Posts by Chaky

Fixmbr and fixboot are XP commands (form XP recovery console) and they should be used on your SATA HDD 0 (where the XP is installed).

Did you try Bootrec.exe tool in Vista Recover enviroment? That is the tool you need for your other drive.

If none of this helps, the only solution would be to zero-fill the sector 0 with SeaTools for DOS.

If that tool doesn't help, try PowerMax. It might help, but it is ment to deal with maxtor drives (that Seagate took over), but who knows..

Both come in a form of bootable CD image, ready for burning, so you don't need an operating HD to run it, and both can zero-fill the whole drive (or just the first sector where the MBR record is kept).

You can manually configure HDs in your BIOS, change startup sequence to HD first, enable quick POST, disable floppy seeking.... That will significantly speed up booting.

If one wants overclocking controls (not as 10%, 20%... graduation, but as frequency, multilipliers, voltages and such settings), one would have to choose AMD over Intel. Last Intel I had my hands on was, I think, 3800 (couple of years ago) with practically no OC ability, so excuse my bias.

Oh, yes.. if you want stability 24/7, forget about overclocking. Do it only if you can live with evetual BSOD or memory allocation errors.

Combofix helps, but it is not really reliable. It can crush and burn your windows.

PerfectDisk is the only defragmenter that defragments metadata. It fragments over time and none of the other defragmenters touch it. Only other way to defragment that is to format the drive.

It also sorts the files according to the boot-accessing, to speed up the boot-up process.

OCing always speeds up the machine, but not much if your RAM is not of the high-end class... (and if your CPU isn't Intel)

Is linux on a separate partition and different filesystem? If so, that would definitely point to corrupt MBR. There is a vague chance to fix MBR with fixmbr or fixboot command in recovery console (if you have a XP/Vista setup disc).

Accesing the drive is not a problem. The problem is booting from that drive. You can copy NTLDR from ex. Windows Setup CD using recovery console, or boot from other HD and simply copy the file.

.. and remeber: it MUST NOT be compressed.

Only way to troubleshoot CPU is to replace it with new or verified good one.

Only thing I can think of for troubleshooting here is IDE/SATA drives. Disconnect them all (I mean the data cables). Dead optical drive can cause this behaviour.

Does that happen only in safe mode or do you get the same error when booting in regular mode? .. 'coz NTLDR is crucial systm file that must be in root folder and must not be compressed. If it is either corrupt, compressed or missing/renamed, then your system will not boot. Period.

That is probbably caused by bad RAM.

Thread is 18 months old, man.

The fact that your laptop is trying to boot from PXE (network) shows that your HD isn't detected by BIOS. All you can do is unplug and plug in the cable(s) connecting the HD.

There is a slight chance that the cable is broken and needs to be replaced, but that usually happens only if you are frequently exchanging your HD. (twisting and turning of the cable might lead to wire break)

Sorry for the delay.. didn't get the notice of your reply for some reason.

Either:
- your hard drive isn't connected properly (or at all)
- it died
- the MBR (Master Boot Record) on your HD is corrupt, in which case you would need to boot from CD/DVD (preferrably with Win Setup CD and choose recovery console and use the Fixmbr or fixboot command). Last resort (meaning: loss of all data) would be deleting the partitions and logical drives and creating them again.. Maybe D2D recovery might help.

(Sorry, can't help you with the schematics)

If the OS on old machine is Windows 98 then it could get tricky to get the card working properly. You'll have to open the device manager and check if the resources are in conflict. Sometimes motherboard BIOS upgrade is needed to make it handle USB cards properly.

Try these steps. It might help:

a) Disable on-board USB (via BIOS)
b) Check if the USB PCI card has the latest drivers
c) If possible (and if not already done), format the external hard drive on XP/VISTA-based machine. Use FAT32. W98 can't read NTFS without a 3rd party software.

If you post the manufacturer/model of the USB PCI card and your, and I'll give you more details on drivers.

The fan starts to come on for a fraction of a second, and then shuts off. Sounds like a short-circuit?

Sounds like dead PSU.

Chances are that your laptop is already equipped with some basic soundcard and speakers. It may be that all you need to do is to reinstall the drivers.

1) Missing desktop icons is probably work of desktop cleanup wizard that removes unused icons

2) If you're talking about .NET Framework 3.0, then you need to install Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack before you install .NET Framework 3.0. That should be available via regular windows update.
.NET Frameworks are optional download, which means that you will need to visit windows update site in order to download them, plus you will not have .NET 3.0 available there. Only 1.1 and 2.0.
For the 3.0 you will need to visit Microsoft download center.

Quotes from http://www.smarthomeusa.com/ShopByManufacturer/Hauppauge/Item/IMPACTVCB/

Audio Capture
Audio is not processed on the board. Audio can be input directly to the sound card.

