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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 July 24

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July 24

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Wireless G & N

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Hi, I'm trying to advise my folks on wireless routers despite being fairly ignorant myself. They have DSL, not sure which plan, but definitely not FiOS. My understanding now is that their download speeds are well below the maximum throughput of Wireless-G of 54 Mbit/s, much less N, so they don't need to buy a more expensive Wireless-N router. Is there any strong reason to recommend the N-types? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.154.119.192 (talk) 03:19, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

N has a greater range as well as speed. Though that may not make a difference to you! Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 04:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thanks, might make a difference to my folks. 141.154.119.192 (talk) 11:54, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How do I remove colored backgrounds when viewing websites? On Firefox

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How do I remove colored backgrounds when viewing websites? Dark background make the text hard to read. --Gary123 (talk) 04:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I usually just select the text I'm trying to read (either with the mouse or Ctrl-A to select all). Another option is to go to Tools, Options, Content, Colors, uncheck "Allow pages to use their own colors". But that'll apply to all pages. You can also try View, Page Style, No Style. But for most sites, it'll break the design. You could also try looking for add-ons that let you change background colors easily. Indeterminate (talk) 05:03, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you use the web developer toolbar in Firefox, in its images menu there is a "hide background images" checkbox, which hides background images set both in html and by css, while leaving the rest of the page's layout and style alone. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MS Vista's compatibility

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When I run old outdated software, Vista says that the software has known compatibility problems. How does it know that? I know it doesn't check the web because I'm not at a hotspot, but does it have an on-board list of incompatible software? I would guess not. Theories I've come up with so far are that it looks at the date of the software and just assumes that it will have compatibility problems and by looking at the way the program is written. The latter seems like it might take some time to analyze but the notice appears instantly. What's your take? -- penubag  (talk) 06:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully someone who knows about this specific error message will answer you but here's what I know :
What I learned from the book "The Old New Thing" (Written by an MS employee on the Windows back compatibility team) is that Windows does keep a built-in list of incompatible software. In fact, sometimes there is a built-in solution to the problem. APL (talk) 13:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting but I still find it unlikely. I was running an outdated version of Adobe Acrobat and that message came up. Does that mean it even has a list of 3rd party programs? I wonder if this list can be salvaged be looking at the innards of Vista. -- penubag  (talk) 22:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they definitely have that list (I believe it's a hashtable correlating binaries' checksums with a compatibility setting). The blog of Raymond Chen, the author of the book APL, describes the sometimes Byzantine lengths to which MS goes to get specific badly-written programs to run on later versions of Windows. Sure, you could reverse engineer this info out of Windows, but the subtext of Raymond's blog is generally "rely on undocumented stuff now, repent at leisure". -- Finlay McWalter Talk 22:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow that's interesting, thanks -- penubag  (talk) 23:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's probably also a good indicator of compatibility issues if a program calls a deprecated system call or library function. Indeterminate (talk) 00:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the compiled binary program will indicate which versions of the Windows and MFC APIs it intends to use. If the current version of Windows cannot provide that API (or must provide a different version), the operating system can warn the user. "Possible compatibility issue" is more user friendly than "COM+ library version 2.3.1 requested, substituting 2.3.3" (or whatever). Unfortunately, the user-friendly message makes it difficult for even a technically proficient user to diagnose exactly what compatibility is needed to find a fix. Nimur (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematical equations in a document

