Plastic Nev

Hi, Where did your friend get this laptop from? has it been used before do you know? Nev.

Though we haven't seen much of Bob12A here recently, he was still active on other forums till this weekend when he was rushed into hospital where they found blocked arteries. He has had surgery and is at the last news I received recovering well. More as and when I hear of it. Nev.

Hi, sorry I didn't pick up on this earlier. There is quite a lot of audio recording software available, and a lot are free downloads, most will record the audio "As It Comes" while playing the complete video. Though I haven't actually done so, I think you can put a video file onto Windows Moviemaker (you may have to convert the format first), Then copy the sound track as a separate audio file. If in WAV format there are also plenty of converting programs to convert to MP3 afterwards. There is a very good audio handling program called Cyberpower which will record and then convert to MP3, more and the download here= http://www.freemp3wmaconverter.com/cyberpoweraudioeditinglab/ Another reasonable program is Audacity this with the LAME encoder (available separately) installed will do the same, but can sometimes introduce the odd click or tick sound when run in earlier versions of Windows. Audacity from here= http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ May be worth trying some of those as a different approach to getting better audio MP3 disks. If using these still give poor audio, let us know as it may just be some odd fault has come up on your sound card, after all, that is where it all starts from. Nev.

My friend told me he hadn't spoken to his wife for over a fortnight, he said "We haven't fallen out, I just didn't want to interrupt".

I doubt very much that there is a presence of virus, those disks were created when the machine was new, taking the recover data from the partition it is on, which is not likely to have been infected at all. so I think that can be ruled out. MEMtest has checked the RAM, and though a little suspicious as you say just one and it boots OK, but can freeze with both in. However that is only a suspicion. Do you get any blue screens or is the freeze up complete with whatever is on display at the time? If a blue screen comes up and it restarts, you have probably seen how to get the message to stay up by turning off automatic restart in safe mode. Just one thing before we start looking at perhaps the hard drive or motherboard, would be to remove the PCI modem card, even if not in use, a fault on it could freeze things as a perhaps. Also have you tried both removing the BIOS or CMos battery for a short time, say five minutes and then replace, or better, replace the battery anyway. At the price of a new battery it is both worth a try, and also then you know you have a new one in. Tracing the reasons for freezing can sometimes be a long winded thing as there are so many possibilities. Nev.

OK, sound works in Media player, runescape, and possibly would if CD/DVD drive was OK. However no sound on Youtube or other video sites. Correct me there if I misunderstood. It now looks like something is perhaps blocking those sites rather than being things like codecs or drivers. First suspect is Firewall, though normally it would block the video as well as sound, but no harm in looking through the firewall blocked items lists. Which firewall do you use? Another thing to perhaps look at is Flash Player, Youtube depends on the Adobe Flash player being installed correctly, have a look at this Adobe site and download any updates if needed. http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ Nev.

Hi, this I find is a puzzle, from the quote you say it works OK on runescape, that is the game I assume? If it works on a game, does the sound work if you either insert a music CD or DVD? Does it work with any sound or music files you have? If yes, then go to Youtube, click the speaker icon bottom left of video screen to see if it has been muted, same with JTV. Nev.

Alternatively, click start, then "run" and type cmd in the box then click OK. The command prompt window is black with white script with a white flashing cursor, type in as Wolf said, the X being whatever letter the system has allocated to the external drive. Nev.

OK, it's a start, has it been like this right from the upgrade or was it OK for a while? There could be a few reasons for it randomly shutting down, but the temperatures are one of the most likely. So if you can download speedfan and install it from this link, it will show you the temperatures, let us know what they are, or better take a screen shot and post that. http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php Read down the script, under "Download" is the link "SpeedFan 4.43", click on that and the download will start. Nev.

OK Sam, let us know when you get back, this thread may have slipped down the list a little by then, but hopefully you will still find it. Nev.

What is more, I did ask you to upgrade to windows Internet Explorer 9 so further help could be given. If you can't accept or understand instructions, it ain't my fault.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help, Ok can you tell us a bit more please, the make and model of the PC, did this PC have an earlier operating system on it previously, how old is the PC, and the version of Windows 7, where did it come from. Nev.

