TVCH FORUMS HOME . JOIN . FAN CLUBS . ABOUT US . CONTACT . CHAT  
Bomis   Quick Links   TOPICS . TREE-VIEW . SEARCH . HELP! . NEWS . PROFILE
Archive through April 01, 2004

The TVClubHouse: Archives: 2004 January - Arpil: Computer Problems? Ask here... (ARCHIVES): Archive through April 01, 2004 users admin

Author Message
Skootz
Member

07-23-2003

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 1:09 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I had to re-install my monitor..but What is the pixels to be at for normal.

I either have large print at 640x480
or if I try others it is too long and narrow

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 2:31 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Skootz: It's possible that you will need to adjust your monitor after you have chosen a different resolution. The most common settings for resolution are dependent on the size of monitor you have.

Diagonal
Resolution
14"
640x480 ~ 800x600
15"
800x600 ~ 1024x768
17"
1024x768 ~ 1280x960
19"
1280x960 ~ 1600x1200


These are my personal preferences and apply only to standard CRT type monitors. For LCD (flat panel displays), I suggest using the next higher crt size for the resolution. You may find a different setting more suitable for you. I also recommend using at least '16-bit' color or higher, which your video should easily support.

Once you have selected a setting on your computer, you can then use the controls on your monitor to adjust the image to properly fit your screen by adjusting the vertical and horizontal size. You should also adjust the centering of the image while you are making these adjustments.

Hope that helps.

Skootz
Member

07-23-2003

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 2:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
{{{{{{{Draheid}}}}}}} I think we have it...It is a bit off but I think it is ok after adjusting the actual monitor.....I think my problem is solved for now

People like me shouldn't be messing with a computer too much...my problem is I don't know enough but a bit more then some and I get fooling around with things..and before I know it...I have messed something up lol

Oh..one quick question (see I didn't think I was done) How do I go to change my start up files..i have too many programs opening, that I don't need at the start when I turn on the computer....I have done this before..but my memory is not what it use to be :-)

Thanks ever so much...you are a Godsend.

Rosie
Member

11-12-2003

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 3:05 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hi DRA - I ordered DSL this morning and the company emailed a test for my computer to see if it is DSL ready. I have 127MB and their test indicated that 128MB's are required.

I telephoned the DSL company and one employee said that 127 would still be ok.

Do you think 127MB will work ok or should I cancel this order until I get more MB's?

Thank you kind person.

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 3:56 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Skootz: Most programs have a setting within their options to disable starting automatically. I would suggest you explore those settings first. Then if you have any additional programs you do not want to start, you can use MSCONFIG to disable them at startup. Click 'Start - Run' and type MSCONFIG and press Enter. Once the program is up, click on the 'Startup' tab and uncheck any programs you do not wish to start automatically.


Rosie: My recommendation is to let the DSL order stand and add more memory. 128MB additional should cost well under $50 and will be worth every penny in performance of your computer. If you watch the sales flyers in Sunday's newspaper, you may even find it for as little as $20 after rebates. You shouldn't have any trouble with your current configuration while using DSL however the memory upgrade will make everything run better for you.

Hope this helps.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 3:57 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hey, Dra, can I answer the easy ones?

Rosie, for all practical purposes 127 Mb is the same as 128 Mb. Dra will be along with a more technical explanation later.

Skootz, Start, Run, type in msconfig, choose StartUp tab and see if there are things in there that can be unchecked. Of course, check back here and make sure Dra doesn't come along and tell you something more in depth, but that's what I do for my startup stuff.

Juju2littleDra

Edit: Hahahahaha, hard to get one up on Dra. he was posting same time and beat me to the post.

Rosie, you can go here: http://www.crucial.com/ and fill in the information about your computer to see what kind of RAM you need. there are different kinds. It will be terminology like SDRAM PC100 or DDR2100, terms like that. Then watch your Sunday sales flyers for places like Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Depot, Office Max. I have seen it as cheap as $9.99 after rebate, depending on the kind you need. $14.99 after rebate is an excellent price. $19.99 is a real good price. Much above that is regular price.

Rosie
Member

11-12-2003

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 4:05 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
THANK YOU DRA. Just needed to hear that from you.

Thank you too Juju - that is what the DSL people were trying to tell me but it was their test.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 4:07 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Rosie, I edited my post above with more information for you.

Landi
Member

07-29-2002

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 4:12 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
did i see correctly that juju recommended another store other than office max???OMG!!!!!!

Rosie
Member

11-12-2003

Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 4:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks again Juju.

Jan
Member

08-01-2000

Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 9:20 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dra, I finally got myself off my lazy duff and cleaned my keyboard and mouse this AM.

