Topic: No, I will not fix your computer. (Read 65334 times)

Frocto · « **Reply #220 on:** November 07, 2009, 09:38:42 AM »

I got a cooling pad and it seems to have magically, amazingly fixed my computer. Thankyou, everyone.

Büge · « **Reply #221 on:** November 07, 2009, 02:56:41 PM »

My turn, my turn!

Dear 'No, I will not fix your computer':

My monitor's doing weird things. Sometimes the edges will flicker for a few minutes, but lately the display will shrink to a narrow horizontal line of intolerable brightness across the centre of the screen. I got it used from a friend, and I have a feeling it's on its last legs. Is there anything I can do for it? And if not, what should I get for a replacement?

Sincerely,

Tricked Into Trashy Screen

Lottel · « **Reply #222 on:** November 07, 2009, 03:05:01 PM »

My old old monitor used to do that. I smacked it and it'd fix itself for a time. I figured out what to do though.

I gave it to a friend.

Bongo Bill · « **Reply #223 on:** November 07, 2009, 07:01:19 PM »

I assume it's CRT?

Esperath · « **Reply #224 on:** November 07, 2009, 07:02:52 PM »

Decent LCDs are dirt cheap nowadays, just look up some reviews on Newegg for monitors in your price range.

Esperath · « **Reply #225 on:** November 07, 2009, 10:14:47 PM »

Quote from: Frocjetlancher on November 07, 2009, 09:38:42 AM

I got a mouse pad and it seems to have magically, amazingly fixed my computer. Thankyou, everyone.

Cyan Prime · « **Reply #226 on:** November 07, 2009, 10:18:40 PM »

Fuck I lol'd.

Thad · « **Reply #227 on:** November 09, 2009, 08:54:08 PM »

...learned more about RAM today than I ever wanted to know.

It turns out there is not actually such a thing as 1066MHz DDR2! It is just overclocked 800MHz DDR2!

I am hoping that setting my RAM at 800MHz will fix the constant hard crashes that have been plaguing all 3 of my OS's without leaving any useful log data over the course of the past month!

Cthulhu-chan · « **Reply #228 on:** November 09, 2009, 11:46:44 PM »

...This is good to know! I've been kicking around building a new machine. I'm so out of touch with what's current and what's good these days.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #229 on:** November 22, 2009, 06:56:57 PM »

So I just installed a new Netgear DSL router, and now www.google.com points to the router settings. Anyone fathom an idea why this might be?

EDIT: PROBLEM SOLVED

TA · « **Reply #230 on:** November 22, 2009, 07:15:06 PM »

Something screwy in your hosts file?

Mongrel · « **Reply #231 on:** November 30, 2009, 02:09:37 PM »

I need to eviscerate something nasty that seems to be hiding in my computer's colon.

Currently running XP with AVG as the anti-virus (also have the standard raft of AdAware programs). AVG keeps BSOD-ing and not finding things, but the comp's suspicious behaviour (and Starr's computer ALSO behaving suspiciously) says AVG ain't doing it's damn job.

Looking for a recommendation on a good free boot CD or DVD (preferably Linux), with a good up-to-date virus scanner included, so I can scan-and-repair from the disk. Or something I can throw on a memory stick (not sure if I can boot from a removable USB key on an XP box - posting from work and can't say for certain - but I figure I probably should be able to?).

Suggestions? Intial Google searching hasn't yeilded any obvious choices... or much of any choices at all, really.

François · « **Reply #232 on:** November 30, 2009, 03:09:23 PM »

That might not be what you're looking for, but every time I've had a suspicious problem that eluded my local antivirus, Kaspersky's free online scanner did the trick.

...that link's just for future reference though, because it's apparently not available right now.

Mongrel · « **Reply #233 on:** November 30, 2009, 05:43:31 PM »

I seem to have this odd problem, endemic to all the computers I've owned. If I have a utility that requires all the drives to be scanned, it will fail. I actually went nearly a decade without ever successfully defragging ANY drive - not for lack of trying, mind you (eventually AusLogic's disk defrag program finally did the trick).

Virus scans, or any stuff like that, like only seem to work if I shut everything down, unplug from everything and scan from a fresh startup, sometimes in safe mode. So while I use Windows normally, my preferred tools for scanning for problems has been a Linux-based boot disk (this is about the very limits of my incredibly meagre Linux skill, FYI). I don't know why. When I finally do get a clean scan, I never have any bad viral problems or similar. It's not like I'm one of those idiots whose computer becomes a station wagon full of drunken trojans without my ever noticing - I tend to have good instincts for smelling problems.

I actually HAVE an old Linux OS-runs-from-drive disc somewhere, but it's pretty out of date and had no onboard anti-virus program.

One of my far more knowledgeable friends said that it's 'because I use my hard drives much more intensively than most users" (I save and re-save lots and lots of small files), but that kind of sounds like he's talking out of his ass. Anyway, sooner or later everytime there's a problem I get something to work eventually. It's just a severe disincentive to perform maintenance I should be doing more regularly.

