The Computer Problems thread!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

You can remove it, if you like.

There's a whole string of other apps that will probably keep much of the tree available, but if you remove the entries from the card, and remove the device drivers for the tcpip stack, it should be fairly secure.

[Leafar]

i have a midi file that used to play normally now it doesn't anymore...not even wmp plays it...any program refuses to play it, even if the file is not corrpted, the program behave normally showing bar status and all...
wtf?

Do you want to put it up somewhere so I can take a look at it?

yeah, thanks!

http://rapidshare.de/files/32749990/E500_023.mid.html

[Tapewolf]

i have a midi file that used to play normally now it doesn't anymore...not even wmp plays it...any program refuses to play it, even if the file is not corrpted, the program behave normally showing bar status and all...
wtf?

Timidity and Rosegarden have both played it fine, so it's probably the MIDI system in Windows which has gone weird - don't ask me how.  Are you able to play other MIDI files?

[Leafar]

yes, any other midi file...i collect them from games...

[Tapewolf]

yes, any other midi file...i collect them from games...

I've saved it again from Rosegarden just in case there was something weird afoot.  If that doesn't work I'll try it from Sonar.
http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/music/test/E500_023a.mid

You might also want to test this as an experiment:
http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/music/mab_pt1.mid
(This was written by SONAR)

[Leafar]

your file plays ok...mine still doesn't!!!!!!!! wtf???

[Kitsune Ascendant]

'ey everyone. got an update. I now have my computer running windows again. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with norton goback. basically, I found a linux program that can look at hard drives and fix them, and it basically "fixxed" the mbr, which I believe goback had done something to. great idea, except it gets completely hosed over when something like gub is put on that drive. I'd call case closed, but I've got a few files on the drive I put linux on... actually, nvm. I think I have a solution to get them off. anyways, unless someone here's got experience with getting windows w/ norton and linux to agree, I think I'll call linux a lost cause. I don't really want to lose my nerdvana high as quickly as I did with my last computer fiasco.

edit: are there any free programs out there that I could use to back up my hard drive to multiple cds and use those to restore? that would be very usefull

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Kitsune, I'll say the same thing to you as I did to Tapewolf.

IM me. We'll chat, and see about an answer.

.. I thought I posted a series of links, at least one of which would let you get your linux booted? I coudl swear... yes, something about "set grub to install to the partition, and set boot.ini in windows to start that partition" in the winnt  dual-boot doco I linked to.

That should let you get to both ok.

[Tapewolf]

your file plays ok...mine still doesn't!!!!!!!! wtf???

I pulled it into SONAR just now - it blew up when I tried to remove the drum track, so there is something pretty weird about that file.  I imported the Rosegarden-exported version instead.

Try these:
http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/music/test/E500.zip

One is type 0, the other is type 1.

[Leafar]

lol, t.wolf what you just did?
IT IS PLAYING!!!!!!!! wooo hooo!!!!!

charlie says thank you!

[Tapewolf]

lol, t.wolf what you just did?
IT IS PLAYING!!!!!!!! wooo hooo!!!!!

I just loaded it into SONAR and re-exported it.  There are two kinds of MIDI file, so I wrote out one of each.  Type 0 has some nasty side-effects that it seems to write the files out per-channel, so if you have two channel 1s (e.g. for multiple soundcards) they get merged together.  This was a problem with 'What Did Daniel Think He Was'.  Type 1 just writes them all out and doesn't have that problem.

In particular I was hoping that type 0 would be enough to shake out whatever strange things were going on.

[Leafar]

gotcha!
thanks anyway!

[Nikki]

How much is Photoshop? =-<

[Aridas]

Lots. Depending. But most people are pirates.

[Synonymous]

Ooh, computer problem thread. How convenient!

But actually, I'm not really having problems with my computer. I'm having problems with my moniter. The screen will randomly go black; turning it off and then back on generally fixes it, but that gets rather annoying and sometimes it will just turn black again right away. V. annoying and makes it nearly impossible to play the few computer games I have. I don't know what to do to try and fix it; generally what I do when my computer has problems is restart, but that doesn't fix anything.

