The General "Computer Issues" Thread

[Aquadementia]

I bought a microphone for my computer today (about the fifth or sixth time I've tried one), and am encountering the same problem I always have. The sound is far too low upon playback. I have it plugged into the right spot, I've looked through all the volume adjustment selectors and made sure it was not muted. I even found an adjustor called "Playback Volume" that was all the way down and raised it up. I record and speak into the microphone, but for some reason when I play it back it's just incredibly low. I have to turn my speakers way up to hear it, and that also increases the low hiss of the speakers. Even the wavelength in the recording program is barely visible. I've tried it through my main audio program, Sound Forge Audio Studio, and the generic Sound Recorder that was pre-installed. Any ideas?

Center and normalize,
I believe that is something I've done once long ago, so I'm not claiming to know what I'm talking about.
Usually I just play with the graphic equalizer to listen to quiet recordings.

 

[MDawg]

Check the audio driver for your computer as well. You may need to update and/or replace it.

Under your audio settings, if you have a setting called "Stereo mix" and it's enabled, try disabling it and seeing if that fixes the problem

 

[Michael24]

Check the audio driver for your computer as well. You may need to update and/or replace it.

What menu do I need to look under to check that?

 

[MDawg]

What menu do I need to look under to check that?

What is your operating system? Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Mac, etc?

 

[Michael24]

I have Windows 7.

I was looking around last night and also found this somebody posted on a forum:

I went via Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Manage Audio Devices to get to the Sound panel.

I then selected Playback > Speakers > Enhancements and made sure everything was un-checked.
I then selected Playback > Speakers > Advanced and un-checked 'Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device'

I went to Recording > Microphone > Listen and ensured 'Listen to this device' was unchecked.
I went to Levels and ensured the Microphone level was at 100% and the Boost was at +10db
I went into Enhancements and ensured everything was un-checked.
I then into Advanced and un-checked 'Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device'

And finally I went into the Communications tab of the Sound panel, and changed 'When windows detects communications activity' to 'Do nothing'

I did all of those and it actually did seem to help a little bit, but the overall playback volume is still too low.

 

[Aquadementia]

I have Windows 7.

I was looking around last night and also found this somebody posted on a forum:


I did all of those and it actually did seem to help a little bit, but the overall playback volume is still too low.

Have you tried your mic while using Skype?
It starts a process that sort of normalizes sound levels. I forget which process that is, but you might want to just give it a try.

 

[Spideyzilla]

I got a doozy! I was putting a video on Youtube from my Macbook. There were 26 minutes left, and my Facebook was open in another window. I clicked a link in it, and the rainbow wheel of death came up. After twenty minutes, I hit the off button. When I turned it back on, the grey screen came on, but it did not log in. Instead it flashed a picture of a file with a question mark. Turning the computer off yielded the same result. I have never had a problem like this before. What is it?

 

[MDawg]

It sounds like you may be experiencing disk failure issues.

Options:

Is the Mac relatively new (in the past 12 months)? Then you likely have OS X 10.7 (Lion) as your operating system. If this is the case, power on your computer and then hold down the Command and 'R' keys. You'll get a choice of where you want to boot from. Use the arrow keys to select Recovery HD. From there you can run the Disk Utility to see what's going on with your hard drive and repair it if needed.

If you're using OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), you'll need the disc that came with your Macbook. It should be in a white paper sleeve that says "Everything Else" on the cover. The disc you'll want is labeled with something that will say "Mac OS X Install DVD." To get to the recovery options, insert the disc and hold down the 'C' key as you power on your computer. It may take a while, but it will boot to disc and then you'll be able to access the Disk Utility.

For both OSes, you can use this guide to see how to access and/or use the Disk Utility.

If things don't work out and you're still under warranty, head to an Apple Store, they're suited to help you there (even at this stage if you don't feel comfortable doing the diagnosis yourself). You'll need to schedule an appointment to visit them, so just make sure to do that if needed.

 

[Spideyzilla]

It sounds like you may be experiencing disk failure issues.

Options:

Is the Mac relatively new (in the past 12 months)? Then you likely have OS X 10.7 (Lion) as your operating system. If this is the case, power on your computer and then hold down the Command and 'R' keys. You'll get a choice of where you want to boot from. Use the arrow keys to select Recovery HD. From there you can run the Disk Utility to see what's going on with your hard drive and repair it if needed.

