Nope. I don't have any software that charts out the heat, but considering it immediately starts right up, and that I've never seen the temperature rise to even somewhat questionable levels even while doing some intense gaming, I can't imagine that's it.

Power could be another issue as mentioned. Do you have a power supply tester you can use? Alternatively, you can take a multimeter to it but you would need to look up the correct pinouts.

The occasional bluescreen makes me doubt it's power, although I guess it could be something minimal enough to crash but not kill.


Weird that it seems to go in cycles. I'd be more miffed if I had a valid copy of Windows, so maybe I'll do that soon and see what happens.

It could be any number of things really. Buggy driver. Power. Heat. Virus. Random Harware failing. Run prime 95 and cpu burn in (as many instances of each that it takes to peg the CPU at 100% consistently) and watch your temps and see if it reboots or crashes.

Rick I've been having problems for the past 2 or 3 weeks where my Computer gets to around 45-35% battery life and then just shuts off. I figured it was nothing at first and would fix itself, but its getting ridiculous now. Any thoughts? Its a 1 and a half year old computer by the way...

And that's really the thing. I know it's not a virus. I've tested the RAM and it comes out clean. My drivers are up to date. But none of that really rules any of it out. Without testing each piece of hardware individually and spending a lot of time there's no good explanation.

The only consistent thing about the crashes is that they happen immediately upon me running an installer, which makes me think it's got to be a Windows issue, but it could still be any other chunk of hardware.

Is it exe and msi or just one or the other? Could be an issue with the microsoft installer framework.

Check the power options in the control panel.

On HP recommended.

Dig deeper and see what the settings are. It may be set to hibernate or power down when at x%.

I think I've got it. Thanks.

No problem

And just like that it stops. Suddenly, around midnight on Saturday, it stopped. It's been stable since.


No clue what could be doing this at all. Not even sure if it's a monthly thing, but I think it lasted about a week exactly (not sure.) Next time I'll document better.

Best advice I can give is to try and find a pattern to help narrow it down. You could also check the event logs when it happens but they are not always all that helpful.

Yup, the problem is it doesn't always log, which ends up making me furious.


Like I said, next time around I'm going to log it myself and see if there are patterns in either when it start, stops, how long between, etc.

Turns out I never really fixed the problem. My computer was on for 7 minutes (was fully charged to begin with) and shut off. That's a bit ridiculous no?

Age of the computer doesn't matter when it comes to the battery. Heavy use and, depending on the battery type, constant charging can dramatically decrease the life of the battery.

I'm assuming its a laptop?

Yeah it is. So you think the battery is fried?

If that's not due to some power management setting, then yes - it's sounding like a bad battery.

The problems sound similar to one that I had when my power supply went bad. I thought it was the CPU, since the computer always crashed whenever I was doing something CPU intensive.

It's an easy component to swap out, so give that a shot if it starts again.

Most likely. If Windows is reading the battery at full charge and it's powering off within minutes, it could be a battery issue. Slightly less likely but still possible is a bad system board. What model laptop?

HP Pavillion dv4

Sounds like a battery. Possibly the charger but more likely the battery.

Do wireless routers just stop working? Or more precisely, do they arbitrarily reset their security keys or something?

I have a Linksys router working with my Cablevision modem. The outside connection is fine, as I can get access through an Ethernet cable. The wireless network is detected by my laptop, but I can't get service. It was working fine until about two days ago. I'd try reinstalling the router, but I of course tossed the CD for some dumb reason.

Happened to my Linksys at work a few weeks ago. The wired connections worked just fine and the wireless was broadcasting. I could connect but I couldn't get any throughput. Nothing I tried would fix it. Seemed to be exclusive to the encryption. If I disabled encryption it would work, but I can't leave it unsecured in the office. I upgraded the firmware but nothing changed. Finally I put the tomato firmware on there and now it works. It's still a little flaky, but it works. I think the device itself is going. It is a 6 year old router.

They can stop working sure. They are low end pieces of hardware and things can go wrong when they get old. I would do a factory reset(little reset button on the back that you push in with a pen. Hold it for 10 seconds). Once reset, just reconfigure it and connect. And DO NOT USE THE CD. That just makes a mess of things. It is much better to manually configure it.

Thanks - how do you manually reconfigure it after the reset?

On a Linksys you plug you computer directly to it and point your browser to 168.192.1.1 192.168.1.1

The username and password to get into the settings is generally admin and admin

Thanks - saw that the username was admin, the customer support info I had didn't give the password.

Depending on the model the password will be either, admin, password, or [blank].


Open up the web browser of your choice and go to 192.168.1.1 and just begin the config.

Setup a WEP code, change the SSID, and change the login password. Anything else isn't necessary unless you need static IPs, port fowarding or any other specialized thing.

I think the device was fried. I wasn't getting any access when I tried to reset the codes, download new firmware, whatever. I couldn't even get access when I tried through a cable to the back of the router. It's fine, that one lasted long enough. I just got a new one today - the Cisco Linksys E1000. Much sleeker design, and much easier to set up.

Even though I didn't do anything to change my preferences my screen now looks totally different. I would put up a screen shot except I can't figure out how to do this either.

Screenshots are done by pressing the print screen button on your keyboard. Then open up your favorite image editor and paste it in there.

I figured that much out, but the image is too big for me to paste. I'm a bit more coherent now though so I might be able to describe it. I get the first post in the thread and then a list of all the other posts but I have to click on the ones i want to read. Very inconvenient.

Here is what it looks like. Help me make this die.

Click to view attachment

Not that I'm grateful but if you need anyone killed send me a PM. I was going even madder than usual.

My wife just got a Dell Inspiron Duo.

Upon Startup, she is getting the following "advise" message:

This application requires the STMicroelectronics 3-Axis Accelerometer/Magnetometer Sensor to be enabled. The sensor is currently disabled. Please enable the sensor via the Control Panel.

with direction to enable...Which I did, but am still getting the message.

What application is causing this? How can I configure to get this to stop?

This is a brand new computer giving you that message?

a couple of weeks old...I'm thinking its a setting or something

That has something to do with the rotating screen when it converts from laptop to tablet mode. See if there is software relating to that in the startup tab of msconfig. You could also go to support.dell.com and find the latest driver for that device and see if that helps.

cool...that makes sense. I'll check it out. Thanks Rick!

To Rick or anyone else - looking for an external storage device for the netbook I just got. Looks like the largest flash drives are 30GB or so, correct? If I want something that has few hundred GB or a TB of space, I need something less portable, right?

We have these for our deployable photo/video kits at work:

LaCie Rugged 1TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive

They seem to be very stable and work well.

The largest flash drives that I know of are 256GB but you would need to hit lotto first. They are $600-700. If you need alot of space in a small size for a reasonable price then go for a WD Passport

Thanks gents. Portablility would be nice, but isn't crucial. Seems like WD has some models for $70 or so that have from 1-1.5TB. They're a good brand, I assume?

WD is the only brand drive I would buy. Any drive from any manufacturer can die at any point in time(always backup important files!) but in my experience I find WD to be the best. Ask 5 people and you may get 5 different answers though. The WD models in that range likely are the 3.5 inch models. They are not as portable as the passport line and they generally require an AC adapter to power them. If you care about portability go for the 2.5inch passport drives that can typically be powered by the USB cable alone.

Trying to set up Rangerland on my Droid and for some reason the password that works just fine on my pc does not work on my phone. I haz confusion.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It should work. You sure you are typing it correctly? Can take a bit to get used to using a touchscreen keyboard. If 100% sure you are doing it right I would try changing the password and trying again.

Thanks, I re-typed the password at least 40 times so one of them had to be right. Right?