I'll try Kapersky's later. It can't hurt - what's one more BSOD? (Looked at TrendMicro, which I used to use years ago... wow has that place ever gotten TERRIBAD).

sei · « **Reply #234 on:** November 30, 2009, 06:19:00 PM »

Quote from: Mongrel on November 30, 2009, 05:43:31 PM

One of my far more knowledgeable friends said that it's 'because I use my hard drives much more intensively than most users" (I save and re-save lots and lots of small files), but that kind of sounds like he's talking out of his ass.

More like you run file sharing clients 24/7.

I generally prefer AVG over Avira, but it's another free scan to give a shot.

Ewido's not free and I haven't used it in a long time, but it was decent at some point. You could yarr it up to check.

Mongrel · « **Reply #235 on:** November 30, 2009, 06:34:00 PM »

Quote from: sei on November 30, 2009, 06:19:00 PM

More like you run file sharing clients 24/7.

Nope. I have one client installed, Soulseek, and I open and run it very infrequently. I certainly don't have stuff like that on startup (I HATE having stuff that automatically starts up and almost always disable stuff like that).

I don't even leave Steam running when I'm not playing a game.

Cyan Prime · « **Reply #236 on:** November 30, 2009, 09:10:30 PM »

Quote from: Mongrel on November 30, 2009, 05:43:31 PM

I seem to have this odd problem, endemic to all the computers I've owned. If I have a utility that requires all the drives to be scanned, it will fail. I actually went nearly a decade without ever successfully defragging ANY drive - not for lack of trying, mind you (eventually AusLogic's disk defrag program finally did the trick).

Virus scans, or any stuff like that, like only seem to work if I shut everything down, unplug from everything and scan from a fresh startup, sometimes in safe mode. So while I use Windows normally, my preferred tools for scanning for problems has been a Linux-based boot disk (this is about the very limits of my incredibly meagre Linux skill, FYI). I don't know why. When I finally do get a clean scan, I never have any bad viral problems or similar. It's not like I'm one of those idiots whose computer becomes a station wagon full of drunken trojans without my ever noticing - I tend to have good instincts for smelling problems.

I actually HAVE an old Linux OS-runs-from-drive disc somewhere, but it's pretty out of date and had no onboard anti-virus program.

One of my far more knowledgeable friends said that it's 'because I use my hard drives much more intensively than most users" (I save and re-save lots and lots of small files), but that kind of sounds like he's talking out of his ass. Anyway, sooner or later everytime there's a problem I get something to work eventually. It's just a severe disincentive to perform maintenance I should be doing more regularly.

I'll try Kapersky's later. It can't hurt - what's one more BSOD? (Looked at TrendMicro, which I used to use years ago... wow has that place ever gotten TERRIBAD).

Holy shit, why haven't you switched to Mint yet?

Thad · « **Reply #237 on:** November 30, 2009, 09:13:17 PM »

Quote from: Mongrel on November 30, 2009, 02:09:37 PM

Looking for a recommendation on a good free boot CD or DVD (preferably Linux), with a good up-to-date virus scanner included, so I can scan-and-repair from the disk. Or something I can throw on a memory stick (not sure if I can boot from a removable USB key on an XP box - posting from work and can't say for certain - but I figure I probably should be able to?).

ClamAV is the go-to Linux virus scanner. A Google search for clamav livecd led me, improbably, to the ClamAV LiveCD page. I also found something called Trinity Rescue Kit, which appears to be a more general-purpose recovery kit which also includes ClamAV. Hrm -- I'm currently 25 hours into a badblocks run on an HFS+ formatted external HD (and if the progress is to be believed, about a fiftieth of the way through); I should probably look into that one myself.

It's pretty trivial just to burn an Ubuntu LiveCD and install ClamAV into memory after it's booted, too.

As far as Linux-on-USB, I tried a few of them some years back and my favorite was Puppy, but that was some years back.

Quote from: Cyan Prime on November 30, 2009, 09:10:30 PM

Holy shit, why haven't you switched to Mint yet?

Cyan, if not for your recent awesome posts in the KateStory, I would be banning you for a week right now. Shut the fuck up about Mint unless you're going to say something useful. Nobody likes it when you shill for the same thing over and over in different threads.

We get it. You like Mint. Lots of people still use Windows for various reasons. And you still haven't really made a case for what makes Mint substantially different from Ubuntu.

Mongrel · « **Reply #238 on:** December 01, 2009, 04:34:16 AM »

Heh... it's looking more like the problem might simply be the power supply fan failing again (overheating leading to odd stops & shutdowns). But I did want to get a good, up-to-date Linux boot CD for general troubleshooting anyway, so, either way, thanks!

François · « **Reply #239 on:** December 02, 2009, 08:50:58 PM »

Dang, any other avast antivirus users in here? Don't reboot! The latest update gives a crapload of false positives for "Win32:Delf-MZG (Trj)", including on Spybot S&D, various seemingly random programs, and some files that Windows needs to boot. Avast won't let them be used and will basically cause a lock-up.

That is some toxic-ass shit right there. There's a thread on the (currently overloaded) official forums that'll tell you how to disable it all before too much harm is done, but personally I am taking this retarded garbage out of my machine. What the fuck.

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Author Topic: No, I will not fix your computer. (Read 65334 times)