.. Accessory applications included: Hauppauge's SnapShot (single image frame grabber program) and Hauppauge's Capture application for creating AVI movies. On-line Installation Guides and Quick Start Guides are also available.

I have it on Asus CD that came with mobo, but you can download it here. All you need to do is to fill in the mobo and OS specs. It should be available under "utilities".

[Edit: Maybe it is called PC probe.. not sure]

You might want to keep an eye on voltages.. Might be that PSU suffered some damage. Do a test: load your CPU to 100% and watch the voltages with Asus Probe II.

bump

If any, diagnostic codes would come from beeper.
But, given the possibility that the battery might be the root of the problem, it is possible that any diagnostic codes wouldn't be possible. The battery would drain most of the power needed to operate the laptop at all. Such batteries are hazardous to other parts, especially the AC charger.

Try this:
Remove the battery, plug in the AC and power it on.

If it works, that means the battery is dead.

(That is my recipe, he he)

Edit: I don't think that there are any diagnostic led codes.

Try removing the battery for a few seconds to hard-reset the laptop (no AC either).

P.S.

What's with the recipe?

Since political didn't say how he/she fixed the problem, I will throw in an observation and educated guess.

"out of stack buffers" is memory-related error. Not drive-related. Sounds to me like you are trying to use old-school dos-based utility that needs some sort of memory manager loaded prior to running the utility (something like Microsoft's himem.sys + emm386.exe).

If it is Dell-provided utility, then you can either talk to them about the issue or use different approach (read: utilty, bootable CD...) to test (and fix) the drive.

I was zzubing around, he he.

If all else fails, use a bigger hammer.

^Reminds me of Murphy's "Don't use force, use a bigger hammer"

P.S.
For the future reference, my signature is a joke on me.

No peripherals as no drives in the explorer?

Probably messed-up registry regarding volumes (partitions).. Try disk management and see if the partitions are present there. To reach disk management, click on my computer and select "manage". In the left pane select "Disk management".
If you don't understand partitions, then it is the best to check only if they are all online and not mess anything up. I must warn you that here you can delete whole content from the drives.

Check if the status reads "online" in the right pane... left of graphical illustration of the partition, like:

Disk0
Basic
100 GB
Online <-- this

Every partition should be online. Otherwise it is unreachable to the system.

Also, you should post hijackthis log. You can get it here, given that you can boot to safe mode.

Try booting in safe mode and uninstalling adobe air.

Probably due to your account restrictions.
Your account should be "member of administrators".

Kill it? It never came to life.

?

The problem is that there is no setup CD with OEM preinstalled Windows. Only recovery DVDs. My advice is to import only those registry entries that are missing, but back up existing entries so you can undo the patching.

yes.

Testing voltages alone doesn't guarantee proper working capability. For example, almost dead batteries still show nominal voltage, but when put into use - splat!
Only way to rule out PSU is to either try another one, or try it on known good board.

If you don't have much to do, and don't have replacement PSU laying around, you could (if it doesn't mean voiding the warranty) open up the PSU and inspect the inside for swollen capacitors or burnt coils. It's a long shot, I know..

Did you try another PSU?

I suggested booting with no RAM whatsoever.

Try booting without VGA.. it should give you a beep-code for no VGA, if you have a beeper. In that case you will know that mobo (partially) and (more importantly) CPU are still working and you will rule out the PCI-e slot as the root of the problem.

Anyway, I think that it is either faulty mobo or faulty CPU (or both).

You can use PCI video card, but make sure that it isn't one that is incapable of working as secondary VGA. I know that some ATI PCI cards can work only as the primary ones. You'll probably have to find a 2nd hand one. I doubt that there are new PCI cards.

Also, in BIOS the default settings for the primary VGA is PCI. You'll need to change that to PCI-e.

First of all, this is SATA-to-ATA adapter.. you need ATA-to-SATA, and you need it only if there are no vacant IDE ports available. (2 channels=4 drives).

When you plug the drive in, and if it is propperly set (as SATA it must be set as master) your BIOS should recognize it, given that the SATA port the drive is plugged in isn't disabled and it is set to "auto".

Your BIOS should have Hard drive boot priority settings (not the boot sequence!). That is where you'll make sure that the system doesn't boot from a wrong HD.

Best practice is to set all of the HD configrations on "auto". The draw-back is that it takes few seconds longer to boot.

I agree with jbennet.

If you want to be sure that the CPU isn't fried, the only way is to put it in another mobo (if available) and see if it works.

(Doh??)

Mobo is fried.

It's not the first time that broken USB jack fried mobo.

can somebody ttellme the reason why your faulty motherboard will work when u wash it . SORRY this sis not flame it is reasonable 4 you to learn from me

Dust.

It accumulates static charge + it prevents proper connectivity.

