Computer and tech talk and questions

[Videogamerkm]

SockPuppet, you're a saint. I was just looking through the forums to see if DragCave had posted anything about it yet - didn't see anything pinned but found this thread really quickly. Now, off to change all those passwords...

[InugamiZERO]

hi

the mouse (Tracker pad) on my laptop is broken, the broken part is the wires and button under the mouse (so it wont click or unclick)

I've been looking for a scraped laptop to get the part I need but every time I find someone selling the same type as mine its already picked clean and they are still asking for over $100 for it

 

so I'm hoping someone could give me some advice on finding the part I need for a reasonable price

these are the numbers my computer shop told me to search for DV6 WF601PA#ABG

they have me on the list if they get a scraped HP but its been over 3 months and its starting to act up again, my cursor is randomly clicking on things or highlighting the page (I'm using a wired mouse right now)

Thanx

[7Deadly$ins]

It's a little unlikely anyone here will have it. I would just keep using the mouse.

[MoonShark]

hi

the mouse (Tracker pad) on my laptop is broken, the broken part is the wires and button under the mouse (so it wont click or unclick)

I've been looking for a scraped laptop to get the part I need but every time I find someone selling the same type as mine its already picked clean and they are still asking for over $100 for it

 

so I'm hoping someone could give me some advice on finding the part I need for a reasonable price

these are the numbers my computer shop told me to search for DV6 WF601PA#ABG

they have me on the list if they get a scraped HP but its been over 3 months and its starting to act up again, my cursor is randomly clicking on things or highlighting the page (I'm using a wired mouse right now)

Thanx

Replacing a trackpad is difficult, even from another used laptop, especially since they tend to be one of the things that fail before a laptop is scrapped. Best bet is to continue using a wired mouse, and hope that your computer shop gets an identical model in at some point, unless your computer is still under warranty (I'm assuming it isn't).

 

Did your computer place suggest finding a scrapped laptop of the same model or the part itself? HP might sell the necessary part, but if they don't carry it any longer, replacing it might be more difficult and/or expensive than it is worth.

[InugamiZERO]

all they said is it would be very expensive and that I was on the list for the part when a scrapped laptop comes in

my laptop is over 5 years old so yeah

I was the one to suggest finding a scrapped laptop and they showed me what I needed to look for

seeing as I'm having a hard time finding the same type laptop how would I go about looking for the part itself

Thanx

[MoonShark]

all they said is it would be very expensive and that I was on the list for the part when a scrapped laptop comes in

my laptop is over 5 years old so yeah

I was the one to suggest finding a scrapped laptop and they showed me what I needed to look for

seeing as I'm having a hard time finding the same type laptop how would I go about looking for the part itself

Thanx

You could try researching the part online. Might even be able to search by the type of computer it is (model and part you are looking to replace). However, if HP is not offering the part any longer, it could be expensive to buy from a third party dealer and it is difficult to know what the quality of the part would be until it arrives. I've had good experiences with third party dealers and very bad experiences, so I highly recommend you proceed with caution if you take that route.

[Omen]

So yesterday I replaced my old 5400rpm HDD with a new 7200rpm SSHD. As I didn't want to reformat the system, I cloned the old drive contents to the new drive. Everything went smoothly, as I've disconnected the old drive this morning to find that yes, the new drive has everything it needs to boot, and still has all of the files. Well... I wouldn't have been able to go past the BIOS page if I hadn't.

 

Now, what I'd like to do is wipe the old drive and place whatever I do not want on the new drive, onto that one. So for the sake of less confusion, new drive is called T: old drive is called Z:. The T: drive has everything I need to run the computer, therefore keeping the same files on the Z: drive is obsolete. I would like to wipe the contents of the Z: drive, including the system partition as the T: drive contains system files in its own system partition. Once the Z: drive is formatted, I'd like to move rarely used files such as photographs from the T: drive to the Z: drive, as currently they're taking up about 100gb of system space. Irregardless of having a large capacity SSHD, that's 100gb of files I'll only use once in a blue moon. However, I don't want to get rid of them therefore keeping them on the old, still working, drive seems to be the best solution until I can get my hands on a portable HDD (or an enclosure for the old one).

 

What I'm saying is, can the old Z: drive be wiped and formatted without creating problems with the new T: drive?

 

I've replaced hard drives before, but those times the contents of the old drive were a loss and I formatted the new drive as if I was setting up a new system (that is, the OS usually did most of the work). I've never actually cloned a drive's contents before.

[MoonShark]

Speaking from what limited experience I have had with hard drives, as long as your new drive is functioning fine, you can wipe the old drive without any problems. The new drive is literally a "clone" of your old drive, and the old drive has no further effect on it after the cloning. Provided that you are sure that your new drive is working just as well or better than the old one, I can see no problems with wiping the old drive and using it as a temporary storage.

