Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

[lndm]

Tilt it (I'd try standing it on a front corner with the keyboard slightly upside down). Wait for a day or two then try it.

If you need to get the data off it you can remove the hard drive, and with the help of an adapter, put it into a desktop system.

 

[Gelion]

Tilt it (I'd try standing it on a front corner with the keyboard slightly upside down). Wait for a day or two then try it.

Did that. It was tilted for about two days in a heated room (it was kind of cold here).

If you need to get the data off it you can remove the hard drive, and with the help of an adapter, put it into a desktop system.

Its "reparing" now, I hope I can extract the data. Saddest thing yet is that somehow I damaged the lower right part of the screen. It looks like broken glass. The repairs are going to cost me quite a bit anyway. I always had little luck with that computer.
I am now booting, lets see how how it turns up.

 

[lndm]

With regards to the screen, I'd wager that the water has caused some corrosion or contamination to the contacts on some ribbon cable leading to/from the screen...or there may still be water jammed in there.

Due to the typical low voltages and the high resistance of tap water I'm not sure you'll cause more damage by running it if there is still some water in there, but I'd still be concerned about electrolysis furthering your possible corrosion issue.

 

[Gelion]

With regards to the screen, I'd wager that the water has caused some corrosion or contamination to the contacts on some ribbon cable leading to/from the screen...or there may still be water jammed in there.

Due to the typical low voltages and the high resistance of tap water I'm not sure you'll cause more damage by running it if there is still some water in there, but I'd still be concerned about electrolysis furthering your possible corrosion issue.

I am now copying all the data to an external drive and getting ready for the screen replacement later next week. I have no idea how water entered the protected screen. My bet is still on physical damage. Either way I hope they have screens for my one and a half year old PC. Its only been half a year since I had to replace burned down graphics card. Now this.....

 

[Cutlass]

Not a question in itself, but I spilled water on my laptop a day ago. Advices given on the net are: switch it off, hairdry it (mildly), let it dry in a warm and dry room for a few days, pray. Sadly I thought I cleaned it and switched it on 2 minutes after the spill. It crushed on me while booting and all the lights were lit since then. I could not even use the boot button. So, I have reomoved the battery and let it dry. I am still hopeful. Any comments (including on extracting data) are appreciated. Share your experiences with water too, if you had them.

If you start it with a liquid in it, you risk shorting out pretty much any part. However, if you don't start it, then the fact that it had been wet but is now dry, should not result in any problem. I once spilled a plate od spaghetti and sauce on a keyboard. I shut the power off the toe PC without touching any key, unplugged the keyboard, put it in the sink and washed it off. took it apart and washed it more. I didn't use that keyboard again for a few months, but when I did it was fine for another couple of years.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Physical destruction is unlikely IMO and is not typical, but is possible. Could it be file system or partition table corruption?

Nope, hard drive is completely dead. I cannot get it to spin up at all.

 

[Turner]

Have you tried mounting it an another computer?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Tried it in 3 diff computers and an external enclosure. Im fairly certain its dead, Id just love to know why ( The motherboard with which this happened was a Gigabyte P45-DS3L in case that helps )

 

[Cutlass]

Tried it in 3 diff computers and an external enclosure. Im fairly certain its dead, Id just love to know why ( The motherboard with which this happened was a Gigabyte P45-DS3L in case that helps )

It can take a minuscule power spike to fry some electronic components.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Nope, hard drive is completely dead. I cannot get it to spin up at all.

did you try the slap test? apparently, it sometimes spins up if you smack it hard on a table. i don't take any responsibility for this, but if the data is backed up it can't hurt to try

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Yeah I wish I had backups. This HDD was my backup. Since I was doing stuff with different motherboards and reinstalling windows, I needed some apps that were on that HDD.

It can take a minuscule power spike to fry some electronic components.

This HDD survived a power spike that fried my first motherboard.

 

[Cutlass]

Yeah I wish I had backups. This HDD was my backup. Since I was doing stuff with different motherboards and reinstalling windows, I needed some apps that were on that HDD.


This HDD survived a power spike that fried my first motherboard.

It's also pretty random and unpredictable what will get one.

 

[Mirc]

This is extremely stupid, and unimportant, but how do I set the computer clock back from the 12-hour system to the 24-hour one, like it used to be before? I've just done a lot of difficult stuff to fix my computer, but apparently I can't change the clock settings right. The date and time section in the Control Panel doesn't seem to have this option.

 

[Turner]

You're in the right place. but you need to look at regional options or something like that.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Turner is right. Its in Control Panel> Regional Options > Time. You'd need to select a time option with a lowercase h ( hh will show times like 2pm as 02 instead of just 2 )
At least thats what it is on a W2K machine, but Im fairly certain it hasnt changed much, if at all, in the newer versions of Windows.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Why are my question marks brokenÉ

(yeah, thatès whatès happening right now on my laptop, along with my broken apostrophe marks)

 

[kcwong]

Why are my question marks brokenÉ

(yeah, thatès whatès happening right now on my laptop, along with my broken apostrophe marks)

You switched to a different keyboard layout accidentally.

Since you said your question mark turns into a "É", it seems you've switched to Canadian French keyboard layout.

Tell us which OS you're using and we can give you instructions to solve it, and solve it once and for all (so you will not switch to another keyboard layout accidentally).

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I'm using Vista Service Pack 1. Incidentally, it only happens in Firefox, and so if I have to use question marks and apostrophes, I have to copy and past from Notepad.

 

[kcwong]

I'm using Vista Service Pack 1. Incidentally, it only happens in Firefox, and so if I have to use question marks and apostrophes, I have to copy and past from Notepad.

Keyboard layout is specific to the application you're using... so it is possible that you've activated an alternative keyboard layout for FireFox, while Notepad remains unaffected.

Go to:

Start | Settings | Control Panel | Regional and Language Options
Keyboards and Languages Tab
Press Change Keyboards button

You should see a dialog similar to this:

In the above screen, I have two keyboard layouts setup for English and Chinese. If what I guessed is correct, you should have multiple keyboard layouts like me.

You can then do either:

1) Remove the keyboard layout(s) you're not using. I noticed in some situations Vista adds keyboard layout for you.

2) Go to Advanced Key Settings tab. Study the shortcut keys there and avoid pressing them, change them or disable them. In Vista it seems there's a bug - you cannot disable or change shortcut key for "Between input languages" and "Ime/NonIme Toggle".

If you want, you can go to Language Bar tab and select "Docked in the taskbar". This way you can tell which keyboard layout you're using from the 2-letter icon in your taskbar.

 

[Gelion]

If you start it with a liquid in it, you risk shorting out pretty much any part. However, if you don't start it, then the fact that it had been wet but is now dry, should not result in any problem. I once spilled a plate od spaghetti and sauce on a keyboard. I shut the power off the toe PC without touching any key, unplugged the keyboard, put it in the sink and washed it off. took it apart and washed it more. I didn't use that keyboard again for a few months, but when I did it was fine for another couple of years.

Bingo!!!
The laptop works like it did before. I let it dry for about two days and had to problems starting up. Extracted all the data I need. I hope it will continue to run.

Thanks, everyone, for the inputs!

P.S. I now have the crystal screen to replace. Fun, fun.