The Vent and Rant Thread

[Glorfindel]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Can this PC be saved?

Or shall I just chuck it through my window, rather than returning it to my neighbor? This is the one what I'm trying to upgrade for my neighbor (who does my dog-sitting). I wanted to put Windows 10 on it, while that's still free.

Instead, we can't even open a "Compose email" window in IE (yahoo mail) if *any* other tab is open. I propose she use it for a kitty litter box, rather than trying to upgrade it to anything. She herself is computer illiterate enough that, when the compose mail window doesn't open, she clicks again. So we wind up with 5 or 6 processes trying to open, when in fact, even the FIRST cannot manage to start itself. This machine is a piece of s**t. And I don't believe in swearing. We finally got a message in the lower right, from Yahoo mail, about "this is taking too long; wanna revert to Basic Mail?". I clicked that. 5 minutes later, the screen changed to that. By then, she had given up and asked to use my mac, for the email and resume she wanted to submit. (We did that, but I cringed lest she click on something strange and, in her un-computer-acy, expose my mac to viruses.)

It is a barely 2 year old AMD E1-2500 Radeon 1.4 GHz with 4G Ram. 64 bit OS currently running (managed to upgrade to?) 8.1 w Bing. HP Pavilion. Will throwing memory at it save anything, or is a doorstop too good for this thing?

Or is all this related to internet problems? This was at my house; not hers. Her internet doesn't work at all. Mine only gets 15Mps on a good day, but it never hangs up like that.

She hasn't actually *asked* me to fix this thing. She never uses it or even turns it on. But she's looking for a new job, and I'm getting tired of her using my mac for that. I can keep her PC set up wired to my internet (not wifi), if we can only get some decent speed out of the horrible thing.

Any ideas? Help Mr Wizard!!

Based off of how you describe your friend, I would definitely check for malware, PUPS, start-at-boot crud and so on. Ccleaner works good for the PUPs and crud-ware, and Microsoft has a virus scan-and-removal tool you can use, both are free.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

Based off of how you describe your friend, I would definitely check for malware, PUPS, start-at-boot crud and so on. Ccleaner works good for the PUPs and crud-ware, and Microsoft has a virus scan-and-removal tool you can use, both are free.

I concur on CCleaner.

It was originally called Crap Cleaner, and did what the name implied - deleted junk files that accumulate in Windows. I ran it on the desktop of an old friend's late husband. He was a self-described slob, and carried his habits through to his computer housekeeping. (Essentially, he never did any.) CCleaner removed 2GB worth of garbage.

It is steadily updated, and cleans not only Windows files, but stuff left behind by applications, too, with a steadily increasing number of apps it knows how to clean up after.

Find it at https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner The free version is entirely adequate for what you want to do.

A malware scan is also a good idea. The best of the lot for this is likely Malware Bytes. They have a free scanner app that can find and remove malware. Download and install it, and update its definition file, then run it. It will probably take a while. When done, it will present a list of what it found and let you selectively delete it. For the state of the machine as described, "Nuke it all till it glows, and shoot it in the dark" is probably called for. See https://www.malwarebytes.org/dl-confirm/

Again, the free version is adequate for what you are doing at the moment. They offer a Pro version that acts as a resident malware blocker, but I don't bother with it. Malware gets in through the browser, and the first defense is "Don't run IE."

MS offers an anti-malware tool that is a standard part of Windows Critical Update downloads, and a decent way to stay reasonably clean once you have a stable system.

Stuff loading on StartUp is also a fertile source of problems. I still run an ancient program from Mike Lin called Startup, dating form 1999. It's a stand-alone 39K EXE. Programs run on startup in Windows may be started from four locations: the user's Startup folder, an All Users startup folder, and from the HK Current User and HK Local Machine sections of the Windows registry. Startup displays the four locations in tabs, and lets you create, edit, disable and remove Startup entries. As a general practice, I exercise caution on anything in the Local Machine section. Those tend to be drivers you don't wish to mess with unless you know what they are and do.

You can get Startup from Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20131106...tupCPL_EXE.zip

(These days, Mike is Mike Lin, Phd, and a genome scientist in Silicon Valley.)

There is a program called Autoruns from Mark Russinovitch, but try Startup first.

