Archive through December 22, 2002
MoveCloseDeleteAdmin

TV ClubHouse: Archives: 2003 January: Computer Problem - I need advice/help (ARCHIVE): Archive through December 22, 2002

Abbynormal

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 05:35 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Ok, if I go to Systems info it says I have 48 MB of RAM. This is memory, right? It says that windows memory is 184 MB with 126 MB free and 58.6 used. I don't get that right off the bat, but whatever. I think my hard drive is full?

It says my hard drive is 3.00 GB with 14.1 MB free and 2.98 GB used. Now this what before I cleaned my cache which was not a heck of a lot.

So I go over to system tools. I can't do a disk compression since I have something called a FAT32, which I don't know if it's good or not cause I don't even know what compressing a disk is except it sounds good.

Now I suppose I could do a disk defrag which I have done before, but I only did it because I read I should occasionally, I don't have a clue what it does in reality. Will it help me get more room on my hard drive or do I just have to much crap on there. I was looking and most of the stuff on there is just stuff that comes with Windows so I really don't have alot of room to play anyway. Or do I need a bigger hard drive or is there a bigger one and is 3.00 GB considered normal or small or what?

Thanks for reading thru this mess.

Oh and everytime I turn around I am getting that an error occured on this page and it closes. I have Norton and it says I am clean as a whistle, so maybe I am just out of room. Also I dl the new explorer 6 and outlook express and I hate it with a passion. Could that be causing the error problems?

Draheid

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 06:01 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Abbynormal Let me address your immediate problem first. You are almost out of hard disc space! That is where files are stored after you turn off the computer. With only 14.1 MB free, your computer is probably going to run extremely slow and probably cause errors such as 'Insufficient Disk Space' often.

You need to do one of two things. Either you need to clear off some unnecessary programs and files or you need to get another (or bigger) hard drive for your computer.

Now, to explain the rest. 48MB is the actual physical memory installed on your computer. The 184MB is a combination of hard drive space used as 'Virtual Memory' and the 48MB of physical memory. When you get this low on hard drive space, your 'virtual memory' gets smaller too. This causes program to run slower and possibly crash more easily/frequently.

You can start by clearing your cache files and any 'temp' files on your hard drive. Then you might consider moving some older files to diskette or CD-R (if you have one) to free up more space.

Finally, defrag takes all the pieces of all the files on your hard drive and moves them together physically on the drive. As you access a file right now, if it is fragmented, the computer has to run all over the hard drive to load all of the file. That takes time. defrag will help speed things up a little by putting the files together so when the computer reads the file, it can do so in one operation instead of several.

Compressing the drive probably isn't an option because you have to have enough space to temporarily move files out of the way to create a compressed 'partition' on the drive.

I hope this helps. Sorry if I got long winded about all this. Please let me know if there is anything you don't understand!

Good luck.

Juju2bigdog

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 09:04 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Bottom line, Abby, you are out of space, and that is probably causing all other problems. 3 GB is pretty small nowadays, although I have one computer with 4 GB and another with 6 GB, and they are nowhere near full, so operate just fine. Hard drives on newer machines are in the 40-60 GB range and maybe even higher.

Okay, I have a question now. I have Windows ME on this laptop I have with me in South Texas. When I thought I was having problems with my modem in the hotel (turned out to be the hotel phone system, and Bob2112 came to the rescue), I looked at System Restore as a possible option. The system told me I had no restore points, which I thought was odd. A few days later, I remembered I had no restore points, so I decided to go in and create one. It told me I could not create a restore point and to restart my computer and try again. When I restart, I still cannot create restore points. No, I do not have Zone Alarm or anything very unusual on my computer, just Norton/Symantec anti-virus.

Weinermr

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 09:17 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Juju,

You might have to enable System Restore. Try the following:

1. Click Start - Settings - Control Panel

2. Double click System

3. Click the Performance tab

4. Click File System

5. Click the Troubleshooting tab

6. Be sure the Disable System Restore box is unchecked. Then click OK.

See if this works.

