The Computer Hardware and Software Thread

[Grimlock72]

Washi,



Employs probably is "references", at least that is the error I know The error means that the program you use attempts to do something with memory that either is not it's "property" or not valid (i.e. reading something where nothing was written, that kind of stuff).



Do you ONLY get this in PSP ? Even if you do it could very easily be an entirely different program corrupting your memory or blocking PSP from accesing it. Which virus-scanner do you use, is it up-to-date, anything in it's logfiles ? Scanned for Spyware recently ? Badly programmed Spyware crap is know to cause this problem sometimes, though usually when you use Internet Explorer.



When you write "add something to an image" is that an existing image ? If so, did you try another image or even an empty one ?



If you run Windows XP, did PSP work for you before installing service pack 2 ? Service Pack 2 has some additional protection which *might* cause this. SP2 does 'enforce' certain checks muc harder than before and since PSP7 is fairly old it might not conform to those standards. Read www.tech-recipes.com/wind...ps566.html to see how to disable DEP (the 'enforcing' so to speak) for specific programs. If for some reason that doesn't work you might want to disable DEP altogether but thats a bit hard. Try the per-program approach first.



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

[Washi]

Hey,



Yep, it's references. Ok, now, let's start the answers. :

PSP is the only one to have this problem.

Spyware and anti-virus up to date. I have Ad-Aware and Panda Anti-virus. Which I ran the moment after PSP shut down. Clean.

I tried adding something to an existing .psp file I had been working on. But, it's the text option that loves shutting the program down.

PSP 7 has been working fine for the last 3 years I've been using it. With SP2 installed, it worked like a gem.

I tried seeing if only that specific version of PSP got corrupt or something, so I got PSP 9.

Works nicely, and is wy nicer than PSP 8. I didn't like the interface in PSP8.

Well, hopefully, I'll never get this problem again. Thakns anyways Grimlock.

-------------------



"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



.:Dark-bliss.net :. .:Blink.Flash.Sparkle.:. .:My blog:. .:Blood and Ink:. .:Washi's 70s Site:.

[Grimlock72]

Washi, since you mention you only have that problem adding text... I was wondering if one your fonts had become corrupted or something like that. It's not something I know much about, but maybe something to keep in mind.



Aw well, it works now... lets not touch it and hope it stays that way

--
"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]

Got a question that might be completely dumb, but I'm honestly baffled.



I'm keeping a keen eye on the temps in my case, and want to make sure that I have everything optimized for cooling. I have 4 fans installed: 1 in the front, 2 on the back (near the cpu), 1 on the side. My psu has a fan on the bottom. I know that in case cooling there's an issue of how much air to exhaust and how much to intake. Thing is, the fans I bought weren't designated as one or the other, and I can't figure out how to differentiate/make a fan intake or exhaust. Is it a matter of which way it faces? When I put my hand around the outside of the case, it feels like hot hair is blowing out, so maybe by default they're all exhaust. How does one get it to be an intake fan, or is that a special fan?



Hoping you forgive the stupidity,



BD

[Grimlock72]

Err... if a fan blows the wrong way I just place it the other way around Well for case-fans that is. I have a case where I 'click' fans into slots, so if it blows the wrong way I just take it out of its slot turn it around and insert it



What are your temperatures and why are you keeping such a close eye on them ??



I run the same mainboard with an amd xp-3200 at the moment. Temperatures as reported by Hmonitor (www.hmonitor.com/) are (system has been running for a week or so): CPU 49c, CPU2 37c, Mainboard: 35c, HDD's: 32/33/25 (all 7200rpm with a coolerfan each).



Hope that helps..



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: 10/30/04 5:47 am

[Big Dummy]

Thanks Grim. I thought it was as simple as turning a fan around, but I was double-checking. I'm being nervous and anal about my temps just because, in researching what I needed to know about building a system, proper cooling has come up everywhere, and it's something I hadn't ever thought about before. My previous pc was a Compaq, and it had no fans whatsoever, and no ventilation as far as I could tell. My cpu temp hovers between 36-38C when just surfing and using basic Windows apps. The MSI monitor shows the system temp as being about the same, so everything's keeping even. I didn't know if I could optimize it to run a little cooler, or if that was even necessary. Given the temps that you have with a 3200, I guess I'm doing okay.

