Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 February 14

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February 14

Strange sound from cpu

Hi everybody..I have a problem.Well its not a problem but maybe a bug.I have windows XP and windows 2000.I have a 915 mercury motherboard with pentium 2.66Ghz and 256MB ram. Whenever I boot windows 2000, I hear a strange sound inside my cpu(NOT SURE WHERE ITS FROM).This sound only exists until logon screen.This problem doesn't persist in windows XP.I suspect it's my harddisk.Please help out guys..Thanks in advance

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Can you describe the sound? Droud 13:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

If you feel happy to do so, try opening your computer case to hear where the sound comes from. This may void your warranty, if you still have one. I'd guess it's a fan, a hard drive or a CD drive. --h2g2bob 14:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

---Fans are the most common cause of abnormal sounds in a pc. If you open it

IMHO opening a computer case probably wouldn't void a warranty, and it would probably be silly if it did. Splintercellguy 16:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right, I was just being a bit paranoid. --h2g2bob 16:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Opening a mac voids the warranty. One of the reasons I can't stand them --froth^T 17:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Say what? I've been using (and opening) Macs for years, and I've never heard this, or had a problem with it, or noticed any tamper-detection devices on the Macs I've opened up. So this is either a very recent development, or an urban legend of some kind. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

---Fans are the most common cause of abnormal sounds in a pc. If you open it up, check the fan by the cpu and the case fan (if you have one). If it is the fan, and you don't fix it, it can damage your computer! --Kingofslackrs 06:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Over here, if you buy a pc from a brand vendor it's almost sure that the case is sealed with some stickers, which, when broken (due to opening) say 'no more warranty, dude'. This can be overcome using the smart method of putting a pc together by yourself. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Regional locking

Can a Computer DVD or CD be regionally locked?--Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 13:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it doesn't matter. The DVD encryption has been broken for ages. VLC supports playing of DVDs on Linux in this way, so can play any region DVDs. --h2g2bob 14:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

On Computer video games too?--Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 15:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think computer games have region locking - at least I can't see how it would be done. But I'm not hugely up to date with Windows games, so I'd wait for someone to confirm that. --h2g2bob 16:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm about 95% sure PC games are region-free, I've been PC gaming for years, and if it turns out they aren't, it'd be news to me, and thousands of others. Cyraan 18:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing in a computer identifying its region other than the time zone chosen in your OS's settings, so regioning would be pretty much impossible --froth^T 00:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Technically, if it's a DVD game you could probably bind it to the DVD drive region if you wanted to. However this would be fairly easy to override (e.g. a crack, using an image instead of the real DVD and changing the 'drive' region, using a region free drive (RPC1 or RPC2 auto resetting). BTW, Windows since can't remember what version has an additional 'country' setting. However I've only ever heard of one piece of software to use this, I think it was CloneCD or something which refused to run if you said you were in the US. 203.109.240.93 13:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, --Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 03:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

About Froth's comment, I believe regional checking is done against the DVD drive playing the DVD? Splintercellguy 16:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Only when you're playing DVD video, although you can undertake a somewhat-risky procedure to make your drive region-free --froth^T 21:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

new Windows Vista typefaces... Calibri?

Can I legally download and use Calibri (font) on my Win2k or WinXP from somewhere, or do I have to actually purchase Vista or Office Vista if I only want to use the new font?--Sonjaaa 15:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This page says: fonts are governed by the same restrictions as the products they are supplied with. You are not allowed to copy, redistribute or reverse engineer the font files. For full details see the license agreement supplied with the product, so it looks like a "no". --TotoBaggins 15:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Domain parking

I would like to provide a free domain parking service and I am looking for a Domain Parking script. Could someone tell me where to find a domain parking script preferably free one?

thank you

Domain parking is already free. You buy a domain, you own it. You don't have to do anything with it. You can leave it parked at whichever registrar you purchased it from. So, what exactly is it that you want to do? --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Tape drives and linux

Hello all. I use Debian Sarge and a HP Colorado T-1000 tape device. (connected to floppy port, but I have also one which is connected to LPT port). How do I get it working? "modprobe ftape zftape && /dev/MAKEDEV ftape && /dev/MAKEDEV qic" doesn't create any new files in /dev/.