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The story so far: I have to display mathematical stuff such as matrices , logarithms etc in a word document. Initially I made them in mspaint and inserted these images in word. It is too time consuming and changes cannot be made easily so I googled for a tool for working with matrices and found http://math.exeter.edu/rparris/winmat.html. This tool has an option of creating .tex document, which I found out to be latex format. The trouble is iam not able to view the matrices with this tool http://www.exomatik.net/LaTeX/USBTeXEnglish#toc3 . --- Nothing has worked yet as I have not found a way to easily create mathematical formulas and equations that can be displayed in a word document. Please say how it is done with free tools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 11:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All versions of Microsoft Word (at least since Word 97) have included a very easy-to-use formula editor named "Microsoft Equation", commonly "Microsoft Equation 3.0". To use this, choose Insert/Object/"Microsoft Equation". Then you get professional-looking (far superior to MS Paint drawing!) formulas, that can be edited at any time. In addition, the new Microsoft Office Word 2007 has a much improved formula editor, now as integrated into Word as options such as "bold", "italic" etc. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In Word 2007 just go to Insert > equation on the ribbon (click the "pi" symbol rather than the word or arrow underneath or you get a rather unhelpful list of "standard" equations). I've checked and matrices and logarithms are both covered. If you prefer OpenOffice this can also handle mathematical equations using insert > object > formula. See here for more info. 194.164.140.216 (talk) 13:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You might need to "activate" Microsoft Equation Editor on some computers, (it may not be installed as standard) - ask if this is the case.
If you haven't got it (ie if you're using XP home + one of the lesser or older versions of word you could look at Category:Formula editors which gives a short list of programs, the majority of which are free.
To display in a MS Word document, you could either - export as a image (eg .bmp , .jpg , .png) which is easy. Or export as an 'object' - I think MS Word accepts OLE objects, which is probably what you need. Why not try one that looks ok and see how you get on (they're mostly small downloads). Or wait for more advice..83.100.250.79 (talk) 13:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And supposedly faster and smoother than using Equation Editor is the Rapid Pi add-on. - KoolerStill (talk) 14:05, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 
Click to expand
I've just been trying a few out, and I found Formulator MathML Weaver to work, and be relatively easy to use (ie instructions probably not needed), (everything seems to be selected through drop down boxes), I got a nice matrix image and integral made in minutes (with no prior experience), and it exports as .BMP which you can use anywhere.(See image converted to .jpg of example made up formula)
It's free too. In the absense of other solutions I'd try this, - if you do, ask if you get stuck..83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Running a perl script on a web server

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  Resolved

Hi I'm trying to set up this perl script but I keep running into the following error "500 Internal Server Error, The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request." From the apache error log here's the following:

Anyone able to tell me what I need to do? Thanks :)

The last 2 lines are the problem; it's trying to run a script called C:/TWAMP/htdocs/wakaba/wakaba.pl and it says it can't find that file. So you either need to supply that file in that location or remove mention of it from the apache config files. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 13:30, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If that files does exist, at that location, then the server (which runs as another user) can't open the file, so make sure the file permissions allow the web server to access the file. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 13:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"500 internal server error" unfortunately can mean a million little things, ranging from missing files, bad permissions, or even wrong encoding. Try fiddling with all of these things. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The problem is that C:/TWAMP/htdocs/wakaba/wakaba.pl is right there, and is in fact the file I'm entering in the address bar of my browser with localhost/wakaba/wakaba.pl
I'm really at a loss what to do. The server runs php scrips just fine in exactly the same directory. I've installed ActivePerl and everything


No worries everyone, I found out what the problem was I had the incorrect hash bang in the .pl file. Thanks everyone!

How to find out duplicate lines?

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There is a plain text file and contains thousands of lines in it. It looks like: 

frkookoww
fdewkoofow
koroorg
fwkoofw
gktoot
gogoldds
fdewkoofow
koroorg
kofroroooooa
.
.
.

Some lines are the same. I want to find duplicate lines out and delete them. Do you know any softwares for this job? By the way, supporting Unicode is better. --百楽兎 (talk) 13:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd use sort and uniq. Assume my file is called "lines.txt", I would run: "sort lines.txt | uniq > newlines.txt". If you don't have Linux/Unix, you can get Windows versions of sort and uniq. -- kainaw™ 13:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If it's not acceptable to re-order the file, the following Perl command will do the job:
perl -ne 'print unless $seen{$_}++' lines.txt > newlines.txt
--Sean 14:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I think sort and uniq for windows seems easier to me. But I just want to uniq it without sorting, what should I do? --百楽兎 (talk) 15:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The uniq function requires a sorted list. It simply will not work on an unsorted list. If you want to get real technical, uniq requires duplicate lines to be grouped together - and sort groups them. The other option is to write a script (like the perl script above). Some are one-liners (like perl) and some will be multiple lines. If you are looking for efficiency, this is a semi-common computer science homework problem. It has a recursive solution. Cut the file in half. Remove duplicates in each half. Compare both halves to see of they have any lines in common and remove them from one half or the other. The first step (remove duplicates in each half) is the recursion. You cut that half in half and remove duplicates in each half... On a single computer it isn't very efficient. If you are running on a parallel system, you can farm out the work to many other computers. -- kainaw™ 15:33, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could load the file in your browser, paste the following:
javascript:c=s=""; h={}; a=document.firstChild.innerHTML.split(/\n/g); for (v in a) if (!h[a[v]]){h[a[v]]=true; s += a[v] + "\n"}; s
into the location bar, and then save the file as text. It worked for me in Firefox, but your mileage will certainly vary. --Sean 16:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not as nifty as the other options given above, but you could also do this in Excel fairly easily. Copy and paste the list into Sheet1 and again into Sheet2. Assuming your lists start in cell A1, type the following in cell B1 of Sheet1: =countif(Sheet2!a:a,a1) and then double click the box in the bottom right corner of the cell to auto-fill in the formula - the results will be the number of iterations of each term in the list. In column C, put a 1 in cell C1 and a 2 in cell C2 and use the same double-click trick to auto-fill column C with numbers (to preserve the original order). Sort by column B to find and delete the duplicates, then sort by column C to restore the original order. Matt Deres (talk) 19:48, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all friends! I learned very much from your wise solutions. All are cool. --百楽兎 (talk) 23:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A PROGRAM NEEDED

