Webuser Forums: RHR - General PC (14)

Using winXP home edition The problem is in Device Manager,Other devices, there is a yellow question mark, but I do not know what it is, does anyone know, or how I can trace it to find out.? Many thanks
John - Barnsley - Thu Jan 30 16:43 2003
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The defraggment now works thanks to iain wolstencroft. But when i got that to work, the desktop and everything went big and the colour went odd. It tried to set it back to original settings, but when I change it, it asks me to restart and I know that it is supposed to show you a preview and then it asks you if you want to stay with that setting. But when it has finished restarting, it still stays the same. Please someone help. It is doing my head in.Thanks.
Danny - Dudley - Thu Jan 30 16:32 2003
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It seems that your graphics card driver (Display Adapter driver) has been corrupted. Try re-installing it
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 19:31 2003
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Hi, hope someone can help, am getting a message saying.. The odbc resource dll (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ODBCINT.DLL) IS A CIFFERENT VERSION THAN THE ODBC SETUP DII (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ODBCCP32.DLL) YOU NEED TO REINSTALL THE ODBC COMPONENTS TO ENSURE PROPER OPERATION.... But i have looked in the control pamel and its not there anymore. an useing windows 98 sec. hope someone can help . thanx.
Paul - hertfordshire - Thu Jan 30 14:22 2003
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Paul,
Have a read of M$KB 170769
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Sat Feb 01 17:04 2003
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HI,thank you iain wolstencroft for your suggestion, and no longer get the errer message, but i still have a problem. i have no sound or proper colour. ive tryed to change them both but its not working. does anyone have any ideas on how i can do it please thanks in hope.
paul - hertfordshire - Mon Feb 03 21:12 2003
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hi, could someone please tell me why i cant scan my pc for errors? it just says 'could not obtain exclusive accses'(my specs are in a couple of messages below) thankyou
Tony - london - Thu Jan 30 06:51 2003
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Tony,

I read your earlier post and it seems to me that your problems arise because of the way you installed the later operating system.

Question 1 suggests that you now have two operating systems installed. This is possible but you would need to install them in different partitions and decide which language you wish to adopt, NTFS or Dos in relation to the the later system.)

As to question 2, I understand you have to register the administrator during the install procedure.

I have no idea as to what is causing the problem you describe in question 3 except it may well resolve itself when you rectify 1 and 2.

As to question 4, you cannot now do a clean install of your original system as you only have a restore disk. It may be possible to use that to restore the original system but if you have a full install disk for the upgrade why not use that and start again. If you adopt this method you will loose the earlier version completely.

In conclusion Tony you have to make a decision on which way you want to proceed. If you need advice on how to install the new system perhaps you would post again and we can steer you towards the relevant instructions. I must point out however that my advice is based entirely on my own personal interpretation of the situation based on the information you provided and may be entirely wrong.

