There are many free tools which lets you check your pen drive for errors, we have reviewed another similar tool in this category called H2testw. Today we will tell you about another free tool for the same purpose.

Check Flash is a free program which allows you to check your USB drive for errors and moreover you can also determine its data writing and reading speed. [ as shown in the image below ]

You can not only test the USB drives, but also the internal and external drives also with this tool.

Download Check Flash

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Many times we connect devices to out computer which we never attach again. Once you attach these devices to computer, there is an entry created in your Windows Devices list and it remain there.

For example once I attached a gaming joystick to my computer which I borrowed from a friend. Sometimes we attach mouse / data-cars / or any other device which we don’t plan to attach again. These device’s entries remain in Windows.

The problem with having too many ghosted devices is that Windows searches for such devices at start-up and its can Windows Slow Startup Problem. In this article I will share with you how you can use free tool called GhostBuster to remove such ghosted devices from your Windows Computer.

Fix:

Follow the below steps to use GhostBuster on your computer.

1. Download GhostBuster Installer and Install Ghost Buster.

2. If you are using Windows XP, just run Ghost Buster from start menu shortcut. If you are using ghost buster on Windows Vista or Windows 7, browse to the following path “C:\Program Files\Swiss\GhostBuster” and right click on GhostBuster Application file and click Properties.

Now click on Compatibility tab and select Windows XP compatibility Mode and click OK.

Now launch ghost busters. It may give a UAC warning like one below:

3. GhostBuster will list down all the devices which are ghosted. You can now remove these devices as seen in screenshot below:

You can check more hardware related problem solutions here.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

If you are not able to locate the Bluetooth drivers for your laptop, or you are not able to send or receive files with the existing Bluetooth on your laptop. For some cases it is case when they are not able to connect to a bluetooth enabled phone using the bluetooth on their laptops.

In all these cases there is free utility which can help you solve this problem by installing generic Microsoft driver for your bluetooth adapter which might work with your bluetooth adapter of your laptop.

Lets discuss what this small utility will do, and how can you revert back if you run into any problems because of this program.

Fix:

Bluetooth Driver Installer will try to install generic Microsoft driver for your bluetooth adapter. This program is based on a widely known method of patching %WinDir%\inf\bth.inf file. Before making changes to your system the program automatically creates a restore point. If anything goes wrong you can use Windows System Restore feature to revert all changes made to your computer

Download Bluetooth Driver Installer

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Since last few days I had been facing some problem with my Internet connectivity. My WiFi or wireless router will stop working and I was getting disconnected from it. Recently I observed that the disconnection happens every time I use my new Cordless phone by beetle (an India telephone instruments brand). Then I read the user manual and the instructions on the sticker which tells that the phone operates in 2.4 GHZ frequency spectrum.

2.4 GHZ is the same spectrum on which our usual Wireless routers or Wifi routers operate. Then I studies some more and found out that some phones work on frequency hopping which means they use multiple frequencies in 2.4 GHZ frequency spectrum. In this article I will share you how I fixed the problem.

Fix:

There are 13 frequency channels in 2.4 GHZ spectrum, see IEEE 802.11 for reference. There is an option to change the channel of the cordless phone on most of the phones, but that did not help me in my case.

On reading through several forums and user feedback, I came to know that if I set my Wireless router or wifi router to channel 11, the interference with phone will stop. [thanks to anet forums].

This is how I fixed my problem:

1. Log Into your wifi router, for my router, the adress is 10.0.0.1, for some routers its typically 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 etc. The username and password also vary, for netgear, the default username and password is admin and password respectively.

2. Go to Wireless Settings and change the channel to channel number 11.

3. Just apply the settings and now try using the cordless phone. Tada !!! My phone and WiFi router work perfectly fine together now without interference.

Please leave your comments and suggestions if you have any better or easier solution.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

My Old Desktop Started to restart abruptly and showing vague graphics abruptly. Computer boots and then restart. The behaviour of my desktop made me suspicious about a fault in either RAM or hard disk.

