What would make an old Windows computer stop accepting input for short periods of time (2-3 minutes)? [more inside]
posted by SansPoint on Aug 6, 2007 - 8 answers

Knowing full well that diagnosing computer issues across the internet can sometimes be hard: what could be wrong with my computer? [more inside]
posted by sailoreagle on Jul 25, 2007 - 12 answers

My Bluetooth dongle locks up XP SP2. The device is KINAMAX BT-USB USB 2.0. The computer is a Compaq Presario 6000. I have tried installing useing the newest BlueSoleil drivers 2.3 and disabling the windows drivers. Once they are installed it pairs its self with my plantronics 320 headseat but the computer will intermittently freeze up. No error messages.
posted by govtrust on Oct 3, 2006 - 6 answers

Is there a way to "reserve" a certain % of the processor for Windows, no matter how much any individual application requests? [more inside]
posted by stuckie on May 3, 2006 - 13 answers

My office computer operates Windows XP with Word 2000. (I'm a Mac person at home so no lectures please...) About once a week or so, a Word doc will freeze up on me forcing me to hit the good old Ctrl+Alt+Del and End Task. I would say 50% of the time when I open Word again, the document I was working on comes up as a recovered document (phew!). The other 50% of the time, I open Word and... no recovered document (!!!). What gives? Why the discrepancy? How can I guarantee that a recovered document will come up all the time and not just when the computer feels like it? Aside from searching through a million temp files, is there an easy way to get the version I was working on back if it doesn't come up automatically? (Yes, I save as often as I can, but I'm only human.) Sorry if this has been answered before... I searched for a similar post, but didn't find one. Thank you!
posted by zharptitsa on Jan 10, 2006 - 9 answers

I consider myself a reasonably good computer person, so the fact that I'm having this problem angers me. I'm working on a laptop for a friend -- a Toshiba Satellite 1805-S253 -- that runs Windows ME. When she gave it to me, it had a trivial problem with the Content Advisor, which I fixed; it also ran fine on a network. Now, 28 critical updates later, it runs fine off the network (which is the way she uses it), but the minute you plug a network cable into its built-in ethernet port and then try to run anything which uses the Windows Shell (e.g., Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, any open/save dialog box), it freezes solid, and you have to manually quit the Explorer process in order to recover it. I've tried everything -- deleted all the clients in the Network control panel, plugged it into three different Ethernet switches, updated every single driver and/or BIOS that I could, prayed to the Holy Gods Of Built-In Hardware -- to no avail. Any ideas?
posted by delfuego on Aug 8, 2004 - 13 answers