Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

[ParadigmShifter]

My Pop Will Eat Itself: Cure For Sanity CD suffers from the same problem.

They lied when they said you could eat your breakfast off CDs and they would last forever.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

LOL. I have an old book from 1994 saying that audio CDs can last forever. Bull!

It's also funny reading old book from the 80s or so being all amazed at huge hard drives and tiny floppy discs and laserdiscs (I seen pictures of those, they're HUGE!).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Laser disc was 12" same as a long-playing gramophone record.

An old book from 1994? An old book from the 80s? What would Tom Petty say about that

I'm feeling really old now too. I remember staying up till midnight on New Year's Eve in 1979

 

[lndm]

Sometimes when I try to load a fullscreen game (SimCity 4 specifically), it won't show up. It'll be in the processes list in the task manager, but won't show up in the taskbar or in alt-tab.

I had this problem with Diablo II and vista. I needed to kill dwm.exe (directx window manager), which would restart on its own as the game started.

No, the computer is grounded.

You mean...encapsulated in a shield (same nett effect).

I had a really scratched CD (Tom Petty ).

You could try polishing the lower side with conventional car polish.

They lied when they said you could eat your breakfast off CDs and they would last forever.

LOL. So many people believed that, even last year I was talking to my aunt about it and she tried to convince me of it.

They even believe that CDaudio is in all respects better sounding than LPs.

I'm feeling really old now too. I remember staying up till midnight on New Year's Eve in 1979

So do I. Maybe we're in the wrong thread

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

LOL. I'm born in 1992, what do you expect?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You should be out knifing people instead of listening to Tom Petty. That's what we expect.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

LOL!!! (10chars)

 

[lndm]

[shuffle, shuffle....removes address from profile]

 

[LucyDuke]

LOL. I have an old book from 1994 saying that audio CDs can last forever. Bull!

It's not like a cassette that will wear out with use. As long as you're careful with it, playing a CD shouldn't wear on it worth a damn.

You can destroy anything if you want to.

I had this problem with Diablo II and vista. I needed to kill dwm.exe (directx window manager), which would restart on its own as the game started.

Should I just kill it beforehand every time?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

What can I do with a few huge spindles of DVD-Rs? Burn a bunch of Linux distros? lol.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Stab people with them

 

[Genocidicbunny]

What can I do with a few huge spindles of DVD-Rs? Burn a bunch of Linux distros? lol.

1. You asked this before
2. backup
3. movies
4. linux distro's ( or you can use cd's)
5. game copies
6. frisbees
7. coasters
8. hang them in trees to scare the birds
9. dvd shatter testing
10. use the shards to stab people.

 

[Zelig]

What can I do with a few huge spindles of DVD-Rs? Burn a bunch of Linux distros? lol.

I smash them and eat them.

If you're not manly enough to eat the shards, you can grind them up and eat the dust.

 

[Turner]

1. You asked this before
2. backup
3. movies
4. linux distro's ( or you can use cd's)
5. game copies
6. frisbees
7. coasters
8. hang them in trees to scare the birds
9. dvd shatter testing
10. use the shards to stab people.
11. Send them to Turner, who's always looking for blank DVD-Rs.

Fixed it for ya!

But yeah, Aimee, you really need to refrain from asking the same question over and over. This is like the third one I've seen in a short period of time.

 

[lndm]

Maybe aimee was really born in 1892 and has alzheimers.

@LucyDuke: Assuming this fix is appropriate for you, I don't imagine it would work that way. I used to start Diablo, then hit Ctrl/Alt/del for task manager.

I did a little poking around and it seems some people need to install a windows update before playing SC4. Specifically, this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Not Alzheimer, just a brain that's been banged around a few too many times. lol.

I remember back on XP, that at one time SimCity only opened half the time. Then I installed updates and it worked.

I was playing a game and got a debugging error. Isn't that when you do something the game doesn't account for?

 

[lndm]

Can't be certain here but it might be that you stumbled across something that the programmers were having some trouble with.

 

[Perfection]

I don't have any physical volume controls on my laptop. The only way I can adjust volume is to click the volume icons. Is there some way I could assign keyboard keys to adjust volume? It's Vista Home Basic if that makes any difference.

I'm pretty skeptical that you don't have this, what's your laptop model number? Have you looked at the the Fn controls?

I don't know of any modern laptop that doesn't have these features. I could be completely wrong (I don't pay that much attention to laptops after all), but I'd like to be sure.

 

[Till]

Sometimes when I try to load a fullscreen game (SimCity 4 specifically), it won't show up. It'll be in the processes list in the task manager, but won't show up in the taskbar or in alt-tab. I kill the process and try again. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to repeat. What's this all about?

How much memory is free when you start the game? It's possible that there isn't enough free physical memory to load the game, so stuff needs to be moved to the pagefile. That can take forever.

I don't have any physical volume controls on my laptop. The only way I can adjust volume is to click the volume icons. Is there some way I could assign keyboard keys to adjust volume? It's Vista Home Basic if that makes any difference.

I use this one on my desktop. Windowskey+Up/Down adjust the master volume, Shift+Windowskey+Up/Down the wave volume.
The programme is a compiled version of this script.

Edit: And i agree with Perfection. Even my ancient 600mHz notebook has a little wheel to control the volume!

 

[LucyDuke]

Maybe aimee was really born in 1892 and has alzheimers.

@LucyDuke: Assuming this fix is appropriate for you, I don't imagine it would work that way. I used to start Diablo, then hit Ctrl/Alt/del for task manager.

I did a little poking around and it seems some people need to install a windows update before playing SC4. Specifically, this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194

I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

I'm pretty skeptical that you don't have this, what's your laptop model number? Have you looked at the the Fn controls?

I don't know of any modern laptop that doesn't have these features. I could be completely wrong (I don't pay that much attention to laptops after all), but I'd like to be sure.

I use this one on my desktop. Windowskey+Up/Down adjust the master volume, Shift+Windowskey+Up/Down the wave volume.
The programme is a compiled version of this script.

Edit: And i agree with Perfection. Even my ancient 600mHz notebook has a little wheel to control the volume!

It's this: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...1=Everyday+computing&series_name=CQ60Z_series with a memory upgrade and a webcam, everything else is standard.

I'll double-check the fn keys, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't find anything. What I expect is a little wheel and it definitely doesn't have that.

If I can't find one, thanks Till, as usual!

How much memory is free when you start the game? It's possible that there isn't enough free physical memory to load the game, so stuff needs to be moved to the pagefile. That can take forever.

Plenty. I've got 3gb, and I close most big stuff before I start it. I usually leave Firefox running but I close any tabs with embedded videos or flash or anything. Also Trillian, mIRC, and all the antivirus and system type stuff that's always running. I doubt it's even 1gb worth of stuff left open.

500 MHz Pentium III processor. Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, or Windows 98; or Mac OS X, version 10.2 or later. 128 MB RAM, 256 MB RAM for Windows XP. 1 GB hard disk space. 32 MB DirectX 7.0-compatible video card, 8x CD-ROM drive.

No way am I already using 2 3/4 gb when I load it.

Also, it's not that it loads slowly, it's just that it starts the process (I see it in the processes list in the task manager) but doesn't let me get to it. I've left it for upwards of an hour and it'll just never show up where I can use it.