The reason I was suspicious about these two are that computer beep at startup was normal, that means the mother board and processor were ok, and RAM is properly fitted in the slot.

Then I run the hard disk scan and fitness test using a bootable utility, which I will cover in separate post soon. That test gave me results that hard disk is in good health.

But the question that came to my mind was:

How to Diagnose Faulty RAM?

I tried two different utilities for the same, I am going to share you the same with you in this post, and will tell you how you can use these free utilities.

Fix:

Let me share the two free memory diagnostic utilities one by one:

Memtest86 Memory Diagnostic:

It is an excellent stand alone memory diagnostic utility with very neat interface, it will run and scan all your RAM by accessing, reading and writing to different location of RAM. It will check whether RAM is working fine or not. Below is the screen-shot of output for my faulty RAM.

You can download this utility from this link as in ISO image and burn a CD of this image. Now you can simply boot with this CD and it will run the RAM test for you. Also if you have a Ubuntu setup CD, you can boot with ubuntu CD and select to launch Memtest86 utility from Ubuntu boot menu.

Windows Memory Diagnostic Utility:

Windows Memory Diagnostic is another free and light utility to diagnose RAM by Microsoft. It will run the test and will tell you whether the RAM has gone bad. See the screen-shot of the the same below:

This utility can run some standard and extended test as you need. You can download this free executable file from Microsoft here. When you run this executable, it will ask you to generate an ISO image, crate that image and burn a CD using that ISO file. Now boot with that bootable CD and the extended memory test will start automatically.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

In this post, we are going to tell you the basic things to take care when connecting a microphone to the computer and using it correctly.

Seems simple to use a microphone with computer, but believe me, if it starts bugging, its a big problem. One of our readers submitted a problem:

When I Started Microphone, volume is too low.

Microphone is not working on my computer, same microphone works fine on other computer.

We have covered microphone related problems with Windows Vista in this article, but now lets look at it from a generic way. So we will cover three things here:

1. Connecting Microphone to the correct port
2. Recording Device / Microphone Settings / Sound Settings
3. Controlling the volume of microphone

Read on for details.

Fix:

Connect Microphone to Correct port

First of all, it is very important to connect microphone to the correct port on the computer. Some Computers have front and back panels to connect microphones, some have only back panels. All of them have a pink colored port for microphones which is a convention. Make sure you plug in the microphone in this pink port only. For laptops, you will see a small symbol on the port which distinguishes microphone port from speaker port, as seen in image below.

Desktop Front Panel Ports

Desktop Rear-Panel Ports

Laptop Speaker Microphone ports

Microphone Settings

After you have connected it correctly to the computer, make sure that your computer has correct audio drivers installed. For any problems related to drivers, see this link.

Go to Control Panel > Sound and Audio Devices Icon. It will open a windows like one below:

Click on Audio Tab , and now select your Sound Driver or Sound Card Name from the drop down list if it is not correctly selected.

After Selecting correct options, click OK and you are done with this configuration setting.

Volume Control for Microphone

Double Click on Volume Control Icon in your system tray, it will open up the volume control window. Click on Options > Enable Advanced Properties.

No Again Click on Options > Properties, it will open a properties window as seen below:

On Properties window, in Playback option, check the Microphone checkbox as seen in picture below: 

Now in Recording, Check the Microphone as seen below and press OK.

Now you can see the Microphone Volume Control, here you can increase or decrease microphone volume as per your need. Also, if you are still not happy with Microphone volume, click on advanced button, just below it. This will open an Advanced Control for Microphone window as below.

On this window, check 1 Mic Boost. It will boost the volume of your microphone.

Now you got all the volume control of you microphone in your hand , Hope you find this useful! Let us know through comments.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

In continuation to our recent post on 8 Essentials to know before buying LCD, today we are going to share with you the how you can get the best image quality out of your LCD monitor.

When we bought the new LCD, we just plugged it to our computer and tried to set some suitable resolutions. We were not at all happy to see the image quality as the pixels were not sharp and crisp. We even faced difficulty in reading the text on screen as it got bit blur.

