1) My photobucket window just crashed. There is so much going on in those windows with all the advert features playing. Am I missing a driver, or a widget? 2) And the laptop crashes when it fancies, generally involving Photoshop and the clone tool, but not always. Any hints? As usual, these machines say nothing about what is wrong with them....
do you use firefox? try it with adblocker to remove adverts etc I hate the autoplay videos on some sites.
Firefox is not as functionally good for photobucket so I use IE for photobucket. I take the view a laptop should be able to run the ads and videos. If it doesn't, it's not the fault of the ads, it's the laptop. Alex, ref 1), there are countless times the laptop does not declare what is upsetting it. It simply acts up, declares nothing, leaving me with the binary decision to format or do nothing. I'd like to teach myself what lies between the two options, hence thread! Could it be flash player/flash updates? Or flash drivers if they exist? Photobucket has apparent sophisticated architecture behind it and that is the giveaway with that site.
I thought you were referring specifically to the Photobucket crash. If it's a more general malaise, then there are so many factors. It's a bit like saying my car is misfiring, what's the cause? Do you have years of time? You'd need to learn the hardware side of thing, then start understanding software. Not the answer you're looking for, but it's a bit like learning how to build an engine. It's not just putting a new engine in everytime the car cuts out. As above, unlikely. Windows will notify you of an update if there is one. If you want to try a manual update, go to http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html and download and install the latest version. TBH, with the amount of grief this laptop has given you, I'm surprised it hasn't followed the same trajectory as the router. I suspect you have a Friday afternoon laptop. You could also have a look at the logs, but I don't know where they are or which ones to look at. Sorry I can't be of more help.
No it isn't. I've given a big clue by pointing to that site! That site specifically has windows which refresh for loading photos, load the CPU etc etc. I find it incredible that I am left with a choice to replace the engine everytime there is a problem. What is said is continue to persist with an ill device, or format. Don't take the rocker cover off, don't check the oil and fluids. Because there are no pointers to give. Dare I say, this has to be utter rubbish. Either it's rocket science, or the IT ethos is not to give away the secrets. Sometimes I reformat and get a good format. Runs for months. Other times, 1 month and it's obvious the bottom bearings have effectively gone, except I can't see them, but it's clearly serious. And yet nothing will tell me what.
hehehe...Right Some easy steps for checking your bottom end matey! Open the rear case off. Clean the fan. Air dust the board and other ancilleries. Reattach the case and try that.! Sounds like its just a overheat issue normaly cause by bad airflow caused by dust! fingers crossed... After this it will be software checks and then more drastic paste replacment!!
The fan is definitely ok. The paste which the fan heat sink is attached to may need renewing, but it is there. The machine itself is slow in thinking. It stutters, stalls - if it were human, I'd call it thick as sh1 t and find someone else to talk to.
Fecking Vista. Three years old. Please give me a list of drivers and I'll tick them off one by one. I just can't see the whole 'driver' menu, so don't know what I can check off.
Vista!!!Ouch theres your problem!!!hehe For the slower old machines like yours and mine vista was troublesome... My advise is upgrade to 7 or down to XP.. Both can be had for free! If you know what i mean...lol If you was after keeping Vista there is a site called driver agent that does a scan and tells you which updates you require. But i would upgrade with a stripped windows 7 though...
+1 Vista is your problem. My Dell desktop has now entered its seventh year running windows XP (24 hours a day), it had a format and re-install about 2 years ago (because after 5 years I thought I should), and has been through a multitude of hardware failures/replacements/upgrades, but software wise has been as reliable as any machine I have ever used. I had a Vista powered HP laptop that ran like a dog for 12 months. Switched to 7 and happy days . If you don't want to change OS though, I did find that disabling services improved the performance a bit in Vista, for a guide CLICK.
I'm back on the XP mission now. Just in the pre-event psyche up for a re-wipe and to see if this machine will suck up what I throw it on a disc. The psyche up could take a couple of weeks or could be into the new year. Meantime the laptop hasn't hung once this week. All totally random. Then again that's fair enough considering I've owned this machine as long as I have and all I can do is strip it to a shell everytime it farts. Staggering situ
Chris - just spotted this thread, I never look in the computers bit of the forum as working with them all day is enough for me What make / model / age / spec is the laptop? From what I've read in this thread, my advice is to back up what you need to external storage, format it and install XP. Vista is nothing but trouble in my experience, absolutely horrible operating system. Make sure to update XP up to service pack 3, then install all windows updates, which will take a while. After that, right click 'my computer', choose 'manage' and have a look in device manager to see if anything has flagged up as missing drivers - it would show a yellow exclamation mark next to the device. If so, go to the manufacturers website and download the appropriate driver for that bit and install it. Reboot in between each driver installation, and if possible set a system restore point. See if the manufacturer lists a later BIOS firmware version for the machine than you have, if so download and install it - this can help with stability, hardware compatibility, overheating issues and all kinds of things. Then install AV software, Microsoft security essentials does what you need and is a free download, and put back all your applications from CD's etc. The fewer the better until you've given the machine some use to see if it's stable. Update the browser, flash player, java, adobe reader and all that kind of stuff to the latest version the OS will support. I find Firefox works much better than IE, but that's personal preference and I don't use photobucket much. If it's a more modern laptop, like up to about 4 or 5 years old with 2GB+ RAM, then use the same steps above but with Windows 7. I've found it's very stable, even on older machines but not with less RAM than that really. In summary - Vista is horrible. Cheers Stu PS. I've been a Windows system admin professionally since '99, done this a million times, and am typing this from my MacBook, which doesn't need any of the above... I know you love Apple