[Kitsune Ascendant]

How much is Photoshop? =-<

I've been told that Gimpshop is very, VERY similar.

[Rowne]

And Free!

Same goes for the GIMP itself.

[Kitsune Ascendant]

got a quick question.

I have a large zip file that was somehow split into two parts, on two cds. one's got a  .zip.001 extention, the other a .zip.002 extension. how do I get the contents from this?

[insanekaosx]

good question, does it not save them as two seperate zip files?

if not, perhaps if you had a computer with two drives...

My questions:
1. My CD Drive isn't working. Luckily, I have a CD/DVD drive as well i can run thigns through, but still. It was useful having two. I was wondering if anyone knew any ways to poke at this. It sounds liek its spinning the cd and trying to load it, butthen nothing happens. I'm not entirely sure how CD Drives work, but whatever's readin gthe CD must be busted is my asumption. >>

2. How difficult would Linux be for osmeone with next to no programming/coding language to jump into? I'm debating getting a small computer to throw linux onto as a test, but i don't know if I want to spend that money if I wouldn't be able to figure it out.

[Kitsune Ascendant]

nvm my last question. I figured out how to do it with 7zip. I think.

as far as linux, check out ubuntu.
you can either have them mail a free cd set to you, or download the cd images and burn them to a cd-r. but one of the cds is a "live cd" which allows you to run ubuntu on your pc without doing anything to your current pc setup. that way you get a taste for linux risk free. and in my experience (a bit limited, but I think it's enough) ubuntu is fairly easy to start using.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I have a large zip file that was somehow split into two parts, on two cds. one's got a  .zip.001 extention, the other a .zip.002 extension. how do I get the contents from this?

Find a disk with enoughspace free that you can put both files, twice, in. Copy them off the cd, then run "cp file.zip.001+file.zip.002 file.zip" - that should give you a single zip file with both contents in it. You can then delete the .00[12] files, and extract as per normal.

[insanekaosx]

nvm my last question. I figured out how to do it with 7zip. I think.

as far as linux, check out ubuntu.
you can either have them mail a free cd set to you, or download the cd images and burn them to a cd-r. but one of the cds is a "live cd" which allows you to run ubuntu on your pc without doing anything to your current pc setup. that way you get a taste for linux risk free. and in my experience (a bit limited, but I think it's enough) ubuntu is fairly easy to start using.

Thank you, I'll try that

[Tapewolf]

nvm my last question. I figured out how to do it with 7zip. I think.

as far as linux, check out ubuntu.
you can either have them mail a free cd set to you, or download the cd images and burn them to a cd-r. but one of the cds is a "live cd" which allows you to run ubuntu on your pc without doing anything to your current pc setup. that way you get a taste for linux risk free. and in my experience (a bit limited, but I think it's enough) ubuntu is fairly easy to start using.

Thank you, I'll try that

If you want something a bit more Windowsy, there's also kubuntu, which can be had on the same site.  It's the same basic system but with a different shell.  And if you come unstuck there's a number of people here who would be quite happy to help you with it.

[insanekaosx]

nvm my last question. I figured out how to do it with 7zip. I think.

as far as linux, check out ubuntu.
you can either have them mail a free cd set to you, or download the cd images and burn them to a cd-r. but one of the cds is a "live cd" which allows you to run ubuntu on your pc without doing anything to your current pc setup. that way you get a taste for linux risk free. and in my experience (a bit limited, but I think it's enough) ubuntu is fairly easy to start using.

Thank you, I'll try that

If you want something a bit more Windowsy, there's also kubuntu, which can be had on the same site.  It's the same basic system but with a different shell.  And if you come unstuck there's a number of people here who would be quite happy to help you with it.

I poked a look at Kubuntu as well, but that was only after starting to download Ubuntu, so I'll see how this works and then maybe try that as well. I''ll be sure to come crying to the forumites if I start breaking thigns

edit>Well, i'm not crying, and nothings broken. I hope.
Just tried it out, and it works interestingly, but.. i didn't get a good chance to mess around. First, the resolution was bugging me *was stuck on 640xwhatever*, then iaccidentally got into the command line terminal. Bad place for me, I didn't know how to get back, so I just botched around til I figured out the reboot command. I'm back in windows for now, and going to read up a bit more.

