Had a customer referred to me, indirectly, via a relative.

An elderly lady is feeling isolated & her niece thinks a computer will help her keep in touch with her sons & daughters overseas (I suggest skype & she seems to like the idea).

Having a quick look at the laptop market (new & used), & I’m mildly surprised to see that used laptops keep their value very well. A used laptop is about $700, a new one is about $1000). At these prices a new laptop is the best bet.

Anyway, they live about 1 hours drive away (sunshine coast), so its a long day.

I setup the laptop, spend about 1 hour teaching Dorothy how to startup & shutdown the PC, and how to play solitare (it helps a new computer user get used to a mouse).

Its amazing how easy it is to take simple things for granted, like typing, using a mouse, or even just walking down the street.

Anyway, she struggles with the mouse (I had quickly abandoned the laptop trackpad… it just doesn’t cut it when it needs to be used by someone unfamilar with computers).

The adsl modem arrives after lunch, so I spend some time setting it up, quickly show a few web pages (I had already installed skype), and then its time for me to go (another client at 4pm)…

I get a call the following day from Dorothy’s niece… seems like they were both impressed with my “patient and friendly manner” & Dorothy will call me soon to organise a date for another training session.

It’s people like this that make my work very satisfying.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 11:56 PM EST

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Well, I finally got my first dissatisfied customer.

A lady needed help re-installing ADSL internet, after a PC rebuild. She didn’t have her adsl password, so I just got the isp to reset the password.

End of story (so I thought).

I get called back a few days later (she used incredimail before the pc rebuild & really liked it) saying she doesn’t like outlook express & needs to have the outlook details entered into incredimail (which she installed herself).

No problem, I copy the details across, & while I’m there, she is happy for me to install my anti-spyware software and disable outlook express, so she can only view existing messages, but not send or receive new emails. She doesn’t have the full payment, so I let it slide, & she says that the remainder will be waiting for me next time I’m passing by.

I pass by 2 days later & she asks if I can take a quick look at a printing problem. Printing from incredimail only seems to print a “screenshot”… ie the to & from fields, a scroll bar, and only part of a message.

I notice the printer has been re-installed a few times & she complains about how intrusive winpatrol is… and how outlook express is still active.

What? I had put false pop & smtp server names into OE, so there is no way it can still be active. I take a look & I can see OE has about 4 emails sitting in the outbox (but not sent). Obviously someone mistakenly wrote those emails in OE instead of incredimail. I try to subtly hint at this. Hint is probably too subtle, as there is no acknowledgement by the customer.

I leave OE, disable winpatrol, & focus on shittymail incredimail. But it has no print preview & doesn’t have much in the configuration/customisation area.

I reboot, to see if maybe winpatrol was somehow preventing incredimail from doing things it shouldn’t be allowed to do…

Wait 2 minutes at the shutdown screen before using the power button to force a switch off.

Wait 3 - 4 minutes at the xp startup screen, before realising that there is no disk activity, but also no login screen (just the XP bar moving across the screen).

Great… just what I don’t need (car is acting up, its 4:30 & I was trying to get to the mechanic by 5:00… that won’t happen now). I restart in safe mode & disable all startup programs (from the startup folder & from the registry). But the system will not boot into normal windows mode…

Anyway, she wonders aloud about just how experienced I really am & she is not at all happy about what I have done (and what she has paid). I offer to fix the computer overnight & bring it back to her the next morning, but she refuses. So all I can do is give her a full refund, and apologise … although I didn’t do anything that could have caused the computer to behave like it did. She “knows” I’m the only one to have worked on the computer, and so it must be me, since it was working perfectly when I connected the ADSL internet.

I didn’t mention that she installed the printer drivers & incredimail… it would just inflame the situation.

The next morning she sends an email saying that the computer started normally that morning & that there are no hard feelings. (and maybe I should carry a database of all known computers with me, so that I can fix these sort of problems).

From now on, I won’t work on systems that have incredimail (except to remove it like any other spyware infestation).

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 11:00 PM EST

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Its funny how power supplies fail sometimes.

This one only lost the 12volts, so led’s on the motherboard and case were still lighting up. It had me fooled for a while. This is the first time that carrying a multimeter might have been useful. But since I don’t carry spare PSUs, It still would have involved a second visit.

Customer saying she once heard a bang, was the first clue that the PSU might be dead. Shining a flashlight into the PSU gave the second clue: a small cylinder (about 1 cm long & 0.5 cm in diameter) ie a blown capacitor, was resting on the bottom of the PSU casing.

Customer needed the PC quite urgently, so I replace her 420Watt PSU with my 350W for 1 day, until I get hold of some 450W units.

You might think using a 350W to replace a 420W is a bit dangerous, but I checked the volts and amps (a generic 420W seems to be only slightly more powerful than a 350W Antec PSU).

