Posts by Catweazle

If you save that BIOS info, but it still comes up next time you boot, then you can assume your mainboard CMOS battery is stuffed, and you should replace it with a new one.

Nope, it won't be that. Even when your system has a driver installed for the moitor, all the driver really does is provide a list of screen resolutions that your monitor supports, so that you don't try to set it to resolutions and refresh rate that might damage the monitor or simply make your screen go 'black' ;)

If that's a Gateway system, you should be able to get the drivers etc that you need from the Gateway website download section

If you've swapped another hard drive into the system, and things are no longer working as they should, I'd repeat that a format/fresh install is the best available option.

Lift your data files off it (by temporarily installing it as 'slave' in another computer and copying them across if necessary) and then do a new install and load the correct drivers to get things going.

Have you tried going into 'Power Options' and setting the PC to 'Always On' and all the components to shut down 'Never'? At the very least, it might eliminate that monitor shutdown while you're correcting the problems, and you can change it back to a better scheme later when you get things sorted out.

Follow this pictorial guide but instead of the suggestions included, make the change of scheme to 'Always on' and the other settings to 'never'. That should give you a temporary fix.

The next thing to address is an optical drive for the system. Without one, you're pushing **** uphil in a sieve, I'm afraid.

The CD drive won't be getting recognised because it'll most likely be an old Panasonic drive hooked up to the soundcard. By far the best way to fix it would be to replace it with an ATA drive, which gets hooked up to an IDE cable just like the hard drives do. Check where the drive data cables go. Here are a few options to look for inside the system case:

Floppy drive.
- data cable goes to connector on motherboard
- data cable goes to connector on a controller card

Hard drive
- cable goes to connector on motherboard
- cable goes to connector on controller card

CD-ROM
- cable goes to connector on motherboard
- cable goes to connector on soundcard
- cable goes to …

Sounds like the display drivers have become corrupted, and when that happens it can become rather messy tracking down bits and pieces of them. To really 'fix' it you need to remove every trace of old drivers before reinstalling them, and that involves deleting files in your system folder and tracking down references in the registry and removing them. It also means there's a possibility of corruption to parts of the motherboard chipset drivers and other display-related system files.

You could try downloading and installing again first the motherboard chipset drivers and then the display card drivers, but you'd have far more chance of success by simply downloading all the drivers for the system, saving them to CD for later installation, and then performing a Format and fresh install of that old system.

Sometimes, popping a hard drive, complete with Windows 98 installation, into a system will work just fine. Devices will de detected and the appropriate driver changes will be made, and the system work just fine. But when things don't work as they should afterwards, it will usually be a less time consuming process to bite the bullet and do a format/fresh install.

Come on. Don't give up!

Think 'old person'. Think 'pop music'. Think 'hippy' or 'dress-up' maybe.

Find the right combination of words to use in your search and you're bound to find a picture that suits the challenge somehow. Don't just stop at using 'geriatric teeny-bopper' please. Just find a picture that suits the term ;)

Try dragging them to your 'Start-up' folder, and thus having the applications open automatically when you boot into Windows. you might find they act differently then ;)

System set to not shut down the monitor for 'power-saving' or 'Green' operation, and the monitor never turned off at the power switch except for the event of the house being unoccupied for periods of time.

Shut your system down, and the monitor should go to 'Stand-by' mode anyway.

By the way, this problem is a Windows-related one. To resolve it, ensure that 'Power management' is enabled in BIOS, and work through these Knowledge Base articles.

Must be luck of the draw then, I reckon. I've a 15" Compaq MV520 sitting behind me that's basically been operating like that since March 2000 and it still works perfectly!

I'd agree. forego the 50c per month saving on the power bill and set the monitor to 'Always on' or 'Never turn off' or whatever it is. (Sorry, I don't have a Windows 98 system connected up here ATM so I can check)

Well that was illuminating :confused:

I guess if someone shows up with just a grunt, all you can do is wait and see if there's any more noise that may emanate from them :D

Have you a problem to present to us, Hcatzeyez, or simply a cryptic message? Welcome to TechTalk, by the way.

Pitufo, use Google itself to research the programs available for download. Try < programname download > to find a download site, and < programname review > to find comments and criticisms of it.

You can even get more creative and use things like < programname crash > or <programname problems > to uncover even more user feedback. Don't rely on the word of just one person for your decisions. And don't forget, just because a program is shareware or freeware doesn't necessarily mean it's secondrate. And conversely, just because a program is a commercial package doesn't necessarily mean it's good!

Yes, people should beware of cheap case/power supply combinations! In almost every instance, the power delivered will vary in its voltage levels, in most instances the voltage levels will be below the level required, and in far too many instances the cooling fans included with the power unit will fail after a relatively short period of time.

In the long run, it's more economic even, perhaps, to pay the extra and get a decent quality case and power supply unit from quality manufacturers such as Antec or ThermalTake

That's a 'hidden' partition, created by the system manufacturer for the storage of utilities which operate at the system level. Forget about it. It's only 15Mb, which is bugger-all, and you'd need a low-level disk format utility to remove it.

Losing 15 megabytes from the drive isn't gonna hurt anything.

Hi courtney,

When shell.dll is missing it will usually be because your system has been infected with a virus which has corrupted it, and your AntiVirus program has removed it.

It's a system file, and there should be a copy of it in your WINDOWS folder, and another in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder.

Download a new copy of the file

Search the two folders mentioned, and see if you find copies of the file there. (You might need to change, in 'Folder Options', these settings:

Open up 'My Computer', go to 'Tools -> Folder Options -> View' enable 'Show hidden files and folders'. and deselect 'Hide extensions for known file types' and 'Hide protected operating system files'

You'll need to delete the files because they may be altered, infected copies, and then copy the freshly downloaded file into both directories.

No guarantees, but it's a technique which has worked for others.

Windows most likely won't allow you to delete the file directly, and you might have to do it from DOS. If so, pop a new floppy disk into the drive, open up 'My Computer', right click the drive and choose 'Format'. Ensure that 'Add system files' is checked, and you'll end up with a bootable diskette to which you can add the SHELL.DLL file and use DOS commands to copy it to the necessary directories on your hard drive.

Interesting saga mate. What brand was the power supply concerned? Was it one included with the case?

Case and power supply unit quality is a factor often overlooked by people who assemble their own systems, and your experience sounds like a handy example to others, mate.

hahahaha!

ol' Grandad am teh winnah! :D

Glad to hear it worked, deonnanicole. I'll mark the topic as 'solved'.

There are plenty of free ones you could try first if you liked.

It's not just the games, oalee.

For some people it's the enjoyment of building up a highperformance system, for some it's the enjoyment of tweaking and tuning it to see how far they can push it, for others it might simply be purely the ego trip of owning the thing.

Computers are like cars mate. To most people cars are just a means of transport, but that doesn't negate the fact that enthusiasts are still to be found in large numbers. Same thing with 'pooters! :D

You should have controls on the monitor itself which would allow you to move the screen image back to where it should be. Either in a push-button menu system, or behind a drop-down cover (if it's an older monitor)

Quite possibly someone has fiddled with it and moved the image sideways. Just adjust it back to where it should be.

Yes, the performance difference between the 9800 XT and the X800XT are quite dramatic, and if you can afford to do so, I'm quite sure that you'd be happy with the upgrade.

There would be little appreciable difference in performance between the AGP version of the card, and a PCIE version of the card, unless of course you had a much more powerful CPU in the PCIE motherboard.

And there's a point.

To more adequately 'future-proof' yourself, you'd need to go a bit beyond that 2.6GHz processor. When PCIE becomes the established standard, as it eventually will, the AGP interface format will have a very limited lifespan left. I highly doubt that processors for Socket 478/AGP motherboards will ever go beyong the 3.4GHz ones which are currently available. I also doubt that you'll see Socket 478/PCIE motherboards.

A jump from 2.6GHz to 3.4GHz isn't really enough of a performance increase to warrant the expense, and as the Radeon 9800 Pro is quite capable of handling any game currently available or slated for release in the near fture, perhaps a wait until the new standard is more widely available and more cheaply obtained would be a wise move?

Food for thought, anyway.

Moved to 'Hardware', by the way ;)

You should start by using the adjustments on your monitor itself.

But the adjustments included in the nVidia driver are certainly far superior than those included in the inbuilt driver supplied by Microsoft, and you can download a reference driver from NVida's download section

Simply download the file to your hard drive, double-click it to run the file and it will self-extract and install. Follow the prompts as necessary.

After it's installed, you can use the 'Colour correction' section of the display card's entry in 'Display properties -> Settings -> Advanced' to make the necessary changes.

Cheers

I'm not sure what you consider its 'potential' to be, but that FX5500 isn't a card that's up to good performance with the latest PC games, I'm afraid. It's basically not much different to an FX5200, except for the change from a 64-bit memory interface to a 128-bit memory interface.

The increased graphics memory bandwidth is an improvement, admittedly, but it still leaves the card as a good performer for older games, rather than an adequate one for new games!

Your driver download site has been provided in your original topic. I'll close this one, to save confusion

You'll find all the drivers you need at this page of HP's download section:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?product=92867&lc=en&tool=softwareCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&os=20

You won't need one with dial-up. A network card in each PC, and a 'crossover' cable to join them is all you'll need. You can use the 'Internet Connection- sharing' feature of Windows.

In that event, check all programs that load at startup, and ensure that they are not set, in their preferences or options settings, to "Automatically check for updates".

If it's not a dialler, the next most likely culprit is a software program which is trying to 'phone home' and check for updates.

The article states that the memory location number may differ. In any event the procedures listed are general ones which, if followed through, should resolve such issues.

Hi,

We ask that topics not be duplicated in multiple sections of the forum, and as you've asked the same question in the Windows NT/2000/XP section, I'll close this thread and leave your question to be answered there:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread8156.html

Read the stickied topic "Helping Yourself" in the Security section of the forum for a more detailed discussion of dealing with spyware and other malware products and infestations.

Here's a troubleshooting guide to that error message situation.

Uninstall the program, ensure the CD is clean, and then reinstall it. See if that corrects the errors.

If it's a Windows 2000 system drive, then it's highly likely you have an NTFS partition. Like with Windows XP, NTFS is the 'native' file system for Windows 2000

If you have problems on your system, and then do an upgrade install of a newer OS over the top of it, leaving your programs and data in place, you most likely won't fix things. It's more likely that you'll make the problems worse.

Arguments about the quality of Windows Me aside (I personally had no problems with it back in the day) the best couse of action you could take would be to back up your data files, format, and perform a fresh, clean install of Windows and your programs.

It's definitely a spyware/malware/virus/trojan related thing, I'd believe. You'll need to use more than spybot to dig out the culprit(s)

Did you use <Ctrl> + <Alt> + <Del> and 'end task' everything except systray and explorer before using Defrag? That's the only way to be certain you've shut everything down.

Running defrag from 'Safe mode' is a good idea as well.

If the partition you can't access is an NTFS partition that would explain Windows 98's inability to find it. You can, however, install utility programs which lett Windows 98 read NTFS partitions, and using one would allow you to copy the files across.

Try finding one in the results of this Google search

staycool72, it's not good practice to resurrect an old topic simply to react to a comment on page one of a multi-page discussion. If you'd read through you'd have found that the comment has already been refuted, and the refutation accepted long ago!

You'd also have found that your own claim is incorrect, and that a Fresh install is, in fact, less than 2 gig!

Control Panel -> Performance & Maintenance -> Administrative Tasks

Run the 'Computer management' module and select 'Disk management'.

If the drive shows up there, but with only unpartitioned space or an unformatted partition, right click on the drive and partition and/or format it as necessary.

Could you please post a link here to the microsoft site, where you got it from ,thanks.
Its still Beta i believe isn't it !

Righto! Now I've worked out what this is about! :o

But rather than a direct link to the download page, perhaps it'd be better to link to the preceding disclaimer page:

http://v5.windowsupdate.microsoft.com./v5consumer/thanks/aspx?ln=en-us&thankspage=6

The following warning is posted there:

Warning and Notice Windows Update version 5 includes pre-release software and a pre-release update service. They are provided for testing purposes only and technical support is not available. Use of them is subject to the Terms of Use, and software is subject to any license agreement provided in connection with it. Microsoft intends to offer the updates available on the Windows Update version 4 site on the Windows Update version 5 Preview site concurrently. Sometimes updates may not be posted to the Windows Update version 5 Preview site as quickly as they are posted to the Windows Update version 4 site.

Yes, it's a beta product. If there are issues which result from using it, that fact should come as no surprise because to download it you should already have agreed to take full responsibility for that event. It's a wise practice to use a separate PC for testing Beta software.

Read the thread linked in my sig. and the articles linked in that thread. They should tell you just about all you need to know!

The articles relate to installing Windows 200, but the preparation is basically the same, the installation procedures are pretty mucch the same, and yes, you should download your drivers first, and preferably save them to CD.

Cheers

Did you ensure that the drive configuraion jumper was correctly set? If it is a 'Slave' drive it should be attached to the middle connector of the drive data cable, and the jumper set to 'Slave'. If it's a 'Master' drive, the jumper should be set accordingly, and the drive connected to the cable's end connector.

If that jumper is set to 'Cable Select', then I'd suggest you change it to reflect its configuration, because, in my experience at least, 'Cable Select' causes more problems than it overcomes!

Nope. I've a fully updated Windows XP Home installation here on one of my machines, and a look through the Windows Update 'Installation history' suggests that the update referred to might be "814078:Security update (Microsoft JScript version 5.6, Windows 2000, Windows XP)"

A failed install of that one would explain the internet problems, I'd imagine.

It'll have something to do with the default settings for BIOS on that motherboard, or if they've been changed, it'll be the result of the changes made. As I said earlier, without access to the motherboard manual, I've no way of telling what the default settings are supposed to be for it.

By the way, just to clear up any confusion about SDRAM and DDR RAM you might have, here's an explanation:

SDRAM stands for Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory and is the most common form of memory module used for personal computers. It comes in two main varieties. What we know as SDRAM can operate at speeds of up to 133MHz, can synchronise itself with the processors front side bus timing, and is packaged in 168 pin modules.

As processor speeds increased, standard SDRAM modules became a limitation on system performance, and a newer standard of packaging was developed which allows for higher speeds of operation. DDR SDRAM stands for Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory, is packaged in 184 pin modules and has the capability of processing two instructions per clock cycle.

But at its heart, DDR is still SDRAM, which is why you see mention of SDRAM in the BIOS POST screens, and in BIOS Setup. The fact that it is processing two bits of information per clock cycle is why, in many BIOS Setup menus, you need to set the value to half of what you actually want to achieve.

You have loaded Windows 98, but you haven't loaded any device drivers for your system. Windows 98 is simply using basic, generic device drivers to run your system with.

Specifically you need motherboard drivers, audio drivers and display drivers for the system to operate as it should.

If there's a make and model number for that PC of yours that you can determine, pay a visit to the Support section of the manufacturer's website and see if you can find any device drivers there available for download.

Check your system for any software which loads at startup, and in its Preferences/Options is set to 'Automatically check for updates". If the behaviour has only started recently, look for a program which was added just before it first started.

Internet options -> General

Press the 'Delete Files' button and allow the system to delete your 'Temporary Internet files'. You may or may not need to reboot, but clearing out your internet cache that way will usually restore your system's capability to save images as other than bitmaps.

What are you referring to when you say the 'Version 5 preview'? Where did you obtain it from?

oops, sorry. I forgot to include a dinky little smiley-face to indicate that I wasn't being too serious. Fixed now!

It's only a light-hearted game, Dude. I'd have used the same comment in relation to my own action had I inadvertantly made a silly mistake, and I'm sure you'd find I've done so elsewhere. If it offended you I'm sorry for that, and if you feel inclined to do so you could always press the 'thumbs-down' button on my post and add negative comment to my Forum 'reputation'.

heh heh......

Perhaps you could have used a self-portrait. You forgot to include the next challenge, for whoever wants to follow you! :)

Let's try:

"geriatric teeny-bopper"

Unfortunately Intel don't seem to see fit to make the motherboard manual available for download, so I can't give specific instructions, but if your front side bus speed is 800MHz, and BIOS setup allows you to, then you should manually set that RAM to operate at 400MHz. It'll be synchronised and more efficient that way.