Plastic Nev

Hi, and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. Can you tell us please first of all, a little more about the Trojan remover, it is not one I am familiar with, and to be truthful, if you have got the name correct, a search gave me no information at all. That in itself gives me suspicions you may have a rogue. However please tell us where you got it and where from, so I or one of our other members can find out more about it. Next thing we need is to know the make and model number of your computer so we can find a source for downloading a correct driver for your sound system. Plus any information about your sound system, especially if a separate sound card. Nev.

Hi, as Match said, the backlight tube or the controller for it has gone duff. Considering he is away from home he may be able to find a repairer who can replace the backlight, it is possible without a complete replacement of the screen. Nev.

Hi Asbost, looks like you nearly slipped the net. If it is possible to obtain a new operating system disk and it does need to be to the same level of service pack such as SP2 or SP3, depending on whether you installed those service packs, then you should be able to do a repair. However, if it is XP Home, you may have trouble finding one now, though some retailers may still have a stock. Either a local store may be able to help or a look on line for one. There is another approach though if the data is important, and it will also prove if the hard drive is OK or the cause of the problem. It will involve removing the hard drive from the machine and also obtaining an adapter to connect the drive to another computer in order to get at and remove that data to the other machine. if you want to try that way first, let us know and we can help further. Nev.

Funnily enough I read about this problem update elsewhere earlier today. The rogue update only seems to be a problem on some computers and not others. I have checked my set up and that update went in without any problem, weird or what? The update concerned is- KB977165 It is supposed to be just an ordinary security patch. Nev.

Is this broken clip part of the fan itself, and does it also hold the heatsink down onto the CPU? If so is there a label and any model details on the fan and can you let us know them to help find you a replacement. I doubt even superglue will work as these plastics quite often need specialised adhesives or in some types of plastic, nothing will stick them back together. If the heatsink is held down to the CPU by a different method and separate from the fan, then you may be able to hold the fan down with an epoxy resin type of adhesive such as "Araldite" but that is only if the heatsink is separately fixed, it does need some amount of pressure onto the CPU for the heatsink to collect and get rid of the heat. Nev.

Hi christian, if you can get as far as selecting last known good configuration, even though nothing else happens, this at least proves the BIOS and perhaps very much else is working except the hard drive. Or if the hard drive is working then the operating system is corrupt. I suggest removing the hard drive now and connecting it to another computer via its USB port, there are simple adapters around fairly cheaply to allow you to do that, you just need to know whether the drive is SATA or IDE so as to get the correct adapter, also to make sure you get one suitable for the smaller laptop hard drives. Once connected you can then retrieve the data if it hasn't become corrupted, providing of course that the drive itself is still working. All of this will prove the drive is either OK or not. If it proves OK, it may just be a matter of reinstalling the operating system to get the laptop working again. Don't bother about a new battery for it till you get that far, no point getting an expensive battery if the drive is duff. Nev.

Hi just check in when you can, one of us may have answered in between as we all come and go at different times. My thoughts though are that as you have deleted various files, and provided you have your important stuff backed up elsewhere, it may be best to go back to the factory settings again. At the moment no one now really knows what is missing. If you have a full copy of the windows operating system you could try a Windows repair, but it does need the full disk and not a factory recovery disk. Let us know exactly what you have and what it says on the label of any disks you have, and we may be able to go further. Nev.

And thanks also PaulC from me for that converter, I chose to convert to MPEG2 as I have a video editor that works best with that format and it certainly did the business for me too. Paul (Maddon37s) nice loco's by the way, but I have driven steam and know which I prefer:D However if using the Windows Moviemaker I suggest selecting WMV from that drop down menu, it may be a quicker conversion, and Moviemaker will work well with that format. In my case it took two hours to convert 13 minutes of video. it was originally recorded on a friends camcorder and passed over to me on a USB flash drive. it turned out to be high definition H264 format which is a high quality Quick time large screen thing, so that is probably why it took so long to convert. Frame size is 1440X1080 and frames per second is 30. Now at standard MPEG2. Nev.

Not a Vista owner so not sure, but is there a way to set updates to a custom setting in the updates controls? If so you can hopefully then download the updates but again select custom install to untick them, then tick and install one at a time. Hope that helps. Nev.

Thanks for that Paul, I have downloaded it, and will install it later to give it a try with this high definition QT file I have. I have to go out soon, hence installing to try later. I tried searching everywhere a couple of months back to convert that file and gave up in the end, yet this program must have been there, just didn't find it. Nev.

Hi, as Grandad says, there should be a speakers output 3.5mm jack socket on your computer, and possibly the same sound input 3.5mm socket on the TV, if no 3.5mm socket on the TV there may be two RCA sockets for left and right sound, or failing that a "Scart" socket. You can get "Scart" to RCA adapters. You just need the lead to suit whichever socket types you have. Nev

Hi, from Paul's description I had a look round, and I think he means this- Free Video Converter - Any Video Converter Free Version - convert video to any formats, avi to MPEG, avi to MP4, flv to MPG I haven't downloaded to try it yet myself, but it looks promising. Nev.