[Tapewolf]

CTRL-ALT-F1 -> F6 will allow you to switch between six terminals.  CTRL-ALT-F7 will take you back to the window system.

To increase the resolution, we'd need to know what kind of graphics card you've got.

[insanekaosx]

excellent, now I won't get lost in terminals >> Thank you Tape

Off topic: The workspaces are handy when I have windows this big >>

Okay, well, the thing is, its not giving me the option to switch to anything other than 640x480. There is a section for SCreen Resolution under system -> preferences, and thats the only available option. I've tried changing themes to see if that would open up more, hasn't worked yet.
though, here is my card anyways: GeForce4 MX
It would be a better one if this premade eMachine didn't fail and have backwards pci slots >>

[Vidar]

excellent, now I won't get lost in terminals >> Thank you Tape

Off topic: The workspaces are handy when I have windows this big >>

Okay, well, the thing is, its not giving me the option to switch to anything other than 640x480. There is a section for SCreen Resolution under system -> preferences, and thats the only available option. I've tried changing themes to see if that would open up more, hasn't worked yet.
though, here is my card anyways: GeForce4 MX
It would be a better one if this premade eMachine didn't fail and have backwards pci slots >>

Try re-insalling the drivers for your video-card. Get them from www.nvidia.com.

Also, if your computer doesn't even have a AGP of PCI-E slot, it's crap, no offence.

[Tapewolf]

An nVidia card, eh?  That's probably the reason then.  They won't tell people how the card works, which makes things awkward.  On the plus side, the drivers they provide themselves are pretty good.  If only their Windows drivers worked too.

Truth be told, I'm tempted to let Llearch or someone else to do this - I'm using a rather customised system and had to do things somewhat differently.

*EDIT* : What Vidar is describing is what I did.  The drawback to his suggestion is that it may fall apart the next time there's a security update for the window manager or kernel.

Anyway, I believe this is the 'proper' Ubuntu way.  From the command line:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

It can proably be done point-and-click using the package manager, but I usually find the command line quicker and simpler for this.

A word about the package manager - it can look in a number of places or 'repositories' - the core packages, copyright-restricted packages, and all-kinds-of-stuff-you-probably-won't-need.
The nVidia drivers are going to be in the 'restricted' repository because they have nVidia's own weird license instead of one of the more normal ones.  If the incantation to fetch the nVidia drivers didn't work, it probably means that the 'restricted' set isn't on the list.
Again, this can be done via the package manager.  I'm not sure how that works if it's stock Ubuntu - with Kubuntu, it's K->System->Package Manager (Adept) - once you've entered the password you should be able to add new repositories to the search list.
Otherwise you can edit the config file which tells it where to look.

Assuming it found the packages and installed them, you'll probably need to restart the window system at that point, which can be done quickly and evilly easily with CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE.

[Jack McSlay]

Oh, I have.  Kingston RAM for example has been notoriously bad when it comes to farting out in a less temperate environment.  Like I said though, most people don't put their hardware through burn like I do, I really find out what temps hardware can take.  Usually, it's funny what temperatures most hardware can take if it's built well.  Heat is the ultimate decider between good/bad hardware.

RAM is grand though, not so long ago I upgraded from 512MeB to 3GiB and my reaction was something along the lines of "Buh?".  Primarily because half hour loading times in Unreal Tournament 2006, City of Heroes, Everquest II and so on became 30 seconds and less.  Grand.

uhm... I don't get what you mean... I live in Brazil and in my city it's normal to have a temperature of 27ºC and 38ºC on the same day, 42ºC happens at times as well... Yet I see kingston ram everywhere

[insanekaosx]

Also, if your computer doesn't even have a AGP of PCI-E slot, it's crap, no offence.

Oh, I know that, no offense taken at all. I opened it up for the first time when I got a shiny new video card...... and couldn't plug it in ;.;

I will get those drivers and such now.