Hope I was of some help and good luck

Joe - London - Thu Jan 30 09:24 2003
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thanks for replying.
Ive got partition magic which shows that ive only one partition with one operating system installed. I think youre right about administrator settings so ill look about and play with settings. I have a W98 SE disk which says it will format and 'reconfigure' my hard drive. So I guess it wont be to hard if I want to change back.
thanks again.
Town - London - Thu Jan 30 16:14 2003
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please help me ,i have 3 months old p4/2gb/xphome/256/laptop--suddendly stop closing down windows screen-after updating automatic windows programs when i click restart computer ,stuck 2 hours--on/off stop working neither cnt+alt+del..can any one solve this.
insani - milton keynes - Thu Jan 30 01:46 2003
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Sounds like a power supply problem,insani, possibly getting too hot. If the laptop is in an open environment, with a free flow of air around, I would take it back!
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 08:39 2003
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can any one tell me wot i need to view this plz DivX MPEG Layer-3,146 kBit/s, 48,000 Hz, i dont have a dvd on my pc i can get sound but no pic on media player 9
phil - leeds - Wed Jan 29 22:53 2003
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All that you should need is the Divx codec, which is available here
Dave C - Salisbury - Thu Jan 30 17:53 2003
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Since having a 3-in-1 machine (Lexmark X85) for Christmas everything was working fine but now when i try to print all the print is down one side of the page. How do i rectify this please! Thanks in advance.
Colin - Methyr Tydfil - Wed Jan 29 16:36 2003
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Change the page setup and the printer setup, make sure that you are displaying the correct sized paper and that the margins are correct.
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 09:12 2003
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Pls can someone help! My old but v reliable pc (Digital running Win 98)'died' at the w/end. Now when you reboot it goes through all the usual tests etc, then shows the Windows screen then starts back doing the test again, I can't figure out a way to fix this. Any tips gratefully received
sandra - saltburn - Wed Jan 29 14:23 2003
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Sandra
If your old, but v reliable, DEC is runnning Windows 98 SE, then you might want to have a look at M$KB 273017
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 08:36 2003
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Sorry Iain, thanks for trying but still no luck. The pc I think is dead, we have tried everything we can think of from pressing f2 on reboot but there is no prompt given at all to enable you to do anything. Think we'll just have to bin it!
sandra - saltburn - Mon Feb 03 15:34 2003
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everytime In set any wallpaper, when I switch the pc off and then reboot the screen defaults to a plain background. I`m using windows NT.
stuart - glasgow - Wed Jan 29 09:52 2003
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As you are on NT, there is a distinct possibility that you, as a user, haven't set yourself privileges to alter your profile. Your best bet would be to sign on as administrator and alter both your user privileges and your wallpaper
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 08:04 2003
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Hi, Whenever I read something about a major change to a system the advice is always to "backup relevant files" or words to that effect. I don't know which files are being referred to. I am particularly concerned as I am just about to install a new hard drive which will be a slave drive. Does anybody have any advice? Thanks. Regards Pinmac
Pinmac - Redhill - Tue Jan 28 22:50 2003
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Still mostly a grey area for me but basically the general advice I have received is "stick with only those files you have created".Iain or Joe will have a more definitive answer when they come on.
George - Choppington - Wed Jan 29 00:05 2003
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Adding to the very wise words below,don't forget your e-mail address book. I did and somehow I lost it, what a flap that put me in!
George - Choppington - Wed Jan 29 15:56 2003
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I think George is right.

It's always wise to backup all your personal stuff on some sort of removable drive i.e. letters, e-mails, personal records, passwords, user names, settings etc in case disaster strikes. This is particularly important when you are planning a major upgrade such as adding an additional hard drive. You may be alright if you are adding a slave and retaining the original hard drive but that depends on the partition configuration you are planning and the type of install procedure you are adopting. I suggest you make sure you have all the CDs available for your programmes and also the product keys particularly the operating system product key.
Joe - London - Wed Jan 29 10:38 2003
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This user concurs. There is little point in backing up anything other than data youhave created yourself.
The only time that I would suggest backing up anything other than this is when you are making alterations to the registry

In this particular case, adding a slave drive shouldn't really require any backing up at all, All you will actually be doing is connecting one IDE cable and power cable.

The only additional suggestion I could make is that you make sure that you fdisk and format the right disk :^O!!! (yes, I have formatted the wrong disk in haste before, and yes, I did repent at leisure!)
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Wed Jan 29 12:43 2003
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Thanks everyone. I have done the "necessary backups" and installed the new hard drive. I must admit, Iain, that I was worried about formatting the wrong disk but I used Seagate's online Disk Wizard software and it couldn't have been easier. It's all done for you - bliss! One last question though - although it is supposed to be an 80Gb drive it's showing as 74.5 Gbs. Is there a good reason for this? Thanks again. Regards, Pinmac
Pinmac - Redhill - Wed Jan 29 21:26 2003
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Unfortunately, there are two ways of reporting Hard drive size
This results from a definitional difference among the terms kilobyte (K), megabyte (MB), and gigabyte (GB). In short, you and I would use the base-two definition favored by most of the computer industry and used within Windows itself, whereas hard drive vendors favor the base-10 definitions.

With the base-two definition, a kilobyte equals 1,024 (210) bytes; a megabyte totals 1,048,576 (220) bytes, or 1,024 kilobytes; and a gigabyte equals 1,073,741,824 (230) bytes, or 1,024 megabytes. With the base-10 definition used by storage companies, a kilobyte equals 1,000 bytes, a megabyte equals 1,000,000 bytes, and a gigabyte equals 1,000,000,000 bytes.

Put another way, to a hard drive manufacturer, a drive that holds 6,400,000 bytes of data holds 6.4GB; to software that uses the base-two definition--including CHKDSK, and portions of Windows --the same drive holds 6GB of data, or 6,104MB.

