The Clockwork Mansion

I've got a problem with my computer when I turn it on I get the message

QuoteA disk read error occurred
press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

So I do it and get a blue screen and this

QuoteA problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

UNMONTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask yout hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you mite need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable Bios memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components restart your computer, Press F8 to select Advanced startup options, and then select safe mode

Technical information:
***STOP:0X000000ED (0X8675DE30,0XC0000006,0X00000000,0X00000000)

My OS is Windows XP which for me atleast is living up to the whole XP :knifed
Also I've had this problem before and followed what a friend sugested (aka Reformat the computer) but I'm wondering if there is any way to get any of my save data off before doing that.

Yeah, while I'm too tired to be very specific right now, you might wanna find someone who can recover what's possible, and just get a whole new drive. If my suspicions are correct (and that would make this NOT just a random rare screwup on the computer's part that can or can't be recovered), then your hard drive has gone faulty somewhere and isn't all that good to go and needs an evac.

Though that might not be anything to do with the problem... I really don't know what UNMONTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME is right now, specifically. Well, at least which thingamabob it's referring to.

I'm pretty sure the same thing happened to me when an older drive I was using died.  You could try getting your stuff off by booting from another hard drive, but if it's what happened to me (hopefully not) then all your stuff's gone.

As an alternative (if the drive is actually dead) you could pay hundreds (if not thousands) to have the drive's platters migrated to an identical drive, just so you'd have THEM in a working drive and possibly easier to recover (though it all depends on how much you value whatever's broken, wherever it's broken)

May as well make this the new computer problems trhead. Just fyi.

Ah, I just found something in one of my magazines while randomly browsing for no particular reason... Though I don't know the occasion, if it's NOT a fudged hard drive (I don't know how you'd be able to tell, sorry), this should fix the boot problem in a minor case:

"see if you can get into the recovery console by booting up from the Windows CD. When there, type chkdsk /r and hit Enter. When that's done, type in fixboot and hit Enter. Restart your computer and see if you can run a repair--or fresh--install of XP on the drive."

Quote from: Shadrok on February 27, 2007, 10:47:50 PM

QuoteA problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

UNMONTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

My OS is Windows XP which for me atleast is living up to the whole XP :knifed
Also I've had this problem before and followed what a friend sugested (aka Reformat the computer) but I'm wondering if there is any way to get any of my save data off before doing that.

Assuming that it said "unmountable boot volume", that's not a good sign.  I might be able to fix it/salvage the data with physical access to the machine, but I'm not sure what else to suggest.
Do you know, by any chance, if the disk was formatted FAT32 or NTFS?  It's probably the latter, but you never know.

If you know anyone who's good with a linux rescue disk, it might be time to give them a call.  I hope it works out, but if not, do you have a data backup strategy?

MSKB mentions UDMA.  Check your BIOS settings and see if you can change your DMA settings. - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297185

In your BIOS POST screen, does it list your HDD's by model number?  If not, you may have either a bad ribbon cable, or worst case, a dead drive.

Other places I've seen this happen say to not use chkdsk /r but to just do chkdisk without any arguments.

Quote from: Tapewolf on February 28, 2007, 09:48:39 AM
Assuming that it said "unmountable boot volume", that's not a good sign.  I might be able to fix it/salvage the data with physical access to the machine, but I'm not sure what else to suggest.
Do you know, by any chance, if the disk was formatted FAT32 or NTFS?  It's probably the latter, but you never know.

If you know anyone who's good with a linux rescue disk, it might be time to give them a call.  I hope it works out, but if not, do you have a data backup strategy?

Yeah I messed up on that it should have been unmountable not unmontable.
The disk format I think is FAT32.
As for backups I have most of my files on my portable hard drive, soon to be put to DVD.

The files that I'm wanting to get off my computer's hard drive are mostly newly made files like the colored version of King Gray talking and web page bookmarks.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on February 28, 2007, 04:17:25 AM
Ah, I just found something in one of my magazines while randomly browsing for no particular reason... Though I don't know the occasion, if it's NOT a fudged hard drive (I don't know how you'd be able to tell, sorry), this should fix the boot problem in a minor case:

"see if you can get into the recovery console by booting up from the Windows CD. When there, type chkdsk /r and hit Enter. When that's done, type in fixboot and hit Enter. Restart your computer and see if you can run a repair--or fresh--install of XP on the drive."

Quote from: RyudoLee on February 28, 2007, 03:15:03 PM
MSKB mentions UDMA.  Check your BIOS settings and see if you can change your DMA settings. - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297185

In your BIOS POST screen, does it list your HDD's by model number?  If not, you may have either a bad ribbon cable, or worst case, a dead drive.

Other places I've seen this happen say to not use chkdsk /r but to just do chkdisk without any arguments.

Ok I think I'll try that and see if it works.

Thanks everyone for the input.
*crosses his fingers*
let's hope it works.

**EDIT**
By the way,how long do hard drives last?
I've had my computer since late 2001.

Hard drive lifetimes really depend on a lot of factors, mainly wear-and-tear, temperature, the amount of data you keep on it, how many virii have hit it... stuff like that.  I've got two Maxtor's in my current computer that are at least 5 years old and still running strong.  In my experience, the more you take care of your hardware, the longer it will last.  But of course, don't be complacent... make sure you have a fairly decent backup strategy.

Most manufacturer's do give a life expectancy of their harddrives.  You should look up the harddrive's model number and see what the manufacturer says about it.

I don't think viruses getting on it have anything to do with hard drive lives, especially considering I haven't heard of too many that actually did kill a hard drive. They should last pretty long though, or I wouldn't have 20 year old computers lying around >.>

I'm talking about the ones that can cause you to have to do a lot of cleanup work.  No piece of software can kill a piece of hardware, but any hardware will run down after extended use.

Quote from: RyudoLee on March 02, 2007, 02:13:07 PM
No piece of software can kill a piece of hardware, but any hardware will run down after extended use.

This doesn't help Shadrok any, but about 13 years ago, a friend of mine tried to write a .MOD player.  When he ran the sound format converter code, the machine froze - forever.

My initial guess (which later turned out to be more-or-less correct) was that he had converted the system BIOS from signed Amiga PCM format into unsigned PCM.  I can't remember how, but they did manage to restore the BIOS from a floppy disk which Intel (or AMI) sent the computer lab.  I went home that night thankful that I didn't have an upgradable BIOS on my machine :P

I stand corrected.  When the system BIOS is concerned, yeah, software can kill it, especially if you don't flash it properly, or in Tape's friend's case, accidentally flash it (man, that had to suck).

Quote from: RyudoLee on March 02, 2007, 03:56:10 PM
I stand corrected.  When the system BIOS is concerned, yeah, software can kill it, especially if you don't flash it properly, or in Tape's friend's case, accidentally flash it (man, that had to suck).

Oh, we thought it was dead funny.  So did the admins. Fortunately we were on very good terms with the people who ran the computer department at college, I dare say our little group was composed of the "star pupils", as it were.  When we first joined our teacher had a collection of stories of things past pupils had done... I'm pretty sure that one got added to the collection.
The department also encouraged experimentation a lot - I think the worst part of it was that the machine we took down was the only one with the scanner and OCR software.

The big disappointment at Uni (college in the UK being a two-year intermediate stage between school and University) was the control freakery - they seemed to be afraid to teach us anything for fear that we might use it against them.  Experimentation was absolutely forbidden.  But I digress.
The moral is that it is usually difficult to damage software through hardware :P

Well I tried the chkdsk /r , fixboot, and even a complete reformat of my hard drive and it's still giving me the same message. I guess the hard drive is just shot 'A'

I'm just glad I saved most of my files to my portable hard drive before the computer died (just wished I had managed to save some of my photoshop brushes :mowignore)
Over all when compaired to a hard drive problem I had late last year, the file loss was keep to a minimum (mostly bookmarks and newly scanned sketches along with some brushes, which can be recreated or re-downloaded)

Thanks everyone for your help.

Glad you rescued most of it.  Here's hoping that XP will let you reinstall it after the hard disk has changed.

This is a problem I've just solved - a ZyXEL Prestige 660 wireless DSL router.  I've never done wireless networking in Linux before and I was doing my head in trying to figure out why I couldn't get a DHCP lease although I could via ethernet, and why it would only work with an unencrypted link.

Well it turns out the little bastard ships with broken firmware by default ('fault' being the active part here).  Despite the fact that the newer version's changelog consisted solely of "Add support for new ZYxxxx chip" since the previous version, it fixed both problems and I no longer have to have that cable dangling down the stairs, which is good.

The main reason I'm posting this is to ask what they were thinking when they send a wireless DSL router that cannot route DSL wirelessly into the shops?  Do they have no QA testing at all?

They probably benchmarked it on their systems.  And since it worked on their systems, they deemed it good enough for retail.

Quote from: RyudoLee on March 10, 2007, 12:39:17 AM
They probably benchmarked it on their systems.  And since it worked on their systems, they deemed it good enough for retail.

I think the firmware worked properly in the earlier revisions and was broken in a subsequent production run of the product.  That I can kind of accept, but they must have really dropped the ball on the regression testing.

My mom recently purchased a new windows Vista PC but it won't let her open Internet explorer because it has an "unidentified publisher"...the computer is a Hewlette Pakard(?) if that makes a difference.

More details please.  A screen capture of the error if possible, or the text of it.

My guess is that one or more of the drivers related to accessing the internet are not on the 'list' of windows approved drivers.  As such, windows vista wouldn't let you use them because it's "safer" for you, and because unapproved drivers could be used to circumvent thier precious DRM software(if designed to... such a driver would not be approved if it could)

Your best bet is probably going to be contacting HP support and asking them what they are going to do about making thier faulty product work.

For future reference, we have a computer problems thread. You should use that for computer related issues.

*takes a screen shot of Darkmoon's grammatical typo*

Shouldn't that be "we"? :3

Quote from: Darkmoon on March 10, 2007, 10:33:54 PMFor future reference, for have a computer problems thread. You should use that for computer related issues.

Does this mean you're not moving this into the computer problems thread?  So I can respond here without worrying about getting the smackdown?

OK.  Here goes.

GT, how are you accessing IE?  Is it through the desktop or the start menu or...what?  You might be accessing it through a shortcut that tries to send you to some sort of web-based application.  It's unlikely, but possible.

The text of the error would really help.  It might be a driver problem, but this sort of error sounds like a license/registration issue.  Unless you installed new hardware/software, it really shouldn't have bad drivers out of the box.

I think that you have to register Office in your name.  Maybe it's a similar thing with IE?

You're using vista.  That's the issue :P  >:3

Seriously... I have no idea.  Not enough info; too new an OS.  HP should be a well-known company to MS; Steve Woz came from there :P and the company is fairly popular with its printers as well as computers.  Despite this, there is a reason why having a company make both the Hardware and software can be an advantage.

