Computer Help Thread

[donaldgladden]

but its cheaper and has more gfx capability.

[PSZeTa]

#1 I have an mp3 player
2 a windows update completely ruined our computer
3 updates can do that

How would it ruin his computer when he's updating his MP3 player?

[snoopdogg879]

he updated the software that came with the mp3 player that is on the computer

[PSZeTa]

He updated the player's own firmware, not the software included with the player which is installed on the computer.

[ImJ]

This might be some stupid sort of question but i must say it lol.

Ok, well basically im using a NETGEAR Wireless Modem, it's half broken since my brother kept hitting it for no reason.

Anyway im using a Wireless Netgear USB and the modem is not in my room making me get around 30% of the speed.
It causes me loads of lag in online games an aswell disconnecting most of the time making me wait around 5 minuites to get it back working which is really irrotating, I do have a " Ethernet " incase you ask but my problem is that It works perfectly for the Xbox 360 but when i plug it into my PC i have issues, it don't seem to work or send the signal to the PC. It pisses me off since that's so stupid!Is it meant to be plug and play or install a Driver since i did have to format my pc since of the updates causing me to lose everything, So please help me with this crap, While im doing my Online Mock Test Paper i don't want this switching off half way through.

Question is basically " How the hell do i make my Ethernet work for the PC ".

[prince1142003]

First of all, go into the router's control panel and make sure MAC filtering isn't enabled. Next make sure that DHCP is turned on on both the router and the PC. Next, make sure the proper Ethernet port is turned on on the PC.

[powerof1000]

I'm having problems with internet as well . I can go on websites, but when I try to connect to servers in mIRC, it doesn't work:

[19:00] * Unable to connect to server (Connection refused)

This also happens in online games, I can't connect. I also can't even log in to Live Messenger . I don't think that i've changed any major settings, can anyone help, please?


EDIT: Got it all working again. All it needed was a virus scan. How silly of me...

[Danyutz]

Found a notebook configuration, but it has Athlon X2 cpu, idk a thing about them, can someone who knows, tell me something about those types of cpu? Are they better than the usual Turion?

[prince1142003]

Theoretically, the Turions are optimized for notebooks. The key feature that AMD hits about them is that they're supposedly battery saving. They're also supposed to generate a lot less heat.

I don't have an Athlon64 laptop to compare it to, but I do have a Turion laptop. It does indeed have a longer batter life than the intel core2 that I have, but it generates a heck of lot more heat.

[Danyutz]

I also read that AMD cpu are made to work in greater heat than Intel cpu, they support the greater heat easily than Intel. Also heard that AthX2 is more customized than Turions, as in mobile.

[Jmac-]

On the laptop side of things, CPU vs. CPU, the Core 2 Duo consumes less energy and generates less heat than an equivalent-performing Turion64 X2. However, because AMD has many items built-into the CPU (like the integrated memory controller, for example) that Intel places in the Northbridge or Southbridge on the motherboard, the overall system power consumption is generally about equal.

As for the Athlon64 X2 mobile chip, it's essentially a lower-binned Turion64 X2 w/ half the cache size (2 x 256 kB instead of 2 x 512 kB or 2 x 1 MB) and generally lower clocks. The Athlon64 X2 chips are meant to compete w/ the Pentium Dual Core chips from Intel.

Performance Tier - AMD - Intel
Top Tier - N/A - Core 2 Extreme
2nd Tier - N/A - Core 2 Duo T7000/T8000/T9000
3rd Tier - Turion64 X2 - Core 2 Duo T5000
4th Tier - Athlon64 X2 - Pentium Dual Core
Bottom Tier - Sempron - Celeron M

Intel is approximately 25% faster clock for clock when compared to AMD's equivalent CPUs (i.e. a 1.67 GHz Core 2 Duo T5450 will perform roughly equivalent to a 2.1 GHz Turion64 X2 TL-62), so keep that in mind when comparing models.

[Danyutz]

Ok, thanks a lot, looks like I'm going to stick on the PC for a while.

[RedCarDriver]

I think I might have a virus. I clicked a link somewhere to a file that shouldn't have done anything harmful (although I'll admit that I didn't look too closely at it, and it seemed rather old) and the browser window suddenly showed a bunch of gibberish. FireFox immediately crashed and I panicked, mashing CTRL+ALT+DELETE rapidly and closing everything I had open. I then ran System Restore. What are the chances I have a virus? (Please note that I will look at the link - but not click on it - to see if it would do anything bad, and will tell you what I find.) It seemed similar to a DoS attack; but why would someone set up something like that for users unless you were to give a virus - or worse, a worm - to them?

Also, I don't have a virus scanner installed on this PC but I haven't had many problems, if any, yet. *knocks on wood to hopefully prevent further damage* I do, however, have Spybot Search & Destroy, but I doubt that would help against a virus. I should have installed a virus scanner on this computer.