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hello, give me a good C program to print the following pattern using both (i) arrays and structures (ii) array pointers and structure pointers note: the * symbol must be printed using a function and not directly using printf statement PATTERN: 

*************************************************** 
         ANNA UNIVERSITY, TRICHY
***************************************************
Roll.No:
Name:
***************************************************
Subject    Subject    Maximum    Minimum   Marks
Code       Name       Marks      Marks     Obtained

***************************************************

thank u —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srividhyaathreya (talk • contribs) 13:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We're not going to do your homework for you. If you write a program and it doesn't work, or if you have some specific questions, then someone might answer them. But we don't do all the work for you. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 13:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You might also spend some time rereading the instructions, as printf() is a function, not a statement. --Sean 14:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like they want you to use a for loop instead of printing the correct number of asterisks with a fixed-format. If you really must avoid printing the '*' symbol, you could putchar and do some ASCII math to calculate a value of '*':
// ...

int meaningOfLife() {
 int whatIsIt;
 whatIsIt = 6*9;
 return whatIsIt;
 }


int main() {
int i;


for (i=0;i<80;i++) {
 putchar(meaningOfLife() - 12);
 }
putchar('\n');
}
This is dramatically unnecessary, but it will get the point asterisk across. Nimur (talk) 15:48, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Linux chmod, chown, chgrp

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I need to do the following, recursively in a directory tree:

  1. chmod 755 for all subdirectories
  2. chmod 644 for all files
  3. chown www-data both for files and directories
  4. chgrp www-data both for files and directories

Could someone please suggest how to to this from the command line, in an easy-to-remember way? Thanks, --NorwegianBlue talk 14:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  1. find -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
  2. find -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
  3. chown -R norwegianblue www-data
  4. chgrp -R somegroup www-data
87.114.144.52 (talk) 14:34, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! find was what I was looking for. The chown and chgrp syntax doesn't seem to be right, though. Didn't work, and the manpage says nothing about specifying the original owner/group name. But
find -exec chown www-data:www-data {} \;
appears to work, and changes both user and group. Btw, why the need for a backslash before the semicolon? --NorwegianBlue talk 18:25, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
sh uses semicolon for syntactic purposes, so it needs to be escaped to make it unsyntactic or whatever. Unescaped it separates commands without a linebreak, eg 'rm ~/.bash_history; history -c; exit'. --91.145.89.22 (talk) 19:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. --NorwegianBlue talk 19:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I usually just use chown -R username:groupname directory. Never needed chgrp. Indeterminate (talk) 00:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Missing from all these answers is the elegant answer chmod -R a+rX. This is not the same as a+rx which would add x permission for everybody on everything. The capital X adds x permission for everybody on those things that are already executable for somebody. In other words it's probably exactly what you're looking for. The creators of unix knew you'd want it so they added it for you, around 25 years ago. 69.245.227.37 (talk) 11:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Brilliant! Thank you. --NorwegianBlue talk 15:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Extending wireless range

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At my sister's house they have a single wireless modem/router. The signal is pretty good downstairs and in the garden, but the signal is pretty weak everywhere upstairs; and in a couple of bedrooms the signal is so weak that a reliable connection cannot be maintained. The wirless point is located in a single storey extension towards the rear of the house, and I believe the quantity of pipes, wires and other stuff in the space between the ceiling and the floor upstairs is partially shielding the upstairs. We have already tried a wireless range extender but it wouldn't communicate with the modem/router - according to Linksys technical support, the range extender is only compatible with a limited number of their products and my sister's modem/router is not one of them. We could run wires to the upstairs, but doing so would require extensive drilling, disturbing newly laid hard floors, and the kids would all have to connect to the wired connection.