 

Bear in mind, though, that if your new drive fails for any reason, you can't use the old drive to clone again once it's been wiped. I would highly recommend obtaining a new portable hard drive as soon as you can and keeping both Windows back ups on it and copies of whatever files you don't want to keep on your computer.

 

Also, if you have things kept on an external drive that aren't on your computer, you should consider those things as being not backed up, because if the external drive fails, that data is gone.

 

Hope this helps answer your question at least a bit.

[Omen]

It certainly answers the question/s quite well, thank you MoonShark. It'll be a couple of weeks before I can purchase another storage medium, so I'll leave the wiping and formatting of the old drive until then. Regardless, having another HDD just in case is probably a wise idea seeing as the files I want to move, but not delete took hours of effort to create. The answer is very much appreciated!

[Cavedragon49990]

Just a quick little question: Whenever I'm running something kind of intensive on my laptop (Minecraft or some sort of small online game, I don't do intense gaming on a Mac, so Minecraft is about the most hardcore it gets on here) it starts running really really hot. Is there a way to keep the computer cooler while it's running? I already keep it lifted but I don't want to accidentally burn myself on the computer, it gets extremely hot during gaming.

[HawktalonOfRiverClan]

Just a quick little question: Whenever I'm running something kind of intensive on my laptop (Minecraft or some sort of small online game, I don't do intense gaming on a Mac, so Minecraft is about the most hardcore it gets on here) it starts running really really hot. Is there a way to keep the computer cooler while it's running? I already keep it lifted but I don't want to accidentally burn myself on the computer, it gets extremely hot during gaming.

Other than putting the machine on a pillow or something to protect yourself, there isn't a way other than turning your fan up. IIRC, the fan is default to a low speed so it's quieter, but it also doesn't cool things as efficiently. I have a program on my MacBook called smcFanControl that allows me to change the speed of my fan (I don't know where I got it unfortunately).

[crazyflower]

I have recently noticed that my monitor has been making a static-y clicking/crackle noise every few days or so. It will occur during normal usage(internet browsing, gaming, ect.) I am beginning to wonder if it could be starting to fail as it has never done it before now. Could it be shorting out and soon to fail? Should I even be using it?

[Spottedleaf]

I get static in my computer speakers sometimes if I listen to loud music.

[TheDarkCynder]

I doubt anyone will know how to help me here, but...

 

So ever since I built my computer, it has pretty much always had random freezes. I only sometimes get a blue screen, and it has no error code at all. I ran memtest86 on both of my sticks of RAM, one at a time, and they both passed with no error. All of my drivers are up to date. I tried cleaning out my registry. It's not overheating.

 

My motherboard is an ASUS P8Z77-V LK and my RAM model is KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G (Kingston HyperX 16 GB [2x 8GB])

I'm thinking it could be improper RAM timings or voltage? I was looking through the QVL for my motherboard here but I couldn't find the recommended timings for my RAM, though it is on the list. I have it set on auto in the BIOS, but I heard that sometimes auto can cause instability, leading to random freezes.

 

I might try reinstalling Windows, but I really doubt that's going to help. It seems like something I need to change in the BIOS.

 

Any ideas would be helpful, anyway.

[MoonShark]

I doubt anyone will know how to help me here, but...

 

So ever since I built my computer, it has pretty much always had random freezes. I only sometimes get a blue screen, and it has no error code at all. I ran memtest86 on both of my sticks of RAM, one at a time, and they both passed with no error. All of my drivers are up to date. I tried cleaning out my registry. It's not overheating.

 

My motherboard is an ASUS P8Z77-V LK and my RAM model is KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G (Kingston HyperX 16 GB [2x 8GB])

I'm thinking it could be improper RAM timings or voltage? I was looking through the QVL for my motherboard here but I couldn't find the recommended timings for my RAM, though it is on the list. I have it set on auto in the BIOS, but I heard that sometimes auto can cause instability, leading to random freezes.

 

I might try reinstalling Windows, but I really doubt that's going to help. It seems like something I need to change in the BIOS.

 

Any ideas would be helpful, anyway.

I don't know much about motherboard and RAM stuff. However, I don't think reinstalling Windows will fix this issue - I think it is something to do with the hardware and/or BIOS.

 

From about fifteen minutes worth of research, going off what you listed as your RAM and the link you gave, I searched for a different kind of RAM (one of the Corsair models), found it on a site that listed the latency timing (which matched the timing listed on the spreadsheet I was referencing). Then I searched for your RAM model and found this PDF that states:

 

Kingston's KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G is a kit of two 1G x 64-bit (8GB) DDR3-1600 CL10 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM), 2Rx8 memory modules, based on sixteen 512M x 8-bit FBGA components per module. Total kit capacity is 16GB. Each module kit has been tested to run at DDR3-1600 at a low latency timing of 10-10-10 at 1.5V. The SPD's are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1333 timing of 9-9-9 at 1.5V.

 

Hope that helps.

