Technical (computer) help needed

Errrm...

I can't get to my frequently used websites like Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo anymore. Luckily I get here somehow. Every else website seems to work fine. I'm using Firefox. But it's not a browser problem, because IE and Opera don't do it either. It happend from now to then. Any advice to get through (besides complete new installation of Windows - which is planned after this sh...)? Did I click on the self destruct button? Do I have a virus? Heeeeelllp!

P.S.: even Google doesn't work

don't worry george bush will be out of office in a few months. hope that helps.

I use Avira AntiVir Personal and no specific Firewall. T-online pretends to do that for you.

Reboot the modem?

3615 Jiphy wrote: Reboot the modem?

Cant be that or she wouldnt be replying, Jiffy.

Maybe an option. Perhaps there's something wrong with the connection.

I'll wait till tomorrow then give the distributor a ring. Maybe there's something wrong with the 'safe connections'. Else I think I have to restore Windows anyway... But not today... So folks please don't expect me to reply on Facebook on something. I can't open it.

bring up the command box and type.........

ping www.google.com

Any error?

Also.....try one of the affected sites in your browser, and when you get the dead page error, press control and F5.....this will force the browser to refresh and bypass any caching/proxying, in case that's the problem.

I don't get an error message. It simply doesn't load the pages. It says it does, but nothing happens.

Where do I find that command thing again?

Doctor? wrote: bring up the command box and type.........

ping www.google.com

Any error?

Also.....try one of the affected sites in your browser, and when you get the dead page error, press control and F5.....this will force the browser to refresh and bypass any caching/proxying, in case that's the problem.

Found it. No errors shown. Pings seem correct.

Well, if it's pinging, it aint DNS that's broken.

I think the Control F5 thing may only work in internet exploder, try it there. If this works it is a problem with your ISP web caching stuff....tight bastads.

You don't have any daft "web accelerator" crapware do you?

Rather than start a new geeky thread I thought I'd hijack this one. Motherboard died the other week and looks as though it'll cost £100 + to repair a 4yo desktop. Hate laptops so I thought I'd get a new one and use various bits off the old one. So, have narrowed it down to one of these but XP, XP pro or Vista*? AMD or Intel? Any help gratefully received.

* Steve, before you start pouring bile on MS, there are certain packages I need for work that will not run on Linux and Mac version of product is not compatible with MS version at work. Along with many others I hate vista so would probably choose XP as it now supported for another 6 years, hopefully i will be improved by then.

I you want ultimate performance, it really needs to be an Intel quad core. The Q6600 seems to be the weapon of choice, it can clock like mad and beats all but the most expensive high end Intels.

If you want shit hot performance for much less, then the AMD Phenom's a bloody good choice, as are the X2's and some of the Intel Core2Duo's if you can still find them.

Mobo wise.....if going with an Intel, get an Intel X38 or X48 based board, do NOT buy an nvidia chipset board, their chipsets for Intels are overpriced, power hungry, heat monsters. However, if going AMD, the Nvidia boards are actually quite good.

My Linux box is AMD+Nvidia, and my windows games machine is Intel quad and a Gigabyte X48T based board (the T is for DDR3 RAM, not sure I'd bother with DDR3 if I were you).

Cheers Steve, think I'm going for XP Pro and an Intel Core 2 Duo E7200.

EDIT: It's a bugger when XP is dearer than their newest OS, supply and demand?

James Thomas wrote: Cheers Steve, think I'm going for XP Pro and an Intel Core 2 Duo E7200.

EDIT: It's a bugger when XP is dearer than their newest OS, supply and demand?

Check out that CPU, as you may find there are cheaper ones that will overclock to the same or higher speed. But if you cannae be arsed tweaking, that one will do just great.

And yes, people are desperate to avoid pishta, and XP media are getting thin on the ground.

The strange thing is, it worked for about 3 minutes today before it died again (no access to Facebook & co).

Windows re-installation is scheduled for Thursday. Hopefully all is working properly again then.

Bere wrote: The strange thing is, it worked for about 3 minutes today before it died again (no access to Facebook & co).

Windows re-installation is scheduled for Thursday. Hopefully all is working properly again then.

Always comes down to a fookin reinstall.

Two things to keep you safe and sane when you DO get it working.......

