Plastic Nev

Hi, you say only the windows opening and closing sound is all that plays correctly, have you had a look in sounds and audio devices, I include a screen shot of the window. (from control panel) Click on the sounds tab and you should see the scroll down list of all windows sounds, including windows opening and closing, a click on each to highlight it then the button (arrowed) will play that sound, can you check some, no need to check them all, and let us know whether you find some OK, and some not, or ideally they should all work correctly from there.

Has anyone else seen this yet? A rather strange and straight looking figure walked on stage, with hair like a mentally deranged floor mop. She stood there and spoke, immediately a warm and humorous personality shone through, and then she sang. That was music, I need say no more. Well done Susan Boyle. YouTube - Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009

Have you any suspicion you may have got this problem? here is a way to find out. Have a look at what they say about it, and an easy way to find out if you have been infected, here- Eyeballing Conficker with eye-charts and maps | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

Hi again Lee, please reply using the "Post Reply" button, and not keep starting new threads, it only leads to confusion with new threads all over the place. This is the second time I have had to move you. Now the firewall issue, if you click on the Comodo link it gives you the download links for Comodo Firewall and antivirus, you can use that one as well as the Avast as these two are compatible and do not clash. (I know, I use them lol) However, if you look in your control panel then Windows Firewall, or if not there, it will be in security centre, windows has a firewall of its own. It is reasonable but one way only, it stops things getting in, but once they have got in the windows firewall cannot stop them getting out again. Comodo is two way and stops both. If you do install Comodo, you must go into the Windows firewall and turn it off or disable it as the Comodo firewall will conflict with the Windows one.

Hi, I have chased this up as best I can, and found this wonderful page. I doubt it will be much help as the photo is nothing like the machine you describe, but at least it does describe other aspects of fitting extra memory.- Upgrading Memory (RAM) One thing i must ask is, are you sure the new stick of memory you have is compatible? That is quite important. If you have any doubt at all, go to Memory upgrades, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com Use Internet Explorer for this, and they can scan your machine and recommend the correct type and sizes of RAM you can fit.

This post has been moved to carry on this original thread. Have a look at what I said in the previous post lee please, and take it from there mate Nev.

Hi Lee, just click on the link that Wolfeymole posted, that will take you to our page of helpfull suggestions. For now go for the free ones, you need one firewall, unless you are using the Widows Vista one, you need one antivirus, such as the Avast, or Avira, and you can use at least two antispyware such as the Malwarebytes and the Superantispyware. I would also go for the Spyware Blaster. Those are only my personal preferences, however do try them, and maybe others to decide which is best for you. Where one is in bold I do mean one only, in those cases two can interfere with each other and cause more problems than needed.

Hi Tony, welcome. Please don't throw your PC out of the window just yet, think about having to replace the glass!!

Hi again, there is also this option if there is room to put it in IDE HDD to SATA Converter - Aria Technology Not bad for just over £7.00

Hi Paul, a lot depends on the type of motherboard, some do have connectors on them for either SATA or IDE, others do not. If you can tell us the mother board make and number, we may be able to find out for you and let you know where the sockets are placed on it, though of course that may be obvious once you look at it.

Hi, can you let us know some information about the PC itself, make, model etc. Also a stab in the dark here, do you know how to get to the BIOS? continuous tapping F2 is the usual one but may be different for your machine, if so, let us know what the settings are regarding boot order, don't as yet alter anything, and also let us know any settings regarding USB that there may be in there.

Hello Ivor, and welcome, and also thanks for joining us.

i agree entirely with Beeceebee, here, and will add that letting any unknown entity into your computer for any reason can be extremely dangerous as far as loosing personal details, banking details, and other general identity losses. There are a few trustworthy sites, an example only, being Crucial the memory specialists, their scanner only looks at the system and the memory installed in order to advise on possible RAM upgrades. However it is wise to treat all unknowns as possible high risk.

Hi Paul, welcome and learning more is the real game.

