Computer issues, Viruses, trojans, crashes, install problems etc Options

[Decrepit]

It dawns on me I neglected to provide an update on my PC monitor issue. Wasn't able to fix the Samsung. Broke down and bought a new monitor. Due to the confined area I'm able to place it in I'm limited 24-25" monitors. At that size, combined with the distance I sit from the screen (3'), 1080p is good enough. I did brake down and go for a high-refresh monitor, 144. It has free-sync, not a useless feature now that my Nvidia card supports it. I'm not overly impressed with its image. The Samsung had better picture quality before its problem began. It's not bad once warmed up...but boy do it take forever to do so! Very washed out until then. On the plus side it has a very nice base...sturdy yet easy to manipulate. Its user controls are easier to figure out and use than the Samsung.

At any rate, here's what I bought: Viewsonic XG2402.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jun 6 2019, 07:40 PM

[mirocu]

Tried my Windows 95 computer yesterday and it seems to work fine. Got MK3 to work with no issues, however Red Baron complains about memory issues. Will work on that and on the other stuff come fall/winter.

[mALX]

Not really an issue, but...

...I'm putzing around with Brave Browser again. On a lark I decided to watch ep16 of my YouTube TpF series. To my surprise, viewing it at 1080p Full Screen with Brave seems less affected by compression degradation than when I watch via Firefox. Thinking it a fluke I watched ep13, then ancient ep5. My opinion held. Not sure what's up with that. Most likely I simply misremember what they look like on Firefox.

Can you watch it again on Firefox to be sure?

A day late, an order short.

Putzing around at NewEgg the other day I noticed two-packs of the DD4-3000 15CAS RAM housed in my primary computer, priced $79US! I paid $120US when assembling the PC mid 2017. Considering how expensive RAM has been for quite some time, and that my original intent was to install 32gb, I thought it over and decided to take the plunge. Researched yesterday to insure these are indeed the exact same modules as mine. Logged on NewEgg this morning to order. SOLD OUT! Oh well, it's not as if a really need those extra 16gb. But boy would I like 'em, at the right price.

Obviously everyone else thought it was a good price too, lol.

It dawns on me I neglected to provide an update on my PC monitor issue. Wasn't able to fix the Samsung. Broke down and bought a new monitor. Due to the confined area I'm able to place it in I'm limited 24-25" monitors. At that size, combined with the distance I sit from the screen (3'), 1080p is good enough. I did brake down and go for a high-refresh monitor, 144. It has free-sync, not a useless feature now that my Nvidia card supports it. I'm not overly impressed with its image. The Samsung had better picture quality before its problem began. It's not bad once warmed up...but boy do it take forever to do so! Very washed out until then. On the plus side it has a very nice base...sturdy yet easy to manipulate. Its user controls are easier to figure out and use than the Samsung.

At any rate, here's what I bought: Viewsonic XG2402.

Wow, 24" !!! I'm still looking at one 19" monitor, lol.

Tried my Windows 95 computer yesterday and it seems to work fine. Got MK3 to work with no issues, however Red Baron complains about memory issues. Will work on that and on the other stuff come fall/winter.

Awesome!!! Does this mean you are going to make me jealous by playing Chips Challenge?

[Sakiri]

Think my monitor is 23 inch. Or 27, to heck if I can remember. I'd have to measure it.

[Decrepit]

Think my monitor is 23 inch. Or 27, to heck if I can remember. I'd have to measure it.

<nods> Monitors/TVs are officially sized diagonally, so you'll need to measure that way. If measured horizontally, mine is something like 22.5" including frame.

@mALX
The RAM I want reappeared. It now sells for circa $140US. That's more than I paid for the two sticks I already have. Thanks but no thanks.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jun 8 2019, 02:07 PM

[mirocu]

Tried my Windows 95 computer yesterday and it seems to work fine. Got MK3 to work with no issues, however Red Baron complains about memory issues. Will work on that and on the other stuff come fall/winter.

Awesome!!! Does this mean you are going to make me jealous by playing Chips Challenge?

I already do that on the Millennium

But yeas; I'm gonna put everything I can from the Win 3.1/Millennium on the 95.

[mALX]

Think my monitor is 23 inch. Or 27, to heck if I can remember. I'd have to measure it.

