PC Troubleshooting/Advice Thread - Have a problem with your PC? Ask here!

[Organic_Shadow]

I don't have your particular sound card so this is just from what I found online.


I'm assuming the last step is changed from the Control Panel > Sound area? I'm not too sure. Here's the link if you want to see it: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=103542

Thanks. I think I might have accidentally fixed the problem on my own.

I was trying to play an old PC game (Divine Divinity) and the music/ambient sounds were not playing, only sound effects were. I found a fix online saying to go to the sound settings in Control Panel, go to where the hardware acceleration slider is, and make it one notch below full hardware acceleration.

Not only does the music/ambient sounds in my game work, but since then I have rebooted at least 5 times and the speaker settings have yet to switch back to 2/2.1.

As a bonus, my friend gave me a 5.1 speaker system he didn't want anymore. Bought some fancy expensive 2.1 system and I guess didn't have any space for the surround speakers on the one he gave me.

[softtack]

Does anyone here know of any good free disk defragmenters available for download?

I really like Diskeeper, but it's not free. It can be found free in some places though...

Thanks. I think I might have accidentally fixed the problem on my own.

I was trying to play an old PC game (Divine Divinity) and the music/ambient sounds were not playing, only sound effects were. I found a fix online saying to go to the sound settings in Control Panel, go to where the hardware acceleration slider is, and make it one notch below full hardware acceleration.

Not only does the music/ambient sounds in my game work, but since then I have rebooted at least 5 times and the speaker settings have yet to switch back to 2/2.1.

As a bonus, my friend gave me a 5.1 speaker system he didn't want anymore. Bought some fancy expensive 2.1 system and I guess didn't have any space for the surround speakers on the one he gave me.

That's good to hear, I'm glad you got your problems fixed. I had major problems myself when I switched from 2.1 to 5.1, all because I couldn't find one program.

[Playstation_3]

WTF "800:1 contrast ratio and 16 millisecond typical response time for distortion-free, sharp images"
16 milliseconds talk about LAG

This monitor is about 267 euros
Link
I think that is a good price...and its a 20.1 inch screen.[/list]

[Snow_Spartan]

Hi,

my pc for some reason has locked my Windows task manager button when i press CTRL ALT DEL any ideas?. i just switched my PC on a couple of days ago and this big red X was in my taskbar shown here in this screen shot

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...att/PCDesk.jpg

so when i press CTRL ALT DEL i just get the option to click task manager put its in grey text so i can't click it if that makes sense

i ran my SPYBOT Destroyer thing and i cleared some Spyware off my comp but the red circle X thing is still there

i also sometimes get messages like this...

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...tt/PCDesk2.jpg

any ideas about this... yes i am a PC noob and yes i have a ****ty Windows 2000 PC :P

thanks

Matt

[ninjaboy]

Is there any way to customize the color scheme of my computer (besides the stupid olive green and silver) without changing the style to classic?

[ninjaboy]

Hi,

my pc for some reason has locked my Windows task manager button when i press CTRL ALT DEL any ideas?. i just switched my PC on a couple of days ago and this big red X was in my taskbar shown here in this screen shot

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...att/PCDesk.jpg

so when i press CTRL ALT DEL i just get the option to click task manager put its in grey text so i can't click it if that makes sense

i ran my SPYBOT Destroyer thing and i cleared some Spyware off my comp but the red circle X thing is still there

i also sometimes get messages like this...

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...tt/PCDesk2.jpg

any ideas about this... yes i am a PC noob and yes i have a ****ty Windows 2000 PC :P

thanks

Matt

Do you mean that you can't open Task Manager to get rid of the annoying program in the corner?

If that's the case, then first try downloading and running Ad-aware, which you can get here: http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-200...ml?tag=lst-0-1

Oops, I accidentally double posted

[Snow_Spartan]

i can see task manager on the windows security screen when i press CTRL ALT DEL but its in grey like its disabled or something

and im downloading that program now thanks

[PS3 rocks]

ok, i've been asking around here every few months in the wake of my new PC. Now finally I have a set date when I'm finally getting it.

So it's basically going to be like this.

Processor: Q6700 1066FSB 2.66ghz Intel Quad Core

Motherboard: GA-P35-DS3 (1333FSB, PCI Ex, Raid)

RAM: 2GB (2 x 1GB DDR2 PC667)

Video card: 8800GTX Gigabyte 768MB, PCI Ex

So basically yeah, i've got something like 3,500 Australian to spend. I guess that's like 2.5k-3k US.

I really only want suggestions, what would make it better what not to buy that sort of thing.

It's being built at some local shop and this is basically their maxium specs avaliable. I don't think the RAM is that good, I don't really know though so any suggestions would be appreciated.

The whole point of it is to run Crysis on max settings. So if you could write what needs to be better to be able to achieve this I would really appreciate it.

