Watching Huskies on laptop can be tricky

Q: We have a vacation home that does not have cable TV. During Husky season we would like to be able to see Husky football. I have a newer Dell laptop with the USB Comcast To Go wireless Internet. If I connect my PC to the TV is there a way for me to watch sports via the laptop to TV?

— Julie Larsen, Bellevue

A: I've tried watching Internet TV, with varying degrees of satisfaction. Most of the services that purport to be free end up with charges on most of the things I'd want to see. There are a number of packages that offer hundreds of channels from around the world for a one-time fee of $35 to $45, but how many channels do you really want to watch?

And you can't count on getting to see Husky games. For one thing, not all games are broadcast. And the games that are broadcast are carried by different carriers. The best resource for information on when and where broadcasts of Husky games are available on TV is the University of Washington website.

The other concern I'd have is bandwidth. If you're not getting cable at your vacation home and you're relying on wireless service that's generally slower, I wouldn't be surprised if the Internet TV experience would be less than satisfactory. But if you can get the game on your laptop and you want to view it on a TV, there's a good chance you'll be able to do so, especially if the laptop and the TV have S-video ports. Just connect the two devices via an S-video cable and configure your laptop according to directions in your user's manual and you should be in business.

Q: I recently upgraded my Internet connection to FiOS through an Actiontec MI424WR BHR router. The connection performance is amazing, but I've developed a problem when I put my computer in sleep mode. I'm running Vista Home. The "Enhanced Media PS\2" keyboard that came with the computer includes a sleep-mode key that I would routinely use to put the machine in sleep mode between sessions.

Everything worked fine for about two weeks. Then I found I was no longer able to connect with the Internet when I brought the computer out of sleep mode.

To re-establish the Internet connection, Verizon had to reset the entire system and it replaced the router. I found the same problem the next time I brought my computer out of sleep mode and Verizon diagnosed the issue as my computer and not FiOS. I have to agree since I only have the problem when using sleep mode and not when I turn the computer off.

My computer tells me the keyboard driver is up to date, but it also gives me the option of uninstalling and reinstalling the driver. Without specific instructions on how to go about doing this, I'm reluctant to mess with uninstalling any device driver. Do drivers become corrupted without detection?

— Brian Bigler, Lynnwood

A: I'd agree that the problem is most likely with your computer. Yes, drivers — like any other file on your hard drive — can become corrupted. So the first thing to check is that you have the most recent drivers and to reinstall them. I'd also check for a BIOS update with the maker of your computer. It sounds to me like the software that is putting your computer to "sleep" isn't waking up your network card when it wakes up the rest of the computer.

Q: Following the instructions in one of your recent columns, I went looking for the Windows Resource Monitor. Unfortunately, my Windows Vista System Tools folder does not contain the System Resource Monitor. Any ideas about where else I could look?

— Frank Krentz

A: One way to get at the Resource Monitor in Vista is to call up the Task Manager. You can do that by right-clicking in the system bar across the bottom of the screen and selecting Task Manager. Next, click on the Performance tab and then on the Resource Monitor button.

Questions for Patrick Marshall may be sent by e-mail to pmarshall@seattletimes.com or pgmarshall@pgmarshall.net, or by mail at Q&A/Technology, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/

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