Ask A Geek

Q: I’m running Windows Vista on my laptop. I added an Xbox 360 as an extender in media center. However, this is using a massive amount of power from the laptop, so I’ve decided I no longer want to use media center!. I’ve gone to settings and disabled what I think are processes to media center, but my laptop is still using way more power than it used to. Does anyone know of a way to fix this?

A: Here are all the services you’ll need to disable:

Windows Media Center Extender Service
Windows Media Center Receiver Service
Windows Media Center Scheduler Service
Windows Media Center Service Launcher
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

Q: I hope you guys can help!

I’m running Windows Vista on my laptop. I added an Xbox 360 as an extender in media center. However, this is using a massive amount of power from the laptop, so I’ve decided I no longer want to use media center! I’ve gone to settings and disabled what I think are processes to media center, but my laptop is still using way more power than it used to. Does anyone know of a way to fix this?

Q: I have a Toshiba Satellite running Windows XP Media Center Edition and I have four USB Ports but I seem to only be able to use one at a time. Regardless of which port I use it is always listed as the E:\ drive. I have tried using the “map network drive” function, but I’m not trying to map a network (and don’t have one set up), I just want to be able to use multiple USB ports at the same time. How might I set that up?

A: I have found numerous issues with USB ports on the Toshiba Satellite laptops. All of them seem to point to the BIOS driver. I have included a direct link to the BIOS updates. The only thing you need to do is select the model of the laptop and it will list the BIOS drivers when you follow the link.

Download the driver and install. It appears that a BIOS version 1.90 has fixed all previous cases of this exact issue. If you need further assistance please let me know.

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_modSel.jsp