Posts by Catweazle

Has the computer got more than one RAM module installed? If so are they different brands?

If this is the case, then remove all but one RAM module, and ensure that the one you retain is in RAM slot 1. Then try to install. Windows XP is particularly 'fussy' with RAM mismatches.

OK.

Be sure that you have turned off the power at the wall outlet. Simply shutting down Windows is not enough!

The motherboard is the large main circuitboard that you see in the computer. Somewhere on it you will see a round battery, about the size of a 10c coin, held in a holder. Remove that (you may need to carefully use a screwdriver to hold a clip back) and wait 5 minutes or so before replacing it.

Be careful not to bump any connections loose inside the PC while you are doing it.

[img]http://www.infopackets.com/graphics/cmos+battery.gif[/img]

On some motherboards, the holder will be vertical rather than horizontal.

The only other way is to find out what the password is, I'm afraid.

Three possible causes:

* The CD-ROM drive is faulty
* The Windows CD is dirty or scratched, rendering it non-functional
* The Windows CD is a poorly made copy, which is not bootable.

That motherboard accepts either SD-RAM or DDR RAM, but you cannot use both together. If you wish to add extra RAM to upgrade, you will need to get more of the type you currently have installed.

It will accept SD-RAM of up to PC133 speed, or DDR-RAM of up to PC2700 rating.

Download and install CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php Run it and check the memory tab to verify what type of RAM you currently have installed.

You should be booting from the CD, and when prompted by the Windows installation routine to "Press F6 to install drivers" you should be popping the driver floppy in the drive and then pressing the function key.

krasont, sometimes starting over fresh is the best thing to do.

You have multiple problems on your system, and it's possibly riddled with nasty intruders as well. I suspect the best thing to do is use your Windows CD (or recovery CD if that applies) wipe your hard drive clean and start over fresh again.

Alternatively, you could visit our Viruses and Nasties section and try to get some help with cleaning up the mess.

Try downloading and installing it again. It has only been unsuccessful because the download itself has failed or been corrupted in transfer.

Hi jayder,

Is this a legitimate retail or OEM Windows XP Pro CD? If it's a copy it may not be bootable.

goaliemike, I can play FarCry perfectly well on a Socket A Athlon XP together with an FX5900XT AGP card! No bloody SLI setup needed for that one ;)

'lie' is a really nasty word, goaliemike.

If you read my post above you'll notice that I mentioned third party software programs, of which WindowBlinds and StarDock are examples. They are very much inferior examples in comparison with StyleXP, by the way!

Lightinghawk, the secondary hard drive has been identified by the system as C: because the primary hard drive is malfunctioning and not visible to the system. The mention of SP2 is indicative only of a coincidence, not a cause.

Removing the CMOS battery will be fine on a HP or Compaq system, and the BIOS Setup menu structure on those is pretty easily navigable without needing to resort to the motherboard manual. All the technical and difficult settings will not be made available.

Proprietary systems such as this only make the most common settings available for altering in BIOS.

The system should default to booting from CD, so resetting CMOS will correct any problem in that regard. If CMOS is reset and then the CD still won't autoboot afterwards, then I'd have to assume it's not a legitimate Windows XP CD.

errr.........

Because the fans installed in it are too loud? It is possible to purchase quiet running fans, you know!

You REALLY need to cut down on the amount of security and system tools software programs you have installed on that system! You are taking paranoia to a whole new level, it's a wonder your system isn't slowed down to the point of being unusable, and it's a wonder that you are not getting program crashes and blue screens as a result of all those tools trying to run at once!

In agreement with Coconut Monkey. Although there is actually no 'front side bus' on these processors, there are still clockspeed and multiplier settings used to set the processor speed.

Not possible, kaz. I'm afraid that once it's been sent that's it!

Hi jsuits.

Rather than summarise the procedures you have been 'told to try' it would be more helpful if you would more fully relay to us precisely what that 'lengthy error message' actually says.

Please post the error message in full.

Oh, but you only said that your start menu has disappeared. Are you now saying that your entire Taskbar has disappeared? It helps to provide full details of your problem, rather than just part of it.

If the Tasbar itself is not being displayed, perhaps it has simply been set to 'hidden'. Start up, and when Windows has finished booting bring the mouse pointer down to the very bottom of the screen and wait a while to see if it appears. If so, right-click on a blank area of the taskbar and choose 'Properties'. Then, on the Taskbar tab, deselect 'Auto-hide the taskbar'.

