Frequently Asked Technical Questions

What causes my computer to be so slow?

You might have noticed that your computer is not as zippy as when you first bought it. After a while, computers begin to get sluggish and unresponsive. There are many reasons for this, both software and hardware. First of all, every time you install software onto your computer, more files are added to your registry. The "fuller" your registry becomes, the slower your operating system will become, as Windows has to "sift through" all these additional files every time you access files and programs. Each time, your computer gets a virus or malware infection, it is possible that your Windows system files get corrupted ; this again leads to system slow down. Another reason is third- party software that has gone corrupt. For example, a simple printer driver which has gone corrupt can wreak havoc with your CPU cycles. Some I.T experts like to call this gradual decline of your operating system's speed due to an expanded registry and file corruption as "OS Rot".

From a hardware perspective, systems get slow because of (a) your hard drive wears out (b) overheating problems (c) and bad capacitors. Hard drive "wear out" can be a significant cause of computer slow-down (apart from system fans, the platters and spindle of the hard drive only moving components inside your system). An experienced technician will be able to tell if your hard drive has worn out simply by the metallic grinding noises it makes. "Worn out" hard drives "labour" even when your computer is in an idle state or even simple files like MS Word documents will take 20-30 seconds longer to open than they should. There is an enduring myth out there that running a "defrag" on your hard drive will magically make it go faster. The truth about disk defragmentation is that is only works if you are continually working with very large files. One of our clients, who is a videographer, continually installs and uninstalls large ".avi" or video files on his system. He defrags his hard drive every month, and it noticeably speeds up his computer.

The same client runs the same procedure on another system in his office, that is used for general office work. In this instance however, disk defragmentation only makes a barely perceptible difference to the speed of the system. He asked us why? The reason is simple - disk defragmentation only makes a significant difference to the speed of your system if the files you work with are very large (e.g. video files, .jpg files) and you install and remove these files on a regular basis. (b) Overheating occurs when a layer of dust accumulates around the heatsink of your system. The function of the heatsink is to dissipate the heat created by the processor. When dust accumulates around the heatsink, its acts as a layer of insulation, trapping all the heat. Eventually, the heat causes your processor to heat-up and your computer slows down. If not caught on-time - dust can accumulate to such an extent that it leads to processor burn-out. (c) Capacitors failing on your motherboard will also lead to slowness. Capacitors regulate the voltage flowing through the motherboard and when the voltage starts to become irregular, performance tends to lag.

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I am thinking of renewing my broadband package shortly, is there anything I should look out for?

When looking for a broadband company, avoid the temptation to choose on price alone. Some broadband companies who offer "the cheapest rates" are not always the best in terms of a reliable service. If there is a problem which is an ISP server side issue, some users can be waiting days, even weeks before the issue gets resolved. Some users can waste hours on-hold waiting to speak to a member of their technical staff. To test out how responsive a broadband company is, before you sign the contract we recommend a simple test. Pick up the phone and dial their technical support number. Do they answer fairly swiftly OR do they keep you listening to a crackly version of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony that is briefly interspersed by a pre-recorded voice reminding you how important your call is to them.

Apart from reliability, also bear in mind the speed you need your broadband at. If you intend to use broadband for occasional web-surfing and emails 1MB broadband should be adequate. If you have multiple users in your office or house, who download multimedia files on a regular basis, consider getting 7MB broadband or higher.

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I've just spilt tea (wine, coffee, Coke) on my laptop?

Turn the laptop off immediately and remove any modular components like PC Cards and removable optical drives. Dry off any visible liquid with a towel. Depending how comfortable you are with the process, disassemble the laptop using the recommended procedure in your system's manual.

To clean away the liquid you will need to use distilled and deionized water (available at specialised electronics stores).Under no circumstances should you use ordinary water as this contains calcium and other minerals that will corrode the delicate components on your motherboard. Use some cotton wool (or cotton swabs) immersed in distilled water to gently wipe away the spill. Once all the evidence of the spill has been cleaned, you are not finished yet! Because there will still be a risk of corrosion from the liquid spill, we suggest you wipe the affected area with some isopropyl alcohol to further negate the risk of damage.

To complete the process, use some desiccants to absorb any remaining moisture. Put the device in a sealed bag with a few silica gel packets for 12-14 hours. Only brand new packets will work - old ones will have long absorbed their limit in moisture.

With all components cleaned and dried-out. It should now be safe to reassemble your laptop.

