Tech Support: you got computer problems, we hopefully can fix it.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Guardaviewer's now deleted/locked post just gave me an idea; why hasn't there been a tech support thread on the NHC yet? I mean we are pretty technical people right.

Anyways, premise of the thread is this: post what's wrong with your computer (preferably in detail) below and we'll try the best to help out.

[Boris Johnson]

Awesome! I locked the topic because of a combination of 1. No one bothered replying and 2. The problem kind of solved its self.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Yeah, you locked it.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Awesome! I locked the topic because of a combination of 1. No one bothered replying and 2. The problem kind of solved its self.

I would of bothered to reply, I'm somewhat of a technical guru around some parts.

[Wavy Gravy]

Okay, here's one - I've got a Mac, it runs Mac OS X version 10.4.11, it's got 768 megs of SDRAM. I got it used from a friend about two years ago. And ever since I first got it, I've never been able to play streaming Internet videos. I can only watch YouTube videos if I set the resolution to 240 or download them as a low-quality mp4 file and play them in QuickTime Player. If I try to play them online at their normal resolution, the picture skips like crazy. Same thing with Dailymotion and Vimeo and everything else.

I thought it was my Internet speed at first, but my old computer didn't have this problem, and I've had the same connection and the same router for longer than I've had the Mac. So what's the issue?

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

First off, what is the model of your Mac? Older Macs may contain inadequate graphics cards that Flash won't hardware accelerate (simply because it's not supported, cards with DX9 (Windows specific but it does apply somewhat when it comes to generations and native video decoding and up would do a bit better.), you can't upgrade the graphics card of the Mac due to obvious reasons (unless it's a Mac Pro or older PowerPC Mac Pro, and in that case your graphics card would have to be marketed as "working for Mac OS X" or modded with a EFI BIOS for it to become Mac compatible, which can be really, really risky; not recommended unless very desperate.).

If it's your graphics card then your best bet it to just get a new Mac, if it's the RAM then the best thing to do would be to get more RAM. CPU, depending on whether you replace it or not, a slow CPU can cause choppiness and skipped frames. If you can't replace it, you can overclock it to get a few more MHz out of it but it's incredibly risky.

Either way, your best bet would be to get a new Mac is the Mac turns out to be really old. (If it turns out that nothing is wrong with the system and some program was causing the YouTube slowdowns.)

EDIT: Just thought of something, did you look to see if the system is dusty? You may want to clean the dust out of it before doing anything I said first.

[Dark Homer]

how do I turn off my computer!!!!!

[tvguy347]

First off, what is the model of your Mac? Older Macs may contain inadequate graphics cards that Flash won't hardware accelerate (simply because it's not supported, cards with DX9 (Windows specific but it does apply somewhat when it comes to generations and native video decoding and up would do a bit better.), you can't upgrade the graphics card of the Mac due to obvious reasons (unless it's a Mac Pro or older PowerPC Mac Pro, and in that case your graphics card would have to be marketed as "working for Mac OS X" or modded with a EFI BIOS for it to become Mac compatible, which can be really, really risky; not recommended unless very desperate.).

If it's your graphics card then your best bet it to just get a new Mac, if it's the RAM then the best thing to do would be to get more RAM. CPU, depending on whether you replace it or not, a slow CPU can cause choppiness and skipped frames. If you can't replace it, you can overclock it to get a few more MHz out of it but it's incredibly risky.

Either way, your best bet would be to get a new Mac is the Mac turns out to be really old. (If it turns out that nothing is wrong with the system and some program was causing the YouTube slowdowns.)

EDIT: Just thought of something, did you look to see if the system is dusty? You may want to clean the dust out of it before doing anything I said first.

This, but it may also have something to do with the fact that you're running such an old OS, which may not be able to support the framework applications used to stream videos.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

This, but it may also have something to do with the fact that you're running such an old OS, which may not be able to support the framework applications used to stream videos.

Mac OS X 10.4.11 is far from old; while it may not be able to support the newer graphics card with ease, it still has what it needs (10.4.11 was released around the time of Mac OS X Leopard, so cards like the GeForce 7/Radeon X1900 and up should work.) for OpenGL to work and hardware acceleration to work also. While upgrading to a new OS may be nice, it'd still be logical to do the stuff I said above just to rule out anything regarding hardware/software problems.

[Hommer]

I was in MS Paint, and my tool-bar disappeared! I checked the "View" menu, and it was checked! How do I get it back?

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Might be a problem with a program you installed or an update, did you try to restore your system to an earlier date using "System Restore"?

If not, you might want to try opening the command prompt and running sfc /scannow before running System Restore and just to be sure, run chkdsk /r after sfc doesn't fix your problem.

[kupomog]

Which Toolbar is it? You may have dragged your toolbar so far off-screen that you simply can't see it. Tends to be the problem for people who have it checked under View.

Unlock your taskbar and close other windows and try to see if the toolbar isn't just hidden.

If you can't find it anywhere on your monitor, you can open Command Prompt (right-click it and Run as Administrator) and use this to reset the toolbars:

reg delete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Paint\General-Summary" /f

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[misti]

can you tell my that how could i can clean my laptop and make it a machine for a long life and long use one

[kupomog]

Use compressed air in the keyboard, vents, and any recesses for memory cards or drives. Lint-free cloth for screen, or dilute water with one part alcohol to make a cleaning solution that is safe to use on the laptop (apply with cloth).

Also remember to always defragment your hard drive every few weeks for faster caching and performance.