EDIT: It was either a link to an RAR file, which shouldn't have done anything; or a link to a FileFront information page for a file. Can anyone see, on a computer they don't care about, if FileFront is having issues?

[Carcrazy]

You know, you could just download a free virus scanner like AVG Free and check it with that...

AVG Free Download

[RedCarDriver]

I would, but the file is so HUGE, and for one scan, it seems a bit excessive. Besides, antivirus software can be as hard to remove as viruses themselves

To be on the safe side, though, I should probably check it - however, I simply don't have time right now, to download a 34meg file. I hope my comp is fine, because if not, I can't do much about it at this moment - I'm probably not going to be able to download a huge file. Unless FileFront was attacked, I'm probably fine - but, when I get the opportunity, I'll scan my computer, just to be safe.

[weedman173]

It's most likely not a virus at all. I have clicked safe downloads and sometimes they will not work right in Firefox, so they will show an entire page of symbols, numbers and letters. And it will also do just what you experienced, it will crash firefox. You don't have anything to worry about.

[Carcrazy]

Since we're on the topic, I actually found a download that was only 74kb, that was literally named virus.zip, with a different title on the page.

[Jmac-]

http://www.eset.com/onlinescan

[RedCarDriver]

It's most likely not a virus at all. I have clicked safe downloads and sometimes they will not work right in Firefox, so they will show an entire page of symbols, numbers and letters. And it will also do just what you experienced, it will crash firefox. You don't have anything to worry about.

Thanks, that's what I figured... it was an RAR file, if that affects anything, and it was the first time it happened to me, so I guess I just freaked out. I did a system restore already, just to be safe, and unless FileFront was hacked, I'm probably fine, judging by what you said here. *knocks on wood again* Thanks.

[ImJ]

Thanks Pab for the tip, i did it another way tho, i found out that on the device manager my network area had hardware problems so i had to reinstall an update drivers >.>

[Carcrazy]

Okay, this is just gay...

My computer is running extremely slow for some reason, from startup to shutdown, almost 90% of the time no matter what percentage of the CPU and RAM are being used. If I try to run something like winRAR, even though it only uses 30% (even distributed among all four cores,) it'll almost freakin freeze. Infact, it run's faster when it's at 100% than it does at 30%. Cool & Quiet isn't set that low, so I don't think that could be a cause... the fan is set to stay at 70% maximum power, even when the processor is cool... I have no idea what's causing this. I would say the CPU is faulty, but I've run stress test after stress test for hours, and even days with no errors...

Any ideas? (I'm starting to miss AMD...)

Temp reports:
While the CPU is running at 100%, (4 stress tests)
----65c-67c----
That's pretty normal for a quad. And I know what some ppl are going to say, get an aftermarket cooler, yes I know... it's on my list.

[BrontoX]

Defragment the HDD and see if you get new results. Turn off Cool&Quiet. Try to run XP just in case, if you can.

BTW i have a friend that had a E6550 at stock clocks and he had that same strange problem, his PC was very slow and it took a lot of time to do something and he defraged and even formated his HDD and still no luck BUT once he overclocked the CPU to 2.56GHZ all of that was gone, it seems that 2.4 is quite a strange clock speed that somehow bottlenecks the PC he even downclocked his CPU to see if it was the CPU speed and at 2.0 and even 1.8GHz it worked better than at 2.4 so try to overclock it a bit and see what happens.

[PSZeTa]

I would say the CPU is faulty

Very unlikely. Start out by lowering your CPU speed and voltage drastically and check if it's throttling. Those are ridiculous temps.

[Carcrazy]

I would say the CPU is faulty

Very unlikely. Start out by lowering your CPU speed and voltage drastically and check if it's throttling. Those are ridiculous temps.

Yeah, it's actually extremely common among the Q6600's. If the G0 steppings have lower temps, I'd hate to see the B3...

I did see massive improvements in speed when I tried overclocking slightly, but that was before this problem really developed. The reason I don't have it running at 3 Ghz, is because whenever I push the Front Side Bus past 285 Mhz, it becomes unstable. (Runs at 272 stock)
Increasing the voltage to the CPU and/or the RAM didn't help with the FSB error either when I tried it...

[race_invader]

I've recently brought a new CPU Dualcore since my old one was a single core and overheated, ive also brought a new CPU Cooler all costed me $400, thing is my motherboard supports dualcore and it fits socket 775 intel boards and ive installed correctly with the CPU cooler with the grease etc. Now ive lost power to my case fan and graphics card isnt working... Could it be that when my old CPU overheated it took my motherboard with it? or is my new CPU Fan sucking all power? im really not sure whats going on never had this problem before in my life.