Finally one caveat to bear in mind, the damage created by liquid to the motherboard of a laptop can be very insidious. Even after the most thorough clean - very small amounts of moisture from the spill can remain causing a corrosive effect on the fragile circuitry of your system. Therefore, problems from the spillage might only manifest themselves a couple of weeks later after the incident.

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What Causes My Network to be so slow?

Some of the main causes of a slow network are:

Daisychaining is very common cause of network slow down. This occurs when you have several switches or hubs on the same network. This results in the data packets having to make several "jumps" as they navigate their way from one computer to another.

Speed Mismatches for Network Cards - All your network cards should be set to the same speed settings. Do not mix and match your network card speed settings. For example, some cards set to half-duplex, some set at auto, while others on the network set to full-duplex will result in slowness.

Third-Party Programs - Third party programs such as anti-virus applications or any software that is scheduled to run at specific times can slow down your network.

Vista Systems that have IPv6 enabled on a predominantly 2000 /XP network can result in a slowdown. Make sure the IPv6 on your Vista systems is disabled

Viruses and Malware - If the network is slow from only certain systems on your network, never rule out the possibility of a viral or malware infection.

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Windows is not starting at all for me? After I press the "on" button all I get is a message saying a certain file is "missing or corrupt".

If you turn on your Windows system to find a file has been "missing or corrupt" a bootable Windows system file has probably been knocked out of place. Use your the operating system CD or DVD that came with your system to run a file integrity scan.

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What caused my system's motherboard to fail?

Motherboards can fail for a number of possible reasons:

• Power spikes, surges or other power problems - Always make sure you have a high-quality surge protector between your power socket and system and make sure the PSU (power supply unit) is free from excessive dust.

• Overheating of the North Bridge Chip - the North Bridge chip, also called the Memory Controller Hub or System Controller, is the chip responsible for handling data flow from the processor to memory or processor to video. Because of the speeds at which this chip operates, it can become very warm.

• Bad Capacitors- If you smell an unusual odour emanating from your computer's case, a capacitor might have shorted or burned out. Capacitors looks like miniature soft drinks cans and are critical to the voltage regulation of the motherboard.

• Failed Processor Heat Sensors - If you start up you system and your system fans make excessive revving noises, it is usually indicative of a failed heat sensor on your motherboard.

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When I start my computer, I get a blue screen saying "Page Fault in Non Paged Area". What could the problem be?

The main causes of this problem are likely to be a) main memory b) problem with the L2 cache c) problem with Video RAM.

To eliminate the possibility of the main memory going bad, replace the RAM with known good modules of the same specification. To eliminate the possibility of there being a fault with the onboard cache, disable the cache in the BIOS. After disabling the onboard cache, the system will run noticeably slower, which is normal. If the problem disappears, it is possible the motherboard is at fault. To eliminate the possibility of bad Video RAM, remove your video card and replace with a known good one.

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I occasionally get a message up on my screen about a "Bad Pool Caller". What can I do to resolve this?

The "Bad Pool Caller" blue screen can be caused by anything from a faulty device driver, a failing video card to bad RAM. We recommend you use Microsoft Debugging Tools to pinpoint the exact cause of the error.

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I am using Outlook. After I press "Send and Receive" - I just get a message saying something about "no socket error"?

"No socket error" is a generic error message generated by Outlook when it cannot synch with one of your ISP's email servers. Your email server is the server that temporarily stores your emails. For example, if you are using Eircom broadband and an Eircom email address, both your email servers will be configured to Eircom. If, on the other hand, you are using an Eircom email address but are using an NTL broadband connection then your inbound email server will be configured to Eircom's servers and your outbound server will be configured to NTL's servers. Your Outlook's mail server settings must be configured correctly according to your ISP's recommended settings, this resolve issue.

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We would like to extend the range of our wireless network. Is there any sort of booster that I can buy or what do you suggest?

Avoid the temptation to buy any gizmo calling itself a "wireless signal booster". Most wireless signal boosters do not work as advertised. For example, a wireless signal booster made by Linksys will only "speak" to other Linksys wireless equipment. And more seriously, adding a "signal booster" will half the available bandwidth on your network. There are much smarter ways of improving the quality of your wireless signal than trying to strengthen your signal with one of these devices.

Here are some tips to increase to get the best possible signal strength from your wireless router:

• If you are using a desktop PC, try to use a PCI wireless card and not a USB wireless. PCI wireless cards tend to receive a much better signal than most USB adaptors.

• Try to position the wireless router in the centre of your office or house - positioning your wireless router beside an outside wall means that nearly 50% of your signal goes into the neighbouring building.