Now, if only Apple would use that level of DRM with their OS.  Then it would be an impenetrable fortress!  :mwaha  Since we all know that Vista is so impenetrable.

I would care about my typos... but that would require effort.

If you understood what I said, then it needs no correction.

My C64 says it has 0 bytes free, and refuses to do anything because of this. Am I SOL?

HTH, HAND.

Whenever I try to import a video (So it makes lots of smaller videos) in Windows Movie Maker, and put some of 'em in the storyboard, and click something, it freezes. (WMM freezes, not my whole computer.)

And if I try to use another program like it, the computer shuts down. 'Cuz apparently, Window XP is a whore and doesn't want me using something not by Microsoft.

FIX IT. :<

Also, my dad did something with my laptop battery, and now it can only be 3%..or dead. (If I unplug it, it dies on me in like a minute. *Emo emo emo*)

...Fix it, fix it. fix it, fix it. fix it, fix it... :3

Quote from: Dakata on March 11, 2007, 03:42:13 PM
Whenever I try to import a video (So it makes lots of smaller videos) in Windows Movie Maker, and put some of 'em in the storyboard, and click something, it freezes. (WMM freezes, not my whole computer.)

Well, you're using Windows and you haven't said video format you're using, so I can't really help you with that, but for the laptop, it sounds like the battery pack has failed.  If so, that means: (A) repairing the battery by replacing the cells - a soldering job at least, IF you can get the pack open in the first place let alone closed again afterwards, or (B) buying a replacement battery.

The video format's .AVI.

And about how much does a laptop battery cost? :<

Quote from: Dakata on March 11, 2007, 03:58:55 PM
The video format's .AVI.

Sadly, no.  AVI is more like a ZIP file - the actual video format inside it could be anything, depending on the CODEC used. This is why it's so easy to make an AVI that won't play on someone else's machine...

QuoteAnd about how much does a laptop battery cost? :<

I don't know, but I need to get one for my Toshiba as well because it will only last for about 15 minutes.  I generally use it on mains only for that reason.

. . .
A Portege 4010 battery for me looks to cost around £52 (which would be about $104 - in the US it might just be $52).  How much yours costs will depend on the model of the laptop.

Anyone have any advice on what kind of hard drive I should get since my old one's fried?

MY old hard drive (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4898003).

The one I was looking at getting. (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4898004)

Also is there any difference between SATA Hard Drives and EIDE hard drives?

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on March 11, 2007, 05:47:17 AM
HTH, HAND.

You're not supposed to say stuff like that without actually doing something D:

Oh, and dakata? I think your laptop battery's borked and won't hold a charge anymore. you might have to buy another of the same model (or if you wanted to, a better one if such a thing exists for your laptop's model)

Quote from: Shadrok on March 11, 2007, 06:41:21 PM
Anyone have any advice on what kind of hard drive I should get since my old one's fried?
Also is there any difference between SATA Hard Drives and EIDE hard drives?

Yes, they have completely different cables, so make sure you get the right one.
EIDE is large and flat, and has a 4-pin power connector.  Same sort of thing as CDROM/DVD drives.

SATA is a small thing with about 6 pins, and the power connector has something freaky like 19 pins.  It is possible to get converters (probably in both directions), but it's probably better to just get the right one in the first place.  Most likely you'll want an EIDE one unless your computer is very new.

Quote from: Tapewolf on March 11, 2007, 07:20:25 PM

Quote from: Shadrok on March 11, 2007, 06:41:21 PM
Anyone have any advice on what kind of hard drive I should get since my old one's fried?
Also is there any difference between SATA Hard Drives and EIDE hard drives?

Yes, they have completely different cables, so make sure you get the right one.
EIDE is large and flat, and has a 4-pin power connector.  Same sort of thing as CDROM/DVD drives.

SATA is a small thing with about 6 pins, and the power connector has something freaky like 19 pins.  It is possible to get converters (probably in both directions), but it's probably better to just get the right one in the first place.  Most likely you'll want an EIDE one unless your computer is very new.

OK thanks for clearing that up.  :mowcookie
My old one is an EIDE, as is the one I'm looking at getting.

Quote from: Tapewolf on March 11, 2007, 07:20:25 PMSATA is a small thing with about 6 pins, and the power connector has something freaky like 19 pins.

I've got an SATA with a Molex power cable.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on March 11, 2007, 07:01:32 PM

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on March 11, 2007, 05:47:17 AM
HTH, HAND.

You're not supposed to say stuff like that without actually doing something D:

Who d'you think merged the two threads, Aridas?

Or edited Darkmoon's posts, as well - although if he asks, I was nowhere near the place, in a different country, looking the other way.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on March 11, 2007, 07:01:32 PMOh, and dakata? I think your laptop battery's borked and won't hold a charge anymore. you might have to buy another of the same model (or if you wanted to, a better one if such a thing exists for your laptop's model)

Well, how did it get borked? :< Did it commit suicide 'cuz I looked at too much yaoi? >:3 too many pictures of innocent. fluffy kittens? :3

Batteries die over time, Dakata.

You charge and discharge it by using it, which eventually wears it out. Or, alternatively, you leave it in and charging whilst you're plugged into the mains. That will also mess with it, although newer laptops deal with it better.

Quote from: superluser on March 11, 2007, 07:50:24 PM

Quote from: Tapewolf on March 11, 2007, 07:20:25 PMSATA is a small thing with about 6 pins, and the power connector has something freaky like 19 pins.

I've got an SATA with a Molex power cable.

:B Older SATA drives were made to use the molex conenctors for backwards compatability.  Most drives now come with an adaptor cable to go from Molex to SATA power connectors.  Without a SATA power connector as part of the power source (with three levels of current, unnlike the two levels in a molex connector) you cannot hot-swap the drive.

You can get SATA conversion boards to hook IDE drives to SATA conenctors, but I doubt anyone makes a reverse adaptor.

@ Shadrok: you could get a SATA controller expansion card for your PC that would allow you to connect SATA drives, but I don't think you would be able to boot from them, so you'd only be able to use them for extra storage.

Quote from: Reese Tora on March 12, 2007, 12:40:33 AM:B Older SATA drives were made to use the molex conenctors for backwards compatability.  Most drives now come with an adaptor cable to go from Molex to SATA power connectors.  Without a SATA power connector as part of the power source (with three levels of current, unnlike the two levels in a molex connector) you cannot hot-swap the drive.

I can't hot swap the drive?  I...uh, have no desire to do that.

Is this the time to mention that my old computer had an ATX-style motherboard, but needed an AT-style power switch to start?  I had a ball when the power supply went.

Quote from: Reese Tora on March 12, 2007, 12:40:33 AMYou can get SATA conversion boards to hook IDE drives to SATA conenctors, but I doubt anyone makes a reverse adaptor.

Not even sure if you *could* make an adaptor.

Quote from: Reese Tora on March 12, 2007, 12:40:33 AM@ Shadrok: you could get a SATA controller expansion card for your PC that would allow you to connect SATA drives, but I don't think you would be able to boot from them, so you'd only be able to use them for extra storage.

I come from the old school, where the only things on your motherboard were the DRAM sockets, the expansion slots, and the socket for your 8087 math coprocessor.  The concept of being unable to boot from a drive connected to an add-on controller is so foreign to me that I have to believe that you're wrong.

Well, I am guessing on that part, I will admit.

I just think that the BIOS of most boards would not support the expansion cards, but I have made no study of such.  But, I would rather be wrong telling him he can't when he has another viable option than be wrong telling him he can and causing him to spend money on something that won't work.

Quote from: Reese Tora on March 12, 2007, 01:31:14 AMBut, I would rather be wrong telling him he can't when he has another viable option than be wrong telling him he can and causing him to spend money on something that won't work.

Very true.  Motherboards and BIOSes do funny things these days.  Your miles are very likely to vary.

 :boogie
Well I now have a new hard drive, I just have to install it.(which won't be till Tuesday.)

The one I was looking at getting from Walmart ended up a bust, they never had it in.
The plus side of it though is I found a better drive here. (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Western-Digital-Caviar-SE-Internal-Hard-Drive-WD3200JBRTL/sem/rpsm/oid/116659/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do)

not totally sure what it is, but something has killed my old computer...the main hard drive is damaged and it won't sign online. So yea, I probably won't be on for a while cause the new computer is the only one I can get on, and that's only when family is not around or they question what i'm looking at...(they don't know i'm furry) so...see you guys soon!!!

Topics merged. Read stickies, plz, kthx.

Your hard drive died?  :tired I feel for you.  I had something similar happen not to long ago, but luckily it wasn't serious (i.e. the physical HD was OK; the stuff on it wasn't.  Luckily it was a not oft-used hard drive). What kind of HD does it use: SCSI or IDE/ATA?

Okay, so I'm listening to music via WMP 11 on my computer, and it's skipping.  It's hardly noticeable, but damn annoying when you do notice it.  I've gone through and ended all unnecessary processes and uninstalled all programs that were of no use and/or haven't been used in several months, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

Quote from: Haz on March 24, 2007, 10:26:32 PMOkay, so I'm listening to music via WMP 11 on my computer, and it's skipping.

I thought you said you didn't have sound on your computer!

Anyways, the obvious question is--is this streaming audio?

Next obvious question--what does your CPU/memory monitor say?

I remembered I had an extra sound card lying around at my dad's house, so I got that hooked up here.

Streaming from the internet?  No, all the music I'm playing is being played from a hard drive.

CPU Usage: 5-15%
Commit Charge: 257M / 1493M


The music I'm playing is on a separate hard drive than the OS, could be causing the problem?

Quote from: Haz on March 24, 2007, 11:38:32 PMCommit Charge: 257M / 1493M


The music I'm playing is on a separate hard drive than the OS, could be causing the problem?

How much of that memory is physical and how much virtual?  (I doubt you'd have over a gig of virtual with only 256M of physical, but still)

It's unlikely that slow media are causing the problem.  Unless you've got very slow media.

Did you try watching cpumon while the thing is playing?  Check CPU usage, memory usage and (most importantly) process balancing (if various processes suddenly start using a lot more CPU/memory) *during* a skip.

QuoteThe music I'm playing is on a separate hard drive than the OS, could be causing the problem?

That was the problem.

That actually shouldn't be the problem, not unless the bitrate was higher than the read rate of the drive...

If he's using IDE, and the "problem" drive is on a secondary under his boot drive, then access to his boot drive would cause his secondary drive to hang, or, at least, to appear to.

That could cause the symptoms showing, given fairly continuous access to his primary drive.

Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, if it's on the same channel then it might interfere. If the drives are separated on the primary and secondary IDE though, that might solve the problem... if that's the problem in the first place.