Abbynormal

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 10:14 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks Dra, I went and deleted a bunch of stuff that I could live without. My son has not been able to play his Sims games for a long time, now I know why, holy moly, one of them alone had 1500 files in it. After all of that I got down to 2.23 used so I can deal with that for awhile I guess.

Juju, WOW!! I had no idea you could get hard drives that large. I will be on the look-out, hope they aren't expensive. We are getting the son a computer for Christmas (used) so how much GB do you think it needs for him just to play his Sims games and such? He has quiet a few of them.
If what this machine has is big enough maybe he can have this one, and we can tweak the other.

Thanks both you guys!

Draheid

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 10:35 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Abbynormal: Drives are very inexpensive right now. Here's a link to one from Fry's Electronics Outpost, click here, that's a Maxtor brand 30GB 'fast' hard drive for less then $70.00. The only thing I might warn you about is whether or not your computer is able to handle that large of a drive. Most drives now come with software to handle the larger size drives on older computers, but a little research might prevent a lot of headaches!

Halfunit

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 10:44 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Abbynormal - Dra is right (as usual) about price. I purchased a new hard drive for my Dell PC two months ago. I paid $95 for 80GB.

However, when I went to install my old 27GB into my moms PC (which has 3GB), it wouldn't work. It would not accept a 1999 hard drive in a 1995 machine, so be sure to get something compatible. (Don't know about other manufacturers, I can only speak from experience with Dell.)

Abbynormal

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 10:58 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Oh, thank you. Very good advice. Yes this computer is a 1995 or 96 and we've had it upgraded a couple times. That is great info to know. I sincerely appreciate it.

Car54

Thursday, December 19, 2002 - 03:01 am EditMoveDeleteIP
We put a big hard drive on an old computer at work, and the technician did some kind of partition, so that the machine could accept the bigger size. He has done this several times to repair older computers (sad that machines that are 4 yrs old are considered aged!)

Juju2bigdog

Thursday, December 19, 2002 - 05:37 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks, Weinermr, that wasn't it, but it looked like a good shot. I'll go to Google and to some of the Windows ME troubleshooting sites when I get back to it. I looked a little last night, and on one of the sites they were talking about downloading a patch, but I didn't understand the jargon about where on the site they said to get it. I can probably figure ti out with more time.

Abbynormal, that was a heap of deleting you did. I am impressed!

Whoami

Friday, December 20, 2002 - 10:28 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, I have no idea if this is a computer problem, or what...

I booted up computer today, and went to log on to TVCH, and got "page cannot be displayed." I figured the site was down. But, I also could not get into www.webshots.com either. Figured I was just having bad luck. I was able to get into all the other sites I regularly visit.

I finally found someone in Chat, who said the boards had been working fine all day. They tried Webshots, and it worked for them too.

I cleared out my cookies and temp files, and rebooted. Same problem. So I called Earthlink Tech support too see if they had some wierd glitch that was keeping me from it. The tech was able to get into the sites (but on his second try to Webshots, it wouldnt' work).

He was completly baffled, and had no clue as to why I suddenly couldn't get into my favorite site. He suggested I try dial up, which wouldn't let me into ANY sites.

I hung up, and tried the power down thing (for the second time) they always suggest. Powered down computer. Turned off modem and unplugged it. And let it sit for 15 minutes (they say at least one minute).

Was finally able to get on around 6:00 mountain time. Checked a few threads, but had dinner going, and logged off and went away.

Tried again a couple of hours ago, and had same problem. Did power down sequence, and now I'm back in. But now am afraid to log off, cause I dont' know if I can get back.

What could be suddenly happening that I can't get into TVCH, or Webshots? Is it my ISP? Could my IE have gotten corrupted? I just can't handle it if I can't get my daily TVCH fix!

I have Win98SE, IE 6.

