Hi there,

I got two separate problems I hope someone can help with:

1 - Whenever I play a certain game my fan kicks into high-gear out of nowhere and blasts air for a minute or two and then stops again just as suddenly. The weird thing is, this PC can handle other games that are way more of a graphics hog and the game I'm having probs with is 3 years old while I got this PC less than a year ago.

2 - A program I can't uninstall. It's called MyDVD Sonic or something or other. About a month back when I started up my PC I got an update message from this program, I let it, but then it came up with a message saying it was missing a file and couldn't update the program. F that, I hit cancel. Wouldn't let me. The only way to get rid of it was to CTR+ALT+DEL. I figured problem solved, but upon next start up it happened again. And again. And again.

Out of frustration I did a search and found every file and folder Sonic had and deleted them. Restarted, and was still happening. And is still happening. Any ideas of how I can banish this bastard from my computer?

Thanks!

Regarding the first problem, even if the computer can handle it fine that doesn't mean the game was programmed well enough to take advantage of that. It sounds like the game is hitting the CPU all at once which raises the temp of the cpu which activates the fan. It doesn't last long so the fan slows down. As long as it isn't causing any other problems I wouldn't worry about it.

I agree with frenat, wouldn't worry about the fan coming on for the game. As long as the computer isn't locking or shutting off due to temperature issues it shouldn't cause a problem. The same would be true for your video card fan. We're in the same boat for Sid Meier's Pirates game. The game is old, but even during certain sequences my husbands brand new smokin (not literally!) computer will get little lag spikes now and then... bad programming. My laptop also gets a bit of lag on the game and it's at least a year newer and pretty high end. You'd think it would run flawless on systems like that... <bonks firaxis>

For the second problem, it may be easy to solve if you could tell us what exactly the message says that is coming up on the screen when you start it up. Then we can google it up and see what the word on the street is. You could also try reinstalling the software into the default directory (c:\program files\sonic\etc), then updating. That may fix the problem, but no promises.

Ah ok...thanks for the comments guys...I'll post exactly what the message says next time I reboot

Here's the message after it unsuccesfully tried to install:

Sonic MyDVD Plus

The feature you are trying to use in on a network resource that is unavailable.

Click OK to try again, or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package 'MyDVD.MSI' in the box below.

In the box it has: c:\hp\tmp\src\

Clicking cancel does nothing, hitting OK merely restarts the process.

Is the .MSI file on your computer? And, is it located at C:\hp\tmp\src ?

Click Start > Search > Files and Folders search for MyDVD.MSI. Does the search find the file? Or is it missing from your local drive?

if it's missing from your local drive, you may need to re-dowload and install Sonic My DVD Plus. But before you do that, make sure that you go to your Control Panel and check the Add Remove software list and remove Sonic before you reinstall it (if it's listed as being installed).

Did you manualy delete Sonic or did you unistall it from the Add or Remove Programs in the control panel? Manually searching and deleting files can sometimes erase essential shared resources of your computer. Uninstall Sonic from the Add or Remove Programs, run any registry cleaner like RegCleaner and get rid of all sonic related obsolete entries,
restart and then try installing sonic again.

Your getting errors when you start your computer because your startup menu is looking for a program that is no longer there. To remove that error you'll have to remove it from your startup. To do this you go to start, run, then type msconfig and hit enter. System Cnfiguration Utility should come up. Click on the startup tab and if your running Windows XP you can uncheck everyrthing there to make your computer boot faster. But if you only want to get rid of that program look for something that has that path or name "MyDVD" or something like that. There may be more then one checkmark to remove. After you remove them click OK then you will be asked to reboot the computer.


I also suggest you run these 2 programs, they are free:

http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Thanks for the advice guys, it's appreciated

The problem was solved by doing something I should have done in the first place...remove the program via "add/remove programs".