Posts by Catweazle

Hi Sunando,

Is this question related to your one about recording university lectures?:
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread30938.html

If so, you do not need any such product. Any reasonable microphone will do the job perfectly well. In that topic I mentioned using a portable tape recorder for the task a couple of decades ago. At that time the inbuilt microphone of a cheap cassette recorder was perfectly adequate for the task. Technology has improved since then.

Why do you say this is your first post here, by the way?

Oh! Thanks. You had me wondering.

I still think the problem relates to shared earth coming into contact with a live wire, by the way. I'd bet that co-ax comes into contact with household earth somewheres between the outside of the house and the outlet the PC is plugged in to ;)

Which Windows version please? This needs to be moved to the Tech section.

I do agree with Catweazle on one count..

Does that mean I was wrong on others? I'm curious to know. I thoroughly agree with the 'landlord' comment as well. The damaged equipment is his responsibility.

Also a main point I am trying to conclude is, that if the situation was was that the outlet was reverse polarity and the earth was completely good, or non-existant the effects of reverse polarity wouldnt cause the chassis to be live anyway?

Okay. To clarify:

'Reverse polarity' means bugger all in relation to your power outlets and household power wiring. It is alternating current, which means that the current uis constantly changing direction anyway. See here for an explanation.

Reverse polarity would be meaningful INSIDE your PC, because the power unit transforms the AC household current into a reduced voltage DC current, and you can't switch direction of the power flow or components get cooked.

You've added a co-axial cable (it sounds like) into the mix, and coaxial cable carries the signal in the middle wire, whilst the (usually braided) outer sheath is connected to electrical ground. Earth for the househild AC current and the coax signal's cable is shared.

Now it seems to me that somewhere in the household wiring, an earth is connected to a live wire. It may be just at the outlets you're using or it may be elsewhere. When you've plugged into that PC it's fried the whole shebang so it sounds like the outlet you're using is kaput, and that connecting the coax right there has brought the kaput to the surface.

It also seems to me that the 'electricians' you've been talking to are dills, …

You've either damaged the motherboard, have the notherboard connected to the case incorrectly, or you have somehow misconfigured the BIOS settings. Reset CMOS, try again, and if it still doesn't work I really think it's time for you to take it to a reapair shop to be checked!

Starting from scratch sounds like the best option. I wouldn't bother trying to upgarde a Compaq, because they're not designed to be upgraded. BIOS usually prevents you even from using processors that the motherboard should be able to accept!

Brand name PCs suck!

Okey dokeys. Like I said I'm a home handyman not an electrician. Readers Digest Home handyman books are the go with me, not circuit testers and wiring diagrams.

Without wading my way through reference resources and the like, one thing slaps me in the face from all that.

Did you just say the outlet doesn't have the earth connected? Seems like it to me and if that's the case it's an outlet I wouldn't use.

Also, are you saying that different outlets in the house have different pins 'live'? Sounds like that to me too.

It should all be the same. And it sounds like the house wiring is stuffed!

Be absolutely certain which of the two installations is the one you want to keep. Wipe the unwanted drive of it's installation. (Format or delete as you wish, NOT uninstall.)

Then delete the leftover entry from the boot information file, yes!

I can't tell you precisely which line it is. I can't look at your machine to be sure which installation is the one you want to keep. Best way is to make a bootable floppy, boot from it and use DOS commands to double check the contents of the hard drive(s). Drive letters can be different in Windows to how the machine itself allocates them.

When you're sure, get rid of the one you don't want, edit the file and you're left with only the one windows installation and your second drive free for data.

Most of the A7V8X motherboards require a BIOS update for AGP 8X compatibility to be improved, from what I can see. I can't find reference to an A7V8X-LA on the Asus website. Perhaps the BIOS update needs to be obtained from the system manufacturer website?

Delete everything on the second drive. Then edit the boot.ini file to remove the reference to the second OS installation.

Hi Linda and welcome.

I hope you enjoy your time here. :D

Reinstall XP.

Sorry, but you've already tried the other way out.

Hey hell, I'm no electrician - I'm a home handyman. And we have a bit different wiring here in Ausssie to you lot. But what you're describing sounds like exactly what happens when some dill hooks up a live wire to an earth wire somewheres in the house circuit. It'll go good till it don't, and when it don't it don't dramatically!

