[ Solved ] Windows 7 Laptop Battery Charging Problem

Laptop battery start wearing off after about 1 to 2 years of usage. Many of these batteries suffer reduced backup and charging problems. I have an HP Pavilion laptop which I bought 1.5 years ago and the battery performance has considerably gone down with time. Sometimes I face battery charging related problems also which can be because of two reasons.

In this post I will discuss both the reasons and share the solutions.

Laptop Battery Not Charging Because Of Heating Issue

First problem which is there with some of the HP laptops is the battery charging stops when the laptop heats up. This is a weird problem, but the HP service center guy told me that the battery sensor malfunctions if it gets too hot and the charging stops. With old laptops with heating issues, this problem is very common. The work-around for this problem is to keep running on mains power or switch off the laptop for sometime to allow it to cool off.

A better solution to this problem is to get the laptop services and remove the heating problem by getting the cooling ducts clean. Also there may be heat sink related problems which cause excessive heating. After the heating problem is resolved, the battery charging will become normal.

Laptop Battery Not Charging Because Of Battery Device Driver Issues

There are some default battery device drivers which are bundles in Windows 7, these drivers try to control the battery charging properly, but for some laptops, these drivers may not function well. In such cases, users face problems like Laptop battery does not charge even when the battery is low and power adaptor is properly plugged into the laptop. In such cases, its better to download compatible battery drivers from manufacturer and install them instead of the Windows default drivers. [ via Raymond.cc ]

To un-install the default drivers, press Windows + R together to to open the RUN prompt. Type “devmgmt.msc” and press enter. This will open device manager.

On Device Manager, browser to Batteries > Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery ,right click on it and click “Uninstall”. After this restart the laptop and the battery charging should start.

Hope you find the method easy to follow.

Windows 7 Crashes On Connecting Portable Device or Media Device

Microsoft has recently announced a problem identified with certain third party portable devices and media devices which may crash Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems. This problem is caused because of a Windows in-built driver race condition on attaching certain devices to Windows 7Computer. There has been no announcement about the list of such devices by Microsoft.

The error or the Blue Screen Of Death which appears on detecting such devices display a message something like :

STOP: 0×00000001 (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) APC_INDEX_MISMATCH.

Microsoft has officially shared this problem at this support page. The fix for this problem will be rolled out with the official service pack 1 or the Windows 7 which may arrive around mid of year 2011. Till then, Microsoft has released a hotfix (link at the end of article) which will fix this issue.

So if you have every experienced that your Windows 7 desktop or laptop computer crashes on attaching certain portable device or certain media device, then it is advisable to download the hotfix and install it on your Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 OS.

Download HotFix

[ Solved ] Repair STOP 0x0000006B PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Blue Screen Error While Booting Windows 7

Recently, on my windows laptop I faced this error of STOP 0x0000006B PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Blue Screen. I tried many times but windows does not even boot up in safe mode or any other mode after many tries.

After some Googling I came to know that error is actually a result of issue occurs because the Bootcat.cache file is corrupted or because the size of the Bootcat.cache file is changed since the last successful start.

In order to repair this issue, you will need to delete the Bootcat.cache file is located at %SystemRoot%\system32\codeintegrity – [ or C:/windows/system32/codeintegrity ]. Once you have deleted the file restart your computer normally.

Cannot Remove, Uninstall Nod32 Antivirus

Sometimes it becomes a real problem when you decide to remove a particular anti-virus from your computer because of any reason. I guess this usually happens because of some software errors or some other mysterious damages to registry or some areas of Windows which prevents the uninstallation.

In this post I will tell you what to do if you are not able to uninstall NOD32 Anti-virus normally from Control Panel.

For a conventional uninstall, go to Control Panel > Add Remove Programs (or Programs and Features) and locate the program and uninstall. This way of uninstallation is not recommended by ESET. If you have attempted it, chances are that you might have been stuck in a case where you may find it difficult to remove it. Correct way is to go to Start > All Programs > ESET > Uninstall.

If the uninstaller does not work, ESET has released an uninstaller or NOD32 Removal tool to uninstall NOD32 properly from your computer. You can download ESET NOD 32 removal tool here. This will most probably do the job. If even the removal tool fails to uninstall the NOD 32 Properly, you can un-install it manually in safe mode.

To manually remove ESET NOD 32 Manually, boot your Windows computer in safe mode by pressing F8 key on the keyboard before Windows load. Now in safe mode, you need to remove some ESET registry entries. To delete these registry entries, go to Start > Run and type “regedit” and press enter.

Navigate to the following Registry Keys and delete these registry keys :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ESET 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ESET 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\egui

After deleting these keys, restart your Windows PC normally and NOD 32 will be removed.

Need To Change Computer’s MAC Address ?

MAC (Media Access Control) Address is supposed to be a permanent and globally unique identification associated with a network adapter, but it is possible to change the MAC address on most of today’s hardware.