Draheid

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 08:47 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Whoami: I'm not certain what's going on with your computer and connection. It sounds as though you are getting to the sites however, IE is having trouble displaying the content. Based on your error 'Page Cannot Be Displayed' error, it sounds like you are getting to the site but that IE doesn't understand the page. The fact that you can shutdown and reboot then get back in sounds a little like either a program (IE) problem or a cache problem.

My suggestion would be to download a new copy of IE and reinstall it. If you have the space available on your computer hard drive, I would also recommend you download a copy of Netscape and install it as a backup to IE. I keep both on my computer for diagnotics mainly but use Netscape almost exclusively myself.

I would also suggest updating your anti-virus definitions and then running a full system virus scan just to be certain there are not 'bugs' in your computer either. It certainly can't hurt.

Hope this helps. Please let me know what you encounter.

Nanarobin

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 12:54 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
DRAHEID or others:
Know anything about this:

I ran across something really cool, and free, and I thought I'd pass it along. There's a program called Email Stripper that is designed to remove the annoying > marks from forwarded mails. You simply copy the old mail, paste it to Email Stripper, then hit Strip It, and it'll remove all the marks. Then hit Copy and copy it to the clipboard for easy pasting as clean text back into another mail.

I got the link in ReallyGoodQuotes newsletter:
http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm

JUST WONDERING....I AM NOT A COMPUTER EXPERT AS SO MANY OF YOU ARE!!

Draheid

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 01:13 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Nanarobin: I usually use either notepad or Microsoft Word to strip >'s from e-mails and reformat the text.

FWIW: I downloaded the program, scanned it for possible viruses (none found), engaged my firewall's internet lock, then executed the program. It did NOT attempt any access to the interenet, so I'm pretty confident it's not any sort of spyware. I tried it's functions and it seemed to work just fine.

Hope this helps.

Whoami

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:18 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I'm here briefly through dial up. DSL won't get me here to save my life. I downloaded Netscape, and I still can't get here or to Webshots through DSL. I also re-installed IE6. It has to be something with my ISP. It's just too consistant a problem with these two websites.

It won't even work today with the power off sequence. Time to call Earthlink and get firm. This is unacceptable. Fix the problem, or I'm changing ISP come Monday. Period. I've had to do that with them before...

Nanarobin

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:24 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Drahied.....as usual...right on the ball...or should I say the computer!!! thanks...may try to download it as I get a lot of email from Lotus notes uses at my former work, and have to strip off the >'s before forwarding on... I have seeing them!!

You are the KING, as usual, Draheid....THANKS

Draheid

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:32 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Whoami: Can you get into chat by chance? If so, perhaps I could talk to you about some alternative solutions?!?!

Sia

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 04:12 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Nanarobin, there is an option in your e-mail program where you can toggle on and off the thing that makes those < marks appear when YOU forward something. It won't take them out if someone's forwarded you something that's been forwarded a bunch of times before, but at least it doesn't add any new ones to the mess. I just use the delete key to zap out those marks. It's a pain in the behind, I agree!

Sia

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 04:15 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Draheid or anyone, when I connect to the Internet I get a message saying I'm connected, then when I click on my Internet Explorer option from my main Start Menu, I get a little pop-up box that says "not available when off-line. Do you want to connect or work off-line?" It didn't use to do this. What have I changed that I need to CHANGE BACK? Thanks in advance!!

Draheid

Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 04:58 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Sia: I presume you're using internet explorer. Check under 'File' and see if the option 'work offline' is checked. If so, click it to uncheck it. Also, check under 'Tools - Internet Options' in the 'Connections' tab and make sure it's checked for 'Dial whenever a network connection is not present'

Hope that helps. Let me know if it doesn't.

Whoami

Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 03:20 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, I'm back. I hope for good now.

I filled out a survey that Earthlink asked me to fill out (after my first tech call to them). I filled out "highly unlikely" on the questions asking if I would recommend Earthlink to anyone else, and if I would be continuing using Earthlink in the future.

