IT Queries: Computer problems answered

I have a Medion laptop about 3 years old running Windows XP. Recently, the screen background colour has become pink and images have distorting pink patches and stripes.

The pink screen had been an occasional problem fixed by logging off and restarting but it is now there all the time. I believe it is sometimes called the “pink screen of death”.

Is it a hardware problem or is there a software fix? Any help would be appreciated.

We haven’t come across the Pink Screen of Death before. The normal screen of death is colored blue although Microsoft did experiment with a red screen for a while.

In this case, the pink screen is probably due to a defective connection between the screen and body of the laptop computer.

While it might be worthwhile getting your local computer shop to have a look and see if it’s a loose plug, it’s more likely to be a damaged cable or hinge.

Given the age of the computer, you’ll probably find a fix is either impossible or prohibitively expensive.

We’d recommend getting a new system.

I’m using a 150Gb external hard drive to backup my data. The software, Retrospect Express, keeps telling me there isn’t enough space on the hard drive.

When I check the drive there’s 100Gb of space available. I’ve reinstalled the software but the problem keeps happening.

Almost certainly the problem is how the hard drive has been formatted. Most external drives come with the FAT32 system format. This limits file sizes to 4Gb. Your backup file has gone over that limit.

When Microsoft starting using the FAT32 system in 1995 it was rare to find a 4Gb hard drive, let alone a single file that big. Today that system struggles; particularly when faced with backup files that easily go over the 4Gb limit.

Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS support the older file system but Windows systems today use the NTFS file system that supports bigger files and has better security features.

You need to convert your hard drive to NTFS by running the convert.exe program which is included in Windows XP. Microsoft have instructions on using it at their website.

When using it, make sure you do not turn the drive or computer off while it’s converting. Usually the program will take around 20 minutes to convert a 100Gb hard drive.

Once it’s converted, restart both the computer and drive. You may have to also rerun your backup program’s setup routine.

Why would the computer not let you play  solitaire on it?  It just flickers on and off and says something is not responding?

Contrary to popular belief  Solitaire isn’t just a time waster. For techs, it’s a quick and easy way to test your graphics hardware is behaving itself.

In your case it could be the graphics card is misbehaving and if that is the case you’ll need to take it to your local computer store to get it checked.

It is possible this is caused by a virus or defective software. Before lugging it down to the store you should give the computer a clean up and check for viruses.

If you have the Windows disk, you should also check there aren’t any damaged files in the system by running the System File Checker tool. This will repair any problems with the Windows files including the solitaire program.

Hi, I have a compaq lap top and would like to know how to put the battery option setting on, so I know how much power i have left. Thank you.

To disable it click Start then Run and type Control Panel. In the Control Panel double click on Power Options.

In the Power Options applet click on advanced and tick the box beside Always show icon on the taskbar.

A battery icon should now appear near the time in the bottom left hand corner of your screen telling you how much battery life is left.

Some laptops have their own specialist power management software that disables this. If this is the case with your laptop, you’ll need to contact the manufacturer to find how to enable it.

If i format my PC, will i require the mother board CD to run it again? plz help

Probably not, as Windows will install it’s own software. However you’ll find the computer will run a lot quicker with the proper drivers installed.

You may also find onboard sound, network and video connectors won’t work properly until you run the installation disk.

Generally we’d recommend downloading the latest drivers for all your hardware and saving them to CD before reformatting your computer.

My sister has a 5 year old laptop with windows xp home operating system. The system says the cd drive is present and correct, however the drive accepts a disc but does not work. There have been no hardware or software additions or subtractions to the laptop. What do you think?

It sounds like the drive doesn’t like some CDs. Try the drive with a number of disks to see if the system can see any of them. You might want to test a recently purchased music CD in good condition.

CD and DVD drives are known as optical drives because they shine a light on the drive and read the reflection sometimes the light or the receiving lens gets clogged with dirt and dust. You can buy a drive cleaning kit for under $20.

If a clean up doesn’t work, then the drive is probably failing and should be replaced. The problem with laptops is it’s often difficult and expensive to get parts for them. Given this computer is five years old, it’s not worth spending too much money on it.

You can get an external CD/DVD drive for under $150 and this is the best bet if you don’t want to replace the entire system.

 So, test the drive with different CDs, clean it and consider replacing it.

I have a AMD 4200+ dual core CPU will it go in to a socket 939 board. The board in question is a gigabyte GA-K8N pro sli so is this possable. Thanks christian.

The short answer is no. The AMD 4200+ CPU has 940 pins while the GA-K8N Pro SLI motherboard only has 939. The CPU simply will not plug into the motherboard.

Generally the best thing when upgrading Central Processing Units to do is buy a new motherboard that’s designed for that chip. The number of pins is only one factor in dozens that affect the running of the system.

While upgrading a CPU can give you some performance improvements, far more cost effective upgrades are more RAM, faster hard drives and better video cards.

I have two computers. One with XP the other Vista Home Prem. Is it better to turn these computers off when not using them; use sleep mode, or leave on?

From a power saving point of view, turning them off is the best thing to do. From a reliability point of view leaving them running is better.

You can use sleep and hibernate modes as a sort of halfway compromise. Of these, sleep is the better as you use a tiny fraction of the power but the computer is still running. Hibernate shuts the machine down and can have problems with slow reboot.

There’s a few other problems with leaving the computer running: It may get damaged by storms or power surges and if a fan fails it could overheat.

Our own preference is to shut the machine down.

I have a new computer with Vista in the place. When I am typing emails, the lines jump up all over the place. I have contacted their service dept but their advice did not help. as you can see it has jumped during this email (fortunately only once) but it usually goes all over the place. taking me ages to type and fix. any suggestions?

If this is a laptop, what you’ll probably find is the touchpad at the front of the keyboard is too sensitive and when brush it while typing it moves the cursor.

Depending on the brand, there will be a way to change this either using the system software or by changing the mouse sensitivity in the Control Panel. To do the latter, Microsoft have the instructions on their website.

Some people have found problems with the “tap to click” functions on  HP and Toshiba laptops. It’s worthwhile disabling those in the software settings if this is a problem.

I have Windows XP Pro, SP2. On startup I get the error: “Windows cannot load the user’s profile but has logged you on with the default profile for the system.” “Insufficient system resources exist to complete the required service.”

This happens to all users when computer is first started. Then try restart and same problem. Tried shut down, reboot and still same problem.

The problem is caused by Windows not being able to open the user profiles on the computer. This is often due to damage on the hard drive.

Our first suggestion would be to back up all important data and then scan the drive for errors. If bad blocks are found during the scan, you’ll need to replace the hard drive.

Checking for malware is another useful step which may resolve the “insufficient system resources” error but usually doesn’t cause the profile problem.

If problems continue, the next step is to create a new user in the system and see if the problem continues. If it does, there may be user permission issues on the Documents and Settings folder and it’s probably best to contact a repair service to see about resolving this problem.