PLAYING CDS/DVDS FROM COMPUTER

Q::If I play anything from my hard drive it sounds fine, but if I play it from my dvd/cd drive the sound is distorted. I have gone into all my settings I can find where the miss match is.

My computer is an Intel Pentium D 930 Dual-Core processing, running a ATI Radeon X1300 PRO with 256MB TV Tuner (with integrated S-Video Input). Running XP Media Centre, which wasn’t actually necessary because I don’t have any TV tuner plugged in, but that was the programme that was supplied. I bought the computer just after Christmas.. My old computer just had XP Pro. As my hobby is taking photos and playing around with them in Adobe (got so much info from Alex Linsday’s segments)I wanted something that didn’t keep telling me I was out of memory.

Mary
Sydney, NSW

Check the settings for the DVD audio output in the mixer - they’re different from the audio output settings for WAV files. Make sure the output for DVD audio is your speakers (and not the internal PC speaker).

SHOULD I INSTALL VISTA

Q::I got to this web site for a Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor my pc say it ok for vista but i am not sure if iget it and install it can you help me
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/

Paul
Gold Coast, QLD

Sean’s note: The Upgrade Advisor is a good guideline, but actually installing Vista on your computer is another thing entirely…it may go very smoothly, but there’s also the chance that it will introduce quirky little problems into your system. If you’re willing to live with such problems and you’re up for the Vista adventure, you might want to give it a go, but if your current system is working just fine for you, and you don’t have a compelling reason to upgrade your machine to Vista, you might want to hold off on Vista until you get a new computer.

BACK UP OR HOW TO FIX?

Q::My PC has been experiencing slow down over the week en which i allowed my brother to use it and just before that i noticed my internet explorer getting pop ups when i went to get my emails…i do not use ie7 even though i have it installed i use firefox 2 which i have had no problems with but i am trying to get my pc running well again and i never found anything wrong when i scanned with 3 different spy ware scanners webroot and spybot s/d as well as ad aware personal and i never found anything i also scanned with norton anti virus everyday f or at least a week and de fraged my hdd and and ran registry cleaners and didn’t notice any difference……..although norton did pick up an attempt by a trojan horse to enter my system and deleted it ……so my question is what can i do to get my system back up to speed or should i hunt down my recovery disks and wipe it and re-install and re update everything …….. i am currently on an amd athlon 64 processor at 2.2 ghz and a nvidia geforce 7100 gs and 1 gig of ram and 200 gb hdd ---by no means is it a great system but it should not be running slower then normal or getting pop ups in internet explorer? so how can i fix it or do i need to run a system restore ?

Cole
Spruce Grove, AB

Uh oh, sounds like spyware. You can use anti-spyware applications like Ad-Aware (www.lavasoft.de), Spybot Search and Destroy (www.safer-networking.org), and Microsoft’s own Windows Defender (www.microsoft.com/spyware), all of which are free. You can also try Hijack This (www.merijn.org) to remove things deep in the system. There are also things like Microsoft’s package from the Sysinternals division, Rootkit Revealer (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/RootkitRevealer....) and AVG’s Anti-Rootkit software (free.grisoft.com), which should track down rootkits installed covertly on your system, which regular anti-spyware and anti-virus programs won’t be able to find.

The bad news that even with these tools, spyware can be pretty tough to get rid of once you have it — ultimately you might have to wipe your system clean and start again with a freshly-formatted drive.

Sean’s note: That’s actually a reasonably-powered machine, so it should be that slow. If you’ve done all of the basic maintenance on there and no infections are showing up, you may have a nasty bug that’s just not showing up in the definition files you have. First thing you should do is update the definition for your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. Second, you should go to your control panel and check to make sure there aren’t any unwanted programs listed in your Add/Remove Programs panel (like toolbars, etc.) — what you’re seeing on your screen may be spyware-like, but it’s possible that a program on your system is functioning just the way it was intended…tracking it down in Add/Remove Programs and uninstalling it might solve the problem. You can also partly troubleshoot this by using the msconfig system utility to turn off items that are constantly running in the background, or you can use the newer, faster and better Microsoft utility called Autoruns (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/Autoruns.mspx).

Another reason for the slowness on your machine may simply be that you’re running out of space on the drive — you might want to see if you have a lot of free space left on the drive. If you’re starting to run out, deleting unwanted items may help the speed, too.

WIRELESS USB NIC DEVICES

Q::I have a fairly high end system with 2 ati X1900 Video cards. Each card takes up 2 of my bay slots. The remaining space is not enough to house a wireless NIC. The local shop suggested a USB version. I have tried a Belkin model that didnt work very well, i currently have a Linksys model that works okay. The linksys model sometimes has very random connectivity issues. I also considered the positioning of the router and the usb nic, however i also have a laptop with a builtin wireless nic that works perfectly fine. Is there anything you can suggest?

Mike
Cambridge, ON

Sean’s note: One thing I’ve notices while using the USB wireless adapters is that positioning is everything…if your adapter is plugged directly into the USB port on the back of your computer, you may get interference from other things in the direct vicinity, especially if they’re directly between the wireless adapter and the wireless router. See if you can get your hands on a USB extension cable (they often come with the wireless adapter) and try repositioning the adapter to a location that’s free and clear of anything that may cause signal degradation.

You might also want to take a look at Microsoft’s wireless update to upgrade your internal wireless components — it’s called the Wireless Update Rollup Package” and it solves a lot of problems: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826942

Also, if you’re using the manufacturer’s wifi client, you might want to uninstall with it and have the Windows Wireless Zero Config utility instead…it seems to do a better job.