Posts by Chaky

Maybe the petrol isn't so expensive after all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS-gHtYge74

I think I would ditch the auto and ride a bike. That's terrible price for petro.

With these gas prices, I can't afford the new bike.

That is 32 bit memory addresing limit. 4 GB minus dedicated video memory. If you upgrade your OS to 64 bit you'll get the full 6 GB available to your OS.

Croatia 7.7 (3,7 l)

Solved? Hmm... It's only question of time before the bad sectors reappear. The only REAL solution here is drive replacement.

Recently I had such case. Bad sectors appearing anywhere on the drive. Mostly in the areas of pagefile, but several times the system drivers and/or registry files were affected, thus rendered the OS unbootable.

My advice to Dihno is to backup registry files and key drivers. That's what kept my OS going until I replaced the drive.

There is a program called HDD Regenerator (not freeware, but trial version will help too). It re-magnetizes the failing sectors so they become readable (and usable) again. So,

1. The hard drive has bad sectors (no fix) and should be replaced.

isn't necessarily so. (although, bad sectors will most probably reappear, but it will give you a chance to do a backup before you replace the drive).

Difference between the trial and paid for version is that trial recovers one sector per session.

I think that the power consumption is the same whether or not the data cabel is plugged in. (the power cable is plugged in all the time, right?)

You should try smartmon tools (or alike) to see what S.M.A.R.T. has to say about it.

Now, thinking about S.M.A.R.T., I could think of one or two effects that plugging the drive in while PC is running could have on the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring itself. I think that it ispossible that it could generate some false-positive readings of slow spinups ans such, that can accumulate and eventualy give you a warning on every single time you try to boot with that drive pluggd in, telling you that "it will fail soon".

Maybe, you should disable the S.M.A.R.T. for the time being. (no need to have it enabled, I think, to collect the data with smartmon tools)

You say "Unplug SATA, and everything is fine, and I can plug it in, in both XP and Ubuntu and the drive works perfectly."

As in you plugg it in while PC is running?

I don't think that is a good practice.

Anyway, it seems to me that the drive is not in question here, but the controller. (in other words: mobo)

BIOS tends to shuffle the HD boot priority order, so it is possible that it tries to boot from 1.5 Tb drive first when it detects it.

What you should do is plug everything in, and access BIOS settings, making sure you are booting from the right drive.

You can set the HD order in BIOS, making the SATA one first in line. Windows accesses the HDs primarily by drive's/partition's numbers designated by SATA or IDE channels, and not letters. By default, IDE channels come before SATA, but that can be changed in BIOS.

Once the windows are installed on "e:", it will remain as such. You can't change drive letter of system partition.

I have a motherboard that allows me to easily choose from which drive to boot from, if I press F8 during boot-up (when the "press DEL to enter BIOS" is displayed.. before windows boot menu). That way I could boot from my E drive, which would become C for that session.
It is not a multi-boot setup. It is multiple single-boot setups (however confusing and ridiculous that sounds).

Well, your graphic card certanly needs replacing. If you bought the whole machine as one package, then you'll need to RMA it in order to replace the broken graphic card. Usually, when you buy whole PC as one package, then you get warranty on the whole package.

If you got the components separately, then the graphic card's warranty is what needs to be valid, and you should RMA only the graphic card.

If the warranty expired in either case, you don't need to change everything. Just your graphic card. 8600s are relatively cheap.. and there are allways 2nd hand cards.

To be certain that it IS graphic card that needs replacing, try it in another PC, or try another graphic card with your PC.

If the warrany isn't void, use it.

I tried to get a screenshot and then i restarted.The screenshot showed my desktop normally without the flashing lines....

That only prooves that the problem originates within VGA.

I was suspecting GPU core to go over 80, which would explain the artifacts appearing on the screen. Apparently, that is not the case.

Colors changing, artifacts and erratic lines appearing with immediate crash point to VGA gone bad.

And those noises you hear would probably be fan(s) out of balance. Possibly dust buildup or damaged blades.

.. which doesn't guarantee that one of them wouldn't launch sky-high when you put it to the real test.

Strange noise?
could you be more specific?

You can only hear fans, HDs and DVD drives from the case, so which was it?