In a couple of weeks (while they are all away on holiday and I'm looking after their large number of pets), I will be doing some experiments, placing the wireless/modem in various locations to see if I can improve the situation upstairs. One alternative though is to replace the current wireless-G modem/router with a newer wireless-N product. My question is: if the receiving equipment (ie. laptops and various wireless cards) is still only compatible with the wireless-G standard, will we actually get any increase in the effective signal strength upstairs? In other words, would I be better off saving my sister the £80 that it would cost to get a new modem/router, and instead get a long drill to pass the cables upstairs? Astronaut (talk) 18:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I wouldn't put to much into upgrading to an N standard only, partly as it requires any visitors to be bang up to date with technology. Do they really need the reception in the garden? One solution (which has worked for me) is just to put the whole router into a metal saucepan (literally), which would point the beam to the front and upstairs of the house, away from the garden. It may not penetrate whatever is blocking it already. Like pipes, as you suggest.
The Linksys WRT54G series is famous for being one of the most hacked devices of all time, and is popular as a repeater. As the firmware is GPL replaceable, you can strengthen the signal, and repeat things which Linksys really would rather you didn't. US$26.00 (including shipping) gets you a used one in the USA [1]. The Apple Airport Express is an expensive, although no-nonsense solution. Which unfortunately only works with its own stuff.
You are absolutely right not to start making any modifications to the house - which may well be redundant in five years' time anyway, as 3G and WiMax take over.78.149.86.100 (talk) 11:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Get yourself some cardboard and some tinfoil, then try this.F (talk) 09:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Internet on two computers

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I have two computers, both with ethernet ports. My internet connection comes directly from the router via an ethernet cable, but there is only one port on the router so only one cable can be connected to it. How can I get internet on both computers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 18:40, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure, but maybe something like this? Reading the product description I wonder if it is not more complicated than that though. Mike R (talk) 18:52, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You need an Ethernet hub, or (better) a network switch. You plug the cable from the router into the hub/switch, and connect your PCs to the hub/switch. --NorwegianBlue talk 19:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If what you have is really a router, and since a router creates a local network and gives out many IPs on the local network, then all you need is an Ethernet switch on your local network, that connects the router and the computers. However, it is highly unusual for a gateway router that is produced in the last 10/20 years to not have multiple ports on the local side (i.e. a built-in switch). It is also possible that what you actually have is a DSL modem or cable modem that does not include a router or includes a "fake" router (some DSL/cable modems do include a real router, but I would imagine that those would usually include multiple ports on the local side), which only gives you 1 IP. In that case, you would need to put get an actual router and put it between the modem and your computers. --Spoon! (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Spoon! is correct. Another solution might be to turn on "network sharing" if the PC plugged into the router is a Windows PC, but you would need a second Ethernet port on that PC (perhaps via a PCI Ethernet card) in order to connect your 2nd PC to the first PC. I'd recommend a router with 4 ports on it, myself. Tempshill (talk) 23:58, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The best way is to get yourself a new modem/router, making sure it is compatible with your connection to the internet (ie. phone or cable) and has sufficient ethernet ports for your needs. Stores like PC World have a selection from £30+. Astronaut (talk) 05:13, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


The idea about connecting the second computer to the first sounds good! Both computers have two ethernet ports themselves. How would I go about sharing the connection between them? And would the second computer act as if it was connected to the internet directly (ie would incoming connections like for gaming and stuff go to the second computer, or the first computer only?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 06:59, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you running windows, if so this is easy - the first step is to connect the two computers using an ethernet cable plugged into the ethernet ports.
Instead of telling you myself try this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306126
Additionally you might want to set up a 'home network' which allows you to share files (and printers and stuff) between the two computers using the "shared documents" folders. If you want to try that search for "microsoft support home network"
If you are running vista the instructions may be slightly different - http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/0c0f5981-6e3e-4912-a8d2-afc462b83d8c1033.mspx
It does work, though if you have any problems such as "limited or no connectivity" or "cannot obtain IP address" ask again.
If you don't have a windows OS then please say which type you are using.83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:29, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thanks I'll give it a go. Will the second computer be able to receive incoming connections (like a game or web server)? Or will those connections only go to the first computer (the one directly connected to the internet)?

Yes is should/will do all that. (Each computer gets a different address - like a telephone number and the signals always go to the computer that sent it)
Though if it doesn't work straight away you might need to adjust the settings -- specifically when you activate the "share this internet connection" there's a button "settings" on the same form. Once you've set sharing to on, you might (or probably will need to go to that box - usually the DHCP box needs to be ticked. It's simple to do. But see how you get on first. It may work straight away.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:03, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My question wasn't answered

