A thread for boring computer questions.

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My mind inserted floppy, crazy. Autosave is in appleworks, rather than in the mac.

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:49 (twenty years ago) link

cozen does have a floppy aura.

RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:51 (twenty years ago) link

It's a kind of brewer's hoop.

N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:52 (twenty years ago) link

I am now wearing a mack everywhere I go. this isn't relevant to the thread, I just don't want you to be thrown should you ever see me again. can I wear a mack with impunity?

cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:59 (twenty years ago) link

What colour is the impunity?

N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 01:00 (twenty years ago) link

the screen on my iBook keeps intermittently cutting out. sometimes when I move, sometimes not. if I give it a knock it corrects itself. or it can resume showing what was on the screen but 'dulled'. te sound remains when the screen cuts out. all the programs keep on running. this leads me to think I have a loose connection. mine is one of the early models of the iBook (2gen?, 3gen?) and someone said there was a fault with them, a design fault, which meant the screen-bus rubbed up against and got damaged by the hinge (??) or something. am I going to have to take this back by the sounds of things / get this repaired or does anyone have any other ideas. diagnoses?

cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 02:51 (twenty years ago) link

my PC laptop screen does the same. a guy once told me it was pretty easy to open up hinge-housings and fix the connection but I never have.

RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 02:54 (twenty years ago) link

is it frequent to the point of irritation?

cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 03:02 (twenty years ago) link

when it happens, yeah.

not when it doesn't.

RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 03:04 (twenty years ago) link

this is happening all the time to me. : /

does anyone believe the scene in 'all the real girls' where she breaks his heart and she keeps on saying 'I love you'?

cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 03:07 (twenty years ago) link

This isn't a question, but it is boring and about computers and if I say it anywhere else everyone will think I am a total GEEK (even more than I am), but anyway I just flashed my BIOS for no reason other than pure maintenance and now I feel all fresh and clean and up-to-date. ahhhh...

Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 06:38 (twenty years ago) link

how quaint, bios

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 06:43 (twenty years ago) link

???

was that a mac snob remark. If so I kill you with motherboards!

Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 07:01 (twenty years ago) link

Why does my PC try to connect (dial up) to the internet everytime it boots up Windows 98? I have (I think) removed the crappy Gator app GMT that I thought was doing the deed, but it's still doing it.

Any ideas?

Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 11:43 (twenty years ago) link

Help me ILXors!

First I get a Symantec pop up saying the Welchia B virus has been detected on my computer. I click OK (because there's nothing else to click). Then another Symantec box tells me that access has been denied and no action has been taken. I click OK. Then a third box pops up saying Welchia B has been deleted.

I downloaded the removal tool just to be on the safe side and it found nothing and I also ran a whole system scan which also turned up nowt. Then, 10 minutes later the three boxes pop up again.

Does anyone know why this might be happening? I disabled System Restore before using the removal tool.

Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 15:37 (twenty years ago) link

I've had the same set of three messages about four times this morning.

Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 15:38 (twenty years ago) link

Have you googled welchia B? Or gone to one of the antivirus sites? www.antivirus.com might help.

Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 15:40 (twenty years ago) link

Do I need to when I've been to Symantec? Have I been throwing my money down the drain?

Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 15:45 (twenty years ago) link

Cozen, at the moment I've got the same problems as you. If it's really a design fault they should fix it for free (one would hope). Do you have any info about Apple saying anything about this?

suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 15:46 (twenty years ago) link

Madchen, I'm talking about for info - it might tell you that it's a hoax, or that those are the symptoms of infection, or that it's harmless, etc. etc.

Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 15:50 (twenty years ago) link

HOW CAN IT BE A HOAX IF SYMANTEC HAS A FIX TOOL?

Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:02 (twenty years ago) link

AND IF THE MESSAGES ARE COMING FROM MY VIRUS SCAN SYSTEM? AAARGH!

Hem. Sorry.

Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:02 (twenty years ago) link

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=welchia+b

Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:03 (twenty years ago) link

Madchen, first of all make sure you are up to date with windows patches. Then make sure you are fully up to date with symantec. Then open the symantec application and run the scan again.

Ed (dali), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:15 (twenty years ago) link

I've done all that :-( This is a bad day, what with my heating not getting fixed as well. Oh well, I suppose if it's removing the same virus several times a day, that's better than it not being able to remove the virus at all.

Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:17 (twenty years ago) link

on the lus side welchia B is a fairly innocuous virus, it tries to patch un patched windows, still sucks though.

Ed (dali), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:22 (twenty years ago) link

Are there a lot of viruses that do good works? It appeals to my sense of fair play.

Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:25 (twenty years ago) link

not so many, but there have been a few.

Ed (dali), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:26 (twenty years ago) link

just wait till June, it'll kill itself then apparently

Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:26 (twenty years ago) link

Actually I had a similar problem with the another worm, the name I forget, where Symantec got stuck in a loop telling me that it was trying to delete the file but access was denied etc. I got pissed off with it and just Ctrl-alt-deleted and after rebooting it told me that the virus had been deleted ok. odd stuff indeed.

Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:59 (twenty years ago) link

sorry suzy, it was just a friend said that her friend experienced the same niggle and had to send off her iBook to france. I'm persevering through it right now as I have lots of work to do on this machine over the next few months. but as soon as I get through that I'm on apple's ass. keep me posted if you hear anything, please.

cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 18:05 (twenty years ago) link

I am due to take the thing apart on friday. I will report back but if you wish to do the same you need a number 8 torx screw driver.

Ed (dali), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 18:07 (twenty years ago) link

ok thanks. my dad's good at this sort of stuff. so yeah it'd be cool if you report back and I can relay any information to him.

cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 18:08 (twenty years ago) link

I found this on backlight replacement. The bulbs are really cheap but I have not yet tracked down a supplier of them in the UK. I'm hoping it wont come to that though.

Ed (dali), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 18:14 (twenty years ago) link

Now I'm having this weird problem where I'm trying to access my roommate's PC's shared folder. I go to Network, to our local network, click on his computer. It asks me for a password, and he doesn't have one, so I just click "enter" and it accepts it. Then it shows me the "SharedDocs" folder, which is right, but it ACTS as if this is just a folder on my computer -- it doesn't copy files into it, it shows that it has my hard drive's free space left,

I got this to work before. What am I doing wrong?

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 21:00 (twenty years ago) link

Oh also once I connect there doesn't seem to be a way to disconnect. I try ejecting it but it doesn't seem to do anything.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 21:00 (twenty years ago) link

the fan on my graphics card is going and makes a dreadful noise. every time i boot i have to lie under the table and encourage it with a few gentle flicks and after that it seems ok. it's kinda funny.

oh, sarah, if that mame problem you're having is due to not knowing the keys then pressing TAB will let you redefine them. might also make qbert less of a lottery.

andy

koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 23:45 (twenty years ago) link

Madchen

If you've updated your Windows patches, Symatec definitions and run the scan in safe mode, Welchia shouldn't be on your PC anymore.

A friend of mine had a similar problem where everytime they rebooted their PC they kept being told that they had MyDoom. In the end it turned out that it was their ISP's problem. An email waiting for them on their ISP's mail server contained the virus. Outlook would attempt to grab new emails, and would be stopped by Symantec. Unfortunately, Symantec would complain that the virus was on their PC, which wasn't the case. A call to their ISP sorted things out.

bert (bert), Thursday, 26 February 2004 00:03 (twenty years ago) link

AARGH

Something's wrong with my secondary hard drive, it keeps making a sort of hissing noise in fours, HISS HISS HISS HISS. HISS HISS HISS HISS. And so on. So I'm running a surface scan of it but it's hit a very rough patch of clusters that's taking forever to fix (it's been on all day so far and only 87% done, biggest problem is that the fix option has to be chosen manually). I figure if I just hit "Don't fix" this process will be faster because the data in that cluster is easily replaceable, but then will the bad cluster be marked off limits like it would if I chose "Fix"?

Rather urgent since I have stuff due tomorrow.

Leee the Whiney (Leee), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 04:13 (twenty years ago) link

And seeing as real time help is u&k, I'll be signed on AIM (Batmansascientst)

Leee the Whiney (Leee), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 04:24 (twenty years ago) link

What will happen if I select "Don't fix"? If I don't access the files the problematic areas, will I be ok? What happens if I try to delete through Windows? (Win98se)

Leee the Whiney (Leee), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 04:49 (twenty years ago) link

Under OS X 10.3 is there any need to partition my 200GB harddrive, or should I just leave it as one mammoth drive?

miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 04:51 (twenty years ago) link

you don't particularly need to but it might be convenient if you were going to use one side for mp3s and the other for another purpose

hector (hector), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 05:41 (twenty years ago) link

"side"...?

Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 16:14 (twenty years ago) link

Leee, I have almost identical problems! Right down to the "in fours" thing! Also running 98se - the main differences are: 1) It is on my Primary and indeed only HD (I did not partition and am a fule, etc) therefore the disk doctory program I downloaded advised me against installing it, and 2) I'm not in any real hurry, but scandisk crashes horribly whenever it get to those specific cluster on a full data scan (Standard scan is fine).

So, I do not know how to fix this at all :( Anyone, any advice?

Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 21:25 (twenty years ago) link

Having finished the scan, apparently there's no way of actually fixing things -- what's done is done and likely to get worse. Scandisk itself said so when it was done, something about immanent failure. All that's left is backing up whatever data you need and getting a new HD.

Leee the Whiney (Leee), Wednesday, 3 March 2004 01:52 (twenty years ago) link

and saying goodbye.

s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 3 March 2004 01:55 (twenty years ago) link

My condolences to both Leee and Gregory on the hard drives. Unfortunately, getting a new drive may be the only solution, Gregory. If you have any way of getting your important data off that computer (saving to CDs, or if you know someone with an external hard drive that can be attached by USB or FireWire...if your system has the latter), do so immediately and start pricing a new hard drive or a completely new system if your system is old enough.

Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 3 March 2004 02:04 (twenty years ago) link

this is really getting me down now. :(

any update ed / suzy?

cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 3 March 2004 03:33 (twenty years ago) link

Thanks for the quick response, y'all!

I have a cd-burner, so I guess I will get to Makin' Some Backups tonight :( Not being able to play video games is kinda what I need now, anyway, maybe.

Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 3 March 2004 03:39 (twenty years ago) link


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