1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Computer issues

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by slappy4428, Oct 7, 2009.

  1. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    yeah. Get a Mac... Dell's suck...
    Now that we're past that, Ms. Slappy is having issues with her computer tonight (Dell Inspiron 530; Vista Home premium or whatever). She ran antivirus and it worked fine. On a reboot, she goes to the Dell logo screen that gives her the f2 and F12 options and just stops. Won't let her in F2 or F12 just shows the screen and freezes.
    Am thinking one of two things: 1) Startup program is fucked. B) something plugged into one of her USB ports is causing it but not sure what (found that one by searching on the interwebs... )
    Any other troubleshooting possibilities?
     
  2. slytiger

    slytiger Member

    The internet post was correct, if you have an external hard drive, unplug it and restart. I've had the same issue with my laptop.

    If you are computer savvy download a copy of http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ it's full of tools that have saved me a few times.
     
  3. Rosie

    Rosie Active Member

    Unplugging things from the USB ports is a good start, if that doesn't work, catch me on IM or FB and I'll see what I can do.
     
  4. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Happened with me once on a Dell. I unscrewed the hard drive, took it out, put it back in and it worked.
    It got to that point because it couldn't read a hard drive and boot.
     
  5. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Was the second scenario... as she powered up last night, she also plugged in her mp3 player and blew out something... unplugging all the usb cables, starting, then plugging back in fixed it...
     
  6. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Yep. My Dell (granted an old one) won't start if my iPod is connected. Dunno why. Just won't.
     
  7. Sneed

    Sneed Guest

    I'll endorse Macs here. They're expensive, but getting more affordable. They're not perfect, but they are a lot more hassle-free than most PCs out there. There are some good PCs, but Macs are just easy.

    There might be some pretension in some Apple stores [crossthread] but I've never experienced any. I've had a Macbook Pro for about a year and a half now. My wife's had two over the past five years. The worst problems either of us have had is programs slowing down. That's usually fixed by just restarting.

    You don't have to worry about antivirus software--they don't get viruses. They really are good computers. I'm not one of those fanboys that'll tell you you're an imbecile for not trying them, but I don't understand the animosity toward them some PC users seem to have.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page