The Computer Hardware and Software Thread

[Grimlock72]

Warduke,



This seems to have changed in Windows Update v5, going directly to the old v4 might work. On the other hand it may be wiser to enable the services specified. There are conflicting reports if that fixes all problems, you can try though.



For your information:

Quote:

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Setting Automatic Update Service to Automatic does not enable the Automatic Update feature in Windows. You are still able to choose when you wish to visit the site and what update to download and install.

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Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[Warduke]

Thanks Grimmy. I found out last night that it was because of v5, but since it's a good thing (getting the endless number of Windows security patches) I set them to auto.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Warduke]

For those on dial-up who don't want to spend countless hours downloading SP2. You can now order SP2 on CD for free.



Get it here.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Grimlock72]

And for those among us who support/help other people keeping their pc's running and have to install Service Pack 2 on those pc's anyway. (because those pc's have dial-up while you have broadband yourself)



You can download the entire Service Pack #2 at www.microsoft.com/downloads (MSDN), it is about 250Mb. Downloading is only usefull if you have to update several pc's which are not or slowly connected to the internet. (i.e. your parents pc )



Note that SP2 does re-enable the microsoft default firewall. If you have already another firewall (Sygate, Zonelabs, Norton) installed you likely want to disable the Microsoft one, otherwise you will have to configure that one as well.



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

Edited by: Grimlock72 at: 8/25/04 12:42 pm

[BytrSuite]

lol, thanks Brian. For some reason I'm in no hurry to get this on my computer.

________
Bender: Y'know, I was God once.
God: Yes I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

[Warduke]

Right after I ordered the CD, I checked Windows Update, and SP2 was there, but only 75Mb instead of 270Mb, so I downloaded it.



Took me almost four and half hours, but everything seems fine so far. I'll be sure to post again if I run into any problems.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[BytrSuite]

heh, if you still CAN post.

________
Bender: Y'know, I was God once.
God: Yes I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

[cattwoman98111]

Just an FYI, check out this website prior to installing the SP2. www.annoyances.org/



Personally, after reading the survey results, which were taken from Techs and IT personnel, there is no way this thing is going on my system.





I can wait for a better *cough* bug free *cough* version to be released.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

[Big Dummy]

I'm baaaccckkkk.



I finally got all my parts and started to build my new pc. I'm using an MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR (Grim-recommended) and an AMD Athlon Xp 2800+. I installed the mobo, the cpu, ram, and vid card, and hooked up the monitor and keyboard. Powered on, and fans spin, including on the hsf, but I get no beeps and no display on the monitor. My keyboard lights don't come on. I essentially get a quick flahs from both when I power on, and that's it. I don't know what I could have done wrong. I followed the instructions, the cpu is mounted properly, the hsf is on securely, and I believe I have all the plugs inserted correctly. Anyone have a clue as to what could be wrong?

[Grimlock72]

First thing that comes to mind is that BIOS of the mobo not ready yet for the CPU you're using... but that can't be it with a 2800. That one was supported from revision 1.0 already.



Maybe you just need to reset the mainboard, page 2-30 in your manual; "clearing CMOS jumper (JBAT1)".



That is the easiest possible solution If that does NOT work check all other jumpers for possible problems (speed set to high for example, though usually you will leave those jumpers to set-by-bios).



The mainboard you have comes with a diagnostic D-led adaptor thingie. Those 4-lights on a stick basicly Connect that one to the mainboard as well (1-6 and 2-24 in your manual).



P.S. What do you mean by 'hsf' ???



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[Big Dummy]

hsf=heastink fan.



I really hope I haven't damaged anything. I'd be more than a little angry...



I did try resetting the CMOS jumper to clear and back again, as well as the CPU speed jumper. I had left everything at the default settings, but once I got trouble I tried just about everything. Except, of course, the D-bracket, which I'd forgotten about once I realize that installing it meant I couldn't use my front USB ports. So, thanks for bringing that back to my attention. I'm gonna try it when I get home, as well as removing the battery to clear the CMOS in case that helps at all. Any idea of whether or not a bad vid card could also effect the keyboard? Wishful thinking?

[Grimlock72]

I recommend you connect the speaker to the mainboard as well. For early failures it will make distinctive pattern sounds (known as POST codes). Post codes for your Award bios are here: bioscentral.com/beepcodes/awardbeep.htm



What you need for primairy startup is a mainboard,CPU, Memory and a graphics card, nothing more (i.e. no keyboard is needed). I would recommend you start with that bare minimum and see if it gives screen-output at all.