[Warduke]

Mozilla just released Thunderbird 0.9.



You can get it here.

---

Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Big Dummy]

I'm baaaaccckkkk...



Anyone have a clue as to why a mouse might not work after rebooting? I literally have to manually shut the computer off and turn it back on for the mouse to work. If I just restart, which I've had to do many times when installing software and updates, the mouse is frozen when the pc comes back up. I've googled this and haven't found anything similar. It's a regular old PS/2 mouse.



Thanks.

[Kieli]

Make sure the mouse is seated firmly in the back of your PC. If it's even the slightest bit loose, it won't be recognized by your BIOS. You might have to change drivers (old driver might have gotten corrupted) or you might need to clean/replace the mouse if reseating it doesn't help.



Cheers!

Kieli

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[Warduke]

Thunderbird 1.0 is out.



You can get it here.

---

Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[meretricious]

i don't know how mac specific my problem is, maybe anyone can help me. my ibook is having a kernel panic, about once a week. i want to back up my hard drive to an iphoto before i take it in, the guy in the mac store recommended carbon copy cloner, which i already downloaded. mostly now i'm in a state of paralysis for fear of screwing something up. the mac expert who looked at my computer in passing and said "that's kernel panic" also said that it is sometimes fixed by reloading my operating software, but i'm scared to do that, too. can anyone offer help? advice? courage? thanx, mary

let's do it let's do it let's jump
in with both feet~julia fordham

[tiredsoul]

The following is assuming you have OS 10.3 running"



Try rebooting your system in safe mode. This is done by 1) Shut down the computer. 2) Press the Power button. 3)Immediately after you hear the startup tone, press and hold the Shift key. 4) Release the Shift key when the spinning progress indicator appears below the gray apple on the screen. Note that it may take longer for the computer to start up and some programs will not work in this mode. (It's the same as Extensions off in OS9).



Then run disk utility to repair the hard drive (located in the Applications folder | Utilities). If it repairs, you are in good shape. If not, you can get TechTool Pro to repair any damage. A clean reinstall will most likely work but you risk losing all your settings in the process.



A kernel panic is relatively new to most mac users and a "freak out" in some ways. Basically, it can be caused by a number of factors. My first one was hot swapping USB and Firewire cables. It happens.



A good maintenence procedure in OSX is verifying/repairing permissions on a regular basis or each time that you install/delete programs and/or security updates.



Mac repair is expensive for something that you can usually fix yourself. And you can learn something in the process :-)



Hope this helps. PM me if you want more info.



--celia

[meretricious]

celia-thank you SO much. easy to follow instructions, and i think it worked. i guess i won't really know until i go a week or two without a kernel panic, right? i hate that term, just the word panic sends the adrenaline in and the i.q. down. why can't they call it a "kernel concern" or something.

do you have any advice for the best way to back up my hard drive? I have the one G speed, but only 256 memory, cause that's what i could afford with last years tax return. so with some of this years return i would really like to add memory and safety (me with a computer is like giving an 8 year old the car keys, every day i manage not to screw it up is a minor miracle)

thanx again for your help, and any advice you have for the computer naive would be a bonus~mary

let's do it let's do it let's jump
in with both feet~julia fordham

[justin]

Quote:

---

i hate that term, just the word panic sends the adrenaline in and the i.q. down. why can't they call it a "kernel concern" or something.

---

it's called a kernel panic rather than a kernel concern because it's meant to convey the fact that your system is, to all intents and purposes, fubar.



It's the Unix version of a blue screen of death on Windows or a guru meditation on the Amiga.

--

Homer Simpson: When will people learn, democracy just doesn't work.

[EasierSaid]

I use a back up program for the Mac called BounceBack Pro. It's compatible with a lot of external hard drives (I use it with a Seagate drive). It's really cool because all you have to do is install the software, then push one button and it backs up your entire system (usually takes a few hours, but it's worth it, esp for someone like me who barely knows how to turn my computer on). AND if you ever needed to wipe your computer's hard drive, you can use BounceBack to reinstall your backed up information once you get the clean install done with the push of one button (hence the name, bounce back). It's kind of expensive, but I've had mine for a year and I love it, it's great, (if for nothing else then for peace of mind).