You have an existing topic for this problem. Please don't create a second one for the same thing, but rather continue in the existing topic.

The keypress will vary from system to system. Here's a more detailed discussion of accessing BIOS Setup:
http://www.pcuser.com.au/pcuser/hs2.nsf/web/723171C3DD82D725CA256E6D003D7A2D

Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta is suitable only for use with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

It will not install and run on Windows 98 or Windows Me

Sounds to me like the drive is on the way out or already cactus. The Windows CD should be able to 'see' the drive even if no partition is created on it.

Thanks for the heh heh..........

:D

As you can see, I've kinda got a 'bee in the bonnet' about dual display cards. I really dislike the way they're being marketted as something they're not. To be quite honest, I think the only real world use for them is to boost the egos of super rich benchmark whores who can afford to buy two of the fastest display cards that money can buy, and then sit back getting an epenis enlargement from the fact that they can get benchmark results wich beat those of anybody else they know.

They've got a reasonably practical application for people who are content to sit a fair bit back from the cutting edge with a mid-range card and want to stretch their system life out a bit, but that's the only real life value they have at present in my view. In time to come they'll quite possible be apretty standard thing, but certainly not until the graphics chip race slows down, and we no longer see ATi and NVidia putting out a new graphics chip each year which is twice as good as the previous one.

One Gigahertz is 1000 megahertz

If you have a laptop with 240mb of RAM installed that means your laptop has a 256Mb module installed, It will have 16Mb of that RAM allocated to the onboard graphics rather than system memory.

With only 256Mb of RAM installed, and only 240Mb available for system memory, a recent OS like Windows XP will run a bit more slowly than it would if it had more RAM available to use. But it will run, and run well enough for basic computer office applications.

OK, time to answer that little misconception.

Firstly, before that year is out the R520 cards will be out and available, and they'll do double the X850XT performance with a single card. In addition to that, don't pin your hopes on the current top of the line card hanging around getting cheaper and cheaper. History proves that just doesn't happen.

When the next generation of display cards comes out, the top of the line cards from the previous generation rather rapidly disappear from the marketplace. A cut-down version of it will linger for a while till the mid-range cards of the next generation become established.

If you want to use two top of the line cards of a particular generation in SLI configuration, you gotta get them them from the outset or shortly after. That's for NVidia SLI.

ATi Crossfire is a little different. That requires a new card which can act as a 'master' card. So you're gonna be able to get that X850XT Crossfire master and a new Crossfire enabled motherboard and do the job. But hey, all you're gonna do is get the same performance as you would if you waited and installed an R520 based ATi card anyway, and it's most likely gonna cost you just as much!

Sorry, but I don't see much point in that ;)

Right click on the Start button and choose the button for customizing the Start menu. Ensure that the necessary entries are enabled on the Advanced tab and Apply.

Also, when booting from the CD be sure to watch the BIOS POST screens after power up. You will likely get a message instructing you to press a key to boot from the CD. All legitimate Windows XP CDs should be bootable.

I would suggest you trie to squeeze out the extra $$$s needed to get a 6600GT display card rather than a 'vanilla' 6600. The extra performance you'll get will definitely be worth it. Even if you need to limit it to a 128Mb 6600GT, it will still be considerably better.

Chuck me just about any 'fact' about SLI/Crossfire and why it's 'good' and I'll counteract it with an argument showing why it's a waste of time. Let's start with the ones stated so far.

The claim that Crossfire will 'kick SLI's butt' is a bit hasty. It will be faster in some respects and slower in others.

The claim that 'doesn't require AFR profiles, as is required for SLI, but that it will accellerate any Direct3D game' is just words aired for little purpose. SLI/Crossfire is really designed at games to come, not games we already have. Any existing game will run quite well enough on any decent existing single display card, so for those SLI/Crossfire is a redundant issue. future games will, of course, have AFR profiles available for them so the difference has no import really.

You have the processor's fsb setting set at 100MHz instead of 166MHz. Reset CMOS because that will restore default settings. should be detected correctly with those in place ;)

I can't be sure because that laptop uses a proprietary BIOS, but the 2 beeps most likely relate to a memory parity check error. Try checking the installed RAM module(s) and ensuring it (they) have clean connectors and are fimly inserted into the memory slot(s).

