Weekly Roundup Of 6 Computer Problems And Solutions

Every Friday/Saturday we will do a post where I look at a few of the problems I have dealt with both online and on callouts during the week.

Hopefully this will be something I get round to doing every Friday/Saturday so be sure to subscribe.

This week we look at laptop wireless problems, data usage problems, email SMTP servers, video buffering and USB 3.0 compatability.

I have hit my broadband limit since I started using Netflix do I have a virus is something wrong?

It’s highly unlikely that you have a virus. If you have been watching a lot of TV shows or movies via Netflix this will be the cause of reaching your Broadband limit if it is pretty low.

A lot of broadband providers give you limits of only 10 or 2GB on their lite packages and this is not very much when streaming video. A 30 minute TV show will be about 400mb and a standard move could be 1GB+. If they are HD then you would be looking at about 2.5GB

You can see where the bandwidth is going now!

What is an SMTP server where can I find it?

SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and is what is used to send email. If you are trying to find your SMTP server to setup your email you can usually find this by contacting your ISP or your hosting company.

You can find some common Mail servers here

My wireless won’t work on my Laptop

This is a more common problem than you would think and most of the time it is a very simple solution.

Most laptops have a way to enable and disable the wireless device built into the laptop. It may be a switch on the outside of the laptop that may be set to disabled. If you have no switch on the outside then it may be key combinations. There will be something that looks like an aerial on the top row of your keyboard (Likely to be on the F2 key or the F12) You may need to press the key along with a function key (FN) key on your keyboard.

My laptop is not charging the battery or working off the power supply

This can be caused by 2 things.

1. The power adapter for the laptop is faulty and needs to be replaced. You can pick these up pretty cheap from eBay.
2. The DC jack (socket on the side of your laptop) is faulty and needs to be replaced. This is a little more difficult as it means the laptop needs to be taken apart and a replacement socket soldered on. This should be done by a professional if you are not familiar with taking a laptop apart

I have bought an external hard drive  but it is USB 3.0 will it work if my computer is USB 2.0

The simple answer is yes. USB 3.0 is backward compatible meaning it will work fine with USB 2.0 but it will be at USB 2.0 speeds and not 3.0

When I watch a video it always says buffering how can I fix this

Buffering is when a video loads to be played. Seeing buffering every few minutes is a sign of a connection problem.

1. The connection problem is at the server end (The company hosting the video). They may have a lot of viewers on their website which means the speed has to be shared. There is not a lot you can do apart from go back at a less busy time
2. Your connection is slow and struggling to play the video. This is more likely and there are a few things you can try. Visit “why is my connection slow” for some tips on getting your internet connection running faster.