I've got a rpoblem too... Apparently this ONE computer is being a hard-ass about opened ports. Everything works on other computers and the ports are open and everything's dandy, but on this computer it refuses to acknowledge any ports are open. Windows Firewall is not in, but I do think I experienced some of these problems after getting the crashy Windows Live OneCare off my system... What can I do?

Reinstall OneCare and then uninstall it using an account with administrative priveledges.  There's probably something left over.  Even though Windows Firewall isn't active, Windows might still be reading it's settings, so check Windows Firewall anyway.

I always was.. so it's not that. And besides all that, it was working WITH onecare, it shouldn't stop working after i removed it.

Try running this command from the command prompt:
MSIEXEC /X {5A03BEC5-E6E3-4751-ADC0-CDD271414536}

It removes the Microsoft Protection Service which is installed with One Care but does not always uninstall.
Comes from this site - http://desktopengineer.com/home/all_articles/getting_onecare_completely_uninstalled

edit: er, I mean, it's not there... says the action only works for things that are installed.

Do you have a restore point prior to installing OneCare?  I've been trying to look this one up, but everything I have found so far suggests that the only way to remove the restrictions is to just do a system restore.  Most everyone who's used OneCare and uninstalled it has found that the restrictions are kept in place.

But the thing is, there WEREN'T any restrictions BEFORE I uninstalled it...

I gathered that.  Maybe those are some default settings the uninstaller sets?  I'm not sure.  The next best thing to doing a system restore is to contact Microsoft support about it.

yeah.. system restore and then goodbye everything else  I put in D:

edit: but I can't, since that doesn't seem to work for some odd reason.

Backup your files, it's time to reinstall!  And as we all know, reinstalling Windows is only slightly less of a pain in the rear as calling Microsoft Support... but only ever so slightly.

Actually, now that I think about it, you should try and run a repair from Windows Setup.  See if that helps.

Another thought, have you checked your HOSTS file?

I'm not going to go doing the first, the second likely won't work as I already had to do it for something else before, and the third, as far as I know, is the least involved with my closed port problem.

Well I'm outta ideas.

Okay, that was, by far, the weirdest thing that has happened on my computer. Just yesterday I was putting some files on my 4 GB flash drive to give to a friend of mine, and when he plugs it into his computer it doesn't work. So I take it back yo see if it works in my computer and when I plug it into the USB port, my computer shuts down. I try pushing the power button and nothing happens. Then I take out the flash drive and my computer turns back on without pushing the power button.
So I won't be using that flash drive, anymore.

Not really a problem, just thought I'd share it with ya'll.

I had a similar problem with one of my flash drives.  But instead of not working, it locked down a folder that I was using.  It was so bad, I couldn't access it, I couldn't delete it, I couldn't do anything with it.  I had to reformat the drive.  Luckily I had a good backup.  I later determined that it was being caused by me not using the Safely Remove Hardware feature.  Now I use that for everything USB, flash drive or not.

Damnit... I'm going to need a program I can run from a CD or SD card so I can check and possibly fix my laptop's hard drive... anyone know of one?

The Windows Repair Console.  Just boot from your Windows CD, let it go through the usual stuff before setup, and choose Repair Console.  You can run chkdsk from there.

But you have to do that "choose an installation" thing from there, and the same crap happens.

If the BIOS supports it, you can make a bootable USB drive: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877-6160062.html

Or you can try to make a windows live-cd using BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/), and try to diagnose your problems/ rescue tour files from there.

If I could even just get an OS running, I could nab important files and ship them off via SD card, then nuke the hard drive and install it again, attempting to make partitions avoiding damaged area... I'll give that a shot. I wonder if they make anything that can automatically tell me things like that so I can avoid assigning bad space to a partition...

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on April 02, 2007, 09:27:45 PM
If I could even just get an OS running, I could nab important files and ship them off via SD card, then nuke the hard drive and install it again, attempting to make partitions avoiding damaged area... I'll give that a shot. I wonder if they make anything that can automatically tell me things like that so I can avoid assigning bad space to a partition...

Then Bart PE or linux on a bootable CD/DvD/Flash drive should see you in good hands.
(just note, make sure the flash drive is in palce before booting PE, it doesn't auto detect)

i've been trying to check the drive for bad sectors and such, but phase 2 takes an excessive amount of time (progress bar never moved at all, despite HD access) and then it went up eventually... then it says it couldn't complete the disk check. I think I need a better util, but I'd need to make another cd and get another util... Before, when I ran the disk check without telling it to check for bad sectors, I think the computer restarted...

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on April 02, 2007, 11:02:44 PMi've been trying to check the drive for bad sectors and such, but phase 2 takes an excessive amount of time (progress bar never moved at all, despite HD access)

What's phase two?

Anyways, I've got a question:

I'm looking for an IDE for some C programming.  I think I used Anjuta before (and liked it), but I'm looking to go non-GNOME (I moved to XFCE after GNOME started using Windows Explorer (http://home.online.no/~osmoma/tmp/gnome-nautilus-uri.jpg)).  Any suggestions?

Hmm. I tend to use gnome, but disable nautilus. To the point of chmod -x /usr/bin/nautilus, as that seems the only way of getting the damn thing to go away and stay away...

Strange how that happens, isn't it? :-/

As for IDEs, I haven't heard of any decent ones. Have you tried hunting through apt's list, or looking on freshmeat?

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on April 03, 2007, 04:24:34 AMHmm. I tend to use gnome, but disable nautilus. To the point of chmod -x /usr/bin/nautilus, as that seems the only way of getting the damn thing to go away and stay away...

Yeah.  I think when I first tried it, it used OpenGL, and I had no OpenGL hardware support, which made it both ugly and s l o w.  I decided that if GNOME developers thought that such bloat was anything other than something to be removed, it was probably not in my best interest to keep using their software.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on April 03, 2007, 04:24:34 AMAs for IDEs, I haven't heard of any decent ones. Have you tried hunting through apt's list, or looking on freshmeat?

Yeah, but there are a lot of IDEs.  I was hoping to avoid looking through the whole list by asking here.

EDIT: HA HA DISREGARD THAT.  Turns out I didn't use Anjuta.  I used Geany (http://geany.uvena.de/).  That was the one I liked.  And it still works under XFCE.

That was just the pick-me-up I needed today.

Quote from: Shields UP!!Your system has achieved a perfect "TruStealth" rating. Not a single packet — solicited or otherwise — was received from your system as a result of our security probing tests. Your system ignored and refused to reply to repeated Pings (ICMP Echo Requests). From the standpoint of the passing probes of any hacker, this machine does not exist on the Internet. Some questionable personal security systems expose their users by attempting to "counter-probe the prober", thus revealing themselves. But your system wisely remained silent in every way. Very nice.

This isn't good. How do I fix it?

It's not?

No, it isn't. Because it's basically the last thing I can think of that could possibly be causing bit torrent to be unconnectable, among other things.

also: Is this bad? (http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/aridas/Status.htm) I understand low SNR is bad and so is high attenuation, but not much else... Just how bad is it for me? (also, if there's any way possible to get this remedied, I'd like to know it, to make sure everything is alright.)

Oh, look. It's a web-but-not-web-enough-to-be-compatible-with-anything-that-might-want-to-follow-standards file, from Microsoft, again.

Ew.

Don't blame me. I attempted to keep it in one piece. I'll reupload it as something else after I make up for what'll disappear.

edit: Done. That wasn't so hard after all.

Hmm. From the look of it, it's not -great-, but not enough to totally kill your connection. Besides - ECC on the transport layer should cover that. And then you have ECC on the TCP layer on top of that...

The effect should be a somewhat slowing down of the link, but not much more.

As far as "things you can do about it" - check the cables, make sure you don't have, for example, the dsl cable running next to the power, or "neatly bundled up in a tight bunch", just to select two examples. Other than that... you might talk to your ISP, and see if there's anything they can do to check it from their end, and locate if the issue is inside or outside your property.

Alright, now if I could only get help on my stealthed/closed/bamboozled ports... That seems to be the winner.

out of curiosity, what all have you checked? maybe making a list of everything checked will ring a bell as to soemthing you havn't checked after all? (also seing a list will stop me from being an idiot and suggesting stuff you tried right off the bat)

(for instance, i was about to ask if you have a router or hardware firewall between your computer and the internet, but that may have been the first thing you checked)

I'll have a hard time remembering, but i'll go over everything at the top of my head.

It's NOT because of a firewall, it in fact doesn't even work on a fresh install of Windows with no firewall in place.
It's NOT improperly forwarded ports
It WON'T change status if I run the program that needs the port open (someone actually suggested I do that.)
All ports are stealthed (said that already, but...)
Resetting the modem to default, restarting it, turning it off and on, does NOT help
It's NOT likely an automatic firmware upgrade, but I have no way to check this.
Not using the router is NOT an option, because the modem and router are one unit.
DMZ doesn't fix my problem

At one point, my comp was set to automatically get an IP. It used to get them in the 192.168.2.1x range, but recently it's been giving all computers and devices IPs in the 192.168.2.8x range. I've since switched to a static IP since I'm tired of going back to port mapping to fix it. I have no idea if both this and my problem happened simultaneously, but the fact my computer is doing its damnedest to be invisible and unavailable to the interwebs is overriding my concern for changed IPs.

It's possible your ISP is blocking bittorrent.  There's some programs that include stealthing options so ISPs can't detect it to block it, but that stealthing is kinda hit or miss depending on how you ISP is detecting and blocking (assuming they are)

They wouldn't be blocking bit torrent, they've got EVERY SINGLE ONE of my ports returning a result as stealthed by online tests.

well, your modem/router... what make and model is it, and what ports are you having it forward to your computer? Is it set to put your computer in a virtual DMZ?

From your reported IP address, It's already obvious it's acting as a NAT enabled router, which means it may also be acting as a hardware firewall and just dropping the incomming packets that are not return traffic to requests from inside your home network.

since the original problem is limited or no function using bittorrent (when you said unconnectable, you mean as in it's not performing at all, right?) I would guess that the packets are not reaching your computer.  Some ISPs specifically block bittorent traffic, and a lack of forwarding by a modem/router (which is the default state fo affairs) would more than explain the apaprent stealth rating.

I'll admit that I don't have much any experience in probing computers for vulnerabuility, but I would suppose that only some processes will respond to traffic, and only if the ports that serve those processes are open.

If you have windows firewall turned off, then there are only two other things between your computer and the site you are testing with: your modem/router, and your ISP.  As ISPs don't, as a rule, block most traffic on most ports, that leaves two possibilities: either your computer is screwed up some how (always possible, but you said you made a clean install, so unlikely) or your modem/router is dropping the packets.

can you give me the link to the site you're using to test with? I'd like to test it out and see what kind of tests and results it gives.

