Computer Q&A

[GhostWhiter]

Ok... I took the Heatsink off... the processor and copper part had the grease is dried up and it doesn't seem to be to well applied. Processor
Heatsink
I'm guessing this heatsink is junk and Ill start looking for a replacement?

I know its a little late in the game, but I hope you are using a properly anchored grounding wrist strap when working around the processor. The slightest bit of static shock around the CPU can be deadly to a computer.

While you have the case open, you should consider getting a can of compressed air and cleaning any dust that has accumulated out of the case and especially from around the ventilation ports & fans for the case. Even partially blocked vent ports can cause a significant rise in the internal temperature of a computer.

I notice that your computer is an HP/Compaq. I have one that is about 4 to 5 years old. In my situation the case ventilation was so poor I wound up cutting a hole in the side of the case to add an exhaust fan. It was to only way for me to get the internal temperature down to safe levels after adding a second HDD. If this is the computer you are looking to add that 750 Gb HDD to--I am thinking that the only safe way to add it is with an external case.

[Cloud23465]

Oh yeah. I keep myself grounded when I work on the computer, and I do a dust cleaning every 3 months or so. I know what your talking about as far as it making a huge difference in the tempature. I have the 750 in the spot where the old boot disk was. It runs about 2*c warmer then the old 300gig hard drive... but I expected this by the reviews from newegg. My computers side pannel is about 55% drilled out from the factory with small holes to help air flow. I actually have 3 hard drives running in this computer now and there hasn't been any higher spikes in tempatures that i've seen.

[Mike_Industries]

I was talking to my buddy today, and he was telling me to that my E-machine (I KNOW!) is old and bad, blah blah blah. His main argument, 80 gigs of hard drive is too small. My question is, am I really that out of date when 80 gigs is a small computer? I mainly use it to store my music, write, create my rom hacks, and that's about it. Sorry, but my buddy just confused me...

[jeriddian]

I was talking to my buddy today, and he was telling me to that my E-machine (I KNOW!) is old and bad, blah blah blah. His main argument, 80 gigs of hard drive is too small. My question is, am I really that out of date when 80 gigs is a small computer? I mainly use it to store my music, write, create my rom hacks, and that's about it. Sorry, but my buddy just confused me...

If that's all you're doing with it, 80 Gb should be more than enough to do the job.

[Sir Sebastian]

I was talking to my buddy today, and he was telling me to that my E-machine (I KNOW!) is old and bad, blah blah blah. His main argument, 80 gigs of hard drive is too small. My question is, am I really that out of date when 80 gigs is a small computer? I mainly use it to store my music, write, create my rom hacks, and that's about it. Sorry, but my buddy just confused me...

If your computer is sufficient for your needs, it's not too old. Same goes for your harddrive. You only need under 10 gigs to run Windows, anything over only necessary if you need to store media or plan to install a lot of games. I have 160gigs on my main computer only because I'm running a multi-boot system (XP/XP64/Vista). The rest (about 700gigs in total) is in my fileserver which sits in my "server room" (a walk-in closet that I turned into my junk warehouse).

I only recently upgraded from a Sempron 3000+ to an Athlon X2 5000+. The old one did the job I needed it to do - play videos and music - and I only upgraded since I had extra money and it bugged me that the video would sometimes start to chop when doing something else in the background.

[Cloud23465]

I do massive amounts of movie format conversions, video editing, plus my music, video and picture collections... hard drive space fills up smaller drives fast. I've got almost 2TBs of hard drive space to work with now... this is including internal and external drives. About a 1/4 is already in use and given time proabably half will be used here soon. I was restricted by what I could do with the smaller hard drives... but adding this 750gb hard drive really opened a door for me so I can cut loose a bit and not have to worry about space management for a while. Given time and money Ill have another 750gb hard drive on the way and 1TB external server setup on my network.

[canuck31003]

For iPods like the Shuffle, would I need to install Apple software (iTunes?) to load mp3's, or can I access it simply like a USB drive?

[Fireand'chutes77]

It looks like I've made a rather signifigant boo-boo with the PC...

For the past day, I've kept getting these messages from our computer's "Trend Micro PC-cillin" protection service:

Infected file: C:\WINDOWS\system32\vtuts.dll
Virus name: TROJ_VUNDO.ATM
Scan action result: Unable to clean infected file. The file was quarantined.

And more ominously:

Infected File: C:\Documents and Settings\Family\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\N9UWV4HP\css4[1]
Virus name: TROJ_VUNDO.ATM
Scan action result: Unable to clean or quarantine the infected file.




I can't say I've been exactly, uh, innocent in all this. Last night I attempted to use Google to find a way to back-door around Apple's locks on their .m4v KP episodes so I could use them for AMVs.... And at the same time I was looking for a "crack" of Adobe Premiere Elements so I wouldn't have to pay the roughly $500 for retail... Not exactly Eagle Scout-ish behavior... Ehhhhhh....

And, since I'm pretty sure my searches and downloads caused the problem, I'm resolved to fix it (and before my parents find out. ). I've deleted the stuff I downloaded, but I'm still getting these Trojan warnings.

I've scanned the computer multiple times using PC-cillin, and deleting the quarantined files when they came up. I can't find a "Local Settings" folder to go after the un-quarantinable files, though. I've looked up this Vundo thing on Wikipedia, and it looks serious if you get a bad case of it. So far, I don't think I did; my computer hasn't slowed down - not counting when I was doing the scans, the homepage hasn't been hijacked, I haven't been getting pop-ups, and images on webpages haven't been replaced.

That could change, though, if this thing has some sort of "unloading time bomb" on it...

I've used the "VundoFix" application at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, but that doesn't seem to do anything.

The second external link, to something called "Exterminate-It," seems helpful, and I've used the free trial version to scan the computer.
It's turned up "Malware Browser H..." [The rest of the name doesn't show], of the "BHO" category [whatever that means] in the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE......" or "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT....." [Whatever that means.] It's also found a surprising number of "Tracking Cookies." Unfortunately, I can't delete the buggers until I buy the program.

I haven't tried the McAfee program yet (first external link).

Does anyone know of some free software that could help me (or have some "idiotproof" step-by-step instructions)?

More importantly, is there any free software (and/or pay-for) that'd prevent this from happening again? I have "ClamWin Free Antivirus" already, but a lot of good that did me.

[campy]

You should be able to find that Local Settings folder if you change your options to display hidden and system files. (Control Panel > Folder Options > View tab ) I'd do that and then delete the N9UWV4HP subfolder.

[jeriddian]

McAfee and Norton are not that good any more. If Campy's suggestion doesn't work. I would recommend getting a one user version of Zone Alarm. I think you're at the point you're probably going to have to spend a little money....