Philippe

I found something else, in the Browser Cleanup window (the first one), you can click on the left and select the exact browser where the problem is cropping up. For me it was Chrome. Then unselect the box that says "Exclude add-ons with a good rating". It shows me almost a dozen add-ons, I think these are all the add-ons I've ever installed in the past, even ones on computers I owned years ago. I recognize some of them as games I tried out a long while back. Before I bought my current PC. I think the problem might be with chrome. These things are linked to my Gmail account, so when I reinstalled Chrome and linked it to my Gmail, it carried over this baggage. But I still don't know why Avast is asking me to change my home page in order to "fix" this. Especially since it's not actually fixing anything. This is like one of those things that sleezy software suites do to you when you're not careful. Change all your defaults and your home pages to something super annoying. Granted, Yahoo isn't that bad, but still! What the hell Avast, I thought you were cool!

I don't. All I've got is adblock plus, avast online security, and something to do with google docs. Like I said I never installed the game on my PC, only on my android. EDIT: Avast gave me a notepad with a kind of error report, but I closed it without saving. I did have time to see something weird about the source of the extension. I went to check in AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data/ Default/Extensions, and I can see there are 12 folders there. Is this normal if I only have 3 add-ons installed?

I'm almost certain that the Avast I installed is real, but it's doing things that don't make any sense. It recently asked me to register to continue using the free version, I stalled for a few days but earlier this week finally gave it my email address. Since then he's given me this pop up multiple times. (see picture 1) I never installed that on my PC. A while back I put it on my Android, but I uninstalled it a year ago. But here's the really weird part, if I agree and have him remove it he asks me to change my home page. What does that have to do with anything? (see picture 2) I let him do it, then went into chrome and firefox and put it back to google. Then about 1 day later, he throws me the first pop-up again! Telling me I have Angry Birds and that he needs to uninstall it to keep my computer safe. Just what is going on here? Is this normal or have I somehow installed a fake Avast that's trying to switch me over to Yahoo.

> 57 minutes Oh for goodness sake... well at least it'll be thorough I suppose. For now I'll just stick to base clocks. Thanks for the assistance anyhow. EDIT: I looked it up. OC Genie is by MSI, I have a Gigabyte. Will it work on any brand of board?

@ Enderman Does it? Well that's a good place to start. Still, I'm getting tired of people telling I'm not worth my salt if I don't know how to do any of that BIOS-level stuff. I'd still like it if people could show me a good easy-going guide with which I could learn the basics. @ Wats But what does all the nitty gritty stuff do? Like what's the difference between changing the multiplier and changing the base clock frequency, if in the end the net CPU frequency is the same? Also how come some people say you should change the memory speeds, and others tell you to ignore that?

I'd rather not open up this can of worms, but since my Asus motherboard died I've lost my Go-To auto-overclocking software. My new board is a Gigabyte and I don't think they have dedicated software of that type. Everywhere I see the question asked "What's a great general-purpose auto-overclock software" the automatic response from everyone is always something along the lines of "LOL! Oh god, never overclock using anything but the BIOS! It's so easy a retard could do it. How can you not know how it works? I mean all you have to do is go to this link and follow this ridiculously easy 47-step guide!" And usually the guide chock full of terms I can't understand. I admit, I don't get how it works. I suppose that would make me a retard based on the popular opinion. So are there any guides that REALLY break it down. That explain what the difference is between bus speed and core clock and multiplier? Or why there are dozens of settings I can change in the overclock sections of the BIOS? What they all do? I mean all I want to change is the frequency and the voltage, right? Why are there so many other settings? When I asked this over on places like Overclock.net or XDA-dev they usually respond with hostility, but I'm hoping this community is a bit more... easy going.

I finished the installation and... nothing happened. By that I mean Windows never shot me a "ERROR, this licence is already in use." So am I in the clear? Or will it crop up randomly in the future and bash me over the head with it?