1. It's a SpeedStream 6520. I'm trying to forward ANY ports. I've had entire ranges opened to test them and coming out unsuccessful. There's a DMZ option, but on or not made absolutely no difference.

2. unconnectable as in I can still connect to some people, but I'm losing potential connections. I pretty much get a red icon rather than green or yellow.

3. Yeah. It used to work on all my computers, now it DOESN'T work on all my computers. I bet if I checked on my wii for the hell of it, I'd get the same result :P

4. http://www.grc.com/default.htm Scroll down and find Shields UP!!

... what IP address did you put into GRC? Putting your desktop IP address in won't work, because that's not a public range, and, as such, it'll get dropped by the first internet router between GRC and you...

er, doesn't it use the IP that it detects? because i'm pretty sure it didn't give me a choice of IP... and it wasn't 192.168.x.x

Ah, right. Yes. Interesting. Not totally useful, but interesting nonetheless.

.. at least, for my link here.

I see what you mean, though. I'd still confirm that the IP address they supplied -was- the IP address on your router, though. It might well be the IP address of the web proxy that your ISP provides without telling you about it...

It was. The modem reports the number when you check the home networking information.

Quick!  I deleted my /usr directory (or possibly mv'd it to .usr)!  What do I do?

Oh, wait, that was another superluser (http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/and-they-said-the-mac-was-intuitive/).

Sorry.  Just thought that this thread could use a bit of levity.

Quick problem,  with windows Vista I recently uninstalled WinRAR and now my computer allows me to compress files, but I am unable to extract the zipped files. I tried to use system restore but it didn't help. what should I do?

Quote from: GabrielsThoughts on April 18, 2007, 06:04:35 PM
Quick problem,  with windows Vista I recently uninstalled WinRAR and now my computer allows me to compress files, but I am unable to extract the zipped files. I tried to use system restore but it didn't help. what should I do?

I'm no vista user, but from what I've read, you're better off waiting until service pack 25 has been released, before 'upgrading' to vista.

Vista has a lot of problems with apps that aren't specifically adapted for vista.

I would suggest going back to XP, if that's an option.

the computer was purchased as a Vista

Edit: I hate to ask but does winzip still exist?

Quote from: GabrielsThoughts on April 18, 2007, 06:13:27 PM
the computer was purchased as a Vista

Edit: I hate to ask but does winzip still exist?

http://www.winzip.com/

Yes, it does.

If you're still interested, winzip also supports rar... I don't know if that's still an issue...

Ok, I've come across a bit of a problem. Last night, I asked my dad to download Microsoft Access onto my laptop for me since I'll be needing it for my homework this weekend. The thing is, I might have had it before and uninstalled the thing. Normally, I wouldn't think too much about it, but when I put in the CD my dad kept for Microsoft Office 2002 and tried to install Access by itself, my laptop kept saying that the access key code was wrong. We kept trying it for a while until my dad gave up and decided to try Microsoft Office 2000 Premium, or something like that. So now I have Access but all my other Office programs have been downgraded from 2002 to 2000.

My question is: is it advisable to uninstall all of Microsoft Office and then reinstall with MO 2002? I was thinking that the reason it failed earlier is because there already was MO 2002 programs installed, which is a stupid thought I admit. I'm also a bit afraid that doing so might delete all my documents and papers and/or fail to install again. Help please?  :<

Your documents should be fine, they're saved seperate from word, excel, etc.

Your custom settings will be lost, but that's usually not much.

You should be able to reinstall without trouble if you do uninstall.

Alright, thanks Reese. I'll have to do that over the weekend since I still have stupid essay writing to do now and due in two days. I'll be forever slow on these.

It won't delete your documents, but it's possible you won't get it reinstalled without reinstalling your machine (yay microsoft) and -that- will. So just take it a little slow, is all.

What you may find, however, is that your licence key for O2k2 is a "standard" key, not a "premium" key, and the standard drops Access from the list of apps. This I'm not sure about, because I haven't installed windows apps for a while, and prefer to avoid the whole mess when possible, but certainly in the past, there were two different versions with two different prices attached.

If the 2k2 cd you're installing from doesn't match the stuff you already have installed, chances are it'll fail in New and Interesting ways. So yeah, remove and reinstall is a good plan.



Personally I'd rather install OpenOffice or the Gnu versions (not an office suite, but Abiword and Gnumeric) but they each have their peculiarities, and it sounds like you need the microsoft versions to keep your professors happy, so...

OO is closer to what you'd expect MSOffice to show you, even so, but, to my knowledge, there's not really a "msaccess" type app available for unix and/or free - on unix, it tends to be "install a real DB and write your own frontend in perl or php or java" (where "real DB" is one of postgresql, mysql, oracle, etc, as the local tastes vary. Whichever floats your boat, really.)

I need to run a scheduled task on Ubuntu.  It seems to use some confusing mixture of cron and anacron.  Since it's a daily backup operation I've bunged it into cron.daily and tried to reconfigure it to run the whole lot at 10pm.

The line from crontab reads:

00 22 * * * root  test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )

Shell scripts aren't my forte but it's just occurred to me that that probably means "run anacron if it exists, otherwise run the cron.daily job".
That still leaves the question of why the hell anacron is running its stuff at 8am or something instead of 10pm.

Any ideas? How do you control the hour at which anacron does it's stuff?

You don't. Anacron, by design, is a non-specific time sequence.

I -think- it runs based on when you last restarted your machine, +x*24hrs (where x is the number of days the machine has been online), with added algorithm to re-schedule if your machine has been offline.

What you want, however, is simply:
0 22 * * * exec /root/bin/your_script

.. in "crontab -l root", and avoid the cron.daily thing entirely - mostly because there's usually -other- stuff in cron.daily that probably shouldn't be fiddled with, and the time sequences are set to avoid the monthly, weeks, and hourly stuff.

In my case, the hourly one runs at 17 minutes past the hour, the daily at 6:25, the weekly at 6:47 on monday, and the monthly at 6:52 on the 1st. This is so you don't get mass server loading all at one time.


((also, if you're really interested, pass me the script and I'll look it over, and offer suggestions. I do a -little- bit of scripting for work, so... :-] ))

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on April 25, 2007, 05:05:16 AM
You don't. Anacron, by design, is a non-specific time sequence.

That's pretty crap for a server.

Quote
What you want, however, is simply:
0 22 * * * exec /root/bin/your_script

Yes, that's probably the best approach.  I've appended it to the master crontab for now - I guess we'll see if it worked in the morning.

**EDIT**
As an aside, do you happen to know how to get SVN to authenticate against an Active Directory system running on windows 2003?  The guy who set up our SVN server left and I've been keeping it ticking over.  Then the HDD failed  >:3

Currently it's all there except that it's not authenticated so everyone on the LAN has full access, which is not ideal.

**EDIT EDIT**
Yes, the cron job has worked nicely.  Thanks.

No, because our svn is on a totally different network to the AD, and I wouldn't want it under AD anyway.

I'll see if I can find something somewhat later - I presume there's no immediate rush on it, right?


Edit:
I presume http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2006-01/0067.shtml and following doesn't help much?

... also:
http://www.subversionary.org/sspidomainauth
and
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Apache2_with_subversion_SVN_and_DAV (although you didn't say you were using apache with svn)

might be of use...

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on April 25, 2007, 05:35:14 AM
No, because our svn is on a totally different network to the AD, and I wouldn't want it under AD anyway.

I know, but unfortunately we're mostly a Microsoft shop at the moment.  And no, there's not much of a rush.  Now that we have SVN working again at all (yes, it is through Apache2) there are more important things for me to do and I'll get back to it at some later stage.

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out although I believe the first one is pretty much what I've already done  :<

I think my desktop just bit the big one, but in case there's any hope for its survival, I'm going to post my problem here. Here are the basics:

emachines t2825. Basically, it started acting really weird, and when I tried to turn it off with the power button, it wouldn't respond even after holding it in for several seconds. then, when I try to turn it back on, it wont even do that at first, then it alternates between not being able to be turned on and turning on without being able to be turned off. in the latter case, nothing appears on the screen, and I get no beep codes, but the hard drive light is continuously on. I have tried this with and without the hard drives plugged in, no change. if there is anything at all I can do to get the computer working again, please tell me.

Quote from: Kitsune Ascendant on May 04, 2007, 12:42:58 AMemachines t2825. Basically, it started acting really weird, and when I tried to turn it off with the power button, it wouldn't respond even after holding it in for several seconds. then, when I try to turn it back on, it wont even do that at first, then it alternates between not being able to be turned on and turning on without being able to be turned off. in the latter case, nothing appears on the screen, and I get no beep codes, but the hard drive light is continuously on. I have tried this with and without the hard drives plugged in, no change. if there is anything at all I can do to get the computer working again, please tell me.

The first thing I'd try is a different power supply.  It could be that there is a short in the motherboard or the power supply.

It's a remote chance, but if you have access to a power supply, it's worth a shot.

Not a computer question, per se, but an Internet connection/site problems.

For close to a year and a half, I have had difficulty connecting to March On, Black Queen (http://www.houseofwacks.org/ogre/).  Most people I have talked to have no problem reaching the site, and I have e-mailed the site's owner about this and have received a response (so the mail servers associated with this domain name obviously still work).  At first I thought it was just a problem with my computer/firewall/router, since there was intermittent access.  However, I decided to look up the domain name using DNS STUFF tools, and this is what I found:

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?&domain=houseofwacks.org

For the NS records tests, it fails, reading:

QuoteA timeout occurred getting the NS records from your nameservers! None of your nameservers responded fast enough. They are probably down or unreachable. I can't continue since your nameservers aren't responding. If you have a Watchguard Firebox, it's due to a bug in their DNS Proxy, which must be disabled (31 Jul 2006 UPDATE: several years after being informed of this, there is a rumor that there is a fix that allows the Watchguard DNS proxy to work).

However another DNS lookup site reports everything is fine:

http://www.dnswatch.info/dns/dnslookup?la=en&host=houseofwacks.org&type=A&submit=Resolve

So what's going on here?

/me looks

Ew!

The two DNS servers for the domain are right next to each other, netwise. According to the RFC's (basic instruction documents for how the 'Net works) there should be at least two domain servers, and on two different networks.

As it stands, if the network is down to one, it'll be down to both. Which may explain some of the intermittent access issues.

Tracing the network traffic, from here I get through Level3 (major backbone) and then get DimeNoc-edge1.HostDime.com and 72-29-88-34.static.dimenoc.com

I'd say they've gone cheap on the DNS, and you're paying the dime. :-/

If you know they aren't changing, you add an entry for this into your hosts file, but it's unlikely to do you much good, as the webserver is right next to the two DNS servers (web on .9, dns on .10 and .11...) so if you can't see the DNS, you probably can't see the webserver either...

Sadly.. I don't think there's much you can do about it. :-/ If you could run "traceroute houseofwacks.org" next time it's giving you grief, and paste the result, that might help. Of course, you might have to do "traceroute 72.29.83.9" (that is, open a command prompt, and paste either command into it..)

Does that make sense, or would you like more details?

I'm going to continue this over PM for privacy reasons. (Even if someone can trace my location easily, I don't need the whole world to know which neighborhood I live in.)

That's fair enough.

When I was setting up my daughter's computer in her dorm room a few years ago in the Philadelphia area, I was also getting messages which were due to name resolution process.  It turned out that, although the computer was in the Philadelphia area, the DNS for the ISP was in Colorado and seriously overloaded in both bandwidth and cpu.

What I did was change the network settings to use the university's DNS server instead of the one belonging to the ISP.   You are probably using the DNS specified in your network handshaking with the ISP.  However, you can specify the IP address to use for DNS rather than accept the default.

I'm not sure if this is adequate information or is actually TMI.  I remember that the information from the diagnostic hardware and software was very misleading and the technical support person at the ISP was less knowledgable than my daughter.  (Remember that I had to set up her Macintosh.  It wasn't even Windows.)  I also don't know if this is really your problem.  I do remember that it was intermittent and appeared random unless you knew the IP protocols.

This may be enough information for your friendly neighborhood computer geek.

Her friendly non-neighbourhood geek had more or less reached that conclusion, and was talking her through identifying what her current DNS settings were, and what her ISP recommended, and working his way back from there...

Your input -is- appreciated, though, as it confirms I'm likely on the right track. :-]

My PowerBook G4 (15", 1.5Ghz) just bought the farm, I think. When I try to start it up, I hear a series of loud clicks following by a "?" folder. I try to install OS X but there's no destination drive.

I've got AppleCare so I'm going to have a chat with a Genius at an Apple Store later tomorrow.

I'm thinking catastrophic, complete HDD failure. Am I right in this?  Second opinions?

sounds about right, from what you've said. :-/

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on May 23, 2007, 05:12:52 AM
sounds about right, from what you've said. :-/

Agreed.  I must think of a way to back up mine, although there's not much important on it at present.

Talking of the MacOS, I have a couple of 'how the hell do you...' questions.  Currently I'm going to the BASH prompt to do this stuff, but in theory it should be possible without a working knowledge of UNIX.

1. Rename a file.  I used to know how this was done on System 7, but I've long since forgotten and it's certainly not intuitive.
2. Create a new text file.  It has a text editor, yes, but so far I've only been able to invoke it by opening an existing file.  So I've been using NANO.
3. Invoking programs, period.  Windows 3.1 had desktop icons, Windows 9x added the start menu, KDE followed suite.  OS/2 had its own menus as I recall.  But does the MacOS have alist of currently-installed programs, or do I have to crawl the hard disk and invoke the application in-place like with DOS?  I don't have a problem with that, I'm just trying to figure out how the system is supposed to be used.  Once they've been invoked they can be tagged to the dock, but getting them running in the first place is what's puzzling me.

I know someone who has a mac. I'll ask them. Get back to you in a bit...

Edit (14:11:35):

1. Highlight the file, click on the name. Or hightlight and hit cmd+i (get info) to edit properties in general

2. As far as I know that's the only way. Might be some plugin to be able to do it from the contextual menu, but I haven't seen any

3. Use spotlight! OsX is fairly organised thought, 99% of your applications end up in the /Applications directory unless you put them somewhere else. Either go to the Applications directory and open the app or use spotlight to search and then launch the app.
Also, spotlight remembers your searches, so subsequent searches get to the app a lot quicker.


I think that means, for question 3, "uh, no. That's about as good as it gets"...

Edit Edit:

Oh regarding #2, TextEdit is the editor and it lives in /Applications :D


*cough*

1) To rename a file, click on it's name, or click on the icon and hit "enter", then enter new name, hit enter again or click elsewhere on the screen to finish.

2) Open up the text editor.  It's located in /Applications.  Write stuff.  Save.  You can either use spotlight to find it or just open Finder, click on "Applications" (usually on the left hand side), and scroll down a bit.

3) Go to the Applications folder as described above.  Find desired app.  Double-click on icon.  Or search with spotlight. 

Big thing to remember is to not over-think stuff while on the Mac.  The solution is usually so simple us tech-minded people completely miss it! :D  I know I've had a few moments where I was doing things the hard way or not at all, then realized freaking drag-and-drop was the solution!  (Man, was that embarrassing!)

Well, I'm off to the Apple Store to try and get this fixed.  Wish me luck! 

Quote from: Cvstos on May 23, 2007, 11:27:25 AM
1) To rename a file, click on it's name, or click on the icon and hit "enter", then enter new name, hit enter again or click elsewhere on the screen to finish.

You know, that was the first thing I tried.  Second was to use 'Get Info' as Llearch suggested, part of an old memory from 1993.  I'll have to try it again tonight and see if I can figure out why it didn't seem to work.

Quote2) Open up the text editor.  It's located in /Applications.

Thanks - and I see that '/Applications' is the general place to look for stuff.  That should get me going.

QuoteWell, I'm off to the Apple Store to try and get this fixed.  Wish me luck! 

Good luck, and thanks for the info.  (And Llearch's friend also)

Quote from: Tapewolf on May 23, 2007, 05:36:31 AM2. Create a new text file.  It has a text editor, yes, but so far I've only been able to invoke it by opening an existing file.  So I've been using NANO.

There's EMACS for OSX.  I know, because my brother needed a text editor, and asked me to find one for him.  When I suggested that there might be EMACS for OSX, his eyes lit up.  He was very happy when I found it.

<digression>
Nano's been flaking out for me recently (on Linux).  It prints the following:

et_key_buffer(): key_buffer_len = 1
parse_kbinput(): kbinput = 32, meta_key = FALSE, func_key = FALSE, escapes = 0, byte_digits = 0, retval = 32
get_shortcut(): kbinput = 32, meta_key = FALSE, func_key = FALSE
get_toggle(): kbinput = 32, meta_key = FALSE

every time you press a key.  So I've been using Pico.
</digression>

Odd. When I want a nice fast small editor, I use vi... I don't think I've seen that issue with it, but it looks like your terminal settings are a bit misplaced... Maybe....

If you're happy working around it, then it's probably ok...

Quote from: superluser on May 23, 2007, 11:48:05 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on May 23, 2007, 05:36:31 AM2. Create a new text file.  It has a text editor, yes, but so far I've only been able to invoke it by opening an existing file.  So I've been using NANO.

There's EMACS for OSX.  I know, because my brother needed a text editor, and asked me to find one for him.  When I suggested that there might be EMACS for OSX, his eyes lit up.  He was very happy when I found it.

I can't remember how to use it.  I must admit that I've been sticking with VIM when I need something like that these days, but by preference I'm using the Midnight Commander MCEDIT as that's all I really need for what I'm doing (which usually means writing CJP and 'Future History').

It's a sort of mindset thing.  For editing system files I'll use nano or vim, but for creative writing it's usually MCEDIT.

I'll have to look for a port of MCEDIT if there is one, but it won't be the same unless I can make it run in 80x25 text mode  :rolleyes

When looking at the Applications folder on the Mac, remember to also look at the Utilities subfolder of the Applications folder.

I have a minor dilemma. I've got an email by some guy named "Tasuki Kou" with no subject heading on it. On one hand my spam filter didn't see a problem with it, but on the other it still might have something weird on it. I've never seen this name before, so I have no idea who it is.

I'm tempted to open the mail, but I'm not sure if there's something funny stuck on it. >.> Worst case scenario is that my laptop crashes and all the stuff I've collected over time goes down the drain. So...advice please?

Quote from: Roureem Egas on May 24, 2007, 08:00:15 PMI'm tempted to open the mail, but I'm not sure if there's something funny stuck on it. >.> Worst case scenario is that my laptop crashes and all the stuff I've collected over time goes down the drain. So...advice please?

How are you accessing your e-mail?  If it's webmail, try opening the message with lynx.  Otherwise, just open your mailbox with PINE.

I defy anyone to find a malicious attachment that can root your system through PINE or lynx.

I've gotten blank e-mails from spammers a few times before. I have no idea about your case so I won't say much, though every time I got a blank e-mail it was safe. use some caution for now. If it has no attachment, and the subject and body are literally blank (like, just about a  0 byte e-mail) then it's nothing to worry about.

Thanks guys. Checked the email, and apparently someone different was using the mailing list from Anime Club to send out email. Bleh...

My monitor just blew up. Like a day after the compthulu posts, my monitor goes and decides it's found it's idol and dies...

It came without warning too. I just went to open Morrowind (A byproduct of this forum...) and it starts flickering. Nothing in the days before, and then it goes black, starts buzzing, and begins to emit a burning smell. Turning off the computer does nothing, but unplugging the monitor seems to work. And hour later, still fried.

It was a cheap monitor (That I did get second hand, and it's lasted for 5 years with me)
and it was always a bit dark (I had to crank my gamma up so high on my video card), but the spare monitor is even worse. It's blurry around the edges, and at resolutions higher then 1024x768, it's blurry everwhere. But better then nothing, and at least I now have a valid reason for buying an LCD. Though I am gonna have to start saving...

So, there's really no question I ned answered except this. Do any of you have any suggestions just what happened to my monitor, and do you you have any suggestions for a good LCD. Prefer something 21" or bigger. It's time for an upgrade!

It emitted the magic smoke.

LCD's above about 20" are still silly money, for what you get. You'd be better off getting a pair of 19" ones. Or three, even...

Quote from: Ellyriun on June 18, 2007, 08:07:37 AM
do you you have any suggestions for a good LCD. Prefer something 21" or bigger. It's time for an upgrade!

No, I have yet to see a good LCD.  The one I'm using at work is a Dell 1701FPf (17" not 21) it's acceptable for development but the colour reproduction is not much cop.  If you do find a decent one I might be interested (although 21" is too big).  At home I'm using a CRT for the main machine and a cheap nasty LCD for the Apple which needs to be replaced because it is so horrible.  I was keeping it as a spare in case the CRT goes out.

One thing to be aware of which has recently come to light is that most LCD monitors only do 6-bit colour reproduction, so they have a maximum palette of 262144 colours.

Quote from: Tapewolf on June 18, 2007, 08:18:22 AM
One thing to be aware of which has recently come to light is that most LCD monitors only do 6-bit colour reproduction, so they have a maximum palette of 262144 colours.

Heh. I guess my eyes only do that many colours, then. :-]

FWIW - LCD's have much better contrast, but fewer colours. It'd be interesting to note which LCD's -do- do more colours than that...

