PC Problem...

[Killa-Eyez]

I've got an old PC from around, uuhm let's say now, 2001?
It's a 1 Ghz AMD Athlon system with an A-bit KT7A mobo.
It has 3 modules of 256 MB Ram in it and an ATI Radeon 7000 VGA.
Also containing a Creative Soundblaster 16 bit sound card, a Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI ethernetcard, a Maxtor HD of 40 GB and 1 of 300 GB.

So here's the deal.
I push the power button, the power led burns, the hd led stays out, nothing happens.
After a couple of minutes I press the reset button and it reboots with both the power and hd led burning only making a cracking noise, kinda like those old harddrives do.
In the beginning of the boot, the cracking starts real loud and rapid.
After a couple of minutes the tempo slows down, and eventually it'll boot showing the Microsoft logo (WinXP MCE) and then make a crack noise and reboot again. This will go on for about an half hour before the system somehow stabilizes ( :confused: ) and stays on for a unkown amount of time before it repeats (hoping it doesn't happen while writing this). It also tends to stay on functioning properly for days and only display the problem when I start watching a video.

I thought it is was the harddrive at first but after disconnecting both drives it'd still make the noise. I later found out it was the pc speaker (internal) making the noise, thus concluding (with my usually sufficient knowledge) it's probably an electronical problem.
Now I don't know this, and also doubt if anybody else even heard of such a problem, but please believe when I say it exists, as it's rooting deeper and deeper into my frustration. Knowing a lot of the Gotwoot members know a lot about problems in this area, I humbly await those opinions on this matter as to point out some of the possible causes. Thank you in advance.

I've tried to include as much info possible in this 1st post, but please do not hesitate to ask any.

(PS: My 50th post! :D Genin! )

[darkshadow]

hmm, well the first clue would be the pc speaker then, got some sort of manual that describes what the speaker signal errors are?

[Killa-Eyez]

Do have that somewhere, buried.
But speaker signals usually have a beeping sound, don't they?
And do you mean signal errors or error signals? Cause I doubt there'd be any info about speaker signal errors...

[darkshadow]

yeah, but i was hoping on that 1% chance that the manual would describe it ;o
cause i really can't think of anything, i think something simply broke.

Sorry this is the first time ive heard of this, can't help you much.

[Killa-Eyez]

Yeah, found the online manual, and it had nothing.
Thanks for your help though. :)
Since it is a old mobo it could be that the voltages aren't regulated properly.
Seeing as the GPU obviously uses more when displaying a movie or some sort of game then just the usual, it could be some other component(s) is/are not getting the right amount causing system instability and eventually rebooting. Or something like this.
Don't know if it's possible, just guessing, but it's been on my mind for a while...

[saman]

this is probably going to sound stupid, but have you tried taking a can of compressed air to it?

[Killa-Eyez]

Aaahhhhmm, no? Why?

[saman]

to blow out the dust in it? maybe your computer is just dusty. just a suggestion.

[Killa-Eyez]

Used a 2000W vacuum cleaner the other day, dunno if that counts. But if ya really think it could help, I'll try...

[saman]

well, you never know. i work at staples and the first thing our tech guys do when someone brings in a computer that's having problems is dust it out. sometimes it helps :)

[Killa-Eyez]

Darn it, the thang just rebooted again! :mad:
But yeah, I'll try that. Any idea where to get a can of air spray? :D

[Iridani]

...You took... a vacuum... to the computer. No offense here but what kind of moron are you? Seriously. You do NOT take a vacuum to your computer... EVER! >.<;;;;;;

Go to Wal-Mart... a computer store... anywhere and ask where the cans of compressed air are... And gently spray things clean. Then give things a try. It sort of sounds to me like you've got faulty RAM somehow but I'm not sure unless I'm actually dealing with the machine at hand.

*Twitches* A vacuum...

[Animeniax]

Yeah the vacuum effect creates static and that's bad for PCs. I once vacuumed out my PC with a standard house vacuum and saw sparks and then afterward the system wouldn't boot up. Replaced the motherboard and it worked fine after that. If you're going to use a vacuum, get one that's made for PC repair work, but the compressed air is still the best solution.

[Killa-Eyez]

So no vacuums allowed, huh... OOPS! :D
'Kay, I'll try the compressed air thing, a friend of mine just confirmed they are available @ a near by store, so... I'll let you guys know how it goes...

@Iridani: Take it to the flaming pit if you want to talk like that :o
No offense... :cool:

[Kraco]

What I still can't figure out is why compressed air bottles are twice or thrice as expensive as bottles filled with propane/butane...

Must be the bloody shops around here mercilessly ripping off stupid customers.

[Board of Command]

It's more expensive because ethane derivatives (the gases in compressed air) are harder to contain and package than propane and butane. Also, they're harder to produce than pure propane/butane.

The cheapest I've bought compressed air for is 3 big cans for $10. Each can lasts quite a while if you use it properly (spray it in short bursts). So far I've only used up one can.

[Hikyuu]

But if not used properly, you can have hours of fun of messing with your roommates. Everything from freezing the surface or water in a glass so they can't drink it.. to minor burns from the frosty propellant that comes out if you turn the can upside down.

[Kraco]

It's more expensive because ethane derivatives (the gases in compressed air) are harder to contain and package than propane and butane. Also, they're harder to produce than pure propane/butane.

The cheapest I've bought compressed air for is 3 big cans for $10. Each can lasts quite a while if you use it properly (spray it in short bursts). So far I've only used up one can.

Oh. Thanks for the information. I didn't know there were such complications. But still, the cheapest I've seen around here is about 10$ for a single can! Those propane/butane cans sell for 3 for 10 euros. I seriously don't want to pay 10 bloody euros for one can of air. That's why I'm thinking they are total rip-offs here.

Well, I don't want to derail the thread any more with my whining...

[Iridani]

@Iridani: Take it to the flaming pit if you want to talk like that :o
No offense... :cool:

None taken... but no more taking the vacuum to your computer please unless you want to fry everything... or I'll be forced to bring in the big spork of doomy doom. No offense.

[Killa-Eyez]

Oh. Thanks for the information. I didn't know there were such complications. But still, the cheapest I've seen around here is about 10$ for a single can! Those propane/butane cans sell for 3 for 10 euros. I seriously don't want to pay 10 bloody euros for one can of air. That's why I'm thinking they are total rip-offs here.

Well, I don't want to derail the thread any more with my whining...

To pick up the whining, over here they're € 8,99 too...
I am gonna buy it though, cause I want this thing working properly again...

Couple of days a go my pc just wouldn't stabilize, it kept on rebooting.
So yesterday I started a sort of cleaning with a tooth brush, brushing all kinds of dust away. I even opened up the old psu I got, damn that thing has a lot of dust...
Now it's back to it's old habits (only rebooting after a amount of time and rebooting when watching video files). I'm gonna check my bank account to see if I already have my salary to buy the can with air. :o

[itadakimasu]

If it is rebooting after it posts, then your OS may be messed up and you might need to re-install or repair your OS installation.

[Hikyuu]

I wouldn't recommend using a toothbrush.. The service guy who has fixed my laptop twice ( and bought weed from my roomy) told me to use a fine bristled Horse hair paint brush if I was going to clean it off with something other then canned air. It has to be soft not coarse.

[mage]

To pick up the whining, over here they're € 8,99 too...
I am gonna buy it though, cause I want this thing working properly again...

Couple of days a go my pc just wouldn't stabilize, it kept on rebooting.
So yesterday I started a sort of cleaning with a tooth brush, brushing all kinds of dust away. I even opened up the old psu I got, damn that thing has a lot of dust...
Now it's back to it's old habits (only rebooting after a amount of time and rebooting when watching video files). I'm gonna check my bank account to see if I already have my salary to buy the can with air. :o
you need to check your cpu temperatures to see if its an overheating issue to begin with. if it's not that, it could be your OS or even your ram messing up.

[itadakimasu]

it shouldn't be a heat issue if it happens from a cold boot... that would only happen if you've been running the system for a while giving it time to overheat. If you can, try using the hard drive from that system in another just to see if it will boot up, and try to isolate your problem. (if you have spare system / parts to do so)

[mage]

So what have you done to attempt to fix this besides cleaning dust? Update us.

[Killa-Eyez]

Well I ordered a new mobo, although I think it's prolly the psu, gonna buy that new 2.
Could've used the canned air thing but the system isn't that dusty, really, so...
The mobo is an MSI K7T. Any feedback on that?

[mage]

You didn't even do any troubleshooting and straight away ordered a new motherboard?

........................

[Killa-Eyez]

Hmm, 10 € for a can compressed air or 17,95 for a mobo...

[darkshadow]

20 bucks for a mobo? dude wtf? :/

[itadakimasu]

$20..thats a cheap mobo. i found one at frys for 29.99 (ecs p45A-something) POS, only bought for a spare in case the one this guy gave me didn't work.

i'm hopefully getting my computer problems worked out. I bought everything for my new build and had a mobo somebody had given to me, it booted up at first and posted but then after restarting it, it would not power up. a new mobo i had bought did the same thing so, i returned the one i had bought and ordered a new mobo. Got the new mobo the other day, got everything together and it did the same thing, it powers up but there is no display... so now im thinking cpu and i've got it up here at school w\ me so i can swap it out w\ another processor later to test it.

current system specs / parts
p4 3.0 w\ ht
gigabyte 775 mobo
corsair xms2 5400 2gb
maxtor 750Y0 250gb sata
antec sonata w\ antec true power 380 psu
*this is going to be a server to do labs on for my 2003 server class / spare computer*

[Killa-Eyez]

Yeah, it's cheap, I think it's 2nd hands, dunno really...
So the initial idea is to get the pc up and running and give it to my mom, buy a another psu and a AthlonXP processor (preferring the 3200+) and give that system to my girlfriend. Spec's for that one's prolly gon' be:

AMD AthlonXP 3200+
1.280 GB Memory
MSI K7N2 Delta Mobo
Maxtor 80 and 300 GB HD
VGA = dunno yet, a good one for AGP 8X.
If anyone has recommendations... :)

I also want to get my self a whole new system with the latest crap in it, but I'll have to work on my budget though.

[darkshadow]

x1950pro is king on the agp field.

[itadakimasu]

darkshadow, i think you recommended the x1950 xt that i'm currently running in my main system :)

anyhow killa, i'm not sure about certain online retailers shipping to your location... but right now is the best time ever to build a budget pc. You can put together a good setup for around 3-400 usd that would include an x2-3800+ 2gb ddr2 and a decent hard drive.

[Killa-Eyez]

Ok, so which is it? The X1950 Pro or X1950 XT?
Well my budget won't be settled till at least next year and if I'm correct, new products are coming to the market... I understand Intel is better then AMD @ the moment? I personally prefer AMD so maybe they'll come up with something better then Intel... Especially now ATI and AMD have somehow merged??? :confused:

Edit: Nevermind about which VGA, it's the X1950 Pro since the XT is PCI-E... :o

[itadakimasu]

computer problem :

under what cirumstances could one "fry" a cpu?

i had bought a p4 3.0 (631 ?) w\ ht and when i put it into the system it started posting, showing the processor and memory and everything but i didn't have a keyboard or anything plugged in, so i powered off, then back on and after that it would not start up, and wouldn't in the other mobo i had... I RMA the other mobo that i had bought, bought another and just got it this past week and does same thing, so last night i figured out that the cpu is bad and the guy i bought it from suggest that i "fryd it" on the first install... he's going to find one to swap w\ me but still, i am curious how i could have possible fryd this processor.

[darkshadow]

you can't fry intel p4's and up :/, if you did, you did something terribly wrong, intel cpu's (p4+) simply shutdown the pc if they get too hot, same happened to my quad core recently, when its cooler wasnt properly attached, it reached 119c even a couple of times, but it would just shutdown, no harm done.

Maybe something fucked up in the psu, shorting the cpu (overvolt or something), thats all i can think of.

[itadakimasu]

see, i had been given a motherboard buy a co-worker and when i first installed the cpu w\ my setup it booted up and was posting but i did not have anything plugged in, no hd or keyboard or mouse so i just powered down, then when i powered back up ... nothing. and then on the other mobo... nothing. and the guy i bought it from is suggesting that i "fryd" it... idk, but last night i finally got to test the processor in a working 775 system and it did same thing, computer starts but there is no picture at all, and i put that cpu in my box and it booted up fine so everything else in my box is functional...


Edit:

Budget PC ?
Antec Sonata I w\ antec truepower 380w psu and dvdrw - $40
Gigabyte s-series mobo -$60
Core 2 Duo E4400 - $60
2gb Corsair XMS2-5400- $60
250GB Maxtor sata - $40

no vid card because i'm not planning on gaming w\ it.... and if i just wanna test it i will use my x1950xt. but total cost on this pretty sweet system is $240

[darkshadow]

Then you either got a defective cpu, fucked up one of the "pins" or it fucked up due overvolt.
It cant be anything else.

[itadakimasu]

the guy who sold it to me will hopefully be swapping it out w\ another cpu.... which i dont really need but it will end up making me build another computer HAHA

Anyhow... a new problem arises... i was hoping to dual boot w\ 2003 server and vista on this system i just put together but it is not cooperating with me at all... neither of them allowed me the choice of choosing a directory to install in or anything. I had them on seperate partitions and installed seperately but then it would only boot 2003 server. and i formatted and tried to put vista first then 2003 server but it gives me no boot ... just auto boots to 2003 server now :( is there a way to do this? or would i have better luck w\ xp / 2003 ? or should i just use 2003 ? (i'm preparing for a 2003 server class, reason for installing it)

[Killa-Eyez]

Dunno why you'd wanna use Vista in the first place, but who am I to talk.
I have no clue whatsoever but by the looks of things, if it's going to be a server, I'd put Server 2003 on it and leave it at that. But google is your friend though.