[TheDarkCynder]

I ended up flashing my BIOS instead of messing with the timings. I think it's fixed now, but if not, I'll have to deal with that.

Thanks, MoonShark, that was an interesting read.

 

Unfortunately I had two hard drives in RAID 0 and they didn't take kindly to my BIOS flash. I ended up having to wipe them and reconfigure the array from scratch, losing nearly a TB of data. I forgot how moody RAID 0 can be. Anyway, I didn't lose any essential files because those are all on my SSD.

 

Here's to hoping my problems are solved.

[MoonShark]

I ended up flashing my BIOS instead of messing with the timings. I think it's fixed now, but if not, I'll have to deal with that.

Thanks, MoonShark, that was an interesting read.

 

Unfortunately I had two hard drives in RAID 0 and they didn't take kindly to my BIOS flash. I ended up having to wipe them and reconfigure the array from scratch, losing nearly a TB of data. I forgot how moody RAID 0 can be. Anyway, I didn't lose any essential files because those are all on my SSD.

 

Here's to hoping my problems are solved.

You are welcome, and I hope your issue has been fixed! Sorry to hear you lost data, but I'm glad nothing was essential.

[Spottedleaf]

My computer keeps disconnecting from the internet. I have tried it on another computer in the house and so far it is working fine on there. It is really annoyingbecause I have been trying to win a contest for my favorite band and in order towin I have to get points and because of the disconnections it has been messing up my points like Im not getting poiints for something when im supposed to be getting points for it. Any suggestions? Btw I might not be able to respond to any replies for a while because Im going out of town. Unless I get replies before I go to bed tonight.

[Spottedleaf]

I take that back It does seem to be happening on both cmputers because I just got a message on my computer saying that it lost connection to my point updates.

[Lagie]

I got this message -

Error 'Lagie's Scroll.xls' is in a different format than specified by the file extension. -

and it asked do I want to open the file and gave me three options:

Yes, if I trust the source.

No, if I don't

Help

 

Help was useless.

When I opened the file, it was gibberish yet I'm the only one with access to my laptop, and I certainly didn't change anything.

 

When I tried to open and repair, I still got the same message (and by now, I'm scared to open it again). This is my scroll spreadsheet I'm trying to open. Does anyone know what I can do, please?

 

*leaves brownies as a bribe*

[Spottedleaf]

Do you have a dog or a cat and have you maybe accidentally left the file up sometime? Because I have a cat who is ver y mischievous and likes to jump on stuff including my keyboard. One time I had left up a word document and when I came back there was jibberish on the screen. And I found Copper (my cat's name) in my chair.

[Obscure_Trash]

I got this message -

Error 'Lagie's Scroll.xls' is in a different format than specified by the file extension. -

and it asked do I want to open the file and gave me three options:

Yes, if I trust the source.

No, if I don't

Help

 

Help was useless.

When I opened the file, it was gibberish yet I'm the only one with access to my laptop, and I certainly didn't change anything.

 

When I tried to open and repair, I still got the same message (and by now, I'm scared to open it again). This is my scroll spreadsheet I'm trying to open. Does anyone know what I can do, please?

 

*leaves brownies as a bribe*

What version of Excel are you using? The extension in the name matches the extension you saved it as and that your computer shows, yes?

 

Do you have Symantec Endpoint Protection on your machine? Is it the most recent version. Try a search for this and updating if possible. The one thing I found matching your problem mentioned that the SEP sometimes made files with this warning open with garbled and unreadable text.

 

Perhaps try a manual repair or recovering data from what seems like it is now a corrupted workbook: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-he...gin=HA010246470

 

This tells you how to avoid seeing that, although I'm not sure just hiding it will help. x3

[Lagie]

What version of Excel are you using? The extension in the name matches the extension you saved it as and that your computer shows, yes?

 

Do you have Symantec Endpoint Protection on your machine? Is it the most recent version. Try a search for this and updating if possible. The one thing I found matching your problem mentioned that the SEP sometimes made files with this warning open with garbled and unreadable text.

 

Perhaps try a manual repair or recovering data from what seems like it is now a corrupted workbook: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-he...gin=HA010246470

 

This tells you how to avoid seeing that, although I'm not sure just hiding it will help. x3

Excel 2007

Yep. xls, always has been.

 

Don't seem to have SEP. A search didn't bring it up. Where would I look to find it?

 

The link with the manual repair is t he one I actually found earlier. I was too terrified to try actually doing it! I went as far as "Open and Repair" and then it gave me that warning again.

 

Don't think I want to avoid seeing the warning. Those things are usually there for a reason!

 

Thank you, Sockmeister!

 

And Spottedleaf, yes, there is a cat here, but I don't think she's been walking across the laptop! If she had been, what would you suggest I do?

[Spottedleaf]

Did you say that it had been saved and the next time you opened it it was like that? Because if it was it means the data was erased.

[Lagie]

Yeah, I'm kind of figuring that. I do have a back up, thank goodness, but it's a month old.