Well, when monitor shopping for LCDs, look for high contrast ratios and fast response times. I've seen monitors for sale with response times as quick as 2ms, and 4 to 8 is becoming somewhat of a standard as of late. If you're shopping in a store and the monitors for sale have working demos, check them out at different angles and make sure you don't get a bummer. My monitor's colors go funky because of a bad range. Other than that I can't remember any other important points besides making sure the monitor has a connector your video card supports o.O

Quote from: Tapewolf on June 18, 2007, 08:18:22 AMOne thing to be aware of which has recently come to light is that most LCD monitors only do 6-bit colour reproduction, so they have a maximum palette of 262144 colours.

6 bits per channel, you mean.  That's 18 bit color reproduction.  Not great, but once you get above 16 bits, you're looking at at least halfway decent colors, anyways.  My Acer AL1706 advertises 24-bit color depth.  For some reason, I've currently got it in 16-bit mode, so I can't check the colors to be sure.  (it's also true that 24-bit is out of the range of some people, especially men.)

Quote from: superluser on June 19, 2007, 12:55:30 AM
6 bits per channel, you mean.

Correct.  6-bits for the entire palette was the old EGA spec.

QuoteThat's 18 bit color reproduction.  Not great, but once you get above 16 bits, you're looking at at least halfway decent colors, anyways.

It depends what you're trying to do, though.  If you're doing artwork it's not really a good thing.  The problems I have with LCD displays are mainly to do with contrast and the fact that it's restricted to a single resolution.  But that might just be because I haven't seen a good LCD display yet.

Bleh... Tezkat can't sleep and is feeling geeky, so... random thoughts on purchasing LCD monitors... :animesweat

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on June 18, 2007, 09:52:29 AM
Well, when monitor shopping for LCDs, look for high contrast ratios and fast response times. I've seen monitors for sale with response times as quick as 2ms, and 4 to 8 is becoming somewhat of a standard as of late. If you're shopping in a store and the monitors for sale have working demos, check them out at different angles and make sure you don't get a bummer. My monitor's colors go funky because of a bad range. Other than that I can't remember any other important points besides making sure the monitor has a connector your video card supports o.O

With respect to response times, any monitor using technology from the last year or so is likely be fast enough for gaming, movies, and such. There are few new monitors slower than 8ms GTG, and those are usually more expensive monitors aimed at graphics professionals anyway. Those numbers (4ms, 8ms, or whatever) represent some kind of ideal lab scenario that rarely turns up in the real world, anyway. Real world performance has more to do with... say... how well the overdrive is implemented, or how it interacts with other picture enhancement features. For instance, some displays with super fast response time specs may end up with sparkling artifacts in movies with a lot of light-dark transitions.

The contrast numbers have also become kinda silly because more and more manufacturers are implementing dynamic contrast technologies which give you numbers like 3000:1 but look like crap when it comes to applications that need high colour fidelity. I've got that "feature" turned off on all my LCD monitors.

Overall picture quality is a quirky combination of so many factors. Some displays have narrow enough viewing angles to look completely different if you move your head slightly to the side. You really need to go in and look at the monitors to see which ones you like. (Of course, that might not necessarily work out either. Many monitors need a lot of calibration to get the colours right, and most stores have their display models all hooked up to the same input--usually at the wrong resolution.)


You'll always be able to find an adaptor for whatever connector your video card supports. Ideally, you want to use DVI on both ends. (Some newer monitors only have HDMI for digital inputs, but they'll usually come with DVI-to-HDMI adapters.) Using VGA outputs tends to blur the picture.

The real thing to worry about is what else you want to hook up to your monitor (like an Xbox, Blu-ray disc player, digital TV signal...). There are a variety of options for those (composite, HDMI, DVI, VGA, S-Video, etc.), some of which may not be HDCP compliant, and you may not be able to get a full 1080p or whatever on all inputs. Plus some monitors feature things like USB hubs, card readers, and so on, if you're into that. I've even seen a few with iPod chargers.

Monitors with built in speakers aren't worth it unless you absolutely don't have the desk space for proper speakers.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on June 18, 2007, 08:56:11 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on June 18, 2007, 08:18:22 AM
One thing to be aware of which has recently come to light is that most LCD monitors only do 6-bit colour reproduction, so they have a maximum palette of 262144 colours.

Heh. I guess my eyes only do that many colours, then. :-]

FWIW - LCD's have much better contrast, but fewer colours. It'd be interesting to note which LCD's -do- do more colours than that...

For the most part, modern monitors based on TN technology will be 6-bit panels which use dithering tricks to fake a higher colour depth (usually 16.2 million colours vs. the 16.7 million of a true 8-bit display). TN monitors are cheap and fast, but they have poor viewing angles (an issue if you're not sitting right in front of the screen--say to watch TV or movies) and their colours tend not to be so pretty (and frequently have problems with banding and such). There are a number of newer TN panels which feature more advanced dithering and can fake the full 16.7 million colours.

More expensive monitors based on P-MVA, M-PVA, and S-IPS technologies will usually have true 8-bit displays (i.e. 24-bit colour). S-IPS is the prettiest when it come to colour reproduction, but it's also the most expensive (and traditionally the slowest, but that hardly matters anymore now that everything uses overdrive).

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on June 18, 2007, 08:13:49 AM
It emitted the magic smoke.

LCD's above about 20" are still silly money, for what you get. You'd be better off getting a pair of 19" ones. Or three, even...

This is actually a pretty good idea if you have the desk space for it (and enough outputs on your video card). 19" displays are relatively cheap these days. I'd go for the normal aspect ratio instead of widescreen for this setup, however. 19" widescreen monitors appear really short (to me, anyway), so a pair of widescreens side by side will be very long and thin unless you can rotate them.

I'm a big fan of multi-display setups, myself. :3 Having enough room to see all the windows you need at once confers a noticeable productivity boost.

Triple display is really neat in games that support it, but of course you need the right graphics hardware to pull that off as well.

On the other hand, if you'll be using your monitor for watching DVDs and such, a larger (and probably widescreen) display may be a more appropriate use of your resources.

Quote from: Ellyriun on June 18, 2007, 08:07:37 AM
So, there's really no question I ned answered except this. Do any of you have any suggestions just what happened to my monitor, and do you you have any suggestions for a good LCD. Prefer something 21" or bigger. It's time for an upgrade!

Okay... if you're dead set on a 21"+ LCD...

21" LCDs are becoming rare--and mostly use older technologies.

22" LCDs are pretty much all TN panels. In other words, they're very fast, have poor viewing angles, and their colours are not the best. They're not that much more expensive than good 19" displays. Also, for some reason, almost all of them exhibit problems with backlight bleeding (which annoys the heck out of some people but doesn't even faze others). I think the Samsung 226BW is the best of the current crop. You might get worried about the "panel lottery" issue going on with them right now, but their competition honestly doesn't have much better monitors. :animesweat


Making the jump to 23"+ widescreen provides a major benefit in that the native resolution is 1920x1200, so you can view HD content at full resolution. The price doubles, however. Another thing to keep in mind is that you need a rather hefty GPU to run modern games at 1920x1200.

23" LCDs are becoming rare--and mostly use older technologies.

24" LCDs are where a lot of the interesting developments are happening. I've got a Dell 2407WFP (an S-PVA monitor) at home, and I can recommend it as a good balance of price, quality, and features. If you sign up for their mailing list and wait a few weeks, you'll eventually get some kind of sale coupon you can use to slice a large chunk (sometimes $100+) off the list price.

Bigger than that, and you're getting into the $1000+ range...



Sites Tezkat usually visits for info on LCD displays:

TFT Central (http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/) (good panel database and some decent technical articles)

Displays on [H]ard|Forum (http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78) (some great threads there if you're looking for opinions from people who actually own the monitors in question, but many of them are freakin' enormous :dface)

Thanks for the help guys. And for the links Tezkat.

My Dad actully has the Samsung 226BW, so I have the benefit of being able to test it, and I think I'll wait a bit. Not least of all because of a disparate lack of funds, but also because after a little bit of time spent on his computer, I don't like it. While good for games, it's color's leave a bit to be desiered. Case in point, DMFA looks like it's lost quality, and the color's and line's don't seem so natural.

So I'll wait, and save, and see what's in my range in a few months. If all goes well...

Thanks for the help guys!

If you didn't like your dad's monitor due to the colour rendering (assuming he has it properly calibrated), monitors with TN panels are probably not for you. Unfortunately, that removes most of the cheap LCD displays from your short list. (You can often tell by the price whether a monitor is TN or not. :3) Some rough targets for the saving of monies:

~$400 for a 20"
~$500 for a 21"
~$700 for a 24"

Some models you might want to look into:

BenQ FP241 (M-PVA)
Dell xx07WFP series (S-IPS or S-PVA--some panel lottery issues on the 20" if you really had your heart set on S-IPS, however)
Gateway FPD2x85W series (S-PVA)
Samsung 2x5T series (S-PVA)

If you want really nice colours on an LCD, check out some of Eizo's stuff or NEC's xx90 series (pretty much all S-IPS). Probably way out of your price range, though. :dface

In a similar vein:

My monitor, a 19" CRT, has recently developed the habit of going 'wavy' at certain points when the screen is mostly white all the way across.  The individual lines will move left and right, making it appear that a series of waves is running down the edges of the monitor.

It looks to me like the horizontal refresh is being thrown off for some reason, and I'm sure there's nothing that can be done that wouldn't cost more than the original $150 price tag of the monitor (which is about three years old, IIRC)

I've looked at Frys, Newegg, Bestbuy, and Office Despot, and I can't find anyone selling a decent 19" CRT that I can use to replace my current one.  Can anyone reccommend a good 19" CRT, and/or what places I could most easily purchase one? I want a quality CRT for gaming purposes and occasional coloring with GIMP (as opposed to what I've been using, which was a cheap 19" bought on rebates and a very small budget), and I'm looking to spend $200 to $400 on it, if not more.

Is it possible for a non-professional to take apart a laptop to clean the circuits? My brother spilled ice tea on mine earlier, so right now the N, B, and spacebar keys don't function; I'm typing with an on-screen keyboard right now. I want this fixed ASAP but Dad wants to wait a bit and see if it'll dry out or something.

...is it even possible to do such a thing? It's an HP dv8000.

You don't want to clean the curcuits, it's the keypad that's malfunctioning.  Trying to clean the curcuits is more likely to damage the board than fix anything.  The tops of laptops are sealed to prevent spilled drinks from penetrating the keyboard, though there's only so much that can be done to protect the insides.

You can do some things to clean the keyboard, though, and it can be removed by the anyone with a scrwewdriver and a bit of determination.  HP should have some diagrams on thier website on how to remove it.  Something is probably obstructing the contacts in the keyboard, and it's possible that you could get to that and clean it.  The way the boards are constructed, you can't just remove the yeks as on a regular comptuer keyboard, and it may not be possible to get to and clean the insides of the board properly.