Anyway, € 89,- for a 2nd hand Athlon XP 3200+ processor? And don't tell me that how for that money you can buy a 64 processor cause I know.
It's just that I still have the mobo and it's just lying here... The owner of the CPU is foreign so I think the price could de bargained. I myself think it's a little expensive so my thoughts are to maken an appointment and see the processor @ work, show him the cheapest store price for the CPU, tell him I'd like to have it for 75 and maybe go up to 85 but that's it. Flap around with the money and basically just fill his head with words and confuse him a little bit. Anyone got other pointers?

[itadakimasu]

killa, what socket is your motherboard? 939 or am2 ... or 754 ?

[Kraco]

If you absolutely must have the processor for the old mobo, at least don't let him rob more than 50 euros for it. It's not like he would have any use for it if he's selling it, after all, and 89 euros is ridiculous. If you pay more than €50 for it, he'll be laughing at you with his buddies afterwards.

[Killa-Eyez]

@ bbaucom: It's a socket A...

@ Kraco: Hahaha ok, ok, but the CPU is a € 150,- in stores... I mean, I can see where he's coming from although it still is an old CPU.

So.. anyone any hints how to bargain with him? I know I have the killing Eyez but it usually only works with girls... :o

[Kraco]

@ Kraco: Hahaha ok, ok, but the CPU is a € 150,- in stores... I mean, I can see where he's comin

Ah... My bad. I checked the sites of a couple of stores I frequent and they weren't even selling those anymore. So, I guess you have a point there. If it's stuff that hasn't been in production for a long time anymore, you could say it's worth something as it's rare. Though it's hard to believe so recent computer parts could have any historical value. But then again, there was a time 10 years ago when SIMM memory modules were really expensive after their production was pretty much discontinued yet people needed them for whatever reasons, like laser printers and such.

[mage]

If you need a new socket A cpu, just go find the cheapest one possible and save up for a new computer. No need to spend a lot of money on that shit.

[Killa-Eyez]

HOORAY!

I went to my dad's today and checked out the PC in question. I had the stupid hunch it was the PSU (since the beginning actually) and the darn thing wouldn't boot at all when I arrived. We swapped PSU's and problem fixed! Guess the mobo I ordered was uncalled for... :(
He also gave me 2 mobo's with an 1600+ CPU and a 2000+ CPU, :D.
Gonna get some cases and put them together and give one to my ex-girl and one to a friend of mine. The PC in question is goin over to my mom's.

@ Q-BeRt: Not planning to, only need the processor.

@ Kraco: Exactly... and this CPU is the fastest of it's family and seeing I have a long way to go saving... :D

[mage]

Guess the mobo I ordered was uncalled for... :(
o rly? .

[itadakimasu]

does anybody know what the cable is called that attaches the slip cd / dvd drives in laptops and moer importantly in small form factor dells? i have alot of unused dvdrw drives at my disposal and i need 4 of them but have no cables and cant find what they are.. i have searched for mini ata / ide and got nothing. These are used in dell optiplex gx520/620/740/755 machines.... any help would be appreciated.

[Spiegel]

Are you trying to attach them to your desktop? If you are, something like this might help.

Notebook CD/DVD to Desktop IDE adapter (http://www.1topstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=1335&language=en&currency=USD)

As for a 50 pin cable, which I believe your is, go ahead and look here (http://www.cablesonline.com/50pin2lainri.html) or I would suggest looking some more with google.

Let me know if this is what you were looking for.

[itadakimasu]

actually... they dont even have the interface i thought they did. They have a kinda weird connection.... i'm just going to use other drives that i have available and/or special order for people that may want a burner. thanks though;)

[Killa-Eyez]

Baught the CPU for 89,-, a coolermaster PSU for 47,- and 2 DDR Dimm modules of 512 MB from Corsair for 59,-.
Now running an old AGP Nvidia Riva TNT2 32 MB VGA card. Ordered the Sapphire ATI X1950 Pro 512MB.

Edit: So yeah, uhm..... I recieved the X1950 Pro card today... It's in the pc as we speak butta...
Nobody told me you can KILL with that thing! My god! The card is HUGE!!! :eek:

[itadakimasu]

LOL when i got my x1950 xt it was fucking huge. at least 2/3 bigger than the x1300 i had before it, and it weighs like 5 pounds!

[Board of Command]

Yeah those things are large, but you haven't seen the Sapphire HD2600XT Dual. That thing is a behemoth. Not very heavy at all, but the board itself is gigantic.

[Killa-Eyez]

It's crazy...

[darkshadow]

the x1950 is not that big, its the same size as an x1800 :/

[Killa-Eyez]

Dude WTF...
I had to move around my hard drives cause it wouldn't fit, and my case is pretty big...
Also, I went from the biggest I ever had (9800 Pro) to this one... So for me, IT'S BIG! :eek:

[darkshadow]

yeah that's only cause you went from something so small, the x1950pro really isnt that big compared to other cards. i've got 2 in my system.

[Board of Command]

Nothing is big after you've seen the HD2600 X2 "Gemini Prototype"... It's the double Big Mac of video cards.

[mage]

Nothing is big after you've seen the HD2600 X2 "Gemini Prototype"... It's the double Big Mac of video cards.
http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2007/09/13114704724l.jpg

[Board of Command]

Nah. That's not the prototype. That's the official Sapphire production card.

You won't find a picture of the prototype on the internet (unless I upload one for you). It's a double decker (like 7950GX2) but takes up about 5 slots.

[mage]

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3922/bfast3g1ezpx9.jpg

[Board of Command]

2003. That's way too old now. It doesn't even have dual DVI!

[mage]

actually it's from 1999 if you read the bottom left, some douchebag just updated the names of the cores in 2003 apparantly.

[Sandldan]

So i recently uninstalled vista and switched to xp (crysis ran a whole lot better in xp). The only problem im having is that after i start the computer after 1-4 hours an error report appears. After i press "Dont Send" my sound disappear the user interface goes to windows 2000 design and internet stops working after a little while.

Been searching all over the web for an solution, found some with the same problem but were unable to find a way to solve it.

What the error looks like:
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3629/errorae4.png

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/9602/error2fw7.png

Any suggestions?

[Abdula]

I don't really have any suggestions but I used to have that same problem, I wouldn't recommend what I used to do to work around it, so I'll see if anyone gives us an answer. anyway I plan on switching back to Linux in the near future.

[Sandldan]

Yeah i'll be dual booting linux on this comp in the near future, a lot of fun to play around with. But im keeping xp in order to be able to play the newest games

[itadakimasu]

I'm trying to get this lap top up and running that my boss brought to me today...

It is a Dell Inspiron 9400 w\ an Nvidia Go 7900 GS... It will boot into safe mode, and if I uninstall the Display drivers then it will boot but it then proceeds to automatically install the nvidia and then the screen cuts out.

There was a driver release 12-9-07 and that may be where it stopped working... but i tried an older driver and it still does the same thing, has the windows XP boot screen and then when it should be loading up a desktop there is a power cut out / fan cut out and the screen remains black...

a while ago i thought maybe it was just hot but now i'm really not sure. Help !

[darkshadow]

use some dell driver.

[itadakimasu]

ran more tests and then tried out a dell diagnostics cd which showed errors reading and writing to the video memory... we're guessing the video card is fried (Go 7900 GS) so maybe this coming week I will be taking this baby apart and replacing it... idk

[Killa-Eyez]

Meanwhile I've been buse buying my ass off on computerparts (christmas coming up and all).
Crashed the 3200+, think it was the PSU again, although it was a new Coolermaster 480W. It still works but slowly, even the bios boot. Prolly fried the mobo (MSI K7N82-Delta) but bought a new one (Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe) and a new PSU, dunno the brand name anymore but it was highly recommended everywhere I checked and I got the 500W one. Also bought a new cooler to keep the the CPU temp lower then 60 Celsius. Got me the Thermaltake Big Typhoon... too big actually, won't fit into my case, even worse, hardly on the mobo... I bought a friend of mine a new case. Think I'm gonna use that one, and lend him the one I got till he get's himself a new one. :D

[itadakimasu]

ok, i just got my first apartment and of course the first thing on my list was internet service... i dont really want dsl so i went w\ time warner cable 5.0Mbps yada yada 29.99/month for the first 6 months. it was the best i could find so i went with that instead of dsl..

I'm just wondering if they have something set up to throttle my connction.

I run speed test @ speedtest.net and comes back @ 5800 down 450 up which is actually a little faster than my verizon FIOS i had at my parents house (5800d 250 up)

But when i'm dl'ing something w\ Utorrent it doesn't want to go past 60kbps which is weak.

[Animeniax]

Roadrunner got bought out by Comcast, who has been in the news recently for bandwidth throttling of certain traffic, namely bittorrent. There's a public outcry against this practice, and some people are even suing Comcast, but we'll see what happens.

[Killa-Eyez]

Ouch! So they're gonna play it like that huh? I guess we need to do our homework better. Will they also do this with newsgroups?

[Animeniax]

Technically they can do it to whatever form of traffic they deem hogs bandwidth. They could do it to SMTP, HTTP, pretty much whatever they feel like. It's called traffic shaping, and unfortunately I don't see how the courts can stop them from doing it, except to make them advertise that they do it, as a disclosure to potential customers. It's like any service you pay for: if you don't like their service, find someone else. The problem is, in a lot of areas, Comcast is the only choice you really have.

[itadakimasu]

ok... picked up a seagate TB hard drive... put it in my system and its showing up as 32mb....

any ideas? Im about to see if there is a bios option for me but idk.


**Nm... there was a bios setting that i switched from "auto" to "large access " or something like that.. .reboot and bam its there.**

[Animeniax]

I wonder about the sagacity of using a TB drive. If it craps out, that's a lot of data to lose. I'd prefer two 500GB drives, or possibly three 320GB drives.

[itadakimasu]

you're right about that, would suck to lose that much data if the hard drive dies.
(crosses fingers)

I had 2 250's and a 200, i got one of the 250's emptied last night and pulled it out, going to do the same w\ the other 250 and leave the 200 in since its set up as my boot drive for now.

[Board of Command]

When you have that much data, you need RAID5.

[Animeniax]

But then you have to get a standalone RAID controller card, and those aren't cheap.

[Board of Command]

Some motherboards will have onboard RAID5-capable controllers. ICH9R supports RAID5.

Performance is another story though. You'll need a dedicated RAID card if you actually want good performance.

[Killa-Eyez]

A bit off, but baught me an Acer Aspire 5920 703G32Mi (only available in Spain?) laptop for € 580,-. Downside I had to reinstall Vista in English and crack it afterwards since the original was Spanish. The Vista Home Premium key underneath on the sticker didn't work. Anyone know why?

[itadakimasu]

if you have the sticker you shouldn't need to crack it ... do the activate by phone option and call microsoft. The last 2-3 times i've done this it has been minimal to no wait, and the process of saying the sequences of numbers to the computer is painless.

as long as you have the COA you're alright and they will either get you activiated or issue a new key or something to get you fixed up.

[Killa-Eyez]

Actually I've discovered the method I used to crack it is pretty much the same as a lot of Laptops being sold and self-activated. There's a command prompt telling you it's activating windows the first time you boot the thing. But like I said, the version of Vista was Spanish.

[Buffalobiian]

The last time I dealt with Gigabyte boards was when I was still a Tech back in early to mid '06. They tended to have issues like the socket for the possessor not responding, or the PCI's not working out of no where, or the memory slots burning out.

Original post (http://forums.gotwoot.net/showthread.php?p=361926&postcount=284)

Well, I sure hope one of those ain't happening now. Starting yesterday, my comp doesn't successfully boot first try after having it off for a while. It happened this morning, and again after I got back from work. It happened at one or two places in the BIOS, one of them when it was checking for IDE devices, and another time before the press-any-key-to-boot-from-CD prompt. It boots every time after that. I haven't reproduced the problem enough times, so this is all I know. Even though it had nothing to do with it, I just ran defrag and chkdsk /f for general health. Even though the system's still under warranty, going through the process is very much a bitch, so I just hope this prob clears itself up somehow. Maybe I should mention it had had cases like this in the past, but rare, like 3 times in the last half a year or so, but nothing consistent.

[Killa-Eyez]

A friend-o-mine had something similar. The pc wouldn't boot only if you had a bootable windows cd inserted. The cd will prompt you to press any key to boot from it and if you press nothing the pc will boot. But without it, it just reboots. Didn't want to look into it cause I just had the thing installed and all. I figured to just leave the cd in.

[Buffalobiian]

I tried it again this morning, and it booted up. I'm just gonna hope it stays that way. I'll just keep an eye out for it for a week or something I guess.

[Phoenix20578]

Original post (http://forums.gotwoot.net/showthread.php?p=361926&postcount=284)

Well, I sure hope one of those ain't happening now. Starting yesterday, my comp doesn't successfully boot first try after having it off for a while. It happened this morning, and again after I got back from work. It happened at one or two places in the BIOS, one of them when it was checking for IDE devices, and another time before the press-any-key-to-boot-from-CD prompt. It boots every time after that. I haven't reproduced the problem enough times, so this is all I know. Even though it had nothing to do with it, I just ran defrag and chkdsk /f for general health. Even though the system's still under warranty, going through the process is very much a bitch, so I just hope this prob clears itself up somehow. Maybe I should mention it had had cases like this in the past, but rare, like 3 times in the last half a year or so, but nothing consistent.

Well, that doesnt sound like a board issue to me. That sounds more like a hardrive or OS issue. I'd say if it happens again, and for your sake i hope it doesnt, try a system repair from the Windows CD. Ether the harddrive is starting to fail, the cables for the HD are starting to fail, or the OS has been damaged a little.

[Buffalobiian]

Well, it's been almost a week now, and there's good news and bad news. Bad news, I can't find where the problem was/is. Good news, it's booting fine. :D I guess I'll just let it go for now, and be happy that my comp works.

Thanks to Phoenix20578 and Killa-Eyez for the input.

