Laptop charging update.
Followed MM's sugestion and now established the following.
Battery charges as normal re time ect to 100% but only if laptop is turned off.
If the laptop is turned on (tried using and not using ,no difference) the lights and the battery meter box indicate it is charging but infact it is not.

Now the question is.........Should I be looking to replace the battery or the charger. Or does this indicate a problem with the actual laptop its self or a software problem.
I am not to bad on logic / problem solving but I do lack understanding on computer Tech. G. Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

Daft question?
Right clicking Desktop to select say properties has gone "inactive"
Any clues to reactivate?

Hi thanks for the help earlier apologies for not saying so earlier. But I am reduced to borrowing my neighbour's pc to send this now.
Force9 have upgraded my account unasked to 8Mbps from 2Mbps on 3rd May and rendered it totally useless, the say its my inside house cables because it works after a fashion when I put the pc next to the BT socket. I am using A PCI internal modem.

So either I have to get them to switch back to 2Mbps, install thicker cables or change ISPs. I have alread changed the MTU and Rec Window settings to no avail.

Apparently lots of people in our village have the same problem.

rpaco, changing ISPs will not help. The problem is a physical one in connecting to the BT exchange. Nor will MTU/receive window help, and 'install thicker cables' is a total red herring.

The 8Mb service is intended to run at the highest speed possible which works on your line (which might be 2Mb of course). It does try to find this speed, and there are automatic procedures built in to try an connect at a speed that works. You do need to leave the modem connected to the line and computer on for a few days for this to happen, even if it looks like it's not working.

First of all can you post up your modem statistics (attenuation and SNR or noise margin) if you know how to get them from your modem, ideally on the BT master socket and then on the socket you would like to use.

Does this link work and what rate does it show? https://portal.f9.net.uk/my.html?action=stable_rate

This is very hard to believe, but it seems to be working!!!!
My ADSL runner is connected at 6.2Mbps and the speed on the link you gave (yes it works)says 6000Kbps. I am surprised F9 did not show me this link they only gave me the BT speed test site

Hitherto I had problems when the line speed showed anything above 3.5Mbps.
Maybe BT turned the gain up of something. I do nto have a parameter entitled SNR I guiess it is called something else. I attach a jpeg of the parameteers from a direct BT socket connection. I am actually about 20m away in a shed (Ex coal house) on the end of the bungalow. Pls indicate which param I should be looking at for SNR. (is there really no way to insert an image except by adding it to my website then back down again?) Seems convlouted!

rpaco, I hope it wasn't working just because it was earlier on in the evening, in which case you won't be able to read this :-) A common syndrome in this sort of case is that the quality of the line decreases in the evening as noise from streetlights and AM radio broadcasts affects the ADSL. Since the speed of the line may have been chosen in the daytime under better conditions, the line stops working in the evening.

Your attenuation of 30.3dB is the amount the ADSL signal has decreased in reaching you and is related to the distance to the exchange and the quality of the wiring between the exchange and you. It's not bad at all. Mine is 27dB and I'm quite close to the exchange. Your SNR (signal/noise ratio) or noise margin is 10.5dB which is also not bad given that you are connecting at over 6Mb/s.

Basically the speed will adjust to keep the noise margin above 6dB initially. If the noise margin is lower the speed will decrease automatically and that will make the noise margin rise again at a cost of a slower speed. That happens in the first few days of getting 8Mb. If the procedure is unsuccessful then two things can happen: either the equipment starts doing the same adjustment at a higher noise margin, e.g. 9dB, and/or it can change from 'fast' to 'interleave' mode which can be more reliable. On one of your screens it will probably say whether you are using 'fast' or 'interleave'. These secondary adjustments take a few days to kick in so if your line is now sorted out that could be the reason. It could also be that BT have in the meantime found and replaced a faulty line card in the exchange of course!

The noise margin is dependent partly on streetlights etc. and partly on your internal house wiring, which is why connecting directly at the master socket normally yields better results. Without knowing what your wiring looks like it's difficult to advise, but it is often possible to improve on it.

