Computer Troubleshooting Thread

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I'm not exactly sure how to check the jack. I can't really open up the computer to check anything because I don't have the right screwdriver. ><

As for the restoration, I had to order a recovery disc from HP and restore from it.

 

[afireohno]

With laptops it can be important to get a version of the os written to run on that specific hardware. Since you have the disk I would suggest you back up your data, and reformat your hard drive. Be sure to delete any partitions and you coud even use a third party zero fill utility (although that latter is probaby going overboard). Then reinstall. If that still doesn't work I would again suggest looking to the headphone jack itself or the wiring as the cause of the problem. sorry if that's not helpful, I'm kinda shooting in the dark considering all the previous problems.

 

[ryubahamut]

i just saw this thread, and while i have no whiff as to what might have caused CardsOfTheHeart's headphones to not work, i have one small bit of advice.

do not go for a zero fill utility. formatting is fine, LLF isn't.

 

[afireohno]

do not go for a zero fill utility. formatting is fine, LLF isn't.

Using a zero fill and Low Level Formating aren't exactly the same thing.
Sometimes a zero fill can be the only way to get rid of an extremely nasty boot sector virus. It's a bit like burning down your house to get rid of termites: you lose everything on the drive.

 

[ryubahamut]

while they might not be the same thing in the present context, both affect the disk on a low level. differences aside, however, i'd still not recommend it being done, not even as a last resort, owing to rather unpleasant experiences upon having done it.

also, while it seems to be a silly suggestion, did you check if the new driver has made a separate entry for headphones under volume control? start volume control, options > properties, check every check box with the option button saying playback selected, click OK, check if there's an entry for headphones, and check if it is muted/zeroed.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I'll tell you right now that my computer ended up in the state it was in because I got some files in my Windows folder corrupted when I unplugged and turned the computer off while Vista was updating. (Yeah, I didn't understand the consequences of it, at the time.) I couldn't System Restore it, restore it from a backup (I couldn't get it backed up at the time, anyway.), Startup Repair it nor format it. I had to borrow a friend's copy of DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) to get rid of the files.

I was able to make the headphones work before the mishap; I just don't remember if I first started using them before or after the computer got hit with the Renos virus attack...

As for ryubahamut's suggestion, I'm not in a position to make that check, yet, but I'll look at it when I get home and edit this post with the results.

EDIT: I am officially out of ideas. Vista does not have the exact same commands as XP (Duh!), but it does have a handy list of playback devices. However, each playback device doesn't have a headphone entry.

...As far as I know, I have to have analog playback enabled on my DVD-ROM drive to listen to headphones, but my drive doesn't have that option. If only I knew of a way to make it so that the internal speakers aren't disabled when headphones are in the analog jack...

 

[justdoinmythang]

I've got an annoying problem that has plagued me for a couple of weeks and I really need help on it. My laptop started to run very slowly recently and I've found out that my cpu usage had been on a constant 100%. Only when I'm on a empty desktop that it drops to 0%. Opening the explorer or even a folder would jump start it to 50%, so playing games like WoW is definitely out of the question. I've consulted my friends and they told me that I might be running too many processes, but I've check and the process that took up the most mem usage was iexplorer.exe, only at a mere 50,264k, not excessive I reckon. I also ruled out the possibility of not having enough disk space as I have defrag/disk cleanup many times already and has been able to run my laptop more smoothly with probably half the diskspace I have right now. I also doubt that the problem are viruses or spywares as I have fully scanned my laptop numerous times already and deleted every suspicious object they detected. I've tried everything I can and am very desperate right now (lost count of the raids I missed) so I would greatly appreciate any help, thanks!

 

[gorgie]

Hi Smogon. Help?

It seems my browsing privileges have been slightly, fuck slightly, drastically decreased since yesterday, when i tried watching a flash video on some random website my friend linked me to, and of course it failed to load. At the bottom of the video tray it says "You need to upgrade your Flash Player to at
least version 8 to view this video content." Funny thing is, according to "Add/Remove Programs," i have the latest Flash Player (9 that is), Adobe Flash Player and Plugin all installed; Active Scripting is also enabled in Internet Options, as well as "Scripting of java applets." (if that's necessary)
Not only that, when i tried clicking in on the sumo volleyball link at www.shizmoo.com, the little popup window failed to......pop up ;\. Yes I do get that the shizmoo server is down at the moment but that's not the case here, the little pop-up window doesn't appear; even when i try opening it in a new tab/window it only appears as a "Blank Page." I can't even click the "Find Next" button when i try to perform a Ctrl + F for christ's sake; the button seems to be disabled or some shit. Even in the Quick Reply box, i can't click any of the icons (i.e ": jump: and : happybrain:" smileys etc.) one would use to enhance his/her post if so desired.

I really don't get it. Is there some possible connection among all these things? Is it a virus or something? I've been troubleshooting for the past day or so and i still haven't been able to muster up a logical solution to this whole bangarang. Meh, this is dumb.

All help appreciated, and thanks in advance.

EDIT: Fucking WMP won't even open ;\ ("An internal application error has occurred")

EDIT2: Just to clarify, my main/current browser is IE7 (upgraded yesterday from IE6 thinking that was the prob.), and the problems i listed occurred w/ both browsers. (ie6 and 7) So with that in mind i decided to download a beta version of Firefox and test all those problems. Everything worked perfectly, from the flash videos right down to the icons in the Quick Reply box o.0. Lol this is odd as fuck.