You shoud stress the machine and then post the temperatures. The idea is to see what (and if) something is overheating. Chipset temp. that was red in Probe 2 wasn't that high.

Try running HWMonitor. Unlike ASUS Probe 2 (I also have ASUS mobo) it will monitor VGA temp too.

While it is running, start WoW and play for a 10 minutes. HWMonitor will record lowest and highest temps and voltages.

You can post the results here.

my PC turned off suddenly

You don't really expect some help with this much input?

Seems like you're having hardware problem there. Nothing to do with C++. My suspect is bad RAM. Second in line is CPU.

I say 99% it's mobo.

Try this trick. It worked for me once when my OS got corrupt registry:

Disable HD in BIOS and boot from CD.

Otherwise, it would freeze when the setup program would check for installed windows...

This is a long shot (different error messages/behaviour), but it is worth a try.

(I still think that you should toggle advanced power management settings in BIOS)

Is your warranty valid?

I wasn't paying attention.... sorry.

That will only worsen the problem... FIXBOOT from Windows XP Setup CD + Vista installed = corrupt disk (well, in this case corrupt x2)

There are tools that can retrieve your product key, but they are shady stuff.

The only one that I've managed to find that DOESN'T seem to be malware is badly uploaded. (you'll need to use some hex editor to trim the 0's in the file header)

Try hitting Esc button when mobo logo comes. It will show you text-mode screen that goes on "behind the scene". You might have some error messages there that you're not aware of.

I have no idea if it was "normal"..

If you have another machine handy, then you can use it to test the RAM from your machine. That way you'll know if the RAM got fried as well as mobo (yup, it's mobo by my judgment)

Try booting with no RAM at all. Maybe, if the mobo/BIOS designers designed it that way, you'll get some functionality back. BIOS, for one. If you do, you'll get a chance to see if your mobo behaves "normally" without any RAM. That would suggest that RAM got fried too.

Or maybe you'll get couple of beeps and nothing more.

In any case, you should try booting with some known-good RAM.

Try reseating the RAM, or booting with one stick.

Also, try clearing the CMOS.

Try resetting your modem/router.

I also used TweakUI and I never got any RocketDoc with it.

That registry entry is obviously a rootkit.
Rootkit=invisible entry used by malware and copy-protection software (securom, which DOESN'T plant any rootkits in "run" key). Invisible, meaning can't be selected, hence can't be removed via regedit. But, nevertheless, it is functional.

My best advice for you would be to use some kind of rootkit remover.
If you feel brave enough, run combofix (it also deals with rootkits) on your own responsibility, but I strongly suggest that you post a new thread in malware forum and post hijackthis log there.
There are allot of ppl with know-how that will help.

Please, clarify what do you mead by "entry that doesn't have any name"
Entries in "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" are all Dwords and all must have "names".
For example:
Dword name "QuickTime Task" (this part is mandatory)
Dword value "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime"

Which of two are you referring to?

In case you are referring to "(default)", then it is possible that you have some malware running.

Regarding RocketDocks, I suggest that you uninstall it ("add/remove programs" in control panel).

Try changing ACPI/APIC settings in BIOS.

XP is infamous for not being able to boot in any way if that setting isn't the same as the time XP was installed. It doesn't matter if it is disabled or enabled... and it always gets stuck an mup.sys when booting in safe mode.

Not being able to enter BIOS doesn't have to be an oddity. I have to repeatedly press del to enter my BIOS. And it doesn't take me there every time. It's been like that ever since.

My suspects:

- CPU (no way to test it, except to switch it with known good one)
- RAM (try running one stick only or changing slots)
- corrupt OS (if it boots from CD, then it is a good sign in this direction)
- dying DH. Possibly motherboard. IDE/SATA controller, to be precise.
- (this might sound funny) broken keyboard. A stuck key could very well render system unbootable. Try booting with keyboard unplugged.
- PSU (might be that some of the voltages are not being produced any longer. Switching to new or known good PSU is the only way to test this)

Tip: disable Quick-POST in BIOS. It will make your system run more exhausting and time-consuming POST.

I'm not familiar with Macs or their OSes, but simply deleting the partitions and/or logical drives is enough to prepare it for new machine, giving that Mac's OS bootable CD/DVD is capable of creating partitions and logical drives.

