a Mac Book Pro with Final Cut Express and iDVD...

I invested in this computer to edit the video from my wedding and make a nice, professional quality DVD. After weeks of work, it came out great... or so I thought. The final product, burned with iDVD, played fine on one or two DVD players... but on most players, it freezes up at certain parts and jumps back to the main menu. I tried re-burning it, only to have the same problem.

After perusing some mac forums, it seems this is not exactly an uncommon problem. The advice I came across was, instead of burning it right from iDVD, make an img file and burn it through Disk Utility, so I can set it to a slower burn speed. Also, get higher quality disks, like Verbatim or TDK.

Well, after reburning at the slowest speed and using Verbatim disks, I have the same problem. The disks skip, freeze, and crash on most players. Oddly, though, they do play fine on a select few DVD players. But, that is not acceptable, it needs to play fine 100% of the time as far as I'm concerned, especially with how much I paid for this computer and software! What's going on, and can anyone help me?

 

[En Sabah Nur]

Hi everyone. I am the relatively new owner of a Mac Book Pro with Final Cut Express and iDVD...

I invested in this computer to edit the video from my wedding and make a nice, professional quality DVD. After weeks of work, it came out great... or so I thought. The final product, burned with iDVD, played fine on one or two DVD players... but on most players, it freezes up at certain parts and jumps back to the main menu. I tried re-burning it, only to have the same problem.

After perusing some mac forums, it seems this is not exactly an uncommon problem. The advice I came across was, instead of burning it right from iDVD, make an img file and burn it through Disk Utility, so I can set it to a slower burn speed. Also, get higher quality disks, like Verbatim or TDK.

Well, after reburning at the slowest speed and using Verbatim disks, I have the same problem. The disks skip, freeze, and crash on most players. Oddly, though, they do play fine on a select few DVD players. But, that is not acceptable, it needs to play fine 100% of the time as far as I'm concerned, especially with how much I paid for this computer and software! What's going on, and can anyone help me?

What type of DVD do you use? Taiyo Yuden is the best brand to use, and use DVD-R for all burner types. Also, if the DVD plays in some players but not others, it could be that those players are too old, dirty read lens, or it just wasnt designed to play burned dvds, only stamped manufacturer ones. Since your DVD plays on some players 100% i doubt that there is a problem with the compiled project before the burning, because the curruption does happan from time to time. My father does professional video editing on PCs, not macs, but most problems are universal across all platforms. I think it could be the DVD media fault, so try to find Taiyo Yuden (newegg.com). They make the best burnable media, also invest in a cd/dvd lens cleaner and clean the older dvd players that have never been cleaned. And yes, burning at slower write speeds does reduce the error count by a lot.

 

[Russkafin]

What type of DVD do you use? Taiyo Yuden is the best brand to use, and use DVD-R for all burner types. Also, if the DVD plays in some players but not others, it could be that those players are too old, dirty read lens, or it just wasnt designed to play burned dvds, only stamped manufacturer ones. Since your DVD plays on some players 100% i doubt that there is a problem with the compiled project before the burning, because the curruption does happan from time to time. My father does professional video editing on PCs, not macs, but most problems are universal across all platforms. I think it could be the DVD media fault, so try to find Taiyo Yuden (newegg.com). They make the best burnable media, also invest in a cd/dvd lens cleaner and clean the older dvd players that have never been cleaned. And yes, burning at slower write speeds does reduce the error count by a lot.

Right now I am using Verbatim DVD+Rs. I had not heard of that Taiyo Yuden brand before, but now that I google it, it sounds like that is considered the most reliable brand around. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[En Sabah Nur]

Right now I am using Verbatim DVD+Rs. I had not heard of that Taiyo Yuden brand before, but now that I google it, it sounds like that is considered the most reliable brand around. Thanks for the recommendation!

It is, in fact, Verbatim and for a long time TDK used their blanks and just re branded them. Taiyo Yuden is known mostly in professional circles only. Try using DVD-R, they are more compatible with older players.

 

[Zebi]

I would appreciate some help with screen resolutions. I am sharing my computer (Vista Home Premium) with another person. We have two user accounts set up on Vista. I prefer to use the 1440 x 900 resolution, and the other person prefers to use a smaller resolution, 1024 x 768.

The display driver for the computer is ATI Radeon 2100, and we've tried setting our preferences in the ATI Catalyst Control Center program. However, when we do that, the screen resolution for both accounts is changed. I am wondering if there is a way that our individual preferences can be set so that we don't have to change the resolution each time we log on to our accounts? Thank you.

