Replies

I agree, ruirib. XP has become unsupportable, and Vista won’t be far behind. Security updating is vital! I’m still getting pretty good support for Vista, but for how much longer? As I’ve stated above, I have yet to see very much improvement in each new version of Windows. They fix a bug here and there, but then NEW bugs crop up! Isn’t that amazing? It reminds me of the old Bop-A-Mole game! Once they get all the big bugs out, voila! they come out with the NEXT new, wonderful version! Which turns out to be mostly the OLD version, without the OLD bugs! Oh, and a few new bells and whistles, to keep everyone happy. To me, Win 7 seems almost perfect, while Win 8 just added some new ‘pretty pictures’. Both 7 and eight were, to me, what XP should have been. Reliable, predictable and easy to use. (Well, not so much EASY for 8!) By the way, have you noticed how much prices have gone up for Win 7 installation disks, since the ‘FREE’ Win10 upgrade came out in August? It’s AMAZING! It’s best to buy a PC/laptop with Win 7 already installed.

Bob

I NEVER use IE for anything, including Windows Updates, unless it’s by default. I never use ANYTHING but FF or Chrome, depending on which system I’m running. I used to get a message that said I HAD to use IE, but that’s been several years ago, now.

AVG sometimes ‘finds’ things, too, and I just ignore them. As for the drivers, check the version. If that didn’t change, then nothing happened. I do my BIOS updates directly from HP, but the other stuff seems to be safe enough, and like I said I don’t always ‘need’ everything SlimDrivers finds. They also have SlimCleaner, which I don’t feel is any better than CCleaner, personally. As you can see, I really love FREE software, but there are limitations. Only on VERY rare occasions do I ever actually BUY a program. It has to be extremely good and I have to do a thorough review BEFORE I buy it! I have been bitten a number of times in the past!

Like others, I have tried many different driver updaters, with varying degrees of success. For the past couple of years, tho, I have been using SlimDrivers, updating all 6 of my PC’s. Only once did it give me a bum driver, and Windows let me roll that back to the original. It does a thorough scan of your system and shows what it has found. I never bother with things like the modem drivers, since I don’t use a modem. According to MajorGeeks.com,:

“SlimDrivers uses crowd-sourcing to spider and aggregate millions of devices. Using our cloud-based system, SlimDrivers not only detects when a driver needs updating, but also identifies the proper executable for your system and initiates the driver install automatically. Updating System Drivers makes your computer run better. It prevents device errors and can even lend quicker repairs to future problems. SlimDrivers and DriverUpdate allow you to remove and update obsolete driver versions to prevent conflicts and maximize computer stability.”

Read more at: https://tr.im/FKnZm

It is free, the best kind, but watch to be sure it doesn’t try to download a bunch of bloatware; I think MajorGeeks is OK, but just watch out. It makes a backup BEFORE changing anything, so you can always roll it back.

I NEVER trust those paid-for programs because you don’t know what they do until AFTER you pay for it!

If you’d rather deal directly with the company, here’s their link: http://slimdrivers.en.softonic.com/

They make a lot of other good, FREE, programs, too.

Bob

…or new browser time. Firefox would be a good alternative to IE9.

I am running Vista on one of my PCs, and I was unable to use Chrome (my personal fav) so I HAD to install FireFox. It works reasonably well, tho I do get the occasional hang! It usually clears itself, after awhile. The obvious solution is to upgrade to AT LEAST 8.1. Still, tho, I would never use IE! In fact, so far, I have not had any use for Edge, either! Chrome just works SO WELL! I never have to give it a thought! I had a really hard time doing it, but I finally realized it was time to give my old faithful, XP Pro! There just comes a time when you have to move on! My amazement is that, so far, ALL of my favorite old programs STILL WORK, (mostly) in Win 10! If MS can keep that up, I will continue to be a happy camper! My suggestion: try FireFox!

