The IT thread

I just had a " moment" when reading the venting topic.

This is a call to all of you computer geeks, network and hardware experts who can spare a few minutes of your time to help out your fellow fandalorians in need. I know a certain amount of computer tips but can't bring the solution to every problem so here is a shout out to those who actually can.

First of all, this is Meshla Runi's graphics issue

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Turns out the $2000 "gaming" laptop my father bought me as a graduation present last year is notorious for overheating. Pretty much everything I try to play now crashes the computer. I could try to send it in or get a cooling fan, but the chance that either of those will do anything to help is slim. I'm so frustrated right now; the computer has these great specs and it can't handle them because the damn fan doesn't work right or w/e.

*Tears out hair and screams* Okay better now...a little.

I'm thinking maybe it's a graphic driver issue or wrong fan settings on the motherboard (is that even how it's done?) or even outdated motherboard drivers. Runi if you could tell us the specs of your laptop it would be great.

And this is Anecdote's internet problem:

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Let's see... today my internet has been on and off. It's making it very difficult to pursue my hobbies without a reliable connection. I've also had to place my sister's laptop under a system freakin scan to see if whatever's making it slow has to do with hardware and not software like we originally thought (which I severely doubt, but without any clear hints to the real problem, there's no way of knowing). Hopefully we (my brother and I) can fix the damn thing. We can't find the discs we need to reformat, and Vista is such a pain to set up.

Bleh.

It turns out it's a wireless network problem. Anyone got some theories?

Oh hey, thanks for starting this for us and all. Um, I'd give you the specs but I'm pretty sure the point is moot now. My fiance did a little digging (he's actually in college to become an IT guy haha), and he found that the overheating is a common problem with my computer model. There was recall on it because of it, but only if the screen wouldn't come on would they fix it for free or w/e. Evidently, there's a problem with the bios that causes the fan to stop working over time, which obviously leads to much greater issues as things inside the computer melt.

HP released a patch to supposedly "fix" said bios malfunction, but when my fiance installed it and tried to reboot, the screen wouldn't come back on. According to several help boards, I'm not the only one who has been having these problems and the only thing I can really do now is send it in. Luckily there shouldn't be anything wrong with the hard-drive so I shouldn't really lose anything. (Thank goodness; if I lost all my stuff again I think I would have to flip...)

All that's left to do now is to call HP and bitch until they fix it.

I was having a lot of wireless problems a couple of weeks ago, and my boyfriend was having some too. I don't know if maybe you're having the same problems as I have, Anecdote, but here's all the stuff we did:

- Checked our modem/router. My boyfriend ended up having to get a new one. Ours had a loose connection... somewhere. Hmm I'm already super helpfel. :p

- Checked with our ISP. Our network only allows four IP addresses to connect at a time, and we have quite a few computers. We were thinking someone from the neighborhood was stealing it, so we put a password on it and that seemed to help.

I think that's all. There was also something about the wires going from our modem to the wireless port that I didn't understand. Like I said, I'm soooo helpful with this. Good luck all the same! And good luck to you too, Mesh!

Ours is a secure wireless network, and so far it normally works just fine most days. It's just every once in a while... drop drop drop drop. As far as I can tell its some kind of outside interference, but I haven't been able to get to the bottom of it.

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Ours is a secure wireless network, and so far it normally works just fine most days. It's just every once in a while... drop drop drop drop. As far as I can tell its some kind of outside interference, but I haven't been able to get to the bottom of it.

Hi Anecdote!

Not that this helps, but we have the same problem with our ISP/modem dropping. It's like it works fine for a while and then all of a sudden, there's just no connection no matter how many times we reboot the modem and the computer. We just came to the conclusion that sometimes we have to simply be patient and wait for it to come back on.

You wouldn't happen to have Verizon DSL, would you? If you do, then it's certainly got to be something with their equipment/serivce, but my husband just hasn't been able to figure out what yet. I know that when he's absolutely frustrated, he gets on the phone with their tech people, and they walk through different things to try.

If you don't have Verizon, then I'm at a loss. I'm not very tech savvy...just frustated at times.

I'm about 90% certain it's either the ISP, or just the local area's wiring outside. If restarting the modem / computers don't work then it's usually out of your/our hands, lol

We don't have Verizon though, sorry But we'll likely be switching over to their service sometime soon (within the next few months) It's not the first time that I've heard people have problems with Verizon DSL, but honestly I'd rather have difficulties with connecting than pay an obscene price every month for the same service that seems to be only slightly more reliable.

Something came up yesterday as it was getting very warm due to the summer approaching, it turns out my graphics card (GeForce 8800 GT) was riding the Intel Core 2 Quad pretty badly and some overheating caused my system to shut down while running 3D games, in this case Call of Duty 4.

The solution, cleaning out all the dust gathered on the cooling fans, which is yuck (80% of dust is..... human skin) and by doing that I noticed that the main fan on the processor was falling off the motherboard.



Luckily I tightened everything up and will have to check on that in a few days if it keeps getting warmer.

Geek lesson of the day: computers require maintenance!