Every time Andrea plugs in her USB Flash drive to do a backup, it shuts down the computer with the message – “Your computer has just recovered from a critical error”. Removing the drive solves the issue. I’d say the drive is faulty in some way or may even contain a virus. Anti-virus software is capable of scanning these drives and fixing them so try that. Also try getting the latest drivers for the USB stick. Try using it in another pc too to see if it has the same effect. Worst case, the stick may be damaged in some way so try to get data onto a new one.

Just a quick one for Stephen! PC optical drive doors not opening is normally a quick fix. Stick an opened up paper clip in the hole in the front of the CD drawer and it should pop open. Alternatively, right-click on your CD Drive’s icon in My Computer or on the desktop and choose “Eject”. If neither of these work, your drive might not have power or be faulty and need replacing.

Susan is getting frustrated at Firefox crashing at the point of purchase repeatedly. A quick fix might be to update to the latest version of Firefox or even try another browser completely. Google Chrome is good and fast.

Keith gets a strange problem when he boots up his pc. The desktop shows briefly then the screen goes blank for a few minutes. Sometimes there are strange patterns on screen. What I would do is a quick check to see monitor cables and connection to the computer is sound. Also make sure the graphics card is seated properly inside the computer. You could try a different monitor briefly if available. Also try downloading the latest drivers for your graphic card. Worst case scenario might be a faulty graphics card but they are not expensive.

There’s an outside chance some kind of virus or startup program might be hijacking things so do a scan with decent software just in case. I use Bullguard.

Bram has a decent spec laptop that shuts itself down while playing games! The fairly obvious answer to this would seem to be ‘overheating’. A few things: make sure you’re not blocking any vents. Make sure vents are not dusty/dirty. Make sure your laptop CPU is not too overclocked. Install a temperature monitoring program and google normal operating temperatures for your CPU and see if they match.

When something goes wrong with a PC, often it is such a nuisance to get it fixed. You have to phone up a helpline, press countless buttons on the telephone just to get to speak to someone. Then, they may not even be able to help and you must make an appointment for somebody to come around to your house and look at it in person. How much easier would it be if you could skip these steps and get an answer quickly. That is what this site aims to do.

Imagine you ordered broadband from a site like www.o2.co.uk, but you have problems getting you computer to recognise it. There are a lot of things that you can do to try and fix this, such as resetting your router or restarting your computer. You may just need to wait for the internet service provider to connect your internet, sometimes this takes a bit of time.

Or you may be having problems because your PC is running slower than usual. This may simply be because there are too many other programs running in the background. This can slow down your system and be very frustrating. The sorts of programs that tend to do this are instant messengers, so they can be opened quickly when you require them.

Your hard drive may also need to be defragmented, to clear up system files which have become scattered around. If this is the case, you need to do some ‘defragging’, and this should sort it out.

Getting help from this site will often be a lot easier and a lot less time consuming than spending hours on the telephone. No-one has to come out to your house and your problem should be solved quickly. Also, the help which is given on this site is free of charge, cutting out the annoying costs that fixing PC Problems can incur.

Jackie asks how can she connect to her office computer from her home laptop. Presuming work don’t have some kind of Virtual Private Network connection they can set you up with, I’d say the best option might be to use the FREE version of LogMeIn which allows you to see and control the desktop of another computer via the Internet.

Nouman gets the message “NTLDR is missing” on starting up the computer. NTLDR is the boot loader for Windows NT systems including your XP so if it’s missing or corrupt you computer can’t start properly. First, check all hard drive cables. You could try updating your PC’s BIOS or resetting to default values. Otherwise you’ll need to boot from the XP installation disk and select R to repair the installation. When you reach the Recovery Console type the following commands to replace your corrupt versions:

copy d:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

Where “d” is the drive letter assigned to your DVD/CD drive. When complete, take out the XP CD and restart.

Ravi is getting the message “A USB device has exceeded the power limits of its hub port.” This normally means that you have a USB device connected that is drawing more power than the hub can support. If all USB devices still work fine than you can safely ignore this message but if not you may need to get an external USB hub that has an external power supply so it’s not drawing power from the computer. You might also consider upgrading the Firmware/Drivers for your hub.

