Posts by JANINE

No you wouldn't have to worry about fixing it in order to retrieve your files. Theres two options - you can get the files migrated to the new drive or you can get a drive caddy and pop the old drive into that. Depending on where you are a good price range would be £35-£45.

looks like you did a fairly good job there buddy

thats ok. :)
In answer to your question these things do happen over time and like a lot of electrical components can only take so much stress before they blow. There's nothing that can be done to prevent this from happening unfortunately.
Considering that a new laptop now costs as little as £300 it could well be worth your while investing in one and getting the files migrated to your new machines hard disk.

This sounds as though your Graphics adapter might well have gone. Unfortunately these are soldered into the motherboard so aren't easy to fix. Your best bet is probably to replace the motherboard in this instance

toddlers eh...

Open your machine and have a good look at the keyboard. i want you to have a look at it very closely.

On the Keyboard very near the top you should have a set of 10-12 Function keys listed as F1, F2 and so on. On one of these keys there should be a little pictogram of 2 screens with a / in the middle of them. Do you see it?

Now look for another key on the board that had the letters Fn printed on it. Press the Fn and the Function key number as referred to above together on startup. this should i hope bring back the life to your laptop screen.

if this wont work then there is a chance that your laptop's graphics adaptor might have gone or something has come misplaced in which case you will need to shell out some money and take it to a technician to repair.

either way it will work again and please try to remember that toddlers and laptops really dont mix very well. My friends toddler pulled off her space bar when i was round hers then presented me with it. luckily i know how to refit these things.

Update: I took out the battery in the motherboard to reset cmos, but that didnt help. Im starting to think thats its the PSU thats the problem. Any ideas?

Btw my motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939

could be power supply but i would also look at the fault being the motherboard itself

depends on who makes your motherboard though. Dell especially are quite secretive about motherboard components.

when you open up your machine have a look and see if you can determine whos the manufacturer of your motherboard and chipset and what not.

take out the CMOS battery and let it be for a short time before reinserting it. this should clear the CMOS settings including your password.

yeah removing stuff like the power supply unit and motherboard can cause no end of troubles when it comes to trying to boot up a machine. windows will need to redetect your systems hardware configuration and therefore will most likely need to reformat your hard disk. if theres any data there that you need then install the drive as a slave drive in another machine and attempt to copy the data off the disk either to the master hard drive or to removable media

Thanks mate but i have pretty much sorted out my hardware problem now by installing another new motherboard and a new power supply and it works fine. But when i start it up it just gives me the message: DISK BOOT FAILURE, PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. Before this message appears I can push Tab and enter windows as normal, but if i miss it i am stuck with this message. Does anyone know why it isnt booting off the HD? thanks :)

maybe your hard disk is not connected to the ide channel correctly. try ensuring that the ide cable is in the right way round and is pushed home at both ends. if its even slightly loose the pc will moan at you until you put it right.

you could also have faults in the ide channels on the motherboard itself.:D

cheers catweasle.

It certainly concerns me to hear of a heatsink/fan unit being replaced in this way.

Definitely, power cords should be disconnected.
Preferably the motherboard should be removed from the case and supported on a flat, cushioned surface. The pressure involved in clipping and unclipping a heatsink is enough to crack the motherboard of it is only supported by the spacers.

It could be quite fine. Check that no other cables or connectors were bumped llose during the job. Reset CMOS and try to reboot.

If no joy, then a technician is the best way to proceed.

Catweasle i have to thank you...

i have had this argument with my brother over the last two or three days. he's been trying to replace a stock AMD heatsink and cooling fan assembly.

just for the record most of the time you will have to remove the power supply unit from the case in order to get to the mobo to take that out. when its out its best to put it upon a antistatic surface and ensure that you are still grounded ok. we dont want to frazzle the board and it only takes something like 1 millivolt or something to fry that board (quote me if i'm wrong please). your mobo is really just a massive PCB with more than enough data lines then i'd care to imagine so to speak.:cheesy:

or just buy one 1Gb stick.

always willing to help and it good that you've finally sorted your problem

your right with what you've said that the system should run at the speed of the slower item.

it could be the RAM gone bad or a bad memory slot maybe but i'd also check to see the speed of your system isn't too much for the RAM. look at your FSB speeds. somebody i know had exactly the same problem as you've described and found the fsb to be too fast.

