JCC Offical Computer Help Thread V2.0

As some of you might know from this thread, I got a Toshiba Satellite laptop for Christmas and its been a huge pain in regards to staying connected to my wifi.

Toshiba tech support insisted that the problem was with my 8 year old router and that the router simply wasn't compatible with Windows 8. As some of you suggested, I upgraded the router's firmware but the problem persists. In addition to this, we'd gotten my fiancee's father (who's staying with us) a HP laptop with Windows 8 for Christmas...the HP has had no issues with the wifi (thereby calling Toshiba's BS).

After a series of phone calls with tech support, the last support rep announced that he could fix my problem but that he'd have to charge me $159 for "advanced tech support." He implied that I must've screwed up the settings somehow and that he'll have to walk me through undoing whatever mistake I supposedly did (srsly?).

I countered with, "By that logic, I can just reset the PC to factory settings and pay you nothing."

He conceded and I'm now in the process of Refreshing Windows 8 (as reading up on an actual reset had me worried about whether or not I'd need the Windows 8 disc--something that wasn't included with the PC).

Anyway, here goes...


Oh, and I'm typing this from the ever-reliable Asus that I bought my fiancee last year...definitely thinking of simply returning the Toshiba for an Asus too.

 

You would either have a system restore partition or DVD included with the laptop, with a set procedure on how to do it.

 

The only thing that came in the Toshiba box was the AC adapter, a "quick start" manual and a warranty documentation. =/


Anyway, the Windows 8 Refresh feature seemed to do the trick. I'm using the wifi right now. Hopefully it stays that way.

 

Very bizarre problem on a MacBook Pro lap top. The mouse tracking pad has been severely malfunctioning. It jumps around on its own without my input, and does not register entirely when one tries to manipulate it as normal. Occasionally it will do things to whatever windows or programs are open, rather than merely moving the cursor. I understand Macs are supposed to be able to do this (a completely terrible, stupid feature for precisely this reason) but I'm not doing anything to toggle those functions and they are kicking in on their own at random intervals. Nor do I have much control over being able to switch the function back to normal guidance of the cursor arrow. The most peculiar thing is that it initially functions correctly after the laptop is turned on, and malfunction seems to grow progressively worse the longer the computer is on. It typically only lasts about 20 minutes. This has been happening for less than 12 hours.

Any idea what this could be? Or rather, how to fix it?

I'm also just obliged to say I've never had any problem of this sort with a normal computer before. Macintosh computers are an awful lie, and no end of trouble. I didn't even understand that computers could be such a source of stress and frustration until this awful thing came in my possession. If you've never owned anything by this company, you are deeply fortunate. Keep it that way.

 

I'm looking for an efficient(/effective!) budget laptop. Recommend me something awesome!

Oh--some guidelines. I can't afford anything above $400, I'd like to have a CD drive (just cuz), and I love Windows 8.

 

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ptop-this-weekend-what-should-i-get.50003292/

 

Give me your MacBook Pro laptop, Wocks.

 

I consider you too much a friend to do something so hateful.

Also, whatever was wrong sort of spontaneously resolved later that day.

 

I have a problem! I'm using Win7 and I've got my libraries all set up properly. They were working fine a few days ago and when I open them in Explorer everything shows up. The problem I'm having is that the videos and pictures in the libraries won't show up in Windows Media Player or Windows Media Centre. I'm not too worried about Windows Media Player but I use Windows Media Centre to stream videos to my xbox. I tried deleting all the .wmdb files and I tried re-indexing my computer, but neither of those worked.

 

What do you folks recommend for online storage, preferably free?

 

Get an external drive. They're not that expensive, and they have a much higher capacity than any "free" "cloud storage" you could find.

 

www.dropbox.com

If you're storing something important, make sure there's another copy somewhere other than an external drive. I've had people bring me more broken external drives than I could count, and data recovery is expensive.

 

Yeah I'm mainly thinking of if my house burns down and I loose all my photos. I have other things I'd like to store too, but I'd feel better knowing my truly irreplaceable stuff had another home.

I do need a new external drive though -- I have a seagate but it's on the fritz. Any recs?

 

Western Digital is what I typically use, mainly because I've had good experience with their support. Most consumer-grade computers, accessories and networking gear is pretty hit or miss IMO.

 

In a corporation's giant server farm.

 

I've heard a lot of good things about Carbonite and Mozy, both are paid services, but then Dropbox isn't exactly meant for long term storage whereas Carbonite and Mozy are designed for such things. At work, the servers I admin are backed up both in house and to a cloud provider. That sort of a setup may be impractical for home users at the moment but the day may soon come where it is practical and affordable.

 

Get something like this > http://www.misco.co.uk/product/Q262729/Freecom-DualDrive-Network-Center-kit-2-Bay-NAS-Enclosure

I've not used that model but the key thing is that it has two hard drive slots.

Put two identical hard drives in and one hard drive will mirror the other, giving you fault tolerance should one of the drives fail. If a drive does fail, simply replace it and the mirror will rebuild.

 

While putting drives in a RAID 1 array adds an extra layer of protection, it still isn't bullet proof. It's always best to keep an additional backup at another location when irreplaceable data is involved. Dropbox is good for storing a few files and pictures. (Which is what I thought KissMeImARebel was looking for at first.) Something like Carbonite would be best for backing up large amounts of data.

 

Does anybody know what updates are causing Windows Vista and 7 computers to crash?

 

I keep having a Rundll32 error on my main computer and it died. Any help?

 

Did you just update, out of curiosity?

KB 2817630, KB 2810009, KB 2760411, KB 2760588, and KB 2760583

 

Ramza Are you talking to me (I did update before my computer died)?

 

Lazy Storm Trooper I believe the issue is your update.