After you've done that, install Firefox or Chrome, and see if the email woes still exist. There's not a good way to simply remove IE, but you can avoid using it.
______
Dennis

[CRussel]

While all the suggestions are good, badgoodDeb, I honestly think there's not much you can do for this that will make it significantly better than a doorstop. That AMD processor was never a speed demon, and it's now way behind the curve. Adding RAM won't help - I seriously doubt she uses the 4GB that's in there. About the only real change you can make to what's there that might actually make a difference is to swap out the HDD for an SSD. (Most consumer SSDs come with a free, basic copy of Acronis to clone your existing drive onto the SSD.) That being said, do a serious scan with Malware Bytes, and it it doesn't flag anything, I wouldn't hold out much hope.

[Bilbo1967]

At the airport. Our flight to Prague is delayed by an hour and fifty minutes (and counting).

[DMcCunney]

I'm currently wrestling with a weird problem that fully manifests as problems in restarting.

I have an assortment of USB thumb drives plugged in, and sometime plug in an Android tablet to transfer files to the tablet's external microSD card. Windows will get into a weird state where right-click operations on files on those drives will hang, and a restart is needed.

Attempts to do a restart produce the Restarting screen, with the spinning circle progress indicator, but Restart doesn't occur. Instead, I get a Win10 BSOD telling me Windows encountered a problem and needs to restart, and error information is being collected. It recommends searching for DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE when it's back up for info about the issue.

Commentary returned by a search indicates it's usually a driver problem, and make sure all you use are up to date, and may be related to USB. Mine are up to date - I made sure the current machine was running the latest drivers for the hardware when I got it, and haven't made hardware changes since.

USB is a likely candidate. There is no such thing as enough USB ports. The machine comes with two rear facing and two front facing USB ports. The two rear ports are occupied by a seven port USB2 hub for the collection of thumb drives, and an old four port USB 1.1 hub my USB keyboard and mouse plug into. The two front ports are available for plugging in things like my printer (my desktop doesn't have wifi, so a USB cable gets connected on the infrequent occasions I print anything), and my Android tablet.

Both hubs have connectors for external power supplies. I currently have one plugged into the seven port hub to see whether it helps.

The annoyance is that my setup have not changed from what I had under Win7 Pro, and things were stable and these problems did not manifest under it. Win10 has decided to be pickier. And of course, an indication of which driver was having heartburn is too much to ask for...
______
Dennis

[Cinisajoy]

Darn connector ring.
I had a clogged drain. I knew the problem was in one pipe under the sink. I got the pipe off just fine. Reattached the pipe on one side with no problems. The other side is being a total pain and not wanting to line up. I shall try again after while.
Yes it is PVC pipe so nothing complicated.
Note: that particular connection was backwards. As soon as I started unscrewing, it went on like a champ.
It was not a righty tighty lefty loosey.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Darn connector ring.
I had a clogged drain. I knew the problem was in one pipe under the sink. I got the pipe off just fine. Reattached the pipe on one side with no problems. The other side is being a total pain and not wanting to line up. I shall try again after while.
Yes it is PVC pipe so nothing complicated.
Note: that particular connection was backwards. As soon as I started unscrewing, it went on like a champ.
It was not a righty tighty lefty loosey.

Yeah, plumbing frequently has backwards connectors, so that they don't work loose in normal life. But it does make you work harder when removing them!

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Yeah, plumbing frequently has backwards connectors, so that they don't work loose in normal life. But it does make you work harder when removing them!

And here I thought my left handed grandmother had done the plumbing.
I am pretty sure that either my dad, my uncle, my mom or my aunt did that plumbing.
I know it was done in the early 1970's. That was when grandmother remodeled her kitchen.
It had to be one of them because I think the local hardware store gave them a discount for buying in bulk. Grandmother redid her kitchen, mom and dad added a bedroom, bathroom, den and sewing room and my aunt and uncle added on a den to their respective houses.

Funny thing was grandmother was offered central heat and air for parts only (no markup) and she turned it down.

[Blossom]

I just unclogged our bathroom sink a few days ago. It was pretty bad. I went to the Dollar Tree and got their version of Liquid Plumber called Mister Plumber. I poured half the bottle, waited then flushed and no change. So I poured the rest in repeating the process and it showed minor improvement. The next day it was draining 50% faster which for a $1 wasn't bad. I was going to get another bottle but yesterday when I went to wash my hands it drained liked it was supposed too. The clog is gone.