<nods> Monitors/TVs are officially sized diagonally, so you'll need to measure that way. If measured horizontally, mine is something like 22.5" including frame.

@mALX
The RAM I want reappeared. It now sells for circa $140US. That's more than I paid for the two sticks I already have. Thanks but no thanks.

Heck no, I don't blame you. I wonder if the guy pricing these items doesn't have a clue. (first priced WAY too low, then priced over what it should be?).

[mALX]

Tried my Windows 95 computer yesterday and it seems to work fine. Got MK3 to work with no issues, however Red Baron complains about memory issues. Will work on that and on the other stuff come fall/winter.

Awesome!!! Does this mean you are going to make me jealous by playing Chips Challenge?

I already do that on the Millennium

But yeas; I'm gonna put everything I can from the Win 3.1/Millennium on the 95.

Bold:

"GAAAAAAAAAH!"


Actually; I just found my old HP machine the other day, (hadn't been able to find it since our move here) = but the monitor for it was left outside on our deck and has been rained on. It was one of those enormous old monitors shaped like a cone. That PC is so old that I don't think the connections for my little flat monitor would work on it; and don't know if it even has USB ports for current keyboards. The keyboard it came with had a round shaped connector. It did have a floppy disk of all the Microsoft games (actually, there were two disks of the games) - but I don't know where those discs are anymore since our move. (but Chips Challenge was loaded on that PC when I moved it here; so may still be on there).

So it may take a while to get set up; but I might still be able to play it, lol.







This post has been edited by mALX: Jun 8 2019, 04:00 PM

[Decrepit]

Think my monitor is 23 inch. Or 27, to heck if I can remember. I'd have to measure it.

<nods> Monitors/TVs are officially sized diagonally, so you'll need to measure that way. If measured horizontally, mine is something like 22.5" including frame.

@mALX
The RAM I want reappeared. It now sells for circa $140US. That's more than I paid for the two sticks I already have. Thanks but no thanks.

Heck no, I don't blame you. I wonder if the guy pricing these items doesn't have a clue. (first priced WAY too low, then priced over what it should be?).

I suspect the lesser price might be NewEgg liquidating inventory of a particular vendor, likely one they are no longer doing business with.

BTW, I can't remember if you ever gave Firefox a try. If so, did/does it remove whatever it was that kept you from seeing upper-left corner text in my YouTube vids?

[mALX]

Think my monitor is 23 inch. Or 27, to heck if I can remember. I'd have to measure it.

<nods> Monitors/TVs are officially sized diagonally, so you'll need to measure that way. If measured horizontally, mine is something like 22.5" including frame.

@mALX
The RAM I want reappeared. It now sells for circa $140US. That's more than I paid for the two sticks I already have. Thanks but no thanks.

Heck no, I don't blame you. I wonder if the guy pricing these items doesn't have a clue. (first priced WAY too low, then priced over what it should be?).

I suspect the lesser price might be NewEgg liquidating inventory of a particular vendor, likely one they are no longer doing business with.

BTW, I can't remember if you ever gave Firefox a try. If so, did/does it remove whatever it was that kept you from seeing upper-left corner text in my YouTube vids?

I gave it a try years ago and once again about a year ago; and even transferred my Bookmarks over to it. I kept going back to Google because of the familiarity of where everything was and especially for the ability to resize all print so I can see it. Firefox had a download that was supposed to allow the resizing of print; you had to re-code it and it was a LOT of trouble and the end result was not good at all. In Google text resizing is built in and so easy to use that it isn't even a noticeable extra step. So I dumped Firefox and was going to try out the other Browser you gave me a link to = Brave. I have not had the time to thoroughly check it out yet; too much real life stuff has been happening since then, but I do plan to try it.

[treydog]

Actually; I just found my old HP machine the other day, (hadn't been able to find it since our move here) = but the monitor for it was left outside on our deck and has been rained on. It was one of those enormous old monitors shaped like a cone. That PC is so old that I don't think the connections for my little flat monitor would work on it; and don't know if it even has USB ports for current keyboards. The keyboard it came with had a round shaped connector.

If the round connector is a SMALL one, there are inexpensive USB to PS2 connectors

like this

For the monitor, any VGA (blue 9-pin cable) should work and most flat screens still have a VGA connection.

