IT Queries: Computer problems answered

 Hi I have always used sygate personal firewall rather than windows on all my computers with no probs, however I installed it on my dell inspiron laptop when mcafee expired and it doesnt want to allow my wireless network connection or my modem and therefore I cant access the net.

 

They both work perfectly once I remove it from the computer. This is with windows firewall turned off.

 

Any suggestions as it means I can only use the windows firewall which I am a bit dubious about.

Sygate Personal Firewall is a favourite program of ours and it was a sad day when it disappeared into the maw of Symantec. It was probably the most configurable and powerful of the consumer firewall products. However the nature of firewall is that if they go wrong, then the Internet and network stop.

The first thing you need to do is to uninstall McAfee. If you have already done this, we’d recommend you download and run the McAfee Removal Tool just to be on the safe side.

Once you’ve done this, restart the computer. If the problem hasn’t cleared uninstall, reboot and reinstall Sygate.

The clue to diagnosing Sygate problems is the icon in the task bar. If the icon is showing the “blocked” symbol then it is blocking all network traffic. Right-click on the icon and select “Normal”.

If the problem still continues, then right-click  the Sygate icon again and choose “options”. Check that the Sygate Personal Firewall service is ticked to automatically load, in the Security section click the button that reads “reset all fingerprints for all applications”. This will drive you mad with prompts but it may be blocked programs that are stopping you from getting on to the net.

The final option to tick allow all the Network Neighborhood settings on all the adapters. You’ll find this in the Network Neighborhood tab. We don’t recommend this as a long term solution if you are connecting directly to the Internet.

An excellent resource for Sygate Personal Firewall is at the Sygate Basics site. This covers all the settings in the Pro version.

Firewalls can be funny beasts and you sometimes find they just won’t play properly regardless of what you do. If you find problems continue then you might want to consider another firewall. PC Tools has a free firewall which may work better.

I’ve bought a new computer with Office 2007 and my other machines can’t see the documents I make in it. What should I do?

Microsoft have introduced a new format for Office files in an attempt to comply with international open document standards.

This means older versions of Office can’t read anything created in the new edition.

If you want be able to read documents created in the newer version of Office you’ll need to install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

This allows users of older versions of MS Office to read Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents created in the 2007 format. While this will allow you to read the newer documents, you won’t get all the features built into the 2007 version.

We recommend all users of older versions download and install the compatibility pack as Office 2007 will steadily overtake older versions of Office and this problem will become more common.

I’m using Windows XP Pro Service Pack 1. The system is often very slow changing from one page to another, especially on Ebay.

I can select a favourite search in MyEbay and the new page sits there blank white with an hourglass and no activity on the data in & out meter. Hit refresh and it comes up immediately for a second and then goes blank again. This has lost us a few good buys on Ebay cause it wouldn’t go to the next page quickly.

Progressively getting worse, used to be perfect. Now on 1500k/sec connection.

Ta Geoff

Hi Geoff, we assume you are using Internet Explorer. It’s possible the phishing filter is interfering with the site. We’ve discussed this previously where it’s caused problems and we’d suggest turning it off.

You may want to check you aren’t infected with spyware. One favourite trick of spyware writers is to redirect web browsers so it looks like they are coming from somewhere else and this is exactly the sort of problem they can create. Try the XCleaner online scan tool.

Other things that could be causing it are toolbars with various phishing and malware filters. The Google and Yahoo! toolbars are quite capable of this. You can either uninstall them or disable them.

I don’t seem to have any temporary internet files. When I go into disc cleanup no files are shown. I used to have many folders with these files in them.

I have windows XP.

Regards Caryl

Hi Caryl,

Given your web browser is working you almost certainly will have some temporary Internet files. It may be that you’re not using Internet Explorer, programs like Firefox, Opera and Safari save their temporary files to another location.

If you are using IE, then it might be that someone has set it to delete temporary files when you close it.

You can check all of this by going into the Internet Explorer and clicking Tools, options and Advanced. The setting to clear temporary files is under the Security heading.

I have Windows XP Professional with Windows Media Player version 11.0.5721.5230 and all the current updates. I am having trouble burning CDs…it may burn 2 out of 12 songs and then just says it can’t burn and finalises the CD so its wasted. It doesn’t do this all the time, just sometimes but I am wasting far too many CDs. I like making compilation CDs from my own collection and I am getting very frustrated. I have slowed the speed right down, tried different brands of CD. Is there another music program which would do this for me more consistently?