ETA: link for BounceBack

Edited by: EasierSaid at: 12/9/04 11:11 am

[StrangeQuark]

Great advice for the iBook. Apple's flavor of BSD can be a little quirky



Meritiricious,



When you buy RAM for your pending upgrade, you may want to buy it from Apple. I just boosted the RAM in my PowerBook from 256 to 768 (added 512,) and the system seemed okay for a while. Keep in-mind that I bought the right type of RAM ( DDR333 for the P'Book.) About a month or so after the upgrade, I noticed that when the display went into sleep (closing the lid/idle screensaver, etc.) while iTunes was running, the backlight would not come back on. Everything else was fine-- I could shine a flashlight through the Apple logo on the lid, and see that indeed, the display was active, just no light. The only way to get the light back on was a reboot (Yuck!)



I remembered the RAM upgrade and decided to revert. Once I did, the problem never happened again (I tried to make it happen like fifteen times.) That same SODIMM RAM module is working perfectly fine in another laptop, and has been for months. None of the PowerBook's system logs ever showed any sign of trouble either, so I'm guessing that the BIOS and that particular brand of RAM (I forget which, maybe Kingston, I could be mistaken) had some sort of minor disagreement.



If you purchase your RAM from Apple, then they'll have to figure out why their product might be messing with their other product, should you have any strange little episodes like I did.



Just my little PPC G4 caveat.



-SQ

Edited by: StrangeQuark at: 12/9/04 11:09 am

[meretricious]

thanx, everyone for your help and advice (even justin for pointing out that its called kernel panic so that i will, in fact, panic-and hey, mission accomplished there).

sq- any upgrading i do will almost certainly be thru apple, for exactly the kind of reason you give, thank you for reinforcing that thought for me. did you end up replacing the memory again, or finding some other option?

heather, look at you even providing a link, i think you know more about this stuff than you let on. i did a brief check on seagate's site, 400 GB, good lord! (that would hold about 90 THOUSAND songs, right?). it looks like their ext hard drive can come with one push back-up included, did you purchase together or separately? my kernel panic has been about every week to 10 days (kinds of splits that 3 a day vs. 6 months scale) and occurs often, but not exclusively, when i have to use dial-up to get on line at work. hoping i won't see that again for a while now. -thanks for researching!~mary

let's do it let's do it let's jump
in with both feet~julia fordham

[urnofosiris]

I bought an external 250GB harddrive today. My 40GB laptop was filled to capacity, but now I have more space than I know what to do with (for now).

[skittles]

You just had to let us know you got an early Christmas present, didn't you???



I'm glad that you now have enough room to play around with... computer-wise, that is!!



Enjoy it!!

skittles



Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more… He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew.. and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

[shuyaku]

Can't connect to the internet - cannot find server error when I try to open Internet Explorer.



Specs:

HP Pavillion

2.4 GHZ

256 RAM

OS - XP Home



Networked through a D-Link wired router and using SBC Yahoo DSL. The router is working and DSL is working. When I manually configure the DNS and connect, SBC shows that I am connected, but my assigned IP address is the XP assigned one (169.254.x.y) meaning the DCHP server is not found. When I ping the IP address of a site it works, but if I ping the site name (i.e. yahoo.com) it doesn't.



Any way of solving this issue without reinstalling my OS? Anybody even ever had this type of issue?



ARGH!! Thanks in advance for any help

-shuyaku

Oh God, Willow—you’re giving me the gift of Karen Carpenter. Just when I think I grasp the full extent of your love." - Tara

"Why do birds suddenly appear? It’s because, you are queer…" - Willow (Gods Served and Abandoned by AntigoneUnbound)

[Grimlock72]

Is that a NAT router ? It most likely is, which means that it will request a DHCP/IP adress from Yahoo for you. It will then act as dhcp SERVER to it's clients, meaning your pc.



So... your pc either is not getting any dhcp info from your router OR your router is unable to get dhcp info from yahoo. The latter you need to check on your router (probably has a web config interface - check your manual).



On your pc you can do some checking using a command prompt. You get one using Start->Run "cmd" press OK.