Regards, 88.64.74.226 17:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

ftape? Someone still uses that? It has been removed from 2.6.20[1] after having been scheduled for removal since last year[2]. The reason for the removal was, quoting Jeff Garzik,

“ It's bitrotten, long unmaintained, long hidden under BROKEN_ON_SMP, etc. As scheduled in feature-removal-schedule.txt, and ack'd several times on lkml. ” — Jeff Garzik, git commit

The reason MAKEDEV is doing nothing might be that you are running udev; in that case, the devices should be created automatically by udev when the hardware is detected (after the module is loaded). However, since it's (as jgarzik said) "bitrotten code", it's possible that the module is not doing what udev needs to create the device nodes. In that case, you should (after checking dmesg and lsmod to see if the module has loaded correctly) create them by hand with mknod. --cesarb 20:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Some more comments on that on lwn.net: http://lwn.net/Articles/202404/ --cesarb 20:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The whole system is a Skolelinux stable (aka Debian edu) with kernel 2.6.10 or so....and yes, it runs udev. so no hope? 88.64.66.0 20:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

VB Scripting

If I want to end a VB script without a message box appearing, I get error 800A041F; I am looping the script with For...Next. Any advice?--anon

Please elaborate on your question. A quick Google search of your error code says that you may be forgetting an End If or something like that. Splintercellguy 01:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Paste the code in question (or a sample of it) so that we can see what you are actually doing. --24.147.86.187 03:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Question Regarding The Philippines as a Trade Compliant Country

Dear GSA,

Are the Philippines a trade compliant country for FAR regulations regarding GSA for computing accessory products?

Andy Mancone <email removed>

Using an FM Modulator

I connected my FM modulator to my car. Thereafter I connected my Creative Ipod to the modulator and when i started playing music i didnt get any output from the device.

How do I properly connect? 18:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The FM modulator *normally* should be connected to some kind of antenna, but *NOT* directly to the cars antenna. So, plug in the antenna for the modulator, switch it on, play music. then you should see some frequency on the display of your modulator. tune your car's radio to this frequence and you got it. 88.64.74.226 19:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Some of them do connect into the radio's antenna connection as a kludge device. You plug the real antenna into the modulator's plug and the modulator's plug into the radio. It is a bit of a pain because antenna plugs are not all the same size. So, you have to get a converter. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Not to be a pedant or anything (I am), but Creative does not make iPods. Only Apple does. Your MP3 Player is not an iPod if it was made by Creative. --Nélson Ricardo 20:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the technological proletariat considers "mp3 player" synonymous with "ipod" --froth^T 00:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Word of advice: consider getting a stereo head that has auxilliary input jacks. Single chip FM modulators aren't worth the plastic that encases them, especially if they don't use a PLL for base frequency generation (yours almost assuredly does not). The transmission frequency will drift, which you will hear in the form of degraded sound quality. I have never encountered one of these cheapy FM-on-a-chip numbers that sounded decent. Of course, if it works great for you and the sound quality is adequate, by all means disregard my advice. -- mattb @ 2007-02-15T00:36Z

Getting files off of a USB hard drive that has Windows XP installed on it.

I have an old laptop that died due to power problems. The hard drive had no problems with it, and so I put it into an enclosure so that I might access my files from it. The hard drive has Windows XP SP2 installed onto it, and my user account is passworded on it.

The problem comes from trying to access the files from it. When I try to click on my user account's files it gives me an access denied response. I know my password to access my account, but I have no clue where I would have to enter in a password to get into my directory.

You cannot log into your account because the system on that drive is not running (it is that system which would map your password to the user ID needed to access the files; Windows is seeing them as being acessible only to an user ID which it knows nothing about). Instead, log in as an administrator on your current machine; you should then be able to bypass the access control list on it. If you are never going to use the system installed on the drive again, you can instead change the ownership of all your files in it (to your current SID), which might be easier. --cesarb 01:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Right click your folder and click Properties. Click Permissions and click Advanced. Click Owner (or something like that) and select yourself as the owner. If there's an option to Apply for everything inside the folder, check it. Click OK. Alternatively, get a LiveCD. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 06:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

If the files are encrypted (aka "private" files in Windows XP), you'll need to boot that hard drive, possibly via the USB enclosure. Once you've logged in, you can move your files to a backup folder in the root of your hard drive (usually "C:\"), then they will be available when you boot regularly. Droud 02:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)