You could create a batch file to use instead of the shut down button, and have the batch file run a video then perform a shutdown.

Try using the controls on the monitor instead. There will be monitor controls to 'stretch' the screen inage horizontally and vertically, and you will not necessarily be able to use them from within windows. Have a look at the controls on your monitor or the onscreen menu system it has.

What have you installed or changed on the laptop since the last time it was quick to start. Obviously something is being loaded at startup which is slowing the process down.

Are you using a restricted user account? Those files should be easily deleted from any user account which has 'Administrator' privileges.

The $NTUninstall..... files can also be safely deleted once the update or Service pack has been thoroughly tested out on your system and you've found that they cause no problems for you. No need to retain them if you are not going to uninstall the Update or Service Pack, is there?

My earlier comments were motivated only by the fact that it is unwise for inexperienced users to go hunting down things to delete like this. If drive space is cramped then you do not have enough drive space. Wholsale deletions to gain storage room usually end up in generating system problems.

Oh dear! That old?

You really should be using an earlier version of Windows on a PC that old. It isn't worth the effort and expense trying to upgrade it to suit Windows XP, becuase:

* the central 'heart' of the PC isn't powerful enough
* The computer would not correctly recognise a new hard drive anyway, because new hard drives are too big for it to 'see'.

Stick with the older version of Windows until you can afford to get a more recent and more powerful computer.

Then I would suggest you shortly uninstall Windows XP and revert to using the Windows version you had previously. Windows XP requires a hard drive of at least 11 Gigabytes in order to funtion adequately. It needs room for page files, temporary storage and other operating functions.

Running Windows XP on a system which only has such a small hard drive is leaving it no room to 'breathe'. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that hard drive is too small. It's a waste of time trying to free up space.

Edit: Of course, you could purchase a bigger hard drive ;)

Oops. My bad! I meant reinstall Photoshop.

Edit: Always choose 'Advanced' or 'Custom' install for new programs. You will usually get the choice to associate files or not with that form of installation. Otherwise program installs will assume you want the files associated.

Download and install the updated version from here.

See if that helps.

I'm asking how big, in Gigabytes, your hard drive is. Open My Computer. Click on your hard drive. In the panel at bottom left see what is says for 'Total size'.

Most straightforward way to do what you wanted is to reinstall Paintshop ;)

What is the total size of your hard drive please? Do you have a CD or DVD burner in your computer?

What make and model number of computer is it please?

What version of Windows are you using?

Have all Windows Updates been installed?

Use Explorer or My Computer to find its folder on your hard drive. It'll probably be in you \Program files directory, and in a folder called Siny or Digital Voice Editor. You may need to do a bit of hunting.

Then use Add/Remove programs to uninstall it. Go back to the program folder and if there's anything at all in it then delete it.

Then reinstall the program and see if it works.

heh heh.....

But choose the best you can afford from the Logitech range anyway. they are considerably more responsive than the Microsoft ones.

Check the refresh rate setting in the 'Advanced' settings of display properties. You have somehow set a refresh rate thqat is higher than your monitor is designed to handle, or have software installed which has settings which override the system settings and iare pushing the monitor beyond specified settings.

You need to determine where the setting change is coming from, and ensure that selected settings do not exceed the maufacturer recommended specifications for your particular monitor.

If it's not in display settings, then check all graphics utilities and games for excessive settings.

Choose Logitech over Microsoft if gaming is the goal. amongst theor product line, this mouse is the Holy Grail of gamers all over the place:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2135,CONTENTID=9043

A current generation SATA drive has a maximum theoretical data transfer speed of 150mbps. A current IDE hard drive has a maximum theoretical data transfer speed of 133mbps. Bugger all difference. At present, the major benefit of having a SATA drive is the improved internal airflow as a result of the tiny wee skinny cable it uses! But properly attended to, even a flat IDE cable can be tucked out of the way so that it doesn't interfere with airflow.

Many motherboards with SATA capability also offer RAID configurations if you install two identical drives. THAT gives a performance boost!

Other than that, drive rotation speed has more impact in performance than the drive type. A 10,000rpm drive will be faster in operation than a 7,200rpm drive. Remember though, the performance improvement only relates to data transfer, not to actual system speed.

Do this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341&Product=winxp