Computer Help

[Main Street]

I'm having a bit of a laptop problem - it's a 16 month old HP 625. It's a good wee laptop but there's a few things giving me bother at the minute:

1) A few keys of stopped working (escape, control in the bottom left of the keyboard, tab and some audio/video control buttons)

2) The speakers have kind of packed in. If I plug in earphones the sound works through them. Also, the sound still works for Skype. And to add some more confusion... If I play something using media player, for example, the speakers don't work. However, if I initiate the Skype audio test then I hear the Skype test coming through the speakers as well as the audio playing on media player. Very strange.

These problems both started happening around the same time. I've tried everything I could with it (having checked round google) but couldn't fix it. I tried updating various drivers but still couldn't fix it. In the end I reinstalled Windows 7 but the problems are all still there. Has anyone ever had anything like that before?

Could there be a lose connection causing the keyboard issue? I've read around and it seems the keys are wired up in blocks and that can happen sometimes.

For the speakers, does it sound like they've packed in? I can't see how it's anything other than a hardware issue following a completely fresh install of the OS. Or could there be an internal connection problem there too?

The most common cause for keyboard key malfunction is spilled liquid. Less likely is that some object has fallen in there to jam the connection. 

If you hear Skype loud and clear through your speakers that means they are still working.
Try VLC to play any file (music or video) and select the VLC preference for audio device ->  internal speakers,
otherwise it 'sounds' like a freaky problem.

[Denn Forever]

Does anyone know of any decent laptop deals? I am looking at getting a new one for Christmas. It would be just for everyday stuff - the internet, music, photos - so I am thinking around the £300 mark

Have you looked at Netbooks?  They'll do everything you've outlined.  I am currently using a Samsung N110 for the last 3 years and only now is the battery not holding it's charge. 

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

Will they work fine for printing and that Denn?

[Tony Baloney]

Piles of laptops about around the £300 mark. Have bought an Advent for my ma for Christmas.

[Denn Forever]

Will they work fine for printing and that Denn?

I've had no problems. Have used it with 2 different printers (Dell) and they  have had the drivers.  I assume so as I just pluged them in and they worked.

[Hardy]

I'm having a problem getting HTML5 to work in IE9. It showed up as a failure to execute the <video> tag. <video> works fine in Firefox, Opera and Safari but I just got a blank screen in IE. Then I ran the HTML5 compatibility test at http://html5test.com and I also got a blank screen in IE, so it's more than the <video> tag that's at issue.

I've reinstalled IE – no joy. I'm presuming it never worked but I'm not sure - I hadn't tried it before and I don't normally use IE.

One possibly relevant item – my Chrome crashed a little while ago (before this problem arose) and I can't reinstall it. I've uninstalled everything and downloaded the latest install, but it crashes when I try to install it. I haven't had the time to figure out how to fix this, but I wonder could there be a link?

Any ideas?

[Main Street]

I assume you uninstalled Chrome using the Control Panel utility,  prior to reinstalling?
If so, and it still didn't work, the first thing I would try is to manually uninstall Chrome from everywhere, before reinstalling.

If you need to, look up instructions on how to do the manual uninstall of Chrome.

[Hardy]

Thanks, MS, I did that and was able to install Chrome. However, as soon as I ran the newly installed version it crashed again. After I uninstalled Chrome and before reinstalling, I checked and the HTML5 problem was still there in IE9.

I don't know if there's a link (and I don't know what it could be) between the two problems. I can live without Chrome (though I'm worried about what could be causing it to crash and I need to sort that out at some stage), but I need the website to work with IE.

[Main Street]

My first (uneducated) guess would be that the 2 issues are separate, I don't use Windows that much.
Trying to find out why a Chrome crash issue persists even after a manual uninstall has been performed, could be a frustrating and distracting experience and not help you with your main issue.

Here's one user's experience on the >video<  tag issue with IE9 and html5
IE9 AND THE MYSTERY OF THE BROKEN VIDEO TAG
http://geekswithblogs.net/Wessty/archive/2011/03/13/ie9-and-the-mystery-of-the-broken-video-tag.aspx

[nifan]

Hardy you could try  uninstalling the chrome again then try running a tool like ccleaner - it has a tool which will try to check the registry for rogue entries etc.

[Hardy]

Thanks lads. I'll get back to this over the weekend.

[tyssam5]

Realistically what GB IPad do you need - is the basic 16 too small?

16GB definitely too small. I've one and it annoys me that I didn't spend the extra money

What do you store on it? Don't think I've anything on mine. Watching online TV and web surfings about all I do on it.

[supersarsfields]

Been looking at Laptops around the £300 mark as well. Was looking at these two. For my mum so will just be for browsing and the odd letter. any reccommendations? Or indeed any other good offers?

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/asus-x501a-xx277h-15-6-laptop-white-17056518-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~Laptops+%26+Netbooks~17056518

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/acer-aspire-v5-571-refurbished-15-6-laptop-silver-17291947-pdt.html

[Cold tea]

You can't beat dell

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=n0015m32&model_id=inspiron-15-3520&c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

If you take all the standard items when going through this, including 15 months security, 1 year warranty etc it's 29 quid more expensive that your refurb.

[FL/MAYO]

Interesting show on NPR yesterday about online security

http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=16963