Random Question Thread: Tech

[Elizara]

Ok, funny problem here guys.

So we have trouble with Uverse, which had to do with some donk hitting the cable down the road with a backhoe. We got it back up a day after it went down, but I keep getting a "hey, what's this cert?" error on Windows XP from the gateway/2wiremodem. I keep allowing it..been happening every few hours

If I get it again I'll take a pic but...is there anything I need to do to get rid of that?

[Callisto]

Not super experienced with actual PC games, when I play them on windowed mode and alt+tab away, the game audio mutes until I flip back...is there a Windows setting somewhere to change that?

[Jojimbo]

It's usually a game option I think, don't recall a Windows settings for it.

[Serra]

So, I've been having a problem for a few months now where my internet browsers (normally use Firefox, but I have Chrome too and it has the same problems -- presumably IE would also suffer if I tried it) randomly stop being able to connect to the internet. The strange thing is everything else that uses an internet connection (Spotify, Remote Desktop, Bittorrent, etc) all keep working fine. Even if I have a download going, it keeps working, it's just that I can't connect to any websites through my browsers. Admittedly, I almost never turn off my laptop and whenever I restart my computer, the problem resolves itself till some indeterminate time later when the problem resurfaces and requires another restart.

I've tried to Google the problem from time to time, and while there are plenty of people who seem to have similar problems, no one seems to have a guaranteed fix or solid explanation as to why it happens. Figured I'd come here and see if anyone has had a similar problem or knows a way to fix it.. It's not the biggest problem, more of an inconvenience honestly, but would like to hear if there's a way to resolve it.

[Niya]

Serra, does your browser just stay at "waiting for randomsite.org" and times out after a minute or so? And i guess it happens randomly during the day and not just right after a reboot/wake up?
I've had a slightly similar problem a few years ago at a customer, one of the computers was completely unable to open websites every few days. Sometimes it happened right after boot, sometimes after a few minutes or hours, and sometimes not at all.
Only HTTP traffic got blocked, everything else still worked.
After a long search we found the culprit: a filter driver of the antivirus software they used was going berserk... Completely uninstalled the AV (normal uninstall and the removal tool if available) and re-installed, problem solved.

This could work, but I think there isn't just one solution to this problem...

Not super experienced with actual PC games, when I play them on windowed mode and alt+tab away, the game audio mutes until I flip back...is there a Windows setting somewhere to change that?

Game setting, windows can't do anything against it.

[Meko]

So, I'm looking forward to FF14..but it's PC/PS3 only. I'm looking at maybe getting a mac (my first one but I really want one). The machine I'm looking at should run most/all games without any issues however with a PC only game, I assume I'll have to run it in boot camp etc. Would running the game in boot camp affect it much if at all? Thanks for any info in advance.

[Jojimbo]

Shouldn't matter much, what one are you getting though? Only ones with a dedicated GPU are iMac and they run on mid range laptop GPUs, even the high end ones use GPUs that are as powerful as low end/entry level desktop GPUs (but on a 1440p display). MacBook Pros all use Intel iGPUs so will game on low-medium settings at 30FPS and Mac Pros are still using 3 year old hardware.

This is assuming that the new engine doesn't have really low requirements or something.

EDIT:: Actually, 650M does better than I thought, have no idea if it was 1080p or 720p though but medium/high settings 30+ FPS should be doable on relatively intensive games.

[Serra]

Serra, does your browser just stay at "waiting for randomsite.org" and times out after a minute or so? And i guess it happens randomly during the day and not just right after a reboot/wake up?
I've had a slightly similar problem a few years ago at a customer, one of the computers was completely unable to open websites every few days. Sometimes it happened right after boot, sometimes after a few minutes or hours, and sometimes not at all.
Only HTTP traffic got blocked, everything else still worked.
After a long search we found the culprit: a filter driver of the antivirus software they used was going berserk... Completely uninstalled the AV (normal uninstall and the removal tool if available) and re-installed, problem solved.

It's been a while since I've paid attention to the wording of the message (normally it's just followed by an angry outburst from me, closing everything and restarting..), but I believe it tries for a bit, then says it cannot connect. Any future attempts to connect to any other websites just fail outright too, seemingly without the attempt to connect. And yeah, it's completely random when it happens. I'm running Microsoft Security Essentials and Avast, so I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling them when I have some free computer time. Thanks for the suggestions, Niya~

[Niya]

Um... Why MSE when you have Avast? 2 AV programs tend to screw each other up more than helping each other.
Uninstall both, run the cleanup tool that Avast should offer, and the only re-install Avast.