It soon adds up
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 07:06 2003
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Thanks Iain. I thought that the 1024 aspect came in somewhere but I can't make it add up. Still as long as I know I haven't set it up wrong and done myself out of 5.5 Gbytes!
Pinmac - Redhill - Thu Jan 30 10:30 2003
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Hi, can someone please help? My PC has suddenly stopped displaying anything on the monitor, I know the monitor is fine as I have checked it on another system! Do I bury my PC now or can someone return my sanity?? Thanx
Jamie Harwood - Hull - Tue Jan 28 16:48 2003
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..and I have already taken Iains advice and checked and double-checked all the connections and they are ok :-(
Jamie Harwood - Hull - Tue Jan 28 16:49 2003
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Here are a few more tips I stumbled across, no guarantees you understand but it's worth reading. Hope you find a solution. I'm sorry it includes some of the steps you have already taken. Do not open you're Monitor, I understand it can be extremely dangerous.
Your Screen is blank CHECK THE OBVIOUS.
Start by checking all your cables -monitor, keyboard, and others - and Of course don't forget the power cords for both the computer and the monitor. It's best to completely unseat them and reattach them to ensure you have a solid connection; a connector that looks and even feels like it's firmly attached may not be. And don't forget to check your anti surge protector if you have one. Some surge protectors come with fuses or circuit breakers that can be triggered by an intermittent power surge. Most surge protectors have a small button that you can press to reset it and get the power flowing again. You might even try another power cord to make sure that hasn't gone bad.

IS IT YOUR MONITOR OR YOUR PC?
If your Monitor gets it's power from the wall socket and NOT from your PC then you should see a green or orange power light, you now know that the Monitor is getting power, if there is no green or orange light you will have to check the power cord and fuse connecting your monitor to the wall socket.

If your Monitor gets it's power from your PC then the easiest way to find out for sure what works and what doesn't is to connect a working monitor to your PC. If the test monitor works, your monitor is bad. Alternatively, you could connect your monitor to another PC; if it works, something in your PC is at fault.

If your monitor is defunct, you may find someone who can repair it, but usually a New Monitor is needed. You could make this a reasonable excuse to upgrade to a larger or better model.

If your Monitor is OK then the problem is in your PC,
Listen carefully to your system as it powers up, and look for a green power-on light on the front of your PC's case.
If you don't hear the whir of your hard disk spinning up and the hum of your power supply fan - which should be visible on the rear of your PC - then you're not getting power to the PC. The likely cause is a bad power supply that will need repaired or replaced.
If you suspect the power supply is bad and you're comfortable tinkering with your PC's innards, you can replace it yourself. Otherwise, take it to the shop or your local guru. But before you do, try reseating your PC's expansion cards: Sometimes the cards can partially work their way out of their slots on the motherboard.

Joe - London - Tue Jan 28 17:59 2003
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Hi JAMIE Have you tried removing your graphics card and then reinstalling it with the original drivers then update the drivers from the manufacturers website Goodluck
Liam - Liverpool - Tue Jan 28 19:01 2003
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Hi Liam, Long time no see!
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 19:34 2003
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Hi there, can anyone help me please? I have Windows ME & use Office 2000, which has worked fine for approximately 9 months. Recently, whenever I access an Office 2000 program (e.g. Excel, Word, etc.), the program is open for a second or two and closes. The only change I have made recently is to install a trial version of Micrsoft Project, which I removed after I started experiencing the problems with Office. Anyone have any ideas how to resolve this? Thanks. Will
William Francis - Glasgow - Tue Jan 28 14:13 2003
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Hi, can anyone help with this, please? I have suddenly lost the ability to save my password in the dial-up network box. I have been through all the steps of the "Troubleshooter" in Windows 98 "Help" but have not resolved the problem. I have no *.pwl files, which the trouble shooter said to delete. Microsoft knowledge base said it would be necessary to alter something in the registry but it is not clear what exactly to do, and in any case the key that they say to alter is not there. It is a bit of a pain to have to enter the password ech time I log on to the internet and I would like to be able to save it as I did before. The box that one can tick to save the password is now greyed out. Anyone help? Many thanks, Chris
Chris - Westgate on Sea - Tue Jan 28 12:30 2003
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Chris,
Three things to try: -

