Tech_support

I have a Sony Vaio VPCEA, Windows 7.

I put the computer to sleep every night. About once a month it'll turn on by itself in the early hours (I guess to update) but the screen never wakes up. By the time I wake up it's been on for hours with a blank screen and a very very hot fan. I'm worried about the overheating killing the fan...does anyone have any insight?

After this happened the first time, I made sure all updates were done during the day so it wouldn't have to wake up when I'm asleep...I'm not sure why it's doing this.

TIA

My friend's ASUS netbook (running Windows 7) recently got the findsearchengineresults virus. Or scour redirect virus, maybe. Some kind of rootkit, I think. It caused both Chrome and Firefox to redirect almost every time I searched for something. It was also causing the computer to crash after about two minutes of being turned on, and I had to use safemode with networking.

I found a couple sets of manual removal instructions online, but nothing helped. I couldn't find any unusual files, and only two of the dozen or so registry entries that were listed. I deleted those two and downloaded combofix, which seemed to help.

I rebooted the computer, and the virus had grown back, but it was no longer crashing things. I ran combofix again, then malwarebytes. Malwarebytes found, and claimed to have fixed, the problem. I restarted. It grew back, but this time, malewarebytes started giving me popups that it was blocking unusual traffic from svchost. I downloaded TDSSKiller, which fixed the rootkit and quaratined something called \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 (I think. It was something like that.)

I also, finally, managed to find something weird in the c:/. It was file with an exe icon that acted like a folder and had a random string of numbers for a file name. I rebooted into safemode to delete it and managed to stop it from regrowing. I've run malwarebytes, combofix, and Microsoft Security Essentials. As far as I can tell, the computer is now clean. However, it's still redirecting me.

Before, it would redirect my searches to a list of search engine results on either findsearchengineresults.com or an IP address that lead to scour.com. Now, it's just sending me to a mockup page for a product that's similar to what I had searched. For example, I search for antivirus, click on the wikipedia article on antiviruses, and get sent to a page claiming to sell Norton. When I searched for CCleaner, no matter what I clicked on, it would send me somewhere that looked a little like CCleaner's download page.

I'm not sure what else to do. I'm worried that the virus isn't actually gone, but TDSSKiller, malwarebytes, and MSE all say there's nothing more to find. That file in the c:/ hasn't come back in over a week. If anybody knows what to do next, I would be so grateful.

I want to get "Portal 2". I did a scan on Can You Run It, and every benchmark passed with the exception of the graphics card. My laptop uses Intel HD Graphics. The original "Portal" works fine, so I'm wondering if the reason it says my graphics card isn't good is because it's not familiar with it. Has anybody had the same scenario and will "Portal 2" work regardless of what Can You Run It says? I don't want to buy it only to find out that it won't work.

EDIT: My laptop is a Gateway NV55C if it matters.

I was backing up my new hard drive to the old one I just formatted overnight. Now it says boot master not found when I start up. What do I do?

Edit: I messed with the BIOS and now it's fine. I dunno what was wrong or what I did.

I have an HP 625 notebook. I've had it for a year but I just tried using headphones for the first time a few days ago because I was on a plane.

I turned on a movie and only part of the audio track played, just music. The dialogue wouldn't play at all. I tried a different movie, tried a DVD instead of a downloaded video, several different video players, and I checked the settings and made the headphones the default audio. Nothing worked.

What can I do to fix this? Thanks!

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad W500, and it is now a very expensive paperweight because it refuses to take a charge.

The power cord it came with got frayed a bit, and I've read tons of reviews where Lenovo customers said their power cords broke within a year or two, so I figured that was it and replaced the power cord...nothing happened. Still not charging.

Is this fixable? Or do I need to get a new computer? I've had it for 18 months, so the warranty expired.

EDIT: Nevermind. Bought a faulty charger. I exchanged it and the new one works like a charm.

I have an HP OfficeJet 5610 connected via USB to a desktop PC running Windows XP. That printer is shared over a local wireless network. I have that connection added to my laptop running Windows 7 64-bit. While I can print a test page from the "Add Printer" dialog, I can't print from applications. I don't receive any kind of error message, either; the job simply never prints, even though it disappears from the queue. Anyone able to shed some light on this, I'd be extremely thankful.

Hello! I know it says "computer" but Sony PS3's are technically computers (at least, that's what they're called). I just started having problems with my Playstation 3 160gb slim that I got on Black Friday. It came in a bundle with a Little Big Planet and a Ratchet and Clank game. I've only played LBP and it worked fine. I stopped playing for about a week to play Beyond Good & Evil on the PS2. However, I resumed using it to watch Charmed and check if the disks played okay. It still reads and plays DVD's just fine but it's not playing any of the Blu-ray stuff. So my theory is that the Blu-ray laser is shot. This will be the second time this has happened, except on a slim and I'm pretty tired of it. Is there any way to prevent this? Do you think it was the DVD's that did this? Is there any way to fix it? Should I wait and it'll work again?

(crossposted)

I am compiling a photo album of a trip, and am merging my own photo files with those of a family member's. The file names of my photos and his don't match, of course, being from different cameras. I am creating a new folder on my HD of all the photos I'm going to use in the album, and am going in chronological order, so mixing his files and mine. I want to keep this new folder in the order I have placed them, rather than file name order. Thus, I want to rename them in the order I've placed them.

I'm running Windows Vista. I have done the usual batch rename (select all - rename to 'filename(001)') and it's reordering my files in the order of original file name, instead of how I've placed them in the folder. I need to know if renaming files in the order placed in a folder is possible in Vista, irregardless of original file name. Can anyone help??

(Please don't tell me to downgrade/upgrade/switch OS. That's not an option at this point.)

Thanks in advance!

It's time for a new computer. It needs to be a desktop. I love my monitor so I just need the tower itself. I have zero skills and know no one with skills, so building from scratch won't be happening. Would be nice, but ...

I have a Dell now. It's crap. The Dell I had prior to it was awesome. I am so over Dell's outsourced customer support. So I know I don't want a Dell this time around. I was leaning towards this Acer: http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/PT.SFC02.036. But each time I am about to click "buy" I get all wishy washy about it and wonder if I am getting the right one. Is something better. And so I don't click. It's been 2 weeks of this.

I don't know enough to know which brands to avoid beyond Dell. Which are good, which aren't.

I don't game online very much at all. Almost never. I do store and edit photos but rarely videos. Built in Wifi would be most excellent but not a deal breaker. The specific Predator I'm looking at does not have it, but the 2 cheaper versions do. *grump*

Good graphics, fast, 1T storage at least, etc. I'd like something as nice as I can get it, so it is at least not a dinosaur 6 months from now. And stay under $1200. Good customer service would be wonderful too. Extra bay for an additional hard drive if ever needed is nice too.

I'd love a non-Dell site where I could sort of build my own like Dell offers but not seeing many of those anymore. Wish Acer had it.

Suggestions on companies? If you want to suggest specific machines, awesome, but ok if not. I'm just mainly looking for which companies are good and which are not so good.

Thanks so much!