Er steering wheels attached to--- (driving me nuts), no we won't go down that road. The speed in the main does for me for ordinary page changes such as looking round on here or other forums. Surprisingly it is good enough for youtube video unless extremely busy periods. I could go the cable route as it is in the street, but the extra expense isn't worth it when I am only being charged peanuts at £15 a month. A low user rebate on the phone gives me around £12 to £13 a quarter on the landline, yes a quarter, that is £4 to £4-33 A month. The cheapest deal with phone line is over £26, or without phone or TV is £21. I am a cheapskate I know, but I have to be, I need that saving for me beer LOL.

Hum, open Internet explorer, click on the tools button, and then the "About Internet Explorer" let us know what it says as to the version that IE is at Please. Does it look like this? If not, go to that link I gave in my first post, and update it please. http://i68.servimg.com/u/f68/14/68/69/96/intern10.jpg

Middle of a Sunday afternoon on an ordinary non cable ISP is usually rubbish via the twisted pair. But in this instance this is quite good by comparison to some tests done in the past. Bear in mind that with the ordinary telephone line and distance from exchange, I am supposedly not able to get better than 7MB/s. any way. I have seen speeds as low as near dial up when monitoring actual file downloads, especially when downloading free software LOL.

OK thanks for the update, fingers crossed as they say, and hope all is well for you. Nev.

Sorry about that, but regarding the copyright laws, we have absolutely no idea or proof that what you are downloading is actually legal or not. If we were to be seen giving assistance to what may turn out later to be illegal downloading, we would also be liable in a court of law. Hope you understand. Nev.

Firstly, I am glad all works, however the speed problem with the CPU and the RAM, I will leave that for someone who knows more about it. It does need attention though as it will slow things down. It may be the motherboard itself not able to support those speeds, or hopefully something simpler. Nev.

As yet we don't know the make or model of this machine but at a guess it is either Packard Bell or Acer, (same company) they are shipping them with a "D" partition pre installed as is the case with mine, a Packard Bell S1300 desktop. Wolfy. As Wolf said shift as much as you can onto the D drive Sam, I have a reasonable suspicion that partition may actually not be wiped, so will serve as your backup. I must ask why is the office disk in the "H" DVD drive? that in itself may be confusing the BIOS as to what to do. So please take that one out, I presume the disk in the other drive is the recovery disk as the coded name means little to me. Nev.

This sketch was actually aired over the Christmas period along with some other funny sketches on what was called "The one Ronnie show". However, having watched the full show at the time, this one was the best.

Internet explorer should still be exactly the same as above when run in Vista. Do check which version you have as ideally it should be IE9 now. Internet Explorer for XP is still only at IE8 by the way, they haven't as yet got IE9 ready to work with XP. Nev.

Hi, for a start off, if your operating system is correctly stated as Windows 7 Home Premium, you should now be running Internet explorer 9 not 7. That is way out of date and now not very secure. I recommend you go to the Microsoft home page and download and install IE9. If problems, we can take it from there. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/downloads/ie On the other hand if you have just got the numbers wrong and you do indeed have IE9 you should have this at the top of the page as per this screen shot. http://i28.servimg.com/u/f28/14/68/69/96/ie_tab10.jpg If you click the small box as per the green arrow, that will open a new tab. Then type or copy and paste the URL you need into the address bar, as per the red arrow.

I am surprised that this hasn't been posted on here before now. However I was reminded about its existence when a member asked about X Box. At the very end of this clip, Harry Enfield has a different answer than you might expect.

I started my apprenticeship some time in 1964, I laughed at it then as it was at least new to me at that time, so yep, it is getting on a bit.

Hi, reading back, the hard drive has come from a different computer so already has an operating system on it. At the present moment I think you are trying to instal XP home but again from a once used disk, or in the worst scenario a recovery disk from another computer. If it is only a recovery disk it won't install XP on any thing other than the original computer the disk was made for. The question now is the operating system that is already on the hard drive and the fact it gets as far as asking for activation. That is puzzling as normally XP or later systems will refuse to get that far when presented with a new and different mother board. The only way usually is a repair, which needs the disk for that level of system, in this case XP Professional. So the explanation may be that the new motherboard is not that different to the original board, in that case I suggest trying going further and see if it will activate. Failing that and if you cannot afford a new legal disk, you could try installing Ubuntu which is a free to use operating system, for at least until you can afford a new disk. Nev.