1. Acronis Trueimage, once a month.

2. WinRescue XP once a day.

can do same thing for free but it involves copious amounts of typing.

JT, you can get OIM copies of XP for around £40-50, from the right shop.

So an option to consider is to get Vista machine and then replace the OS with XP.

Alternatively, if you have XP disks from your old PC, what's stopping you from putting that copy onto the new machine?

I've got a new laptop from work and it runs XP. It runs miles better than my Vista one, so I'm going to bin Vista. There's a few gadgets like the touch screen that I'll need to get the drivers for but I can't see this being a problem.

Cheers Col, XP was preinstalled and I don't think I have a disc anywhere but that would have been a good idea. Decided to go XP pro for the extra security, the lads have started to use the computer so you can manage accounts much better using xp pro.

That's what I've got here - XP pro.

It's incredibly stable. I've not had one problem.

Vista is always locking up. It's shit, I've decided.

DJ Diamond wrote: That's what I've got here - XP pro.

It's incredibly stable. I've not had one problem.

Vista is always locking up. It's shit, I've decided.

Vista+SP1=tolerable if all you want to do is run Crysis in DX10 mode (note: you will need a fucking supercomputer to do this at a good resolution). In day to day use I think it would reduce me to a jellied wreck in about 3 days.

Also for some reason, the 32bit one on my current machine is, well, fucking slow. Can't figure it out. When I first experiemted with vista, 32 had a slight edge in speed over 64....which neatly confirmed my conjecture that you'd be suffering 64bit overheads, without there really being anything to gain back[1]. Now though, the 64 bit one performs almost identically to XP pro....a teeny bit quicker here, and slower there. Yet the 32bit one runs at about 2/3 the speed?????

XP wise, I reccomend you seek a thing called "windows indego" (yes, Indego with an E).

1. Unattended install. Point it at a drive partition, hit start, and fuck off [2]
2. Comes with drivers for nearly as many things as the average Linux distro. It even detected and drove both my M-Audio cards, AND my Logitech wheel (proper Logi drivers, but it didn't install the profiler software). It actually IS plug and play not the more usual plug and pray.
3. Fully updated.
4. Several annoyances culled off by default.
5. BEST OF ALL......it forces the windows kernel and kernel memory core....into RAM! along with the entire registry if there is enough space!! Windows, on it's own, will always A L W A Y S keep these on disc (it will sometimes cache the registry)....while there is an option stashed away somewhere along the lines of "I actually have rather a lot of RAM and would appreciate it if you would USE it for core system files instead of accessing them purely off dead slow hard drivers like a retarded sloth!!!!!!!"......all it does is.....puts it in SWAP! (ie, notionally in memory, but actually, still on the fucking disc).

Obviously it's totally illegal no matter what as far as Balmer's Barmy Army is concerned (an efficient and working version of windows? that's just NOT allowed). But if you own a copy of DosXP, then there's fuck all morally wrong with it,

My machine is now this.......

Fac9000:Gigabyte-GA-X48TDQ6,Q6600-3.5Ghz,2GB Corsair DDR3-1600,BFGGTX280-oc:XP32/Vista32/64

And windows is still painfully slow compared to this....

Hal9000:Asus M2N32wsPro,AMD5600+(underclocked to 2 GHz)4GB Geil DDR800, 8600GT:Gentoo-64

[1] This will change. And of course, it does give access to about 16 Exabytes of RAM, so in a few years, when windows 8's minimum spec is 32GB RAM, it'll be handy, as 32bit only handles 4GB.

[2] with the caveat that you need to be there RIGHT at the end, to stop it installing a lot of Pishta lookalike stuff, all of which is kinda nice, but also pointless, and with a tendancy for the various programs to beat seven shades of shite out of each other, over things like who draws the start menu....best without it.

Bere wrote: Errrm...

I can't get to my frequently used websites like Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo anymore. Luckily I get here somehow. Every else website seems to work fine. I'm using Firefox. But it's not a browser problem, because IE and Opera don't do it either. It happend from now to then. Any advice to get through (besides complete new installation of Windows - which is planned after this sh...)? Did I click on the self destruct button? Do I have a virus? Heeeeelllp!

P.S.: even Google doesn't work

Probably just busy at the time, Don't think re-installation of Windows will help a jot, if the other sites are working, then not a virus problem Self destruct buttons? You got one of those on your keyboard?