Make sure you have Client for Microsoft Networks installed on your system.
Go to Start | Settings | Control Panel | Networking | Add | Client | Microsoft | Microsoft Networking.
If your Windows startup is configured to ask for you for a password and you are hitting the esc key when the logon box is displayed, don't! Insert your password.
Go to Start | Run
Type in regedit
In the left pane, find the following key: -
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Network\ Real Mode Net

You should now see autologon in the right pane with a value of 00 00 00 00, double-click on it, and change the value to 01 00 00 00 00
Exit regedit and reboot your the PC.
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 13:27 2003
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Hi Iain, thanks for your help. I had already changed Windos Fanily Logon to Microsoft Networking with no result. The righ-hand pane in regedit has 0x00000000(0) as the value. Do I change it to 0x01000000(0) or simply 01000000 as you have said? Something that may interest other users: the "Help" file in Win98 SE said that if all else fails one should remove dial-up networking and then re-install it. I did that and the machine would not re-boot..... Regards
Chris - Westgate on Sea - Wed Jan 29 09:44 2003
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If you double click it, you should just have to change the value to one
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 08:56 2003
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hi i installed a new 128 ram stick yesterday, but when i check it says that i have only got 64 in the second slot,any suggestions many thanks
pete - london - Tue Jan 28 07:29 2003
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Pete, it would help if you could provide a couple of answers for us, please.
Firstly have you replaced an existing ram stick, or is this supplementing an existing stick?

Which Motherboard have you installed it to and how old is the motherboard?

Are you sure that you have the same type of ram as the original?
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 13:28 2003
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iain it is a gigabyte mobo and it is an added ram stick which i got from the local computer shop is this enough information or do you require theactual mobo no. bearing in mind this is a time m/c
pete - london - Tue Jan 28 16:50 2003
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Pete, if you download and run Belarc (768kb freeware) this will identify which Gigabyte board
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 20:11 2003
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iain the mobo is a gigabyte 547gao2g3 hopes this helps
pete - london - Wed Jan 29 06:03 2003
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See if each RAM stick registers the correct value individually.
There is a polssibility that you have ECC and non ECC ram sticks mixed, have a
If they register correctly individually, try them the other way around, ie your new stick in the first slot, and the old in the second
You may have to think about updating your BIOS as well
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jan 30 09:01 2003
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Hi, can someone tell me what i have done wrong. I recently re-formatted my pc back to the original factory settings because of some missing files.
Everything is fine except i have no sound. I cannot get sound on anything. I am using windows ME.
ross hunter - dundee - Mon Jan 27 23:21 2003
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Try re-installing the sound card, Ross. Check that there are no exclamation marks in Start | Settings | Control Panel | System | Device Manager tab
Don't forget to do the blindingly obvious, like making sure the cables are actually in and in the correct socket
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 00:14 2003
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Oh, and a couple more glaringly obvious things, make sure that the speakers are turned on and that you haven't muted the speakers
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 00:17 2003
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Hi Iain, don`t I feel a fool!
Got up this morning and thought to myself, why don`t I check to see if the cables are in the proper sockets? And guess what? They were in the wrong ones.

I will have to go back to learning the basics again. Thanks for your input once again.From a very embarrassed surfer.

p.s. Iain, your knowledge is making me too lazy to try and solve these things on my own. I will have to get back to trial/error myself. Cheers.
ross hunter - dundee - Tue Jan 28 09:47 2003
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No harm in asking, Ross! You wouldn't believe the number of times I have missed the glaringly obvious. It's surprising that I don't have bruised ribs with the amount of nudging that my colleagues do
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 12:37 2003
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I have had problems defragging my hard drive. I left it overnight and it was still on o%. I got rid of other software that maybe clogging up the drive but it still doesn't work.I have Windows 98,Packard Bell. Has anyone got any suggestions. Thanks.
Danny - Dudley - Mon Jan 27 20:33 2003
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Danny, Start with M$KB 186978
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jan 28 00:49 2003
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please help i have a siren going off on my p.c all the time as i am writing this please help
sam - Mon Jan 27 19:18 2003
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Check your firewall software,thats what it sounds like + c what other programs are running in your taskbar. Close them one at a time till sound stops. Then check whats wrong with it. Hopeit helps.
Tony - walthamstow - Mon Jan 27 19:35 2003
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