Now in the black command prompt window, type: "ipconfig /release" (enter) followed by "ipconfig /renew" this will force your pc to request dhcp info from any server it can find (it should only find your router obviously;-).



If that doesn't help please post the output of "ipconfig /all" (past is done selecting top-left dropdown, Edit menu Copy, paste in IE as usual) that will include DNS info and other usefull stuff. You're sure all your DNS fields for this connection are set to 'get automaticly', right ?



Details on the router (type/spec) might be usefull to, does it do dhcp service-ing btw. ??



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

[shuyaku]

YAY! Grimmy is out and about.



I am having the same problem even if I take the router out of the equation and hook the pc in question directly to the DSL modem. (Plus the other computer running XP and the Mac laptop connected through the router are connecting fine.)



I'm at work now, so I'll have to post the info you requested later tonight after I get home. Right now the DNS is manually configured with addresses provided by my ISP (automatically wasn't working).



I have tried ipconfig /release and /renew.



This is the info I found on the XP support page that matches what is going on...

Quote:

---

If your local IP address is returned as 169.254.y.z with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0, the IP address was assigned by the Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) feature of Windows XP Professional. This assignment means that TCP/IP is configured for automatic configuration, that no DHCP server was found, and that no alternative configuration is specified. This configuration has no default gateway for the interface.

---

-shuyaku

Oh God, Willow—you’re giving me the gift of Karen Carpenter. Just when I think I grasp the full extent of your love." - Tara

"Why do birds suddenly appear? It’s because, you are queer…" - Willow (Gods Served and Abandoned by AntigoneUnbound)

[Grimlock72]

A couple of quick points to keep in mind;



1. DHCP is assigned based on the MAC-identity of the requestor, you can't just swap between router and pc being connected to the network. When switching from the router to direct-connected-to-pc for example your router will need to 'release' it's (dhcp-acquired) adress.



The classic cause of dhcp not working is a something was connected to the network after which the network-cable was switched to another pc. Which won't work because pc#1 still has a claim registered to the ip-adress with the dhcp server

(switching back and '/release' fixes that, or wait until the lease expires). In the above situation pc#2 would just get the 'no response from dhcp-server' message btw.



2. Could it be a firewall on that pc blocking dhcp ?



3. The quote from XP-support only means that that specific pc could not get ANY dhcp information. Specificly it means that your pc could not get dhcp info from the ROUTER since thats where it's supposed to get it. (pc talks to router, router talks to modem, modem talks to internet)



Do you also get the weird adress when connecting pc->modem->internet ?? Did you test that without the router in any way connected to the pc ? (i.e. not on the local network either)



4. How many networkcards are in that pc ?



5. Check that the pc is configured to actually GET dns info via dhcp ("Obtain DNS server address automatically"). ipconfig /all will tell you the current assigned dns-info of the pc.



6. You can use "nslookup http://www.cnn.com" to check if the problem really is DNS related. (Internet Explorer tends to give vague or 'friendly' errors;-)



Given that other pc/mac work, one would suspect the pc itself. You could try creating a second new LAN-connection. Disable the first one, enable second and see if it works. Sounds like something is messed up in the connection config on the pc... weird though



Assuming you did the virus-scan/spyware-scan and such already btw.



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

[shuyaku]

Some questions and responses...



1. Does the DCHP release the IP address when everything is shut down? (Computer, router, modem)



2. There is a firewall, but I haven't changed any settings or anything with it prior to having this problem.



3.

Quote:

---

Do you also get the weird adress when connecting pc->modem->internet ?? Did you test that without the router in any way connected to the pc ? (i.e. not on the local network either)

---

Yes to both questions.



4. 1 network card.



5. I'll change back to Obtain DNS server address automatically when I get home (the tech helper had me change it to manual).



6. Where do I type this "nslookup http://www.cnn.com" (in the web address or at the DOS prompt?)



I also tried creating all new LAN and Broadband connections. The broadband connection says it is connected and SBC can see me on their network. The LAN connection is the one that returns the XP IP address.



Also ran virus and spyware - virus found 2 which I deleted and spyware found a bunch (again removed). All of this prior to messing with the ipconfig or LAN connections.