• Try switching the channel number of our router. We have seen users in large office or apartment complexes struggle to get a good quality signal. More often than not, there would be five or six other routers in close proximity all using channel 6! Use another channel number, e.g. channel 11.

• Use only one "wireless management utility" on your on your operating system. For example, having Toshiba's config-free utility and Windows wireless management service running at the same time means they will both "fight" for the connection. Disable one or the other.

• And finally, a question we get asked a lot is "is my cordless phone interrupting the wireless internet signal?". No, most cordless phones, approved for use within the E.U in the last 10 years, are designed in adherence with strict "non-interference" guidelines.

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I have a small office network (workgroup) of five computers, all running Windows XP Pro. I recently added a Windows XP Pro machine that was not on the network before. When trying to access the "documents" folder of this machine, I get the following error message:

//Hewlett Packard2 is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource.
Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

Here are a few simple things you can check:
First, check the NTFS permissions. Using Windows Explorer, browse to My Documents, right click it and select Properties. Choose the Security tab, make sure the user is part of the administrators group.
Make sure the folder is shared at SHARE permissions level?
Do the computers all share the same workgroup name?

Are the following all checked, when you go to the properties section of your network card?

• Client for Microsoft Networks
• File and Printer Sharing
• Internet Protcol TCP / IP

TCP /IP protocol might be installed but is it working properly? To check this, try the "loopback test" by using command prompt and type in "ping 127.0.0.1"
Is the "workstation" service running?
Is the "computer browser" service running?
Make sure you have temporarily disabled the inbuilt windows or third party firewalls (for troubleshooting purposes only).

If the IP address is set dynamically, is the DHCP server running?
Did you turn on "Simple file sharing"? On the XP (Pro only) machine, open explorer, click tools, click folder options, click the view tab and scroll down until you see "Use simple file sharing" then check the box.
Are both systems on the same subnet?
Check the Local Security Policy (Control Panel - Administrative
Tools) - User Rights Assignment, and look at "Deny access to this computer from
the network". Make sure Guest is not in the list

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I keep on receiving an error message box saying "Error 31" when I try to access a PC on my network?

This error message appears when you set up a user account without a password, and then attempt to log-in across the network. By default, Windows XP doesn't allow remote users to connect from the network without a password.  To allow access without a password:

• Access the PC that is acting as the server on your peer-to-peer network.

• Open the Control Panel | Performance and Maintenance | Administrative Tools | Local Security Policy.

• Double-click on Local Policies | Security options.

• Now double-click on Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only which is enabled by default. Disable this option

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I am running the ACT CRM program for my small business. I need to copy its database from my old computer onto my new system. I've copied the .PAD folder onto a USB stick, but when I try to transfer the folder over all I get is the error message "Cannot associate file with different databases". What am I doing wrong?

The ACT database files are not stored in the .PAD folder. The databases are actually stored in the .ADF and .ALF folders, but you will still need the .PAD folder. When installing onto your new system shut down the ACT SQL service (from control panel>administrative tools>services). Then, insert the data in the same pathway to the database as the previous system. c:\program files\MicrosoftSQL\ACT...\Data. Once the data has been transferred, restart the SQL service and then restart the ACT program itself. The database should now open.

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Each time I turn on my computer, I get the message "Running Low on Virtual Memory"?

When you open applications simultaneously (anything from accounts or photo-editing software to Microsoft Office) the computer's RAM (memory) might not have enough capacity to handle them all. Rather than refuse to operate any more programs, Windows cleverly comes up with a solution to temporarily store the excess information that the RAM cannot handle. It stores the excess data temporarily on a file called pagefile.sys on your hard drive, which helps ease the burden of the strained RAM. Sometimes, however, even the pagefile.sys cannot handle the extra load and you will get the "running low on virtual memory" error message. To resolve this you can (a) change the size of pagefile.sys i.e. make it bigger (b) change the location of pagefile.sys ( this option can only be employed if you have a second hard drive installed) (c) or install additional RAM.

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What does the error message "We apologise for the inconvenience but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this" mean?

This message usually indicates that (a) either a bootable system file has been "knocked out of place" (b) or that you have a problem with your hard drive. If the problem is the first one, this can be rectified by using your Windows Installation CD to perform a file-system integrity scan. In more serious cases, this error message is indicative of a failed or failing hard drive. Run a hard drive diagnostic scan to ascertain the status of your drive.

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I deleted files accidentally - can you help me get them back?

