Posts by Catweazle

Your link only led to an index page on that site, so it's unclear just what you have been using.

The device you need, however, is called a 'USB external drive caddy'. You should ensure that it accomodates a 2.5" IDE drive, if that is what's used in your laptop.

That procedure, scott808, os more likely to cause further problems than it is to fix old ones. Playing with the power switch like that stresses components and will eventually end up causing damage. Correct the problem - don't compensate for it!

I would suggest that you uninstall and ditch all the optimisation programs and utilities that you have, with the exception of NOD32 and AdAware. Add Spybot Search & destry to your collection, then thouroughly scan your system again, (from 'Safe Mode') with each of those tools, making sure that they are the latest versions and have their definition files updated first.

The perform an in-place upgrade of Windows:

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

If your system still behaves oddly, consider a format and fresh install of Windows and your programs, this time avoiding all those gimmicky tools which claim to look after your PC for you. When you use a battery of those, all you ever end up doing is creating another mess to replace the one you had.

errr..... uummmmm........

"Led zeppelin, Jimi hendrix, clapton, the doors......."

The production date on the CD might say sometime in the very early 70s, but all those are products of the '60's you'll find.

Overnight should be ample. If it still won't install and reliably recognise mouse and keyboard then perhaps the motherboard or the input devices are faulty.

Did you try 'Refresh' from the view menu to see if the file is actually there?

Did you correctly install the display drivers for your system? I suspect not.

Are you using the most up to date Windows XP printer driver for the 812c? You'll find it on HP's website. Is your version of Print Shop a recent version or an old version?

If you are using software and drivers from an installation CD, and the device was purchased some time ago, then its highly likely that it's outdated and there will be incompatibilities and other problems.

The site you linked needs the Macromedia Flash plugin to work corrctly, regardless of what browser you use.

What softeware program are you using to print the banners with? It may simply not be compatible with Windows XP. This doesn't sound like a printer problem, it sounds like a software one!

I sooooooo seriously dislike Norton products - for soooooooo many reasons!

The stuff which can't be cleaned or deleted will be inaccessible because it is running in memory. Rebooting into 'Safe Mode' and using decent cleanup tools from there is the way to rid yourself of such pests.

The most important part is the graphics processor on the card. Doesn't matter what other bits you have, if the graphics chip is cruddy, the card is cruddy!

Next most important thing is the speed and responsiveness of the RAM chips. The colockspeed of the video RAM is measured in Megahertz, and the responsiveness in nanoseconds. More MHz is better, less ns is better.

The amount of video RAM included is a distant LAST in consideration of how good a card is. Given the same graphics processor (and processor clockspeed of course) , a card with 128Mb of fast RAM will outperform a card with 256Mb of slower RAM. And the 256Mb versions often include slower RAM!

Do you have the original 'Restore' disks for your PC? Do you have a CD or DVD burner installed?

In your situation I'd seriously consider backing up your data files to CD, external drive, or a networked PC, then using the Restore (Recovery?) CD to restore your system to its original state . Load your softaware back on and copy your data files back, and you'll have removed the problem. You can use those downloaded drivers to update the ones originally used.

Your problem could have any of a large number of causes, and it first occurred too long ago for you to remember just what happened on your system prior to it arising. You could spend an inteminable amount of time tracking it down and correcting it. At present, it sounds like you're piling system corruption on top of system corruption.

Sometimes it's simply better to wipe it and start over!

You've said the symptoms seem to point to the hard drive, but you've not shared those symptoms with us?

The 'no signal present' error message could perhaps point to a problem with the display card or with the monitor cord, but not necessarily, as it is a standard error message which simply says that the PC is not working..

Reset CMOS. Better still, remove and replace the CMOS battery.

whoops!!!

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?dlc=en&tool=softwareCategory&lc=en&product=92994&cc=us&os=209

Those are the Windows Me drivers :D

Always go the the manufacturer website. Driverguide is for losers, in my opinion, and should only ever be used as a last resort for old stuff which no longer has official drivers available for download.

In this case, Hewlett Packard has provided the drivers for Compaq PCs since the two companies merged a while back.

Laser might have been kidding, but he's right on the money nevertheless. Add-ons like the Google tooldar do a reasonable job of blocking pop-ups in IE, but changing to a stand-alone browser with that functionality inbuilt is a much, much better approach.

