Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
Computer's making a faint buzzing noise. Google indicates either the fan or HDD. S.M.A.R.T. & fan RPM normal. I tried unplugging my speakers -- that's not it. Computer's not freezing or anything. I don't smell anything either. Unable to tell from which part it's from. Any idea?

EDIT: Strange, the "faint buzzing" just turned into the "modulating whirring" noise I had with my fan the other day.

ANOTHER EDIT: And back.

YET ANOTHER EDIT: And it's changed yet again! This is strange.

STILL ANOTHER EDIT: The "buzzing" sound sounds like there's a piece of string caught in the fan or something, if that helps. But I don't know if its the fan, the HDD, or something else. And it's a very faint noise....
 
Hahhaha, I figured out what it was! It wasn't my computer, but the clock radio beside my bed on extremely low volume. :lol: I never have the radio on, guess the cat stepped on it or something.
 
Well, it sounds mechanical.

When cases vibrate, they move around, ie: the covers come away from what they're banging against and so on... so the noises may change.

If it's a fan, when they have issues they usually get warmer and this alters the bearings and the dynamics, usually changing the noise they make. This can also happen when some dust shakes loose or whatever.

EDIT: crosspost
 
So funny.

It reminds me of times, like when I constructed a high voltage lighting system and, with half of it in one hand, plugged it in. Just then my aquarium filter starts tapping and whirring. It's all I can do to avoid tossing it across the room in panic.
 
LOL. I can imagine that.

Today at a store, I got this "Two PS/2 to USB adaptor." In general, if it only costs three dollars, will it even work? (I threw it up in my big basket full of adaptors and wires and everything. Even keep a small screwdriver in it. I often see my mom digging through it to find an adaptor for something.)

And does anybody else have a basket like the one I described? It's not really a basket, just a cheap plastic dollar-store thing that looks like a basket, you get the idea though. I really ought to take a picture of it sometime.
 
Basket, bucket, box, crate, OMG every time I walk into the garage [facepalm]

If your connector plugs into ps/2 and gives you a USB socket, it has no working parts inside and is just wires and is cheap. Going the other way uses a chip but shouldn't be too expensive.
 
If it's what I'm thinking of, it allows you to plug a ps/2 mouse and keyboard into a usb socket. I have several at work. Very useful, especially when you suddenly buy a bunch of Toshiba M9s and their docking stations don't have ps/2 ports, and you still have keyboards there from ten years ago.
 
It shows a picture of the connector plugging a mouse and keyboard into a laptop.
 
Ditching the ports seems popular with laptops and is gaining popularity with desktops.

Does anyone else find USB keyboards a little clunky?
 
Not really, but like anything else it probably depends on the keyboard.

I had an Acer back in '99 that had no ps/2 ports. Only four USB ports, too, and three of them were taken up with keyboard, mouse and speakers.

Then I bought a microsoft internet pro keyboard (still using it, too) that had two usb ports on it, and that helped. Silly think about that computer, tho, it needed the oem keyboard to boot. I never figured that out.....
 
I have a PS/2 keyboard. I think we got it at a yardsale. I like it because there's buttons on the keyboard for various things -- the ones I use the most are the "mute" button and the "calculator" button.

I've got a USB mouse. It's a Microsoft optical, the only optical mouse I could find that didn't make the cursor jump around.

Of course, if either of these broke, at least we have about 10 keyboards and mouses around the house. (Me and mom always get them at yard sales "just in case")
 
I guess some of my concerns with them are firstly BIOS support beyond the POST typically needs enabling.

USB HIDs that are new to windows typically take numerous seconds to be found and set up.

My first USB mouse was a cordless one and it would not respond for a moment after a break, though I guess it may have been a battery saving thing.

I once had trouble entering safe mode on a system that only had USB ports.

These issues are probably not insurmountable. It just gives me the feeling that USB was a late add on to the IBM architecture (which of course it was).

I guess it will be sorted in a future BIOS restructure. Haven't heard much about that one lately?
 
People sometimes say that when working with a BIOS and a USB keyboard, keep the PS/2 keyboard nearby. Occasionally when I reboot, the USB mouse loses power and I have to plug it in again. I've also found that to pause the BIOS startup screen (e.g. to write stuff down), to remove the keyboard before powering up.

I don't think Windows had USB support until Windows 98, so that must been the time it was becoming popular.

EDIT: Did some googling, found a short history of the USB: http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2...usb-is-needed-part-1-the-short-history-of-usb It says that USB came out in '96. So that'd be about right. And it also says that originally, they had a bunch of different ports, so I guess USB ports are sort of an "add-on" to IBM architecture, rather than being integrated properly, so there'd be a few issues. Such as certain addons can mess up Firefox (e.g. I used to have an addon called AdBlock. It made graphic-intensive sites never load, so I uninstalled that and put in AdBlock Plus.).
 
I'm on Vista and I have two monitors on this computer and it's working well, but how can I set different desktop backgrounds on the monitors? I just tried making a image with the two pictures side by side but it couldn't stretch it to both monitors.

Any suggestions?
 
Whenever I put my computer into either standby or hibernate, I always end up havign to do a hard boot to bring it back. I have an AMD Athlon 64 processor, which I'm suspecting the drivers. Would updating the drivers help any? (I don't use standby anyways, I'm just wondering.)
 
Yes, it's probably the drivers. Updating may or may not work. I used to work for a hardware/drivers firm and it's alot of effort to do correctly, and if you do it incorrectly you crash ;)
 
I've heard about an issue with XP SP3, where the computer manufacturers would put both the Intel & AMD drivers in. And then if you had an AMD, & upgraded to SP3, the Intel drivers would kick in and the computer would go into endless reboot cycle. This happened to a friend of mine, and she didn't have the install CD. But she had a geeky friend, so in exchange for the computer parts, he got her files off the HDD and sent her a laptop.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

CaptainLost
[REFERENCE] How Unit/Tile Visibility Works in BTS 3.19
Replies
7
Views
3K
Eusebio
E
FredLC
Questions about an Asus RT-AC68U router...
Replies
4
Views
5K
FredLC
FredLC
hobbsyoyo
Cell Phone/Smartphone Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread
2
Replies
32
Views
3K
hobbsyoyo
hobbsyoyo
Methos
Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II
302 303 304
Replies
6K
Views
786K
Tommy Vercetti
Tommy Vercetti
Flying Pig
Modding Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread Question Thread
Replies
4
Views
2K
Risen
R
Back
Top Bottom