If you're using OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), you'll need the disc that came with your Macbook. It should be in a white paper sleeve that says "Everything Else" on the cover. The disc you'll want is labeled with something that will say "Mac OS X Install DVD." To get to the recovery options, insert the disc and hold down the 'C' key as you power on your computer. It may take a while, but it will boot to disc and then you'll be able to access the Disk Utility.

For both OSes, you can use this guide to see how to access and/or use the Disk Utility.

If things don't work out and you're still under warranty, head to an Apple Store, they're suited to help you there (even at this stage if you don't feel comfortable doing the diagnosis yourself). You'll need to schedule an appointment to visit them, so just make sure to do that if needed.

It is a Snow Leopard, but there is a problem. It is an old computer that I got second hand (I needed a Macbook for school, this was all I could afford) and had a new hard drive put in. I never got the startup disk (the old owner lost it), and it is not under warranty.

 

[MDawg]

It is a Snow Leopard, but there is a problem. It is an old computer that I got second hand (I needed a Macbook for school, this was all I could afford) and had a new hard drive put in. I never got the startup disk (the old owner lost it), and it is not under warranty.

Your options are a bit limited then.

What you can do:

• Borrow a Snow Leopard disc from someone else. You don't need your specific type, just any Snow Leopard disc should work
• Buy a copy of Snow Leopard. It's $29.99 from Apple.com
• Take laptop to Apple Store. They may still look at it and provide help. A cost may or may not be associated with it though. They will let you know.

 

[BartWinkle]

I'm having problems setting up an e-mail service. It's one of the Microsoft systems-Wizard. Everytime I set it up I get something saying that the set-up failed.

 

[MDawg]

Can you be a bit more specific? Detail would help a lot in this situation.

What program are you trying to use? Do you have the needed email settings that should be input? Etc.

 

[Perry]

Removing "location" info from folder

How do I get this...

...looking back to something like this?

Any help would be very much appreciated. One day, I accidentally ended up clicking on something and I haven't been able to figure out how to get rid of the "My Documents (11)" and "C:\Users\Anthony" text info ever since.

 

[MDawg]

1. Right-click in any white area on that window
2. Roll mouse over to the View option
3. Select and click Details

 

[Perry]

I'm afraid that didn't solve the problem. To give you a bigger picture, here's what I'm dealing with right now:

I need those "My Documents (11)" and "C:\Users\Anthony" text blocks gone.

 

[defunctzombie]

You're in the Documents library, not the Documents folder. Go to Users\Anthony\My Documents instead of using the Library feature. Windows started using that Library system with Vista, probably because they think people aren't able to organize their own folders.

If you really want to use Library, what you could try instead is to group the files by (none) and see if that makes it go away. I'm guessing right now they're grouped by location. Right click and pick (none) under the group by menu.

 

[Perry]

Problem solved. Thank you, defunctzombie!

 

[Michael24]

1) Search Assist has reappeared on Yahoo. I haven't seen it for a long time, but suddenly the other day it started appearing again. I click "Off" whenever I see it, but it keeps coming back. I thought I used another way to turn it off last time, but can't seem to find it again.

2) Sometimes I close Firefox, then when I later go to reopen it I get a pop-up saying "Firefox is already running, but is not responding." It's easy enough to just open Task Manager and shut down Firefox under Processes, but I'm just curious what causes this. Is it just a glitch that happens on occasion?

 

[defunctzombie]

Both of those things happen to me, and as far as I know you can't do anything about preventing it. Yahoo has made their search so annoying lately (results in new tabs, changing the image search to a lame slideshow, forcing suggestions).

The Firefox thing happens to me if I open a new window too soon after closing a previous one. Killing the process in Task Manager will fix it for you, no worries.

 

[oranthal]

Need help with my wifi speed

My wifi speed used to be faster but recently, it is much slower on my laptop. What is strange is when my BlackBerry is connected to wifi, the speed is much faster. For example, if I were to download a file, the file would finish downloading in a much shorter time than on the laptop. That would pretty much rule out a weak signal, so could it be a setting on my computer or something else that is causing it?