The trick with PSUs, is that Watts = voltage X current (amps). Since PCs need a combination of 5volts & 12 volts, its possible to manipulate the overall wattage.

Modern CPUs need a PSU that can supply a lot of current at 5 volts, and the need for 12 volts is generally just for hard disks, CD/DVD drives (ie not much), so you could have the following situation:

PSU1 is rated at:
12V X 20A = 240 W
5V X 40A = 200 W
total = 440 W

PSU2 is rated at:
12V X 25A = 300 W
5V X 28A = 140 W
total = 440W

so which is better for a PC?

PSU1 can handle a lot more current for 5V, and only slightly less current for 12V. Best for a modern PC with a power-hungry Pentium 4 CPU.

PSU2 has only reached 440 W by increasing the current at 12 V (at the expense of the 5V supply). This is only good if you have something that needs a lot of 12 Volts (eg a pentium3 PC with 4 hard disks and 4 CD/DVD drives).

Of course, there are also many other factors that are considered in designing a PSU, so the above description is somewhat simplistic, but it does give an idea of what to look for in a PSU.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 9:05 PM EST

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Customer has problems installing XP SP2…He admits to having a dodgy version of XP. Hmmm, this getting towards the “dark side” of the internet. (Luke, beware the dark side… Luke!!!).

Anyway, I hardly ever do this, so I help him out & install XP SP2.

Don’t ask me for details. The information is freely available elsewhere, and is even up for sale on ebay.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 8:54 PM EST

1 Comment »

Another customer with a difficult ADSL internet connection.

I do my usual spyware check & fix a few nasties (but I don’t need to work on the PC from the office).

The internet connection still doesn’t work, so we ring the isp & ask for a password reset.

We are back on the air, but the connection will still drop out every minute or two… client says she has noticed that the internet became unreliable 2 weeks ago, and she also noticed the telephone line was “noisier”.

So we call the ISP again & ask about the line noise, & they ask how long is the telephone line? (about 6 meters). We are told that it is probably long enough to cause some adsl length problems. I don’t believe it but I give it a try…

I connect a very short telephone cable from the wall outlet to the modem, & a 12 meter cat5 utp ethernet cable from the modem to the PC.

The noise is still there, the internet connection is still flakey.

Client comments that there is a new housing estate being built nearby & it is possible that telephone work on the estate has caused problems in the neighborhood. Customer is happy to ring the ISP herself & give them hell until they fix the problem, and I don’t want to increase my fee by just waiting on the phone, so we leave it at that & I’ll check back in a few weeks.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 8:36 PM EST

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I very nearly gave up on this problem (It would have been my first “i’m sorry, but I cannot fix it”… I guess it will happen sooner or later).

Anyway, it was a win98 system with dialup internet & a spyware infection & the internet stopped working.

I work on it from the office & remove all the spyware & then connect it to my LAN… but the networking doesn’t seem to work.

I can ping the router & even the google ip address. I can ping google.com.au, but not www.google.com.au . Now thats very strange. A dns problem? All other PCs on my network work just fine. I check my win98 settings (on virtual PC), but everything looks OK.

I eventually find a post that shows how to remove the networking drivers from the “networks” in control panel, & then remove certain key entries in the registry. The network devices are reinstalled on reboot & the network is finally working. I update windows & all the virus & spyware definitions.

At this stage, I’ve had the PC for 1 week, & the elderly lady is really wanting it back. So I don’t get a chance to “reinstall” the dialup networking drivers.

I take the PC back & I struggle with the password for a bit & then notice the internet is looking strange… google & maybe 2 other pages load up, but most others don’t.

I can easily ping any DNS address, so whats going on?

I take a guess and decide to remove & reinstall dialup networking drivers.

Once done, it all works perfectly.

I’m glad there are fewer and fewer win98 systems out there. XP is much more robust.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 8:12 PM EST

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A small business customer has a computer with 3 hard disk caddies… but doesn’t use them for backups, instead, they are used as 3 seperate “systems”… 1 is windows 98, the other 2 are winXP. They also have a new laptop that they need configured (they already managed to setup the wireless, so I’ll check the wireless security & find out why some of the other “caddy” systems won’t work correctly).

I setup WPA-PSK security with a nice long passphrase & activate MAC address filtering. I also setup antivirus & antispyware on the laptop. The main PC needs a lot more work, so I take it to the office & work on all the 3 caddies (its like working on 3 seperate computers, so it takes a lot longer).

I ask why have seperate caddies, as it could cause problems (eg email split amongst caddies), but customer also uses the caddies on another system (located elsewhere), so I guess thats ok.

Anyway, all is fixed, spyware is removed, and customer is happy (except for the internet, which suddenly stopped working as I delivered the system… It might seem like a strange coincidence, but it turned out to be an ISP problem, which got resolved many days later).