Burning CDs is a bit of a black art. There are a lot of variables and results can be unpredictable.

The first thing we do when confronted with a CD burning problem is to turn the burning speed down to the bare minimum.

In Windows Media Player 11 you can turn the burning speed down the following way, click the Tools menu, select Options then under the Burn tab change the burning speed to “slow”.

If this doesn’t work, we’d suggest getting another CD burning program such as Nero. You may find your computer has a copy of Nero Express or a similar program already on it as part of the package.

I have just purchased a secondhand Dell Photo All-In-One Printer 944 but it is not compatible with my Windows 98 can I download from Dell to make it compatible?

Unfortunately not, according to the Dell website, this model printer is not compatible with Windows 98. This particular model uses its own specialist driver that will only work on Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

IBM have a very good site explaining which Dell printer models can be used by other operating systems like Linux, Macs, Windows 98 and the like. The AIO 944 is not one of them.

For this reason, and the difficulty in getting replacement cartridges, we tend to steer people away from Dell printers. The prices are good, but you lose a lot of flexibility.

Just wondering what you think about registry cleaning software. Is it a good idea? I visited a comparison website at compareregistrycleaners.org and the test results for Max Registry cleaner shape up the best.

We’re a little wary of any registry cleaners. While the theory of deleting unnecessary registry entries is good, there’s a lot of scope for things to go horribly, horribly wrong.

In our view the risk of messing up the computer doesn’t justify the speed improvement most computers will see after running an effective registry cleaner.

If you do want to try a registry cleaner we’d suggest the venerable and free CleanReg from Armstong Systems. This will scan the registry and find redundant entries. It’s best to run it after uninstalling any unused programs as poor uninstall routines are the main cause of unnecessary registry keys.

Before running a registry cleaner, make sure you’ve created a restore point. This will save your system should the scanner delete a critical value.

Also note that we haven’t tested any registry cleaners on Windows Vista. We’d suggest not running any until there’s a better body of knowledge on how Vista behaves with these cleaners.

 I have a new computer running Vista Home with 512 ram. The slowness of the system is really getting to me, is upgrading RAM going to make things better, and if so, how much RAM should I go for?

Simply put, you can never have enough RAM, of course there are limitations on how much you can afford and exactly what will fit into the motherboard.

For Vista, we like to see a minimum of 1Gb and ideally 4. Given you already have 512Mb, we’d suggest putting in another 1 or 2Gb depending on how much your motherboard and budget can fit.

With memory upgrades there’s a billion different combinations of memory and motherboards out there, it’s one of the reasons our PC Rescue techs stopped carrying memory to jobs. The wrong memory can cause all manner of strange problems.

We’d recommend you go to the supplier of your computer or the local computer shop and get them to install the correct memory for your system.

My operating system is Me and recently I have received the following error message. It is headed SNDSRVC.EXE – EMBEDDING and below this says, Sndsrvc has caused an error in Kernel32.DLL. Sndsrvc will now close. Another error message which has appeared on a couple of occasions is, Error Starting Program, followed by The IPHLPAPI.DLL cannot start. Check the file to determine the problem. I would be grateful for any advice.

The SNDSRVC.EXE service is part of the Norton Internet Security suite. If you have Norton we’d suggest uninstalling it first.

If you have uninstalled Norton then it’s possible some of the components are still present. You can remove them by downloading and running the Norton removal tool provided by Symantec. Be careful with this tool as it will disable products like PC Anywhere and Winfax.

It’s also possible you have a spyware infection. We’d suggest testing the machine for an infection. We’ve previously posted how to do this.

Finally, you might have to search the hard drive to find where this file is hiding. That will give clues on how to remove it.

Don’t forget to create restore points before carrying out each of these suggestions.

 faulty power on a dell dim4100. power conn to motherboard different to modern ps????   processor p3 i think.
extra conn to mb is 6 pin straight not 4 pin sq as on new ps.  ps or adaptor cable req,  availible or not??

regards
Brian

Hi Brian,

There’s a number of different power connector arrangements for recent motherboards. This is a pain for suppliers and technicians. What we have found is the brand name power supplies tend to include adapters for the different types.

We’ve found the Thermaltake brand power supplies tend include the required cables.  There’s a number of other good brands and we’d suggest asking the local computer store if their power supplies will have the right adapters. Some of the cheapies don’t.

On the power supply topic, we’re constantly upset at the underpowered  power supplies most computers are sold with. We’d recommend you get a supply rated at a minimum of 400W. That way, you’ll be able to handle power hungry accessories.