 

[En Sabah Nur]

I would appreciate some help with screen resolutions. I am sharing my computer (Vista Home Premium) with another person. We have two user accounts set up on Vista. I prefer to use the 1440 x 900 resolution, and the other person prefers to use a smaller resolution, 1024 x 768.

The display driver for the computer is ATI Radeon 2100, and we've tried setting our preferences in the ATI Catalyst Control Center program. However, when we do that, the screen resolution for both accounts is changed. I am wondering if there is a way that our individual preferences can be set so that we don't have to change the resolution each time we log on to our accounts? Thank you.

Resolution is not user related preference, therefore changing the resolution will change the entire computer, not just individual accounts.

 

[Zebi]

Resolution is not user related preference, therefore changing the resolution will change the entire computer, not just individual accounts.

I kinda figured that ... however, I'm new to Vista and didn't know if there was a way to do that under Vista's settings.

 

[MDawg]

I would appreciate some help with screen resolutions. I am sharing my computer (Vista Home Premium) with another person. We have two user accounts set up on Vista. I prefer to use the 1440 x 900 resolution, and the other person prefers to use a smaller resolution, 1024 x 768.

The display driver for the computer is ATI Radeon 2100, and we've tried setting our preferences in the ATI Catalyst Control Center program. However, when we do that, the screen resolution for both accounts is changed. I am wondering if there is a way that our individual preferences can be set so that we don't have to change the resolution each time we log on to our accounts? Thank you.

This free program may be able to help you out if you don't mind setting up a little startup script for each user (the included readme does a good job of explaining things).

 

[Mynd Hed]

I would appreciate some help with screen resolutions. I am sharing my computer (Vista Home Premium) with another person. We have two user accounts set up on Vista. I prefer to use the 1440 x 900 resolution, and the other person prefers to use a smaller resolution, 1024 x 768.

Just out of curiosity, why does the other person prefer a lesser resolution? If it's an issue of things not displaying big enough, have they tried simply setting it to a higher resolution and then setting the text size larger? I'm fairly sure Windows has plenty of options for people with bad eyesight that might come in handy here. (-:

 

[Zebi]

Just out of curiosity, why does the other person prefer a lesser resolution? If it's an issue of things not displaying big enough, have they tried simply setting it to a higher resolution and then setting the text size larger? I'm fairly sure Windows has plenty of options for people with bad eyesight that might come in handy here. (-:

Yes, she has bad eyesight. I'll have to take a look into the accessibility options and see if any of those might work for her. I personally don't care for the huge desktop icons and font size that the lower resolution uses.

 

[wonderfly]

Computer cleaning question

This is another, "I don't understand computers" question, probably, but oh well:

How do you go about cleaning the fan in your computer? What's the best way to go about doing that? Just take a dust rag to it? I notice the fan is coming on a lot more lately when I play my computer games. I just bought some more memory for my computer, but figured I needed to clean the innards of the computer first.

Suggestions?

 

[The Irishman]

These cans of compressed air such as shown above should do the job just fine. Make sure the computer's off when you go in there. The last thing you need is dust all over the house. Also make sure you open the case (if you've got a desktop) otherwise the dust will just move around inside.

 

[Yusuke Urameshi]

Im having a HUGE problem on my computer, my disc space is very low, I only have 257 Mb and 9.99 GB total memory left, anyone know what I can do? I have tried to delete useless files, and disc cleanup, but it didnt do much..

 

[defunctzombie]

Im having a HUGE problem on my computer, my disc space is very low, I only have 257 Mb and 9.99 GB total memory left, anyone know what I can do? I have tried to delete useless files, and disc cleanup, but it didnt do much..

Can you locate the files that are space hogs? If you backup your discs, you should know that eats away much of your space if you don't delete the temp files.

 

[En Sabah Nur]

As stated above, make sure your PC is off, and unplugged. Use the compressed air canisters and use them in short bursts, and never hold the can upside down or sideways, otherwise an extremely cold liquid will come our damaging your PC. Since that's not actual air in the cans, don't try to inhale it. Use the can on all your fans, some might have filters so clean them as well. Also don't forget about the CPU fan and heatsink, that is a dust magnet. The more dust it has, the less it can bee cooled. Never use any wet cloth in your PC and never blow (exhale) to clean dust and your breath will have moisture in it. There answers can seem obvious, but you will be surprised how many people damage their rigs like that.