Posts by Chaky

What you need to do is boot from Win Install CD, select "-r" for repair mode, and after entering password type:
(I think that prompt starts in C:\WINDOWS directory)

cd system32
del hal.dll
cd ..
cd servicepackfiles
copy hal.dll c:\windows\system32\hal.dll (be careful with spelling)
exit

And off you go!

I have a (more of a) question and (less of a) problem here. Recently I purchased, what I tought was a Pioneer 110D, but the casing says 110DSV. I also purchased a genuie 110D (casing stamp confirms it).

Now, 110DSV gets recognised as 110D in my device manager. When I use NERO (6 platinum) to burn disks I've noticed that underrun buffer (the lower and smaller one in the window) is most of the time ~ 95% and, from time to time drops to 10% (sometimes 0%) while a file buffer (upper and bigger one) stays 100%. With real 110D there are no buffer jumps. Disks turn OK but I still think that it's not at it's peak performance.

When I tried to look it up on the net I've learned that there is virtually no customer support provided by Pioneer for any DVD-RW drives.

I've heard myths of flashing DVD drive's BIOS but never found any related software, nor bios to flash.

If anyone has some info on where to find Pioneer's drivers (tried Pioneer page, driverguide.com... no luck) please post.

You failed to mention what HD model you have.
Some WD HD's have very short life span.

I noticed the heating on my HD (160 GB Maxtor) and bought (active) HD cooling. The HD cooling fans lasted me, say, a week before they started making such noise I just had to unplugg them. Later I learned that Maxtor is not your best choice of HD (doh!).

I also get sluggish overall performance when the HD is beeing accessed during gameplay (Quake 4 to be precise, while Doom 3 works like a charm) and I've tried everithing to no avail (double doh!). Right now I'm thinking about going to 64bit.

Your files may be compressed (shown in blue color in the windows explorer, if the option is enabled in your folder settings) which has direct impact on HD performance and CPU load.

Hot HD will not fry your controller, atleast 68 °C will not fry it. If it was tosted, your system would be unbootable.
The failing HD will beep you from time to time (yes, they all have little and loud beeper intergrated)
There are transfer settings in your BIOS settings and HD controller settings in device manager that cn enable or disable DMA mode.

The windows is not (I'll go easy on th microsoft here) very stable OS, so from time to time you need to reboot the system in order to kill all the processes that remained (sort of program …

There's couple of things that you can do to ease the stress on C drive:

- Rightclick Internet Explorer (if you are using one) select "properties", click on (temporary Internet Files) "settings" button, click "move folder" button and cahnge the path to the Temp. Internet files folder.

- Change swap file location: rightclick the "My computer" icon, select "properties", click on the "advanced" tab, in the "performace" box click "settings" button, in "performance options" window click on the "advanced" tab, in the "virtual memory" box click "change" button, in the "virtual memory" window click on the "D:", select "system managed size", click "set" button, click "C:", select "no paging file", click "set" button again and click all "ok" buttons to close the opened windows.

- You can use tweakwinxp to change "program files" path which will make programs automaticly select "D:\Program Files" instead of "C:\Program Files" as destination installation folder, but do it at your own peril because there is allways a possibility that it will cause problems with some allready installed programs (file not found and such messages).

Only thing there is left for you to try is flashing BIOS.
Try this site and select the exact model:
http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&cat=sup&cs=&k=Optiplex&img=False&sum=True&ssum=False&qmp=12&p=1&eh=NoEvent&rrr=False&subcat=dyd&sort=K&snpsd=A&ddate=false&ddays=&nf=&dt=&navla=&fm=&ss=&ira=False&cp1=-1&cp2=-1&si=

You'll need to make a bootable floppy with bios flashing program.

When you say 'external' I take it is USB drive.
I have couple of questions for you:

Were you there when defragmentation took place?
What defragmenter was used?
Was it interuppted?
Was it on the same (your) machine?
If not did you try to plugg it in the machine that defragmnted it?
Does your machine support USB 2.0?
Did you try scandisk?

If you didn't do anything with the drive after defragmentation I suggest you do not try scandisk until all other possibilites were tried.

If that is the way things go enter BIOS settings and:

- ENABLE quick POST
- Manually select HD's
- DISABLE unoccupied IDE channels

That should speed up POST for you.

Looks like you have a toasted CPU/motherboard/VGA.

Doors --> L.A. woman

You get SkyNET.

I put in SKY TV.

Winner --> Windows

(yeah, right) you get matrix.

I put in a sequal.

Armstrong --> tour d'France

You get the most toxic drug known to man.

I put in THC.

That admin really has some issues, man. Like he thinks he owns you, and you betrayed him (crazy, I tell ya). Had couple of bosses just like that. Didn't like them, didn't like me.

I can tell you that the reason is not with you, it's with him. Positive.

You have a MAJOR problem there. 3 problems that are solvable, but just barely. I've been there and it isn't pretty.

1st problem is SATA + XP (not sp1 nor sp2) you MUST have (so-called) F6 driver floppy (yes, floppy) to reinstall the windows. XP has difficulty with SATA controllers and doesn't have necessary drivers to access the drives. Your motherboard came with bootable Driver CD and utility that creates F6 driver floppy. (providing you have a floppy drive installed - if not, you'll have to install one - it's cheap)

To find out which RAID mode you're using you need to press f10 key during boot-up that will open a RAID Settings window (2 identcal HD's means it is probbably stripping mode, but mirroring and spanning are possible)

2nd problem is you will not be able to recover even with the f6 drivers, because (I had same thing "config\system corrupted or missing") it will not be able to log-in. Istead you will get blue screen of death saying "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL".

3rd and the biggest one is YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO REINSTALL THE WINDOWS. Just after EULA screen you'll get the same BSOD.

Way I solved it was (I just happened to borrow USB HD) installing windows on USB HD (USB, IDE SATA, don't matter), and deleting the files in question (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\*.* where C: stands for your current HD('s)) because they are accessed prior to windows installation and repair console. If they are corrupted, …

I've been around and top price I've seen is in Pappete (Tahiti) some french beer for $25 (and I'm talking small bar, not a night club or similar)

The booze price is sky-high there.

That's just plain cruel.

...class?

Wierd. I've heard that only Dubai (the town) is no-tax. I guess I heard wrong, ma'am.

worth1000 forums (im now banned :()

What was your crime?

Should I stay or should I go

This thread is not going anywhere.

Today I tried a whole new approach to daniweb (by TYPING a "www.daniwec.com" in my address bar (IE6 up-to-date) and a security alert jumped at me:

(quote)

Information you exchange with this site cannot be viewed or changed by others. However, there is a problem with the site's security certificate.

- The security certificate was issued by a company you have not choosen to trust. View the certificate to determine whether you want to trust the certifying authority.

- The security certificate date is valid.

- The name on the security certificate is invalid or does not match the name of the site.

Do you want to proceed?

.... and the big questionmark above my head started blinking.

After I proceeded all I got was this:

This is the Plesk™ default page

If you see this page it means:

1) hosting for this domain is not configured
or
2) there's no such domain registered in Plesk.
For more information please contact Administrator

Then I realised that address in my ddress bar was https://www.daniweb.com/ not http://www.daniweb.com/
I typed the address again www.daniweb.com (I never typed HTTP nor HTTPS) and got here.

Wierd.

Are there ANY lifesigns? Lights, beeps, fans spinning?

Some display devices have ability to rotate the screen.
You need to change this setting.
Rightclick desktop (empty space) and choose properities.
The display properities window will apear.
Now, there are two possibilites (that I can think of) to access this setting. It's either by clicking on your video driver's specific tab (other than themes, desktop, screen saver, appearance and settings) and going from there or clicking settings tab and clicking advanced button which will open another window. That window should contain general, adapter, monitor, troubleshoot, color managment tabs plus your display driver's specific tab. Click on that tab and try to find the screen rotation settings.

In my case (GeForce 7800 GT) I need to go that second way to access my rotation settings (dropbox appears on the side with a set of display tools, among which is NVRotate tool that is responsable for such (funny) setting.

Have you tried downloading and installing any CODEC packs?
Windows media player is capable of automatic CODEC download, unless you disabled it. (tools/options/player)
Sometimes my windows media player mutes the sound by itself.
There is also setting regarding audio device (tools/options/devices/speakers properties)
Make sure it is set on default device.

Maybe the switch is not connected properly or faulty.
Try shorting the 2 pins on the motherboard that the switch is connected to.
Some PSU-s have switch on them (back side). Maybe you missed it.

