Posts by Catweazle

The majority of virusses spread via pirated software and other crap people download over P2P networks.
Email virusses used to be big but have been on the decline for a year or more.

Direct infection through websites is low and generally not viral in nature but limited to installation of spyware or trojans that are usually not self replicating (though they may take actions to trick others into infecting themselves) and therefore don't class as virusses.

You can play 'games' with voting and listening to uninformed opinion, but if you listen to this fella instead you'll get the truth! :D

DirectX 9 will be fine. Download drivers from the nVidia website, but instead of downloading the latest drivers check the 'Driver archives' link at left of page and select the most recent 4x.xx series driver for your Windows version. It should work best for your display card.

Are the appropriate motherboard chipset drivers installed? They need to be installed before the display drivers are installed, or else the AGP bus will not operate correctly.

Main reason I'd suspect is that the Warranty has expired ;)

Give us some details of your system and we'll be able to help you locate the correct drivers to use. We need the make and model of your system, if it's a 'Brand name' PC, or the make and model of your motherboard, if it's not. We also need to know identification details of other components you have there, if you know what they are.

Welcome to Daniweb, and I've moved this topic to the correct section for you.

ooops.......

My mistake.

I have a tnt2 and a fx5200

I'm pretty interested in that bit. You never mentioned a TNT2 card earlier . Are both cards installed? If so, why?

cliff71673, you should really create a new topic (or 'Thread') to ask a new question, rather than adding a new question to an existing topic.

But no! You can't 'download' a display adaptor because a display adaptor is part of the equipment, not part of the software installed on it! You have to buy a display adaptor and physically install it in your system. It's sorta like buying a newer and more powerful engine for your automobile, and getting the mechanic to fit it for you :D

Hiya Whitie.

I'd like to point out this key to you:

[img]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-11/505907/caps.jpg[/img]

Sometimes we can accidentally bump it, and then everything we type will make people think that we're yelling at them rudely!

Yes, you can get lower temps by using water-cooling. But you don't get a DRAMATIC decrease in temps with commercial kits when you compare their performance with that from the better air-cooling solutions. Not worth the risk, in my view, if you are not a skilled 'handyman'. Not worth the effort, in my view, if you are :)

Peter, my suggestion was not addressing the situation you describe. It was primarily directed at the situation where people try to manually remove old software from their systems.

Despite that, however, I'd still maintain that in the situation you describe, a 'highly technical' hands-on approach of ferreting deep into Windows and making changes/deleting unwanted material is not necessarily the best approach. It's still a "shut the stable door after the horse has bolted" approach in my view, and what is needed is a completely different strategy from the outset.

If you find yourself frequently 'reinstalling' Windows to correct system problems you need to identify the computing habits which are causing problems for you and discontinue them. Windows XP can, and does, run stably for years on end for the majority of people.

You should not perform 'Upgrade install' (reinstalling Windows over the top of the existing installation) time after time repeatedly. Once might correct a problem, but the next instance should always be format and start over! Upgrade installs do NOT correct all problems, and in many instances they can MAGNIFY pre-existing system problems.

By far the better approach is to keep your data externally backed up, to removable media or to another drive, and to use drive imaging software to keep a 'snapshot' of your system in a freshly setup clean state. When things go haywire on you, sensible backup and restoration procedures can have you up and running again in a short space of …

I've mentioned the mess in that section previously, to Dani via IM and I think in the moderator forum at some stage.

I suspect we can get away with having 3 stickies in that section:

* One dealing with standard system intrusion detection tools and cleaning procedures.
* One dealing with good practices for avoiding infections to start with.
* One dealing with important announcements regarding security matters.

They should be closed topics, and only Moderators should be able to add new posts to them. Additions can originate from items raised by the members, of course, but the stickied topics themselves need to remain as informative announcements.

We should not hesitate to tidy up by merging topics, editing information as necessary, or even removing each other's posts and starting over. I suspect this has led, in part, to the rather ugly conglomerate of stickied threads that we've seen in the section - we've simply been too hesitant to 'touch' a topic because another moderator posted it! Damn that, the topics are there for providing information to people reading the section, and it's the delivery of information which is important, first and foremost.

That's how I look at it, anyway :D

Cheers

Nope.

Far too busy campaigning against the claims, made by Neopets owners, that spammers should be accorded the death penalty ;D

If the modules aren't the same brand and model line, then it's most likely the two modules are conflicting with each other, and won't be usable together. But reset CMOS first and see if they work OK afterwards.

LOL!

My son's wedding :)

Not until we work out how to stop it happening again is my suggestion. Deleting the files is only a temporary fix. I'll post suggestions in a day or so, but I've a wedding to attend to firt :)

Posted by Coconut Monkey

Bit hard to replace the graphics card in a laptop though. :-/

Is that $199 after the rebate or before?

If the effective price for the bundle is $120, then I doubt you'd get a better value option for the purposes mentioned.

