Topic: PC Troubleshooting...

[Panzergranate]

A quick one from a PC/MAC repair guy....

If a MAC powerbook won't start open up the power unit and replace C27 with a 10uF electrolytic capacitor. This will re-enable the soft start again. It's the only fault we ever had on power books.

If your PC/MAC does POST and then refuses to read the hard disc, stating that the HD is INVALID MEDIA then remove the HD, find soemone with a HD E2PROM set up rig (a PC rigged with a special card costing £900 here in the UK) and have them reprogramme the HD's controller card E2PROM. The rig will detect all the heads, tracks and sectors and then allow them to be reinstated.

I'm occasionally contrated by 3PR companies to do this very job.

So when your HD acts up it isn't neccessarily  dead, its just forgotten the settings given at the factory.

Also watch out for Quantum Fireballs over 10 Gigs as they have a nasty habit of catching fire!! A small flame will appear out of the head controller chip on the card and slowly burn outwards to the pins, taking 8 seconds in all. (We timed one at one place!!) It's just like the mission impossible titles.

Aparently the arm motor seizes inside and causes this. Just a design fault.

Most reliable drives are Maxtor as I've seen very few to repair.

Andy.

 

[Don Karnage]

here another pc problem with anti virus.

i remove ca anti virus cause it was old and replace it with a trial version of pccillin, i discover that for intermittent i lost all sound, at first i taught it was the sound card that was dead but sudently i get sound back and i lost it again.

the only think i did was install pccillin, so i remove it and was the source of the problem, i taught i uninstall it but its still they're.

before that i install mc caffee on it and reboot the com, all was fine, but this morning the com keep rebooting and i can see that pccillin it still they're and so is mc caffee, normally pccilin will not acept another antivirus but maybe because it was already there that it let the other install.

i can't go to control panel to uninstall pccillin because there no time to show all and if i try to go by the start button to pccillin for uninstall it close because of all they software that want to run.

i will clean that soon since they're are software i no longer use and other i don't want to see at the start like quick time, icq and another stuff to download but not emule, another kind that share and suppose to be faster.

so its a pentium 4 that got that problem, i wont have news for my amd before Tuesday and this backup com is limited under win 98, i will ask for dual boot so i can run win 98 and win xp

[Centurus]

here another pc problem with anti virus.

i remove ca anti virus cause it was old and replace it with a trial version of pccillin, i discover that for intermittent i lost all sound, at first i taught it was the sound card that was dead but sudently i get sound back and i lost it again.

the only think i did was install pccillin, so i remove it and was the source of the problem, i taught i uninstall it but its still they're.

before that i install mc caffee on it and reboot the com, all was fine, but this morning the com keep rebooting and i can see that pccillin it still they're and so is mc caffee, normally pccilin will not acept another antivirus but maybe because it was already there that it let the other install.

i can't go to control panel to uninstall pccillin because there no time to show all and if i try to go by the start button to pccillin for uninstall it close because of all they software that want to run.

i will clean that soon since they're are software i no longer use and other i don't want to see at the start like quick time, icq and another stuff to download but not emule, another kind that share and suppose to be faster.

so its a pentium 4 that got that problem, i wont have news for my amd before Tuesday and this backup com is limited under win 98, i will ask for dual boot so i can run win 98 and win xp

Out of curiosity, when was the last time you did a full reformat?

[E_Look]

Ah, one shouldn't have to reformat.  It's really for dire emergencies.  It's probably better to delete, delete, defragment, reorganize, and delete more junk... then run antivirus and antispyware just in case.

[AlchemistiD]

Okay, I recently had to reformat my hard disk after picking up a nasty ROOTKIT infestation.  I've reinstalled almost everything but my games, but I've noticed some odd behaviour out of my internet browser(s) Firefox 3 and IE7.

Images don't load, or they do, but not all of them.  Or they ALL do, but then the next page doesn't load any.  I'll show you what I mean in some captures I'm attaching.  Refreshing sometimes brings the images up, but only after about two dozen ctrl-r keystrokes.  This includes forum avatars, thumbnails, attachments, new post markers, posted images, logos, forum buttons, ect.  There are some things that remain unaffected, like the background image in Sci-Fi Meshes picture viewer or website backgrounds like at Bungie.net 

Still, I had to reload twice just to see the reply button and its fast becoming aggravating to say the least.  This has been happening since I completed reinstalling XP Media Center on my PC.

I've tried clearing my cache and reopening all the browsers, doesn't work.  I've tried disabling McAffe and Spybot, doesn't work.  I've scanned with every anti-malware program I have, nothing.

[Javora]

Well you are getting something form the Internet or you wouldn't see anything at all.  Looks more like a settings issue to me.

[AlchemistiD]

Nevermind, sorry for the bother.

Leave it to me to miss THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS.  The issue has been found and dealt with.

[Nemesis]

I got up Monday morning and tried to use my computer, no response from the keyboard.  I spent the day looking for a solution and backing up my data in case I had to reinstall.  (This is on Linux Mint 4 KDE version, I'm upgrading to 5 in a few days). 

The end result found in the evening?  Sometime late Sunday just before I went to bed I must have been trying to change the text size in my browser by holding down the ALT key and using the scroll wheel on my trackball as cookies popped up.  How did this cause it?  KDE has accessibility features and if you hold a key too long it thinks that you want to use the slow keys function and pops up to ask if you really do.  I think it must have popped up just as I clicked on a cookie (to deny likely) and been clicked on without my even seeing it.  The slow keys feature is so handicapped people who have trouble hitting the right key and hit several keys briefly but only the key they hold down will register.  The keyboard would have responded if I held the keys longer.   

