Computer Help Desk ...

September 15th, 2016 at 1:40:57 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Quote: TheCesspit
Too many porn sites, some sort of virus :)
Don't be silly, that was a joke. I usually visit gourmet sites, news sites and sites dealing with the black and evil arts of medicine; never porn sites!
September 15th, 2016 at 1:53:47 PM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: Fleastiff
what is an echo dot? Why would I want one? Why would I want five of them?


I think if you buy 5 you get the 6th one free.

If you saw the movie "Her" about a man who falls in love with a computer voice who write music, then you can see the importance of having a speaker in every room.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFl6CGdaOuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7t4r2G2XCE
September 15th, 2016 at 1:59:16 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Oh, okay thanks.
I used to go to video rental stores and look at the boxes, but those stores don't exist anymore; there are only red vending machines in the hot sun.
I can't imagine such a movie but if an echo dot is a computer speaker I sure dont need to hear any more beeps that I do already or synthetic voices about paying debts.
September 15th, 2016 at 3:19:12 PM permalink
Face
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 61
Posts: 3941
@Flea - My idiot's option is to do a System Restore back to a date when it worked the way you wanted. I find stupid issues like you described is often something I did on accident, and SR usually rectifies it with little to no adverse effects. Sorry, best I can do as a Luddite.

@ my anorak friends (I kid ;)) - Thanks! $10 for an HDMI, plugged it in, turned it on, and viola! It just worked, just like that =)



'Course, that 10min is really 20hrs to make a table to fit all this, but that's my problem, and I thank y'all sincerely for allowing me it =) But other than the well deserved thanks, I've come for much more pressing matters.

First is the damn resolution, or screen size, or whatever it's called. With this new setup, my desktop is ever so slightly cut off. Not so much it's unusable, but enough so that half of my icons and the entire Start menu area is off screen. I have to mouse into "real life" (off the TV) to access it, and that's a bit annoying.

My last TV just auto corrected. First time it was ridiculous garbage, turned it off and on, and it came back perfect. This one did not do that. And messing with the resolution only made my desktop well smaller than the screen available. Any advice to make it fit perfect?

And the Really Big Problem. I've had a quirk where I get a "SATA Disk Removed, port 1, slot 1" or similar error message for some time. For background, my rig did receive a slight bit of damage when my son jumped out of the chair with headphones attached, which wrecked the USB ports (3.0? They're blue) on the front panel. This damage caused a short which totally immobilized my PC. We fixed it by simply unplugging those USB's from the motherboard, and it's worked "mostly" fine since then.

This SATA issue started with that simple error. It'd pop up, and almost immediately I could here a confirmation "DING!" that an item had been connected, at which time I'd get a notification of "SATA Disk Installed, port bleh, slot blah". As my OS is on C which is an SSD, this only affected D which has my games. If it did it mid-game, oddly there was no issue. If it did it during a load, the load would fail. Simply unplugging the SATA cable and reinserting it would usually clear the issue temporarily.

Every so often I'd go through periods of perfection, then sure enough, it'd reemerge. More faffing with the cable to get it to work, it'd work, have about 10 more instances of this over the next month or two, then it'd completely disappear again.

Well, it just started up again and it's really bad. It started by only doing it when I loaded Civ V. Any other program on that drive had no problem, but Civ V just wouldn't go. Before messing with the software, I did the same plug/unplug and it worked, just not with the same certainty. And now, just a week or so later, the D is almost impossible to access. The PC loads with the error immediately (D cannot be found, etc and so forth) and my desktop is blank save the recycle bin. Occasionally some manipulation will give me a ding and the D will come back to life, but not to the same level of confidence as previously. Now it's a several plug and unplug affair to get it to go, and there's no guarantee it holds for the duration of use, and it's almost certain that I'll have to do it again the very next time I power up.

Given the above, can anyone confidently diagnose this? I'd hate to dump hundreds into a new drive, or spend many hours rewiring, on a lark =/ Thanks in advance for any help.
Be bold and risk defeat, or be cautious and encourage it.
September 15th, 2016 at 3:40:23 PM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
I use an inexpensive HDTV as my computer monitor.