Yes, we can recover accidentally deleted files but in the meantime don't use the system or storage device you've deleted the files from, as you risk overwriting even more files. We can use advanced techniques in order to retrieve the files you lost, even after a complete reformat.

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When I turn on my desktop PC, its totally dead, what could the problem be?

The first suspect here would be a failed PSU (Power Supply Unit). This is a device inside your system that distributes power to all the components attached to the motherboard. If you have eliminated your Power Supply Unit as a possible cause of the failure - it is possible that your Processor or motherboard is defective.

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My hard drive failed, my existing I.T support provider said the "the drive is dead" and "there is nothing they can do to help me". Can you help?

We specialize in hard drive recovery from server (including RAID), desktop and laptop drives. We also offer data recovery from hard drives and USB flash (pen) drives. If your hard drive makes a clicking noise, fails to be seen by Windows, or your system's BIOS - we can help you recover your data. We use advanced diagnostic and recovery tools recommended by the drive manufacturers themselves.

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Can you repair my hard drive and get all the data off for me?

We can repair your hard drive as a temporary measure only in order to get the data off. Hard drives do not have any serviceable parts inside. If a hard drive is failing, in anyway whatsoever, the safest option is always to install a replacement.

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I've heard Windows Vista is not great - what is so bad about it?

Most users who moved over to Windows Vista have regretted their decision. There are a number of reasons for this:

• Vista is very intrusive - Vista has an inbuilt feature known as U.A.C (User Access Control), it is a feature devised by Microsoft to combat viruses and malware. The only problem is that when a user tries to access genuinely safe applications - U.A.C starts to warn them if they "really want to do this" and other similar messages. Some of Vista's intrusive security features are just too annoying for a lot of users.

• Vista has a lot of compatibility issues - Most users who migrated from XP were shocked to discover that their printer or scanner did not work with Vista (as many manufacturers of these devices did not bring out Vista drivers), resulting in the need to buy new devices. Secondly, a lot of users found out, to their dismay that their favourite programs they had been using for years did not work well / did not work at all with Vista. For example, one of our customers who had been using a small engineering design package for years discovered it did not run stably on Vista.

• It confuses some people - Since Windows 95, Microsoft have being using a similar directory layout for most user-created data. Most of us are familiar with the "My Documents Folder" "My Pictures Folder" and so on. With Vista, this has all changed these to folders called "Libraries". Many users found the previous file structure much more intuitive and user-friendly.

• Vista is Processor demanding and Memory Hungry - Vista uses up a lot of your processor cycles compared to XP. From our experience, for Vista to run smoothly, it needs at least a 2.0GhzDual Core 2 Duo Pentium processor and at least 2GB of RAM. Anything less than this and be prepared to experience lagging performance. Using Vista with a Celeron or Sempron based processoris akin to putting the chassis of a high-end BMW on a Morris Minor platform. Yet some manufacturers like Acer and HP continue with this practice.

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My Blackberry is not synching with my Outlook inbox on my laptop. Emails arrive in fine to my Blackberry but if I've already read them on my laptop, they appear as unread on the device?

Power on your Blackberry, go to Mail. Then select Options, then select Email Reconn. The Delete On feature should be set to mailbox and handheld. This should resolve your problem.

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I would like to use Quickbooks from two different computers. How is this done?

To use Quickbooks from two different computers, the computers must be networked together. To make this work you must:

• Run the same version of Quickbooks on each computer. E.g. Quickbooks 2008
• Have permission to read, write, and delete the folder where the company file exists.

Where you store the Quickbooks data or company file will depend on what type of network you have.
If you have a Peer-to-Peer network you can store your company file on any computer.
If you have a Client-Server nework, the company file will reside on the file server.
Finally, when using Quickbooks from two or more computers, don't forget to switch the program from Single-user mode to Multi-user mode. To do this, log on to the computer that holds your company file. Launch Quickbooks and open the company file that you share. Once the company file is open:

• Choose File, then select Switch to Multi-User Mode.

• To revert back to single-user mode, which you must use for backing up and restoring files, choose File, then select Switch to Single-user mode.

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When I turn on my computer, I get the message "non-system disk or disk error. Replace and strike any key when ready"?

You will see this message when the first disk-drive or other storage device that the processor tries to read does not "see" Windows or any other bootable operating system. This error might also display if you have a floppy or USB drive attached to your system. If so, remove them and restart the system. If the same message appears again, the problem is with your hard drive. It is also possible the boot files on your hard drive have gone corrupt, the cable connecting your hard drive to your motherboard has become loose or the drive has failed / is failing.

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