Random Lockups and Restarts - Means Your Computer is Getting "Stupid?"

There is nothing more frustrating than working on an elaborate document and all of a sudden the computer reboots. I told you to save often, right? Well, that's another story. You can't possibly anticipate every single type of computer failure. You can only do your best, save your work when you can, and plug along like the rest of us.

Computer lockups (crashes) and especially random and sudden reboots are very difficult to troubleshoot and solve. Usually, however, these symptoms are an indication that you have a failing hardware component somewhere. Either the hardware is failing outright or the software drivers that make the hardware work have become incompatible. In some instances viruses and malware can corrupt drivers, make pieces of software incompatible with the system, or wipe out critical system files.

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My Computer is Really Slooooooow!

You may have heard before, from me or others, about doing periodic maintenance on your computer, including running Disk Cleanup and Defrag. These built-in tools will help speed up your computer and make disk operations more efficient. You may also know that viruses and malware can slow your computer down. So just to be extra careful, you keep you keep your antivirus definitions up to date, and do regular virus and spyware scans. An overly full hard drive makes it hard for your virtual memory to work efficiently. You need disk drive space so that your physical memory can “swap” paging files with the virtual memory set aside on your hard drive. So you clean off some unwanted programs and archive those documents and pictures that you want to save but no longer use frequently.

You have checked all those things, so why is your computer still running slow and sluggishly? Now it may be time to do a little troubleshooting to find out what is slowing down your system. You could have an application causing problems, or it could be a virus or other malware. A recently applied patch could also be causing an application to run improperly. To find out what is going on, you will have to take a look at graphical performance indicators as well as a list of running processes. This is tricky, because even if you see which process is causing your problems, you won’t know if it is good (normal) or bad (caused by a virus) unless you do some additional research and find out what they are. Even I don’t pretend to know what they all are just by looking at them. I spend a lot of time researching processes to find out what they are and how to fix them if they are causing a problem. Troubleshooting computer problems is not always easy – that’s why us computer geeks aren’t worried about job security quite so much :) I have listed some resources below for you, however, so you won’t have to spend so much time researching these things.

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“Help – The Internet is Broken!!”

Well – actually – the Internet isn’t broken. If it was, I would be the first one running down the street and proclaiming the end of civilization as we know it. What is broken though is your connection to the Internet. In fact, even as I am writing this, I am unable to receive email and I can’t get a page to display on my web browser. I guess this would be a good time to discuss what to do in a crisis situation such as this.

Troubleshooting an Internet connection is as simple as following the layers, starting at layer 1 and moving on to layer 7. What the heck are these layers?! Network engineers, a long time ago, described a networking model called the OSI model. Without an advanced networking lesson, I will summarize by saying that layer 1 is the physical layer – cables, wires, and voltage. Layer 7 is the application itself – email, web browsers, and anything else you use on your computer. The layers in between represent things like network addresses, networking protocols, encryption, and communication session setup.

Lets start at layer 1: Is your network cable plugged in? Is your phone cord plugged in if you use dial up? If you use a cable or DSL modem, is the cable or network light on, off, or blinking? Is the cable modem connected to the cable itself? Is the power even on?

Take my problem today, for example. I have a cable modem. The power light is on, but the “Cable” light is not on. That means that the cable modem is not getting correct data to sync up and get good network connectivity from Comcast. I also have other indicators – my router is telling me that it is able to talk to the computer, and it says it sees voltage from the cable modem. What I have done is segment the problem and narrowed it down to which piece of equipment was having the problem – in this case the cable modem. Some things you can do in a case like this. Power cycle the modem, power cycle the router (if you use one), and see what information the status lights give you.

Also, check the router's admin console to see if it is pulling good information from the cable modem. If the router is successfully talking to the cable modem AND the cable modem is getting good network information from the provider, then the router status page will usually tell you that your router has good connectivity. If you do a release and renew and you get what looks like a good address, then that part of the network is fine. If it comes back all zero's then either the modem is bad or your provider is having a network outage.

If the modem and router (if you use them) are OK, then it is time to start checking your computer. For the most part, your computer represents layers 2 through 7 in our troubleshooting, but usually, the problem is at layers 3 or 4. Do you have a good network address, also known as an IP address? If you are using what is known as a dynamic (DHCP) address, then it is a good idea to know what it looks like when it is correct. Go to a command line (Start, Run, cmd) and type in “ipconfig /all” (no quotes). Your address will be four numbers separated by dots, such as 24.120.83.124:

As I mentioned – you need to know what it looks like when it’s working to know if it’s wrong when it’s not. Usually, if you have all zero’s or a number that starts with a 169, then you usually aren’t “pulling” a good address from the provider or your router. If you use a router, the address will usually come from your router, and be something such as 192.168.1.2. If you do not have a router and connect straight to your cable modem, your service provider will give you an address and it will be any number of addresses – find out what it is now so that you know what to look for later.

If all that is correct, then you may have another deeper problem. Usually rebooting the computer will clear this up. If it doesn’t, call your service provider. They will usually tell you if the problem is related to a service outage (which can also cause the problem with not getting a good address) or possibly your computer.

The bottom line – start at layer 1 – power cords, cables, modem and router lights, and then move up the layers looking at network addresses. If this still doesn’t solve it, reboot. And that includes the cable modem, router (if you use one), and your computer, in that order. If it still isn’t working, call your ISP for help – it’s their job.

Whoops – gotta run – my cable modem light is back on – time to go surfing.

Free Microsoft Tools to Help Your Computer

With the almost daily barrage of news about computer viruses, hacker attacks and other malicious intrusions, it is no wonder that people find computer security a daunting, almost intimidating venture. There are so many sources coming at you from all directions, that it is hard to know what is important (do it as soon as you can), and what should be considered urgent (do it yesterday).

The other thing that amazes me is the seemingly endless supply of people who want to **sell** you the same tools you can get for free on the Internet – good tools at that - to allow you to clean up your computer and keep it safe. Walk into Best Buy (or CompUSA, or Circuit City...) and there is always some "expert" waiting there to tell you that the ONLY thing that will help your poor computer is the $159 suite of tools on their software rack. I am not dissin' the hard working college kids that work there - I am simply saying that these folks are typically not "experts," and usually only know enough to parrot what they have been told by the person who trained them. One of my hobbies, after all, is to hang out in computer stores and eaves-drop on the conversations that these people have with customers. It is amazing the amount of hyperbole and B.S. that these kids spew out in order to make a sale.

Having said that, I can now tell you the good news – there are a lot of tools available for free. Microsoft has really done a good job of improving information about security updates for their software. Not only that, but they are making a wide variety of tools available for free as well. Now you can get all sorts of things from them that will help you to eradicate spyware, remove malicious software, tune up your hard drive, provide phishing filters, and even find out about the latest patches and updates.

Windows Live Safety Center (Beta):

This one is a free online suite of tools for checking for and removing viruses, cleaning out your disk drive and registry, both of which will help improve your PC’s overall performance.


Malicious Software Removal Tool:

This is also an online tool that scans your computer for a variety of malicious software. If any are detected, it allows you to select the right tool to remove the specific malware that it caught.


Windows Defender:

Still in Beta, this utility catches and removes a wide variety of spyware. Windows Defender evolved from Microsoft Antispyware Beta, a tool that Microsoft bought from Giant Software. In my own testing, this one got rid of spyware that AdAware and Spybot S&D weren’t able to. Both of the others found the spyware but couldn’t clean it off whereas the Microsoft product did.


Microsoft Security Bulletins Summaries and Webcasts:

Find out about the latest patches here. If you are extremely curious (or it is your job, as in my case) you can sign up for and attend free monthly webcasts that discuss the implications of the patches being released on “Patch Tuesday” each month. You can even sign up to get advance notification.

Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 3):

This is the next version of the Microsoft browser. This version (also available standard in Windows Vista) will include phishing filters, malicious web site warnings, RSS feed viewer, and tabbed browsing. I will caution you though – it is unlike your current version of Internet Explorer in every way. IE7 has a completely different look and feel. Don’t install this unless you are willing to take the time to learn this new browser, however.