Thanks for that, and may you also have a great and enjoyable Easter. May everyone have a computer problem free time. (and if you do have problems, that is what we are here for):)

Hi Trazza, unfortunately I have been busy since I was last here, however, I am glad to see that a system restore in safe mode, seems to have done the trick for you and your sound is working correctly again. As for system restore, as Beeceebe said the only way to see if it is working is to try it. For the moment though best to leave well enough alone for at least a week. If everything is still OK after that time, I suggest a new start in system restore. To do this, go into system restore and turn it off. Then re-boot and turn it back on. This will delete all previous restore points but will create one fresh new one. By deleting all previous points you get rid of any bad ones that you certainly don't want to restore back too. Nev.

Hum, this is a puzzler. There may be something in the BIOS, considering it went OK after Dell did the flash, but I will leave it for someone else, maybe Dalo who will be here in the morning and knows a bit more about such things. He will be better able to talk you through getting into the BIOS to check settings and what to look for.

Hi Trazza, I can't help with the system restore not working, but you may be right about the Dell BIOS flash perhaps, or may be a different problem. Back to your sound problem, have you had a look in device management yet? Click start, then run, and and type in "devmgmt.msc" without the quotation marks, then OK. Once the window opens, then scroll down till you find "Sound,Video and Game controllers" Click the expansion x by the side, are there any yellow ! marks or red X? If you double click on any item you will then get a small window telling you whether the device is working normally or not. Try this for a start and we will see what we can find from there.

Hi Ally, our fear is that the recent overheating problem may have domaged the chip or chips involved. Hence Tootechs advice to take it to be looked at and get an estimate of what it may take to repair. Although it may be a bit near £100 mark if the mother board requires replacement, that is still cheaper than a new machine.

Well each to their own on that. I have the Logitech "Marble" mouse. I got sick and fed up of shoving the old ordinary darn thing around in the confined space I have available. All I do now is sit my hand on it and roll the ball around with my finger, the on screen arrow goes exactly where I send it. It is optical and the ball is full of black dots so the optics work, and have something to follow, the same way as the old shove it around optical one does. keeping the ball clean? don't have dirty hands, less need to clean the little bearing points the ball sits on.

Ah, as a user of MSN Explorer at one time, a long time ago mind, I am beginning to understand. Internet Explorer took over in my case, as the main browser and I abandoned MSN Explorer in favour of it. I later took on Firefox, and that is now my main browser of choice. However, because you are seeing a fault with MSN Explorer, you tried to uninstall it in order to try reinstalling as a possible fix. am I right so far? If so, unfortunately MSN Explorer is an integral part of Windows and cannot be removed, so you won't find it in the add/remove programs box. As far as I know, though others like Randy may know better, MSN Explorer has no support from Microsoft now, and the only thing I can suggest is to use other methods to save the pages you want. The only other thing being a last resort though, would be to use (if you have them) the system recovery disks, but that would wipe everything you have, right back to original factory settings. Also with no real guarantee it would fix your problem. Nev.

Hi Redgey, At the moment the best I can do is ask you to have a look here- Laptop Repair Help You may find some help there in gaining access to the battery. Nev.

Hi Ally and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help mate. Considering this is a laptop and is a motherboard mounted sound system, there is very little we can do if this turns out to be a hardware problem, but first we need to know a little more. Do you have service pack three installed yet? Also the drivers you say you tried, which ones, and where did you download them from?

Hi, this copy of XP Home you have, is it a full retail version or an OEM one? has it been loaded into another computer at all? Have you installed it as per the instructions here- How to Install Windows XP

I will add here, that true anti-virus programs can conflict. Avast, and AVG are both anti-virus so getting rid of one has to be the choice and way to go. From what I know and have seen in the last three years, dumping AVG is the best one. AVG used to be good, but is now so overlarge in megabytes terms, it doesn't do you or your machine any favours, as well as the fact I have seen many complaints about it elsewhere on other forums. Next is the difference between anti-virus software and anti-spyware or anti-malware software. Anti-spy and anti-malware programs work in an entirely different way from anti-virus programs and because of that do not or very rarely conflict with each other. So the common advise here is, Have one Firewall, have one anti-virus, but as many anti spy and anti general malware as you like, though two or three is usually enough. If you look in the sticky here- http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/malware-removal-av-firewalls-etc/3597-free-pc-help-recommended-security-products.html You will see the software we are currently recommending, If you want to keep to freeware you can't go wrong with what we recommend, I know I use some of it.