[Buffalobiian]

My brother and I recently bought two graphics cards for ourselves. When we decided to install them, we found out the 2-slot 9800GTX+ doesn't fit into his computer. So I told him I'll swap him his 9800GTX+ for my 4850, and we'll sort out the price difference.

When I installed the 9800GTX+ and put in the drivers+reboot, a message comes up saying:

"Your NVIDIA graphics card is not reveiving sufficient power. As a result, the graphics card has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operation

To remedy the problem, ensure that your NVIDIA graphics card has the supplamental power connector attached."

Both the 4850 and 9800GTX+ were installed (on separate computers) with a 6pin/2*4pin adapter. The 4850 works fine (damn bastard). However, I've noticed that the 4850 has 1x6pin socket, while the 9800GTX+ 2*6pin sockets side by side.

Each of the 4pins are connected to a different rail to 500W PSUs.

I'm lost for what to do. Right now, the safe-mode clock speeds are lower than my 8500GT :( .

Does this problem mean:

a) the PSU is failing.
b) the 9800GTX+ needs to be connected to TWO 6pin/PCI-E cable/adapters.

The PSU that's with the 4850 is very noise, so I'll have to get a new PSU anyway. But:

if (A) was the case, I'd have to get 2 PSUs.
if (B) was the case, I can get one, and swap the other.

Note: min requ. of 4850 is 450W. min requ. of 9800GTX+ is 400W?!

Any help appreciated

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/922/p9270158nb8.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p9270158nb8.jpg)http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/6996/p9270159rj2.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p9270159rj2.jpg)http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/262/p9270162pw9.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p9270162pw9.jpg)http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/6074/p9270164sp0.th.jpg (http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p9270164sp0.jpg)

EDIT: Okay, I nicked my brother's adapter and tried it, and it works. Guess it really does need e PCI-E sockets filled for some reason. One new PSU it is then. Thanks for those who took the time to read it.

[Animeniax]

The nvidia card needs both 6-pin supplemental power plugs connected or it will give you that error, I think. As you said, new PSU will solve your dilemma (get a modular one so you can add the video card plugs when they start needing 4).

[Board of Command]

Yeah, you need both 6-pin connectors in there even though the card doesn't actually draw 225 watts, or anything close to that. They just design it this way so that the card doesn't draw the maximum theoretical current from any one connector.

[Buffalobiian]

Hmm...that said...does that mean there's no real danger in putting the settings back onto stock speed while I wait for my PSU to be shipped? Or is it simply configured to not allow that much power through 1 PCI-E socket?

It's funny because when I connected the extra adapter during testing, it was just running off a single 5/12v rail that the other adapter was sharing anyway:

6pin adapter1: rail-X / unplugged
6pin adapter2: rail-X / rail-Y

[Board of Command]

If you can manually set the clocks with only one connector plugged in, then I assume it'll work. As far as "danger" goes, it's not recommended.

[Buffalobiian]

*sigh*.....I'm hating this as much as you guys hate reading my problems, but here goes:

I've been trying to get a wireless PCI card to work, since it keeps coming up with "memory could not be read" errors.

I've been stuffing around so much that I think Windows settings have gone haywire. Now, when I plug the wireless card, the computer doesn't detect it anymore, and it's not showing up under the device manager. I've tried system restore to the day I installed the driver, and that hasn't worked out for me.

I'm going to try the following:

1) system restore to a really REALLY early date and see if that does anything.
2) reflash a backup I made a year ago and start from there again. (not 100% sure it would work, since I haven't had to use/try that software/backup before, fingers crossed).

Thing is now, all that trouble would be for nothing if it was actually the PCI slots (all 3 of them!!?) that are broken. So is there a way I can test out if it's the slot or not?

I've swapped cards with my brother, and his works while mine doesn't, so it's my comp's problem. I've dug out an different and old wireless PCI card and tried that, but it doesn't work neither (no detection). I don't have any other PCI cards other than wireless ones, and from the same Brand, so that doesn't help.

Anyway, I'm backing up all my data now onto HDD, and after that I'm going to start from step 1 above.

I would like to know what you guys think, or any tips I should be aware of before I go ahead. File copy finishes in an hour or so, so I'll recheck here for I do it.

Thanks guys. (I'm as tired of this shit as you guys are of reading my posts :()

Edit: System Restore to 2 weeks back fixes the problem up, so it's good that I don't have to do a year's worth of updates. I sure hope Vista's backup utility is better than this though. Sys Restore stuffs up my computer in its own ways too though. Reg entries and files on HDD don't mach, and it's not infrequent :()

[Xelbair]

I have got an advice for you - next time format system partition to FAT32(or NTFS if you want little risk) install windows, do a img backup with clonezilla(free soft) instal drivers and make another backup image. just keep doing those backups after major uptades(its a good idea to restore fresh system and keep programs on other drive) and in 5 min you cant get your settings back - it saves me hours of work.

[itadakimasu]

NTFS stopped being risky pre-1999.... have you been living in a cave?

[Board of Command]

NTFS has been the standard Windows filesystem for years.

[Buffalobiian]

Okay, It doesn't look like Netgear Support understand English. They don't know what I'm asking, so I'm just going to post what I wrote here:


On my PC, I have entered the relevant information as follows:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4842/windowsue5.jpg

Please note the Encryption type is WPA-PSK AES.

The router settings are as follows:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/3457/routerwirelessencryptiots2.jpg

It does not give the option of WPA AES, only WPA-TKIP or WPA2-AES.

However, I can connect fine using these settings, and the wireless network viewer reports a WPA encryption:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8151/wirelessgn1.jpg


So I want to ask, exactly what form of encryption is PC currently performing?

Has this ever happened to anybody?

[itadakimasu]

WPA uses TKIP - Temporal key 'interchange protocol' not sure about the last 2... anyhow. WPA was just an interim protocol because WEP was found to be too insecure.

WPA2 is a finalized standard and is supposed to be very secure. But WPA is going to be more then secure enough for the average civilian.

If you live in a suburban area ( not apartments or dense population ) i would not talk you out of using WEP even... i don't think there is a huge mass of people wardriving anymore... i could be wrong though.


And lastly - SSID isn't really important, you could make it anything ;) just saying that because you blacked out the ssid in all of the screen shots. I made mine "no free internet here!" after i found 2 people ''borrowing'' my wireless connection.

[Buffalobiian]

So my router is configured with WPA-TKIP OR WPA2-AES. It'll try WPA2 first, then back down to WPA-TKIP if that fails.

Windows says WPA-AES!!

So....which encryption is it using anyway :confused:

[itadakimasu]

some wireless devices might not support WPA2

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,12691890?

oh, and i found tkip to be - Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. This is the encryption used w\ WPA, WPA 2 uses both TKIP ( to be backwards compatible ) and uses AES.

[Buffalobiian]

Yeah, all my devices support WPA2. Just that there's no option for WPA-AES.

I haven't done the hotfix yet, and I don't really feel like having WGA bugging me, though it's a genuine copy.

I'm just left wondering what encryption method it's using since the settings don't match, but everything still works.

[itadakimasu]

I think if windows says AES and the router also says AES, its using AES...

and if not its using TKIP.

Do you have some secret data you don't want to risk anybody intercepting?

This has me wondering why I even have my wireless router enabled since we have both pcs and ps3 directly connected to the router...

I was studying some wireless stuff last night and today because I failed a test this weekend mostly because I hadn't payed close enough attention to the wireless stuff. Luckily there is a free retake so my $150 isn't wasted yet.

[Board of Command]

I thought TKIP is just a key protocol, not data encryption. AES is data encryption, not a key protocol. They're not mutually exclusive and hardly related to each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_Key_Integrity_Protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard

[itadakimasu]

"TKIP comprises the same encryption engine and RC4 algorithm defined for WEP. However, the key used for encryption in TKIP is 128 bits long."

TKIP was made as a quick fix to weak WEP security. WPA2 is a finalized standard and it uses TKIP to be backwards compatible w\ devices that maybe can't do AES.

[Board of Command]

I see, thanks.

[Buffalobiian]

Do you have some secret data you don't want to risk anybody intercepting?

Does online banking count?

Thanks for the info guys. I'm still not sure what it's using, but I'm fairly confident it's AES, and windows just recognises it as WPA rather than WPA2.

Netgear's still as clueless as ever.

[Xelbair]

NTFS stopped being risky pre-1999.... have you been living in a cave?
ehh - with clonezilla NTFS support its still in testing phase - i know that others work well with this but i'm suggesting open-source software.

NTFS has been the standard Windows filesystem for years yeah i know - it does not waste bytes like fat32 in each sector.


So my router is configured with WPA-TKIP OR WPA2-AES. It'll try WPA2 first, then back down to WPA-TKIP if that fails.

Windows says WPA-AES!!

So....which encryption is it using anyway Its using AES i think, you set "WPA-TKIP or WPA-AES" so it uses better encryption if possible. I got netgear router too - it only failed with my cousin integreted Nvidia card.

[Buffalobiian]

I'm using an E6600 (2.4GHz Dual core) with the stock heatsink & fan. I know at low enough temps/voltages, the intel fans start and stop - that's normal. But has it stopped and failed to start for any of you?

On idle, C1E downclocks the multiplier so it runs at 1.6GHz. At ambient of around 28C, it ithe core idles at 39C (coretemp), 37C (easyTune), and stock fan runs at ~888rpm.

The normal starting/stopping of the fan happens when temps get low enough on the Default EasyTune Settings (20C - spin 31%, 61C - spin 100%)

The situation where the fan fails to start has only happened once before, about a year ago. I noticed some sluggish performance, and check the CPU temp...85C!! I rebooted the computer, and temps were back to normal with the fan spinning. (Note: I didn't actually witness the fan stopping when it was at that temp).

I thought the fan may be stuffing up when it's trying to start up again, so I jacked SmartFan settings up to (20C - spin 49%, 61C - spin 100%) so that it'll keep spinning at all times - no chance of stopping.

A year later, in summer, I changed the settings back to default to lower some noise. It's not that bad, but it does help. 3 days later, I came back to find web pages loading slow, EasyTuneCentre encountering an error, and the temp display on CoreTemp showing

Core 0: 85C (?)
Core 1: 85C (?)

It showed exactly that, question marks and all.

Rebooting yielded stable temperatures again, which made me think back to the same even 1 year ago.

Basically, do Intel fans do this?

[darkshadow]

Hmm I don't think so, my fan is also always at ~2400 rpm's at my 3ghz. The cores idle at:
core 0: 45C
core 1: 44C
core 2: 38C
core 3: 40C
And their MIN/MAX are:
core 0: 39C - 59C
core 1: 38C - 54C
core 2: 33C - 50C
core 3: 36C - 52C

Maybe your sink is clogged with massive amounts of dust? or your voltages have become irregular?
After I set my voltages higher for some stability, my idle temp jumped to 80-85C for some reason which is the same as shutdown temp, even after putting it back, temps would be easily 15C higher then normal.
So I shutdown my pc for the night, and now its fine again.

[Buffalobiian]

Dust is definitely not a problem, since I cleaned it out when I chucked everything into a new P182 case about 2 weeks ago.

For some reason, the overheating thing happened again this morning. I left my computer on so it could finish with some encoding, which would finish about 1 hr after I went to bed. I wok at 6am to find:

1) encoding as finished
2) procexp had a "Application error: memory could not be written" error
3) Core Temp was reading 85C again
4) Computer was sluggish and kind of unresponsive.

Core Temp logs show:
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/7135/cpuoverheatgq3.jpg

Note: I truncated the data with ... to highlight the important data.

Interestingly, there's a gap between the logging between 5:05 and 5:11. The event viewer shows that starting @5:05, this happened:

5:05 -> System restore filter error regarding file ALSysIO.sys (a temporary coretemp sys file)
5:09 -> Application errors, memory could not be written for procexp and EasyTuneCentre (3 entries total)
5:11 -> The ALSysIO service failed to start due to the following error: The specified driver is invalid. (This same error logged every second from 5:11 to 6:21, when I closed CoreTemp)

CoreTemp calculates Intel temperatures using the following formula:

Temp = Tjmax (85C for Conroe) - Delta (Variable read off the DTS)

If I assume ALSysIO is critical for reading Delta, a ZERO for that value would explain why the displayed temp was always 85C. It may also explain why the detected clock speed was 2400MHz (program used default BIOS settings while ignoring dynamic downclocked multiplier (6x-9x)).

Upon exiting and restarting CoreTemp (without rebooting the PC), temperatures were back to idleing 39C.

System event log also displays "The ALSysIO service was successfully sent a start control." at that time.

-----------------------------------------------------
From what I see, it looks like a CoreTemp read error, rather than a real overheating issue. I've upgraded CoreTemp from v0.99.3 to 0.99.4 after that, so you can consider it a reinstall.

Reasons I'm not 100% sure it's purely a software driver stuff-up are because:

1) Overheating's happened before, fan's stopped before.
2) The gaps in the logging (5:05-5:11, and 6:21-6:23) doesn't exactly rule out hardware problems, since it's ample time to crank up the heat if it was really a fan failure, and 2mins is also adequate to cool a CPU down from 85C.
3) It doesn't (or if it does, I don't know how it) explain why memory errors occurred for procexp and EasyTuneCentre as well.
4) Sluggish performance was noticed for ~20-30sec after I turned on the monitor.

So yeah, I hopefully my CPU didn't get to do any roasting, but it's possible.

And that system restore error wiped out all my restore points :mad:

[Deadfire]

It could be any number of alot of things.

A failed/failing CPU cooler fan is a definite possibility. Another possibility is that the cooler has loosened some how and is no longer making good contact with the processor. Also, you might want to make sure that all BIOS settings are at their safe default values.

Check new drivers and BIOS updates.

Because the encoding uses CPU processing it could be that the app is FUBAR in how it handles your CPU/motherboard/memory.

Again it's a odd thing, hard to judge exactly what it is.

[Board of Command]

Load it up to 85 degrees and touch the heatsink after a minute or so. If it feels too hot to the touch, then you're really overheating. You should try to rule this out first.

Also, run Memtest 86+ to make sure your memory isn't dying.

Oh, and just for the heck of it :P
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/9689/e8400smallfftmd1.png

I also have a screenshot of a Phenom II socket-AM3 version, but I'm not allowed to post it :D

[Buffalobiian]

@DF:BIOS and drivers are all good. I've used the encoding program for a good year or two, and it's worked well. The encoding would have stopped at 11pm at night anyway, so I shouldn't have been doing anything (shown by the CPU load). I get what you mean, how it might stuff up memory. I'll have to see if it does it again.


Load it up to 85 degrees and touch the heatsink after a minute or so.
0_o....you mean like, unplug the fan so it overheats? If not, I don't know how I'll crank it up to that, since it can't normally hit such a high temp. 100% load over a hours will probably get me something above 55C, but it won't hit 60C. I've fiddled with the EasyTune 5 fan settings. It still won't get that hot under normal settings.

So to get it there, I'll have to either unplug the fan, overclock it, or somehow get it to overheat again. If we count the last instance as a legit "overheating experience", it's only happened 3 times in the last 1.5 years. Both the first two times was when I left the EasyTune fan setting on default, which results in the fan starting/stopping at lower temps. Though that's completely normal, I've concluded that both times it's because the fan had problems starting.

Side info: I'm using a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 with F14A BIOS. Google didn't say this board is commonly associated with fan controller failure, but it's entirely possible. There was one example of a guy who had a E6600 fan-stopping problem as well. (but not with all the coretemp/application stuff)

I'll encode another episode or two tonight and see how it goes.

[Board of Command]

Oh I thought you meant it overheats consistently. If you can't reproduce the problem, then ignore what I said.

But do run Memtest.

[Buffalobiian]

Thought I'd report: Memtest came up with no errors.

Interestingly, yesterday I was running CoreTemp 0.99.4 on my laptop (AMD Turion 1.66GHzx2), and for a minute or two, temperatures were shown as:

Core0: 0C (?) (!)
Core1: 0C (?) (!)

Since AMD uses a different formula (Core Temp = Value - 49), such a reading indicates yet another reading error.(Note: CoreTemp does not display temperatures below 0C, despite it being theoretically possible)

Core Temp resumed normal readings a minute or so afterwards, with (!) to indicate past invalid readings.

[Board of Command]

Temperature reading for AMD chips is a bit shaky. My Phenom II 920 is sitting at 11 degrees right now acccording to CoreTemp.

Take whatever you see with a grain of salt. It's only reliable for Intel chips.

[Buffalobiian]

My Dell Inspiron 1501 failed to boot this morning. I get through the first (and only) page of bios, and when it's meant to load the windows XP logo, it instead flashes grey/white for 0.5 seconds, and just keeps rebooting over and over in the same cycle.

I'm going to try my backup disk, but since the CD reader tends to pick up errors, I would prefer it as a last resort - unless I copy the disks to an external HDD and run the backup from there.

It's been working fine for a few months now. The only thing I can remember I did yesterday was uninstall the graphics drivers and upgrade to 9.2 for the ATI 1150? onboard card.

I've recently been switching to using hibernation and standby modes a lot more (in the past week), but that's it. I'll post some pics later when I get back home, since I'm at uni. :(

Currently running the PSA + Pre-boot Assessment/memtest - so far so good. Completed with no errors...:confused:

Interestingly though, during the normal boot-memory-test, the numbers climb up to ~6GB of ram, but then settles on 4GB - OK. I can't remember if it's always like this or not, but I'm pretty sure I've only got 4GB of ram.

---------------------
Weird. I went into bios -> selected "Load default settings", then changed the setting for "show boot-diagnostic screen" from "default - off" to "on", and it worked....?

Anyway, running chkdsk /r and defrag just for health's sake.

It was coming back from hibernation btw.

[itadakimasu]

can you hit f8 and boot into safe-mode?

If you just upgraded the video driver, that seems like the most likely cause.

See if you can boot into safe-mode and maybe roll back the video driver and see if it boots up normally after you do that

[Buffalobiian]

It boots normally now....I don't know why. I'll do another backup onto a network drive just in case. It was actually weird because since it's meant to be loading from hibernation mode, it actually failed before the "Resuming from hibernation" page, which looks like the bios layout as opposed to windows, so it shouldn't be a display problem neither.

Then again, as you said, the only thing that changed was the upgraded drivers. I'll see how things go and bump this if anything turns up.

[itadakimasu]

if you're hibernating, i'd suggest memory if you had less than 4gb...

[Board of Command]

Hibernation has nothing to do with memory, since it suspends to hard disk.

[Buffalobiian]

The problem hasn't come back yet. It was having trouble with loading the "resuming hibernation screen". I looked at it today, and it seems you can press F8 during that time to either pause the resume, or scrap it and boot normally.

I'll try that next time to see if it works.

[Buffalobiian]

Hey guys, I'll need your help.

The story goes... I was plugging in different fans and unplugging them in the computer to check for system noise/cooling performance etc. I was using mini-pliers to pull out the CPU fan cable from the motherboard, since it was a bit tight.

For whatever reason it slipped out of my hands, landed on the video-card, then (from memory) it either stayed there or landed on the ground afterwards. The fan on the 9800GTX+ then sped up to (full?) speed, being really loud, and there's no image on screen. The light at the back of the graphics card is green (it's red when it's not getting enough power from the 6-pin power cords). - Not sure if it's supposed to indicate other sorts of error.

In any case, I turned off the computer, and tried rebooting - it boots into windows, as I can hear the welcome screen, but I don't see an image, and the fan's still going like crazy.

I thought I might have wreaked the video card. So I unplug the card, and swap for my old 8500GT passive. When I try to boot the comp, same thing happens - black image, welcome screen music.

I'm like 99.9% positive the plies hit nothing else on the way down except the 9800GTX+ graphics card, which isn't plugged in at the moment.

What seems to be the problem? I've got a feeling I busted my PCI-E slot. The pliers were sturdy, but the card was secured with screws and all. Perhaps a short-circuit of something when it hit? Still, I'd imagine that'd affect the card, but not another one, unless somehow the drivers weren't compatible. The passive heatsink's warm, so it's definitely power. Gigabyte 965-S3 doesn't have onboard graphics, so right now I can't do anything with it.....

Help appreciated.


------------------------------------
Edit: okay, I let it rest for ~15minutes, and now it's booting with the 8500. The resolution's all stuffed up, but that's fine for now. I'll turn it off and retry the 9800 in 5 minutes. Fingers crossed.

Fan's back to low speed, screen boots up fine....

Thoughts: WTF??, Banzai!! and I'm going to sleep for the night before some other crazy shit happens.

[Board of Command]

Did you try clearing the CMOS?

[Buffalobiian]

Did you try clearing the CMOS?

I edited the post just as you responded. Thanks anyway, and I wouldn't mind know what happened if you had any idea.


Edit: okay, I let it rest for ~15minutes, and now it's booting with the 8500. The resolution's all stuffed up, but that's fine for now. I'll turn it off and retry the 9800 in 5 minutes. Fingers crossed.

Fan's back to low speed, screen boots up fine....

Thoughts: WTF??, Banzai!! and I'm going to sleep for the night before some other crazy shit happens.

[Board of Command]

Computers will do that. Sometimes you just need to power everything down to let the capacitors on the motherboard and whatnot to discharge.

[Buffalobiian]

Hmm, well after a night's sleep, I booted the comp up again this morning. It worked fine until when it's loading the startup apps in the system tray. There, while loading certain components, the screen would just black out (but the LED on the monitor would still be green). A conventional shut-down via keyboard didn't work neither. After I reset the machine, I loaded up a song as soon as it got to my desktop. When the screen froze up again, the song froze too - so it wasn't just a screen problem.

I had a hunch that it froze when Nvidia control panel modules were loaded, so I uninstalled and reinstalled the card....several reboots after that have yielded no problems, so I guess it should be fine if I can do a cold start tomorrow.

[itadakimasu]

I have this Dell Optiplex GX620 in my office @ work... It's got 3ghz p4 ht, 4gb ddr2-4200, anyhow... went to reboot it on friday because it was going really slow and it wouldn't restart. It would start in safe mode but not normally. Tried a repair installation and it just hung up, did diagnostics and showed hard drive errors so I replaced the drive.

Today, i went to run windows updates on the new xp install and it comes up w\ xp sp3 which i've installed on lots of systems. It goes through the install, reboots and now it wont boot.

there is no display and it gives akind of beep that i've heard before when there were unmatched memory types... I'm confused. I guess it's possible the mobo just blew out but idk, it was working perfect w\ the new hd i put in this weekend and then right when it rebooted from xp sp3 install it is just dead weight.

Tried reseating ram, and same thing : (

Any suggestions? i'm not going to waste too much time on it because I can get another like it for $99 or less maybe.

[Xollence]

We're actually retiring that model in our company this month. When you turn it on, does the light by the power button stay green or does it blink orange?

We had many issues with SP3/IE8 but nothing like that.

[itadakimasu]

power comes on green, then goes off and flashes orange, then comes back green.

i looked up the diagnostic light and it says no ram detected...

so, idk if it's just a fluke occurrence and the mobo went out... I tried 1 dimm alone and nothing, removed cmos battery, nothing, powered off, reseated cpu, reseated ram, nothing.

I didn't have time to swap out all the pieces (cpu, ram) to test in another system but i'm going to do that next.

[Buffalobiian]

This is more a question rather than an existing problem:

What are the limitations of "run in 32bit compatibiltiy mode", or any of the backward compatibility modes in Vista/Win7?

I want to get in the 64bit version of Windows 7 when it comes out, so I'm getting my head around potential problems beforehand.

I know that compatibility modes aren't available for hardware drivers because they work in between the OS and hardware, making emulation impossible. Does that make all programs fine though?

How about things like firewalls and Anti Viruses that run at more basic levels than common programs? Will those have problems running in compatibility modes if they're "not available" for that particular OS?

[Board of Command]

I've never heard of 32-bit compatibility mode. If you're talking about the WoW64 emulator, then that's a system feature that you have no control over. All 32-bit apps will be run in the emulator, while all 64-bit apps will be run natively. As far as I know, there are no major issues with this.

[Buffalobiian]

I've never heard of 32-bit compatibility mode. If you're talking about the WoW64 emulator, then that's a system feature that you have no control over. All 32-bit apps will be run in the emulator, while all 64-bit apps will be run natively. As far as I know, there are no major issues with this.

Yeah, I meant the emulation mode.

[Xrlderek]

My computer won't boot up anymore, the loading screen just loops around and around(the green bar). No repair options work, and system restore doesn't work. It boots up in safe mode, but not in safe mode with networking. Surely that indicates that network drivers are the problem?

Should I just uninstall all network drivers? I don't know much about this stuff, but, what can make it hang during loading? Does it even load drivers at that point? Or only system files? I've tried system restore and several repair options without it working at all. Any help would be great.

Edit: Disabling PCI GBE LAN in boot options fixed it. I should have tried the stuff there first.

[Animeniax]

Did you turn on PCI GBE LAN in boot options to generate the problem in the first place?

[Buffalobiian]

I've got a computer running Windows XP 32bit sp2, ATI HD4850, and Catalyst 9.8.

I know for a fact that Catalyst suit 9.8 bricked the PC. It only boots in safe mode, and normally wouldn't show anything after the Windows Logo.

Thing is, system restore was used before I got to it, and all the files/registry entries are kind of screwed up, thanks to the half-assed backing-up that is system restore.

Basically now I'm trying to uninstall Catalyst Control Panel in safe mode. The computer thinks 9.6 is installed, so it runs the un/installer. However, then some other part of the computer recognises it as being installed, so the 9.6 un/installer then tries to install. Another part of the computer then thinks that 9.8 is still on the machine, so asks me to uninstall that version before I install 9.6.

So, I then go to try the 9.8 install exe, and it gives me the error:

"Setup did not find a driver compatible with your current hardware. Setup will now exit."

Now I'm stumped. Any tips? I'll have time to reformat it on the weekend, but meanwhile I'm open to better solutions. Sadly, no one bothered to back up the OEM windows installation, so it'll be fitted with a less-legit windows.

[itadakimasu]

I think there is a utility that will completely remove drivers... I did that once when my system wouldn't boot w\ a certain driver installed.

when you uninstall the drivers in safe-mode, does it make you reboot? or would you be able to install a different driver version after removing that bad one?

I'd hate to recommend a reformat for something you can probably get working.

[Buffalobiian]

I think there is a utility that will completely remove drivers... I did that once when my system wouldn't boot w\ a certain driver installed.

when you uninstall the drivers in safe-mode, does it make you reboot? or would you be able to install a different driver version after removing that bad one?

I'd hate to recommend a reformat for something you can probably get working.

It actually doesn't let you uninstall because it's screwed up, but yeah, it asks you to reboot. I can't install or modify the installation with a newer or current driver because it comes up with the "no compatible hardware" message before.

[Buffalobiian]

If I log into an SSL encrypted site with a username and password via an SSL encrypted proxy connection, can my password be read in between? eg proxy logs?

Computer ---(SSL)-->> Proxy ---(SSL)--->> Site.

[poopdeville]

SSL stuff


Well, that depends.

Typically, an SSL proxy isn't really a proxy so much as a little firewall that passes your encrypted packets forward. This is the normal case, and unless you see something about a bad certificate, you will be okay.

It is possible to build a machine that decrypts the connection, actually scans and caches the content, and re-encrypts the connection using its own certificate (taking the place of the attacker in a "man in the middle attack" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack). In that case, the certificate will be wrong somehow.

[poopdeville]

I have a problem with the users because they show in the MySqL database but not in the administrator.
Also when I log with a login/password of a user into the frontend site I get this Error message: E_NOLOGIN_ACCESS
Does anyone have an idea why this is happening? or any possible solution?
Thanks in advanced


Your site isn't using the right mysql user when it opens its database connections. Either because the user doesn't exist, or just doesn't have permission.

[Buffalobiian]

Did anyone else recently got video-card induced BSOD problems on their XP-32bit machine? I've got a feeling a recent windows-update installation caused it.

[itadakimasu]

i had problems a couple of weeks ago but i'm running windows 7 x64. I uninstalled the video card driver and reinstalled the new one and that fixed it.

[anospaply]

Hey there... So you probably havent noticed, but I havent been able to access the site for many weeks now. Ive FINALLY just used a proxy to get on, but other than that, Firefox or IE wont load the site. Any idea what the problem would be? Ive wiped the temp files, but still no access. I just get a "cant load/display site" error...

Help appreciated.

[Buffalobiian]

Well, that depends.

Typically, an SSL proxy isn't really a proxy so much as a little firewall that passes your encrypted packets forward. This is the normal case, and unless you see something about a bad certificate, you will be okay.

It is possible to build a machine that decrypts the connection, actually scans and caches the content, and re-encrypts the connection using its own certificate (taking the place of the attacker in a "man in the middle attack" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack). In that case, the certificate will be wrong somehow.

It does depend, and that's what makes web proxies' security less-than-clear to me. For my uni connection for example, it does through their proxy too. But as it doesn't modify my URL in my address bar, I can connect to gmail.com directly. My browser requests https://www.gmail.com, and it receives the certificate for gmail.com without a problem. The website and the certificate match.

With web proxies, you type into their webpage, and typically your address bark becomes a mess starting with the domain of the proxy.

eg https://sslproxy.org/?request=google.com&123u5890489032 ------ or something like that.

The site itself is SSL encrypted already, and it asks you to accept the certificate when you first connected, if there was a problem with it (out of date perhaps). Then you continue to go to your site via their webpage, but your url isn't that of the requested site, but of the proxy site. When you get your certificate, it could be identifying gmail.com or sslproxy.org. The second case would mean that reading of information could be possible.



--------------------------

MAIN PROBLEM

I've recently just moved a computer from the bottom of the desk up to the top. When I booted it, it would freeze during the Windows XP loading screen, with the bar freezing. This freezing is inconsistent, so sometimes it'll boot successfully, and sometimes it wouldn't.

Safe mode also suffers from this inconsistency, freezing sometimes when it's trying to load something.

I've performed memtest and it's given me 5 passes with no problems.

Next thing I've done is to unplug HDD2 and only use the master HDD for testing. Using the original sata cable for HDD1, repeated booting/restart/reset got me 13 boots : 3 failures. Swapping that out for sata cable #2 (the one that was used to connect HDD2 up), I got 28 boots : 2 failures. (the 2 failures happened at trial #28 and #29)

One other problem I've been having is that the screen blacks out on you after a while. I've swapped the graphics card and it hasn't happened since.

Right now, we can rule out gfx card as the source of error. As for the sata cables, they're either not the problem, or both are damaged. RAM is good. The next likeliest thing is the HDD itself or the mobo.

Guys got anything you want to add?

[Kraco]

Make sure the backside of the mobo, or any other things, aren't touching the metal parts of the case. Also make sure any cards, cables, or other connectors didn't become loose when you moved the system. That happens and results in inconsistent problems. Remove dust just to be sure. Maybe you got a conductive dust particle into a wrong place.

[Buffalobiian]

I've gotten the mobo grounding suggestion a few times. I want to ask though, when that happens, does it specifically screw up the boot during the WinXP logo? or does it screw up anywhere? Because despite all that, this is one consistent factor.

[Kraco]

Nah, if your system always halts at that one point of loading XP, regardless of if it's the 10th reboot or turning on a cold computer, then it's certainly not a grounding issue. I suppose it could theoretically be windows loading the drivers of a broken peripheral but I very much doubt that. Sounds more like corrupted HD data.

The grounding issue could create consistency only by thermal expansion, I reckon.

[David75]

I would try to get a new sata cable, the one with the secure clip that clicks.
It applies a little more pressure on the contacts and can save a drive...

My current drive, an old seagate, has the plastic supporting the contacts that is partly broken.
It caused the same troubles you are experiencing.

By using one of the cables I mentionned, the contacts are well placed and don't move at all, and this box has been stable like that for more than a year now, until I can purchase a reliable and affordable SSD.

Also, when plugging and unplugging drives, be ultra gentle with connections.
Be ultra gentle with SATA cables too, as you can pull on the connectors.
For some reason, those connectors have been designed with a very low manpulation number in mind (something like 50 connect/disconnect)... eventhough you have now hotswappable options which is in contradiction with low connect/disconnect.

[Buffalobiian]

hmm, well I'll give that extra secure cable a go. i've never seen one before though, so I'll have to hunt for one.

edit: wait...with clips...you mean like this?

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6828/satacablethumb600x51449.jpg

In that case, I have SATA cables like that already. In fact, all my SATA cables are like that, and you can't unplug it without pressing/unlocking the clip. Because of that, I thought all SATA cables comes like that, and thought you were referring to something even more secure, until I saw some clipless versions on the internet.

[Kraco]

If multiple normal cables all seem to be giving you problems, it might be a broken connector already, though. A thing as simple as a cable isn't too likely to be flawed. If you tried two sata channels (connectors) on the mobo side, then it could be the HD's connector. If you can, it might be worth it to test the HD with an external HD chassis. Let's hope there's nothing wrong with your southbridge chip, at least.

[Buffalobiian]

Yeah, I'll be testing the HDD next by swapping it with one from another computer and doing multiple boots with it.

Something else was funny too. Before, this computer also had a problem with the screen blacking out (it would do it sometime after memtest starts for example). I was pretty sure it was a video card problem. I swaped the ATI card with an Nvidia one from another comp, and it worked fine. But when yesterday I decided to confirm by running memtest on the second PC with the ATI card, that one also worked fine after 8+ hrs of memtesting.

Damn you inconsistent problems!

[David75]

yes I was referring to those clips.
As for my experience, all my cables were clip-less and the last ones I bought came with clips and saved my now system drive.

as Kraco said, it could come from the drive side, but I've already seen cables with connectors that were flawed after some connection/disconnection.
If you've got other ones, from another config, just be gentle with them and try them.

then there's the mobo firmware update, although I highly doubt it comes from there.
I also very much doubt you'd have to increase the HDD delay for the boot, because all recent drives should already be ready to launch the OS right after post.

[Buffalobiian]

Well, to update, I've connected a HDD from my (working) computer into the broken one, and I still get boot problems (with the broken PC's SATA cable). Then I tried again with the cable from the working PC, and I got the same results.

Bring the "broken" HDD over to my PC, and it boots fine (so far). I haven't had time to test it out extensively yet (24 successes so far, but in one of my previous tests, failures didn't start till ~28).

I'll see about the grounding issue, but since it's mounted using pegs, I'm having my doubts on whether that's the issue. (I think there may be extra (metal) pegs from my old installation that may be a possible path for grounding, so I'll see to that.

It definitely seems to be a motherboard issue (either that or the PSU/CPU), and bad thing is, I don't think I can find the invoice for it.

[Buffalobiian]

Update: Issue Resolved

-found the invoice for the old "faulty" gigabyte motherboard. Will return it soon to warranty.

-Since it takes so damn long for things to come back to warranty, I bought a DDR2 MSI board for ~$70. It's not as good as the one it's replacing, but it should hang in there for a 2 or 3 years. It'll probably get upgraded again by then anyway.

After the replacement board I haven't had the boot-freezing issue yet (we've done 75+ successive reboots to date), so I'm fairly confident the problem's gone. I don't care enough to put the gigabyte board back in to replicate the problem, so I guess I can't be certain as to whether physically reinstalling the board would have also solved the problem. It's using pegs though, and as far as I know, that all but rules out grounding problems.

Also sent back the ATI 4850HD to warranty as well, since it very irregularly (but surely) gives black screens randomly.

At this point, it seems like all known issues have been resolved, and I can finally resume migrating to Win 7 on my own computer.

Thanks to those who spent some thought on the issue.

[Killa-Eyez]

Heya! I have a laptop problem. It shuts down after a while of playing music or having to many flash videos opened in tabs (IE). I think it has something to do with the processor being overheated, cause everytime I play songs the fan increases speed. I customized hardware when I just got it. I replaced it's processor to a slightly faster one and added an extra gig of memory. That's about 2 years ago and in the first year it worked flawless. Any thoughts anyone?

[Buffalobiian]

Try running Coretemp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/) (or any other CPU monitor temp monitor really).

Use that to verify whether the CPU really does run extremely hot before it shuts down.

-------------------------

Ran into a little problem of my own after I installed Win7.

1) Wireless connection: card drivers are all up to date, but it can't detect a wireless network. SSID broadcasting is off.

2) Wired connection works fine, but after 20hrs of (router/modem) updown, the router will freeze (no internet access, does not respond to ping commands). <- I'm still troubleshooting this by testing various settings / disconnecting various things. Progress is slow since I can only see the effects of 1 setting per day.

[Kraco]

That's about 2 years ago and in the first year it worked flawless. Any thoughts anyone?

Years ago when I had a laptop, the CPU socket cracked at some point and it froze the computer quite randomly but invariably after the CPU had warmed up enough. It was still under warranty, though, which was lucky for me. In any case even the repair shop had really tough time locating the problem, even returning the computer once to me with the dull "there was no problems" statement. The second time through they finally witnessed it and fixed the issue.

Well, I just typed this hoping it won't be the case for you.

[Killa-Eyez]

Tried Coretemp: http://i48.tinypic.com/ngtyt4.jpg.
Stopped playing music cause I didn't want to risk rebooting without making a printscreen.
Seems it will gradually get higher the longer I play music or multiple youtube videos or use anything that takes a lot of processing. So I guess I found the problem but how to solve it?

[Buffalobiian]

Clean out the vents for dust?

Fix the CPU fan?

Mechanical cooling is failing, that's for sure.

Anything beyond 65-70C should be raising eyebrows, and you're hitting 98C...

[Killa-Eyez]

I will totally disassemble the laptop and check any fan and air vent for dust. Should I try reapplying some new cooling paste on the processor while I'm at it? And got maybe any more hints on how to keep my laptop from heating besides cleaning it? Thanks Buffolobiian, and thanks anyone.

[Buffalobiian]

Should I try reapplying some new cooling paste on the processor while I'm at it?

If you want, I guess there's nothing stopping you. Sounds like it's past the warranty period for it to be an issue anyway.


And got maybe any more hints on how to keep my laptop from heating besides cleaning it?

Besides using it on a hard, flat surface to ensure it gets enough ventilation around the bottom of the device, I don't think there's much you can do. Cleaning the vents is the best thing you can do, since dust clogging up the vents reduces airflow, making the fans work harder, which in turn leads to more wear and tear.

---------------------------

Following up my previous post:


Ran into a little problem of my own after I installed Win7.

1) Wireless connection: card drivers are all up to date, but it can't detect a wireless network. SSID broadcasting is off.

2) Wired connection works fine, but after 20hrs of (router/modem) updown, the router will freeze (no internet access, does not respond to ping commands). <- I'm still troubleshooting this by testing various settings / disconnecting various things. Progress is slow since I can only see the effects of 1 setting per day.

The problem here seems to be that my router is incompatible with IPv6, and somehow causes the router to lock up (unresponsive to pings, no internet access). I've disabled now, and I've had ~31hrs of router uptime without any problems. I'll post again if the issue comes up.

Note that simply unchecking the IPv6 protocol under "Adapter Properties" doesn't fully disable IPv6, as Command Prompt > ipconfig will still show an IPv6/Toredo address.

Microsoft has an article that details how to effectively disable it via regedit:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852

(I used the value "0xffffffff")

[itadakimasu]

this is a laptop?

Damn... that's way too hot!!!!

as far as I'm concerned, max safe temp for a cpu is going to be in the 50's. 90+ is way too hot.

Last night, I installed my am3 motherboard w\ my athlon II 620 oc'd to 3ghz... also installed mw2. I got into my 2nd game and with no warning my system shut down.

I restarted and went to bios to look at cpu temp and it was i think 105c! ( nearly 250f ).

sucks that it's a laptop because the cpu isn't easily accessible. It's just a general pain to diagnose because each step of the way is going to require taking it apart vs a desktop where you can maybe add a new cooler.

Make sure you have adequate airflow and that nothing is caked w\ dust... How old is your laptop? Is it under warranty? was it sitting unused for an extended period of time?

My cpu fan was plugged in but wasn't running!!! Plugged it into a different port and now it's going and temps are levelling out.

I ran a stress test overnight, and w\ the cpu oc'd to 3ghz, temps didn't get about 50c. So, it helps when your cpu fan is actually working!

[Killa-Eyez]

I ran a stress test overnight, and w\ the cpu oc'd to 3ghz, temps didn't get about 50c. So, it helps when your cpu fan is actually working!

I bet. :p


Make sure you have adequate airflow and that nothing is caked w\ dust... How old is your laptop? Is it under warranty? was it sitting unused for an extended period of time?

It fell off the back of a lorry, so no warranties. It's now around 3 years old..
Haven't come around to it yet. I'll keep you guys posted.

Edit: Removed all the dust, but did not yet put some new cooling paste on the cpu. It improved a little bit, system's not rebooting. Temps are still high though:

http://i47.tinypic.com/21lle9l.png

The paste will only help so much. I think maybe getting a new fan???

[Buffalobiian]

So we've had a HDD break down in the house (can't be detected whatsoever. Tested in two different systems), so we bought a new one as it was urgent.

The HDD's still covered by warranty... so I was thinking.. should we return it? There shouldn't be any "classified" files on there, just programs, windows etc.

I think there's VOIP program that autologins though, same with a few other websites perhaps (yahoo mail?).

Should I return it and get a replacement, or destroy it?

Or maybe I could rub it against a subwoofer? :D (though unsure if that'll void warranty)

[Kraco]

I'm so cheap I'd definitely return it. But I suppose that also depends on what manner of data you are storing. I don't personally have anything that would interest anybody so much that they would go through the trouble of stealing it from a broken drive (I hear that's a highly expensive service if you buy it from a specialist). A couple of years ago I did return a 35 months old HD that caught fire. If they rescued the disk without a permission, I hope they enjoyed the anime, because it was my anime archive drive...

In short, if I was a sick pervert hoarding cp, I probably wouldn't return a drive, otherwise I would.

[Buffalobiian]

Well it depends on how broken the drive is too. I'm thinking of a case where it might be something loose and they just fix, check and steal.

Nothing really important, but I think it's got cookies that autologin to websites and stuff.

And you're making it sound like I've got cp if I end up not returning it!

[Alhuin]

Was the HD not detected as the primary (boot) HD, or could you not even recognize it as a secondary? If you can't get the HD to recognize at all, in any way possible, even through an external enclosure, then returning it is fine. The store will just ship it back to the manufacture, they will "fix" it and ship it back, and the store will sell it refurbished. I wouldn't worry about your data, cause I'm sure the manufacture gets enough returned HDs that they are more focused (or have a quicker process) on fixing them and sending them out.

[Buffalobiian]

It's an internal drive that simply can't be detected. You plug it in and boot up the PC using a recovery disc, and can't even see the HDD to write the image onto. It's non-existent.

[Alhuin]

Not that this matters for your situation, but my roommates computer is weird like that as well... Her HD is fine, but she had a problem one time where she was stuck in an infinite boot-up loop, so I tried using my various recovery disks (ERD Commander, Ultimate Boot CD for XP, and a plain Recovery Disk) and none of them could recognize her HD. No idea why. She finally got her computer working again, but those disks still will not recognize the HD. It might be because she has a tablet laptop? I don't know.

Anyways, your description of what is happening to yours reminded me of that. And I was just asking if you could recognize it as a secondary HD (not the boot HD) to see if you could just format it from Windows.

I'd go ahead and return it though. If you are really worried about the possibility of leaking personal information, just change the passwords for the services you think may be in jeopardy.

[Buffalobiian]

In one of the configurations I tried the HDD was plugged in with other HDDs, one of which contained a bootable partitian.

And the recovery disks I put in was Nero BackItUp2 disc that's Linux based.

[Board of Command]

Does the BIOS detect it? There are bootable tools that are designed to erase hard drives provided they are detectable.

[Buffalobiian]

How do I find it in the BIOS?

(Looking for it in the BIOS was actually one of the things I did when diagnosing it. I couldn't find it, but it could easily have been because I didn't know where to look).

[darkshadow]

It should detect it on one of the sata channels listed

[Buffalobiian]

It should detect it on one of the sata channels listed

Oh, that. (boot screen?)

No, it doesn't detect.

Sitting on "Detecting IDE drives" for minutes before moving off was the first sign that it was broken.

[darkshadow]

no not the boot screen, in the bios itself, it shows what occupies what channel

[complich8]

Something to be aware of, if you're paranoid, is that what's probably hosed up is the electronics on the drive. If someone found an identical (or near-identical) drive that worked (or had bad platters or heads but a good controller), they could swap the board onto your good platters/good heads/bad electronics and have a working drive with no data loss. This is something that I've had to do to recover some data from a director-level boss's disk after all else failed, so I've got firsthand experience saying that it's not even particularly hard to do.

If there's data there that's sensitive, .... well, it's probably still not sensitive enough that someone picking through the trash is going to do that. If you've got things like ... your social security number, credit card numbers, name/address, tax returns, you might opt to dismantle and destroy the disk yourself, or maybe not, up to you.

If you ship it back to the manufacturer, they'll salvage the parts that are good and destroy the parts that are bad, but they'll also zero out any content on the resulting refurb disk before they ship it out again. They're ... usually pretty good about that.

[Animeniax]

I have an Asus P5Q Pro Turbo motherboard with a Q6600 CPU running Windows 7 32-bit. I put the computer to sleep and while it was winding down I tapped the keyboard and it started the wake up process, then shut down. Now it won't boot. When I power on the system, the fans run, the DVD drive spins up, then the system sits. No beeps, no monitor activity, no harddrive activity, and I've let it sit for 30 minutes with no activity. On the PS/2 keyboard, the only activity is the numlock light will light up/turn off when I press numlock.

Troubleshooting: I disconnected the PSU and let it sit overnight, unplugged extra drives and removed unnecessary cards, disconnected the PS/2 keyboard, unplugged the power connector from the motherboard, removed the CMOS battery and moved the jumper to clear CMOS settings.

One thing that was weird was when the system first woke from sleep, a BIOS message appeared saying I need to enter setup and load settings, which I did. After that, the motherboard will not POST. Could it be the CMOS battery is dead or the mainboard is dead?

[Killa-Eyez]

Letting you guys know that since I cleaned out the laptop the heating issue was resolved. No more crashes! :) BUT, on to the next, bigger problem;

I just finished watching Ergo Proxy in Full-HD on my 52" plasma TV via HDMI from my laptop and started the game Portal afterwards to see how it would look like in 1080p. After closing Portal I left the laptop alone for about 30-40 min. while still hooked up to the TV. My energy settings are: when power plugged in, only turn off the screen after 10 min. Then I moved my wireless mouse around to get the screen back. For a fraction the TV channel info would change from just "HDMI" to "HDMI Widescreen, 1080p" and back to just "HDMI" again. The screen would flash white when the cannel info changed and went back to a black screen immediately. I waited for like 5 min. not paying too much attention to it, thinking it'd come back by itself, but nothing happened. I opened my laptop which would usually show the screen but with a very big resolution but it remained black (I think). Unplugged the HDMI-cable, but nothing happened. Left it alone for a couple of minutes and the laptop started rebooting by itself, showing the following screen below.

Anyone familiar with this???

Edit: Going to try this: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2008/04/13/laptop-lcd-screen-turned-white/

[Animeniax]

If you're not getting video on the laptop display or an external display, the videocard is toast.

[Kraco]

Yeah. If you aren't seeing even the bios screen or anything, it doesn't bode well for your video card. Maybe the TV drew too much power from the HDMI or short circuited it.

[Buffalobiian]

Yeah. If you aren't seeing even the bios screen or anything, it doesn't bode well for your video card. Maybe the TV drew too much power from the HDMI or short circuited it.

It could also just be a badly made product.

Take it back to warranty if you can.

@Ani: It could also be the mobo, but in the end it doesn't really matter with a laptop.

[Kraco]

Haha, yeah. It's indeed highly possible it's not the TV's fault at all. My post was in that sense certainly too one-sided.

[Killa-Eyez]

I've already checked the graphics card and that looks good. Guess I'll check the mobo next. I tried finding me a analog monitor cable I thought I had laying around, but it seems I don't. When I press the function key (Fn) with the ext. display key it does switch cause the laptop screen turns off. It doesn't work with the HDMI though. I'll go to my moms later and try it since I have lots of stuff lying there.


Yeah. If you aren't seeing even the bios screen or anything, it doesn't bode well for your video card. Maybe the TV drew too much power from the HDMI or short circuited it.

My initial toughts also. It switches, but not to the HDMI.



It could also just be a badly made product.

Take it back to warranty if you can.

I have this badly made product for around 4 to 5 years and it worked without error. It's the same laptop that had the heating issue, so no warranty.

Thanks, I'll keep you guys posted.

[depthcharge]

Did you use your laptop with its lid/screen down? That is extremely bad for heat dissipation. Graphic card/chip might be fried causing that graphic anomaly.

Preferred way is to leave the screen up even if you are using external display.

[Killa-Eyez]

So I took apart my laptop almost completely. Couldn't find anything, no burn marks, no components popped, not even a burn smell. Nothing out of the ordinary except for one plastic fitting that broke off of the casing, but I glued that back on.


Did you use your laptop with its lid/screen down? That is extremely bad for heat dissipation. Graphic card/chip might be fried causing that graphic anomaly.

Preferred way is to leave the screen up even if you are using external display.

Wow, did not know that. Though it sounds logical. I always kept the lid closed because the resolution setting would be automaticcally set correctly. Guess that did it then. I'll maybe check for another graphics card depending on how expensive it will be. Otherwise I'll save up and buy another. Sucks though. Good thing I have a spare ext hd casing. :mad:

[Animeniax]

Laptops have replaceable videocards? I think only some older Alienware or other highend laptops had that option. Most laptops have videocards integrated into the mainboard, which means you have to replace the entire mainboard to replace the videocard.

[Kraco]

If the laptop is already 4-5 years old, you better buy a new one. Even if you somehow fix the video card, something else will break soon. It'll be an endless cycle of repairing, very quickly more expensive than getting an entirely new one.

[Animeniax]

Another tip: don't buy Acer. They are poor quality. Also stay away from HP laptops.

Best bets: Asus, Toshiba.

[Killa-Eyez]

Laptops have replaceable videocards? I think only some older Alienware or other highend laptops had that option. Most laptops have videocards integrated into the mainboard, which means you have to replace the entire mainboard to replace the videocard.

The NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS GPU is located on a removable card on the mainboard. All connectors (Analog VGA, S-VHS, HDMI) are located on the mainboard.
http://i33.tinypic.com/2n9fae1.jpg
Letter "D" shows the MXM module.


If the laptop is already 4-5 years old, you better buy a new one. Even if you somehow fix the video card, something else will break soon. It'll be an endless cycle of repairing, very quickly more expensive than getting an entirely new one.

What is the life expectancy of the average laptop?


Another tip: don't buy Acer. They are poor quality. Also stay away from HP laptops.

Best bets: Asus, Toshiba.

Kinda already knew that, the Acer was for a cheap price back then, wasn't even planning on getting one.

Edit: I've seen MXM graphics card ranging from 30 to 130 bucks. I think I'll go to some hardware tester experienced with notebooks to find out where the problem lies.

[Buffalobiian]

What is the life expectancy of the average laptop?

I'd say 5 years. It depends on what you mean by life expectancy too.

In "legal" terms, the life expectancy would be equal to the warranty.

As for the screen-down problem, what you do is push the lid down to the point where the screen thinks it's closed and turns off, but not so much that it locks, leaving room for ventilation.

[Killa-Eyez]

I'd say 5 years. It depends on what you mean by life expectancy too.

In "legal" terms, the life expectancy would be equal to the warranty.

As for the screen-down problem, what you do is push the lid down to the point where the screen thinks it's closed and turns off, but not so much that it locks, leaving room for ventilation.

I understood that. And I didn't meant that in legal terms. My laptop is around that age, but I've searched around to what expectancies can be and found out, provided that you treat it properly, it can hold out for as long as you want. If I can fix it for not too big of costs, I'll do that and treat it with care. But if all goes according to what Kraco said, I'll save my cash further to buy a new laptop. Thanks all, really!

[depthcharge]

Or use duct tape or a piece of paper/card to wedge between the screen up/down detector pin.

One of the problem about notebooks/laptops is savaging it when it finally breaks. Pretty much only the harddrive is usable with some adapters. However some enterprising individual probably is running some recycling chop shop that can savage usable parts and put back a functioning computer. One good bet is to find a chop shop that will pay a decent scrap price.

[Killa-Eyez]

So a couple of days ago I conveniently (:o) got in touch with an old classmate of mine. He owns the exact same laptop as I do as we bought them together and he came by today so I could swap the MXM cards to locate the problem. My laptop worked with his card so that means I'm off to buying a MXM module on ebay for around 70 bucks. Now this new card could cause a slight problem with the connection to the heatsink so I was also scoping around for a copper sheet to fill the gap, wich I also found on ebay. I have to wait till I actually recieve the new card to get the measurements down so I can order the correct size. I might also get in to overclocking to expand the laptops life span further. Soooo happy I won't have to buy a new laptop. Ohw yeah, a slight error as to when I bought this laptop. It seems it's closer to three years ago, not four. :o

Edit: I think I'll try this first, http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/385973-how-repair-your-dead-graphics-card-your-alienware.html. :eek:

Edit 2: HOLY JESUS' SPIRIT FINGERS!!! IT FUCKING WORKED!!!! Almost spend out 70 bucks for pork and beans. I actually managed to fix my VGA card!!! YAAHOOOOO!!!!! :D:D:D

[depthcharge]

Nice, very nice! Dont overclock it though. Notebooks for the most part does not tolerate overclocking.

[Killa-Eyez]

Nice, very nice! Dont overclock it though. Notebooks for the most part does not tolerate overclocking.

Yeah I don't mean overlcocking, more like underclocking. Lower voltages, same speed, less heat, longer duration.

Edit: Undervolting would be the correct term.

[Buffalobiian]

I'm reporting the cause of my WiFi woes since upgrading to W7 64bit from XP 32bit. (The issue's haunted me for over a year now, and the internet seems to know nothing about it).



Equipment: W7, Netgear WPN824v2 Rangemax Router, Netgear WPN311 PCI wireless card.

Issue: Since upgrading, the wireless card would not detect a wireless signal / access point. Nothing shows up.

Cause: When "location" is set to Australia in the router, thirteen channels become available (1-13) for the WiFi signal. W7 does not ask you for your location upon installing the card however, and is limited to detecting/using channels 1-11.

Solution: Use channel 1-11.

The exact same problem/fix applies to the DLINK DSL-G604T router, indicating a problem with either the WPN311 card, or Windows 7's way of handling wireless network configurations.

keywords: can not detect wireless network, AP, Access Point.


-----------------------

Wireless is slow as hell though, so now I'm going to see if I can connect to my brother's computer directly when I get a cross-over cable so we can access the internet wirelessly but share files via cables at the same time.

[Buffalobiian]

I have two internal drives in my computer running W7 64. I recently enabled ACHI in my mobo and the HDDs have booted successfully.

What I've found though, is that the second disk fails to be detected by windows when it resumes from sleep.

Has anybody got 2 drives and found ACHI works with sleep?