Here are all the device drivers for your Presario. Download them and install them. there are most likely some updated drivers there compared to the ones you have installed. Do not worry about the onboard graphics driver of course.

Then uninstall and reinstall the games you are having problems with. First ensure that you have the latest version of DirectX installed, and do NOT allow any game installation to install a different version of DirectX.

Bung it in a different system, as a 'Slave' drive or as master on the secondary IDE channel, and see if it is recognised there.

Then, on that system, go to Control Panel > Performance & Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. Let us know what partitioning information you see there please.

By the way, if there are files stored on the drive, it is definitiely partitioned. It may only have ONE partition created, but it has had it created neverthless.

Perform an 'In-Place Upgrade' as a measure to repair the damage done to your Windows installation.

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

Afterwards, reassess your approach to deleting files. People who delete files from the \WINDOWS folder invite problems!

What Web Browser do you use, if I might ask. I have a suspicion that you might have a variation of Netscape there. That product has a horrendous history of hijacked associations and stuffed up images.

.jpe is simply a variant of .jpg, by the way, and renaming the files to have a .jpg extension should get them working correctly. But sorting out those file associations is a must. When you install any program, ALWAYS choose 'Custom install' and don't allow it to take over every file association it wants to get its grubby little hands on!

Maxthon is a revamped progression from 'MyIE', and it uses the Internet Explorer engine. regardless of the features it adds to the Internet Explorer feature set, it is still deeply embedded into the OS, rather than being a stand-alone web browser. It is subject to the same levels and types of security risks that Internet Explorer is!

Yes. Of course it is. Didn't you try?

Format. Fresh install. Your system has driver corruption problems which a repair won't fix.

Have I got this right? You have one drive in your system. You've just added another, and installed it as Slave for data storage. You now want to move files onto it.

Why not just use cut/paste from within Windows to do this?

civic, ever considered that there just ISN'T a straight 4 word answer?

The links to articles I provided, and the other linked articles nested down in them, collectively contain just about every known technique for correcting problems with CD/DVD/Burner optical drives. There are a vast number of causes of such problems, and about 99.95% of them are software related. The other instances are hardware failure, and that's a lot rarer than people think it is.

If reading through all of it, and trying the techniques mentioned, doesn't work for you then back up your data files to another machine, format, and install Windows and your programs cleanly again. THAT'LL fix it.

I just googled for lexmark z11 driver download xp and this is the first search result I clicked on:

http://drivers.soft32.com/driver/download-LEXMARK_Printer_Z11_Color_Jetprinter-23097.html

Checking the driver downloads section at www.lexmark.com indicates that it is the most recent driver version for Windows XP.

You should always look first on the manufacturer's website for device drivers. The ones included on the installation CD are most likely outdated before even the ink on the CD label is dried!

If your teacher has okayed the change, then save the image you want as wallpaper to CD, and get your teacher to request that the School's network supervisor makes the change for you!

There's also the point you can get to where the constant fiddling to get things working is enough to convince you that perhaps it's time to upgrade some components! That motherboard might still be working, but with ISA slots on it the thing is a relic! If that Soundblaster is an old ISA card, then it may be a treasured old friend, but the cheapest of PCI soundcards will do a better job that it!

As DMR stated, getting it to work is a trial and error process. Reset CMOS between changes, and don't make too many of them without helping Windows out by performing a format and fresh install. Piling mess upon mess in the form of system setup changes takes its toll after a while.

The school has obviously imposed such restrictions for good reason. Let's not sully the good reputation of Daniweb by helping you to circumvent those restrictions in defiance, eh?

You can't 'break' anything by making BIOS changes. If things go haywire on you then all you have to do is reset CMOS to return it back to factory presets ;)

Start the system in 'Safe mode'. (Press <F8> prior to the Windows Logo screen displaying)

Log in as 'Administrator'. You should be able to do so if the disgruntled ex-employee hasn't altered that one as well. From there you should be able to remove existing user accounts and create new ones.

Do you need to accomodate user input from each terminal point?

Computers which aren't powerful enough to run the games! Mainly display cards which aren't powerful enough, but processors and the amount of RAM installed have a quite strong impact as well.

3D games are the most strenuous job your PC can be put to work at, and the more powerful your system the better!

You need to lift the data off the drive, format it and start over.

