Chris Byers tackles readers' hardware and software conundrums. Games people play
Q I recently got a new laptop and still have my old desktop pC. What would I need to do to turn it into a gaming computer? Will Cameron Rosemary Hattersley, associate editor, replies: Unlike a laptop, which is limited in its upgrade scope, desktop PCs can be more easily brought up to date for entertainment duties. More RAM, a better graphics card and a widescreen flat-panel display with a response time of 5 milliseconds or less are the main criteria here. If you wish to play the very latest games, you have two choices: one is to install a single high-end graphics card; the second is to get a less powerful - and equally less expensive - card that supports ATI CrossFireX or nVidia scalable link interface (SLI) and can be installed alongside a second compatible card (see "Top 5 Sub-ukp150 Graphics Cards" for buying advice). If you plump for the latter, you'll need to check your motherboard has an additional PCI Express slot and supports the technology. The manufacturer's site should tell you what cards your PC supports. For flight-simulators and other games titles that offer immersive, 360-degree environments, an extended desktop with a second screen sitting beside the main display can be a real boon. Graphics cards that support ATI's EyeFinity and adaptors such as Matrox's TripleHead2Go will even let you add a third screen. If it's a really old PC running Windows XP or Me that you want to use for gaming, your options are limited. A DVD drive, as much RAM as the PC can take and a screen that offers faster response rates will be useful for less demanding games. For both elderly PCs and laptops, however, emulators and online games are likely to be more satisfactory. You don't need much firepower to play Angry Birds or Peggle, but you may prefer to rediscover the joys of older platforms such as the Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo 64, ZX Spectrum and even arcade games using the Mame program. See How to play classic games on your PC (tinyurl.com/666 grams s2k). Data on tHe move Q I want to transfer data from a pair of external hard drives to a new 1.5-terabyte (tB) drive. How do I copy across the contents? I have an asus Z9200U laptop running Windows Xp. Cameron Carter As your laptop has several USB ports, you can simply plug in all three drives, open them in Windows Explorer and drag-and-drop the files from old to new. Once you're done, the old external drives can be kept as backups or wiped clean. Note that the process may take some time over a USB 2.0 connection. To maximise the transfer rate, do not attempt to copy data from both drives at once. sloW staRtUps Q When I turn on my pC it runs through the startup sequence until it reaches the Windows login screen. I enter my details and it then takes around half an hour for the desktop to load. the system is reasonably powerful, with an amD phenom II x4 965 processor and atI Radeon HD 5850 graphics. Mark Gillam There are several possible causes for this problem, Mark. However, the key thing to determine is whether the PC runs correctly and at the speed it once did following completion of the lengthy startup process. Windows may be trying to log into a network or network resource that is no longer there. Alternatively, you may have a corrupt user profile, or there may be disk errors on your hard drive. Run a disk check to establish the culprit. Go to Start, Computer and right-click your primary drive (usually C). Select Properties, Tools, Error-checking, Check now. Ensure the 'Automatically fix file system errors' box is ticked. Click Start and press Ok when prompted. You'll need to reboot the machine to run the automated disk check. It will fix any problems it finds. If you once had the PC set up to log into a network such as a Windows domain, or you mapped a drive to an external storage device that is no longer present, this will also cause problems when logging in. If your computer still suffers slow logins, your user profile may need replacing. Go to Start, right-click Computer and select Manage. Expand 'Local users and groups'. Right-click Users and select 'New user'. Fill in the details in the dialog box and give the account a strong but memorable password, then clear the 'User must change password at next logon' option. Click Create. The new user account will now be listed in Computer Management. Double-click it and select the 'Member of' tab. Click 'Add' and, in the 'Enter the object names to select' field, type 'Administrators' and click Ok. While it's bad practice to create new user accounts with administrator privileges, it's often necessary to do so to ensure access to certain applications and the old user account. Reboot your computer and log in using the new user account. It may take a minute or so to set up the correct folders and profile. Once logged in, you'll need to copy your documents and media folders from the old account to their respective folders in the new account. Head to C:\Users to access these files. Note that you'll need to be logged in as an administrator and enable hidden files and folders in the Folder Options Control Panel applet if you wish to access your email and browser shortcuts. sCReen maGIC Q I have a redundant 19 inches flat-panel display that I can't bear to throw away. Is there a simple way to turn it into a picture display? Ian Rutter If you hunt around online or at hardware stores such as Maplin you'll find small media players that are in essence SD Card readers that connect to a TV. This is the easiest option if you simply want to have a set of images from a single folder display on a connected screen. A fancier option, assuming you want to have the screen in the same room as your PC or laptop, is to connect it as a secondary monitor and 'extend' the desktop on to it such that only a photo slideshow plays on it. See our workshop at tinyurl.com/67esheu. A more complex option is to buy an old netbook with an SD Card slot, remove the screen and connect it to the back of the display. You could then use Google Picasa (picasa.google.com) to display the pictures. For advice, see tinyurl.com/d5qw3q. Alternatively, you can use the spare monitor as a second display for your computer. If desk space is an issue, special desktop monitor arms that let you mount it on to the back of your desk are available for around ukp20. offICe InstallatIon Q PC Advisor recently published a workaround to a problem where microsoft office tries to reinstall itself when you click on an open document (march issue). Can you tell me some more about this, please - I have a similar issue but none of your suggestions seems to apply to my machine. Mat Gazeley This issue has many possible causes and there are several suggested fixes, Mat. The problem you're experiencing could be down to a bad or partial Office installation, a corrupt user profile or incorrectly applied patches, for example. The first thing to try is System Restore. Using this utility, you can roll back the PC to a time when it was functioning properly. See our DVD for a PDF walkthrough on using System Restore. Other things you can try include uninstalling Office and ensuring all Windows patches are applied before you reinstall it. You should also download and apply any Office patches before you launch the productivity suite. Re-register Office with the system. Click Start, Run and type msiexec /unregister. Press Enter and click Ok. Next, click Start, Run and enter msiexec /regserver. A final resort is to reinstall Windows. Be sure to back up important files first. WInDoWs maIl malaDy Q A message appears on startup and on closing down Windows mail that reports: 'Windows mail can compress the message store. this may take up to a few minutes'. It's becoming annoying. Could you help me get rid of it please? Peter scadding The best way to get rid of this message is to let Windows do what it's after: compress the message store. This process has no adverse effect and will simply reduce the amount of space available on your hard drive for storing email messages. To prevent the compression, however, first check that you are using the latest version of Live Mail. You can update your copy at tinyurl.com/39mcgac. Open the blue 'Windows Live Mail' tab, then click Options, Mail, Advanced, Maintenance. Deselect the option to 'Compact the database on shutdown'. Xp aDD-on anXIety Q My Windows Xp pC is experiencing problems with Internet explorer 8.0 add-ons. microsoft's mats Run program shows that the browser is running 36 add-ons. I don't recognise most of these items and would like to remove them, but they aren't listed in manage add-ons. Can you help? Mervyn Fletcher The Mats Run program is a Microsoft automated troubleshooting tool. It shows what it thinks are add-ons to Internet Explorer, but some are idle components of other installed software. Examples include BitDefender and PDF Creator. Many add-ons in the list you attached to your query are browser toolbars, not add-ons. These can be easily disabled: right-click Internet Explorer's toolbar and deselect any you don't use. In some cases, you'll need to look in Manage add-ons or Add/Remove Programs to disable them. Finally, run a full antivirus and spyware scan to ensure that none of the entries detected by Microsoft is malicious. oUt of Room Q My Windows 7 Home premium laptop runs a 2.2GHz Intel Celeron processor and 2GB of Ram. It works well in general, but Windows has recently started reporting that the hard drive has no free space when I try to install programs. Tony Paine As Windows isn't reporting free space correctly, it's likely that your hard drive has corrupted. You should run a thorough disk check to ensure the integrity of information on the disk and its physical health. Go to Start, Computer, right-click your hard drive and select Properties. Click Tools, Error-checking, Check now. Select both options in the 'Check local disk' dialog that pops up, then click Start, 'Schedule disk check'. Close all open programs, then select the option to have Windows perform its check upon the next reboot. Restart the PC. The check will take some time, so be patient. Following completion of the disk check the computer will load Windows. You should now be able to install software correctly. However, if it reports that you have 'bad clusters/sectors' on your hard drive then it may be about to fail - you should replace it as soon as possible and be sure to back up your important files and folders in the meantime. If no bad sectors are found, it may be time to reinstall Windows. left speeCHless Q speech recognition will no longer load on my Windows 7 pC. Unless I first switch off User account Control, I get the error message: 'C:\Windows\ speech\Common\sapisvr.exe. a referral was returned from the server'. according to my online research this is a common problem, but I can't find a solution. system Restore and a full restore from my backup temporarily fix the problem until the next reboot. any ideas please? Harry Leeming As you say, this problem is widely reported, but solutions are few and far between, even on Microsoft's own support forums (see tinyurl.com/45oruwe). However, a fix for a Vista PC is likely to fix a Windows 7 PC, since the two platforms are so similar. Check that your sound card and microphone drivers are correct and up to date. You can then create a batch file that contains a series of commands - you simply double-click it and the computer will proceed through each task. Head to Start, Control Panel, Folder Options, View and disable the setting 'Hide extensions for known files types'. Right-click the desktop and select New, Text Document. Name it 'speech.txt' and double-click to open it. Type in the following commands, with each on a new line: c: cd\ cd windows cd speech cd common sapisvr -speechUX Save the file as 'speech.txt', then close Notepad. Right-click the file and select Rename, then change the .txt extension to .cmd. Press Enter to confirm the change. To use the file, right-click it and select 'Run as administrator'. You may find it helpful to drag the file to your Windows Taskbar for easy access. An alternative