Maybe try plugging it in to a different usb port? I mean, maybe that one is arcing or something. (but don't listen to me, I know NOTHING! NOTH-ING!) (said in the voice of Shultz from Hogan's Heroes).

My computer is about two years old now, and some of the usb ports on the front panel just don't work anymore. The port you are using might be going bad. So like mALX said, try plugging it into a different port. I doubt it is the cable that is bad, but you could try replacing that as well.

Huh. I didn´t think the USB ports would go bad, but I guess it could make sense then seeing as my puter is six years old now.


I heard a rumor that Windows 7 had a bug that caused this problem but whatever it is, it never happens when I play games or just mess around. It only happens when I´m online.

If you have a kitten in the house, there is every possibility that the kitten has bitten that cable - SubRosa's suggestion to change out the cable is a very good one.

The only animals I have in my apartment are dust rats and their teeth are rather dull


I could get sound to work again by fiddling with the connection so that´s not a problem anymore. But my internet issue has gone worse and is now to the point where I simply cannot access said net at all, so I have bitten the tasty orange and decided to go back to regular broadband again. Costs more but it´s 99% more reliable which is what I want.

Agree 100% - I left broadband to save a few septims and haven't been happy with my internet service since.

I have actually. My problem isn´t related to my internet provider at all, it is simply on my puter´s end

Then how will changing to broadband fix them? Are you sure it isn't your modem?

The broadband is connected to the puter via network cable, the mobile modem via USB and those ports are apparently fragile and cave in. I can hear the sound the USB makes whenever you insert/disconnect something and it keeps making that sound as it loses connection. If it was the modem it wouldn´t make that sound.

Hopefully I´ll get it sooner than they said

I hope that sound isn't arcing electricity! That is what my laptop charging jack was doing and why I had to fix it before it could be used between May 2013 and September 2014.

It can´t be. It does that sound with other computers too whenever I insert a USB memory stick. I guess they put it there to let the user know it works

I've built the machine that is becoming my new server in the carcass of the old one. I couldn't persuade the new Atom to boot the Windows 2000 server installation that I'd used with its Celeron predecessor, so I installed Linux (Debian) on the drive instead, and I'm gradually installing the new pieces of software.

The Web server is in place, so I can post images again, and all the old ones are there. However, Apache is case-sensitive, where IIS wasn't, so a lot of the links here will be broken just because they contain "skyrim" instead of "Skyrim", or something similar. I'll edit them as I find them, but if anyone's post quotes mine, I can't fix the copy.

I won't bother fixing links to obsolete downloads.

I still have to install the mail server, and it looks like I need to create the domain server on a separate box, so those are on the to-do list.

Is that Atom the script Editor? (if so, I have it for reading Papyrus and love it!). Is there any way to tweak the program so it isn't case sensitive? I think I have seen on one of my old computers a setting that changed it from case sensitive; but can't remember how it was accessed.

Well, it will be great to have you and your screenshots back! I am just amazed at your ability with computers!

No that's Intel Atom the CPU. Low-power like ARM, but runs the same programs as Intel Core CPU's. It's not as fast as the desktop processors, but it's enough for a web server.

I'm re-learning a lot of Linux administration stuff as I do this. Of course I can't find my old notes about it. They were probably saved on the old machine!

You never cease to amaze me with what you know and what you can do with it on computers!

The saga of the server rebuild has taken a major leap sideways - mudcrabs rule!!

My workstation decided it didn't like the Domain Controller going away, and insisted I change to a workgroup basis so it could still use the network. Doing that solved an issue I'd had for ages that prevented me using Skyrim across all three monitors, so I can now play in 5700x1080 resolution at last! Don't worry, I'll crop/scale any screenshots before I post them.

But it never gives without taking away, and Wrye Bash/Smash won't start up, and I have to manage my load order and profiles by hand until I fix that.

I'm making progress with the mail server configuration, too. I can now receive floods of spam, and have to re-train my system to reject it, but I can't yet send outside my own system. It's nice that it's secure by default, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through.

