Intermittent Wi-Fi Connection On Laptop

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Have you experienced dropping wi-fi connection on your laptop? This problem has just made me scratching my head for a while. All of a sudden, my connection is suddenly disconnecting from the internet, although the router is just  3  meters away from me and other devices, like the apple TV and the iPad seem like not affected with the problem. So it is obvious that the laptop is the problem.

Ruling out the problem

• What puzzles me is when I run the connection trouble shooting button(right click the signal icon, then click troubleshoot problems), it comes up with a DNS error, which in my opinion is not the case because the other devices can access the internet without the problem. 

• Checking the firewall did not show an obvious exclusion or blocked internet content, and the setting of blocked content is the same for every device because this is set at my ISP's. So if a device can go to a certain site, there should be no problem for other connected gadgets using the same wi-fi access.

• I've also tried to forget all remembered wi-fi access by right clicking the same signal button > open network and sharing>Manage wireless network>right clicking and removing (1)the access in question and reconnecting them again to no avail.

• Or it could be the wi-fi hardware of the laptop? If this is the case then I am convinced I have to buy another laptop or be contented to connect it with wire. As I am thinking about the inconvenience of wires and the tight budget I am experiencing at the moment, my wandering led me to the power options (right clicking the battery>power options) 

which is set to the recommended setting(balanced).

 I changed it to high performance and like magic, the wi-fi soreness is treated. No more DNS error, and dropping internet connection.

Best Ever Program To Speed Up Windows

No matter what version of Windows you've had, have or will have in the future, chances are it becomes slow as time passes. It gets old and so is it's reflexes. This is usually the never ending frustration that home windows users experience. And as a home user, this is more frustrating as we do not know what's causing it. Online helps tell you to defrag, de clutter, look for malwares, clean registry and so on, but this do not make sense to a clueless typical owner.

But this doesn't mean you should switch to another operating system  specially when budget is an issue. There is still a way to speed up the snail paced performance without dipping very dip into your pocket.

The Advance Syatem Care 7 Free

This is a computer optimisation program that is designed to speed up your system. It cleans the registry, junks, looks for malware and so on in one single click. My computer does suffer from slow startup and hard to wake up browsers. Using it made these problems a thing in the past.

Installation

You can download it from http://www.iobit.com/products.html.

To get the free version, click on the products tab(1) and choose the free version(2).

How to use it

Under the first tab, Care(3), are the optimization functions that it can execute in one click. You just need to tick(4) the features you want to add before clicking the scan(5).

The scanning will take sometime depending on the features you have ticked and how many problems (6) it will identify. You can tick(7), automatically repair while the scan is going to automatically repair problems, or you can choose to manually repair it later if you want to know the details of the errors first.

The turbo boost (8) works on the RAM. It has three levels of  optimization. The work mode terminates unnecessary services and applications not related to what you are working on to give you a better speed. The gaming mode terminates non windows systems and services to give a boost to gaming experience. There is also the economy mode that helps to extend battery life specially when your laptop is away from the mains.

The application also tells you the amount of RAM it frees up. The applications and services terminated can be seen when you click details(9).

Windows Log In Problem

I was not expecting  this warning when I signed on to my windows account. It says "the user profile service failed the logon".Whatever happened, I do not know. What I remembered is I just finished downloading a movie overnight and shutdown my laptop early morning before going to work. Then when I tried to log on ot my user account this evening after work, the error message appeared. Clicking Ok, logged me off  completely. Logging on to other profiles doesn't seem to have a problem. My profile has the problem. It might be corrupted? I do not know. What worries me is I might not be able to access the files only my profile can have the access. Luckily, there are other profiles that I can use to search for answer and solution.

This is one of the reasons why you need to set up other accounts to your laptop and at least two administrator accounts. At least if you have a spare administrator account, you can try fixing the problem. Regular accounts will not be allowed to change settings  specially when you make changes in the registry values.

But if you only have one account, restarting the machine in the safe mode will log you on to it's default windows administrator account.

To fix this, follow these steps.

1. Log on to another administrator account. 

If you are not sure if there are other administrator accounts, go to  control panel>user accounts>manage accounts(1). This will show all accounts and their restrictions. Select the administrator account that does not have a problem, in this case my wife's account(2).

2. After logging in to an administrator account, click start>type regedit>then enter

The registry window will show and  at this point, it is better to make a back up of the registry before proceeding. To do this, click File(01)>Export(02)>then choose a folder, in my case I created a new folder for registry only(03)> then create a back up name(04), then save(05).