We have earlier reviewed about a tool for doing MAC address Spoofing in the article View And Change MAC Address Of Any Network Interface With Free DynaMAC Tool which does not have much options to explore. In solution to this, we are reviewing about a new tool called Mac MakeUp with a variety offeatures.

Mac MakeUp is a smart utility which basically allows you to choose a new MAC address. it is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista, 2003, Windows XP and Windows 2000.

Since, it deals with network administrator and Internet security issues so, it needs administrator privilege to run it. The main window will look like this. You first have to select the adapter from the list. The number of all the adapters can be seen in the bottom line of the log window.

In the list of adapters, you can omit the virtual adapters by enabling the ‘Filter virtual interfaces’. ‘Virtual’ adapters mean which are not seen as hardware like dial up adapters.

You can add the new MAC address in the space shown. The manufacturer of this address will be generated automatically. You can also generate the new MAC address randomly in the option ‘Generate Random’ which will show you the list from where you can select your random option.

After selecting the desired MAC address, just click ‘Change’. You can also get back to the original MAC address by selecting ‘Remove’.

There is an option of ‘Extra info’ which does not work and stops the working of the application.

The option of ‘Auto Nic off/on’ lets you disable/enable the network interface when you change its address. With this option the change will be immediate and there will be no need to open network connections applet or use external tools.

The ‘Cycle interface now’ just disables/enables the interface when you press it. The log window also provides the option of saving it to other location by just pressing the right-click in the log window.

There are additional IP features which let you enable, disable or configure several aspect of Windows IP networking. There will be three types of items. Red items are undefined, blue ones are currently undefined whereas black items are currently defined.

TIP: It is advisable to make a backup of current settings with the option of ‘backup current settings’ before experimenting with these options.

This tool also provides command line usage. You can view the commands in the ‘About Mac Makeup’ option present at the top of main window which will open a new window.

Download Mac MakeUp

Block Laptop Touchpad while typing

The problem of accidental clicks while typing on your notebook is very common and is faced by most of us who has to work all day sitting in front of the laptop typing. This problem is also faced by the notebook owners or by those who prefers to use touchpad instead of a mouse. We have earlier reviewed a toolTouchfreeze for this problem which has proved to be an effective one.
But this is a vey small application which does not provide much options to personalize the tool and sometimes misinterpret actual clicks as the accidental clicks. To solve this problem, there is a freewarecalled Touchpad Blocker which offers a better level of options compared to the previous one.
It is fully compatible with the Windows 7, vista, NT 2000 and xp. It also does not need any software for its installation.
It is a multi-lingual tool so it asks for choosing the desired language before the installation process.

After you will click ‘ok’, it will be installed within a few minutes and will appear with this icon in the notification bar.

You can open its ‘settings’ by either using a hotkey ‘Alt+click’ on the icon or using right-click option. It provides the option of enabling or disabling the program to run automatically on startup.

One of the most important feature of this tool which makes it unique is the option of setting the Threshold in milliseconds. This option will help each user in personalizing this tool by setting the threshold depending on his/her speed and blocking the accidental taps and clicks.

This option will help in avoiding the misinterpretation of actual clicks as the accidental one.

For example, i have set the threshold to 600 milliseconds according to my speed then this utility will block accidental taps and clicks depending on this threshold value.

It also provides the option of ‘beep’ when any click is blocked to make you aware about it.

Also, it provides the hotkey combination of ‘ctrl+F9’ (by default) which can not be changed. This keyboard shortcut will let you turn ON and OFF this tool without even going to its icon.

So, with this tool installed in your laptop, you can achieve the desired speed on notebook without the interruption of accidental taps and clicks. So, enjoy typing..!!

Download Touchpad Blocker in EXE File

or

Download Touchpad Blocker in ZIP Archive

Stop, Block Access To Windows Applications or EXE Files

You can easily put lock on files and folders by using various software, but it is really tough to block or prevent access to Windows applications. You might me using applications like messengers etc. which could contain your password information or there may be certain applications which you don’t want others to use without your permission.

So to block access to application the possible ways are hacking or following some long procedures for every application you want to block. But today we are going to tell you about a nifty tool named App Admin which can block any applications in a very short duration. All you need to do is to drag and drop the applications into this tool and then this tool will automatically block the access to those applications.

The best part of this tool is its simplicity and no effect on your system’s performance. It even doesn’t require to be installed and you can directly run it from its exe file or even can carry it in pen drive or other medium.

IBM 5.2 GHz Z196 – The World’s Fastest Microprocessor

IBM claims that they have developed that fastest processor with 5.2 GHz speed. Here you do not even have to use nitrogen to cool off the processor. No more, you have 1.4 GHz processor that claimed to be the fastest processor and this has been ages ago. Now you have all new IBM 5.2 GHz z196 that is designed to be the fastest in today’s time. This is a four-core slab. It has been manufactured using 45 nanometer technology and this is the reason for boasting 1.4 billion transistors. It has the ability to handle more than 50 million instructions every one second.