Get Connected!

Look on the bottom of your laptop and see if you have a Windows Label that has the key. If it does, it will tell you what version of Windows it is for. So if you have a key for Windows XP Home Edition, you just need to get a copy of Windows XP home edition from someone, install it, and then when it asks for a key, make sure you use the one on the label. This will be the cheapest way.

Now if you want to install Windows 7, go to the BX/PX and buy Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade for $120. You will find this copy online for about $110 but once you add shipping into the price, it will end up being the same price as what they have at the BX/PX. Once you have the Windows 7 upgrade DVD put it into your computer, reboot and boot off the DVD. If your computer is a few years old you may have to install the 32bit version. Once you have booted off the DVD, you will be presented with an option to do an Upgrade or Custom install. Select the Custom option, and then on the next screen select your drive and towards the bottom of the drive selection screen is an area to select drive options. On the drive options screen, choose format and then follow the rest of the Wizard to complete the install.

That's about it. One of those 2 options should work for you. If you need more detailed info or more help, let me know.

The noise is either your CD/DVD drive or the system Processor fan. Make sure there isn't a CD in your drive and see if you still hear the sound. Also, look under your laptop or on the back for where the slots are open for the fan to blow out the heat from your processor. This is the fan exhaust and you CPU fan is near to it. See if the sound is coming from that area. If it is, then it may be your fan going out. From the way you described it though, I think it's your CD/DVD drive. If you think the sound is coming from the drive and there is no CD in the drive, get your self a can of air and with the computer turned off and the drive opened, spray air around the drive area. Then get a CD/DVD cleaner which is just a CD with a small brush on the bottom, and play it on your CD/DVD drive. They sells these at the PX/BX for just a few bucks. Let me know if this helps or if you identified where the sound is coming from. If need be, you can bring me the computer again and I can take a look.

The sound you hear then is probably a system fan or the CPU fan. If it's the CPU fan, it may indicate that the CPU is overheating. I would open the side of the case and look inside and see if there is a lot of dust build up. If there is, get a can of compressed air from the PX/BX and clean it out. It may help with the sound problem. If not, your fan may have to be replaced. I do have some spare fans, so make sure you let me know if it is, and I'll make arrangements with you to get one. After all, they are free.

I would still try the system restore and go back a few days before you started having this problem. It's possible that you got a bad update to Windows or another program. The system restore may solve your problem.

After picking up the keyboard from you today, I installed it and put your laptop back together. So far, everything is working great. I'll let it stay on for a while and re-test to make sure, but I'm fairly sure I will have it ready for you tomorrow.

If you want to do it with the Dlink being the DHCP server then you are going to have to have 2 networks. Between the TKS router and the Dlink you will use the 192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0 network, and from the Dlink Lan side wich you will be connected, you will use the 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 network. Now I don't like setting things up this way as you have 2 routers running NAT and are both firewalls which means if you need something to get through the firewalls, you have to configure them both. The best and easiest way is what we posted earlier. I'll explain more.

Leave DHCP turned on in the TKS router and use whatever private IP address range you want for local area network. From the switch port on your TKS router, connect a network cable to a switch port on the Dlink. Do not use the WAN port on the DLink for this setup. On the Dlink, turn off DHCP server. In this setup since we are not connecting anything to the WAN port of the Dlink, you do not have to worry about router configuration as we are only using the layer 2 portion of the Dlink which consists of the switch and wireless network. So no need to configure the Dlink WAN configuration, or the Lan network. You will want to give the router an IP so you can manage it though so I suggest you put an IP on the WAN port of something like 192.168.2.2 which will allow you to connect to it later. That's pretty much it. If you have done this right, you should be able to plug your PC into a switch port on the DLink and access the Internet. Once this works, set up your wireless with a SSID and WPA2 Encryption. Then connect via wireless and you will be good.