I am overjoyed it worked but this is a venting thread. My husband really needs to stop shaving over the sink which is how it clogs in the first place. This has happened in every apartment we have lived at. I normally just used vinegar, baking soda and salt for drain problems but we are just starting to get back on our feet so we didn't have any. It's been a constant battle keeping the sink unclogged here as he is shaving more here due to new job and hot weather.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I concur on CCleaner.

It was originally called Crap Cleaner, and did what the name implied - deleted junk files that accumulate in Windows.
Find it at https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner The free version is entirely adequate for what you want to do.

A malware scan is also a good idea. The best of the lot for this is likely Malware Bytes. They have a free scanner app that can find and remove malware. Download and install it, and update its definition file, then run it. It will probably take a while. When done, it will present a list of what it found and let you selectively delete it. For the state of the machine as described, "Nuke it all till it glows, and shoot it in the dark" is probably called for. See https://www.malwarebytes.org/dl-confirm/

Again, the free version is adequate for what you are doing at the moment. They offer a Pro version that acts as a resident malware blocker, but I don't bother with it. Malware gets in through the browser, and the first defense is "Don't run IE."
______
Dennis

Thanks, y'all. I ran Ccleaner and got rid of some stuff (she really rarely used this, so there wasn't a whole lot there) and ran Malware Bytes and got rid of 5-6 PUP files (whatever they may be). Nothing else. I've put a post-it note saying "NO!" over the IE icon and another saying "mail" pointing to the Chrome icon. I also told yahoo mail to revert to the basic display, rather than the newer. *My* mail is at least viewable; we'll have to try hers.

Now that I see that it *is* at 8.1 (dunno if that was true before, or not) I'll google how to put a Start Menu back on. We'll both recognize that, which may help, though it won't fix the slowness.

I'll ask her if she wants me to install the Solitaire programs that were mentioned a month ago, when I first asked (thanks for the pointer to those!) but given the overall slowness, maybe not. Or maybe, if it gets her to actually USE the pc again, she would bother to call her ISP and get the connection fixed? That could help .... Why spend $45/ month for a connection that hasn't worked in over a year .... when she's also using a food pantry??

[Blossom]

You might want to disable using ccleaner start up tool any program's running in the background she doesn't need. Alot of computers come with bloatware running in the background. Is it the computer that is slow or just the internet connection?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I just unclogged our bathroom sink a few days ago. It was pretty bad. I went to the Dollar Tree and got their version of Liquid Plumber called Mister Plumber. I poured half the bottle, waited then flushed and no change. So I poured the rest in repeating the process and it showed minor improvement. The next day it was draining 50% faster which for a $1 wasn't bad. I was going to get another bottle but yesterday when I went to wash my hands it drained liked it was supposed too. The clog is gone.

I am overjoyed it worked but this is a venting thread. My husband really needs to stop shaving over the sink which is how it clogs in the first place. This has happened in every apartment we have lived at. I normally just used vinegar, baking soda and salt for drain problems but we are just starting to get back on our feet so we didn't have any. It's been a constant battle keeping the sink unclogged here as he is shaving more here due to new job and hot weather.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Check Dollar Tree for sink hair catchers.
Though I knew about the vinegar and baking soda. What does the salt do?

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Blossom

You might want to disable using ccleaner start up tool any program's running in the background she doesn't need. Alot of computers come with bloatware running in the background. Is it the computer that is slow or just the internet connection?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I can't really tell, since my own internet isn't great. (Her's is non-existent.) Does "top" run on a PC; or is there a command to see what's running in the background?

Oh, good -- I did get Ccleaner to remove McAfee, which she hadn't purchased, so that it will stop asked her for money. She's got Avast freeware, at my brother's recommendation.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Check Dollar Tree for sink hair catchers.
Though I knew about the vinegar and baking soda. What does the salt do?

Okay will do that. Thanks. I got the salt tip from Heloise many years ago. I think it acts like a scrubber.

Clogged drains*Pour 1/2 c. baking soda and 1/4 c. salt, then 1/2 c. vinegar, into the clogged drain. Wait 15 to 20 minutes; run hot water for one minute, then cold water for one minute. Repeat if necessary. ~Heloise~

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I can't really tell, since my own internet isn't great. (Her's is non-existent.) Does "top" run on a PC; or is there a command to see what's running in the background?

Oh, good -- I did get Ccleaner to remove McAfee, which she hadn't purchased, so that it will stop asked her for money. She's got Avast freeware, at my brother's recommendation.

I'd open ccleaner go to tools and there is a tool to show all programs that start when Windows starts. You can disable all the ones not needed.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk