Posts by Catweazle

People with Automatic updating enabled are receiving the Service Pack now, and it will be available via Windows Update website in a week or so.

Its interesting, I sent my son to pick up a network card for my laptop, as I have a cable, and I was going to use the network with xp, to try to hook both computers up. the salesmen, said no no no, you cannot both get online.thats impossible,,and if u could, u both would have to look at the same thing..??

....I dont understand a lot of things. Judith

Judith, neither does that salesman ;)

eerr..... uummmm.......

It's highly likely that even a reinstall (In-place upgrade) over the top of the existing Windows installation will fix that. A format and fresh install may be inorder.

You could try replacing the drive in the original system to lift off any data files you need to make backups of, beut even then, once the hard drive has been used to try and boot in a new system, it may be gone beyond any reasonable chance of recovery.

Sorry, but that's just the way things are. Windows XP is NOT designed to handle a change of motherboard!

korteena, please stop trying to use hard drives from other PCs. You run the risk of causing damage to the Windows installations on those as well ;)

That could have something to do with it, for sure. More specifically, whatever tool you used to remove the Trojan may have also removed the folder.

If you want to recover the missing files, the more you use that PC the less chance you will have of success ;)

Take your system to a repair shop to have it checked. It sounds very much like the internal components have been damaged, and you will need to have it checked to find out what needs to be replaced.

heh heh heh........

I've been known to argue a point for two pages of discussion before noticing the small comment in the original post I'd initially missed! :D

Those stop errors point either to faulty RAM or a kernel-level process gone haywire. Have you changed any hardware or upgraded drivers or other critical software lately? Also, what kind of sound card do you have? The second stop code can be related to a driver issue with Audigy sound cards.

However, notice the bold :), it all started doing this when I bought my new graphics card: ATI Radeon 9600SE 128mb.

djwazzup06, read the tweaktown article, eh? It contains suggestions about cleaning up traces of the old drivers and getting the ATi catalyst drivers installed cleanly. Driver problems are the most likely source of your instability.

You can use the upgrade CD. run the Compatibility tool first, and uninstall any programs or drivers which the check rejects before performing the upgrade.

Another alternative is to add another hard drive to the system as a 'Slave' drive. Boot from the Windows Upgrade CD and you will get the option to install XP to the second drive, creating a 'Dual-boot' setup. You'll be able to access both your old Windows Me installation and the new Windows XP one.

Watch your POST screens. You'll probably get a message telling you to "Press xxxx to Setup". If you have a 'NameBrand' system which displays a Logo instead of the POST screens, press the <Esc> key when it's loading to get rid of it.

This might also help.

Go into BIOS setup. If 'AGP fast writes' is enabled, then disable it. If you find that the system is set to "AGP 8x", then change it to "AGP 4x".

Let us know if problems persist please.

If you previously had a different brand of display card installed, you may not have successfully removed traces of old display drivers. Ideally, a format and fresh install should be conducted when changing brands of display card. See this article:

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=569

You would be better served to add another hard drive to your system. A 40Gb or 80Gb drive can be obtained for a surprisingly low price nowadays.

I'll move this topic to the Windows XP section, to see if you get a better response than the nonexistent one you have so far!

Yes, it'd certainly work. It'd actually be 'overkill' - far more adequate than necessary! But using a heatsink/fan that's better than what you actually need simply means you can reuse it for a more powerful processor later, doesn't it?

Be extremely attentive to cleaning the processor die of any trace of the old thermal transfer material befor you fit a new heatsink to it. I use Arctic silver 5 thermal paste on my own systems, and the cleaning instructions in their application guide are suitable to follow no matter what choice of thermal compound you use:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

The delay in boot times is a different thing to the actual speed of operation. Just because booting up is taking longer doesn't mean the drive is operating slower.

The behaviour you describe is most likely a delay in drive detection during POST, due to the configuration used.

DaveSW, that's not correct. Drives being limited to the speed of the slowest unit on the cable is only something that related to quite old systems. Most modern systems can run the drives at their correct speed, and that has been the case for some years now!

The feature is called "Independent Device Timing", and is so much a standard now that you don't see it even get a mention ;)

Hi again, I just had another look, and I think you're referring to this processor cooler.

It does not look like much of a cooler to me, and at 4500rpm its no wonder the thing is loud!

Your Athlon should be no more than 40C to 45C at idle, and optimally no more than 60C under heavy load. AMD rates the maximum core temperature at 80C, but you could expect it to malfunction well short of that. Your current temps are WELL under safe levels.

I personally use Coolermaster Aero 7+ coolers. At a little over 3000rpm, they keep my overclocked 2500+ chips in the mid 30s, and there's plenty of revs in reserve. You should be able to keep that 2000+ at bery safe temps with little noise at all with a cooler like that one. Thermaltake products are also good, as are the products made by Zalman.

Aquamark is not a very well considered benchmark tool. For more comparability, rund 3DMark 2001 and 3DMark 2003 on the system, and report your scores in those please.

Also, ensure you have AF and FSAA disabled before you run the tests.

korteena, i'm not familiar with that particular HSF but I can tell you this:

Any worthwhile aftermarket HSF unit nowadays comes with a rheostat controller to alter fanspeeds. Full revs are only ever needed in extreme operating conditions. If yours didn't vcome with a fan control then I'd be suspicious of its quality.

In addition, if it's securely fitted and it's still causing vibration then it's faulty. Noise yes. Vibration no!!!

That's not right, I'm, afraid, and you should have it looked at ;)

I thoroughly endorse this product!

In fact, that's a tip I've been passing on for ages. It's an old trick and a goodie. doesn't work every time, of course, but when it does it's bloody wonderful!

Alex, that's got me a bit bewildered. how the hell could you do anything but improve the cooling of a system by replacing a passive heatsink with a heatsink/fan combination?

That shroud is only on there to assist drawing air away from the processor heatsink because a passive heatsink is such a shitty solution. Quiet it might be, but efficient? Not in my view!

stella -> loopy

(Don't ask! :))

You don't close it mate. We have to mark it 'solved'. :D

Glad to hear you have had some success!

No version of Windows comes with Office. If you haven't got a copy, buy one or use a free alternative.

Bring up Mouse properties in Control panel and see what functions are assigned to the buttons. You should be able to change them there, and if the functions have been badly misallocated, you should be able to use keyboard shortcuts to make the changes.

Also, have you used a USB or PS/2 mouse with the laptop, and installed software for it? You might be getting some conflicts if you have.

It's the cooler of choice for Radeon 9x00 card owners in most enthusiast forums I've had involvement with ;)

That's a terrible internal setup for a system with a high-powered video card, by the way. I'm sure you'll find some further helpful ideas in the article I linked earlier.

Sorry, I'm not aware of the internal configuration of your Dell. I personally wouldn't touch a 'Name brand' PC with a 10 foot pole, and haven't seen the insides of one for ages! If it has a passive heatsink on the processor, then yes, a decent heatsink with fan would be better.

You could use Froogle to check pricing in your location. I'm in Australia, mate, not the US.

Do you wish to know how long your PC has been running since it was booted up?

You got one thing wrong in your approach. You need to ensure that air IS drawn over your heatsink! That's how it works!

It's what I meant by adequate airflow - the air currents need to be drawn ACROSS the hot running components, and you need to ensure that there is adequate air intake and air exhaust to ensure that a continual flow of air from outside the case is used to do so. Bring in cooler air from outside, draw it across the heatsinks to carry away the heat, and exhaust it from the case!

That northbridge certainly does contain the memory controller, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. You shouldn't get excessive heat in your Northbridge unless you're overclocking the processor and/or RAM, and I'd highly doubt you're doing that on a Dell!

And one further thing. Don't get too freaked out because that video card is supposed to run rather hot. All high performance video cards do. If you aren't getting lock-ups, graphical 'tearing' or snowy 'artifacts' onscreen, then you don't really have a problem.

The VGA silencer is a nice unit. (I just gave one away, 'cause I've got an FX5900XT, not a Radeon)

But nice or not, it doesn't alter the fact that the basics need to be attended to first. Tidy up cabling, ensure adequate and correct airflow inside the case. If you don't attend to those, you might as well be pissin' into the wind!

Not sure what you mean by 'all fans', as you ghaven't indicated. But if you haven't got adequate case ventilation and airflow you need to improve it when you're using a 'chunky' video card. An intake fan at front/bottom and an exhaust fan at rear/adjacent to processor ar the bare minimum, and if the vid card still runs hot another intake fan mounted in the side panel above the video card is a good idea.

Have a read of this article.

Techie Wiz

[img]http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/techtalk-images/avatars/Dilbert/Mordac.gif[/img]

heh heh......

Next: "Healthy illness"

Welcome aboard, Rohan and DuncanIdaho. The more the merrier, and remember - We've all got heaps to learn, and we've all got heaps to contribute.

Most of all though, it's quite enjoyable to be here :D

When the system reboots during the install, you're not pressing a key to boot from CD-ROM are you?