One last thing, is a 8800GTX good enough or is better to wait for the 8950GTX or 9800 cards? I'm not getting this until febuary anyway. I also have a fair flexible budget.

[skeets]

if your not getting this till febuary then wait, as there will be better card out then. the 8800 ultra is better than the gtx at the moment. your mobo definatly change, get your self a sli one, just incase in the future you decide to you want to get another card ( you will regret it if you dont. if you want the best get either

Asus Maximus Formula SE Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

or a

EVGA nForce 680i SLi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

or a
sus Striker Extreme nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

imo there the best three at the moment.

i would really wait until last minute, espicially when spending thaty amount of money as technology moves fast and so do prices. wait a couple of wks before and then decide to get the best deal possible.

[hired goon]

so yeah i just got a hp desktop with a normal vga out jack, my lcd tv has a d-sub in jack and it says in the manual that this is for pc's, now i've been looking around on google for about 2 hours and i cant figure out if d-sub and vga are the same thing(both being 15 pin) or not also d-sub and vga cables all have male/female ends, what the hell do i need ?? any help would be greatly appreciated

[softtack]

D-Sub and VGA are the same thing. Plug away!

[hired goon]

D-Sub and VGA are the same thing. Plug away!

aight thats cool, but what about the male/female ends? shoud i get male to male, male to female, or female to female, thanks for tha help

[softtack]

I believe you should get the male/male ends. I know that the VGA-Out on your video card is female (so you need a male plug) but I'm not sure about your monitor. Make sure you check before you buy.

Male has the pins. Female has the holes.

[hired goon]

I believe you should get the male/male ends. I know that the VGA-Out on your video card is female (so you need a male plug) but I'm not sure about your monitor. Make sure you check before you buy.

Male has the pins. Female has the holes.

thanks man, ill check my tv now, yup female 15 pin(i shouda figured that one out by myself but imma pc newb and kinda stonded right now) off too monoprice to get a male/male vga cable, can anyone tell me why some people call them d-sub, hd15, svga, and vga?? not making it easy on us newbs lol

[Behemoko]

thanks man, ill check my tv now, yup female 15 pin(i shouda figured that one out by myself but imma pc newb and kinda stonded right now) off too monoprice to get a male/male vga cable, can anyone tell me why some people call them d-sub, hd15, svga, and vga?? not making it easy on us newbs lol

Good question.

D-sub stands for just about every connector that deals with pins. The other terms are more specific.

HD15/vga/svga are the names of the 15 pin slot, but I don't know why there are multiple names for the same thing.

[kirkus516]

sorry about this but just a quick question.
the other day i changed a setting in my laptop its running vista 32bit because the hard drive noise was bugging me and i basically turned the speed down but now the slowness is bugging me lol and i cant find the setting again, any ideas where i found that?

thank you

[softtack]

I'm not exactly crystal with what you're saying but you could always try to change the "Power Options" under the Control panel. I believe that drop down box has Power Saver, Balanced and High Performance. Or if you remember what you changed, you can revert it back to the original settings.

[kirkus516]

i no i cant b crystal clear cause i cant remember what the setting was. i tried there but it wasnt the one id managed to find.

thanks anyway

[booterkingpro]

if ya pc is slowing down on start up turn of ya system restore everytime u start up its takes more memory from your hard drive mine got to 9gb before i remebered it was still on so i turned it off

[booterkingpro]

oh and btw get rid of vista microsoft is getting rid of it and bringing out longhorn which they were ment to bring out instead of vista its betta than vista they say i shud hope so after the **** yps theyve had wid vista

[MavSkipper]

just fyi... Longhorn was the codename for Vista(Longhorn was used on beta builds) so it's more-or-less the same OS

[skyline_2k7]

intel or amd processors? which is better for gaming? and what is better ATI or Nvidia...
also is it worth it to buy a quad core or should i stick with my AMD 4600+

[GuitarrassDeAmor]

Intel. Get a Quad (Unless you are going AMD quads....they blow). I like ATI better.....better bang for the buck. Nvidia is probably better performance wise though.

[darkkevin]

I buy Crysis but i can only play whit low detail i wanna play at high and or very high i have an a ADM athlon 5000+ whit 2 gig ddr2 memory ati radeon x11650se graphique card my dvd reader is 12 x so this is ok if i buy 2 more gig of ram and a new video card hd at 292$ you the best do you think am gonna play at high or very high if you more information about my pc ask to me

[MavSkipper]

I doubt that adding 2GB more ram would help improve the framerate but changing the videocard definitely will

I recommend getting one of the nvidia 8800-series but you might want to look up on ATI cards as well
You most probably wont be able to play crysis @ very high details with a $292 videocard though... my guess is medium to high?(I don't have crysis)