A refresh install or an upgrade install doesn't always fix things, and in cases like this where the problems are systemic and persistent, such an install can, in fact, make things worse!

Doesn't matter if the stuff will be lost or not (it won't be), the procedure you are contemplating will NOT fix your problem!

Fit the drive as slave in another system (a friend's will do) and copy the data files to CD. Then replace it in your system as master again, format, install clean, and copy your data back.

Why not use Windows?

I'd also not consider such nasty critters to be really gone until they'd stayed away for several reboots!

:D

Read this:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tc.alpha85/lop/lop.htm

HijackThis may not be enough to rid yourself of this ;)

Agreed. Nothing for you to do but go back to your friend(s) and say "Dude, you gotta spend some money!"

I think you're asking too much of a single system. There are specialist display cards available which can drive a number of individually unique displays, but they're expensive. Also, as suggested by DMR, I think you'll be running into problems at the OS and Apllication level.

Are all these displays permanently displaying their own unique screens of information, with no user input whatsoever? Does the information actually need to be requested for display?

I suspect what you really need is a central server, providing the database for terminal machines to use. Each terminal would only need to be a pretty basic system, powerful enough to simply run the Application and log into the database of information. Wouldn't need to be all that much more expensive than 26 separate monitors.

It means that your display drivers are incorrectly installed or corrupted. Before wiping clean and installing fresh, check in BIOS setup and ensure that AGP is set to 4X and that 'Fast writes' are set to 'Disabled' . AGP 8X and AGP fast writes sometimes adversely effects ATi Radeon display cards of this vintage.

If that doesn't help, format and install fresh. I know a lot of people would advise fiddling around with it to try and correct the problem, but I've seen too many messy driver installs to recommend that procedure myself!

Driver corruption? Dying display card? Easiest and most accurate way to determin this is to format the system and install Windows and the appropriate drivers etc fresh and clean. The card definitely supports the feature, so it must be either system corruption of failing hardware. You need to determine which!

Are all 26 displays showing different information, or is there some commonality involved?

You've omitted the most important bit of info. What storage capacity are those drives you have? Even 250 to 300Gb hard drives now fall into the 'affordable' category, so if you need to add storage space using larger drives might be the most obvious and immediate answer. You DON'T need 250Gb plus for your OS and programs!

If your needs for staorage are indeed extremely large, perhaps you could cinsider a unit such as this SOHO File Server, which can accomodate a drive of up to 400Gb, and have up to 3 USB connected drives attached to it as well.

Sorry, but DaniWeb does not allow assistance to be given for such purposes.

Topic closed.

Topics should not be cross-posted.

The 128Mb card running 1000MHz video ram should outperform the 256Mb card running 900MHz video RAM. If you are after pure speed, then that's the deciding factor.

If, on the other hand, you are going to be insistent on running the highest graphical details you can possibly put on screen, regardless of whether or not it causes slowdows, then the extra video RAM would help with the massive texture calculations.

The question being asked in this topic is related to whether or not the overclock is 'Safe'. No overclock is 'Safe'. Only running equipment at factory specifications is 'Safe'.

Overclock for fun, education and e-penis by all means, if that's what you want to do. But don't kid yourself that it's 'Safe'. If you can't afford to replace it, then leave it at stock settings and don't take risks ;)

Edit: Don't think I'm some old 'wowser' either. I have more than one overclocked system here, and it wouldn't inconvenience me at all if a component in one of them gave up the ghost right this minute!

They are files which are used if the Service Pack gets uninstalled. If space is a problem with them present, the best course of action is to add more hard drive space to your PC!

If space is not an issue, then such files do not effect system performance, and can be safely left.

If it is merely their presence which offends you and makes you feel compelled to remove them, then perhaps you need some other activity to keep you occupied?

In short, yes they can be safely removed. If you do remove them, you'll not be able to uninstall the updates which have been added to your PC. They do no harm, and are not really part of the general 'dross' which can build up on your PC and slow it down. Painstakingly and m,eticulously removing everything which you don't see a use for is not necessarily the best approach to maintaining a Windows system, and if you find that you are constantly removing files to allow you to continue computing then you definitely do not have enough storage space.

Sounds like system corruption which has resulted from infection by a trojan or other 'nasty'. Try following the advice in the stickied topics in our 'Viruses and Nasties' section, and if that doesn't correct the situation try a refresh install of Windows.