Official Computer Help Thread

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
Gamers will have it tougher going forward, what with Microsoft and game makers teaming up to prevent gaming cheats...
 

ThreadWeaver

Beware of Dog. Cat not trustworthy either.
I haven't used game cheats in a long time. Like since games used continue codes and the konami code. What I do object to is background software that monitors me to prevent cheating. Gamespy was one of the more notorious ones.
Now to hear that Microsoft added an anti-cheat directly in the windows 10 fall creator's update rather pisses me off. More software that spies one me and I'm sure will claim that "No we're not spying on you and we won't use that data for anything else." Coming from Microsoft, that's rather like listening to a Trump speech: you know he's lying through his teeth but there's nothing you can do about it except keep calling him on it and hoping... hoping.
I barely tolerate Steam's anti-cheat because at least Valve hasn't lied to me. That I know of. Yet.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
According to the article I read on it... you can disable it. However, games can be set to detect if that is disabled, and if the game maker set it up to do it, limit functionality to penalize users because it is disabled, up to and including preventing on-line or multi or cloud type playing.

I've never been a fan of cheating... in fact, I think one of the last times I actually bothered with cheating was the old Doom Game... and even that was long after I had played it through normally plenty of times at various difficulty levels

These days, this really is of no relevant concern to me whatsoever, as I've not been remotely into computer games enough to be called a gamer for probably around 15 years now... A bit after Wing Commander Prophesy came out. I got turned off to the game industry when they wanted to charge not just for the game system and the game, but have monthly fees to continue play or get bug fixes... Not even Star Trek On-line has been enough to get me back into gaming, despite my having been a larger star trek fan than a anime / manga fan.

About the only game I even considered picking up in the last decade was about 2 years ago and was a WII game Nerf had put out. Why you ask? It was so addictive that even my 68 year old mother was constantly playing it with my 6 year old nephew... I even bought her a set of guns and image viewers for it, which she really appreciated.
 

Aarik

Well-Known Member
Lately two games I've acquired, both Japanese games (both made by the same circle), have refused to properly display text, showing random english letters instead.

I've gotten Japanese games to play on that computer before without issues, locale for non unicode is set to Japanese, it has the Japanese language pack installed (also Russian for some reason).

I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Any of you guys have any better idea's?

EDIT: Also it freezes at the second event. Putting it in compatibility for Windows 8 makes it freeze in a different WAY, but I'm not getting an error message or anything, without compat it freezes, the music hits a loop, I get the (not responding) thing in the window and need task manager to close it. With Compat, it just freezes and I can't interact with the window anymore.
 
Aarik said:
Lately two games I've acquired, both Japanese games (both made by the same circle), have refused to properly display text, showing random english letters instead.

I've gotten Japanese games to play on that computer before without issues, locale for non unicode is set to Japanese, it has the Japanese language pack installed (also Russian for some reason).

I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Any of you guys have any better idea's?

EDIT: Also it freezes at the second event. Putting it in compatibility for Windows 8 makes it freeze in a different WAY, but I'm not getting an error message or anything, without compat it freezes, the music hits a loop, I get the (not responding) thing in the window and need task manager to close it. With Compat, it just freezes and I can't interact with the window anymore.
If it was just the letters I'd think that it was trying to use a weird font that isn't covered by the language pack.

Given the freezing I suspect that some files are corrupt and you need to uninstall and reinstall it. I'd use the uninstall tool that most games have in the install folder and then run CCleaner to clean up any leftover registry entries.

I'd also delete your save and settings folder as it could be a corrupted file there as well.

If that doesn't work, try uninstalling it as described above, then redownloading it, or if it's a physical copy, making sure the disk doesn't have scratches or other defects on it.
 

ThreadWeaver

Beware of Dog. Cat not trustworthy either.
While CCleaner is a good tool, if you don't have the newest version, you may have been compromised, so make sure to get the newest from their site. More info here:
https://www.piriform.com/news/release-announcements/2017/9/18/security-notification-for-ccleaner-v5336162-and-ccleaner-cloud-v1073191-for-32-bit-windows-users
 

Aarik

Well-Known Member
Thank you, looking into the font thing helped me find Locale Emulator, which allows me to run it fine-

Bar the issue that I can't seem to run it with both that and AGTH, which is pretty much the only text hooker that's worth a damn.

So I can play it or I can understand it, not both.
 
Here's a random tip that can save you some irritation and money.

If you ever need a program to do something specific on a computer [photo editing, word processing, troubleshooting specific things, or whatever].

Don't search for "free" or "download".

Instead search for "Open Source" to find what you need. This will help avoid 'limited free trials' and a lot of bloatware installations.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
Okay. I'm using a HP ENVY 17-J013CL NOTEBOOK PC, battery type: 710417-001. (I've had this laptop for over 4 years now.) Recently, the battery that came with the laptop started going out. It wouldn't charge, or it would drain real fast when it wasn't plugged in. I even started getting a warning message when I started up the laptop, about the battery capacity being low.

So I bought a replacement battery off Amazon: 'ZTHY PI06 Laptop Battery For HP Envy'. (Made in China.) Matched the part type on the battery to the one listed in the description and everything. Got it, it works... except it won't charge. I swapped it in, and it was holding steady at 96%. It's gone down some, but when it's plugged in, it simply will not charge.

My old battery, it would seemingly not charge, but when I clicked on the icon, it would be fully charged. Even if I unplugged the power cord. (I've got the old one in right now, actually. It's reading fully charged.) I can't tell if the problem is with the new battery, or the power cord port.

Anyone got any ideas? Should I simply contact Amazon and get my money back, and buy a new replacement battery?
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
Double check that you installed it properly. Perhaps remove and re-install the battery physically again? If it still doesn't charge, I would contact amazon in your shoes. Looks like you got a defective product.