Another possible avenue if you are still getting problems is to ask the ISP to ask BT to turn on 'interleave' and/or set the minimum noise margin higher than 6dB. These should happen automatically but it is possible to force the exchange hardware to do so.

Numpty needs help from techie!!!
I often get documents e-mailed to me as an attatchment. When I download them to my desktop it downloads a file with the documents in and another one that is a zip file.
The question is, Am I safe to delete the zip file they came in as my desktop is full of folders with a picture of a zip on and I am trying to clean my PC up.
Thanks in advance.
Alan

Alan, yes, if you've already saved the unzipped file. nEdit, if you're not happy with this create a new folder in my documents called zip files, the copy the zipped files into that folder then delete the origianl on the desktop.

Cheers SC.
Anything more than pen and paper gets me sweating about knackering up 1000 worth of kit and about 3 years work!!!
Alan

Problem with my monitors going to black win pro screen after 20 mins even though ive put "never turn off monitor"
any ideas?

ANYONE? :-)

Iain Just my thought:

I suspect you are getting mixed up between power settings and Screen Saver.

In Display Properties do you have "Screen Saver - Win XP Pro" with a "Wait 20 minutes". This means the screen saver showing XP Pro kicks in after 20 minutes.
Because you have asked the monitor to still be powered it will diplay this. If you'd selected power off after 20 minutes it would be completely blank. I have mine set to power off after 10 minutes and it goes completely black after that time.

Reset the screen saver to display (None) from the drop down list, which will grey out the Wait" option, and leave your power settings as they are.

There is also a power off monitor option in the BIOS, if SC's suggestion doesn't work try the BIOS, normally press Delete on booting.

Thanks.Id been messing with power options. Doh!

Can anyone recommend a powered USB2 hub, please.

I've just bought this little gizmo
http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/productlist.php?CatID=32&FamID=60&ProdID=198

A kindly neighbour has contributed an unprotected WiFi broadband link which I can receive in my photographic studio. It seems a shame not to accept his generosity whilst it's around.

The Hawking thingie seems to be far more sensitive than any other WiFi receiver around - so it does a splendid job.

The snag with the Hawking device is that it seems to lose contact with my Windows XP PC when working through the Kingston hub I use - whereas it seems stable when connected directly into the PC. I assume it is using power drawn from the PC.

The Kingston hub is powered - well it plugs into the mains! Are there better ones around that boost, rather than dilute, the link between device and PC?

Thanks in advance.

TP

My ISP is AOL. However, I don't like the AOL interface and prefer using Internet Explorer.

Whenever I get an email that encloses an internet link, when I click on the link, the AOL interface fires up and takes me to the link via AOL, which I don't want. What I can't figure out how to do is make Internet Explorer the deafult web browser that fires up when I click a link, instead of the AOL interface. Does anyone know how I can do this.

Thanks in advance

dcb

I have the same problem. It is a setting on AOL somewhere and I doubt it can be changed. I opt for a cut and paste into the IE address box solution.

Haystack - I just talked to AOL about this and there are 2 fixes:-
1) Open Internet Explorer, go to Internet Options, click on "programs" tab and tick the box that says something like "Make Internet Explorer check that it is the default browser". Restart IE and it should work. It did on my PC.
2) Download Firefox and use that as your web browser. Apparently it is superior to IE and will automatically make itself the default browser. I just did it and it works.

regards
dcb

In Windows Explorer, try Folder Options/File Types and set HTM and HTML (and perhaps some others) to Internet Explorer. If that doesn't work it will be the file types in the registry but that will be non-trivial to fix.

DCB
Thanks. IE is akready set to be my default browser, but it doesn't use it when clicking AOL links. I also have Firefox and it doesn't use that either. I have messed about previously and must have buggered something up. It is useful to know that you have made it work by that method. It means I will have to tinker a bit more.