Andrew can’t seem to get online after playing the WOW game. There’s really too many possible reasons why you’ve no internet and since you’ve tried a few obvious things already like resetting the router, checking the connection, virus checking etc..Iwould suggest ringing your internet provider. They do go down regularly! Also, it’s possible you may have gone over your isp’s monthly bandwidth limit. Online gaming can do this easily!

Sherrie replaced the internal DVD writer in her PC and now the computer is telling here it cannot find the hardware device. It may sound obvious, but you need to double check you have everything connected correctly. A new DVD drive requires at least both a Data ribbon cable connection and a power connection. They may also require an audio connection. If you’re sure its installed correctly then the computer should either auto install a driver or ask you to supply one on a disk so if you’ve no disk you might need to download a driver from the manufacturers website.

On rare occasions, DVD drives just aren’t compatible with certain computers. This may be remedied by a firmware or bios update for your motherboard, available from the motherboard makers site.

Rajiv upgraded Vista to Windows 7 and is now having issues with his Laptop’s sound card. Unfortunately, there are quite a few drivers unavailable for Windows 7 but the best thing is to check your laptop, motherboard or sound card manufacturers websites to see what drivers they have. If you have more than one sound card installed try to switch to the other one in the sound properties section. You can also use the device manager to automatically try to find any available drivers online.

Roy installed an automatic update on Windows XP and now after every startup the PC shuts down again automatically. The obvious cause seems to be the update so I’d reccommend restoring your computer to an earlier time or starting up in safe mode (tap F8 on restart) and see if it stays on there. You might need to restore from safe mode if it does or perhaps try to uninstall the latest updates.

Matt can’t get his laptop to start up, there’s just the sound of the fan and nothing else. If you are sure you can’t hear anything but the fan then perhaps your hard drive has died. There are normally light ont he front of a laptop to indicate activity in various hardware components one of which should be for the hard drive (they should have symbols on them). If this light is red or not on then perhaps that would be further proof of a failed hard drive.

It could also be a dodgy power supply or corrupted operating system or boot procedure so maybe try reinstalling your system.

Matt’s laptop fan starts when he presses the power button but nothing else happens. Is there any way if you can tell if the battery is properly charged? Some of them have indicators on them. Perhaps your battery isn’t charging enough or there’s issues with your power supply. If you listenclose can you her any sounds other that the fan? If you can’t hear the whirring/spinning hard drive then this may have failed. The lights on the laptop can be a clue too. Check your manual or the makers website to see what each light indicates or doesn’t in your case.

Shawn can’t seem to download any of the above and while no error messages were mentioned I’d advise 2 things. 1. Try a virus scan and 2. Try using a different up to date browser.

Neha’s pc boots to a blue screen and then restarts automatically and continually. I doubt if you’ve damaged your hard drive physically. Messing around with boot options is not wise really! See if you can boot to Safe Mode (tap F8 on startup) and reverse what you changed. If not then try disconnecting any unnecessary hardware and try booting again. You may need to reinstall windows or do a repair install with your original disc at least.

Look at this post also:

www.pcproblems.ie/pc-booting-to-grub-command-line

Waheed’s mouse is moving by itself and when he tries to regain control he can’t! I’d say either the mouse’s ball is dirty or the optics if its a laser mouse are blocked/dirty. Make sure if you’re using a laser/optical mouse that you’re not using it on a highly reflective surface. If it’s a wireless mouse maybe your batteries are draining? Try update the mouse drivers too. See if you can get a lend of another mouse to test and make sure it’s not the pc. New mice are fairly inexpensive too though if it comes to that.

Hardip has noticed that when playing games on his PC the gameplay slows down regularly or freezes. It seems obvious that your pc is underpowered for the types of games your playing Hardip. Double check the system requirements on the game box and then see exactly what you have on your system and if it’s within limits. You may find you need more RAM. You could also try disabling any other software or your net connection while your’e playing. Disable anti virus software especially and see if that makes a difference. Other possible issues include having a monitor that can’t refresh the game play fast enough.

Ian’s DVD/CD drive on Vista is not recognised anymore and he’s tried doinga virus check. I don’t think you trying to read 15 year old discs would be the cause unless the discs were seriously damaged and interfered mechanically with the drive in some way. It sounds like a registry problem and you may need to go in and edit certain values in the registry which is something I will refrain from advising on as things can go badly wrong when you edit the registry!