Going back to the problem, click the folders as follows.

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
2. SOFTWARE
3. Microsoft
4. WindowsNT
5. CurrentVersion
6. ProfileList
7. Then you will be presented  with folders that start with S-I-5 and with additional long number sequences. The user profiles are contained in this. Look for the two folders that look similar, the only difference is the other has an additional  .bak extension and the other doesn't have. 
8. Double click each entry and at the other window, see under ProfileImagePath, that you are at the profile with the problem(see Data>C:\User\Richard).

**This screenshot is edited to limit space usage. You need to scroll down on every folder after clicking it to find the next folder.

     9. Right click the file without extension and click rename. Use your right arrow key to navigate until the end of the file name and type in .ba (a) then press enter.

     10. Right click the second file with .bak and click rename. Use your arrow keys again to go to the end of the file and use the back button to delete .bak extension, then enter(b).

     11. Go back to the renamed first file and rename .ba to .bak using the same technique with the arrow keys. 

     12. Click the folder without .bak and double click RefCount(9). Set the value to 0(10).

     13. Again with the folder without .bak, double click State(11) and change the value to 0(12)

     14. Exit Registry, restart your computer and try logging in to the problematic User profile.

Make Windows 8 Go Straight to Desktop After Log On

Here's another valuable tip for the confused windows 8 user who doesn't like the lock metro interface. Majority of users prefer the desktop as the destination after logging in and not the metro lock interface. If you are one of the annoyed ones and wanting to get rid of it, here's the solution for you.

What I'm going to show you is to skip the lock screen after logging in. This means you go straight to the desktop after typing your user name and password. This tutorial has two parts. One is making a script or program to show the desktop, and the second part is to tell windows when to show the desktop.

Make a show desktop script.

Show desktop is available in all windows variant but I have a hard time finding it. So I goggled a script on how to show desktop. And the script is

[Shell]

 Command=2

 IconFile=Explorer.exe,3

[Taskbar]

 Command=ToggleDesktop

How to save the script?

Highlight and copy the script above then open notepad (this is under windows accessories, or on the lock screen (press the windows button on your keyboard just type in Notepad) and paste the script (2). Then click file (1) and save as (3) Desktop.scf. Make sure you substitute Desktop to the *(asterisk) and substitute .scf  to .txt. (4) Make note of the location of the script as you will need it later. I myself organised it under my documents. The text file is now converted into an icon with the usual show desktop sign from previous windows version(6).

How to tell Windows to show desktop after logging in.

This is just programming your computer on what to do to an event. Now, I want to tell windows to go directly to the desktop after I log in to my profile.

I open up task scheduler (control panel, Administrative Tools, Task Scheduler) click, action(7) and create a new location(folder)(8) to the task. I name it as show desktop(9).

Click to open show desktop location folder, then went back to action(10) and click Create Task. Under General, I named it showdesktop(12), and typed something (13) to describe what the task can do. I also want to run it when a specific user(that's me) is logged on(14).

Next is to set the trigger(15). Click new(16) and choose to begin the task at log on (17). Then specify which user log on will trigger the event (this time I choose my own(18)), then do not forget to click OK.

Now you are ready to set an action(19), click new(20) and choose start a program(21). Look for the show desktop script you've done before by clicking browse (22). I know that the script Desktop(23) is under my document so it was easy for me to find it. Then click OK.

Restart your computer and log on! See the magic with the video below, showing the configured user to log straight into the desktop while other accounts go to the usual Start Screen.

Simplify Windows 8

The windows 8 metro interface is fresh looking, like that of the new windows phones, but lacks appeal to some users, myself included. The main reason is the removal of the desktop as the default screen, and instead, the "tiled window" or lock screen with  live tiles, programs and utilities. All windows users are used to the desktop as the first screen to show up for many years, and the sudden change had a negative impact to the users as reflected in the lower PC and laptop sales with the new operating system.

Those who has it already has to live with it, that they need to make extra clicks to get into the desktop. And once at the desktop they need to hit the windows key to go back to the tiled window to fetch which program they want to execute for their task! Personally, this is annoying.

Put important files at the desktop

The solution for this impractical situation is to make those programs and utilities accessible at the desktop. One very simple way is to put the icons of the most accessed programs of the computer, like the control panel,  my computer , network and user's file in one folder.