The SBC tech seems to think it is a problem with the OS - which I'm really hoping I don't have to restore (UGH!)



Thanks for looking into this for me

-shuyaku

Oh God, Willow—you’re giving me the gift of Karen Carpenter. Just when I think I grasp the full extent of your love." - Tara

"Why do birds suddenly appear? It’s because, you are queer…" - Willow (Gods Served and Abandoned by AntigoneUnbound)

[Grimlock72]

>1. Does the DCHP release the IP address when

> everything is shut down? (Computer, router, modem)



DHCP is released by the pc when you shutdown Windows properly. A modem doesn't have an dhcp adress, so there is nothing to release there. If you need your router to release it's dhcp-adress you will probably need to use a WebGUI of some sort. (again, see manual ;-)



>6. Where do I type this "nslookup http://www.cnn.com"

> (in the web address or at the DOS prompt?)



At the dos prompt.



If at all possible, try swapping network cards. It *might* be some sort of MAC/id problem. Not sure though... gotta run...



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

[shuyaku]

Grimmy,



In the end it ended up being an easy fix to a complicated problem. As it turns out, my Winsock files were corrupted (something that actually is fairly common with Win XP - caused often by Ad-Aware or by uninstalling virus software). One fix is to edit the registry files manually; the other was a really simple program WinsockXPFix.exe that deletes the Winsock service keys from the registry, installs two new sets of keys from a fresh Windows XP - SP1 install, and does a netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt rebuild.



Problem fixed



I posted the solution is case anyone has a similar problem. A quick google search for the file found several sites with it available for download.



-shuyaku

Oh God, Willow—you’re giving me the gift of Karen Carpenter. Just when I think I grasp the full extent of your love." - Tara

"Why do birds suddenly appear? It’s because, you are queer…" - Willow (Gods Served and Abandoned by AntigoneUnbound)

[Grimlock72]

Good to know, never had winsock corruption on WinXP myself. I suspect spyware had indeed something to do with that since some of those are known to replace some winsock stuff.



Mighty odd that only DNS failed to work though...



Good luck with your router and merry christmas



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

[VixenyTarasHot]

ok so we're gonna bust out my lack-thereof knowledge of computer language.. and attempt to ask a question thats understandable.. k? lol



My cd drive.. thing.. (oh man this is gonna be funny.. *breathes*) ok.. it doesn't work.. I press the eject button and nothing happens... like.. *sigh* I'm sorry I can't describe this better.. but pretty much it doesn't eject therefore it doesn't work. I did the little release thing through the hole.. and released it.. put a cd in, and it didn't run. I had brought the computer to the place we bought it from (because of warranty) and they had cleaned out my hard drive because it was like.. on overload and stuff.. and I am wondering if they could have screwed something up..



If anyone even understands my problem.. or what not.. could I have some help? I can deal with wires and .. mechanical stuff, and it all seems to be plugged in correctly... and the light on the eject button is on... its just.. something doesn't release.. or trigger the button to make it eject... Make sense at all?



Good luck.. haha

Ashleigh

"...A-and I'm gonna make it up to you. Starting right now."

(Starts to smile)"Right now?"

[Grimlock72]

1. If you put in a cd it doesn't spin up at all ?

(you can hear that usually)



2. In "My Computer" you can click the Left Mouse Button (on the cdrom-drive icon) and choose 'eject'. That will ask the drive to eject/open the tray. If it works something might be wrong with the button on the drive. Pretty much all solutions point to a new drive though (costs about $15 I guess)



3. It's just a cdrom READER right, no a WRITER ??



Eject button should work as soon as the drive has power, doesn't even need the big flat cable (IDE-cable) for that really. If the button doesn't work while power is properly plugged in (watch the connector corners) then the drive is most likely broken.



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: 12/27/04 1:37 am

[VixenyTarasHot]

Hey, thanks for your help, I did what you said, and nothin helped.. the eject thing didnt even work.. so I took it into where we bought it and they fixed it free under warranty.. it was beyond broken, and they installed a new one, so *shrug* haha.



Ashleigh

"...A-and I'm gonna make it up to you. Starting right now."

(Starts to smile)"Right now?"