Then you are probably looking at the readout indicating how much video ram is present, rather than the one showing how much system ram is installed. You wouldn't be the first person to make THAT mistake :D

i've also come across numerous people who've been worried that their video ram has 'gone missing', only to realise that the monitor was badly adjusted, and the 56Mb that they'd come down to had the '2' off-screen :)

What display card do you have? When the PC first powers up, you get a message indicating the Vid card and its video RAM before you get the system POST info displayed.

It'd be better to have such a 'database' in its own topic I think. this one is about 'How to build' rather than about 'Where to buy'.

Both Mozilla and Firefox are web browsers developed and made available by Mozilla.org.

It'd be arguably more accurate to describe them as different varieties of the same browser than it would be to describe them as different browsers. The guide linked in my initial post makes mention of Firefox, Mozilla or Opera as preferred options for use as a web browser.

Try Mozilla instead then.

It's an 'Internet Suite' but you can do a custoim install and not include the mail client or other extras. Mozilla is more easily configurable by the user.

I'd strongly suspect Nero stuff creates temp files. Search for the filesize, as I suggested above.

heh heh....

Considering the price difference between the two, no I don't reckon they do :D

You get differences in default permissions and settings, extra tools like the Group Policy Editor, the Defrag tool is better in XP Pro and stuff like that, but basically they're the same thing. There's other differences, but nothing to effect most Windows users. Your reason to change, of course, is a valid one.

I'm just glad you're not a user who's decided to change because someone told them "Pro is better", which is why I asked :)

Cheers.

Hi TokyoPrince

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

That's the procedure. but I have to ask. Why?

There's not enough difference between Home and Pro to make it worth doing. Unless, of course, you need to connect to a Domain rather than a simple network. In every other respect, given a few settings and a few tools to access them with other than the Registry Editor, Home and Pro are identical!

Okay. What editing prograsm are you using? I'm betting that its settings are configured to not overwrite files, and possibly to incrementally add a number to the filename. Another possibility is that is storing backup copies.

Click Start -> Search. Choose files and folders.
Onstead of entering a filename, click on the arrow beside 'What size is it'and tick 'specify size.

Set it to be 'at least' and '84,000Kb'.

That'll find every file 84Mb and more on your drive. Check through the files and determine where all those copies are going.

I'll bet it's yopur editing program. We'd like to know what it is, because the answer to your problem will almost certainly be in the program settings.

Fair enough. That article is actually still there and I've read it thoroughly.

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160900911

It's a heap of codswallop! Mr Langa does himself no service at all with the ridiculous arguments he uses or the baseless assumprions he makes when trying to present data in a meaningful way. I'd suggest you also read the reader reponses, because they point out the huge holes in his line of argument ;)

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160903774

I hadn't realised that 'Information Week' was one of the offshoots of TechWeb. But simply because it's attached to a reputable news organisation doesn't mean it's correct. Question what you read, for goodness sake. The fact that it's published doesn't make it incontrovertible truth!

By the way, if you think I shouldn't be criticising Mr. Langa because he's a journalist with a 'Professional' site, then rest assured that I reserve the right to. I'm one of those 'Professional journalists' myself ;)

Some time during the next year or two or three, Firefox might become somewhat of a problem security-wise. Right now, however, it's in the very lead group of alternatives available to windows users, and that's why it's the choice of discerning and more knowledgeabale users!

Yep, on a very serious note, Dick, you sound like one of the people I encounter in my work role quite often - those who want CONTROL at all costs, and will do anything to rid their systems of any trace of a program that they didn't specifically ask for. There's absolutely no need to go on a deleting rampage just to disable unwanted tools, stop reporting back to the manufacturer or whatever, and eliminate slight system overheads that they create.

They do no harm sitting there. You can disable vurtually any manufacturer installed tools with a combination of Add/Remove programs and msconfig.

The disk space is NOT essential to reclaim. If you're that pressed for storage space, go buy another hard drive because they're quite inexpensive. If you need to delete every tiny thing you see that isn't being used, then you're too cramped for storage to start with.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I'm afraid that the approach you've described leads to problems in 99.99% of cases!

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER DELETE SOFTWARE!

Uninstall software, don't delete it. Deleting software does not work!

Possibility one:

You're trying to remove system files and you might as well stop tying.

Possibility two:

You're trying to delete spyware and other nasties and you've no hope of doing so. Use removal tools instead.

Make a Windows startup diskette. Download all the device drivers for your system and put them on CD.

Boot from the floppy, format, and install again. then load your drivers and software. Stop using AOL software and browse the net with a decent web browser!

kosmoe, Firefox doesn't have fixes and updates in the way IE does. The Mozilla org. releases new installs instead. There have been 3 since the product was released in final form. Also. Firefox has nothing to do with AOL. In years gone by, AOL used the Netscape browser, which Firefox is distantly and remotely connected to, but then of course humans come from the same family of animal as lemurs, don't they?