I suggest that you leave the formatting to Mac.. Not PC.

You can use disk management in your current machine, if the drive in question is set as slave.
Can't wipe them much cleaner than that.

Visit your motherboard manufacturer's site and see what updates are there for your model. I bet that there will be quite a few.

If you have some manufacturer's update software, you might be able to update BIOS using that tool.

BTW, Updates to drive's firmware usually changes the DVD drive-->DVD disc correlations. Not Motherboard-->DVD drive.

When you say you attempted to update the drives, did you mean firmware? If not, you should.

Also see if your motherbard BIOS could be updated.

2 CD drives.. Maybe you have virtual drive, like daemon tools?

Is your physical CD drive working? If not, that might be the cause of your problems.

Advice on the side:
Check if your hard drive is enabled in BIOS. If disabled, XP would still boot and work, but other utilities might have problem finding that drive.

You'll need to be more specific.

Which drives?
And what is your current drives layout? List your drives and drive-letters.
For more detailed layout, rightclick "My computer" and select "manage". In the following window select "Disk management" on your right pane. On your left pane all the drives (and volumes) should be listed with detailed descriptions. A screenshoot would be nice.

Also, copy-pasting the errors you saw in event viewer would be helpful.

Ok, that's what it should be.

There should be entries in your event logs regarding volume errors. You should see if there is any info that could shed some light on what is causing this.

In case you don't see shortcut to your event log viewer in programs menu, change the taskbar and startmenu settings and check the "Display administrative tools"

Also, another aproach is to use Recovery console (XP setup CD) and run Chkdsk from there. It is more reliable than regular one. Also, it has different commandline options. Instead of /f, you'll need to run it with /p option.

Yes it would.

Before you try with XP setup CD, try this:

Click Start, then "run" and type regedit

Look for "HKEY_Local_mackine\System\currentControlSet\Control\Session manager". Click on that key and doubleclick on "BootExecute" in your right panel, and copy-paste the contents here.

Once you manage to install it, I advise you to:

- Change BIOS settings to default ones
- Install service pack 3 (if it is XP sp0/1/2)
- Install Motherboard drivers
- Plug back in the second VGA (if you removed it)
- Install VGA drivers (don't install it before Motherboard drivers! That wolud most probably mess up your XP beyond repair)

... and DO restart every time you are advised to.

Anyway, what did you do that made it work?

yea i have updated bios but the latest one is 2006 Copy right lol i think i cant find any other up date

i also found usb controller and usb device legacy support any help ?

Try toggling that settings. If possible, disable USB2.0 support and leave it on legacy only, but do change it back once you manage to install XP and motherboard drivers. Legacy USB (a.k.a. USB 1.1) has extremely slow data transfer rate.

And one more thing:

Use 1 VGA. Atleast for setup.

I'm not 100% certain, but I'm bretty sure that SLi technology doesn't support different VGA models. You say that you have one 1 GB and one 512 MB VGA card.. That might be the problem.

Getting PS/2 keyboard or USB-PS/2 converter could bypass your problem. My guess is that it is a problem with obvious lack of drivers that XP comes with. (hence the need of f6 drivers and floppy drive)

Other way to solve your problem (permanently) is to slipstream the drivers onto XP setup CD. For that you need 1 blank CD, tool like nLite, allot of PC knowledge and even more patience.

Another thing that comes to my mind is BIOS. There might be setting for USB keyboard support. Try changing that setting if there is one on your board. Also, you can disable on-board ethernet, so XP will skip the drivers that obviously mess with your USB controller.

There also might be BIOS bug that is (hopefully) solved by your motherboard manufacturer. Look for BIOS updates for your board on their website.

Could you post the specs? (Motherboard model or laptop model)

Maybe your PC simply freezes?

Try skipping the ethernet driver. You can always install it post-setup.

This is PS/2 port. Both keyboard and mouse could be plugged in PS/2 ports and it is universal. USB ports can be a problem on new boards in conjuction with XP. Problem being that needed USB drivers aren't included with XP and generic ones don't work.

a) You can always "click" using keyboard.
b) If it is USB mouse, try PS/2 if possible. (vice-versa)