You were right, as usual,. It was really easy to pop the mouseball. When I looked in the base there were "thingies" at the two spots where the ball makes "contact". I say "thingies" because I don't know if they are 'buffers' put there purposefully to ease the glide of the ball or actually massive collections of dust around each point of contact.Are there supposed to be buffers or did I do the right thing and remove them as collections of dust?? (they look like a wad of dust)

Also re the keys. I found them hard to remove as I couldn't get my fingers around them..so I used two staple removers that I have (the ones that look like scoops). They worked beautifully..and the mild bleach solution cleaned them up immediately!

I only removed the number pad keys as they were really bad..the majority of keys I cleaned by swooping a Qtip between them to gather the dust (while looking through a magnifying glass to make sure I got it all). That worked great too!

And the alcohol rub on the flat screen was WOOOONNNNNDERFUUUUL. Finally I have a fingerprint clean screen.

Thank you so much for all your help, my man.

Oh and could you let me know re the dust vs buffer idea? I am hanging onto the "dustballs" until you say whether or not that's what they are

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 10:58 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Jan: Lose the dustballs dear. The point where the mouseball contacts should be smooth and clean of any such debri and dirt. It was correct to remove that from the point of contact.

As for the rest of your keyboard, the other reason to remove the keycaps to clean them is that it also gives you access to the area beneath the keys that tends to collect dust and dirt which may, over time, get into the keys themselves and cause more problems. Using the tools you did to remove the keys sounds fine. I use a small flatblade screwdriver myself to pry the keys off.

Glad things went well for you. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Jan
Member

08-01-2000

Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 1:02 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks Dra, My God, they really are dust bunnies , are they? Wow . You should see how big they are. That's why I thought maybe they were buffers. No wonder I was having trouble moving the ball!! A lot of dust collects over time, that's for sure.

OK I will clean the rest of the keyboard. Thanks for the warning. I will do a little bit each day as I am a very impatient sort so anything that takes time and care, I tend to get impatient and end up ruining things :-). A little at a time though, I should be able to do it well.

You and Jmm have a happy day and thanks for all your help, as usual :-)

Mygetaway
Member

08-23-2000

Monday, March 29, 2004 - 12:18 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Update: Well, we finally got our problem above fixed. The people at AT&T said that some program somewhere in DH's computer had taken over the function of being able to add a new connection. So after removing everything and reinstalling windows we were finally able to load the AT&T. It did cost us a new modem though. DH made a back up of all the drivers, but one of them came apart in the cd reader. He couldn't find his original drivers, and the ones we downloaded online from my computer didn't work. So it cost us about 25 bucks (he didn't bargain shop).

So, now we're up and running. Thanks for all the help before.

Legalboxer
Member

11-17-2003

Monday, March 29, 2004 - 1:29 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Still having the same lingering problems from last

I tried the startNot folder, I moved files, I deleted files, I deleted Kazaa and Gator entirely since I know they can cause things at times – I have run virus scans with AdWare, Spybot, Norton and Housecall all weekend – over and over – viruses do show up daily in the Adware and Spybot scans but they don’t fix the problems after I get rid of them. I have done MSConfigure many times as well - I clear the boxes for all the strange files but that dpesnt help- when I go back to MSConfigure after starting up again, it appears like all the old strange files remain, and new similar ones are there as well, only those are checked – doesn’t matter how many times I uncheck the boxes next to the strange files, they still appear, errors still appear at start up and it seems to multiply each time I try it.

I will try to log the exact actions and get back to you next time, but the way it works is

I turn on my computer, as it is loading everything and I see the normal display, with the normal icons on the bottom bar etc I get this grey box to the left bottom side of the screen and it says Missing shortcut as the title of the box, with one of those icons that flashes when it is browsing to find the file.. but the files are strange ones, like I listed before- sometimes I hit cancel, and sometimes I leave it alone, and it then says it has found a similar file and asks if I want to use that one, and I click yes- regardless of if I hit cancel or if I wait for it to browse and find another file, the same errors come up the next time I restart- and I get the missing shortcut box about 4-11 times for different files each time I start the computer- none of the files I recognize or can track down to a real program.

This past time, I had 7 messages for missing shortcuts but only two files showed up in the StartUp menu folder, which again, I moved to the StartNot folder.

The current two strange files I removed from Startup are:

DAG0DOAH which links to C:\WINDOWS\dag0doah.exe /dk
XFEKAJEL which links to C:\WINDOWS\xfekajel.exe /dk

The only other two files in StartUp are Microsoft office and a reminder to register Scansoft, which have always been in Startup.

If I look under MSConfigure, there are probably over 40 files now listed with names like DAG0DOAH.exe or a9r0j7x9.exe and they all say they are just under the Windows folder – I did try to go to the Windows folder and delete them, but they didn’t disappear from the Startup section of MSConfigure nor did it stop the errors.. This past time when I checked MSConfigure, there were 11 new files like that, all checked, along with all the ones I have unchecked over the last 4-5 days.