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[2]Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the back button is grey and not blue that means that there is nothing to go back to - ie no previous pages etc. This should only happen when the window has been opened for a new page, and the page has not been navigated away from eg no clicks on hyperlinks etc.
If you are getting a grey button, when their should be a blue one, then this is obviously a bug. If so can you replicate when the bug happens (technically you should probably contact MS support about this) - but first - can you describe how (exactly) you get to this situation - if you can I will try it, and see if the same thing happens.83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also can you link to a long file that this has happened in when editing.83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. The library computers had this problem too. Then again, the gigantic emails sometimes wouldn't show up. That was on computers that I believe have been replaced. Let me try right now to duplicate what I did.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:28, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did it. I should mention that my computer recently told me to get Internet Explorer 8, so I did.
The sequence was originally to go to [3] because I had seen his name somewhere in an article related to 9-11. I just wanted to see if he had a separate article, and boy, did he. I noticed his name had a hyphen in one place but not in another, so I decided both of those should match. Today I edited to suggest a split, because when I edited, it said the page was 159 KB at the top. I had read 35 KB was the recommended maximum. Today, I previewed, the template looked right, and I submitted. Then I tried to go back and this [4] was as far as I got. It said at the top of the page "Remember that this is only a preview; your changes have not yet been saved!"
If I can remember I'll try to document the sequence of actions with email. I'm very reluctant to do anything like that while I'm on my own computer.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As I sat and waited and waited, I remembered I'm using the second slowest speed available. The only speed slower is dial-up, and no one wants that because it ties up the phone and has other problems besides just being slow. The web sites show up faster on screen once I've gone to each one for the first time.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:51, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That effect is called caching - the pages show up faster because you are not downloading them; instead, your browser is showing you the copy you downloaded last time. Nimur (talk) 16:00, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, they're new pages from the same sites, but they do show up faster later.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:37, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Computer sputters and dies

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My brother's computer, which generally has an issue with accumulating malware, is deciding to be a pillock. He can boot it up and log in A-OK, but the computer suddenly restarts within three minutes after doing so, regardless of the account he logs onto. He's certain there's no bugs on the rig because he ran MalwareBytes last night before he went to bed. He is running Windows XP. -Jeremy (v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!) 21:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sudden restarts suck. Does this occur when you boot Windows XP up in safe mode? If so, and if I were in this situation, my next exercise to try to narrow down the problem would be to make a memtest86 startup disc, boot from it and run memtest86, eject the disc, and let it run its memory tests overnight. (Eject the disc so that if there's a restart, you'll know in the morning.) If it restarts during this overnight session, then you know that it's probably a hardware problem and not a software issue. Tempshill (talk) 23:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He hasn't used safe mode yet, to my knowledge. -Jeremy (v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!) 00:38, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The computer's not rebooting in safe mode; just outside of it. He's told me he believes the problem stems from his McAfee install (courtesy of our Comcast internet setup), but that theory got killed when it rebooted again - and now it's being stubborn about the boot menu! SysRestore's also borked. -Jeremy (v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!) 06:37, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For a hoarder of malware, running just one scanner is nowhere near enough. He'd need to run at least Spybot and Ad-Aware as well, and any one of numerous good free anti-virus programs that are available. These between them will cover most of the spectrum of possible nasties. Then run RootRepeal to get any root kit virus, which is the second likeliest to cause unwanted restarting (after dial-home trojans which can't find their home planet).
Meanwhile, go to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Startup and Recovery, and turn off System Failure > automatic restart. This will let you see an error message, if any, about what is causing the restarts. - KoolerStill (talk) 13:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the error message: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Also, he has three new desktop shortcuts to porn sites on his rig, ones that I'm pretty certain he didn't put on there. Safe Mode is also borking now, throwing up "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" errors. -Jeremy (v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!) 04:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You might also want to try running msconfig or Sysinternals Autoruns to disable the programs that automatically start up with your computer. If the rebooting stops after disabling those programs, you can try running them one at a time until the rebooting starts up again. Indeterminate (talk) 00:14, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Doing System Restores won't get rid of viruses, partly because many parts of them are not where System Restore makes changes. Also being on the internet means the surviving parts will quickly call in the missing ones.(Porn sites and malware sites are often one and the same, so either can bring in the other).
(1) boot in safe mode (2) turn off the re-boot-on-error feature (3)turn off and unplug the internet while doing all the virus scans, at least 4 different ones (McAfee, Malwarebytes, Spybot, Ad-Aware), tho I'd run RootRepeal as well. Do it all in safe mode, because many viruses can hide from being scanned, if in Normal mode. Then run [www.ccleaner.com Ccleaner] to get rid of registry entries which trojans often leave behind (and scanners don't clear out), which will download new copies of their trojan if the old has been removed. You will need to download the scanners and burn them to CD on another machine, as trying on this one will be thwarted by the the viruses, trying to protect themselves. - KoolerStill (talk) 13:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Safe Mode no longer works, Kooler (which means I can't put more AV programs on there), and he's already disabled the reboot on system error. Please read above your comment. -Jeremy (v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!) 21:53, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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