[Niya]

MSE was better than avast?

Definitely not. MSE just offers very basic protection and lacks important stuff like behavioral blocking. And the long pattern update cycle isn't good either...
Almost any AV program is better than MSE (well, except CA eTrust i guess <.<), so it's not really a matter of choice. Drop MSE, keep Avast.

[Nitsuki]

Being in that topic, i use MSE, no probs for me i guess, but i was thinking of buying NOD32, which other ones are actually good that have a low priced license?

*edit* Looking for a double license pack for 2 PCs.

[Stromgarde]

I have a double license pack for ESET NOD32 and it works great for me, even switching out hard drives upgrading to SSDs on both computers didn't cause any problems.

[xopher]

Definitely not. MSE just offers very basic protection and lacks important stuff like behavioral blocking. And the long pattern update cycle isn't good either...
Almost any AV program is better than MSE (well, except CA eTrust i guess <.<), so it's not really a matter of choice. Drop MSE, keep Avast.

I agree and disagree with this. I work at a university and I deal with infected student machines a lot. I see stuff like Norton, McAfee, and Avast infected with malware much more often than I see ESET, Kaspersky, or MSE infected. But you're right, it is very basic in its features. It's just really good at those basic features.

[Kirin]

Words with Friends was bugging out on me so i went to try and re-install it and now half the apps on my phone wont load at all.

iPhone 3G (Yes, I know...)
Windows XP
Current version of iTunes.

I've tried clearing and rebooting my phone too (which has worked before) and it cleared out a LOT of apps like ESPN Scorecenter and my Sudoku app. I'll click to install the app, it will start to sync and then finish the process like nothing was installed.

[Vendog]

So all the pages I got to run slow as hell, and when I play TERA I get booted every 5-10 minutes saying a network error or high ping saying its my connection, and finally whenever I go to speedtest.net it say configuration error and cant check to see what my connection speed is. I don't know where to start to figure out how to fix all these problems.
P.S. also my Email randomly sends out random Emails I only know this cause I get the notice for when it try to send to inactive email accounts that I have in my address book.
I used Mcafee to see if I got a virus it didnt come back with anything and I wiped my cache and reinstalled my browser still nothing.

[GoggleHead]

Have you considered altering your email account password? Sounds like something's got ahold of your account and is using it for its own nefarious purposes. If possible I'd recommend changing it from someone else's PC in case there's a keylogger on yours.

Next steps would be to run msconfig and start disabling shit on startup. If you don't recognize it, you can probably turn it off. You might also want to try other anti-virus programs. Avast is decent and free, so see if it turns up anything that Mcafee missed.

Does this problem happen with any PC using your internet connection or just your specific PC? If it's hosed for every PC it might be time to bitch at your ISP.

[Vendog]

OK my wife is on the phone with Uverse right now and I'm gonna change the password right now when all that is settled I'm gonna download Avast and do that thanks for your help.
Update: Yeah the modem was shot I guess. The tech came and checked it was only getting .3 Mbps he swapped the modem and now were at 12 (Uverse).

[Kirin]

Words with Friends was bugging out on me so i went to try and re-install it and now half the apps on my phone wont load at all.

iPhone 3G (Yes, I know...)
Windows XP
Current version of iTunes.

I've tried clearing and rebooting my phone too (which has worked before) and it cleared out a LOT of apps like ESPN Scorecenter and my Sudoku app. I'll click to install the app, it will start to sync and then finish the process like nothing was installed.

Nevermind. Apparently iPhone 3G only goes to software version 4.2.1 and most apps use 4.3 and beyond. Yay...finally time for a new phone.

[Restrat]

I'm having problems with my internet connection. When I test it on speedtest it's fine, but anytime I try to watch videos they go five or ten seconds then pause, for the whole thing. My roommate can watch the same thing with no problems, so it's something with my computer. Any ideas where to start?

[Buffy]

I would test your network connection first. If you are wireless or wired, I'd try the opposite to see.

However, why are you sure it is your connection? You could have a screwed up codec, flash player, or so forth making videos act wonky.