Hi, glad you got sorted, it obviously must have been the raid drivers corrupted so the BIOS couldn't recognise the raid set up perhaps. That temperature is a lot too high, fine for frying eggs but not good for CPU's, do check out the fans, heatsink, and thermal paste as soon as possible, and until that is done try to avoid using it at all, if possible.

Hi, in truth these Quicktime files are a nuisance, I recently went through this problem with a similar file that I needed to edit, in order to upload it to YouTube. Without paying for the Quicktime editor there is no other choice available that I could find, and believe me I searched. Consequently that video is still useless to me as I saw no reason to buy the Quicktime editor just for one video. My advice is sell that camera and buy one that will produce video in a format that Windows Movie maker can handle. if you do decide to do that, check out any prospective new camera and make sure it is one that comes with a software bundle that includes a video editor, I did when I bought my Panasonic SD card machine. Nev.

Granted it was only a quick look, but I don't think that one will help, it looks more like a program for writing from scratch, rather than one that can read and dig out the chords from an existing piece of music. The truth is there isn't very much of any real good out there that can do that, the reasons are many, but it comes down to the fact that the processing power needed is horrendously high, so even the best available will only be able to work well with just only one instrument being played. A complete band is basically not possible for any software available to be able to sort out, recognise and then give you the tablature or even notation for any, or all instruments. There is just too much going on at once for any sort of recognition of individual sounds by such software. Plus the few that are around that work at all, they are very expensive. Tuners themselves are available I believe but it is much better ear training to tune from an existing note. Some computer sound systems have an on screen piano keyboard available with the ability to select from the sound font a few guitar sounds. It will do your ear and sense of recognition of in tune notes, a lot of good tuning each string to each keyed note. Sorry if that sounds like a music lesson, but as a musician myself, I dislike tuners, to me it is a lazy way round. Nev.

First, I am sorry that I have been absent for a while or with very little input. However most of that was because of the extra effort I had to put in to help keep the brass band in a winning form. You hopefully will be pleased to know that Darwen Brass won for a third time in contest, scoring the hat trick in the Charter theatre, The guild Hall Preston, on Sunday 7th February. There was nothing in the contest rules against someone taking video of the event, so a friend, with the help of my camcorder, took this video. I had to split it into two parts because it is longer than the You Tube allowed ten minutes in total, so the first part is here- And the second and third part is here- hope you enjoy it, Nev.

Just glad you had a good one mate, and by heck, a celebration that lasts four days, wow!! That was some birthday party. Nev.

My personal feeling is the drop in bus speed, may be irrelevant in this case, but I am no expert, there may be someone else will have a better knowledge and can reply with a better answer. Nev.

Hi Kathi, I am now a little unsure as to what you now have. Do you still have the two partitions, one with Vista, the other with XP or has the factory reset removed them and you are back to just Vista? In order to find drivers for your sound, we also do need to know the full model number of your computer, also if a separate sound card is fitted, we need to know the model number of that too. In the end though, there have been many cases here in the past where problems have come up when installing XP on a machine designed for Vista, either as a replacement for Vista, or as in this case running both on separate partitions. Also in this case all of this in order to run an older printer. Not a lot of use perhaps now, but for others thinking they don't want to spend on a new printer when they have a perfectly good one that works on XP. Sorry, but my advice is stick with Vista and buy a new printer that will run on Vista. In the end it will be cheaper. I must also ask, the version of Windows XP that you installed on the separate partition, where did you get it from? Nev.

I actually saw this a few weeks back, but it is indeed a special sort of talent that young lady has. She is of course too young to have suffered the agony of that war, yet portrays it so well in her art, the few close ups of the audience showed many in tears. To get that sort of reaction is serious talent.

A very belated happy birthday to our Randy. Sorry for missing this till now, but hope you had a good one.

Hi, everything so far looks like some sort of compatibility problem with that camera and your system. Unfortunately the company that made that camera, Meta Media, seem to be out of business, as no links I find seem to be working, therefore cannot find out much about it. The best I can do is give you a link for the software download from here- VP-EYE Software Informer: Latest version download, news and info about this MMEDIA program. webcam software. Sorry but cannot be of much help to you, other than ask you to try a different camera from another manufacturer.

Just to add Firefox have now blocked another plugin for security and stability reasons, not much information available yet, but those running Firefox with the MetaStream 3 Plugin, you may find the notification that the Metastream plugin has been blocked.

Hi, if there are no signs of anything burnt on the top of the motherboard and no components blackened, there is very little can be achieved until the new PSU is connected. If there is a problem with the MB then as Jelly Bean says, it just won't boot up. However if no sign of any problem, you stand a good chance of things being OK. Nev.

Hi Kev, glad you managed to sort it, these things are quite often only a matter of getting the right drivers installed anyway, which you have found. Well done mate and we know now what to do should someone else have similar problems. Nev.