 

[Justin8649]

long story about high CPU percentage

Your CPU is just old. How long have you had it? If it isn't that old, it was running too hot. So basically...whatever..it's just fried. Build a new computer or replace the CPU if the motherboard isn't too outdated.

I have a virus!

Definitely sounds like a virus..post all of the processes in the Processes tab for ALT+CTRL+DEL

 

[gorgie]

Image Name

firefox.exe
Limewire.exe
iexplore.exe
wuauclt.exe
GoogleToolbarNot....
SkypePM.exe
svchost.exe
wscntfy.exe
ctfmon.exe
NMBgMonitor.exe
svchost.exe
msnmsgr.exe
mirc.exe
spoolsv.exe
OpWareSE4.exe
apdproxy.exe
jusched.exe
hkcmd.exe
igfxtray.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
alg.exe
explore.exe
taskmgr.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
Skype.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
NMIndexStoreSvr...
NMIndexingServic...
System
System Idle Process

 

[Justin8649]

http://www.file.net/process/opwarese4.exe.html

If you do not have ScanSoft or OmniPage...that is your problem.

If that file is legit, then all of your processes look fine, but sometimes a virus can infect multiple applications/folders...so you may have to result to formatting your HD..

 

[gorgie]

Yeah, i do have ScanSoft :(

...and i accidentally "End Process'd" OpWareSE4.exe; same shit though, nothing changed ;\

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I have an annoying little issue with Microsoft Excel. I'm not getting my hopes up that anyone here can help me, though, but it's worth a shot.

You know what a MODE is, right? A statistical MODE? Anyway, Excel's MODE function returns the most frequently occuring number in a set of numbers. The problem with the function? A set of numbers can have more than one mode, but the MODE function only returns the first one.

Does anyone know of a way to show more than one mode of a data set? (Everything else I've tried does the same thing as the MODE function. Damn those arrays...)

EDIT: I don't need the answer anymore, but if anyone wants to tell me for future reference, then go right ahead.

 

[AzNGooK]

Alright, well my laptop is pretty much really bi-polar -_-. One day, the internet can run really fast and gives me no problems but on other days, it decides to be super slow, not display internet pages, and be a complete bitch. (It's only slow on the internet, all the other programs run fine)

I think it's probably because people share my internet via wireless connection (I live in an apartment complex so there's plenty of possible candidates to be connected to me) because I think it's unsecure, there's no WEP code or whatever. (I'm so bad with comps) If it is because of that, how do I set one up? If not, then what is the problem?

 

[Chronos]

I'm having problems booting up....
Every once in a while, it says it can't find autochk.
I think my compy has partitioned the memory.
Is this a big problem?

 

[Krul]

God, we set up a wired network a few months ago, and for the past month something weird keeps happening. My Internet keeps shorting out. It happens randomly, sometimes not at all that day, sometimes every 20 or so minutes, in no set pattern. It gets frustrating when I sign off msn, and then it says it can't sign me back in for 10-15 minutes. What the hell is the problem? I'm not really giving much information, but my computer is connected to another in a different room, using the same wired internet and a router.

 

[Itachi 2007]

I screwed our computer up a few days ago, our computer is Windows XP, btw. We used the recovery disk and everything, I can download other stuff, but I can't download Shoddy Battle. Anyone know why?

 

[timw06]

@Itachi: Because you haven't got Java installed.

 

[SkarmBliss]

sometimes my laptop can't connect to the internet(wireless) its not the network, coz my sister's laptop can connect, though mines can't at times. Also sometimes the moniter goes funny, like someone's shaking it. Help me plz.

 

[Cruiselax]

If you got a router, mabe its limiting the amout ip addresses its allowed to give out, try changing the options on router.

changing your mac address to the same as you sisters can also help, go download a program called SMAC, its byfar the best mac editor on the market. ( download it via torrent )

 

[Gmax]

I have this weird problem because of which I can't view my hidden files. I open the Folder Options window, move to View, and check Show Hidden Files. I press Apply/OK w/e and no matter what it refuses to show them. I close the window, reopen the the Folder Options and I find the Show Hidden Files option still unchecked. Any idea what is happening? I'm using Kaspersky BTW, and it doesn't show any viruses.

 

[X-Act]

I've started to have this problem recently.

When I download something from IE7, or view a Youtube or an otherwise streaming video, iexplore.exe goes to 100% CPU usage. I checked my system for viruses or spyware and it is clean. When I download something using FlashGet, the CPU usage works normally, i.e. doesn't go to 100% usage. Viewing an already downloaded video also does not cause this problem. It seems like it is caused when I download something large using IE7.

I checked online for fixes and it seems like other people are having my same problem recently, some even with FireFox as well as IE7, yet no answer was really satisfying. All the answers were to the tune of 'remove some of your startup files', but I'm sure that's not the problem as downloading used to work fine until a few days ago, and I haven't installed anything new recently. How can I fix this problem?

 

[chaos]

clear your browser cache and list of recently downloaded things in IE

 

[X-Act]

clear your browser cache and list of recently downloaded things in IE

You mean delete cache and history? I did that and the problem is still there. :(

 

[chaos]

You mean delete cache and history? I did that and the problem is still there. :(

There used to be a problem with the Firefox download manager where if you had too many links in the "history" of the download manager it would slow down every download. I think that's been fixed, but who knows, maybe the same problem happens in IE. Guess not.