[mALX]

Actually; I just found my old HP machine the other day, (hadn't been able to find it since our move here) = but the monitor for it was left outside on our deck and has been rained on. It was one of those enormous old monitors shaped like a cone. That PC is so old that I don't think the connections for my little flat monitor would work on it; and don't know if it even has USB ports for current keyboards. The keyboard it came with had a round shaped connector.

If the round connector is a SMALL one, there are inexpensive USB to PS2 connectors

like this

For the monitor, any VGA (blue 9-pin cable) should work and most flat screens still have a VGA connection.

Awesome! I wonder if Radio Shack will have a connector like that? Thanks, Treydoggie!!!

[Sakiri]

If not you can order one online most likely.

[mirocu]

Chips Challenge was loaded on that PC when I moved it here; so may still be on there.

So it may take a while to get set up; but I might still be able to play it, lol.

[SubRosa]

Not an issue exactly, but a few days ago I bought this video convertor. It connects your VCR to a computer, and allows you to copy VHS tapes to digital. It works really well. I still have a few old shows on videotape that have never been released on dvd. Things like Civil War Journal and VR-5.

The only downside is that you have to actually play the videotape on your tv while you do the transfer. So it is time-consuming. I try to do it when I am taking a bath, or playing games on my main computer (I use a laptop to do the transfers). It originally saves the transfer as a mpg file, and has a built in converter that can turn int into a much smaller MP4 file, and can increase the resolution to as high as 1024 x 768. I have been doing the latter for space. I don't see any real loss in quality.

Probably because the quality is not so good to begin with. These are 30 year old videotapes after all. They never looked or sounded that good to begin with, at least by current standards. But at least now I can save this stuff, which would otherwise slip into oblivion after the last used VCR could not longer be bought on Ebay.

I also found that the video editor built into Windows does open these files, allowing you to cut out parts that ran too long, like into the next episode. It is really slow though, given the file sizes for a 45 minute episode.

So if you have any old tapes you want to preserve, this does work.

[mALX]

Not an issue exactly, but a few days ago I bought this video convertor. It connects your VCR to a computer, and allows you to copy VHS tapes to digital. It works really well. I still have a few old shows on videotape that have never been released on dvd. Things like Civil War Journal and VR-5.

The only downside is that you have to actually play the videotape on your tv while you do the transfer. So it is time-consuming. I try to do it when I am taking a bath, or playing games on my main computer (I use a laptop to do the transfers). It originally saves the transfer as a mpg file, and has a built in converter that can turn int into a much smaller MP4 file, and can increase the resolution to as high as 1024 x 768. I have been doing the latter for space. I don't see any real loss in quality.

Probably because the quality is not so good to begin with. These are 30 year old videotapes after all. They never looked or sounded that good to begin with, at least by current standards. But at least now I can save this stuff, which would otherwise slip into oblivion after the last used VCR could not longer be bought on Ebay.

I also found that the video editor built into Windows does open these files, allowing you to cut out parts that ran too long, like into the next episode. It is really slow though, given the file sizes for a 45 minute episode.

So if you have any old tapes you want to preserve, this does work.

This is amazing! I haven't had a VHS that worked in forever; and ... think I still have a stack of VHS tapes I kept just in case there was ever a way to see them again!

[Decrepit]

Windows notified me of an update as I shut down for the night yesterday. Booting up this morning I was greeted by a long update routine, including at least three reboots. Thought maybe it was the big Windows10 Spring 2019 Update. Nope. It's sill version 1803, the Spring 2018 update.

Whatever else this update does, it corrects a weird issue that set in maybe a week ago, where my Sound Blaster (audio) and Nvidia (video) Control Panel settings reset to DEFAULT values every time the computer shuts down or enters sleep mode.

[Decrepit]

hmmm... attempted to log into the 'new' official Beth Forums a few minutes ago. Message about incorrect name and/or password puts up. But...they're the name and password I've used since setting up my account there. Anyone else run into this?

[mirocu]

Anyone else run into this?

Can't say I have


Got a new old monitor home from work. And a Compaq, no less! Perfect for my DOS games!

[Acadian]

I just logged in over at BethSoft forums. I did have to sign in since I hadn't been there for so long but it remembered by username/password and logged me right in. Of course the place still looks totally foreign to me as I think I've been there less than once a year since they changed to the 'new' forums.