Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 December 24

= December 24 =

Windowpanes of hell
Again, I am haunted by these. Some time ago I asked about eliminating unwanted zoom or windowpanes in the picture of an HDTV. But since we got a new cable box, the problem has returned with a vengeance. Windowpane screens are ever-present along the sides of the picture, and no amount of meddling I do with the settings get rid of them. 4x3, 16x9, 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i, they do nothing! My TV is rated up to 1080p, by the way. What should I do?-- The Ninth Bright Shiner 02:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * By "windowpanes", are you referring to something such as a green bar down one side of the screen? If so, that is common with cable boxes.  For example, if I use our cable box with an HDMI cable, I get a green border around the entire picture.  If I separate RGB cables, I don't get the green border.  I checked with the company (Motorola) and they said that I need to get a new model.  However, I didn't buy the dumb box.  The local cable company installed it and they won't replace it with a new model.  So, I just have to use RGB instead of HDMI for the cable box. --  k a i n a w &trade; 02:35, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * As their seemingly-outdated support section says, windowpanes are dark vertical bars on the left and right side of the picture (although I can change them from dark, to medium, to light, YIPPEE!). I just tried out what you said, and son of a gun, it worked. At least, I think I did. I connected it with the DVD player's red-yellow-white connectors (I'm not even sure of their actual name anymore). Although, there's more questions; the last box we had didn't do this, even with an HDMI cable. Why not? Also, I don't have any more of these connectors, and I'd rather not switch between the two on every occasion. Are there any other solutions? Thanks for your help.-- The Ninth Bright Shiner 02:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is based on the model. Before we moved, we had Comcast and one of their boxes.  It worked great.  It had two cable inputs.  I could record 4 channels at once.  I could watch 2 channels at one with either PIP or POP (if both were 4:3 ratio).  I used HDMI and got a great 1080i picture.  Now, we have Fidelity cable.  I have a craptastic box with one cable input.  It can record 2 channels.  No PIP.  If I use HDMI, I get a border on the picture.  I've complained every month as I pay my bill in person at their local office (which happens to be 3 blocks from my home).  They aren't going to fix it.  I bet the people who work for the cable company don't have the same crappy box that they stuck me with.  Oh - forgot - a solution they said.  I can buy my own box.  It is $500-$800. --  k a i n a w &trade; 15:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

restoring Vista backup to XP, continued
Thanks for your advice above ("restoring Vista backup to XP"), which I followed, but ran into a problem. I wrote to HP:


 * Bought the computer with XP and upgraded to Vista. Many problems,
 * so decided to reinstall OS. Backed up data under Vista, used system
 * recovery to XP, and again upgraded to Vista. Attempted to restore backup
 * but it failed with the message, "Restore did not complete successfully.
 * Error Code: [none given] The parameter is incorrect. 0x80070057"


 * What can I do to complete the restore successfully?

Their response was to rename the backup source (an external hard drive) and try again. Same error. Is there any way I can recover the files? --Halcatalyst (talk) 18:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I can't help you directly, but for such a critical problem I'd advise you to be persistent - keep calling and insisting and asking for help and you will be bumped to a supervisor who has more experience than the front-line support people. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:43, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Likely effects of cold temperatures
A friend has an office set up in shed in his back yard. With the recent winter temperatures here in the UK, he has been leaving a heater on in the office to keep the tempertature above freezing. Unfortunately, the heater does get turned off on some occasions. He recently had a problem where his PC (a Dell Hybrid, running Vista) refused to start. After a couple of hours he was eventually able to get it started and could run the various recovery options which claimed to have fixed some corruption on the system volume. Could disk corruption be caused by below freezing temperatures, or should he be looking for other causes such as malware? Astronaut (talk) 19:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * By chance, do you know if the computer was collecting condensation when it got cold? -- k a i n a w &trade; 21:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That is quite possible. It is also likely that the office was not heated to a working temperature before powering on the PC.  Astronaut (talk) 05:51, 25 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Hard disc drives(HDD) really do need to get up to temperature before using as heat expansion of the platters can (apparently) cause mis-reads and hence difficulty reading data. Condensation would be real bad. Perhaps he needs to leave PC on overnight? If the PC is being used to run a business I hope he has a good backup, ie. external HDD that can be taken to a warmer environment for safekeeping. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 21:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC).