In the comments section, I told them I was tired of taking 3 days, with phone calls each day, and jumping through hoops to prove the problem was not something I was doing before they would admit it was a problem on thier side and put in a "repair order" to fix it. I also told them I would be searching for a new ISP come Monday.

Yesterday's tech told me the two sites I couldn't get to must have updated something, and I should contact them and ask them to fix it so I could get in (how can I contact them if I can't get to thier sites?). My gut feeling is, Earthlink updated something, and it took this long for everything to catch up. If they'd just admit that they have a problem once in a while, instead of blaming it on everyone else around them, I'd have more respect for them. But now, I'm done!

This morning, I had the same problems getting here. But later (about an hour ago), I clicked on the TVCH link and the page popped up so fast it nearly threw me out of my chair! Hmmmm, either they read that survey after all. Or, the "48 to 72" hour time frame they gave for the servers to catch up finally happened.

Zachsmom

Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 10:01 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I have a question regarding database replication. I will try to be as brief as I
possibly can.

What I am looking/asking is experience and/or if you were in this position
which option would you choose or not choose and any possible problems you
may see.


I have a database application created in VB6 and using SQL Server 7. This database
is also replicated onto a Linux Server to mySQL (updated by snapshot every 15 minutes).


*****This is where the new module I need to create comes in********

What I need to create is a back-up database on a separate server that
replicates the database immediately. The database grows approx. 1GB a
month.

Server 1 is the main database
Server 2 is the backup

If I use SQL Server replication I have a choice of three replication techniques

1) Snapshot - I don't believe this would work database is frequently updated with many
transactions.

2)Transactional - I believe this is my best option. I will get to the issues in just a
moment that could affect my using this option.

3)Merge- Since I need the database done real-time I am unsure is this option would even
be considered.

This module will be used when Server 1 needs to go off-line. I have created the procedure
to point to server 2 in such case.

I am "okay" to this point.

Now..after server 1 goes back online I need to point the application back to the server 1
database.(also "okay" with this) I need all transactions that were committed to server 2 to be immediately inserted/updated
onto server 1.

I am wondering if I use SQL7 replication if this is possible or should I create a boat load of stored procs
and create a module to update server 1?

I am most concerned with resources and data integrity. Time to create the procedure is not a main issue.

I am looking for feedback, experience and perhaps a **DON'T DO THIS** if I need it!

Thanks in advanced for your help!

Whit4you

Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 10:32 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Zacks - I can't help much but will give my two cents in that I'd be concerned with corrpution in transferring the data BACK to server 1 - when server 1 comes back online, I think server 2 should remain the active server until a full backup is implimented from server 1 of data prior to the server 1 powering down. Cause if server 1 goes down and server 2 sends corrupt data back on power up ...yer scccccrewed :)

So .... server 1 goes down...server 2 takes over...before server 2 sends the data back to server 1 a full backup of server 1 is implimented.

I imagine you already have this under concideration but since you didn't mention it thought I'd throw it out there.

Zachsmom

Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 10:42 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks Whit..we have an excellent back-up & restore in place..

My main quandry is how best to get data from server 2 to server 1 most efficiently.

There is no 100% fail safe method..but I'd like to get pretty darned close..:)

Draheid

Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 10:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Zachsmom: First, let me emphasize that I am NOT the expert in this area you are seeking. However, I offer my thought just for something to consider.

How much overhead would it take to create and store all processes (transactions) created while server 2 is online.

By creating these records of transactions, you could then use these to update server 1 prior to returning it to the primary status. The final procedure would be to perform a compare of server 1 to server 2 before it is returned to primary status. This way, if there is a problem with 1, you should be able to detect it before it's put back into service. Plus, this keeps the transactions stored so that, should server 2 happen to crash while 1 is being worked on, you would have a tertiary (or secondary if not needed) record of all transactions having occured during the whole process.

Ok, I just re-read this and it makes sense in my head, but I'll put it here for your consideration and to do with what you will.