Posts by Lawrence Barnes64

if you're still running Windows 8 up there, you seriously need to push that update to 8.1 right now, honestly, it’ll probably fix everything unless you've already caught some nasty bug or something...
do you even have an antivirus installed on there? if you're flying totally unprotected, I'd say just grab Avast Antivirus free, it does the job.

So, what kind of laptop are we even talking about here? How old is this thing exactly?
And honestly, you can't really get rid of Internet Explorer, but besides, why would you even want to? It’s just not worth the headache.
It sounds like you've probably got some nasty virus just piling up junk in the background... how much actual free space do you have left on your C drive?
It's also totally possible that System Restore is just hoarding a bunch of useless files, so you might want to just go ahead and turn that off...

wanderingpanther68 said:I've been getting that same clicking and rattling sound too, kind of randomly for about a year now. I went through the whole drill—checked everything with TechCrunch, ran scans with HD Tune, used Hard Disk Sentinel... nothing. Not a single bad sector,
zero errors found, Temperature is totally fine... honestly, this drive is just old and occasionally makes that noise, especially when I'm booting up Windows,
it never used to act up like this; it worked flawlessly for five or six years and then, out of nowhere, this started happening over the last twelve months.

I’ve always stayed on top of defragging, kept the dust out, even swapped out my power supply because someone on a forum told me Western Digital drives can sometimes rattle if the power delivery is weak. I wasn't sure if that was actually the case, but I figured I'd rule it out, so I replaced it. A buddy of mine even gave me a SATA cable with a built-in fuse because I thought maybe my standard one was failing. When I hooked up the fused one, things were smooth for a while, no clicking at all, but then the noise just came right back...

Yeah, it clicks exactly when there isn't enough juice. For me, the external ones react if I plug them into the front USB ports... but if I plug them into the back by the motherboard, they're fine.
though personally, it doesn't work for me at all if the power is insufficient, it just keeps clicking...

Oh man... wait... I think I might have just cracked the case here, if you guys don't mind me being a bit of a smart-ass... he's saying that when the PC shuts down, or goes into hibernation or sleep mode, that's when the knocking starts. Basically, the computer throttles the power or switches to energy-saving mode, and suddenly the hard drive isn't getting enough voltage, so it starts clicking away... and we all know those motherboards still carry a little bit of current even when the PC is shut down or in those "dead" modes.

The Temperature looks fine to me; I mean, he can definitely handle pushing up to 60C before things get dicey
Based on what you're seeing, it seems alright, but honestly, just grab their official installer and run some actual tests instead of guessinghttp://support.wdc.com/product/downl...&sid=3&lang=en
Just click that little disk icon up there, then hit the highlight thingy—wait, actually, do the quick test first

Ashley Fisher52 said:The signal is at a full 100%, but the Wi-Fi standard is showing up as 802.11n+g+b. Is that actually okay, or am I screwed?

Well, there you go🙂 but we're still stuck in the same spot... I honestly don't even know what else to tell you, man, it feels like the technicians over at Comcast should be the ones stepping up to fix this mess, or maybe someone with half a brain, maybe 😁Lawrence Barnes64
will chime in.

Ashley Fisher52 said:It’s a total circus, seriously, I can't even wrap my head around what's going wrong here! The only thing that makes any sense to me is if the devices are all tripping over each other with IP address conflicts since they swapped out the router—is that even a thing!? It has to be something like that because everything was running perfectly smooth until they replaced the hardware, and now even though the signal looks great, it's basically useless.
The router is a Fritz router

It’s possible there’s an addressing conflict, but it really shouldn't be happening... maybe try logging into your modem settings and check the signal strength and the Wi-Fi standard. The IP address should be 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 and the password is just admin

Ashley Fisher52 said:It’s happening on every single device, man—it’s totally inconsistent, constantly cutting in and out, but honestly, it’s mostly just dead most of the time.

I honestly don't get how everything is working perfectly downstairs while upstairs the signal is just hit-or-miss and totally unreliable...

