[daba]

Thanks for your input and help. Regarding Touchpad Blocker, without it when I type random palm strikes on the touchpad cause the cursor to go all over the place because on my Dell Inspiron 1526 it is not possible to disable the touchpad so actually I do absolutely need this but I can try a temporary uninstall to see if the clicks stop. They're still happening but not as frequently, oddly. You foxed me with: 'Tell it you do no need CCLeaner'. Sorry, but how do I tell it? Thank you very much.

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The last time I downloaded speccy it wanted to give me CCleaner.  There was a box you had to uncheck to keep from getting it.

 

Your Hard drive doesn't look that bad.  I was thinking it might be failing and making the clicking sound but it looks OK.  Your temps are a bit high.  Make sure you use it only on a hard surface so the air intakes on the bottom do not get blocked.  You may want to run Speedfan to monitor your temps in real time:

 

 

http://www.filehippo...nload_speedfan/

 

Download, save and Install it (Win 7 or Vista right click and Run As Admin.) then run it (Win 7 or Vista right click and Run As Admin.).

 

It will tell you your temps in real time tho the default is to show the hard drive temp in the systray.  You can change it:  Hit Configure then click on the highest temp and check Show in tray.

 

 

I would go into Device Manager (Right click on Computer and select Manage and then Device Manager then View, Show Hidden Drivers.)

and right click on each of the keyboards, touchpad, and audio devices and uninstall them (leave the drivers) then reboot.  Windows will reinstall them.  See if that helps.

[RKinner]

The last time I downloaded speccy it wanted to give me CCleaner.  There was a box you had to uncheck to keep from getting it.

 

Your Hard drive doesn't look that bad.  I was thinking it might be failing and making the clicking sound but it looks OK.  Your temps are a bit high.  Make sure you use it only on a hard surface so the air intakes on the bottom do not get blocked.  You may want to run Speedfan to monitor your temps in real time:

 

 

http://www.filehippo...nload_speedfan/

 

Download, save and Install it (Win 7 or Vista right click and Run As Admin.) then run it (Win 7 or Vista right click and Run As Admin.).

 

It will tell you your temps in real time tho the default is to show the hard drive temp in the systray.  You can change it:  Hit Configure then click on the highest temp and check Show in tray.

 

 

I would go into Device Manager (Right click on Computer and select Manage and then Device Manager then View, Show Hidden Drivers.)

and right click on each of the keyboards, touchpad, and audio devices and uninstall them (leave the drivers) then reboot.  Windows will reinstall them.  See if that helps.

[daba]

Thanks for your perseverence. Just to clarify re the clicks, they definitely sound like mouse clicks. As if, someone were clicking through files. Yes, the high temps I've known about for a long time: it's a known issue with this laptop. I already have Speedfan on my system; previously I had another thing which did a better job, seemed to regulate the fan noise not simply monitor the temps (what's the point of knowing if you can't lower them?) but I can't remember what it was. In an effort to keep the machine cool, I was advised to buy one of those fans you put underneath the base but to simply not turn it on. They said the opposite of what you're saying: ie to keep a gap under the laptop. So I'm trying your way now. I have a small fan running by the side of the machine because the temps here in Guangxi can easily hit 100 with ridiculous humidity too. That seems to help, but yes it gets hot.

 

You advice regarding uninstalling the various bits fills me with dread for the simple reason that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I don't want to mess it up even more. Today something really weird happened. It started yesterday with an alert saying I needed to reset the back up settings (did something we ran disable them?). So I did that as best I could and saved them. This morning repeatedly my machine rather than hibernating when I press the power button, shut down instead, numerous times (but not the last one). Plus this morning when I fired her up for the first time I had to re-input my broadband password and username (this has happened possibly twice in 5 years). I don't know why. Could it be connected with this need to change the backup settings. At the same time I spoke too soon re the mouse: it still causes manic autonomous scrollbar movements. So the clicks and the mouse issues remain. Maybe I'll just have to live with them. The touchpad is not listed under show hidden devices.

[RKinner]

I looked back over what we have done and I don't see anything that should have caused those changes.

 

There is one thing I see in Speccy that sometimes causes problems.  

 

Battery

AC Line Online

Battery Charge % 1 %

Battery State Low

Remaining Battery Time Unknown

 

 

 

You might shut down, remove the battery then start it back up.  Sometimes a dead battery will load down the power supply and starve the PC.  Usually it makes it slower so I didn't think of it earlier but it's something you can check easily.