Your best bet, however, is to get it repaired under warranty.  I have to deal with HP support all the time, and once you get through to a human operator and manage to get them to comprehend that yes, the board is broken and needs replacing, they are very prompt and efficient in getting your laptop, servicing it, and returning it to you.
The trick here is whether it's under warranty, since you spilled ice tea on it, as opposed to the keyboard wearing out, it will depend on the operator you get and what you tell them.  As the boards are designed to withstand a certain amount of dousing, it might fall under the warranty anyway.

Quote from: Reese Tora on June 25, 2007, 04:44:18 AM
I've looked at Frys, Newegg, Bestbuy, and Office Despot, and I can't find anyone selling a decent 19" CRT that I can use to replace my current one.  Can anyone reccommend a good 19" CRT, and/or what places I could most easily purchase one? I want a quality CRT for gaming purposes and occasional coloring with GIMP (as opposed to what I've been using, which was a cheap 19" bought on rebates and a very small budget), and I'm looking to spend $200 to $400 on it, if not more.

Hmm... I don't know if there really are any "good" CRT monitors left out there, at least not ones that you can still buy new. Nobody manufactures aperture grill based CRT tubes anymore, and the shadow mask displays just aren't as pretty, especially for graphics work. However, you can probably find some great deals on used Trinitron/Diamondtron monitors if you shop around. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with LCD screens.

Quote from: Roureem Egas on June 25, 2007, 11:10:09 PM
Is it possible for a non-professional to take apart a laptop to clean the circuits? My brother spilled ice tea on mine earlier, so right now the N, B, and spacebar keys don't function; I'm typing with an on-screen keyboard right now. I want this fixed ASAP but Dad wants to wait a bit and see if it'll dry out or something.

...is it even possible to do such a thing? It's an HP dv8000.

I've had a similar experience: My brother spilled a chai latte on one of my old laptops. The keyboard became sticky, crunchy, and generally usable. Even taking the thing apart for a good cleaning didn't help. It had to be replaced.

Even if the warranty has expired (or doesn't cover drink damage :animesweat), you should be able to buy a replacement keyboard from HP for ~$50. They're simple enough to install.

Quote from: Tezkat on June 27, 2007, 02:53:58 AM
Hmm... I don't know if there really are any "good" CRT monitors left out there, at least not ones that you can still buy new.

Might be an idea to get it fixed then.  It's probably something that a decent TV engineer could do pretty easily.

Now, I think my Microsoft optical mouse is going senile.  It works (most of the time - sometimes the light goes out and USB debugging information appears on the console) but the mouse pointer is trembling.  It doesn't matter where you move it, or what kind of surface it's on, the pointer gently shakes about 3 pixels each side.  Currently it's shaking horizontally although yesterday it was vertical.

Has anyone come across this before?  It might have to be new mouse time soon  :B

I have.  It got to the point where I had to unplug it and plug it back in to make it work, and then it just up and died completely.  It's in it's death throes at this point.  Get a Logitech.

hmm, not the best of solutions, repairing an old one.

My main criteria for 'good' in a monitor are twofold:
1: that it reproduce colors with a decent accuracy
2: that it support multiple resolutions accurately (specifically 800x600, 1024x786, and maybe 1152x864) in order to support both older games of mine and newer games as they come out (this being what lets out LCD screens as replacements)

It looks like I'm going to end up buying one of those cheap CRTs when the time comes.
(actually, I have an older monitor that I stopped using due to color bleed... getting the electron guns realligned to fix that might not be too expensive...)

Quote from: Reese Tora on June 27, 2007, 10:30:10 PM
hmm, not the best of solutions, repairing an old one.

I guess so, but you seemed to be saying that it was the raster circuitry that was failing rather than the tube itself, which means it's probably just a matter of replacing a single IC.  That and I hate waste...

QuoteMy main criteria for 'good' in a monitor are twofold:
1: that it reproduce colors with a decent accuracy
2: that it support multiple resolutions accurately (specifically 800x600, 1024x786, and maybe 1152x864) in order to support both older games of mine and newer games as they come out (this being what lets out LCD screens as replacements)

Yes.  This is my beef as well - most of the new display technologies are pixel-based.  When the pixel density starts to approach that of print this will become less of a problem, though.

Can anyone help me out? I'm looking for one or two screen recorders... And  I need these features:

Must haves:

• Sound recording
• fullscreen recording
• window recording (manual selection gets me down. I just want to record what's inside a window without having to set it myself.)
• RELIABLE recording that doesn't go out of sync with the audio

And something i'm looking for more than that is something to record older windows games (early to mid 90's), because a good lot of them use some funky kind of display method which makes it otherwise impossible to record with conventional video grabbers. For instance, the palette on this one game was... Off. And even then it wasn't about to play in anything but virtualdub, with broken sound. Any help is appreciated.

Quote from: Tapewolf on June 27, 2007, 04:15:56 PM

Quote from: Tezkat on June 27, 2007, 02:53:58 AM
Hmm... I don't know if there really are any "good" CRT monitors left out there, at least not ones that you can still buy new.

Might be an idea to get it fixed then.  It's probably something that a decent TV engineer could do pretty easily.

Not necessarily. TV repairmen are a dying breed, and CRTs often cost more to fix these days than to replace due to scarcity of parts. (Many of them are no longer manufactured.) It's a couple of years too late to be buying a nice 19" new, but I've seen used 19" Trinitrons selling for well under $100.

QuoteNow, I think my Microsoft optical mouse is going senile.  It works (most of the time - sometimes the light goes out and USB debugging information appears on the console) but the mouse pointer is trembling.  It doesn't matter where you move it, or what kind of surface it's on, the pointer gently shakes about 3 pixels each side.  Currently it's shaking horizontally although yesterday it was vertical.

Has anyone come across this before?  It might have to be new mouse time soon  :B

I've found that the wired versions of Microsoft optical mice (and I had this problem with 2 different mice) have a problem with the cord pulling slightly out of the mouse body, which drastically reduces responsiveness and makes the pointer a bit jumpy. I had to keep forcing the damn cables back in to keep them working. That may or may not be your problem.

Eventually, I came to my senses and switched to Logitech. :mowtongue

Logitech >>> Microsoft

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on June 28, 2007, 04:18:52 PM
Can anyone help me out? I'm looking for one or two screen recorders... And  I need these features:

Must haves:

• Sound recording
• fullscreen recording
• window recording (manual selection gets me down. I just want to record what's inside a window without having to set it myself.)
• RELIABLE recording that doesn't go out of sync with the audio

And something i'm looking for more than that is something to record older windows games (early to mid 90's), because a good lot of them use some funky kind of display method which makes it otherwise impossible to record with conventional video grabbers. For instance, the palette on this one game was... Off. And even then it wasn't about to play in anything but virtualdub, with broken sound. Any help is appreciated.

Hmm... early to mid-90's... So would that be pre-DirectX Windows games? Or MS-DOS binaries running windowed? (DirectX games are easy enough with something like FRAPS (http://www.fraps.com/)...)

What have you already tried?

Well, I can't get some things that use directX with fraps anyway, but that's beside the point. And no, not MS-DOS. Just freakish windows games that use some strange kind of full screen voodoo.

I recommend the best LCD you can afford  as cheap ones go pear shaped and pink screened in Five or so years of constant usage.
I currently use a CRT at home  for now though this is my second CDT in ten years...would love a good LCD though.

Okay, I have a wierd problem at work that I've been fighting with and I can't seem to find a working solution for it.

Before I start, a couple of things need to be understood.
-We can only use Windows Media Player 10.  Any other program has not been approved for use whatsoever.
-The solution needs to cost approximately $0.  There's no room in the budget for something like this.
-I work for the government, so these restrictions are ironclad.  No if's and's or but's about it.

Okay, here's my problem.  There is one guy here who has a Logitec QuickCam that he uses to record interviews he does with people.  These videos are saved in .AVI format and he is able to view them in WMP10.  The problem is that no one else can view it as a video in WMP10.  It only plays the audio.  It plays like it's an MP3 or something.

Now, on my computer (and mine alone, and it must remain that way) I also have installed DivX and Winamp.  The video will play in those two, but it will not play in WMP10.  So I know I have the proper codec to view it, but it just won't show any video in WMP10.  I used a tool called GSpot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/) to determine what codec is needed and it tells me that I already have the correct codec. 

I tried installing all the drivers and software that came with the QuickCam on my computer, but that did not resolve the issue.

I tried reinstalling WMP10 on my computer, but that too did not resolve the issue.

I checked my installed version of DirectX, and it's current.

I'm totally out of ideas at this point.

Why isn't WMP playing this video?  Do I need to do something special to WMP to make it work?

I would suggest that the codec is in the machine, but not linked to WMP.

You might be able to find the codec dll, and move it into the directory that WMP is running in?

That didn't do it, but it led me to a solution anyway.  It seems there are two executables for WMP10.
wmplayer.exe
mplayer2.exe

mplayer2.exe will view the video, and since it came bundled with WMP10, I don't have to worry about having to get extra software approved.  So all I need to do is change the file association on the machines of the people who need to view this video.  Thanks llearch!

So what kind of hassles would there to be to get something else approved?

VLC costs $0 and will play AVI files. The only thing going against it is that it's not WMP 10.

Otherwise I'd suggest looking at what codecs the guy with the camera is using, and compare that list to what the others have. I suspect the codecs you need were installed when the first guy installed his camera.

Quote from: DarkAudit on July 27, 2007, 01:18:15 PMVLC costs $0 and will play AVI files. The only thing going against it is that it's not WMP 10.

If we're going to start recommending solutions that he already says are unworkable, then I'll recommend MPlayer.

Quote from: DarkAudit on July 27, 2007, 01:18:15 PM
So what kind of hassles would there to be to get something else approved?

Red tape.  Lots of it.  I don't want to have to go through ten different people just to be able to install DivX.

Quote from: DarkAudit on July 27, 2007, 01:18:15 PM
Otherwise I'd suggest looking at what codecs the guy with the camera is using, and compare that list to what the others have. I suspect the codecs you need were installed when the first guy installed his camera.

I tried that.  I grabbed all the software he had and installed it all on my computer, but to no avail.

Also, it seems that the newest image has WMP11 on it, go figure.  But it too won't show this video, but again mplayer2.exe will.  Wierd.  And what's wierder is that, on the machines that have WMP11, if I set the AVI file association to mplayer2.exe, it keeps coming up with wmplayer.exe  It's like it doesn't want me to use mplayer2.exe or something.  I had to put shortcuts to mplayer2.exe on their desktops so they'll be able to view the videos.

Ah well.  It's a solution and that's all that matters.

I appear to have totalled my 20-year-old IBM M-series keyboard.  The actual mechanism itself has shattered after a heavy impact.  Is it true that there are modern reproductions available, or am I going to have to buy another one on ebay ?