Look, maybe try jumping into your router settings and crank that signal strength up to max, regardless of what it says right now; I think most of them ship out set at like 50% by default, so just bump it to 100% and see if that helps, and hey, check which Wi-Fi standard you're even running... you didn't actually mention the exact model you're using, either.😁

bluewolf82 said:man, you got any other links for that software? honestly, that site is kind of sketchy and I don't really trust it...

http://techcrunch.com/
just grab it from there or just hit up Google if you want...
https://www.google.com/search?q=chris...q=crystal+disk

Ashley Fisher52 said:Hey everyone, I’m dealing with some absolute nonsense with my Wi-Fi. Everything was running smooth as silk until my old router finally kicked the bucket, and I had to swap it out for this new Fritz router. Now, here’s the kicker: the signal strength looks amazing, like, perfect. Downstairs, everything is working just fine, but once you head upstairs, it’s a whole different disaster. Like I said, the bars are full and I’m technically "connected" to the Wi-Fi, but nothing actually works! It just cuts out randomly—I'll be connected but can't load a single damn webpage, then it hangs for a few minutes before suddenly hitting me with that "limited access" error. I even had an ISP technician come out to my place, but honestly, they were useless and couldn't figure out what the hell is going wrong. I'm turning to you guys because I am seriously about to lose my mind here. To put it bluntly, I've got a full signal, but the connection is basically a total ghost town. 🎉 Thanks in advance!

Is this happening on just one device, or is it affecting every single thing you've got upstairs?

Just go ahead and grab http://download.cnet.com/CrystalDisk...-10832082.html so you can check out the Temperature and all that other stuff... then let me know what kind of shape it's in, okay?

Here’s what mine looks like:

I honestly think he fried the motherboard from all that aggressive tapping, so seriously, get those files backed up ASAP!
and yeah, definitely take what Larry Ortiz5 says

vividtrucker8 said:Hey everyone, I'm dealing with a massive headache with my Samsung Galaxy S series phone. Basically, I just wanted to silence that annoying "battery low" notification, so I downloaded this little app to kill the alert. Everything seemed fine until I went to reboot the thing, and now? Total disaster. It’s completely stuck on the boot logo, just hanging there forever. Does anyone know how to fix this?? I grabbed this tool from http://forum.xda-developers.com/xpos...gelog-t2714053 and yeah, the device is running on Android 4.2.2

Just factory reset the thing...
Shut it down completely... then hold down the volume up button while you press and hold the power button. Once you get into that service menu, use the volume buttons to scroll down to "wipe data/factory reset" and hit the power button to confirm. It's gonna wipe everything on the internal storage, but it should get you back up and running. Your SD card will be totally fine.

check this out

Does it make this high-pitched whistling sound when the drive is actually spinning up?
Because if you’re hearing that, the head probably scraped right across the platter and the whole thing is toast.
Also, does it get even slightly warm when it's running? If it stays cold, it's officially dead.

Robert Rodriguez2 said:you fell for that first link hook, line, and sinker 👍

anyway, good catching up, man, have a good one 🙂

maybe give this a shot: http://bios-pw.org/
or honestly just try this one: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Securit.../CmosPwd.shtml

otherwise, you could always try flashing the BIOS to a newer version if there's an update out there, might just wipe the password right off

darkowl72 said:Man, stop talking nonsense before someone actually thinks you know what you're talking about. What do you mean "fans"? If he had fifty fans, his power supply would just be struggling to keep them all spinning anyway...

I'm not just talking out of my ass here because I dealt with this exact same mess back when I was building a rig... he had a 400W power supply, and between the fans and all those other heavy hitters—like the GPU, the PCI cards, you name it—he was riding right on the edge of the limit, and one tiny spike in power and boom, it's game over...

It’s not 14W for 7 fans
Look, let's say a single fan runs at 12 Volts and 0.3 Amps, which is pretty much the standard, so that's 12*0.3=3.6W
That means 3.6*7=25.2W for 7 fans. It's straight-up math, not 14W...

It doesn't have to be me specifically, I'm just pointing out that maybe that extra 25W is what's screwing him over... I'm not trying to bark at anyone, we're just trying to fix the problem here, not play "who's right and who's wrong." Honestly, your post didn't help the guy at all, it just annoyed me...

It’s honestly just super straightforward, kind of like how easy it is to reset a smartphone these days 🙂
Resetting Windows 8 or 8.1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Zaq6JG90A

Honestly, I don't think you're looking at a temperature issue here, man. It feels more like those fans are just sucking up way too much juice, and once you cross whatever wattage limit that power supply can actually handle, the whole thing just trips and restarts... it's a classic power draw spike. Just try unplugging like three of the fans and see if that stabilizes things...

1. Just shut the thing down first.
2. Once it's off, hold down that "VOLUME+" button and hit the POWER button at the same time. You gotta keep holding onto "VOLUME+" though, don't let go until the screen actually flickers to life.
3. Now, just use those "VOLUME+/-" buttons to scroll through the menu until you hit “delete all user data,” then mash the power button to confirm it.
4. That’ll wipe the device clean and reset everything back to factory settings.

If it's being stubborn and won't work, just try it again—but this time, keep holding that power button down and let go of the volume + button instead.