I noticed that if I use 1280 by 720 which is a standard for High Definition TV (1280 × 720 progressive scan) I lose some of the command lines on the edge of the screen. I can change the resolution to 1280 by 768 and it works.

What also works is 1280 by 800 but I notice the screen tends to flicker more. I think 1280 by 768 is more natural for the equipment.

There is a discussion of these standards in Wikipedia which may or may not interest you.


Quote: wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_display_resolution#WXGA

Additionally, two other resolutions are sometimes labelled as WXGA:

First, the HDTV-standard 1280x720 (otherwise commonly described as "720p"), which offers an exact 16:9 aspect with square pixels; naturally, it displays standard 720p HD video material without stretching or letterboxing and 1080i/1080p with a simple 2:3 downscale. This resolution has found some use in tablets and modern, high-pixel-density mobile phones, as well as small-format "netbook" or "ultralight" (not "Ultrabook") laptop computers. However, its use is uncommon in larger, mainstream devices as it has insufficient vertical resolution for the proper use of modern operating systems such as Windows 7 whose UI design assumes a minimum of 768 lines. For certain uses such as word processing, it can even be considered a slight downgrade (reducing number of simultaneously visible lines of text without granting any significant benefit as even 640 pixels is sufficient horizontal resolution to legibly render a full page width, especially with the addition of subpixel anti-aliasing).

The second variant, 1280x768, can be seen as a compromise resolution that addressed this problem, as well as a halfway house between the older 1024x768 and 1280x1024 resolutions, and a stepping stone to 1366x768 (being one-quarter wider than 1024, not one-third) and 1280x800, that never quite caught on in the same way as either of its arguably derivative successors. Its square-pixel aspect ratio is 15:9, in contrast to HDTV's 16:9 and 1280x800's 16:10. It is also the lowest resolution that might be found in an "Ultrabook" standard laptop, as it satisfies the minimum horizontal and vertical pixel resolutions required to officially qualify for the designation.


There is a $7.60 cable you can buy called a SATA to USB connection. It allows you to pull the difficult drive out of the chasis and plug it in from the outside. This solution is not as pretty, but you can jiggle the drive easier to see if there is a loose connection.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/SATA-7-15P-to-SATA-Data-7-Pin-USB-2.0-Male-Adapter-Y-Splitter-Power-Cable-55cm/46565551?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=571&adid=22222222227034230990&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=55750905818&wl4=pla-86827250978&wl5=9006934&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=111838760&wl11=online&wl12=46565551&wl13=&veh=sem

If the drive is really bad, and you have a computer less than 3 years old, check and see if it has a USB 3.0 port. This speed is comparable to the old SATA drives, and is a little less expensive to buy a thumb drive than buying a new hard drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0
September 15th, 2016 at 7:43:12 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
My system restore program is virus infected. It keeps creating waypoints but will never restore to them.
September 15th, 2016 at 8:03:13 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18631
Quote: Fleastiff
My system restore program is virus infected. It keeps creating waypoints but will never restore to them.


System Restore was great as long as I occasionally made sure to manually make some restore points. But then I got overconfident in it, and didn't do that for a long time, then it got completely FUBAR.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
September 19th, 2016 at 1:45:18 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
I managed to delete the existence of the driver and the hardware device configuration for my network access card since I was constantly losing my network access signal from the cable company due to this semi permanent local cable disconnected situation. This makes inability to restore really bad for me.
October 10th, 2016 at 2:36:11 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
This may seem simple, but I keep playing with the settings and can't get it.

How in Windows10 can I get the computer to NEVER sleep and NEVER shut down?

I am using a secondary computer as a Forex ticker to paper trade, I want to see the chart anytime I walk by. Last night I thought I had turned off the sleep function but this morning it was asleep.

Do I have to use the admin user to do this?
The President is a fink.
October 10th, 2016 at 2:45:06 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18631
Type power or power options in Cortanas box and you'll see power options result/

It should give you several options for power management once you go to the sreen settings..
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?