If not, does the speaker repeat a specifiek pattern of annoying beeps ?? (long/short, amount of beeps). That D-led can be somewhat misleading so don't trust entirely on it, it's just a helpfull pointer at times.



If you got more then one bank/unit of memory try using only one of them. (i.e. keep to the bare minimum first)



For your information, the speaker will make a loud sirene like sound if the HeatsinkFan (CPU fan1) is not connected OR isn't properly informing the mainboard it is working correctly. It's hard to miss the sound, it will keep repeating until you powerdown the system. It's a build-in protection since NO startup signal will be given, preventing the CPU from overheating.



The only thing to pay attention to with cpu-fans is the way you place them at the cpu-holder. You can do it 280-degrees wrong if you try hard enough but then it won't connect properly to the cpu.



Graphics-card and memory can be tested on another system fairly easily (if you have one ), cpu is a bit harder. But you only need to two out of three usually. Post-codes should be most helpfull in this case.



P.S. Just in case, how much Watt does your psu deliver ? (and do attempt the first start-tries with as little devices using power as possible, i.e. no hard-drives connected)



Good luck!



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

Edited by: Grimlock72 at: 9/7/04 1:57 pm

[pikescoob]

okay, so shinnen told me to try posting here to see if anyone could help me...i fear something my brother did has royally screwed up this computer...let's see, symptoms...major pop-up action, and some of it won't close even when i do the "alt-f4" thing...the internet loads up very slow and some things freeze and i have to start all over...i have this program that recognizes things that should be deleted so i ran it and about 18 things popped up in my brothers documents, so i'm thinking he downloaded something and now it's slowly eating away at this computer...it's been suggested by a friend that perhaps we'll need to wipe the entire "C" drive, which would bite...shinnen said she'd try reformating but i have no clue what that means or how to do it...i have windows xp...it's a dell computer...ummm, don't know any other details off the top of my head...if anyone is willing to give it a try in helping me my email is: pikeminialf@hotmail.com ...it'd be greatly appreciated...thanks



Michelle

[Big Dummy]

Pike, what kind of program did you run to find the files? Is it Ad-Aware? That would help you remove the offending files, I believe. Might be a silly question, but did you run a virus scan program as well?



Reformatting, to answer your question, is simply erasing your hard drive and starting fresh. It gets rid of everything: operating system, files, programs, etc.



Grim[b/], I'd connected my speaker to the board, and I got no sound at all. No screeches, no beeps, nothing. I also used the D-bracket, and one of the lights on the damned thing doesn't work, so it didn't go very far in telling me what the problem could be. I had hooked up the most basic of hardware: CPU, 2 sticks of RAM, vid card, and that's it. The fans run, but nothing else happens. I also tried removing one stick of RAM, and that did nothing either. I reset some of the jumpers, cleared the CMOS, still nothing. And my case uses a 420W PSU.



I've given up the ghost on this one. It's sitting in a shop now, so I can least have a definite answer as to the problem with my system. I fear the CPU's gone. I only hope the mobo isn't dead as wel

[Grimlock72]

Pike: try running AdAware and install and run a proper virus scanner (Norton or McAfee would be recommended if you don't know much about such things ).



BigDummy: how do you know one of the lights "does not work" ? According to my manual there is no pattern with all four lights on (except 'os booting' which is OK), so only three leds would indicate an error Which led remains off ? (numbering according to manual)



I do hope you bought mainboard,memory and cpu at the same shop. That way you can dump the problem with them .



Good luck anyway,



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[pikescoob]

Thanks for the information I do have Ad-Aware already so now I'll be on the move for a virus thing...I've had Norton before so I might go with that and hopefully things can improve. Again thank you both for replying to my problem.



Michelle

[Grimlock72]

Michelle,



Mailed you as well, free virus scanner can be downloaded here: www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php



You NEED a virusscanner if you are on cable or dsl (broadband).



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[Warduke]

I used AVG before, but after reading this, I switched to avast!.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Grimlock72]

True... there is more then on free anti-virus tool I never liked Avast for it's email-scanning though, kept informing me of viruses send to me instead of filing them silently away. (I get a lot of mail). Currently running Kaspersky, which isn't free though .