Also RAM types can play a big issue especially if you have incompatible types

I ...oh never mind! It ain't worth it.

:lol: as long as it does the job its designed to do eh.. thats all that bothers me at the end of the day:lol:

best idea as there might be motherboard issues and conflicts.

this could be 2 or three things.

1. bad disc (as you've said)
2. motherboard issues and device conflicts
3. video card issues

also know it seems silly but are your IDE cables in the right way round. so many times i have seen ppl who have inserted their IDE cables upside down or back to front. a machine wont do a lot with a cable inserted wrongly:)

I just picked up a new PC from Frys' for $399
It was a backup for my wifes office PC and they didnt give any real specs on it but it turned out to be better than expected.

It is Intel P4 3ghz, 256 megs of Ram, It has SATA ports but has an IDE type 80 gig drive, It has an some spare PCI slots and an AGP slot but uses built in video, and it has a DVD burner. (Includes XP Home)

It is a very decent base unit on which to build.

If I dropped in the AGP card, 256 megs and SATA drive I have sitting here it would be a nice little rig.

The only negative thing I have to say is that the case fan is a little loud.. Easy enough to fix

sounds like u got yourself a bargain then!! go get a radion 9500 series graphics card. they're good for bargain price pc's:cool:

I recently installed a new graphics card (128 mb radeon 9800 pro) and in the process, I moved my network card because it was sort of in the way. Upon rebooting after everything was in, I noticed the light on the back on my wirless card was on, so it was getting power. However, by the time i got to the desktop, it was not recognizing the wireless card. At first, I thought it was something to do with the slot i put it in. But, after further testing, it appears all my pci slots are now dead (the light on the back on my wireless card doesnt work now) including my sound card and wireless card. I am currently running on usb headset and wireless card.

By the way, i put my old card in again thinking it was a power drain or something since my new card is a power hog compared to my mx 420. However, this did not fix anything, the pci slots were still acting dead.

Also, midway through my problems, when i got out the case again to open it, I opened it and looked on the floor and noticed some piece there. It is about one cubic centimer in size, maybe smaller, and looks like a heatsink (9 prongs sticking out of it, looks like an E when you look at it from the side. On the bottom of it is some glue with an outline of a rectangle in it, which looks …

hmm..i would figure that everytime you want to dock your laptop while you're at your desk, you want to charge the battery, use your laptop for some period of time before you undock. I can only imagine the standard design spec is to leave the battery so as to avoid the hassle of (1) unplugging your laptop all the time or (2) removing the battery when its full.

in other words, a circuit in the laptop would stop charging the battery when it was full...something wrong with my logic?

at this point, the battery is so toast, i just leave it plugged in all the time! a bit of a sacrifice for convenience :rolleyes:

ok, let me point out that I dont have a docking station for my laptop. apparently they dont make them for my particular model anymore.

It sounds like your battery has been over charged or has just simply got old. Im remaining neutral here so I'm not going with any logic. thats not saying whether you are right or wrong tho.;)

the life on my old IBM thinkpad (P2) equates to roughly 3 to 4 hours on a fully charged battery but it depends on the area im in. some areas i'll get 3.45 hours and others i'll be lucky if i get an hour and a half.

I hear ya...my battery life on my laptop is now down to the order of 15-20 minutes now.

what is the avg life on batteries and how to best preserve/maintain/take care of Li-ion batteries?

these days, I often leave my laptop plugged in much like a desktop for extended periods of time (days or even weeks) and wondering if it's worth the trouble to remove the battery.

The only plus I can think of leaving it in is you've got pseudo-built in UPS :)

.

Don't leave ur laptop plugged in persistantly, it wont do the battery any favours because while your leaving it on the mains its constantly putting charge into the battery and therefore shortening the battery life. these batteries do have a memory in them. the more you charge them the less output you'll acquire from them. try taking off the charger and only charging when you need to i.e when the laptop only has a few minutes left.;)

or jeantech. they make simple cases at quite reasonable prices. www.jeantech.com

hmmmm, now this is only a possibility but it sounds like you havent got enough memory to cope with the amount of files and processes so to compensate for this information is getting shoved onto the hard drive temporarily to allow the RAM to free up a little bit. when this occurs you might notice the machine gets sluggish.