Hard way to sort it out if that's the case is to check things thoroughly at every junction and whatsit in the house circuit.

Easy way (especially as it's an old house) is to rewire the house. Cable's pretty inexpensive, and if you know what you're doing (or can follow instructions) you can lay out all the cabling and connect it up yourself, all bar the connection to the house power box. Then get an electrician to check it, authorise it and connect it up lve. :)

First thing you do is slow down and decide to write properly, using sentences, full stops and the best spelling you can manage, so that we can read your comments more easily. Get rid of all those silly dots that make my eyes bleed!

Your typing suggests you're probably in too much of a hurry and prone to make mistakes :)

Second thing you do is take the time to read and understand out Read this First topic, and follow the instructions in there.

If the machine won't post correctly in the 'Bare bones' configuration mentioned we can work on the core elements of your system to get them right.

Sure you've reset CMOS at each stage to ensure that it's not simply BIOS settings causing the failure to POST?

Sure your processor isn't dead?

Checked that the wall outlet is turned on and actually has power, and that the kid or the cat hasn't bumped a plug loose?

Hi everybody,

I'm sure that most of you will have noticed that our Blogs are now much more prominently featured at Daniweb. Selected entries from the Blogs are featured on Daniweb's home page as 'News Stories'.

We'd like to be able to feature more of them, so we'd encourage you to get busy Blogging.

In particular, we'd like to see stories which relate to Software Development and Web Development to ensure we get broader content in our news. To date we've had mostly Tech-related stories.

Any worthy Blog entry can be 'featured' on the front page of Daniweb. We're constantly on the look out for suitable contributions. We're continually finding hardly any Blog entries being posted at all!

Consider yourself a budding 'journalist'? Do you keep up with the 'News' and want to share it with the rest of us? Please, can we have some Blog entries coming in?

Try this:

* Download Media Player 10

* In Add/Remove Programs, click on 'Add/Remove Windows components'
* Uncheck 'Windows Media Player', click 'Next' and complete the process of uninstalling the feature.
* Run the WMP 10 installation you downloaded.

First, though, I'd suggest uninstalling other 'player' software you have installed and perhaps don't use.

Do you have Yahoo Player as a separately installed piece of software?

I don't. The detail you mentioned above didn't come up for me, and I was instantly and easily able to get the feed working in a browser window.

Making it small is quick and easy too. Regardless of your browser, alter the 'View' meny to remove staus bar and all toolbars, then adjust the windows size and park it in a suitable corner of the desktop.

Just make sure it's not the last browser window closed when you finish, or the altered layout could end up being set as default.

I suspect you might be having conflicts from too many media player type programs installed.

Oh dear!

It sounds like you've had a power interruption whilst the system was updating. When that happens the motherboard is rendered unable to function. You'd best get it checked at a repair shop or the place you purchased it from. It will probably require either a new BIOS chip fitted or replacement.

Hi Barry.

Could you please let us know which version of Windows you run, so this can be moved to the appropriate forum section for attention?

No, I don't sorry. Some more recent Presarios have a thumb operated lever or wheel which needs to be rotated to allow the side panel to come loose. Others I've not seen may have different mechanisms. 'Name brand' manufacturers often seem to do their best to STOP you from getting in, which is rather silly as every PC needs to be regularly opened and cleaned!

If you can't work it out, take it to a repair shop. The important thing is NOT to use it in that state. Loud noises, shutdowns and overheating will cause damage if you continue to use it. Damage may already have occurred.

Nasty system corruption there. Try an In-place upgrade to see if it corrects the problem:

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

Uninstall all drivers and software which might relate to previous keyboards or mice which have been installed.

When removing the devices from Device Manager, make sure you check 'Show hidden devices' to see if entries of 'phantom' devices exist and remove those which do.

errmmmmmm.........

Do not turn that computer on!

Open the system case and clean it free of dust inside. Then turn the power on briefly to see which fan(s) aren't working. Turn off immediately. Replace the non-functiong fans and then try to see if the thing will work.

If that sounds too difficult, take it to a repair shop instead!

Welcome to the forum fellas. Are you enthusiasts/professionals who are outraged at my comments or people from Crucial who have signed up to respond to my comments? Either way I hope you stick around, offer help and advice, and engage in debate here :D

My earlier comments, made back in April, were as acknowledged a tad hasty. 'Twas a rather busy time for me and the implication of my comment is incorrect. Crucial is, as you say, a dicision of Micron rather than a module assembler who sources RAM chips willy-nilly.

Nevertheless, I see no reason to add them to my list of 'preferred' brands. Micron may enjoy favour from big-name system manufacturers, but they don't enjoy the same degree of favour from performance entusiasts/ overclockers, as Coconut Monkey has pointed out. The brand names I listed earlier are widely acknowledged as the brands most likely to have wide compatibility with motherboards.

LOL. Those instruction are identical to the ones included in the KB article I linked several days back :D

Marking this as solved. I'm glad to hear it helped you.

In IE, go to View -> Text size and change it. Same deal for Firefox. Make the font size what you want it to be ;)

When you say the computer "wasn't on" do you mean that Windows had been shut down? When that happens, there is still power to the motherboard. The machine has to be turned off either at the isolation switch on the power supply unit, if one is present, or at the wall outlet if not. That's the only way it will truly be 'off'.

Also, was a good power conditioning device being used or simply a 'surge protected' power board. Those power boards are next to useless in the event of a decent power surge.

Proper practice when electrical outages are likely is to shut down equipment at the wall outlet to eliminate chance of damage. If you suspect some may have occurred, the best idea is to get a technician/repair shop to check and test it for you.

All of the above and much, much more!

I dunno about 'sad person'. I suspect that people who describe others like that simply because of differing tastes in music are somewhat 'sad' themselves.

I know I'm an unusual person, because there isn't a single shred of music on any of my PCs. Instead, I have walls filled with shelves of music, and it only ever gets palyed through the home theatre system!

Earlier I was listening to Strauss. Right now I'm listening to Ice Cube, one of the artists on the excellent EMI set "Complete Urban"

heh heh.....

Are you likening it to a 'virus' because it's son intrusive and hard to get rid of? If so, then I can't help but notice that to do something about it you're using Norton's, which would be my 'top of the list' for nasty, intrusive, bug-ridden, hard to get rid of rubbish programs of all time!

Hi Fred.

What are you using to 'clean' Windows? That's an error message I've not encountered before, and I suspect that you may be using an installed program to do the cleanup job rather than the built-in Windows utilities.

In any event, that message is simply telling you that your Windows installation is in a mess and that you may be well advised to format the system and install Windows and your programs again. It is not saying that you need to buy another copy of Windows, simply that you need to use your existing one to start off again fresh and clean.

Your Windows CD can be used as many times as you like to wipe the hard drive clean and install Windows on it. You'll find help with the procedure in the 'Tips and Tweaks' topic that your question was split from.

No pop-ups being experienced here, for sure.

People having problems with pop up advertising can feel welcome to visit our 'Viruses, Spyware and other Nasties' forum section to get assistance with cleaning their systems.

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/forum64.html

An FX5200 is way below the recommended specs for WoW, so perhaps you might need to reduce screen resolution and graphics detail further than you currently have it. An FX5700 is really the acceptable entry point for performance in games such as that.

Have you got the v1.5 patch installed for WoW? Heaps of people reported freeze problems with that so if you have uninstall the game and then reinstall it without the patch to see if that helps.

No, the expense was unwarranted, considering you could have used freely available forum software.

The site has very few members, no theme nor clear indications of purpose, and no content other than a small number of "Hello" type messages.

$85 seems an expensive way for a few friends to say 'Hello' when that could have been achieved for free!

Definitely need to know what model Asus motherboard it is.

Edit: Whoops, didn't look. It's an A8V. I'll check it out a bit later when I'm not so busy and see if any of the BIOS updates are relevent.

What graphic card have you got and where did you get the driver update from please?

It seems you have one of the NVidia based display cards, and I'd strongly advise against getting drivers from Windows Update!

I'll look at the motherboard drivers and BIOS update issues once we've determined what display drivers are being used.

Yes. Wait until you get hiome from school and do so on your own machine. Or ask the systems admin at the school to grant you special access through the filters.

Bypassing security filters put in place is a really silly thing to do, and if you get caught doing so you'd risk expulsion.

If anyone here gave you advice about how to do it they'd be encouraging illegal behaviour.

Spamming your forum link on here is also prohibited behaviour. The link has been edited and the topic closed.