Bob-

Depending on the fan you have, it ‘may’ be all you need, if it’s cleaned now and then. A ballbearing fan will last a LOT longer than a non-BB one. The canned air is great for keyboards and such but it always seemed to me not to have a lot of oomph. I have a centrifugal type fan that came with a Coleman air mattress a few years ago. The mattress gave up the ghost long ago, but the fan is great for blowing dirt out of tight places. Perfect for a CPU! I think these can be bought separately for just a few bucks. Dirt is our biggest enemy! Good luck!

Bob

Great! I think you’ve found your problem! The combination of a dirty fan and old, dried up paste is probably all of it. Fans are SUPER efficient at picking up dust and lint, even better, maybe, than a vacuum cleaner! I have seen horror pictures of desktop CPU’s so full of dirt you can’t even SEE the electronics inside! This comes from sticking the CPU under a desk and forgetting about it! For YEARS! Maybe a once a year blow out and visual check would prevent that? GOOD LUCK to you, jmcging!

Bob

As I suggested, I would be looking very closely at the CPU, to see if the thermal paste has hardened up or maybe even if too much had been applied. It is a ‘grease’ compound and as such it is actually an insulator. There is, usually, a zinc or maybe a silver base added to it, for heat conduction, but if the coating is too thick it will prevent heat transfer. The usual suggestion is that it only needs to be one (metal) molecule thick. I’ve always found that just making a thin application that covers the entire area of contact is sufficient. If the CPU temp actually was 197 degrees F it SHOULD have shut down! So, there are two problems, (at least): why is it getting too hot, and why doesn’t it shutdown when it DOES get too hot?

Keep us posted, and good luck!

Bob

“Seagate techs want to know what is wrong with the drive and in general don’t have the time or curiosity to try to recover your data unless you are paying them to do so.”

It’s a slow and tedious process, at best. Years ago, back in the DOS days, there were editors available that would actually show you what the data on a disk was. It gave both the DOS info and the actual machine coding. You could go through a disk frame by frame, looking for your ‘lost’ data. As I said, a very slow process. It would have to be REALLY important data for anyone to try this! I would do as others said; Reformat the drive, then run CCleaner’s wiper, 3 times, on the highest setting, and feel comfortable with it. This is what I do when I sell a used HD or a ‘Repair – for parts only’ PC or laptop. I hope this helps.

Bob

“But the overheating thing may be showing itself to be a likely suspect; I did clean teh filters and do some decent housecleaning and I still got a warning on heat after I set that in the bios today. so I’m trying a Dyson fan blowing gently over the box with the case open and it does seem to make a difference. Have to give it more time to see if this is the issue.”

This does seem to point to some kind of overheating problem. I had a desktop a couple of years back that was SUPER sensitive to overheating, and I did the same thing, pointing a small fan into the opened case. I would look closely at the CPU’s heatsink/fan. Maybe all it needs is to take the CPU out and clean it, using fresh thermal paste to reinstall it. Then, if THAT doesn’t work, look for a new CPU fan. They can lose speed/efficiency over time. Try to get one with the highest CFM rating, so it moves a LOT of air. It’s kind of rare, but you’ve about tried everything else, right?

Good luck!

Bob

I’m guessing you mean a 7-port USB hub which in turn connects to the single USB 3.0 port of the Express card adapter thingy? Cheers!

Thanks Marvin! I gets me devices mixed up sometimes. Hub just SOUNDS better, anyway! It’s a thingy with seven USB sockets on it. Since USB can hold, what, 128 ports, you can hook up a whole SLEW of these together. Hooray!

I had this same problem awhile back, too. What I found was that during one of several sound driver updates a driver was installed that didn’t work on my Vista machine! I deleted the driver and rebooted, letting Windows reinstall my sound drivers. Voila! That fixed it, and I made sure that I NEVER reinstall that driver again! Isn’t that aggravating? I hope this helps!

Steven,

Do USB 2.0 devices work on that front port?

According to the spec sheet:

It’s always possible that the ports on the front were wired wrong and the one labeled as USB 3.0 is wired to a 2.0 header which would probably mean that one of the ones labeled 2.0 is really 3.0. Just a thought.