I usually check www.virusbtn.com/vb100/ar....xml?table for comparison. There's pretty much a website which favors a particulair scanner for all of them. I don't recognize the site you posted a link to, though I have no problem recommending Avast for file-scanning



Good to see Kaspersky getting lots of 100% marks on VB, means my system is well protected



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[Big Dummy]

Grim, I don't have the manual on me (I can only get online at work), but it was the top right light. I jumped on that and was really excited, thinking that it indicated that it was simply an issue of memory compatibility, but even after removing the memory modules I didn't receive any kind of error code from the BIOS, which I figured should have happened.



We'll see what the guy says. I hope it's just memory.

[Grimlock72]

Quote:

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but even after removing the memory modules I didn't receive any kind of error code from the BIOS, which I figured should have happened.

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No thats not the case. For a bios screen or setup to be displayed at all you need working CPU, Mainboard, Memory and VGA output. If any of those fail you won't SEE anything.



You might hear POST beeps, if you remove all memory I would expect you to hear a repeating beeping from the pc-speaker (the build-in one directly connected to the mainboard) indicating a memory problem.



You wil NOT get a message like 'No memory found' on your display/screen if you were expecting such.



Could be a simple conflict between the brand of memory and your mainboard, that happens. Simply replacing it with another brand X usually helps then. I know I don't have specific high-quality brand memory so it's not that the mainboard is picky (esp. not when you reset the bios which sets it to 100Mhz bus-speed which is verrry low and should work on even the oldest memory )



Could be you fried the memory via static if you weren't grounded properly. I haven't heard that happening to people I know for a while though.



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[Warduke]

Firefox 1.0PR, Mozilla 1.7.3 and Thunderbird 0.8 were all released today. You can get them all at www.mozilla.org.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Big Dummy]

I'm so close. I hope to see a time in the near future where I don't have to turn to the kindly Kittens for advice/diagnosis help. But, alas, that time is not now.



I've replaced the motherboard on my pc (another MSI Delta), and got an Antec fan for my cpu. I made sure to hook the board up outside of my case first to see if it worked. All went well and I got a long beep to indicate that there was no memory installed (which there wasn't). I then installed it in my case and started it up again, with the memory installed. I've started getting this weird chugging noise somewhere in the vicinity of my cpu/psu. It's almost like a car starter; I turn the pc on, the chugging starts and will finally speed up until it stops and I can hear everything running smoothly, which then starts the POST process. Other times, it will just chug and nothing else will happen. Has anyone had this problem? Is it more likely a cpu fan issue or a psu issue?



Also, for Grimmy, because you have an MSI board: have you found your board to be picky about what kind of RAM you install? I have two sticks of one-sided Centon 256s, and I don't think it likes them. The D-Bracket lights hung up around the memory check part.



Thanks in advance.



Edited to add: I also realized, after doing some research, that it could be a fan on my board. There's a small fan next to the cpu (that wasn't there on the previous board I bought). I don't know what it does or what it's for. Clues?

Edited by: Big Dummy at: 9/22/04 4:41 am

[StrangeQuark]

BD--



That extra fan is probably your northbridge cooler.



If you hear that chugging at power-up and it eventually settles to the normal din of the fans, then it's probably a worn or dirty fan in your power supply. You may be able to help it out with some Q-tips and alcohol.



Remove the power supply from the case. It should just be held in there with a few screws through the sheet metal chassis.



Open the power supply-- should just be a couple of screws keeping it closed.



Look for a fan. When you spot it, try turning it with a finger. If it feels 'bumpy' throughout its rotation cycle, that's pretty normal. If the bumpiness seems to make it hard to turn with all but the gentlest of nudges, then it's toast.



If it turns freely, use some Q-tips and isopropyl alcohol (I've used scotch in a pinch) to scrub each of the fan-baldes, removing as much crud as possible. Once you have her clean, close the supply and plug it in to see if you've made a difference.



If the fan is clean already, then the bearing(s)-- I use that term loosely regarding the cheapo fans that they put in consumer electronics-- are shot. When a fan spins-up, the motor shaft tends to be pulled toward the impeller due to the suction that the fins generate. When the bearing wears down from this side-load, then you'll get a bit of racket as a warning. That leaves you with two options.



1) Replace the fan-- You may be able to find a similar fan and swap it, but that may require splicing or soldering to connect the DC feed.



2) Replace the power supply-- Bring the old one with you so that you can be certain that the replacement is the same size and wattage, and also that the MB power leads are the same. If you can find a good match, but its output wattage is higher, that'll be okay. If the wattage is lower than your original, that won't be okay.



I've done all three of these options and they're really rather easy, except for the fan replacement one which requires a little splicing skill and some color coordination.



Oh yeah, also check to see if there's any wiring/cables that may be too close to any of the fans also.



Good luck.



-SQ

Edited by: StrangeQuark at: 9/22/04 5:04 am

[Big Dummy]

Thanks SQ. It's not a dirty psu, because the case is brand new, but it is a generic unit (Powmax), and I have heard that the psus that ship with cases are usually not that great. That would explain why it starts the system up sometimes, and other times just clunks away without going through the rest of the POST process. I'll give a shot at replacing it.

[Grimlock72]

I usually recommend replacing an entire PSU as opposed to attempting to repair it (cost vs. time). Depending on where you live the current/voltage you get might vary a lot. If it does it might be wise to invest in proper regulating PSU (Enermax or such). If you ever get powerspikes in your area you pretty much NEED such a psu.



I've recently disabled my Northbridge fan because it started making a lot of noise, which annoyed me. I've not noticed any negative effects from doing so and I run a temperature monitoring tool to be sure My system is not in any way overclocked so that might help too.



I don't know if this mainboard is memory brand sensistive, I just placed the brand X memory I bought and it worked . Never bothered with brand memory myself. Memory IS sensitive to current/voltage changes though. Friend of mine who lived in a slightly run-down appartment building had a current-spike kill his memory once. Which is the reason I had Enermax and now a ChiefTec PSU (the latter came with the tower-case ).



PSU's sometimes failing to start a system are usually suspect for delivering to low Watt/output or not enough of it at first startup. I have looked into it years ago, got fed up with it and bought the above mentioned Enermax 350W.



The northbridge fan (the small square one) can be easily disabled

by unplugging it's tiny power cable from the board.



Is the memory you're using the same that was in the mainboard you've replaced ? (the faulty first msi you had) ? If so it might have been damaged by that mainboard. Either way, if it's flaky complain quickly and most stores will replace it without hassle. You did check your FSB/speed settings in your bios right ? (try 'standard' settings). What are the symptoms that make you suspect a memory problem anyway ??



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[Big Dummy]

Grim, I suspect a memory problem in general because regardless of whether I have one, two, or no chips installed I get the same long beep, and the D-bracket (helpful little device) hangs up with one green light in the top right corner and the rest showing red, which is a memory check according to the instructions. So unless the D-bracket is wrong, and I'm mistaking the long beep I get shortly after turning the system on, it doesn't like the memory. And it does happen to be the same memory I was using with the board I had to replace.



In other news, I'm stumped by the noise coming from the computer. I switched out the psu with an Antec Smartpower 350w, and when I started it up it chugged and chugged but never caught. I reinstalled the original psu (Powmax 400w) and even though it still chugged it eventually caught on and started to run. The noise is weird. It's like someone turning a wheel, and the wheel sort've chugs as it's getting up to speed, and they start turning faster and faster until they get it to catch, and then it turns as fast as it needs to to run smoothly and the chugging turns into a smooth hum. Sometimes it happens for 30 seconds before catching, sometimes it doesn't happen at all, sometimes it chugs and doesn't catch.



Besides replacing the psu, I've also used both voltage settings on the psus, moved the fsb jumper, unplugged the Northbridge fan, and reseated the heatsink connection to the motherboard. I suspected it might be the heatsink, but even if it wasn't spinning as fast as it needed to for some reason, it wouldn't affect the entire board powering up. I'm flummoxed. And while it doesn't stop my board from starting up (I think; I have to get more RAM), it seems like the kind of things that can escalate and be a problem for me later.

[justin]

Mozilla.org have released Firefox version 0.10.1 which fixes a security hole in the last release. You can get info about the security hole and upgrading here

A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument...and the occasional bar fight. -JMS

[Warduke]

Mozilla has released Firefox 1.0 RC 1.



You can get it here.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Washi]

Ok, I seriously need help here. My Paint Shop Pro won't work anymore. Everytime I try to add something to an image, I get this damned problem (translated):



The instruction at "0x0067f8e8" employs the memory address "0x00000008". The memory cannot be "read".



The number change a bit, but it's always the same problem. I tried deleting some stuff, deleting programs, reinstalling psp 7, but nothing. Anyone can help me out here? I'd really appreciate it a lot. Thanks in advance.

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"See? I've mastered this tact crap." Anya in Tears Of The Goddess by Lisa



The course of love doesn’t always run smooth, especially for the neurotic and accident-prone. ~ LadyB



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