Okay. Thanks for that because it's clarified what you are discussing. It seems apparent that somehow device drivers have not installed correctly. Perhaps its the drivers being used, perhaps its the installation procedures you've followed. Hard to tell. Either the motherboard chipset drivers or the display drivers have not installed correctly and caused the problem.

Could you please let us know the make and model of your motherboard, or the make and model of the PC if it is a 'Brand name' one.

Everest Home Edition is a useful hardware reporting tool for determining identification details if you don't know them.

The fact that you've just performed a format/clean install means little if you've loaded software since or been using the internet. Having Norton installed does not protect you against all forms of intruders.

The monitor 'driver' has nothing to do with this. Your 'Tech guy' must not understand how hardware works, because a monitor driver merely gives Windows information about what screen resolution and refresh rate settings are suitable for use with the monitor installed. All monitors should work without a monitor driver loaded, in the more common screen resolution settings anyway!

You should really post the full text of error messages received. I'm suspecting that you are referring to a memory dump but there will be displayed error information which is relevent for identifying where the problem is originating.

This really sounds like a software problem, and fuller details of the contents of error messages would help. Some programs (Norton is one of them) load 'virtual' display drivers which can conflict with the ones loaded for hardware components. Hard to tell what's going on without more information.

Visit www.nvidia.com

Choose 'Download drivers'

Choose 'Graphics driver' then 'GeForce' then your operating system version. Click 'Go'.

In the menu at left of screen you will see the entry for 'Driver Archive'. Choose that and you can access previous driver versions.

There's a 'Search this thread' button on the title bar for this thread. There's a 'Search this forum' button on the title bar for ecvery forum section and sub section menu. Both allow you to go straight to 'Advanced' search in the drop down entry box.

There are other reasons for threads being closed also.

For instance, a thread may be created which is adressing content forbidden on this website. Such matters as P2P program assistance is prohibited, for example, and assistance with warezed software.

Also, a post may be made that 'resurrects' a long stagnant thread by simply tacking a further question onto it rather than starting a new thread for the new question.

In such situations moderators may, at their discretion, choose that closing the thread is the most suitable course of action.

I would DEFINITELY not advise people to purchase such cheap copies of Windows XP from places found by online price locators like that one. They are OEM copies which are not being legitimately sold unless they are sold with a motherboard bundle or system, and cannot be re-used on a different system. In some cases they need to be fiddled about with to get them to work on ANY system!

The cheapest, full retail legitimate Windows XP available from there is over $160

Pleased to hear that Corsair have decided to look after you. Even if that rAM is replaced with modules that aren't quite as good, it's better to have RAM that works than RAM which doesn't.

Please let us know what you get in exchange and how you get on with it.

I'm afraid you've simply stuffed up your Windows installation by installing and using one of the nastier flavours of File sharing software available. We can't help you with advice about how to use Limewire successfully. It's against forum guidelines for assistance with P2P software to be given here.

Don't believe what the Limewire website claims. Using it will lead to a system which is riddled with intrusive rubbish, and for many people will lead to system file corruption.

If you want help with removing the critter completely from your system, and with identifying and removing any nasty intruders on your system, please follow the advice in the various pinned topics in our 'Viruses, spyware and Nasties' section, and post a topic there should you need further help with cleaning up your PC.

Personally, I'd advise that you format/fresh install or use the Recovery CD of your PC to restore it to original state, and refrain from installing such software in future.

Topic closed.

See the little 'Display Modes' button at top right of thread? Click on it and choose 'Linear mode' ;)

It's not the forum - it's only the setting you are using!

I'd think that fair justification for removing the darn thing, Dani. Seems silly to have it if it puts strain on the server. Why not delete it and create a new one in its place? Or perhaps start a fresh new 'game' in its place?

Not as if anyone would be heartbroken about losing postcount from the thing, surely? Matter of fact I'd think it a darn shame that people even GET postcount addition from games such as that!

Try it on the 'Last Page' navigation link for the Word Association thread in the Geek's Lounge, Dani. That one should be near top of page. The error happens for me also.

jusCk, dunno what you did but that sounds buzarre.

oalee, if the problems aren't cleaned up before a refresh install they will be replicated or worsened. If a refresh install doesn't fix it, a format/fresh install will ;)