computer experts

[astromech_kuhns]

lol nothing like this. were taught to type and use excel and stuff. nothing important.

[Jedi-Loreen]

And they didn't teach you how to use the Help function either, apparently.

[Tenric Starkindler]

"yes. To Arkm and XL97 you listen."
It sounds like they can help you figure out why you need to "Force Quit" so often. Such situations are often related to either a bad driver or the corruption of a system file in my experience. The issue with both video and sound playback may point to a codec issue and the black screen may indicate a video card driver issue. make sure those are up to date and correct for your hardware.

Safe Mode is as explained so far.....a minimal interface that essentially loads only default or "safe" drivers and components. This is useful for removing problem programs, drivers, etc. since they aren't running and can therefore be dealt with.

[astromech_kuhns]

never even knew it was there JLO

wow my computer has everything wrong with it then huh? when i build a computer my problems will all go away

[Darth_DevilGuy]

never even knew it was there JLO

wow my computer has everything wrong with it then huh? when i build a computer my problems will all go away

no, they won't. not unless you do it right anyway.

OK first off, XL is exactly right on safemode, it basically starts your system without loading any of the extra crap you've installed, programs that run on startup and services that aren't needed to run windows are disabled in safemode. It's mainly used if your box is so borked that you can't do maintenance under normal conditions.

Many manufacturers install BIOS options that note when the system hard boots and prompt you to start in safe mode, this isn't a big deal and you can ignore it, unless your system is forcing you to hard boot all the time, in which case you should do something about it.

When you go on the net you need protection, in my proffessional opinion you want to use one of these four: Kapersky, TrendMicro, Norton, McAfee. USE ONLY ONE, they do not play well together. If you don't have one of these please unplug your computer, I don't want any of what you undoubtedly have. On top of a good antivirus get an antispyware program, contrary to popular (read: stupid) belief, they are not the same thing, I recomend Spybot S&D it's free to private users, but corporations like mine are willing to pay tens of thousands for licences to use it commercially, it's worth your time to get it.

[astromech_kuhns]

I DONT HAVE A VIRUS!

serously i do scheduled scans and no it doesnt do this to me weekly or anything i simply dont like it when it does, i tend to go into freak out mode when things dont work right.

it did this to me once and i had to take it in to get repaired then other then that it was the times i had to force shut down. i was told that if you force shut down things are likely to go wired though.

even now my computer is running great and as i said it has only done this when i force shut it down. i just wanted to know that beings this happens to me and safe mode is something i found out when it happened, how to use it.

if after force shutting down my computer it does this, i also was wanting to know if i needed to go into safe mode or just continuing. i was told it goes to this option because if i force shut down that means the computer bios is reading that for some reason i did not quit XP right and it thinks something may be wrong, but if i know its not wrong then i can just continue normally.

if i have made it sound like this happens daily, im sorry i mislead you, because it doesn't, only three times has it happened. i meant general things that im unaware of how to do happens to me alot, not this particular problem. i just dont like it when i don't know what is going on and i have to fix it with simply guessing. i just don't want to be stuck guessing.

JLO: help center told me what it was and how to access it but not how to use it to fix things.

[xl97]

Have you tried to 'roll back' any/all your drivers for your audio & video?

Sometimes when you do Windows Updates.. it will give you an update to your driver(s).. even when they arewnt needed.. and some/most of the time they fubar something..

rolling them back can help...

also.. have you ran Malware-Bytes yet? Mal-ware/Ad-ware is different than a 'virus'.. and there is nothign wrong with having Malware-bytes on yoru machine to scan whenever you feel like it.. its GREAT IMHO...

I also use NOD32 as my AV...(real time protection)..

your problem is you need to find out what makes you 'force shut down'..period.. end of story.

(whenever it 'does' happen)

[astromech_kuhns]

freeze up of whole system once, no screen another(it remained lit up but black) and then it didn't turn off when i hit shut down/restart.

[Jedi-Loreen]

He means you need to find out what's making that happen.

[astromech_kuhns]

i see!