HTH :cheers:

USB ports drive me up the wall, too.

I have two older HP laptops, which only have (4) USB 2.0 ports. Since everything seems to be going to USB 3.0 (and I have even seen some USB 3.1 devices) I felt that I had better upgrade and join the crowd. I found an adapter that plugs into the ExpressCard 54mm port and gives me one USB 3.0 port and a SATA port, for an external HD. Then I ordered a 7 port USB 3.0 router, to give me a total opf 7 USB 3.0 ports. That should hold me for awhile, and if I need more ports I can always add another router. This was quite inexpensive since most of it came from China. I spent less than $30 for the two pieces! I just wanted to toss this out there for anyone else in a similar position.

JoeP517 All the way back to Windows 3, there have been those who claimed it was a a bunch of BS. ANY software is hard to get used to, when it first comes out. I had HIGH hopes for Windows 95, once it was finally released. I was sadly disappointed, as I was with each later upgrade. But, over time, as I began to use it more and more, I grew to admire parts of it. They never did seem to get it just right, but they kept trying. Each time it got closer and closer to a good working OS. (Personally, I LIKED Dos 5.0) Now that Win10 is out, and I have used it for awhile, i find that I LIKE it, too. On my everyday desktop I am running Vista, and it is doing everything I need and ask it to. Soon, I will be retiring the desktop and running exclusively on the laptop, with Win10. I don’t NEED nor WANT any touch screens, and I can’t stand all the fancy window dressing that Win10 has, but I know how to get around them. Five years from now, there will be those people who constantly complain about the newest Windows version and claim that Win10 is the absolute BEST! That’s just human nature. Name calling and character assassination is SO uncalled for, here! If you don’t LIKE what’s said here, why do you read it? It isn’t mandatory, you know.

Ian Paul IMHO Win8 is a superior implementation of Windows than Win7, but the arrogance of the user interface ticked me off. I wasn’t alone.

My laptop crashed, horribly, while I was waiting for Win10 to be released! I was PC-less for awhile, but one of my wife’s co-workers gave her a Dell Inspiron desktop, running Vista, which she ‘loaned’ to me. Thinking the worst, I started using it, (better than nothing, right?) while looking for a replacement for my laptop. I was VERY pleased with it, even though it is almost at the end of it’s support life. Later, I managed to get a good used laptop by HP, which came with Win7 on it, and soon had it fully updated and did the free upgrade to Win10, with no issues. ( I followed the instructions here on Windows Secrets, to get a clean install of both Win7 & Win10, with limited success) It works quite well, when I USE it. The problem is the Vista system came with a 22 inch flat screen monitor, while the HP only has a 15.4 inch screen! My old eyes have discovered that they really LIKE the bigger screen. I am keeping the HP updated, and I intend to make the full transition to it soon. At that time I will also upgrade the Dell to Win7 and do the free upgrade to Win10. We have two other laptops in the house as well, running Win 8.1, and they will also be upgraded to Win10 soon. I have tried most of my legacy SW and it all seems to be working fine on the Win10 system. If I find that all the software that I enjoy working with works on the Win10 system, I will gladly switch over. By the way, I LOVE the way Vista works; it reminds my of Win XP Pro, working the way it SHOULD have worked. Alas, tho, it’s time to move on. I have noticed that in every case since Win 95 that the ‘NEW and IMPROVED’ releases have always looked and worked pretty much the same as the OLD and UNIMPROVED versions did. Funny thing about that! The hype seldom ever measures up to reality. We just learn the new quircks and keep on computing. The only real difference is that they seem to become more reliable with each upgrade. As for driver problems, I think we can usually go to the compatibility mode until new drivers are developed, if ever. At this time I see very few reasons NOT to upgrade. Even if it DID tell me I can’t roll it back to Win7! (Missing partition, or something)

PS I HATED the user interface on Win8, too! But I found an app that returned the Start button and deleted a bunch of the crap that MS put on the screen and used the Desktop only, just like I did with Win XP. After that, it worked fine for me.

Bob