Could you take a pic of your gaming station with Skyrim running? I´d like to see what it looks like on three monitors

I tried that last night, but there's too much contrast in the pictures for you to be able to see what's running. I'll try again with daylight in the room, and see if that gets better results.

The field of view is wider than you can really see clearly, and the side monitor images are stretched at the extremes, but movement from the sides catches your eye, and you don't get blindsided by attackers that would previously have been off-screen. That doesn't stop sabre cats from jumping on you from behind, of course. I played Oblivion that way for ages (after reworking the UI with Darn), and tried to do the same with Skyrim when I got it, but there wasn't an equivalent UI adjuster that worked for me, until Flawless Widescreen started working. Vanilla Skyrim tries to scale all the menus etc. to the screen width, so everything's off the top and bottom. FW makes it use the height to scale those instead. There are still a few things, like lockpicking, that don't get fixed, but they're ones I can live with.

I'll try and post a few wide screenshots with menus, map, etc. I can shrink them so that you won't need multiple monitors to view them.

I am currently enjoying my new broadband. More moneyz per month unfortunately, but at least I get unlimited data and hopefully a much more reliable connection


And it´s still a lot cheaper than my first broadband. On that I had up to 8MB/sec and on this I have 2MB. For what I use it for, 2MB is more than enough.

Yeah, I'm with Mirocu on wanting to see a picture of your rig, holy cow!!!

Then here it is. Not the best photo, still has issues with contrast and dynamic range. If the screens look right, then you can't see the rest, and vice-versa.

The workstation tower is faintly glowing under the desk on the right. Core i7 extreme, 32GB, and a pair of NVidia 680's - all liquid-cooled to keep it quiet.

The server is in a closet off to the left. The fan in that makes enough noise for both machines!

Here's what a screenshot of that view looks like. Notice how the extreme sides are stretched out, because they're going out of your peripheral vision at those angles. Sometimes they're beyond the walls of the tunnel and you see void out there.

Holy cow, ghastley! That is amazing.

OMG! (drool, drool) !!!!!! AWESOME !!!!! That is like the one at Disney World !!!!! (drool, slurp) !!!!!!

Holy sweet rig, Batman!



All you need to do is paint the frames white and you won´t even notice it´s three screens!

No, they must be black for the immersion - like going into a cave! (a man cave).



But I have to QFT your first line = Ditto this:


Holy sweet rig, Batman!




*

*´rocu´s computer maintenance program running*


-vaccum the fans
-use compressed air to remove more dust far inside the shell
-download the latest virus definitions
-run virus program and additional malware program
-copy the two latest save files from Fallout 3 and Oblivion to two USB memory sticks
-finish up by making a new, fresh save point for computer


*maintenance program complete*

I'd pay for someone to come to my house and do all that - especially vacuuming the dust from the fans!

Does anyone know of any good file recovery programs to get back older versions of your documents?

I switched over my usb on which I store all my stories from my laptop to my stationary computer, and now several of my latest story ideas are gone. Thankfully I only lost the documents I've been working on lately, so it's not nearly as much lost stuff as it could have been, but I've been working on so many different documents lately and it was a while since I made a backup, which means that about half a dozen story ideas are gone.

I'm using Piriform Recuva to try and get some of it back. But sorting through all of it takes ages because the documents it recovered it just named with numbers and of the 100 I've gone through so far it only seems to be pretty old copies of one story. Which is good, admittedly, because at least that's something, but there was a whole lot more where that one came from.

The only idea I have is restoring to another save point using the Windows feature. That might bring it back. Otherwise we´ll have to wait for Rosa or ghastley

And we'll just tell you to restore from your backup.

What? You had files you considered important in only one place?

I have the latest two save files from all games on two different USB memory sticks. Because that´s the most important lesson when it comes to puters; save and save often, and in multiple places.

Second most important is to make sure you can copy back from your backup. I have several backup tapes that can't be restored because the drives aren't supported any more. And stuff on zip cartridges and floppies, including 5 1/4" ones!

Naturally, I copied the data to another medium before the drives died. And I still have the drives, but no software drivers for them.

Still in progress building new servers for hot fail-over.