Try this article however:

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/cd-dvd-drives/code-19-vista-home-basic-167169-2.html

Joanne has lost her main admin XP password and can’t get back into the computer! If there are any other admin accounts on the computer then you could login to one of them and change yours in Control Panel – User Accounts. If not then you may have to use your Password Reset disc supplied with the computer. Click the link you see when you wrongly enter your username on startup. If you don’t have this disc then try restarting the pc in safe mode by tapping F8 on startup. If you can get to the desktop here then change the admin user account password as above, if not then you may need to re-install windows. This shouldn’t be a big deal and you shouldn’t lose much if you forgot your password soon after creating it as you wont have had time to create much data!

Yoji can see flickering in a certain section of his display. I’d say it’s a long shot but try installing the latest video card drivers from your laptop manufacturers site first. Screen faults are common on laptops mainly because the screen is a moving part. You open and close it all the time! I don’t think its too costly to get screens fixed or replaced. It might just be a loose connection too.

Douglas has tried a couple of reinstalls of XP but just can’t get the audio on his notebook working. I’d recommend looking for a driver on the actual computer or motherboard manufacturers website. Most of them supply the lastest drivers on their suport sections. There has to be a compatible driver somewhere. If you’ve installed an additional sound card make sure there’s a driver for this too or the computer is not trying to use this by default. It is possible however that the audio hardware is corrupt or damaged somehow. See if it appears in your Device Manager under Control Panel.

Dave is hearing a guitar riff constantly repeating when he turns on his PC and doesn’t know where it’s coming from or how to shut it off! It almost sounds too weird to not be a virus so do a scan first off. I’d then recommend going into the system sound settings and either turning off sounds or having a look to see if this sound is assigned to a system event like startup. Maybe a previous owner set it up? To get into system sounds on XP go to Control Panel – Sounds and Audio Devices – System Sounds.

Phil can’t see sites in Firefox or Internet Explorer but is connected to the web. Make sure you’re not in “Work Offline” mode for a start! Next obvious step is to ensure your firewall is not blocking any browsers or networks. You may also be the victim of a browser hijack so do a full scan in safe mode with a good, updated security suite and anti-virus program.

Greg’s PC is freezing for 3/4 minutes at a time. I’m guessing that because you’re using an old operating system that your PC is also old!? Maybe it’s just on it’s last legs.. Apart from that the usual rules apply for slow/freezing computers. Check the following:

• Do a virus/spyware scan with a decent updated program.
• Do a registry cleanup with appropriate software.
• Start your PC in Safe mode to see if it still freezes, if not that would suggest software problems so…..
• Get rid of unused programs and do a disk cleanup.
• Do a disk error check in the properties tab of your main hard drive.
• Check you’re not running out of hard drive space.
• Check your Cooling fans are still working (CPU may be overheating).
• Try a RAM or CPU upgrade.

Arif installed Vista on his previously XP based system and now the rear (PCI) sound card doesn’t work but the front (integrated) one does. The obvious problem is that your rear sound card needs new Vista drivers. Vista drivers may be available by default for your onboard sound card but not all additional PCI sound cards will be supported by default. You will need to find out the manufacturer of your rear sound card and download the latest Vista drivers from their support section if they even have any.

Jamie’s XP system is crashing after a RAM installation. I would say the obvious thing to do is remove the extra RAM you installed and see if the situation rectifies itself. If not, try to remember if you changed or installed anything else and undo that too. A system Restore is another option. The RAM you bought may be faulty or incompatible with your system or you may have a RAM mismatch. Also check the RAM is installed properly.

Amit is finding that GTA 4 runs fairly slowly on his pretty high spec PC and wonders if a RAM upgrade might help. Amit, my best advice if you’re playing games on a PC is to max out the RAM and get as much as you can. You can input your PC model in the ‘Memory Advisor” tool at www.crucial.com and it will tell you the type and max amount of RAM you can put in your PC. I’d also recommend you get the best graphic card you can too. Don’t forget the CPU can also be upgraded.

Varun can’t seem to install Windows XP.  I would say maybe the hard drive is faulty so see if you can install on another one. Could be a faulty hard drive IDE cable too. Also, if you have more than one partition , try merging and installing onto a single partition C: drive. If you are installing over an existing operating system or upgrading, your Anti Virus software might cause problems.