(from becoming) The lord of the hogs

When it comes to the electricity, people tend to have a wrong approach. Actually the opposit one. (this goes for PSU powe output also) In your case the wire is not a cause but a symptom. It's caused by too much of a electical flow than it can endure or reduced capacity of the flow on behalf of the wire. If the flow is increased than you might have burnt part or shorted circuit (for ex. loose motherboard touching the support panel or s screw stuck between 2 solders). If the wire's capacity is impered (cracked wire) than it needs to be replaced.

You will have to be more specific of what this wire is connected to.
You said it is connected to the front of the casing. Is it a power switch, LED display, LED diode, case fan, beeper, HD, DVD-CD, reset button...?

500 W PSU is more than enough for the new fan. The amount of power generated by the PSU is amount of power that is beeing drawn from it. So, if you have system that needs 100 W of power, your PSU will generate 100 W of power. 500 W is the LIMIT VALUE that can be generated by PSU. (500 W ~ 0.5 Horse power = a lot for the PC)

Tower beeing affected by it's position is suggesting that you have either cracked wire (one that fryed), cracked solder or metal thing loose on the motherboard.

The change of …

Regarding a fan, I supose it is a PSU fan. It's probbably stuck with dirt and needs cleaning. Some fans have a sticker in the middle, under which you can put some grease on the shaft. New fan is rather cheap (and the only real) solution.

219 Any useful ones? (bare in mind the thread)

(to make) The great gig in the sky

If one person says that you are you a pig, that's because he hates you.
If two persons say that you are a pig, that's because they made a pact against you.
If three persons say that you are a pig, than beter start oinking.

Take out some insurance (J.J.Cale - Number 10)

215 and addictive.

You don't have to format disk in order to reinstall the windows.
You DO have to have installation CD along with Drivers CD, manual, waranty and so. Windows Installation CD is a MUST. You better chack the bill if you actually PAID for the windows. If you did, better storm in that store where you bought it, grab some necks 'cos you've been had. Or they simply forgot to put it in the bag.

If you didn't pay...you had an ILLEGAL copy of windows installed (Bill Gates Says 1 PC - 1 CD).

When I'm President (Extreme II/Pornografitti)

213 this is getting very old, very fast.

Only thing you can try, besides reinstalling the windows, is to boot from Installation CD, choose "-r" for repair mode (will be promped for administrator password) and type:

CHKDSK

(followed by enter, naturally)
That will fix any errors it finds on disk. After it's done type:
EXIT (or QUIT, to reboot, never will remeber)

I doubt it will help you. Never did to me, but it's a possibility.

211 dunno, maybe there were some decimals?

(except) Problem child

209 (first 5000 are fun)

On the road again

Mrs. Robinson

Those beeps are bios signal that a (most probbably) video card is not working (sorry), and the same signal you would recive if you try to boot it without one. To be positive about it you will have to try your burned vga on other machine.

You can also try some stuff regarding bios:

- set startup holding on no errors
- disable quick POST
- disable all that you can disable (USB, LAN, FD Controller, IDE Controller, cashe...) and try booting. If sucessfull try enabling one by one to pin-point the problem.

If all that fails try pluggiong out all (memory included) but vga card and see if bios beeps for memory not present. Then plug in memory and try again. If it stops there try to get new memory (kingston has 5 year warranty, I think)

If all that fails..... NEW MOBO.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Looks to me that the problem is related to the motherboard.
That can lead to couple of possibilities:

- dying CPU - most vournable and probbable.

- toasted chipset - rare but possible - no cure, either get your warranty (if valid) or get a new motherboard

- (hopefully) badly corrupted bios - can render your pci-e slot useless, thus making pci-e vga look like it's burned + rendering system unbootable. Caused by depleated cmos battery (Lithium type). Usualy you get a message or beeps when this happends.

Things you should do regardless of above:

- get in bios settings (if possible) and (not sure for your specific bios and mobo) disable a splash-screen (or logo, whatever it is named) so you can see some info while it is booting.
Bios is programed to hold booting if it encounters a malfunction (for ex. disconnected keyboard) and a splash screen obscures those error messages. Post if anything appears.

Couple of questions:
Is it v1.0 or v3.0 (v1.0 has pci-ex4 slot and dual LAN unlike v3.0)
Did you recently flash bios and to what version?
Any beeps (and how many short/long ones)?
Did you try GeForce again?

What do 10.000 lawyers on the bottom of the sea represent?

A good start.