solution is to run the Windows System File Checker. Click Start and type CmD in the search box. Press Enter. In the black command box that pops up, type sfc /checknow and press return. Windows will then check all its system files and repair any corrupt versions it finds. If the problem keeps occurring, you may need to reinstall Windows. WHICH os WIll I Be toDay? Q I upgraded to Windows 7 on a new hard drive with three partitions. It unexpectedly installed itself on a reserved portion, but worked perfectly. However, on startup I am now offered a choice of loading linux or Windows. How do I set up the pC so that I don't have to go through this extra step every time? Neil Pamplin I suspect that the drive once booted into Linux - you didn't say whether the hard drive was brand-new or taken from a different PC. When this hard drive was partitioned, the boot partition remained and a Linux boot-loader is still present there. (If, however, you used Paragon Partition Manager to set up the drive partitions, you can skip the following three paragraphs.) The easiest solution is to boot from the Windows 7 installation disc. Once you get to the 'Where do you want to install Windows' screen, click the 'Advanced' option, highlight each partition in turn and click 'Delete'. Ensure you've backed up any important files and folders first as this will wipe your drive. The dialog box will now show a single hard drive, referred to as 'Disk 0 Unallocated Space'. Click 'New'. You can create your initial drive by allocating the space specified in the size box. Note that Windows 7 requires 10.5GB for installation, but we recommend using 40GB as a minimum. Windows will create the 'reserved drive' automatically, which is used to store recovery tools and important files that you'll need in the event of an emergency. Recreate your drives as required. Highlight the first partition you created, click Next and Windows will install to the first partition. You can format the other partitions once Windows has installed using the Disk Management applet. You didn't say so, but there's a chance that this problem was caused by Paragon Partition Manager. The fix listed above will work, but you'll find in-depth discussion about the cause and suggested fixes at tinyurl.com/6jl54kt. If you don't want to mess around with deleting partitions and you consider yourself technically minded, you can simply delete the old Linux boot-loader and have Windows boot correctly by following the instructions given at tinyurl.com/62w6fd. mIsBeHavInG moUse Q My wife dislikes laptop touchpads and used to have a UsB mouse that plugged into her Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. she has now upgraded to a wireless mouse, but we can't get it to work. We've tried three different wireless mice, all with the same lack of results. all three mice work fine on another vista laptop and a Windows Xp desktop. Windows troubleshooting reports: 'this device is working properly'. Can you help? Chris Payne The USB ports on your Dell laptop are either faulty or underpowered, Chris. This prevents the wireless dongle from receiving enough current to operate correctly. Try connecting another USB device that has its own power source, such as a printer or digital camera, to confirm that the USB ports are at least working. If they are, you'll need to plug the wireless dongle into a powered USB hub connected to the laptop to get the mouse to function correctly. The down side here is that the laptop becomes less portable. Also check that the wireless dongle is being detected by Windows when you plug it in. Click Start and type device manager into the Search box, then select Device Manager from the list. Expand 'Mice and other pointing devices' in the Window that pops up and check that your dongle is listed. If it's listed but still not working, try pressing the 'Connect' buttons on the mouse and dongle. If it still doesn't work, go back to Device Manager, expand the USB controllers entry and look for any listing of 'generic USB hubs'. Double-click these, then select the Power Management tab in the dialog box that appears. Deselect the box next to 'Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power', click Ok and reboot the laptop with the dongle still attached. If you are still experiencing problems with your mouse, wireless interference could be to blame. If you have a number of wireless devices in the home, such as a wireless router, smartphones and other laptops, there could be a large amount of traffic swamping the signal between the mouse and the laptop. Try turning off the laptop's wireless radio to see if this makes a difference. You could also try changing the channel your wireless router works on (consult the router's documentation to find out how to do this). Finally, ensure that your laptop has the latest Bios and motherboard firmware installed. You'll find these updates at Dell's support site. pASS IT ON: BACkUp BOThER PC Advisor reader Robin Griffiths offers the following suggestions in response to Helproom queries in our march issue. "In Windows wipeout, Brian Hawley was getting error messages in acronis 9.0 stating that his files were corrupt. I ran into the same problem in acronis true Image Home 2010. my files backed up fine, but when I came to restore I kept getting these error messages. However, a trial offer of the latest version showed that the problem seems to be with the program rather than the disk. version 2011 (with the latest updates) can read and restore from the image files that version 2010 claimed were corrupt," he writes. Robin also has some advice on getting older printers to work with Windows 7. Rather than switching to Xp mode, he suggests not installing the printer's own setup program but to go to Devices and printers and add the printer from there. this forces Windows to look for the printer's .inf file on the printer CD. Robin says this approach worked for his Konica minolta magicolor printer, installing all the required Windows 7 files and the printer details. thanks Robin! Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