I'm gonna pass an advice that one experienced electrician gave me regarding dusty motherboards:

Wash it in demineralized water.
Don't use contact cleaners nor any cleaners including 100% alcohol - they are abrasive

I once had a similar experience with disappearing system restore service. It was deleted from my registry. Probably by a virus or some critical bug. Anyway, here are the system restore registry entries that you are probably missing. Before you merge them make sure that they are not missing from your registry:
Click Start/run
Type "regedit" (without quotes)
expand "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_SR\0000"

It should look like this:

(Default)   REG_SZ    (value not set)
Class       REG_SZ    LegacyDriver
ClassGUID   REG_SZ    {8ECC055D-047F-11D1-A537-0000F8753ED1}
ConfigFlags REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0)
DeviceDesc  REG_SZ    System Restore Filter Driver
Legacy      REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1)
Service     REG_SZ    sr

Also check if the following keys exist:

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_SRSERVICE\0000"
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\sr\Enum"
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\srservice\Enum"

If they are not there, merge the .reg files attached accordingly.

System Restore1.reg for the *Enum\Root\LEGACY_SR key
System Restore2.reg for the *Enum\Root\LEGACY_SRSERVICE key
System Restore3.reg for the *Services\sr key
System Restore4.reg for the *Services\srservice key

Merge No. 3 and No. 4 ONLY if they are missing from your registry.

I strongly suggest that you make a backup copy of your currently existing registry keys in question to your hard drive.
Just right-click on the following keys in the left pane:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_SR

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_SRSERVICE

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\sr

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\srservice

-select "export" and save it in easy to remember place, like your desktop. That is just in case this fix doesn't work.

Most likely it is CPU failure or CPU incompatibility with mobo.

The incompatibility can be resolved with latest BIOS update, but I'm not sure of how you can update if you can't boot.

I suggest that you strip your rig down to PSU-CPU-VGA-Floppy-mobo and try it from there. (no hard nor optical drives, no PCI cards, no RAM)

Asus has a "EZ flash" feature that enables you to flash your BIOS without any utilities. Just press Alt+F2 during POST and prepare the bios file on floppy. (Yes, you'll need a floppy drive)

What Windows are you using?
Is it a pirated copy?
Is your system restore service disabled? (Under Computer management/services and applications/services)

For starters, you should do this:

- Update windows (they are already updated if you haven't disabled automatic update service)

- Download and install latest DirectX. (Validation required)

- Update all drivers. The most important are mobo and video drivers.. only place you can update them is from Dell's support site.

- If you feel brave enough, update your BIOS. That is potentially dangerous because if it fails, it would probably render your laptop useless until the BIOS chip is replaced (and paid for).

Also, some temperature monitoring software is advisable.

P.S. I don't know about Dell, but I do know one tip for HP laptops. Plug in the mains before you start the game. When in battery mode, it runs on single core.. or downclocks itself.. not sure, but the result is the same: low performance.

Are you sure that it is a hardware issue, and not driver-related?

The problem can be with any number of things:

- buggy video/mobo drivers (make sure that your device manager is showing all of the drivers without any "unknown devices" or drivers with yellow exclamation mark)
- overheating (due to buggy fan-control, clogged heatsinks, faulty fans, badly assembled rigs...)
- overclocked CPU/VGA (even slightest overclocking of VGA can lead to severe system instability, while CPU can take allot of extra load)
- RAM incompatibility (not all RAM modules are universally compatible with every CPU or mobo)
- lack of power (CPU demands allot of power.. I can actually see the voltage drop and hear my fans slow down as CPU load climbs up to 100%. It is a single-core CPU and it just drains the 550W PSU)
- 3rd party device (any added card or drive that is failing can make your system crumble and crush)

That is just off the top off my head...

Ohh, I missed that..

I have one like that (old-school fan) in my rig as one of the chassis fans. It is connected to short peace of "extension chord" (to my best description) with both male and female molex connectors, so there is absolutely no need for any kind of adapter.

No control, no monitoring.. just plug-n-play, so to speak.

Wasn't warranty supposed to be issued by the shop, instead of manufacturer? AFAIK, faulty product goes back to the shop where it was purchased from. They have to guarantee for the parts and they are the ones that ship it back to the manufacturer.

Anyway, it sounds to me like the heatsink is not tight enough on both CPU and GPU, or they haven't used proper thermal paste when they assembled it.

4 pin fans support speed and voltage monitoring. That is what is 4th pin for (not the molex, jbennet).
There is no adapter that can provide you with voltage control feedback. You can either replace the fans in question, or disable voltage monitoring in BIOS. Usually, 3-pin fans can be used instead of 4-pin fans, but you'll have to check each pin if it is connected to the right wire (not recommended, but possible).

Can you request such modification from the sponsor in question? After all, it does interfere with your website's functionality.

I ment "I use WUTool too" as along with manual downloads...