I heard rumor that since the Thinkpad division was sold to Lenovo they really haven't been much to brag about. Apparently all the serious engineering stayed with IBM when they separated from the Thinkpad brand, and now they're no more reliable than your average HP, Dell, or Asus laptop. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

No offense meant, it just seems like Apple in particular design their things not to be repaired. They last as long as they last, then when something burns out you pretty much have to replace the whole device. The exception being the stuff you can fix yourself through the help of iFixit. THAT's what I'm looking, something like iFixit but that offers parts for non-Apple and non-Thinkpad laptops. I know that's difficulty in repairing has always been a thing among laptops, but it's really the one big thing keeping me from investing in one. Anything that's going to cost me well over 1000$ has to be something that's going to last.

So I recently had a motherboard die on me. I'll be getting a new one soon but I figure I'll probably have to reinstall a clean copy of Windows 7 onto the boot drive. So far as I know it wasn't damaged and should work fine. Rather than pick through all 90 GBs of it and find exactly what I want to keep I figured I'd slide it into an external enclosure, plug it into my spare PC with a USB cable and just copy/paste the entire thing onto the spare PC. It has a 500 GB drive in it with plenty of room to spare so I'm not worried about that. However... those 90 GBs essentially held an entire OS on them. I'm not sure how that works, but would creating a copy of the dead comp's OS onto the spare comp's boot drive cause any confusion? Is there a risk that he's going to say something like "Error, Windows has detected 2 different versions of SuperCritical.bat, Windows will now lock up the entire computer." Or am I worrying for nothing?

@ Jonis And I'm guessing it's hard/impossible to change the discrete GPU? I know that the RAM and SSDs are really easily accessible, I'm not sure about the rest. It would really be a deal maker to know that most of the components can be acquired from places like iFixit (even for things like replacement screen panels and the like) so that you know the laptop can last you for a long long time. I know a lot of people have this weird supply line for helping to maintain really old ThinkPads, but does anyone have that kind of parts market for modern high-end laptops? Or has everyone adopted the Apple approach of "buy a new one every 2 years, that's just how it is".

But do the cheaper ones use a fundamentally different keyboard/screen/laptop body design? Like... does the lower end ones have cheaper keyboards? Because if it is just the electronic hardware specs that are cheaper, can't people buy the cheap one and then upgrade the RAM and drives and GPU themselves? The only thing you wouldn't be able to change is the CPU and even the cheap one comes with a Core i7 Haswell. The same CPU they have in the super high-end JZ model. Why spend 3000$ to get the fancy one if there isn't that much different to the 1600$ one? G750 JW (1550$) http://www.amazon.ca/G750JW-DB71-CA-17-3-Inch-Notebook-Processor-Windows/dp/B00DHPP35M G750 JZ (3300$)http://www.amazon.ca/G750JZ-DS71-2-4-17-3-24GB-W8-1/dp/B00IAACWH6/

So the incessent ads that Linus has been throwing at us during the WAN show have finally got me into looking at this product, but I'm pretty confused as there seems to be a half a dozen different kind of G750s. On the official Asus site they have the JZ, JS and JM. None of which seem to be available on Amazon.ca. On there I found G750 JH, JX, JW, JS, and maybe a few others... I like the idea of this laptop because it seems decently solid with good upgradability. Easily accessible M.2 SSD slots and RAM slots. Plus the full 1080p screen looks nice. I just want help understanding what the difference is between all these SKUs. Some are as "low" as 1600$, but what did they cut out of the laptop to bring that price down so low? I wouldn't mind gettings a slighly lower end GPU or CPU, to me the important part is having a really solid laptop that lasts a long time. So the nice keyboard, screen and overall build quality are what I want to keep.

Thanks for all the help, as soon as the new Mobo arrives I'll give it a try. I'll have you know that I've also been going to Overclock.net and Tom's Hardware Forums to ask questions about this, and so far LTT has been fastest on the response time. So props to you guys.

That would be nice and straightforward. Does anyone know the number? Sorry if this is a nooblet line of questioning but this was my first PC, I've never had to do a big repair & recovery job it like this. I'm looking at the Windows "Contact Us" page but all they seem to have is chat services. Oh, wait is this it? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319726/en-us To contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support, telephone (800) MICROSOFT (642-7676). In Canada, call (877)568-2495.