ItsGeekToMe.co

Welcome, fellow Geeks, to the last edition of IGTM for 2014. For those of you keeping track, this is issue #388. Wow, that’s a lot of columns.  As I write this, it is Christmas Eve day, and I’m waxing nostalgic over all the questions that I’ve answered this year, and yes, those I’ve been unable to answer as well.  Like this one:

Q: Why do I get a green screen of death when trying to watch videos. Not always, just periodically. And how do I correct it?

– Gloria D.
Navarre, Florida

A:  Oh, Gloria.  I want to help, truly I do, but you can’t realistically think that you’ve given me enough information to understand your problem.  A GSOD is not unheard of, although most screens of death I have encountered in my travels have been blue.  But regardless of the color, each and every one of them has an error message on it, which usually tells something about what went wrong.  I kinda need that.  Also, when the “Submit a Question” form on my website asked for information about your computer, it really meant stuff like model number, type of CPU, amount of memory on board, etc.  Your answer of “HP” didn’t contribute much toward my being able to formulate a solution to your problem.

For anyone who plans to write-in a question in the future, please remember there are no extra points for brevity. However, there are no points for writing your question into a novel either – the column is only about 500 words, and I need room to write my answer.  So please, when you write, include as much information about the problem as possible, especially the exact text of any error messages being displayed.

For you, Gloria, I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark, and suggest you try disabling hardware video acceleration. Perform the following steps:

• Open Internet Explorer.
• Press the key combination [Alt]+x to bring up a menu.
• Choose “Internet options”.
• Click on the “Advanced” tab.
• In the “Settings” list, locate “Accelerated graphics”.
• Check the box labeled “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering”.
• Click “OK”.

IE must be restarted for this change to take effect, so make sure you close all IE windows before testing to see if this fixes your problem.

 

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This is just a reminder to my readers in the Florida Panhandle that the Northwest Florida Association of Computer User Groups annual Computer Tech Expo is right around the corner. Computer Tech 2015 takes place on Saturday, January 31^st from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM at Northwest Florida State College in Niceville.  This year’s event will feature more than 40 workshops on Apple, Microsoft, Linux, Android and a variety of games, Apps, and other software programs.  Each of these workshops are conducted by local IT experts and/or trainers with many years of experience in their field, including the keynote address by Dr. Deirdre Price, “Inside Out: How Social Media Changes Us”.  You can also get a free performance checkup for your laptop or smartphone.  Did I mention that all this is free?  Yes, I’ll be there too.  This will be my 7^th annual participation in the expo.  I’ll be hosting a “Meet the Geek” appearance that is half stand-up comedy and half tech Q&A.  It should be a lot of fun, so come on out and join us!  For more information, or to pre-register, visit nwfacug.org.