To do this, right click the desktop and click personalisation, change desktop icons and tick the items you want to show in the desktop Then click apply. Now, you do not have to fiddle your menu to see your drive, adjust computer settings through the control panel or access your files as they are already in the desktop.

This is still not enough as you will still be looking for programs you want to use. Pinning your favourite programs into the taskbar is an easy solution.

Mimic a start button

To those who are used to the old interface, they can make their lives easier by making a shortcut to the programs folder by clicking windows explorer (the folder icon between  IE and Chrome in the picture below), click windows(1), right click program files(x86) (2), then click create shortcut(3).

You can change the icon of  the folder to make it more like a start button. You can use this start button that I've downloaded.  You just need to convert it as an icon before you can use it. To convert it into icon and change the icon of the start folder, please see my post at

 http://prakticality.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/easy-way-to-create-icon-files.html

Right click and
save picture as..

For better effect, rename the folder as start.

Now you have all the programs in one click at the start icon at the desktop.

Put the manually made icon at the toolbar

Another trick is to put the desktop icon at the bottom toolbar. This will automatically include the manually made start icon.

Right click an empty space at the toolbar(1), then toolbar(2) and click desktop.

The desktop components will appear at the right side of the bottom toolbar. Drag the separator all the way to the left, then  right click an empty space(1) then untick (2) show text and show title.

Then just drag the start button at the first slot to the left! Though the icons are quite tiny, they make life easier !

Windows Media Player Buffering.....

Discussed at a party,  some of my friends are having problem watching streaming movies using Windows Media Player. Particularly videos from ABS-CBN, a subscription video services showing TV programs from the Philippines ABS-CBN channel 2 network.

The symptom of their problem is the movie being streamed stops and the player says buffering, then starts again after buffering, or the player completely stops and freezes while buffering.

.

There are many  possible causes and the most obvious is internet connectivity causing a slowdown of data exchange from the website server into their internet provider and finally unto their computer. Slowdown can be caused by heavy traffic, or too many users online within the internet providers, or too many users accessing ABS-CBN's server. Anything excessive from the two can make a slowdown. And here are simple remedies that can help.

• Low Bandwidth and busy server

There's not much you can do with this but to adjust the way you access the video. Luckily for ABS-CBN users, there's an option for low bandwidth for smaller file size. This makes a significant improvement with lower bandwidth internet users. If this does not work, you can choose to click download. Once the file has been downloaded, the windows media player will play the file continuously. The file is usually found at the download folder, if you want to delete it later.

Sometimes  internet providers "trottles" the internet connection. This means they deliberately give  lower bandwidth, thus slowdown of connection. You can check the speed of your internet connection at the link below, and if it is lower than what you should have been getting then you can make a screen shot and forward it to your internet provider. To watch a streaming video, like the abs-cbn,  at least 2mbps or more is needed to enjoy it.

http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/

• Slow computer

Sometimes, your computer, slows down because of a lot of things. In this "buffering" problem, I suspect that it is time to clear the internet cache. Internet cache  are stored bits and pieces of data from the websites you have visited. Your computer fetch these cached data for the websites to flash on the screen faster. But sometimes the cache gets confused especially when a website has just updated it's contents. What you will see when this happens are partially loaded web pages, badly formatted web pages, incomplete pictures, or in some cases, the wrong picture in the wrong place.

How to clear internet explorer by browser

Internet Explorer


Go to Tools from the Internet Explorer menu bar
Then click Internet Options
Then General Tab
Delete Files button in the Temporary Internet files section

Firefox


Goto Edit from the Firefox menu bar
Then click Preferences
Expand the Advanced menu by clicking the plus sign
Click Cache
Then Clear Cache button


Chrome

Click the Wrench Icon at the far right found on top of the browser
Select Tools
Click Clear Browsing Data
Then check tick clear browsing history, clear download history, empty cache
Then  Clear browsing data

Opera


Click Opera Logo at the top left hand
Then Settings
Click Delete Private Data
*Optional You can choose to click the dropdown(detailed options) menu to see what data are to be deleted
Then click Delete.

• Modem

I've read an article about some modems that use Network Address Translation to forward  UDP pockets. Whatever that means, it is one of the reasons why windows media player buffers! So we need to disable this kind of handling of data from the windows media player.

Open up windows media player
Click Tools
Then Options
Then click Network
Untick RTSP/UDP
Apply then OK