Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Why is my computer not working with the new RAM I bought?

Posted on December 5, 2017

Question from Eric H.: I have an older ASUS Essentio CM1630 desktop computer that came with 2GB of RAM.

I scanned the system with Speccy and found out it currently has a single 2GB/DDR3 RAM stick in it.

I want to upgrade the RAM so I bought an 8GB/DDR3 RAM stick and installed it so I can have 10GB total, but I ran into a problem.

The computer won’t boot with both RAM sticks installed. It also won’t boot with just the 8GB stick installed. However, it boots just fine with just the original 2GB stick installed.

What could be the problem? I know this computer is supposed to support up to 16GB of RAM total.

I’m thinking I might have bought a bad RAM stick but I wanted to check with you first in case there’s a BIOS setting or a jumper that needs to be changed.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

You’ll no longer be able to log in to Skype with your Facebook credentials come January

Posted on November 29, 2017

Many web services allow their users to log in to their accounts by using their Facebook credentials, making it easy to log in to multiple services with a single login.

I don’t really recommend taking advantage of that capability, for several reasons, but lots of folks do it nonetheless.

The popular Skype Internet communications service has allowed users to log in via Facebook for several years, but come January 2018 that’ll no longer be the case. [Read more…]

Review: Dell Inspiron i5447-6250sLV 14-Inch Touchscreen Laptop

Posted on November 21, 2017

This is an interesting era in the world of laptop computers. Gaming and business laptops just keep getting faster and more powerful while ultrabooks keep getting smaller, thinner and lighter.

And at the same time, it seems that the laptops in the middle are becoming more or less forgotten.

That being said, I believe these mid-range traditional-style laptops still have a valid place in the world. I recently had the opportunity to check out one such laptop, and came away thinking pretty highly of it. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why won’t my PC connect to Wi-Fi automatically after installing updates?

Posted on November 20, 2017

Question from Lois P.: My computer (HP laptop with Windows 10) was working fine until it installed an update about a week ago.

Ever since that update was installed the computer won’t automatically connect to my Wi-Fi network when I turn it on.

I can connect to the network manually and it works perfectly until I shut the computer down. It just won’t connect automatically no matter what I do and I really miss having it do that.

I’ve searched Google from top to bottom and I haven’t found a solution to this that works. I even used System Restore to remove the update but that didn’t help either.

A friend told me about your website but I couldn’t find anything you’ve written about this topic on there. Do you know of a fix for this? You’re my last hope!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]