I keep my main files on one of my usbs and save copies to my computer and my portable harddrive as often as possible.

That said, the documents that I lost are ones I only started working on within the last few weeks, so I haven't made any new backups since then. And considering how much I've been writing on lately that's several thousand words lost that I'll have to rewrite. The ideas are all in my head, admittedly, so they're not lost. But I'll have to rewrite the scenes and that's a serious downer for me.

Thankfully, having gone through the backups, the documents that weren't corrupted and the ones I could recover I've determined that I didn't loose as much as i initially thought.

This is actually an Oblivion thing


I have Mirili Ulven from Highcross standing at the other side of the gate (the Cyrodiil side), I have no idea how she got there but I want to move her back to Highcross where Lothran is currently located. What command should I use?

I´m thinking prid <RefID/BaseId> placeatme but I don´t want to try without knowing if it´s the right command.


Edit: I see that I have been subject to a bug and cannot get her back. I´ll try spawning a new copy and kill the original one instead.

Edit 2: The console commands seemed to work as I got no error message, but no Mirili appeared. Sigh.

Placeatme creates a whole new instance, so you don't want that one.

prid xxxxxxxx (using the RefID, not the base)
moveto player

is much safer.

Well, it didn´t work anyway


Thanks!

If anyone here has Windows 10 and is concerned about privacy issues, search for Disable Windows 10 Spying - Privacy & Security on youtube. It´s made by a guy called Barnacules who actually has worked with Microsoft. He shows step-by-step how to disable it all and man, there´s a lot!

I don't have Windows 10; but I have noticed recently that suddenly every time I look at an item for sale, it is showing as advertisement on every single other site I go to from then on. This has only recently started happening, does it mean I have some kind of adware/spyware on my PC? Because I do have some supposed internet security program; and since I've never had this happen before - wonder if it is that my "Internet Security" program is not working very well.

I haven´t seen anything. Where exactly does this happen, Amazon and the likes?

No, the worst offenders are Wayfair.com; Overstock.com; J.C. Penneys; etc.

Haven´t been on any of those so I can´t say. I do have all my Updates disabled though, the only one I update is the Microsoft Security Essentials. Don´t know if that´s relevant.

This security is "Avira," it is the first time I ever tried it; and I begin to think it isn't doing its job.

Have you tried removing all the cookies?

I will try that when I'm not going back looking daily. But whether I look at these sites or not, my security software should be protecting my pc from being watched by others; should it not?

I think your firewall should do that. Make sure it´s enabled so that basically nothing is allowed through that isn´t on the "allowed list".

I thought it should too. I'll look at it and see if I can find the issue; if not I will remove it and use a different product.

I couldn't find any way to resolve the issue, so removed Avira from my laptop. So ... looking for some other antivirus/firewall program now.

Microsoft´s aggressive Windows 10 update approach


I´m really getting worried here. What´s my option if I can´t get a Windows 7 puter next time?

The ads are based on cookies. No malware here. It's a part of standard web browser functionality.

Many websites will refuse to load if you disable storing cookies from your browser. The ads are part of how websites pay for bandwidth.

Due to a recent law, websites are required to notify you at least once that they are storing cookies. This usually shows up as a message that pops up at the top or bottom of the web page. Clicking on the 'I got it' button makes the message go away forever.

There are a variety of ways that cookies are used. They can be used to store web page preferences, product interests, statistics about usage, frequency, etc.

As bobg says, it's not a malware issue, it's cookies. I don't care much for Avira (ads!), but you'd be far better running it than having no AV program at all, that's definitely not recommended. A well-tried alternative is AVG:

AVG Free

But make sure you haven't got more than one AV program running in the background, they tend to mess each other, and your machine, up. Firewall-wise, Windows built-in firewall works perfectly well, though it's a little inflexible. Be sure you haven't disabled that.

Having said that, I also find it useful to run Malwarebytes occasionally, but not as a background service (which you can't do with the free one anyway). It picks up on a few things the others may not catch - it's more in the nature of a clean-up program.

It may also be helpful to get rid of Java completely. This is now a security nightmare and it's not getting any better.