Here is how we fixed it to get the best picture quality on our LCD Monitor.

Fix:

We followed the these steps to fix up the things:

1. Install the drivers that come along with your monitor: Although LCD Monitors are considered to be plug-and-play, but in order to get the best picture quality, you should install the drivers which come along the monitor. You may also get some software tools to adjust all the monitor related settings in an easy way.

2. Correct Resolution is the Secret to best picture quality: Every LCD Display has a native resolution or optimum resolution, this is the resolution at which it will give the best picture quality. Set the resolution to native or optimum resolution. Lesser resolution will make the quality hazy and higher resolution will make it blur. Check the optimum resolution in the menu or manual of the monitor. You may not find this resolution in the option of your graphics settings. In such case, you need to upgrade your graphics driver. To check the hardware configuration of your PC, refer to this link.

3. Enable clear-type in appearance settings : Clear type will make the text look really smooth and easy to read. Follow the below steps to enable clear-type effect.

Right click on desktop > click Properties > Click on Appearance tab > Click on Effect button

4. Adjust Contrast and brightness: Now set the contrast and brightness both to 50 percent. Now increase the contrast to a level (more than 50%) which makes you view the screen comfortably. Now decrease the brightness (to less than 50%) to a level which makes you see the picture best. Higher contrast and lower brightness gives a pleasant picture quality.

That’s simple, isn’t it. Please leave your comments if this helped, or in case you need more information.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

Recently we upgraded one of our desktop’s display from CRT(normal) to LCD or TFT monitor. We faced some problems in getting good graphics quality on the new LCD monitor. In these two post (this one and next one) we will share the most important points and features to consider and correct way of using the LCD monitor so that you don’t face any problems. This will answer help you decide which is the best LCD monitor to buy.

And in sequence to this post, we will soon bring a post on correctly installing the monitor so that you get the best possible picture quality out of it.

8 Most Important Features of LCD Monitor:

Resolution:

Size does matter a lot, but resolution matters even more. Every LCD monitor has a native resolution or optimum resolution at which it operates with the best possible picture quality. Go for high resolution 1600 x 1200 or higher for normal home or office use. For gaming, you can go for slightly low resolution,but never settle for lower than 1280 x 1024.

Contrast Ratio:

One of the most important feature on which the picture quality largely depends. There are two kind of contrast ratios, static and dynamic. Static contrast ratio of 1000:1 or more gives a good quality, lesser than this is a compromise. Dynamic contrast ratio is generally higher than static

contrast ratio. For example a monitor with 1000:1 static contrast ratio usually has about 8000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. When you compare two monitors, make sure you are not comparing dynamic contrast ratio of one with static contrast ratio of the other.

Response time:

If you are a gamer, this matters a lot to you. Response time means how fast a pixel can change its color properly. For a good monitor its 5 ms (milliseconds). Less the response time, better it is. 5 ms is good for general user and moderate gaming. If you are die hard gamer, look for 2 ms or lesser, but these will be bit expansive.

Size:

Depending on your nature of work, budget and space constrains you can go for your choice of size. typically for home use and gaming purpose 19 or 20 inches is perfect size. If you need to run too many graphics editing software’s, go for higher sizes.

Aspect ratio:

It is width to height ratio of the monitor, in simple words, it means your monitor is simple ratio (4:3) or wide-screen (16:9), sometimes 16:10 also. Go for wide-screen, it gives better experience for movies and other office related applications.

Maximum brightness:

Brightness is measured in unit called cd/m2. For normal use 300 cd/m2 is good enough, but if you sit in front of a window and light directly falls on your screen, go for at-least 400 cd/m2. It will help you see clearly even in bright lit room.

Input Ports:

Another very important consideration is input options that a monitor has. Some have only analog VGA input (most commonly used). Some have VGA + DVI (recommenced). We recommend VGA + DVI option because DVI is digital input and most graphic cards provide this, it ensures a great picture quality. Some monitors provide additional component input and TV tuners as well, consider them if you plan to use these ports or use it as a TV. Make sure that your computer has compatible ports to connect to the monitor before you buy it. For example if you buy a monitor with DVI only and your computer has VGA output only (or vice-e-versa), then you will need to hunt for suitable convertors.