 

Also I do not see the Tourchscreen driver in Speccy.  (There is usually a section in Control Panel on it.  Sometimes it's hidden under Mouse.  Do you see anythiing?)   Sometimes they disable the driver when a mouse is plugged in but I would think you would still see it in Device Manager.  Dell only has the driver for XP & Vista.  It's called   Dell Touchpad / Pointing Stick, v.7.1007.115.102, A02  You might try to see if it will take the Vista one.  http://www.dell.com/...n&categoryId=IN Usually you can go into Control Panel and make the touchpad less sensitive to taps or turn off taps altogether

[daba]

Sorry for taking so long; the reason is it's all a bit disheartening. My original issues were what sound like mouse clicks actioned by an invisible hand whenever I open Utorrent. There was also the issue of my erratic mouse causing manic scrolling and so I haven't used it in ages. I installed the driver but it made things worse. It seems to have caused - well, I don't know what you techs call it - I can only describe it as cursor latency or something. What I mean is that now, the new additional issue is that, for example, if I'm scrolling with the cursor, finish and then move the cursor back to something on the page, it's as if it hasn't moved from the scrollbar and continues to cause scrolling. So I removed the new Touchpad driver thinking that must be causing it but it's STILL happening!! It's crazy-making! Plus listen to this yesterday something really weird happened: I had google translate open when suddenly the black tiny cmd window opened for a split-second some code or something was written in it really fast and it closed up again. No idea what it was, it was too fast to see. Whadya make of that? So I got rid of a youtube ripper, but maybe the culprit was google or something else entirely. Either way,  it's all turning to [bleep], excuse my French.  I'm not confident with the concise nature of this instruction. Could you maybe flesh it out with a bit more detail, if you still think it's worth a shot:

'I would go into Device Manager (Right click on Computer and select Manage and then Device Manager then View, Show Hidden Drivers.)

and right click on each of the keyboards, touchpad, and audio devices and uninstall them (leave the drivers) then reboot.  Windows will reinstall them.  See if that helps.'

Thanks.

[RKinner]

[attachment=81912:devmgr.jpg]

 

Right click on each keyboard and mice device and select Uninstall.  (If it asks you if you want to remove the drivers tell it no)  Reboot.  Windows will find the keyboard and mouse and reinstall them.

[daba]

Apologies for the long delay. I did the driver reinstall thing. Still can't use my mouse and still getting mouse click noises when utorrent is on. But the  bigger concern is what I mentioned in my previous mail but which you didn't address; namely, the code drop from google translate. Today I noticed that when I'm not on Astrill and access an address (in this case a doctor's surgery in London) it hangs and in the bottom left corner of the window it said, unbelievably since I did not have google translate open: 'Connecting to translate.google.com!). So you may think I'm mad but I assure you I'm quite sane when I tell you that I did see that code being written to the CMD window and now it seems they're mining data with it. Is there anything I can do to reverse it/get rid of it or report it someone? Thank you.

[RKinner]

Let's see if we can get Tiny Firewall installed.  If you are being controlled remotely it should block it.

 

http://tinywall.pados.hu/

[RKinner]

A guy named Jeff sent me this youtube video.  He claims it fixed the same problem that you reported.

 

 

I guess it wouldn't hurt to have FRST search for utorrentie.exe and see if finds it.

[daba]

Hi RK,

 

I'm sorry for the big gap: I lost my job and spiralled into a bit of a deep dark hole. Thanks for your two suggestions. I got as far as App Data.  He said if you couldn't see it to activate hidden files via view but I didn't have view on my page at all and so I got no further. I have downloaded and will run TinyWall. Thank you very much.

 

Daba

[RKinner]

Delays are no problem.

 

To View hidden files:

 

 

http://www.howtogeek...-windows-vista/

[daba]

Tinywall was way over my head and it blocked stuff so I had to delete it. The how to geek page you suggested doesn't help. The problem, as I said, was that  "View" was not anywhere to be seen on the page at that point in the process.

 

My disk player won't play most of the time and it doesn't wake from sleep but shutsdown. I just maybe stumbled on why when I was checking my defrag scheduler. Performance info flagged 3 drivers causing slow resumption: 1 was for Data Traveller USB, 1 was for Player, and one for ATI something or other. Do I need to update those drivers? If so, may I ask how?

 

Thank you very much RK.

[RKinner]

Usually your PC maker's website will have new drivers for stuff that came with it.  If not you can:

 

Right click on Computer and select Manage and then Device Manager then View, Show Hidden Drivers.  Now look in the right pane for the devices you want to update.  Right click on one and select properties then click on the Details tab.  Change Property to Hardware IDs.  Click on the top one then right click and copy.  Paste that into a reply.  Repeat for all devices you want to update.  I can search and try to find updates for you.

[daba]

I salute your persistence with me. I searched Dell Inspiron 1526 Drivers but didn't find what I think I need, it was all in Chinese anyway. Tried again with my VPN turned on, same. Weird. I can't remember what I was doing exactly that led to those drivers being flagged up as having a problem (something to do with performance but how I got there, anyone's guess). So I tried your Device Manager method but I couldn't locate Data Traveller, it wasn't listed and the other two that had flagged up I didn't have a full name for.

So no joy....however in other news...

 

The other day I took my laptop to a repair guy here because it was running hot and kept shutting down. The fans weren't working - dust. So he cleaned it up and now it's much better. But it's started switching itself on again in the middle of the night (I think this happened after a Firefox reset), Player won't work, oh and the mouse erratic cursor thing apparently the mouse wheel was broken and was the cause. So I have a new mouse new and it the problem of erratic cursor is no more...

 

Thank you very much.

[RKinner]

For your switching on in the middle of the night,

 

Go in to Device Manager and find your Network Adapter.  Right click on it and select Properties then Power Management.  Uncheck Allow this device to wake the computer.  OK.

 

See if that helps.