-----------------

edit: Okay, I found the problem.

If your HDD (typically with larger HDDs that have multiple platters and longer spin-up time) takes longer than 10sec to spin up to full speed when resuming from sleep, Windows 7 ignores the drive and doesn't detect it.

If it happens to a secondary drive, it'll just disappear until you reboot/replug it. If it happens to your OS drive, you'll get a Stop Error.

Microsoft has a hotfix for it, detailed below. I'm not sure if the hotfix is included with SP1 or not.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977178

[Killa-Eyez]

I'm on the misses' laptop as we speak for the same problem reoccured on mine. I'm sticking the VGA-card in the oven again but this time with no-clean flux on the components solder to rehydrate it. Maybe it's still wise to buy another MXM module just in case the card dies permanently.

Edit: It's working again. Kinda. Everything that should be black or a darker tint shows up green. Pretty wierd. But it's really dying some I'm off to ebay to buy a new VGA.

[Buffalobiian]

My brother installed a new mobo, CPU and RAM into his system today. He plugged it up, and pressed the ON switch.

Through the clear side panels, you could see the inside of the computer IMMEDIATELY smoke up (it filled the inside of the chassis and was blowing out of the back end.) Visible, thick smoke. Not the thin wisps of smouldering sizzle that you normally see with frying computer components. We turned the power off as fast we could, and I promptly went inside to look at what happened.

Everything looked fine except for this:

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/5467/31072011183.th.jpg (http://img577.imageshack.us/i/31072011183.jpg/)

That's the molex-to-floppy interconnect that supplies power to his sound card (which was part of the original setup). A little read around the internet suggests this to be some form of short-circuit problem that put too much current into that 12v cord.

Then we've been trying to get the computer to boot. It goes through BSOD crashes and infinite-reboot cycles. I've currently got it running without crashing for 20 minutes now (we think it's the graphics card, since that's not plugged in atm...). Yet the graphics card was ALSO part of the initial setup.

I hate computer problems.

[Killa-Eyez]

Do you have a spare PSU? Try swapping them, see if that helps. I've found many problems involving crashes and infinite boots most of the time to be PSU related. My first post in this thread discusses the same. If that doesn't solve it, you have a long way of troubleshooting to go. Good luck.

[Buffalobiian]

Do you have a spare PSU? Try swapping them, see if that helps. I've found many problems involving crashes and infinite boots most of the time to be PSU related. My first post in this thread discusses the same. If that doesn't solve it, you have a long way of troubleshooting to go. Good luck.

I do, but I haven't gotten around to trying that yet. Reason is, right now the PC is working 100% fine. The only thing that's left now is to wait for a new floppy-power-interconnect to come through the mail from ebay to connect up that sound card to see if:

1) the sound card is still functional
2) the same problem doesn't happen again

It's not the first time where I've had a PC suddenly fix itself after a period of inactivity. It happened with my own one time when I accidentally dropped my thermometer onto the PCB of my graphics card while it was running, shorting stuff out and causing it to become erratic for ages. Then I slept, came back, and it was fine.

This time, I went to work, came back, and it was fine. :S

While that's good and all, this time I really would want to know the reason behind the problem rather than just have it disappear on me. It's a safety hazard.

[Buffalobiian]

Been having some issues with my new SSD from Intel. Here's what I wrote for the warranty application:





Entire history for your warranty. RA#





Item: Intel 510 250GB SATA III SSD


Applied: 15-08-2011 12:59 pm


Fault Description: Experienced stuttering from audio accessed from the SSD or other drives in the system. Also experienced crashes and reboots. DPC latency when using the SSD with Intel Storage Matrix driver results in latency up to 5000 microseconds when the SSD is accessed somewhat. Intel´s SSD Toolbox diagnostic tools reports Data Integrity Check failure. Emailed PCCG and filling out this warranty procedure was advised.






Hopefully I'm only unlucky enough pick a bad apple and the problem doesn't stem from something from my system/software or the entire 510 series.

What was very weird was that certain songs would skip even without a spike in DPC. They would also consistently skip at the same spot. I decided to do a test by copying the song over to my brother's computer, and it also skipped at exactly the same spots.

BUT - when I replaced the SSD with my original OS HDD, the songs played fine again. Interesting... so it's some sort of read error that's consistent, but isn't reflective of the actual data integrity..


edit: I guess I should clarify that the songs were always on the secondary HDD. The Primary SSD was swapped with the old primary HDD

[Kraco]

You said in the other thread you uninstalled the Storage Matrix driver to make the SSD work properly. I guess your system wasn't usable without it in the end since you now have it reinstalled? Isn't it just the Storage Matrix driver being buggy?

[Buffalobiian]

You said in the other thread you uninstalled the Storage Matrix driver to make the SSD work properly. I guess your system wasn't usable without it in the end since you now have it reinstalled? Isn't it just the Storage Matrix driver being buggy?

I uninstalled the Intel storage matrix yeah (which is used for the mobo's sata controller, not the SSD). That was to fix the audio stutter that was due to DPC latency spikes from the SSD being accessed. But then I noticed later that the sound files were experiencing the above problem which was not related to DPC latency, so I played around with putting the Intel controller's driver back on. I also experienced BSODs after changing the driver from Intel to microsoft's before, but that was most likely due to longer testing instead.

I'm using HDDs now at the moment with the Intel Storage Matrix, and it's been fine, so I've just left it that way.

So to answer your question, the current problem occurs regardless of whether the Intel Storage Matrix is installed or not. I'm unsure whether the current problem and the Matrix/SSD compatibility issue is related.

[Killa-Eyez]

To squeeze in between.

I got lucky. The friend who had the same laptop as mine had his kid drop his (by accident)! He gave me a call asking if I needed parts. I now have a fully functional laptop again. Yaay for me!

That was it.

[Buffalobiian]

Update: it seems that running the diagnostic tool from my HDD onto the SSD as a secondary drive doesn't detect any problems, but running the tool fro the SSD itself comes up with fails. This applies even after I reimage the SSD with a fresh copy of the HDD OS.. Anyway, it's in transit to the retailer now, so hopefully it won't take too long.

[Animeniax]

That sucks to hear your new SSD has been such a terrible experience, though hopefully a worthwhile learning experience and maybe bonding with your brother.

I went with a smaller no-name brand and it's been great success.

[Killa-Eyez]

Hmpf. Re-installed windows for the 2nd time. It seems that installing several other software makes Windows Update almost update no more. Keep getting error code 80072F8F (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/836941) after a while of really slow downloading and it then only installs updates that were finished downloading. If I retry it reports the error almost instantly.
I think the culprit is the new Eset Smart Security 5 RC.
If I do a clean boot with msconfig, Windows Update works fine. The only other things I have installed are all device drivers, Microsoft Office, Acer Webcam App, Adobe components and Winrar.

Edit: Uninstalled ESS 5 RC and installed 4 again, everything's working fine.

[Buffalobiian]

That sucks to hear your new SSD has been such a terrible experience, though hopefully a worthwhile learning experience and maybe bonding with your brother.

I went with a smaller no-name brand and it's been great success.

It turns out my SSD problem was caused by a 4GB piece of bad RAM. Ever since I upgraded my system with the (then new) CPU, mobo and DDR3 RAM, I've noticed that the computer was less stable than my old C2D rig. The most common things to crash were display drivers, firefox, Explorer etc. I've had Steam games tell me that the files did not maintain their integrity and needed to be redownloaded a few times in the past. I never tried troubleshooting it seriously because no one had any compatible parts for me to swap and confirm with. Only recently did my brother buy some PC parts - and even then the only thing swappable was the DDR3.

Turns out the SSD integrity check was much more stringent than even Memtest86+ or Windows Memory Diagnostic tool (which I have used in the past - and all results were satisfactory). It wasn't just the test result of the SSD integrity check that was a problem, but the system experienced the problems that I stated in the previous post as well.

Even that test wasn't 100% reliable though, so I ran in circles a bit during all this and needed to run the Integrity check multiple times on each configuration to be reasonably sure if something was stable or not. And since the full data integrity scan writes random data to the SSD and reads it back for checking, I think I would have written 10TB to the drive since last week.

34nm flash has a p/e cycle of 5000 or so I've read, so the current writes aren't too scary in the overall write endurance of some 1160TB or so.

[poopdeville]

Hey, I've got a bit of a problem. I think I've tracked down the solution, but I need a bit of help making it work. In short, can somebody download a driver for me? I think FTP access is blocked off where I am at, and could really use some help.

I need the Realtek RTL 8101E driver for Linux 2.4/2.6. The URL is

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=7&PFid=7&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#RTL8100E/RTL8101E/RTL8102E-GR/RTL8103E(L)<br>RTL8102E(L)/RTL8101E/RTL8103T<br>RTL8401/RTL8401P/RTL8105E<br>RTL8402

The file ought to be 40kB.

Thanks

[Marik]

r8101-1.020.00.tar.bz2 - Direct Download (http://www45.multiupload.com:81/files/FCF4345BD119BF47BA8D91C745DC363A624FD02197045EF365 8A98AB6195341A7A2DB5E6F362DA8366BED6E96EFA08EF3D13 58DD1D6066B8655C5F64A2427827BF4A45D552A0AE749E50F0 8110CAAEF70C/r8101-1.020.00.tar.bz2)

[poopdeville]

Thanks Marik, that was a lot of help.

[Buffalobiian]

Does anybody experience, or know how to fix keyboard input delay?

Basically, it's a random, intermittent problem. As I'm typing something at a constant speed, the curser will not move for a fraction of a second, but then all my keystrokes will be applied at once. It pauses -> then fastforwards to catch up. No keystrokes are lost.. but the response is delayed. I'll try typing on a notepad or something later to see if it's just my browser.

I'm not sure if it's simply keyboard, of it it affects my mouse too. Sometimes I do find it weird that a mouse click won't register at all (not delayed) when I'm closing a tab or opening a new link etc.

I don't remember this problem being around before until a few weeks back maybe. I did get a new keyboard some time ago, but the problem wasn't immediately apparent. The only other new hardware addition/change would be getting an SSD for the primary drive. It wasn't immediately apparent when I changed neither, but I was so busy troubleshooting other problems that it could have easily been overlooked.

[David75]

This is some kind of freezing that did happen with jmicron and phison based SSDs
the cause was extremely poor IO with small writes.
Maybe you could track the cause in the event viewer by filtering everything related to disks writes/wait time?
Just to be safe, I'd protect valuable data.
Then I'd erase temp folders and try to clean the system from useless software or software I do not use anymore.
I'd search for software being permanently in ram and loading at startup when you do not need them there

Only then would I try and search for driver related problems and/or check all hardware is securely attached, like the GPU for example. But you'd get bsods in that case, normally.

So summ it up, try the event viewer, it's a tad harsh to get to it at first, but google can be a great help in finding the right filters to try and pinpoint the cause of trouble.

[Buffalobiian]

My controller's a Marvel one.. but I'll look into that. Now that you reminded me about the SSD, I just remembered that I bought some new ram that "fixed" my SSD problem. I also found out not too long ago that the SATA-clips won't work on my SSD anymore. There's nothing wrong with the cables since they work on all my other SSDs. Clip-attachment isn't theoretically essential to reliable drive function.. but it certain helps erase insecurities. It's as securely attached as I can to it, but it never feels secure enough, lol.

I'll try out the event viewer method once I take a break from anime/skyrim have time. ;P. Thanks David.

btw: a brief test with MSword and skype chatting didn't reproduce the problem. Typing this post up does.. and I think typing on mIRC did as well.. have to check up on that last one.

[David75]

Firefox related?
Then clearing firefox cache might help?
Is there a cache for mIRC?

You need quite some time to master the event viewer. So it might not help you for that problem.
But trying it, understanding it will help in the long run.

[Animeniax]

Wireless or wired keyboard? Could be the SSD controller like David75 said.

[Buffalobiian]

Wired USB keyboard and mouse using default MS drivers.

[rockmanj]

Looks like my external HD just stopped working. My computer just reads it as empty now. I think hope may be lost, but is there anything that can be done to save my data?

[David75]

Looks like my external HD just stopped working. My computer just reads it as empty now. I think hope may be lost, but is there anything that can be done to save my data?

it says empty, so it's still spinning and there's still an accessible partition?
Did you accidentally format it or someone did?

If not, you probably lost your partition table. If that's the case, do not try to format or write data.
Maybe by googling "partition table recovery" and other similar searches you might find something.
I'm sorry I do not have more to offer on the subject.

[rockmanj]

There was nothing I could do except format it; it would not read at all. It seems to be working now, but I have lost everything. Not as upsetting as I thought it would have been. Thanks though!

[David75]

There was nothing I could do except format it; it would not read at all. It seems to be working now, but I have lost everything. Not as upsetting as I thought it would have been. Thanks though!

Next time, try to find tools to rebuild the partition table. I admitt I never tried that myself.
I don't know if you did a low level format. If not, maybe some recovery tools might be of help. the only problem is that it's painfully slow (like a surface scan) and you get contiguous data best which is less and less probable with the size of today's files.

Now be aware that the same joke is bound to happen.
Is that an external drive you built yourself with an external enclosure and a drive you retrofitted or is that an already built one?
I ask because what you describe happens more frequently with external enclosures. Not that it matters now, but be prepared it should happen again.

[Animeniax]

@rockmanj: Are you going to trust that harddrive with your data going forward? I wouldn't. Harddrives are so cheap these days, and you can easily buy a new internal HDD and install it into the enclosure (might take some modification).

For me, once bitten, p.o.s. goes into the trash.

[Kraco]

Actually HDs aren't cheap right now, Ani. Not since they needed to (temporarily, I hope) close down factories in Thailand due to the floods. If you have a look at the prices, they've almost doubled compared to a few months ago. 1TB drive costs as much now as a 2TB drive cost in September.

