Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[shadowplay]

There's a mass of blurs shooting up the right side of the monitor on my laptop and the entire screen is blurred with a few horizontal bars shooting across the screen. Occasionally a vertical rainbow bar will flash across the screen. What the hell is going on and how can I stop it?

When the machine is switched off, does the area where the display is blurry appear to be a lighter or clearer shade of grey than the 'healthy' part of the screen? This could indicate physical damage if so...

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I spilled some drops of liquid on the ;aptop touchpad and wiped it off right away. It still works. I googled it and all the results are for people whose touchpads broke. Should I be ok?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

There's a mass of blurs shooting up the right side of the monitor on my laptop and the entire screen is blurred with a few horizontal bars shooting across the screen. Occasionally a vertical rainbow bar will flash across the screen. What the hell is going on and how can I stop it?

Maybe the display itself is getting some kind of pressure from the frame that it sits in. If you touch an LCD display and exert some light pressure you do get discolorations, blurs etc. If you grab the side of an LCD display and exert some light pressure you'll too get discloloration, blurs etc. So, maybe with your display like that is happening too.

 

[Turner]

Why does Windows 7 keep installing updates every time I shut down? And how do I fix this? It's been doing this now for over a month. It can't possibly be installing updates for this long. Somehow it's stuck. And it give you the message don't unplug your computer or whatever. So I have no choice but to wait for the long shutdown on my computer. It's starting to get annoying especially when I'm in a hurry to get out of the house.

I had this problem, had to run IE as an administrator to get them to go through.

I think I dropped it about a week ago, but this didn't happen until last night. How would I put the video cable back in place if that's the problem?

You'd have to crack the case (invalidate the warranty) to reseat it. While it's possible that it could be a problem a week later, it would probably happen immediately.

Okay, I take that back, it could happen a week later, with repeated jostling.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

If you put a laptop with a charged battery in hibernate. It's plugged in. Then the power goes out. But you leave it in hibernate. How long would it last before it ran out of battery? Compared to using it.

 

[shadowplay]

Hibernation doesn't use any power - it saves everything you're doing and then shuts down the computer.

Whereas with sleep mode, the RAM is still on and drawing power - depending on how powerful your battery is it can last quite a long time in sleep mode. Mine would get about 24 hrs I'd estimate.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Ah. For some reason I thought in hibernate it was still drawing some amount of power.

 

[EnglishCrusader]

Hibernation doesn't use any power - it saves everything you're doing and then shuts down the computer.

Then what is the point of shutting it down when it can just hibernate?

 

[Turner]

Reloading and refreshing the OS.

 

[Abaddon]

Thats pretty unneeded isn't it? Why havn't computers simply as standard gone into "hibernation"

Is this what Mac's do to be so darn quick at turning on?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Anyone know how to stop Firefox from turning a tab into a new window when I accidentally let go of the mouse when moving them?

 

[IglooDame]

Ah. For some reason I thought in hibernate it was still drawing some amount of power.

It is, just enough of a trickle to make the power light pulsate (usually). I'd think it'd be a couple weeks of hibernate-time at least, though.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I've been having a weird issue lately. Every time I try to access a video on YouTube, the internet will get knocked off. Both computers. And then a few seconds later it'll come back on. I don't know what would cause this except maybe some weird ISP throttling. Any suggestions?

edit: yes i googled it. got a lot of stuff about Libya and Syria. hmmm.

 

[civ_king]

Reloading and refreshing the OS.

What is "Reloading and refreshing the OS"? I've had uptime measured in months before on my MacBook without problems (restarted to install updates).

Thats pretty unneeded isn't it? Why havn't computers simply as standard gone into "hibernation"

Is this what Mac's do to be so darn quick at turning on?

I dunno, I never turn mine off, it's probably been over a year since I actually shut it down (I have restarted to install updates though)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

What is "Reloading and refreshing the OS"? I've had uptime measured in months before on my MacBook without problems (restarted to install updates).

So have I on the Vista machine.

Except once the graphic drivers glitched and everything turned funny colors so I rebooted to get them back.

 

[EnglishCrusader]

Anyone know how to stop Firefox from turning a tab into a new window when I accidentally let go of the mouse when moving them?

Use Google Chrome

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Actually I found an Add-On to stop it.

 

[Boundless]

I dunno, I never turn mine off, it's probably been over a year since I actually shut it down (I have restarted to install updates though)

Your poor mac! How old is it? Mine is pushing 4 years old now, it definitely needs a rest once in a while!

 

[civ_king]

Your poor mac! How old is it? Mine is pushing 4 years old now, it definitely needs a rest once in a while!

I frequently put it to sleep (it's a MacBook, I close the lid) and regularly use the RAM refresh script (purges inactive and wired RAM).

 

[Boundless]

RAM refresh script? Here's a question not worth it's own thread... er..what?!