So we have 2 ways of doing it. The 1st one will require 2 different networks like one router in the 192.168.2.0 network and the other in the 192.168.1.0 network. This can be a little more complicated with set up and maintaining the set up due to numerous firewall and NAT issues.
The 2nd option is the best and recommended way of extending it. Plus, the added feature of this way is that you can even connect another wireless router to the Dlink one over the LAN port, and extend your wireless even further. Just remember to use the same SSID and Password on all your wireless routers. This will allow you to automatically connect to the strongest one. Also, if you do set up multiple routers, make sure you change the channels from auto to manual. Because you will have multiple wireless routers in the same area, it's best to ensure they are using channels that are far apart. I like to use channel 11, 6, and 3. Works the best for me with having 3 wireless routers. This option will also make sure all your network devices are on the same network segment which will be important if you want to share network resources like shared drives and such.

Hope this clarifies things for you.

This sounds like a power issue. I realy hate thos one in all systems. They are such a pain to get fixed. I would guess that your power supply is going bad, but it's possible that you may have a bug. You need to first test to see if it's a hardware problem or software. To do this, reboot the computer and press either 'F2' or 'delete key' to go into the bios settings. Once you are in the setup menu, let it sit for a while and see if the screen flickers. If it does, then you have something going bad in with your hardware. If it hasn't been cleaned in a while, you can try spraying it down with canned air. Too much dust and dirt can cause heat problems, and heat problems can cause strange issues to happen. If this doesn't work then your power supply is probably going bad and will have to be replaced.

If it doesn't give you any problems when you are in the bios menu, but does when you boot into Windows, then you may have a driver issue. Uninstall the drivers, download the latest ones, and reinstall. A great way to tell if it's a driver issue, is to boot into safe mode. If you don't have any issues in safe mode, but you do when otherwise, then it's a good assumption that you have a bad driver causing the problem.

Let me know if any of this helps, or if it doesn't.

Using the image above as an example, the first router that is connected to the internet should be set up normally. Make sure you can get out on the Internet and that everything works normally with it. The above Picture shows a TKS router. Yours is probably a Motorola since you have cable. Once this one is working connect your computer to the second router and turn off the DHCP feature, which is AUS for off in German. After you have done that, connect the TKS reouter to your first router with a CatV network cable only connecting to the switch ports between them. Do not use the wan port at all on your TKS router. Once you have done this, you should be able to connect your computer to the TKS router and connect to the web. After you get that part working, you can then go configure the wireless on your routers and everything should work. If you can't figure this out, pm me and I will set up some time where I can remote in to help you configure the TKS router.

You may also wish to try downloading and running Dell Diagnostics Tool in case your sound card is damaged.

If your office is not a Genuine copy, that could cause the problem or if Windows thinks your copy is not Genuine. There may also be a corrupt file in Office that could cause the problem. Was there any other changes to your system before this started happening?

Glad to hear it's working right. Most people I know that tried Windows 7 for the first time noticed a big improvement over Windows Vista and a slight speed improvement over Windows XP. I was shocked to hear you were haveing such bad issues. Hope it's all worked out now.

Send me the specs on your laptop and I'll send you a link where to download the latest drivers for your sound card. It's most likely a sound card driver issue.

As far as a degree in Computer Science, I can't really say which field to go into to. I would speak to a career counselor at the school you are attending. There are just too many different options out there. I would say just go for what you like the most and you think you would enjoy. If you like what you are doing, the classes you take will be more interesting, and you will get more out of it. Before speaking to a career counselor, think about what you would like to do in the field of technology or computers, like a computer programmer, hardware engineer, software developer, network administrator, telecommunications, or if you want to be a tree geek go for all of them. Whatever you decide, it's going to take time, but don't worry so much as technology is changing so fast that by the time you start learning, the stuff I know will be out dated.

Thanks for the donations and good luck choosing a study field. If you need more help, just let me know.

Stay away from registry cleaners as they usually do more damage than help. From the sounds of it, I think you did the upgrade process instead of the clean install. You can do a clean install from the upgrade CD, and this is the preferred method so you do not bring any files or issues from past versions of Windows with you to Windows 7. I have no problems with my Windows 7 and I am running it on a slower machine with less memory than you have. Let me know how you installed it as I believe this may be your problem. Also, you may have to get updated drivers from Sony to give it the best performance. But I think your issue is with how you installed the upgrade version on Windows 7. I think I can help you get it running the way it is suppose to be running.