[Animeniax]

Ahhh, no wonder prices seemed a little high from what I remembered. I have to recommend to customers to replace their harddrives sometimes and when I showed them prices, they seemed more expensive than before. I didn't know about the factory shutdowns in Thailand.

Still not a good idea to trust your data to a faulty harddrive.

[rockmanj]

Yea, I know. I will likely get a new HDD once I start a new job and use that one just for stuff I don't care too much about.

[UChessmaster]

I need help with this laptop, the right key is suddenly pressing itself at random but often times, the key itself doesn`t works unless i hit it hard, anyone has any idea?

[Buffalobiian]

I need help with this laptop, the right key is suddenly pressing itself at random but often times, the key itself doesn`t works unless i hit it hard, anyone has any idea?

Something jammed in there?

[UChessmaster]

I checked nothing in there, i think it might be a virus. but i know nothing about anti viruses :/

[Buffalobiian]

I checked nothing in there, i think it might be a virus. but i know nothing about anti viruses :/

That.... would be a pretty lousy virus, lol.

Avast is the free antivirus I recommend. You can also just go to norton/symantec's site and run their security/antivirus scanner to a check. If the virus is aggressive enough that it stops you from installing a new AV or doing an online scan/update, you'll have to either wipe the OS/HDD, or take the HDD out of the laptop and plug it into an uninfected working PC with antivirus running in order to get rid of it.

I'm not confident that it's a virus though.

[Kraco]

Sounds very much like a broken switch. We have a trackball at work with the left button sometimes jamming down, yet still not connecting. It's quite annoying.

Laptop keyboards are quite compact things, so it might be hard to do anything about it, but you could have a look. I assume it's not under warranty anymore.

[Killa-Eyez]

I have to agree with Buff and Kraco that it's probably not a virus. You could however try a fresh install of your OS, since that's probably cost free, and see if that might help. I doubt it though. It really sounds like your keyboard's malfunctioning.

As I recall all laptops and notebooks have removable keyboards. Buy a can of compressed air and a long haired soft brush, get the keyboard out and clean the thing, see if it helps. Maybe it's some goo from some sweet, half dried beverage. In that case some cleaning alcohol and cue tips will come in handy. If you're having trouble getting the keyboard out, look up the manufacturers service manual for your model on it's website.

Ultimately, if the above did not help or you don't want to spend money on the can and alcohol, there are keyboards available on ebay from $3.99 (assuming you live in the US). Good luck.

[Buffalobiian]

Has firefox been rendering pages rather slowly as of late for anybody? Things seem to be blurry initially, then crisp a moment later.

The moment seems a little too long however, and I'm talking mostly about text, less so pictures.

[Animeniax]

I've been having problems with stability and load times in Firefox so I switched to Google Chrome on my main PC. Seems to work much better. I think Mozilla is releasing new versions of Firefox with new features too fast, and not doing enough quality control on previous releases.

[David75]

I've been having problems with stability and load times in Firefox so I switched to Google Chrome on my main PC. Seems to work much better. I think Mozilla is releasing new versions of Firefox with new features too fast, and not doing enough quality control on previous releases.

firefox keeps a cache and many files that it needs to read all the time and even more so at start.
I guess that over time it becomes bloated and slows the whole thing.
They also realized they did not control how extensions were working, particularly the way they manage memory, and came to see some extensions never release ram even when not in use and/or keep increasing their ram size over time.
So they decided to rule ram allocated to extensions better.
These are examples I remember, there are many more optimizations needed they are probably already looking after.

[Animeniax]

firefox keeps a cache and many files that it needs to read all the time and even more so at start.
I guess that over time it becomes bloated and slows the whole thing.
They also realized they did not control how extensions were working, particularly the way they manage memory, and came to see some extensions never release ram even when not in use and/or keep increasing their ram size over time.
So they decided to rule ram allocated to extensions better.
These are examples I remember, there are many more optimizations needed they are probably already looking after.
I'd always heard that Firefox was a poor resource/memory manager, so you'd always seeing it consume beaucoup memory in task manager. Never read up on it, but that's interesting that it was extensions and add-ons that contributed a lot to the problem. Still, I'm liking Google Chrome much better, though I want to fight the beast (like Walmart).

[Buffalobiian]

My biggest problem with firefox is that it will eat up an entire core of CPU doing something. Flash executables running under Firefox.exe also consume lots of cpu resources. Battlelog requires a browser to join servers, so I've been using Chrome (and close firefox) to do that now instead, even though I still use the latter for normal browsing just out of habit and aesthetics.

My PC couldn't boot just now because I screwed on the heat sink too tightly. It probably shorted it by contacting the case or something.. I don't know. Anyway, for the record the symptoms were infinite reboots with no beeps nor images. Reboots are around 2 second apart.

[Animeniax]

Whoa, just found out all the crashes, problems waking from sleep, and general shittiness of my gaming PC are most likely due to an old ATI 6950HD that I was still using. I did the 6970 unlock mod to get the extra performance and ran the ATI performance boosting software as required. I always thought it was the SATA controller (Marvell and Intel both have known issues with their SATA controller on the X58 Bloomfield platform). I also had a problem where I bent some of the socket pins and had to manually bend them back into place, which made me think that I'd have to replace the motherboard and CPU in order to solve them crashing issues. That wasn't a great option since most people say an upgrade from Bloomfield to Haswell isn't worth it, but I didn't want to wait for the next generation chip because crashing on your gaming PC is unbearable.

Now I just need to get an Nvidia 760 and that solves my PC issues for $250 and will still be good when I do replace the mobo/CPU.

[Buffalobiian]

I've bought a GTX670 so I suppose I could try the same thing in my situation too.

Basically I've been having a lot of BSODs for a while now with various error codes but all to do with ntoskrnl.exe (which doesn't actually diagnose the problem). I can reproduce a BSOD every single time by simultaneously:

1) transferring a Diablo 3 folder from HDD1 to HDD2
2) transferring all the program files from HDD3 to HDD4
3) playing music while I do so.

I'm not sure which or if all of the above are necessary, but it's never been able to complete the entire lot successfully. It's just what I'm doing to test for stability anyway since this can reliably tick it off while memtests and intelburntests don't pick up anything. Prime might do it eventually but that will take too long.

I've used various system images and even an old system HDD that still had my C:\ from my pre-ssd days, and they all give the same errors. I'm fairly certain that it's my mobo/cpu/ram that's causing it, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to put in my gfx card and replace the HD5870 while I'm at it.

I didn't really want to replace that combo until the end of the year, but if it comes down to it.. I'm fairly happy to do so. I'd be looking at an i5-4670, maybe an Asrock Z87 Extreme4.. haven't sorted out the ram yet, but probably something 1866MHz. I think a slim profile Noctua CPU cooler would be the most accessible one for my purposes. Promeltech and Thermalright stuff are rather hard to find.

Let us know what you find Ani. You suggest that you've got a high suspicion that it's the graphics card, but you can't really confirm that until you've replaced it.

[shinta|hikari]

My laptop keeps getting BSOD when I leave it alone for a while and it goes into standby. I also noticed that the memory consumption is abnormally high, (around 80% all the time). It once crashed because I ran too many programs all at once (but still not enough to consume the laptop memory spec wise). Does anyone have an idea how to fix this?

[Buffalobiian]

What does the log say? You can check it out with two programs:

1) Bluescreenview - quick view of dump files to see what the offending process is
2) windbg - windows debug with more details, but involves selecting it from a general Windows SDK download

-----------


As for my end, I've confirmed that the PC crashes without the graphics card and also without the ATI card. The Asus GTX670 that I've replaced it with is sexy. And quiet. Soooo quiet. Just what I wanted.

Time to buy parts now.

[Kraco]

Encouraged by Ani and Bill trying to solve their problems, I gutted my PC and now it's running with the heart outside of the body. The problem is an irregular noise I keep hearing... Well, irregularly. Some kind of rattling fan noise most probably, but hard to track down. Of late I've been suspecting it's the PSU. Googling revealed to me my PSU model, while otherwise using high quality components, possesses a poor fan and countless people have sent their units back to have the fan replaced. Naturally when I tried to run the PSU totally separately, just having some extra 12cm fan connected to it to make it run, I didn't hear anything weird. Maybe it won't appear until the PSU is burdened enough. Now I can stick my head between the PSU and the rest of the computer if needed.

The lousy news for me is that since OCZ went bankrupt a while ago, I'm far from sure the store will do anything at all to help me, despite plenty of warranty technically left. They might just tell me "tough luck", and that's it. After all, the store most likely couldn't send the PSU anywhere for repairs if they took it off my hands. But I guess I will see how it turns out. First I want to verify the PSU is the culprit, of course.


My laptop keeps getting BSOD when I leave it alone for a while and it goes into standby. I also noticed that the memory consumption is abnormally high, (around 80% all the time). It once crashed because I ran too many programs all at once (but still not enough to consume the laptop memory spec wise). Does anyone have an idea how to fix this?

What's eating the memory? How much is the total memory installed and how much is just cached? If your laptop only has 4GB of memory, most of it might seem used due to Windows actively caching stuff if any memory happens to be free. Memory is freed from cached automatically if you launch a new program needing memory. If your virtual memory is set too low or even disabled, it will cause crashing very efficiently.

There have been lots of different kinds of problems with laptop standby and hibernation modes over the years. Naturally lots of them are caused by not having enough free space on C or other such mundane reasons. From what I've read, different device drivers have also caused those problems (power to the onboard device is cut during standby, but it won't successfully wake up when exiting standby). But any such problems should appear easily when googling.

If there's aberrant application running wild and eating memory and CPU time, it would be no wonder if it didn't like to be set to standby. Stare at your task manager for a while.

[Animeniax]

I'm not sure which or if all of the above are necessary, but it's never been able to complete the entire lot successfully. It's just what I'm doing to test for stability anyway since this can reliably tick it off while memtests and intelburntests don't pick up anything. Prime might do it eventually but that will take too long.So it only BSODs when running all of those operations at the same time? Seems like a RAM issue to me. Do you have replacement RAM available to swap out? Buying new RAM would still be future proof, though I'm out of the loop on new technologies, you should be able to use DDR3 for another few years.


Let us know what you find Ani. You suggest that you've got a high suspicion that it's the graphics card, but you can't really confirm that until you've replaced it. It's not a suspicion, I took the 770GTX from my work gaming PC home for the spring break (I wanted to run BF4 on high settings instead of medium with the 6970) and the home gaming PC has been rock solid for the past 4 days, with all the previous issues I mentioned apparently resolved. It's expensive having to buy parts for two PCs, but worth it.

@Kraco: you'll probably have to run the system in place (in the case in this situation) to see what's causing the noise. It could be vibration from the PSU contacting the case, or a cable rubbing a fan. OCZ products don't have the best reputation for reliability, just pushing the envelope for performance.

[Kraco]

@Kraco: you'll probably have to run the system in place (in the case in this situation) to see what's causing the noise. It could be vibration from the PSU contacting the case, or a cable rubbing a fan. OCZ products don't have the best reputation for reliability, just pushing the envelope for performance.

Yeah. I have tried a few times to locate the source by simply opening the case and even pressing some parts of the system to see if it would reduce the noise, if it's from vibration and resonance, but not with much luck. It's incredibly hard to pinpoint the source. It's kind of annoying since it just starts suddenly one day, perhaps lasts until I turn off the computer, then next day the PC might be okay once again. A week may go by without the rattling, but then it's suddenly back, sometimes for days. The noise has been gone for a month once or twice.

I was hoping having the PSU outside of the case would allow me to know for sure. But like you said, if it's resonance related after all, then I'm naturally out of luck.

[darkshadow]

Anyone who's getting BSODs, start using windbg, it's fucking king.

[Animeniax]

Yeah. I have tried a few times to locate the source by simply opening the case and even pressing some parts of the system to see if it would reduce the noise, if it's from vibration and resonance, but not with much luck. It's incredibly hard to pinpoint the source. It's kind of annoying since it just starts suddenly one day, perhaps lasts until I turn off the computer, then next day the PC might be okay once again. A week may go by without the rattling, but then it's suddenly back, sometimes for days. The noise has been gone for a month once or twice.

I was hoping having the PSU outside of the case would allow me to know for sure. But like you said, if it's resonance related after all, then I'm naturally out of luck.

Sorry sometimes it's the simple things that people forget to check, like with my videocard causing BSODs (I say it's simple because in retrospect, it's a hacked card with BIOS flash and utility to get it to run correctly, which can cause instability). Have you tried using compressed air to blow the PSU out? Also since you probably won't get warranty support, consider opening the PSU and replacing the fan.

In addition to what ds said, if you have issues installing windbg, check http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2717426 which you think wouldn't apply if you are only installing the debug tools, but somehow it does.

[Kraco]

Have you tried using compressed air to blow the PSU out? Also since you probably won't get warranty support, consider opening the PSU and replacing the fan.

It has never had overly much dust, maybe due to the case's filter, but yeah, I've done that occasionally, now more thoroughly since I took it entirely out of the case.

Interestingly enough I also read that over here the retailer is responsible for the warranty of the product (if such was announced during purchase like it usually is) even if the importer/manufacturer goes bankrupt. So, I have that covered, one way or another, if I can verify it's indeed the PSU's fan. Otherwise I would replace the fan. I've done that in that past with one or two PSUs, and it's usually a walk in the park.

[Animeniax]

It has never had overly much dust, maybe due to the case's filter, but yeah, I've done that occasionally, now more thoroughly since I took it entirely out of the case.

Interestingly enough I also read that over here the retailer is responsible for the warranty of the product (if such was announced during purchase like it usually is) even if the importer/manufacturer goes bankrupt. So, I have that covered, one way or another, if I can verify it's indeed the PSU's fan. Otherwise I would replace the fan. I've done that in that past with one or two PSUs, and it's usually a walk in the park.

That's a peculiar warranty policy, to have the retailer honor it versus the manufacturer. I kinda like the idea, but from your experience is it better or worse for getting quick and reliable service? I tend to order parts online so I prefer manufacturer warranty.