I don't know if Windows has an equivalent feature or not (I haven't checked).  I do know that after not using Windows for much except the occasional game play going back was painful.  I kept trying to switch desktops (there isn't another desktop to go to) and scroll between open programs with the scroll wheel while pointing to the task bar. 

To each his own I guess.  But I learned something (and turned off the slow keys altogether).

[Tus-XC]

If i'm not mistaken in windows its called sticky keys... would confirm but i'm on ubuntu w/ the lappy (which works nicely, though i think when i get my dell disks i'll put xp back on... need something so i can model on the road )

[Nemesis]

I have an old NEC Multisync 22" monitor and recently it has been giving me problems.  The top 1" or so "collapses" into a narrow line and the screen flickers.  I very reluctantly replaced it with a newer LCD (lower resolution unfortunately) widescreen monitor a few weeks ago.  I put it on my "spare" computer and was playing around with it the other day and found that it works ok if I lower the refresh rate.  So if you have a failing monitor you might be able to get some more life out of it by playing with the refresh rates. 

[Dracho]

check the plugin pages in your browsers and see what they're trying to run

[Nemesis]

Now, it could be the power switch on the case, but what are the odds??!

Can't tell you the odds but I did have that once, on my 386/25mhz.  That was of course some time ago.

Twice. 

In this case the front panel must have come loose when I shifted the machine and then slowly moved further over a period of weeks.  Eventually the external button no longer reached the actual switch.  A small "whack" and all is well again. 

[E_Look]

Holy McSmoke!  A SIX year interval between replies!

Hey, signs of life are good!

How y'all been?  Hurricane Sandy was, well, um, ... "cold" to me: no power for 14 days!!

I still play SFC (1)... about a few times a month... maybe one day I'll reinstall OP or EAW or III... actually, I might get to fix some plumbing around the house before that...

... although for the first time ever, I'm going to get a LAPTOP!!  I still try to install SFC 1 in it; I hope it won't crash!

And to get back on-topic, I'm still typing right as of now on the SAME computer that I did when I started this thread oh, so many years ago!  Again, good to see you guys are still here after all this time!

[E_Look]

I'm not sure this is PC troubleshooting, but can anyone here run SFC 1 on Win 8?

It installs, with a bit of difficulty, but then, it runs for about a minute or five, and then just terminally hangs.

[Sirgod]

not sure on Win 8 man, haven't made the leap yet.

But dude, good to see ya again?

Stephen

[E_Look]

Yeah, it's been a long time.  I pop in every fifteen million years and try to see what's going on.

If I can't get SFC 1 to run on Win 8, I'll probably not play SFC anymore.  Oh well.

[FCM_SFHQ_XC]

Yeah, it's been a long time.  I pop in every fifteen million years and try to see what's going on.

If I can't get SFC 1 to run on Win 8, I'll probably not play SFC anymore.  Oh well.

Like most old games new OSes present trouble, however from the sounds of it, it might be conflicting with an "App" in memory could explain why it is hanging after running fine for a few mins. you can do what you can to stop all apps, programs, and make sure only basic OS processes and the game are running. That might help. That is if it is getting stuck randomly.

If on a certain action or set of actions it hangs then that is a problem with directX across win 8 or other problems among the compiled code, doubt you can do much except play with compatibility mode and playing in lower graphic settings.

Not to mention the obvious things.. run as Admin, run setup as admin, that came with Win Vista and 7 to properly install stuff.

The best solution though is just to pull that old windows 98 computer from the closet, or find someone who does have such a old computer laying around and use that old system to keep playing your old games of the day.

[E_Look]

Yeeeaaahhhh... you've got a point: drag out the old Pentium that ran Win 98 or 95 and get SFC going.  But you've hit on my... um, conservative side (no, not in the H&S way) ; I'd have to get another monitor!  Who wants to continually switch connectors and mess up the DVI connector... uh, what am I talking about!?  It'd have to be a VGA port, right?

Half-fortunately, I have at least, half the distance to your solution- I still have my old, ahem... self-built, home-built... Athlon 64 box, even it looks more and more creaky by the day.  Unfortunately, the AGP video card burnt out and I had to stick in some old junky AGP card in its place, but then, since when did any of the SFCs need killer video cards?

Oh, the mess this could cause... !

Now to the next step:

I've run SFC, 1, 2, OP, and 3 almost since the day I bought each one, without the CDs.  Someone on the old boards had posted a crack for SFC 1, and I believe the others were made so that you could play standalone skirmish mode without the CD.  It still so runs on my old Athlon 64 homebrew rig.  But I found a SFC 1 crack online last night and it won't install in my new Win 8 machine.  My Win 8 is 64 bit while the crack was written for a 32 bit OS.

Now what do I do?

[Don Karnage]

I have a laptop and I connect a mouse on the USB port. But since a few week I notice a problem with my mouse. Its just stop working.

I use it to like surf the net of write and the pointer on the screen stop moving, the a few second after that the red light under the mouse is off. I taught it was a problem with the UBS port, so I switch it and it keep happening. So I know its not a problem with the USB port.

I have a logitech B100.

I unplug it and put it back and it work again until it stop working. There are no specific duration between the problem, it just happen and its annoying .

[Javora]

My first guess is that the wire connecting the mouse to the PC has either a short or a partial break.  That explains why the mouse functions at times, when you move the mouse around, the wire makes a connection for a time.  Have you tried another mouse that you know works with the same USB ports?  If a working mouse has the same problems, you may have broken USB ports, bad power supply brick, or corrupted device drivers.   But IMHO the chances of anything other then a broken mouse is remote.  Hope this helps.