Also I would just say this was an annoying problem when I boot up and all is fine once I get the error messages gone, but I have been getting error messages in the middle of using programs that my memory is too low etc and I know I have over half my C drive empty and more than enough memory/space to run things and I suspect those problems are related to the other error messages—at the same time, I should note that I started getting pop up ads when all this started that I was not getting before (I am used to popups but these aren’t triggered by the normal sites I am used to seeing)

I will try to get more details later but it wont let me copy and paste anything so I need some time to write it all down.


ETA: also just a note, since all this happen, the IE browser stopped remembering things i typed- like when i go to Yahoo, it is not automatically remembering things i had search for before - i know i cleared my cookies etc but it is not remembering anything in the last week since i cleared everything- a small thing but just something that started to happen the same time as everything else.


Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Monday, March 29, 2004 - 1:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Legalboxer: It sounds a lot like you have a very nasty trojan/virus/bug on your system that is not only morphing itself to avoid detection but also re-creating links and shortcuts to itself in the new morphed version each time. Apparently it is even managing to elude the scanners that are trying to eradicate it for you as well.

You need to find a way to boot your computer without letting any programs start up during boot. Then run the cleaning programs in that session making sure to allow them to clean/delete any problems they detect with your system. I would even suggest you run them a couple of times, still in Safe Mode each time, to be sure one of them hasn't become infected somehow.

Let me know if you are able to do this and if you have any success with this process. The next step is probably going to require booting from another device such as a bootable CD-ROM or floppy disk.

Hope this helps.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Monday, March 29, 2004 - 3:46 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
LB, you might also try the anti-virus available for 30 day free trial at www.trojanhunter.com.

Friend of mine at another message board is having a similar problem to yours.

Luvmom
Member

10-17-2000

Monday, March 29, 2004 - 6:15 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hi Draheid,
I'm at my mother in laws and she just got a new computer.She is getting mail from her brother with the attachment labeled pps. She doesn't have what is needed to view these attachment.What is the program?And is it downloadable.Thank so much for all the help!!

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Monday, March 29, 2004 - 6:22 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Luvmom: PPS is the extension for a PowerPoint Slideshow file. You will need to download the viewer or purchase PowerPoint to view those files.

Click here to download the PowerPoint Viewer from Microsoft

Also be sure to look over the instructions for use on that page as well.

Note: This will only work with Windows/98SE or later (Not with Windows/98 or earlier). I presume since this is a new computer, it most likely has Windows/XP installed and should work fine.

Hope this helps.

Luvmom
Member

10-17-2000

Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 12:38 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thank you draheid.It worked.You made my MIL very happy.

Abbynormal
Member

08-04-2001

Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 11:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hello! I am running XP and just out of the blue this little screen comes up and tells me I have 45 or so seconds to save what I'm doing. It either shocks me or makes me so mad to see it that I can never get paper and pen together to get it written as to what it says. Anyway, it happens so much that I am pretty sure it says something about NT/Authority System or RCP/authority system, something recall. I know I am not much help. I hope this is something simple as this is a fairly new computer and I hope I haven't already messed it up!

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - 1:31 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Abbynormal: First thing I recommend you do is go to Zonelabs.com and download the free version of ZoneAlarm firewall and install that on your computer. That alone should prevent the problems you are having for now. I then suggest you update your windows with the Microsoft patch that eliminates the problem completely. If you are not able to locate the upgrade, please let me know and I will look up the direct link to the instructions to fix this problem for you.

Hope that helps.

ETA: Here is a direct link to the appropriate ZoneAlarm download page: Click Here

Legalboxer
Member

11-17-2003

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - 6:34 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
just a note that all is better though it came about after i had tried everything suggested- i then did a search on my computer of some of the files to see if they showed up anywhere else and i saw they were also under the windows/allisers/startup folders and i deleted all the files in both the startup and the startup disabled folder and it seemed to be ok - no problems yet with any programs and all the error messages are gone.. also just a note, after it was fixed i did another search online of the one of the bad files that had a fairy normal name and found other accounts of the exact thing i went through so if anyone else experiences it, let me know because i have those sites bookmarked.

thanks for all the help



Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Thursday, April 01, 2004 - 12:04 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Just so I won't disappoint Landi, the best thing Office Max has this week is, in my opinion, a 4 port mini USB hub. Free after rebate. I bought one, so I can plug my USB devices into the front and not have to be pulling the computer in and out to plug and unplug USB devices.

Sale ends Saturday.

Office Depot also has some real good prices this week on computers, both laptops and desktops.

Landi
Member

07-29-2002

Thursday, April 01, 2004 - 12:30 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
hey juju... do you have a Staples up there? that's where i shop, as we do not have an office max here, i have to order their stuff online when i hear of your great ads! a 4 port mini usb hub does sound like a great deal, i got lucky with my dell, i have a usb in front and one in back. the one in back has a hub.