You can purchase quite inexpensive Fan controller units which are used to alter the speed of up to 8 fans. They can be obtained to fit a 3.5" or 5.25" drive bay, use one molex connector for all fans, and are the best choice to use.

You'll have to find a vendor near where you live, of course, but here's an example from my own local vendor:

http://www.pccasegear.com.au/prod647.htm

If at all possible, avoid running case fans off motherboard connectors, because the power in your motherboard is best left for vid card, RAM etc.

Be cautious about any consideration of an AthlonXP for overclocking. The early production runs of them were very good overclockers, but more recent production runs aren't. Many of the more rently released XP2500+ processors don't overclock very well at all. I've got a pair of very good chips, one purchased new a while back, and the other purchased secondhand recently.

If you want a good chip nowadays, buying secondhand from a member of an overclockers enthusiast group is probably the best way to source it. But why bother? An XP3200+ isn't very expensive now anyway ;)

But to tell you the truth, I wouldn't consider an Athlon XP for video editing, as the Pentium 4s and Athlon64s are better for the job.

And Catweazle I appreciate your translation into Canadian, eh :lol:

'tis but an anomoly, Trent. I'm an Irish descended Aussie who talks and thinks like an indigenous Australian! It's got a lot to do with my wife, children, and the community I've lived amongst for the past 35 years or so :D

I'm not sure why that mouse doesn't work in the PS/2 socket. Perhaps the 'Add Hardware' applet needs to be run, but I wouldn't bother. If it wors OK in USB, then why worry about it?

Glad to hear the problem is sorted out.

I've just spent a few days sorting out a mess for a friend who had a Celeron based Compaq. It had only 128Mb and some 'well-meaning' friends had done so much tinkering with the system that virtually every feature of Windows XP had been disabled!

All that was needed was enough RAM, and boosting it to 384Mb, then disabling the onboard graphics and dropping in an old GeForce2 MX video card made his system jump up and sprint!

I'm afraid you'll have to provide the full text of any error messages you receive, including the codes in them.

Has it worked for you?

That Toshiba Satellite is a laptop eh? The software would conflict with the trackpoint or accupad or whatever is used in the thing. To use the mouse on the laptop, it'd be better to just plug it in and use Windows inbuilt drivers for it.

Of course the easiest way of all is to rip the hard drive out of the old system, bung it in the new system as a second hard drive, copy the data files across and then format it to be used as extra storage space ;)

Most comments I've read about it suggest that you might even GAIN performance. It's not a very good feature, apparently. Google up 'Windows XP indexing service disable' and you'll find heaps of criticism of it.

I hope they adopt better ideas for Longhorn, which is supposed to hide all the filing system stuff from the user!

128Mb of RAM is nowhere near enough for Windows XP. 256Mb should be the minimum, and it doesn't really start to run well until you have 384Mb or 512Mb.

Post your Hijackthis logs in the Security forum section please. They are expressly forbidden in other forum sections.

heh heh.......

Thought you'd been given a bonus birthday present, didn't you?

:D

Actually, if Windows Indexing service is turned on, it's best to disable it. The feature does more harm than good!

AntiVirus protection intervening?

You have 'hyperthreading' enabled on the processor. That is a feature of the processor, and if you have application programs which can make use of the feature, it will improve their performance.

http://www.intel.com/technology/hyperthread/

A HP Pavilion would have had a 'Recovery CD' or similar shipped with it. Read the product documentation to find out how to restore the system installation to its original state.

(He DID keep those leaflets, booklets and CDs, didn't he?)

That's not exactly what I was saying, stargate. I was merely providing a thumbnail sketch of the current options. For real future proofing you'd want a Socket 939 motherboard (or LGA-775 for Intel processors) with the new expansion card interface, PCIE (PCI-Express). Those are not really available yet, and won't be widely ovbtainable for both CPU manufacturers until early next year. We're in a period of transition at present regarding technology, which is why I suggested you choose widely.

Perhaps what most needs to be considered is that expectation that whatever you purchase right now will be fine for up to 8 years. I'm not sure if that's a realistic expectation.

My own decision has been to defer an upgrade. I have a pair of Athlon XP2500+ systems here, both overclocked to run at 3200+. I won't be upgrading from that for about another 12 to 18 months at least, by which time I expect the newer technology will have become entrenched, and be widely available at affordable prices.

You may not be in that position, and may need to work out your own 'trade-off'. You may decide to go with Socket 939 or Intels LGA-775 right now. The choice is up to you.

What CD burning software are you using, please? Make sure you include ALL programs. (It's usually conflicts from multiple programs that cause this, but not always)