hi janine,you sound a bit of a wizz can you help me,ever since i bought my laptop (with built in dvd player)the dvd plays slow and skips and the sound is crap i have moved from uk to australia so i cant send it back,it is a elite group i-buddie a907 256mb 1 gig (533mhz) 40 gb i have tried everything and played it on win dvd real player, shrink,windows media player 9 and 10,do u know anything i might try to sort this out.(other than throwing the laptop out of the window)because thats how i feel at the moment,thanks Daz

i will most certainly try to help you. :D

Firstly not knowing my region codes etc i am not sure if you are still operating a PAL region code in oz or the other 1. it shouldnt make a difference anyway unless you only have a region 2 DVD player. by the sounds of it this may well be the case. is it only doing this on DVDs purchased in oz or both DVDs purchased there and in the uk. Also the software could be an issue. You might be lucky and be able to access the software setup. if you can ensure its on multi region.:D

I personally use programs like NERO and ROXIO for dvd playback.

It might also be worth trying to clean the laser as sometimes dirt on the laser can cause sound and playback problems.

also have a look in …

kisses for u janine :D

it worked!

thank you

good stuff, thats what i like to hear. if you get any more problems let me know and i'll endeavour to assist again:lol:

you can thank me.... i did it for you

see below

Code 41

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

Recommended resolution

A driver was loaded but Windows cannot find the device. This error occurs when Windows does not detect a non-Plug and Play device.

If the device was removed, uninstall the driver, install the device, and then click Scan for hardware changes to reinstall the driver. If the hardware was not removed, obtain a new or updated driver for the device.

If the device is a non-Plug and Play device, a newer version of the driver might be needed. To install non-Plug and Play devices, use the Add Hardware wizard. Click Performance and Maintenance on Control Panel, click System, and on the Hardware tab, click Add Hardware Wizard.

On the General Properties tab of the device, click Troubleshoot to start the Troubleshooting Wizard.

hope this helps...:D

this is a shot in the dark. are you sure that your drives have actually become uninstalled? it sounds like a conflict somewhere.

evidently i take it that you have a sony usb digital camera somewhere. have you tried reinstalling its driver and seeing what happens? could be that these devices are using a similar driver. what make are your cd/dvd rom drives.

heres what i think you have to do to reinstate your devices.

totally uninstall the drivers that device manager claims to have found for these devices.
delete the devices from device manager.
restart you computer and let windows redetect your drives
reload the specific drivers for your drives. these may come on a cd or a floppy disk.
check device manager for listings of your device and any conflicts.

check out this website for more info on that particular message and for support.
www.support.microsoft.com

Hi
My old CD-RW drive died last week so I've purchased another and installed it. The problem is that the drive letters have changed.
Before my CD-RW drive was (D:) and my DVD ROM drive was (E:). But now they've both shifted one letter forward so they're: CD-RW drive (E:) and my DVD ROM drive (F:). :evil:
How has this happened and how can I change them back?
Thanks guys.

(Edited to disable similies)

did you uninstall the drivers for the old drive before u took it out? if not then your machine probably thinks that you have two cd drives and a dvd drive running inside there. you will need to uninstall the old drivers for the old cd drive.

also in windows you can reassign drive letters by right clicking on the start menu and going to properties. click customise. check the administrative tools box. once you have checked the administrative tools option click apply and ok.

go back into start. go to administrative tools. go into computer management. go into disk management and from there right click your drive and select change drive letter and paths. from here you will be able to reassign your drive letters as D and E respectively.

dont worry its easy:D

Will do ,its stored in memory bank 01,in address FFFFFFForget :)

hehehe :D i like that 1. sounds like me most of the time.

Ha,Thats ok, I was only kidding about part of it [its only been 46 yrs ]
I gave the laptop back to it owner ,so I don't know if that worked ,thanks for you help .

thats ok, may be something to bear in mind if you get another one like that though.

take care.:)

You must be an English Teacher ,who like computers !:)
Actually ,I'm not the worlds best speller,Its because I also have dyslexia.and 47 yrs ago when I started school they really didn't know how to or didn't bother helping people like Me. :)

uh... sorry if i caused offence there. slapping myself :o . no im not an english teacher worse luck. they get paid better then what i do. In fact im a security officer with a flair for taking apart and rebuilding the clients computers (only when they go down though). there's no IT support where i work.:)

speaking of which did you try what i said with the laptop, about plugging it in on charge and just leaving it. any results? :cool: