Tech Questions & Answers Archives - Page 180 of 258

Q&A: Is a loose power connector on a brand new laptop a problem?

Posted on July 31, 2018

Question from Darla: I bought a new laptop from Best Buy a couple of days ago. It cost a little over $800.

The laptop seems to work fine but there’s one problem. Well at least I think it might be a problem and I need your advice/opinion about it.

The power cable doesn’t seem to fit into the laptop’s power connector very well. It just seems to be “loose”.

When I wiggle the connector around it moves quite a bit but the laptop never shuts down or blinks or anything.

Every other laptop I’ve ever owned had a well-fitting power connection. Do you think this one is defective or is that normal for some laptops now?

I would just return it but I know that Best Buy charges a 15% restocking fee, which in this case would be $120! That’s why I’d rather not return it unless you really think I need to.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I download the Windows 10 Lock Screen images to my hard drive?

Posted on July 18, 2018

Question from Rhonda A.: Hi Rick. I have a question for you.

I recently bought a new computer and I just love the pictures that Windows 10 puts on the Lock Screen.

Is there any way to copy those pictures to my hard drive so I can use them as background images? I tried right-clicking on them and that doesn’t bring up a menu or anything.

If you don’t know of a way to do this it’s ok. Thanks for your help.

Rick’s answer: I love those Lock Screen images too, Rhonda. And yes, there is indeed a way to copy them to your hard drive.

There’s a neat little free app in the Windows Store that was designed specifically to download Windows Spotlight photos to your hard drive.

It’s called SpotBright, and here’s how to install and use it: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can a 30GB program run on a PC that only has 8GB of RAM?

Posted on July 5, 2018

Question from Daniel G.: Hi Rick. I just noticed something that has me puzzled and I hope you can help me understand how it works.

Last night I downloaded a game and installed it on my computer, and it runs just fine.

The thing that’s puzzling me is the game was a 30GB download but it runs on my computer even though it only has 8GB of RAM.

What trick are they using to shoehorn 30GB of code into 8GB of RAM? Is it compressed somehow?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Is it safe to keep using a hard drive after doing a low-level format to lock out bad sectors?

Posted on June 29, 2018

Question from Tom J.: I have a 4TB Seagate external hard drive that recently came down with a bunch of bad sectors even though it’s only about 2 years old.

A friend of mine said I could do a low level format of the drive to lock out the bad sectors and the rest of the drive would work just fine.

What’s your opinion on this? I hate to just trash a drive that large when it still has most of its capacity available, but I don’t want to risk losing my files either.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]