The easiest and best way to get rid of it is to start from scratch. Backup all your data and do a fresh install or use your computer's default manufacturer system restore feature if you have it. If it's been a while since you've been running Windows, like a year or more, it's kind of good to do this. It's like spring cleaning for your computer, plus this forces you to make a backup of all your important data and gets you in the habit of doing it so you don't loose your important stuff. Now this may not be required to get rid of the Malware. I'll go over a few different things you can try if you don't want to start from scratch.

Another easy way to get rid of it is to use Windows System Restore. If you know about when you got infected, you can use Windows System Restore to bring your computer back to the same state is was in before you got bit, if you have restore points going far enough back. Windows normally creates this automatically but you can create your own restore points as well. The nice thing about this feature is that it will remove only your programs or drivers that were installed after the restore point and not your files. So if you downloaded a song today, and did the Windows restore, any programs you installed today would be gone but the music file would still be where you downloaded it at. When you finish this process, just go to Windows update site and make sure you keep updating your computer until there are no more updates to get. Then update your antivirus program and run a full system scan. Hopefully by just doing the Windows restore, you can go back far enough before you got bit, that the Malware program will no longer be on your computer.

Another option that may work is to use the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool. Make sure you update Windows first in case there is any updates to this tool. I believe you are running Windows Vista, so to start it just click on the start button and in the search box, type mrt and hit enter. This will bring up the removal tool. Go through the wizard and make sure you run the full scan. If you type mrt in the search bar and it does not run then it means you do not have it on your computer. You can read about it and download it from this link http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.aspx



Now hopefully one of these options has solved your issue but if it hasn't maybe your antivirus program can as if it is a good one it should be able to detect and remove or quarantine the malware program. If your antivirus program can't find it then it's possible that it's not good at getting malware or it's just a bad antivirus program. What I recommend now which works very well is Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free from Microsoft and has been rated by many top security experts. I'm not trying to sell Microsoft, but they did do a good job on this software plus they gave it away for free, but only to users with a genuine copy of Windows. www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/de...x?mkt=en-us#dlbutton. If you do get this, make sure you update first after you downloaded it before you begin doing the scan.

You may have to boot into safe mode for the mrt or your antivirus program to be able to properly remove the Malware. Before you do any of this, another trick that helps is to create a new user profile, reboot, and go into safe mode with this new user profile. Then run all the scans from here. You can even try this with the Malwarebytes program, as sometimes these malware programs are attached to user profiles, and being logged in as a new user may allow you too get the computer running without activating the malware giving you a better chance to clean it and remove it. But if all else fails, then it time to get the cob webs out and do some spring cleaning on your PC.

Were you able to get your drive working with the router?

Bamasoldier218222 wrote:
I have to get some sleep tonight, so I'm done til tomorrow but hopefully we can get this issue resolved.. also back to my other question.. why is my desktop not letting me turn on public folder share?

Please open a new thread for this as the topic is different. I'll provide you with info to fix this as well, but you may find the answer if you type sharing in the search bar on the start menu.

On the setup page of your router, select the USB settings tab on the left and then make sure your USB settings are set for Shareport. After you have done that, go to your router status page and see what firmware you are running. If you are running Firmware 1.31 or higher you need to install and run this PC SharePint Utility Program ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Gateway/dir655/Apps/...port_utility_110.zip.
If you are running Firmware version 1.21 or prior, install and run this SharePort Utility ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Gateway/dir655/Apps/..._USB_Utility_114.zip.

If it's still not working correctly after you have done this let me know. Also let me know what Firmware Version you have on your router.

So after troubleshooting this over the phone, we found that the IP address on the laptops wireles adapter was set to a static IP, and this IP address was conflicting with another IP on the network preventing the laptop from getting online. Once we changed the settings on the Wireless NIC card to obtain IP address automatically, the laptop was able to connect without an issue.

Enjoy your new router. It's an excellent piece of equipment.