If the article you linked was actually saying the things you claim it was, I'm not surprised it was removed. I've not come across the 'Information Week' site before, and that effort doesn't really make me want to check it out ;)

If those boards have Phoenix BIOS on them the 1-3-3 beep code indicates a motherboard problem. If it has AMI BIOS the 1-3-3 indicates a memory problem. it could be memory that's not seated properly in the slot or memory that is not compatible with the motherboard.

Here's a more detailed technique, which should work for really stubborn cases of this.

http://www.pcuser.com.au/pcuser/hs2.nsf/web/8CF21B49252CDEE4CA256F07008278C7

There are many places you can download WinAmp from. Use Google to search for

winamp download

and you'll find lots of them. Try another download location and you'll possibly get an uncorrupted download.

Moved to Windows Software section.

dcc, if asking a question like this you should indicate just what your budget is, so that people can recommend components you can realistically purchase. You should also indicate what country you live in, because members at Daniweb come from all over the world!

We need to know what make and model of PC you have. If your PC doesn't have a make and model displayed on it then we need to know the make and model of your motherboard.

We also need to know the make and model of your display card.

21 porn popups?

Quick! Drape a blanket over that PC before someone sees it :D

Sorry, I couldn't resist that. Someone will be along to help you really soon now :)

Use My Computer' or Windows Explorer, navigate to the folders where you stored them, and check that they're still present.

If you're accessing documents from over a 2 year period then the 'Recent Documents' thingy on the Start menu is a next to useless way to access them anyway.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

Posting this topic in the Windows Software section would be a good start. I've moved it there for you :)

In addition to that, if the previous display card did not have an ATi graphics processor, you should ideally format and reinstall before using the card.

But check that you are not using the card with detail settings set too high. A 9600XT isn't really a high performance card when it comes to games like Doom3 and Half Life 2 ;)

I suspect this may be a power supply unit problem, but I doubt very much that it relates to wattage. 350W should be fine unless there are heaps of drives and other components installed.

The problem will most likely be that it's a cheap, generic power unit, which doesn't provide reliable and stable voltage and wattage levels.

More expensive power supply units from reputable manufacturers such as Antec, Thermaltake, OCZ, Zalman and the like are far, far better to use, and a worthwhile investment. Remember, if a 'cheap' power unit blows, it can take thinks like motherboard, processor, video card and others down along with it!

This could also be a RAM problem. With 1536Mb of RAM installed, there's obviously 2 or more modules installed. If they are different brands and mosels, there could be a conflict between them, especially if any of it is again 'cheap, generic' stuff. Try different RAM configurations:

If you have 3x512Mb, and two of them are identical, try using only those two.
If all are different, try using only one at a time.

etc..

Isolate the problem if it exists. You do not NEED that much RAM for games!

It could also be a software problem. The only real way to establish that the problem exists in hardware is to format, reinstall using the latest device drivers, and load the games again. Give them a good workout on a clean and fresh system. If …

johnq, to some extent you're talking like you're using am SMS for communication. Please be more detailed. AShampoo has a wide range of products. Which one was in use please.

Sygate would seem to refer to the 'Personal Firewall' they provide. That's internat protection, and I'd highly doubt if it's involved.

It seems to me that you might have installed, tried and removed quite a bit of software tools, or perhaps have others still on your system. This problem has obviously been created by one of them. I'd say you need to resolve it in one of the following ways:

* Tell us in full exactly what the error message says, and precisely what you are doing on the system when it happens. Give complte program names rather than simply a brand name for a company that sells or provides several software products.

* Identify yourself what the program is which caused the problem, reinstall it if necessary and undo the changes made.

* Repartition the drive, format it again and install everything afresh.

We recommend sticking to a small number of very reputable brands for RAM modules:

Corsair
Geil
Kingston
Kingmax
OCZ

would be the core group to pick from.

Yep, doesn't look like a hardware problem, because tht system should play even Doom3 and Half Life 2 or similar just fine.

Check BIOS POST screens at startup (before Windows loads) to ensure that everything is detected at it's correct speed (processor, RAM etc).

Download and install the most recent motherboard chipset driver from ABit. Bownload and install the most recent ATi Catalyst driver from www.ati.com

Check that you have the most recent version of DirectX from Windows update.

Then check the ATi control panel to ensure you haven't got settings too high for AA and AF. High settings reduce framerates. Check ingame options to see if you've got particular games set to maximum levels of detail for textures and other video settings. Setting everything in a game to its highest setting can slow down even a 9800 Pro in the most recent games.

Could you post details of your motherboard, processor and ram type/speed please? I'll move this to the appropriate hardware section if necessary.

Nope. Not overclocked at all it seems. I just checked the manual, and BIOS setup allows the processor to be set by PR number. The setting of "2100+ or higher" has allowed the board to correctly identify it.

Yes, it should. that's the approach I'd take anyway. copy the data across as a file transfer and then get to work on the drive.

I'm not really sure about the procedures with DLT. I'd suggest you make good use of the WD website and read up about it. I know there's lots of information there in FAQs and their knowledge base, as well as in the DLT section of the website.

errr..... uummmm.......

What disk utilities or other system tools software have you used recently?