MetaChat - Two (stupid) 'puter questions

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21 November 2006

Two (stupid) 'puter questions →[More:]

1. Someone gave me a drive and I just installed it. BOY, the dust bunnies that were in my case! She (the giver) isn't sure if it is a CD or CD/DVD drive. She's really ditzy. (But I'm the one asking the ditzy question.) She thought she replaced it with a DVD drive, and the only reason she would do that is because it's a CD drive.

But it says DVD right on its little front, next to its door. In fact it is indistinguishable from the real CD/DVD player/writer below it in my case.

But it only plays CDs now that I installed it.

Is there ANY, ah say ANY, chance it could actually be a DVD drive and I have the Cable/Slave/Master pin in the wrong spot?

No?

Oh well. Didn't think so.

2. I seem to have three audio inputs on the back of my 'puter, blue, green and pink, and they all seem to be for OUTPUT, not INPUT.

There ain't NUTHIN', ah say NUTHIN', that'll make the two mics I've tried work for INPUT in any of the holes.

Is something wrong with my sound card?

A friend pieced together my old box from components from a 'puter show, put it together and configured it. Shortly after that, he lost his job setting up corporate 'puter systems...

post by: shane at: 20:13 | 5 comments

Black is usually the mic color, yes?

posted by orthogonality 21 November | 20:26

Now lookie here, boy. I say lookie here. That there DVD drive should be all jumpered up good an' right, if'n she plays CDs. I'd wait for someone who knows though, to explain what is wrong with it.

The sound card should have a green socket for audio out, pink for a microphone, and blue for line-in. On some sound cards you can set it so that the blue is an output for another set of speakers to give you surround sound / 4.1 sound. You should also check that they aren't muted.

Depending on your operating system, you should have a volume control and a control panel type setting for audio devices. If the soundcard is a "proper" sound card, as opposed to an on-board one built into the motherboard, it will probably have it's own little application for messing up your settings. So you really need to check that all three are set up for what you want to do with the sockets at the back.

posted by GeckoDundee 21 November | 20:32

Green is for output. like a pair of speakers. Pink is for input, typically a microphone. Blue is, I believe, a line-in ... but I could be wrong. I don't use it.

Check your Control Panel (under Sounds / Audio) and make sure you've not muted your input/microphone. Typically, you'll see a bank of sliders for each output and input with a mute checkbox at the bottom.

Now ... about the drive. Even though it says DVD-Rom, you're going to need a software component to make your machine accept a DVD as what it is. This will be half application (to play) and half driver (to know what to do). And unless you have the install CD that came with the DVD drive, that software is going to cost money. I'm running a version of WinDVD from InterVideo. There is also PowerDVD.

That being said, if you know where to look, you might be able to find such software by more economical means.

posted by grabbingsand 21 November | 20:33

≡ Click to see image ≡

Ah'm tryin' out all yer fancy SCIENCE nonsense now.

≡ Click to see image ≡

Hmm... Did Aveo Attune install itself when I downloaded uTorrent to download PowerDVD? And there's nothing muted in my 'Sounds and Audio Devices'... Maybe I have a bad pink socket?

Dial-up shore does suck.

Watchin' programs download is like watchin' paint peel. It's puttin' me ta sleep...

*snoooore*

posted by shane 21 November | 23:36

That being said, if you know where to look, you might be able to find such software by more economical means.

OMG, that actually worked. It's a DVD drive now. The only thing that didn't work is the KeyGenerator. It gives me bad codes, so I'm on the trial version till I find one that works.

Thanks!

posted by shane 22 November | 00:05

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