-chronodekar
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
chronodekar said:
Double check that you installed it properly. Perhaps remove and re-install the battery physically again? If it still doesn't charge, I would contact amazon in your shoes. Looks like you got a defective product.

-chronodekar
I did that. Still no charge. Going to have to contact Amazon, I guess.

EDIT: Amazon is giving me a refund, and the seller is sending me a replacement for free. Hope the new one works...

Thanks for the help, Chrono.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
If the replacement will not work, it may be either the contacts in the notebook that connect tot he battery, or the charging circuitry itself.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
PCHeintz72 said:
If the replacement will not work, it may be either the contacts in the notebook that connect tot he battery, or the charging circuitry itself.
If that's the case, I'll have the laptop checked out by a local repairman. Thanks for the tip, PC.
 

ThreadWeaver

Beware of Dog. Cat not trustworthy either.
If you power the system down, unplug it, and remove the battery, look inside the battery compartment and see if the contacts are corroded. They're generally gold-plated so they shouldn't corrode, but if the laptop fans vibrate a lot, there's a (admittedly) very remote possibility that the plating has worn off and the contacts have developed an oxidation layer, causing poor contact.

Does the laptop have a battery calibration tool installed on it? if so, maybe run it with the new battery and see if it wakes the system up to the new battery.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
I suppose, instead of wrong or even worn, the contacts could be dirty... carefully cleaning them with a pencil eraser and wiping them clean should do it... if that is the case.

In theory at least, a battery calibration tool/program/bios setting should not be needed on a modern notebook with a freshly replaced battery... plugging it in for a couple hours should give the battery a full charge... if it does not give any or a decent amount of time out of a battery after that, it is almost assured something is definitely wrong.

Only other thing that occurs to me is if there is a spare ac adapter, try that instead, it is possible for an ac adapter to go in such a way as to still give power to the notebook, but not enough to charge the battery. It has been years since I've seen case like that though.
 
This may be a slightly off-topic question.

I'm looking for a program to do some small audio recording for my twitch channel.

I've tried Audacity, but that's more geared to doing something like a podcast, or a DIY music album.

Are there any decent programs available that will let me record a 2-3 second blurb, trim as needed, and save as a .WAV/.MP3/.OOG?
 
NanuNanu14 said:
This may be a slightly off-topic question.

I'm looking for a program to do some small audio recording for my twitch channel.

I've tried Audacity, but that's more geared to doing something like a podcast, or a DIY music album.

Are there any decent programs available that will let me record a 2-3 second blurb, trim as needed, and save as a .WAV/.MP3/.OOG?
Ocenaudio
 

sith2886

Well-Known Member
So for what ever reason my photos app (and the folder) keep crashing. I'm using windows 10 and recently cleaned up using CCleaner
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
Hmmm... how many pictures in the folder? If either the number of pictures is huge, or the sizes total a lrage amount of space, it could be fragmentation of files and directory.

Try running not a cleanup program, but a drive and directory defragger... since you like Piriform CCleaner something like Piriform Defraggler ( https://www.ccleaner.com/defraggler/download ).

Alternatively, I do not know what you are viewing them with, but I've seen badly formatted/corrupted JPG/PNG files that crash viewers.
 

dapster

Well-Known Member
Is it only the pictures folder that crashes, and not any other folders? Then like PC said, you probably have too many pics in one folder. Since the folder wants to show all the pics in smaller size for icons, it will try and load too much at once, you should put it in list view so that it doesn't have to preview the pics in icon form, add some folders, and sort them so you have a smaller number of pics in one folder.

I have never had problems with fragmentation of pics, but he is almost certainly right on that count as well, though you might come to the same problem of too many in once folder, since most viewers will load all or many pics from a folder so you can quickly swap between them.
 

sith2886

Well-Known Member
The latest crash was a folder of 44 pics and I'm viewing them with the standard photos app for W10. I don't know if other folders crash as I don't usually open them but I could test it.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
sith2886 said:
The latest crash was a folder of 44 pics and I'm viewing them with the standard photos app for W10. I don't know if other folders crash as I don't usually open them but I could test it.
Number is not the reason then... when I see folders crash, it normally has many hundreds to many thousands of images in it. A folder can become fragmented once getting around 600 images and above.... generally in that scenario access is noticeably slower, not that it would crash. It has to do with both windows caching thumbnails and with the folder structure on the drive itself.

However, if you have a corrupted JPG or PNG, or a non-JPG/PNG file named as one, it is possible the viewer or folder could crash. The viewer because of the image itself, the folder could if it is set to show thumbnails and it is having difficulty discerning or extracting it.

Generally, that should not happen, as viewer should merely state either it is not a correct format or it cannot show it, and folder should give a generic icon... but if it is a corrupted or misnamed file, it could be it thinks it is valid and it is not.

One other possibility comes to mind... the icon cache itself could be corrupted... this could be checked by turning off icon caching, and seeing if can access all the images, then turn on and see if crashes...
 

ThreadWeaver

Beware of Dog. Cat not trustworthy either.
I was thinking that the thumbnail cache might be corrupted. If you right click on the C: drive in "This Computer", select 'properties', then click the "Disk cleanup" button, inside will be a checkbox for "thumbnails". Make sure it is X'd and then click the "OK" button. The system will have to re-create all the thumbnails as your browse folders, but it shouldn't impact performance too much.
 

sith2886

Well-Known Member
@threadweaver Ok i'll try that also

Update: so I tried moving a jpg file (don't know if it matters but mentioning it anyway) from one folder to another and my laptop froze for about 1-3 seconds and after it unfroze the folder was closed but the file still moved
 
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