Adjustable stand:

Some brands use non-adjustable stands to save on cost, but we recommend to use the monitors with adjustable stand if you are not on strict budget. Adjustable stand proves to be very comfortable specially for long hours usage.

Power Consumption:

If you are comparing two different monitors of same size and features, look for the one which consumes less power.

We hope you like this post. We will soon bring a post on correctly installing the monitor to get the best experience out of your LCD Monitor, so stay tuned…

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

We have received many problems mentioning that they are not able to format their pen drives. Some of them have written that the pen drive capacity displayed is not correct.

When they try to format the pen drive, Windows Shows error "Can not format the pen drive". There can be more than one reasons behind such problems, some of the common problems are:

1. Virus or trojan infection.

2. Corrupted flash chips on the pen drive (hardware fault)

3. Fake pen drives ! (Many such drives are there in the markets, beware)

Lets see what to do to fix the issues.

Fix:

Virus or trojan infections:

Virus or trojans can run some process that keeps running in background. This not only harms the computer, but also prevents the pen drive from formatting as it shows that the drive is in use. Remove and re-insert the pen drive, don’t double click on drive and cancel autorun operations if it starts automatically. Run a virus scan on pen drive, this will help fix the issue. Now format the pen drive.

Always take precautions while using pen drives on other computers. See the some of our posts below on protecting your pen drive from viruses:

• Protect your computer from virus in pen drives
• Autorun.inf eater to remove autorun.inf related virus
• General safety tips against virus and trojans

Corrupted flash chips on pen drive:

If the pen drive is not detected at all, or shows a less capacity, then there are high chances that its a chip corruption. Flash chips are the actual hardware components that save the data. A physical or electrical or electromagnetic damage to these chips make the pen drive faulty. This can happen because of voltage fluctuations and faulty USB ports. In such case, get the flash drive replaced if its under warranty as it can not be fixed otherwise.

Fake pen drives:

Sounds a bit un-believable but true. There are a lot of pen drives in the market which are of very cheap quality which are fake copies of some known brands. Beware of such pen-drives. Always purchase pen-drives or memory-cards from a reliable source with bill and warranty to avoid any mess later.

We hope the information provided above will help.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

One of our readers Suhaneh, submitted a trouble “USB Device Malfunction Error message coming even no USB device connected to system“.

This kind of trouble really sounded very strange. It gave me a very interesting topic to research upon. What I found as a solution was even more strange than the problem. On searching the causes for such errors I came across about problems when people are using their USB devices and they work well. Other moment the USB device will stop working and will give error:

“USB DEVICE MALFUNCTIONED”

There are several hardware, software, and drivers related reasons for behind this problem.

Let us look into the details one by one.

Fix:

There can be more than one reasons for such things happening. Lets see one by one:

1. Really Crazy Sounding Fix : When I tell you this fix, you may think that I have gone crazy writing technical articles, but keep reading for the logic behind it. the solution is

” Turn off your computer, un-plug the power cord (or battery for a laptop) of your computer for about 30 minutes, plug the power cables back, restart the computer and the problem will be fixed “

Now the logic behind it : This is supposed to be a software as well as hardware problem. Windows keeps a table or cache of USB devices that were ever connected to it. This information is stored on some chip level memory on motherboard. When some entry goes wrong, or some stray behavior is there, it remains and is not flushed even on shutting down the computer. Removing the power altogether will cause the charges on mother-board to discharge completely and the entries are freshly created when you re-start next time. Thanks NT Compatible forum for this really interesting thread about this problem.

If this does not solve your problem, there may be problem due to reason 2 and/or 3 as mentioned below.

2. Missing or incompatible drivers : Make sure that you have motherboard chipset drivers installed and also the USB device’s drivers which you want to use.

3. Selective Suspend feature of USB : This feature will allow windows to control USB device power as needed. This setting also causes problem some times. See the fix by Microsoft Support here.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.