So before you go out and spend a ton of money at Best Buy, because some pimply kid tells you that you can’t live without their $79 antispyware package, give some of these free tools a try. I guess what I am telling you is that you don't need to become a computer geek to be informed - you just have to know how to read - the sources above are a good place to start. You will find many of these tools embedded in the new version of Windows (Windows Vista) due out in 2007, but can take advantage of many of them now.

For more computer stuff, see my main web site!

When Your Computer Acts Funny - Reboot!

Computer is acting funny. The mouse doesn’t seem to want to work right. The Internet connection is off. Strange looking video is appearing on the monitor. The computer is slow. Sound familiar? When this happens, you have a choice: you can spin your wheels for several minutes troubleshooting, or you can simply reboot.

No – don’t kick your computer. Shut it down and turn it back on again. Just like we humans do from time to time, your computer gets a little confused. There are any number of things that can be happening. A driver is misbehaving, memory is clogged with garbage, too many programs are loaded and you have run low on computing resources. Who knows? One of the simplest things you can do to start eliminating many of these things is to simply shut down and restart. More times than not, the simple act of rebooting a computer brings it back to life and acting normally again. Restarting clears out memory that was somehow not freed up as it is supposed to be. Restarting also reloads those misbehaving drivers. This is known as a warm reboot – where you don’t really turn the computer off, you just tell your computer to reload the operating system.

“But my computer is completely frozen – how do I do a normal restart?” In these cases you just have to perform an unnatural act and shut down manually. (Don’t worry – if you are running Windows XP, it is tough – it can handle it and recover fairly nicely.) Most computers these days do not have a hard power switch – but rather a soft switch that interacts with the motherboard and what is known as a switching mode power supply. Don’t worry about the reasons or the technical jargon. It just means that instead of the computer turning off immediately when you hit the power button, it has to go through a somewhat lengthier power-down sequence. What this means to you is that you have to hold the power switch for about eight seconds before the computer turns off. Wait thirty more seconds, then turn it back on. This process is known as a cold reboot, by the way.

Rebooting is one of the simplest and usually most effective means of recovering a confused system. When the computer is acting funny, save all your work and reboot. Now – let me get back to work on my Linux computer – it doesn’t seem to have that problem :)

Know Thy Computer!

With computers as common as toasters and microwave ovens, you would think that people would get to know how to at least use the basic features of a computer and what it can do for them. Some essential functions that you need to know are:

• How to save files
• How to move and copy files
• How to back up your files
• How to explore your computer to find things
• How to install your antivirus software
• How to visit Windows Updates and stay patched.

To be sure, there are a variety of advanced features that can make people feel intimidated. But don’t let that expensive door-stop make you feel inferior. Spend a little time reading the instructions that came with it. Don’t feel silly because you buy a book called “Computers for Dummies.” Explore a few news groups and discussion boards about computers. Have some fun.

A computer is nothing more than an electronic device. It does things when it is told to, and sometimes even when it is not told to, but there is usually a human clicking a mouse or punching a keyboard to make it happen. Get to know your computer, and you’ll find it isn’t really the enemy.

Summer, Static, and Thunderstorms - Protecting the Availability of your Data:

Who would even think that part of computer security deals with static electricity and thunderstorms? Why do we care, from a security standpoint, if the humidity is too high, or if there are looming thunderstorms? Computer security has three distinct aspects that make up a well-rounded security posture - Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability, or what is commonly known as the C-I-A triad. Several articles so far have discussed how to keep your data safe from prying eyes and how to keep you from becoming victims of phishing and social engineering - things that mostly deal with confidentiality of your data. But part of what we consider to be very important in the computer security world is the idea of making sure that you can get to your data whenever you need to - the availability aspect of C-I-A.

This time I would like to talk about the environmental (and other) things that can threaten the availability of your data. More importantly, if something damages your computer and takes away immediate availability, are you sure the data itself wasn't damaged or destroyed? What's the plan for getting it back? After all, if your computer becomes damaged then you won't have access to your information when you need it. Even worse - unless you know the dangers and the ways to protect your data, you may lose it entirely. Even if you just have a small business at home, this can be devastating. How much damage would be done if you lost all of your business accounting records, client contact lists, and even saved email messages? Home users - would you care if several years of your income tax returns, digital photos, and even secret family recipes were suddenly lost forever?

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