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 7:51 PM EST

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This got me puzzled for a while:

Wireless system was working fine for 3 workstations but a recently rebuilt 4th PC couldn’t get a wireless signal.

I moved the PC right next to the WAP, but still no signal.

The owner then remembered he had a paper with the details on the WAP: it also had some wep codes & the IP address of the WAP.

Without the codes & WAP IP address, this would have turned into a long exercise of resetting the wap to factory defaults, then configuring it, then configuring 4 PCs… not what should happen when one PC gets rebuilt…

I verify that the WAP is setup correctly (the paper had the wrong IP address) & struggle with the WEP codes until I realise that I only had to enter 1 of the 4 codes on the list (I’m more familiar with WPA & haven’t used WEP for a while, so this was a good re-learning experience).

I charge my minimum fee & I’m finished in 30 minutes, with another happy customer.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 7:41 PM EST

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Saw an uncommon (for me) problem with a crt monitor today:

The monitor must have lost some of its vertical control, as it was only displaying the bottom half of the screen, with a very bright line at the half-way point. Very odd, as everything was still working normally.

Anyway, its not worth fixing, so I replace it with a used monitor from my stock.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 7:34 PM EST

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A lady calls with a problem connecting to the internet (cable internet with telstra).

Sounds like another spyware problem. I get there & its a severe infection. I try to boot to safe mode, but it cannot read the CD… Try to boot a bartPE cd, but the boot sequence seems to be HDD before cdrom, so no CDs can boot… Cant go into the bios (password protected & nobody knows the password), so I open up the PC & find the clear bios jumper & short it out for a few seconds. Reboot & I can get into the bios at last.

I notice the P4 cpu is running at 76 degrees… Hmmm, thats awfully hot. I’ll look at it later, first I change the boot sequence (floppy, then CD, then HDD).

I’m told that the PC was very dusty, so they recently cleaned it & installed an exhaust fan into the case.

Boot from bartPE & do a quick spyware scan & it starts finding lots of spyware.

By this stage, ive been working at the computer for about 1 hour & the customer doesn’t want to spend much money (still paying for christmas & hubby lost his job for a few weeks), so I offer a capped price if i can take the computer back to my office & work from there.

Back at the office, the computer runs for maybe a minute or two, then suddenly loses power. I leave it off for a minute & try again, but it just won’t stay on for more than a few minutes.

Remembering what I saw in the bios previously, I remove the CPU fan & heatsink, & I notice that the heatsink & cpu have very dry thermal paste. I guess the cpu has been “baking” for quite a while… I remove all the old paste & put a thin layer of new paste onto the cpu.

I also notice the “exhaust fan” is sucking air into the case… hmmm, fan is just below the power supply unit, so guess what happens: PSU blows out warm air, then case fan sucks in the warm air, which gets warmed up even more by the CPU & PSU, then the PSU fan blows out even warmer air, etc etc… not good!

I reverse the fan so that it blows air out (just like the PSU).

Once re-assembled, the cpu is running at 62 degrees (thats better!) and the system doesn’t suddenly shut down.

I remove all the spyware & install some antispyware to complement the existing AVG software, then return the PC to a very happy owner.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 6:17 PM EST

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Its amazing: I’m spending up to 90% of my time fixing computers with Malware/spyware infections.

Whats even more amazing is that I’m seeing more & more systems becoming infected despite running anti-malware software. Ive seen a system recently that had ad-aware, spyware doctor, spybot S&D… but ewido (http://www.ewido.net/en/) still found over 450 infected objects (about 350 were just cookies, but that still ads up to 100 objects, or about 6 different “nasty” malware applications…

Is it just me, or are malware infections on the rise?

Although ewido is currently my primary malware detector, it did give me a false-positive about 1 week ago (causing me to waste a lot of time chasing a “ghost” malware app.). Your milage may vary.

My own systems seem ok, but then I’m behind a NAT router, running outpost firewall (http://www.agnitum.com/) on my main system, and also running antivir (http://www.free-av.com/) and winpatrol (http://www.winpatrol.com) and I also update windows XP every month or two. Oddly, I don’t run any background malware scanner. I occasionally run ad-aware (http://www.lavasoft.com/) and ewido, but they only find the occasional bad cookie.

I guess part of the solution is that I use an unconvetional email clients:
the bat! (http://www.ritlabs.com/) and foxmail, so I’m not so vunrable to many email malware.

I also use a relativley little known browser called Maxthon, which does an excellent job at blocking popups & bad sites.

In fact, I have a laptop on my network, which doesn’t have a firewall, (the windows xp firewall is disabled), it doesn’t have any anti virus & anti-malware software… just winpatrol (and it never finds anything wrong), and the occasional windows update.

Maybe I’m just lucky, & maybe I’m just familiar with the processes running within task manager…

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 9:18 PM EST

2 Comments »