Computer Help

[Tony Baloney]

Harddrives fail more frequently than you'd think. Save the few extra pence and buy it new. Make sure you back it up too. I had 2 brand new hardrives fail on me in the last 6 months and they were both top end models.

I'm buying one to backup my laptop which is a sitting duck at the minute if it crashes. Do I have to backup my backup? When can I stop?!

[Tony Baloney]

This should be an easy one.

I had the laptop rigged up for watching Sky Go on the TV via a HDMI cable - usually I dragged the screen I wanted to use off the right hand side of the screen and it appeared on the TV. When I hooked it up today I had to go through the whole setup again for some reason and when I was finished and disconnected the cable and my laptop display went black and it was a session getting it back again. This didn't happen before so have to assume I didn't set it up correctly.

Someone want to tell me what the correct setup is in Control Panel > Display >Screen Resolution in terms of Display, Multiple Displays etc!

Much appreciated...

Bump

[blewuporstuffed]

Anyone know how I can recover data off an external hard drive? It just comes up that it needs formatted when I plug it in. Have a lot of photos  and stuff on it I don't wanna loose

[Mhic Easmuint]

Anyone know how I can recover data off an external hard drive? It just comes up that it needs formatted when I plug it in. Have a lot of photos  and stuff on it I don't wanna loose

Give this a try: http://www.piriform.com/recuva

[Abble]

anyone advise on router boosters ?

have someone here asking me if their broadband signal / range can be improved. They have an outhouse/shed which doubles up as an office and they want some kind of a router booster so that internet can be got on their laptop out there. its approx 25m away from the router in the hall of their house. at the minute that signal is not strong enough to give an internet connection outside the house.

[gerrykeegan]

Lads

Broadband speed on laptop has collapsed, was 6mb down to less than 1mb, something is hogging it, when I use the mobile phone to test its at 6mb. Eircom asked had I used any torrents, Yes I said, he said that's most likely your problem. Deleted Utorrent and itorrents, no improvement, ran full scan on laptop from Mcafee package, nothing, after reading this spotted Amallon recommended combofix and ran that, no improvement.

Anyone any ideas?

[Billys Boots]

Try running Malwarebytes - free download.

[gerrykeegan]

Thanks Billy I will give that a go this evening.

[amallon]

Gerry I wouldn't be a big fan of McAfee it gets quite poor ratings in a lot of reviews.  I'd stick Avast (Free) on and let it scan.  Before you scan with avast set the sensitivity to high and tell it to scan for pups in the scan settings.

Are you using speedtest.net to test the speed?  It can be eratic at times depending on which server its testing from.  Make sure the phone and PC are using the same server. When you start a speedtest.net test you can actually pick a server on the map.

Do you have an ethernet cable for your laptop?  If so you could temporarily hardwire your laptop to the router and run the test again to eliminate any problems with the wifi on the laptop.

[nifan]

Id get ccleaner as well - its free also - it will try and clear out a load of the old files that hang round and slow things down.

How much free disc space do you have, and how much memory do you have and are you using at the time?

[Armaghgeddon]

If anyone is interested Queens University's Psychology department are selling computers cheap.

[gerrykeegan]

Gerry I wouldn't be a big fan of McAfee it gets quite poor ratings in a lot of reviews.  I'd stick Avast (Free) on and let it scan.  Before you scan with avast set the sensitivity to high and tell it to scan for pups in the scan settings.

Are you using speedtest.net to test the speed?  It can be eratic at times depending on which server its testing from.  Make sure the phone and PC are using the same server. When you start a speedtest.net test you can actually pick a server on the map.

Do you have an ethernet cable for your laptop?  If so you could temporarily hardwire your laptop to the router and run the test again to eliminate any problems with the wifi on the laptop.

Id get ccleaner as well - its free also - it will try and clear out a load of the old files that hang round and slow things down.

How much free disc space do you have, and how much memory do you have and are you using at the time?

Thanks lads, I ran Billys malwarebytes it didnt pick anything up, however the speed has immediately gone back over the 6mb

I'm going to download the ccleaner later and run that. The laptop has loads of free space 77gig, ram 4mb

Aidan is that Avast just like Mcafee? Does it do pretty much the same thing.

Thanks again I was worried the laptop was going to die and I have a tax assignment to finish!

[tbrick18]

If anyone is interested Queens University's Psychology department are selling computers cheap.

Spec? Who would you contact about them?

[amallon]

Yes Gerry supposed to do the same job but McAfee misses too much.  Don't leave both Avast and McAfee on the computer longer than necessary they will slow the pc even more..  A

[Armaghgeddon]

If anyone is interested Queens University's Psychology department are selling computers cheap.

Spec? Who would you contact about them?

Chassis: Dell Optilex 755 SFF
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200(2.66GHz,1333MHz,6MB)
Memory: 4.0GB NON-ECC DDRII Memory(4*1GB)
Hard Drive: 250GB (7,200rpm) SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Optical Drive: 8x DVD+/- RW Drive
Monitor: 19in 1908WFP UK/Irish Black Widescreen UltraSharp (1440 x 900) TCO99 DVI-D Height Adjustable
Graphics: Integrated Graphics with DVI Adapter Card (Low Profile)
Mouse and Keyboard with speakers built into system.
Operating System: Windows Vista home basic

Contact Paul Coulter: +44 (0)28 9097 4351