 * Thanks. I'll either suggest moving the PC to the house during the depths of winter or some kind of NAS device for backups.


 * As with most electronics - PC's have two critical temperatures - the minimum (non-condensing) storage temperature and the minimum operating temperature. These numbers should be available from the manufacturer's website - or from their tech-support people.  If you store the PC below the minimum storage temperature - you'll probably wreck it.  If you try to turn it on while it's below the minimum operating temperature, then that can kill it too.  Keeping the PC turned on (and not in some 'power-saving' mode) 24/7 should keep it warm enough - but if you're going to turn it off then you definitely need to get the office/shed warmed up well before you turn the computer back on again.  Beware that even though the air in the room is warm, the PC will take a while to warm through so that it's all above the minimum operating temperature.  Condensation must (of course) be avoided - if there is moisture in the room when it's warm (which there will be if you've been working in there) - then that water is going to condense as the room cools down and deposit puddles of water inside the computer - which is obviously not good.  Keeping the computer powered up ought to be enough to avoid that...but it's a risk.


 * Hard drives are probably the most vulnerable part of the computer (although maybe an LCD display or some battery or other might be even worse) - and a few sites I've checked suggest that the minimum OPERATING temperature is around 5 degC/41 degF. The minimum STORAGE temp is a chilly -40C.  So you're unlikely to exceed the storage number.  But if you jump into a frozen shed, turn on the heater and computer and start typing - you're going to wreck it for 100% sure.  Worse still, a couple of hard drive manufacturers I checked said that you mustn't change the temperature of your hard drive by more than 20 degC per hour.  Since a shed has essentially zilch insulation - when you turn off the heater, the temperature could easily drop 20 degrees in a matter of minutes rather than hours - and when you jump into your chilly shed and whack the heater onto max, you're going to wreck the drive then too.


 * Basically - keeping a computer out in an unheated shed is a bad idea. SteveBaker (talk) 19:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

How to get VLC player to play DVD on my computer?
I cannot get VLC media player to play a DVD on my computer. The DVD drive is active for a while, after a while the slider on the slider bar of VLC quickly moves from one end to the other, but nothing else happens. What do I need to do please? The DVD I've tried is dated 2000, and I am in Europe. Thanks 89.243.45.81 (talk) 20:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Might sound dumb, but are you sure your drive can read dvds? Also make sure it's not scratched. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.43 (talk) 21:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am sure that my DVD drive can read DVDs. And the DVDs are not scratched either. I'm hoping someone is going to explain what codecs or CSS decoders I would need to download and what exactly I do with them. 78.151.145.153 (talk) 01:49, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Update: I've found that it works perfectly if I 'open' the DVD disk, then click on the VIDEO_TS folder, then click on the VIDEO_TS.IFO. VLC then starts and plays the whole movie - even the menu options work! If I merely click on the DVD drive then a Microsoft player starts up and, in short, asks for money. If I choose VLC to open the DVD drive then it will not play. I'd be interested to know if I can set things up to get the movie to play just by clicking on the DVD drive. Thanks Update2: after changing the region of my computer to Europe, I am now able to play movies by right-clicking on the DVD drive and choosing 'Play with VLC'. I wonder how I change the default DVD player from Microsoft to VLC? 78.151.96.82 (talk) 20:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Problems and etc
Deleting it--Jessica A Bruno 22:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This question was removed by the OP. (Diff).  Nimur (talk) 01:35, 25 December 2009 (UTC)