Alternatively, are there any other keyboards out there with a decent feel?  Most of the ones I've used are pretty flat and lifeless.

The keyboard I've been using is pretty good so far as I'm concerned, but it's a USB keyboard, and it's glowy.

I'd suggest taking a look on newegg and reading the reviews, see what other people say about how the keyboards feel to use.

Quote from: Tapewolf on July 27, 2007, 07:07:09 PMI appear to have totalled my 20-year-old IBM M-series keyboard.  The actual mechanism itself has shattered after a heavy impact.  Is it true that there are modern reproductions available, or am I going to have to buy another one on ebay ?

I mentioned this in another thread.  IBM sold the rights to their Model M keyboards to Lexmark, and then Lexmark sold those rights to Unicomp.

Their Customizer seems to be the direct successor to the Model M keyboard.  Buckling Spring, drain holes, the whole nine yards.

I'm typing on one right now. (Edit: I take back what I said about drain holes.  I just looked, and it doesn't have `em)

(I've also seen plans for converting a Selectric to a keyboard.  *That* would be cool)

That would be this one here (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?topic=3135.msg133505#msg133505)...

Just in case anyone else is interested as well.

By the way, if you're interested in purchasing a Unicomp version of the Model M, Here's the Unicomp website (http://www.pckeyboard.com/customizer.html).  Be sure you get the buckling spring one.

I remember that I had a Dell keyboard, years ago.  It took about a year before the shift keys started to go.  Before I got a new keyboard, I think I had lost a letter key.  I've never lost a key on a Model M.

hey all mind if I ask an odd computer question
would an AMD Athlon be a better processer then a pentuim 2?

I'm just wondering because I've got 3 machines I was going to canablise to upgrade ny own and I don't know which would be better

Quote from: thegayhare on August 02, 2007, 09:31:40 PM
hey all mind if I ask an odd computer question
would an AMD Athlon be a better processer then a pentuim 2?

I'm just wondering because I've got 3 machines I was going to canablise to upgrade ny own and I don't know which would be better

I don't know but these links might help.

AMD Athlon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_microprocessors)     pentium 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_II)

Quote from: thegayhare on August 02, 2007, 09:31:40 PMhey all mind if I ask an odd computer question
would an AMD Athlon be a better processer then a pentuim 2?

Oh, wow.  Athlon is better than Pentium 2, but I don't think that's what you mean.

The Pentium 2 came out in 1997.  You may mean the Intel Core Duo, or the Core 2 Duo.

There are quite a few Athlons, and you have to know which one you're looking at.  If you do mean the Core Duo, that's 32-bit, and the Athlon64 is 64-bit, meaning that it supports more complicated instructions and can handle more RAM (important for image manipulation), but the Core Duo is two processors.  If it's just a 32-bit Athlon, then it's far inferior to the Core Duo.

The Core 2 Duo is 64-bit, at which point, things start to get hairy.

I know my athalon is a thunderbird model and it's registering at 950 mhz

and the pentium 2's highest rating is 450 

and no I'm sure it's a pentium 2

but thanks all

Which is odd since my sis bought her machine atleast a year after so I assumed the processer was better

Quote from: thegayhare on August 02, 2007, 11:15:16 PMI know my athalon is a thunderbird model and it's registering at 950 mhz

and the pentium 2's highest rating is 450 

and no I'm sure it's a pentium 2

Your Athlon will be better, hands down.

Here's a comparison:

Your Athlon:

* L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KiB (Data + Instructions)
* L2-Cache: 256 KiB, fullspeed
* MMX, 3DNow!
* Front side bus: 100-133 MHz (depending)

the best Pentium II (which is probably what you have, anyways):

* L1 cache: 16 + 16 KiB (Data + Instructions)
* L2 cache: 512 KiB, external chips on CPU module with 50% of CPU-speed
* MMX
* Front side bus: 66-100 MHz (depending)

ahh you know there is nothing quite like putting together an electronic device that works to make you feel like you can fix anything

last week it was rewiring phone jacks (wich any one can tell you is just too simple)  and today I built up 2 desktops and replaced my shattered laptop display...

and they all worked perfectly

Man I feel good

thats not going to last but realy I just have to bask in the feeling

Quote from: thegayhare on August 05, 2007, 09:09:43 PM
Man I feel good

thats not going to last but realy I just have to bask in the feeling

I know the feeling.  I got an old server (90's era IBM server running a powerpc chip) off a friend of mine who got it from a now closed down technology company, and I've finally gotten it to accept a new OS.  They didn't even bother to wipe the drives (I took care of that for them).

Cool!  What did you install on it?

Just about the only thing I could find that would load on it - Debian.

    I have recently discovered that I can no longer access properties from my desktop (right clicking desktop and selecting Properties).  Nothing appears every time I try to perform this action.  I have also tried through the control panel and still cannot access the properties.  Any suggestions?

Run virus scan and ad scan software, right off.

Are you having problems running other programs?
Have you made any recent changes to your computer? (updates, add programs, remove programs)

As this is a windows component, you may end up needing to reinstall windows if there isn't an external cause.  Some people recommend that windows be reinstalled regularly anyway. :B

--edit--

There's a computer help thread stickied at the top of this board... this probalby will/should be joined to that...

Run the virus scan from an external boot disk if possible.  If there is a virus it has probably already taken control, and running the AV software from a compromised system will potentially allow it to spread to every single executable on the PC.

mmmm
that sucks.
ill go ahead and do that now

I have Vista, and I copied ten cd's to the hardrive, but windows media player and Real player both refuse to play the files, and worse still windows media keeps insisting on playing these crappy samplers that came with the system.

Do you know if the CD's are DRM enabled?

There's nothing like a good error message:

(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/scraps/zprinter.png)

...and that was nothing like a good error message.

[You don't have to reply to this post, by the way]

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 13, 2007, 01:55:35 PM
There's nothing like a good error message:

(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/scraps/zprinter.png)

...and that was nothing like a good error message.

[You don't have to reply to this post, by the way]

Uninformative, and not helpful. Yep, that's a standard Windows Error Message, all right. Try deleting the printer, and reinstalling it. If that doesn;t work, try downloading newer drivers from the internet.

Quote from: Ryudo Lee on August 13, 2007, 09:10:45 AM
Do you know if the CD's are DRM enabled?

Oh, please. DRM on cd's are a joke and/or a mild irritant. If you can't rip a cd, download the mp3's from a p2p network.

Gabe, how did you copy the cd's to your HD?

Quote from: Vidar on August 13, 2007, 03:20:11 PM
Uninformative, and not helpful. Yep, that's a standard Windows Error Message, all right. Try deleting the printer, and reinstalling it. If that doesn;t work, try downloading newer drivers from the internet.

I got it going in the end.  I can't remember how.  The difficult bit is going to be figuring out how to send command data to it via the USB link, which does not appear to have created a device node e.g. 'COM9:'

The diagnostic utility bundled with it is for Windows 3.1.  (The printer was manufactured in April this year).  I might have to skip the USB altogether and use a serial cable instead.

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 13, 2007, 05:53:09 PM
The diagnostic utility bundled with it is for Windows 3.1. 

WTF!? 

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 13, 2007, 05:53:09 PM
(The printer was manufactured in April this year).

Combined with the above:

WTF?!  :erk

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 13, 2007, 05:53:09 PM
I might have to skip the USB altogether and use a serial cable instead.

I think you might want to buy a new, modern printer. One that has utilities for Windows XP and Vista.
That or try to download updates from www.zebra.com.

Quote from: Vidar on August 14, 2007, 08:43:29 AM
WTF?!  :erk

Indeed.  On the other hand I'm quite happy that they're still supporting DOS and Windows 3, after all, it's something you don't see every day...

Quote from: Vidar on August 14, 2007, 08:43:29 AM
I think you might want to buy a new, modern printer. One that has utilities for Windows XP and Vista.

Not my choice, and the ultimate target device is Windows CE.
Of course CE devices don't generally support USB either, but that's not my problem.  I'm going to write the actual driver logic first on Win32 and worry about the physical transport layer when things are settled.  It could end up being a TCPIP transport anyway, if they get the wireless bridge.

This is more like an actual problem: half a wizard.

(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/scraps/half_a_wizard.jpg)
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/scraps/half_a_wizard.jpg

I'll skip past the usual 'why did this happen' because I know it's not worth asking.  Is there anything that can be done to resize it, or am I going to have to kill the process?

You could use tab and enter to guess.

Or select the window and hit escape, which -might- match to the cancel button.

Generally, though, the resize functionality can be disabled, so you're SOOL, more or less. At least in unix you can override that, but...

Ok, this is something I should know, but I can't remember the right course of action. SO.

1. I'm going to be moving hardware.

Board: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe --> eVGA 122-CK-NF68
Processor: Athlon 64 3000+ --> Core 2 Duo E6600
And memory to go with it.

Now, I can't remember if I -have- to uninstall all the old drivers or what first, if i migrate all my stuff to the new setup. Keep in mind I'm able to do this without XP complaining.

2. Is there ANY way to upgrade a 32 bit XP installation to the x64 version? I REALLY don't want to have to reinstall everything and the world.

3. Can anyone tell me why my Commodore 64 has 0 bytes of memory? Seriously :<

1.  My friend actually just did a recent hardware exchange in his computer (pretty drastic) without having to uninstall/reinstall any software or drivers.  He may have just been lucky, though.

Quote from: xHaZxMaTx on August 19, 2007, 08:12:28 AM
1.  My friend actually just did a recent hardware exchange in his computer (pretty drastic) without having to uninstall/reinstall any software or drivers.  He may have just been lucky, though.

Did he also change microarchitecture, though?  Unless I'm missing something, Aridas is hoping to switch from normal 32-bit Windows to AMD64 and run all his software through some kind of emulation layer.  Since he'd have to replace pretty much every byte of the system software, I suspect that kind of migration is just this side of impossible.  I'll admit I haven't tried it myself, mind.
As far as I'm concerned, Windows is for running legacy apps anyway, but that's probably just me  >:3

It might be interesting to try importing the registries from the 32-bit installation into a parallel 64-bit installation.  It will probably just explode, though.

As for the C64 - difficult to say.  I'm not sure how it would boot if the RAM wasn't working.  If it were me, and I couldn't find anything on the 'net, I might try replacing the DRAM chips if you can still get compatible parts.  Probably best to look for some kind of C64 users group. 

Actually, everything is the same as always, other than the processor, motherboard, and chipset. I just need to find out if moving an XP installation in an entirely different computer setup is a bad thing, especially for the hardware.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 19, 2007, 09:03:37 AM
Actually, everything is the same as always, other than the processor, motherboard, and chipset. I just need to find out if moving an XP installation in an entirely different computer setup is a bad thing, especially for the hardware.

There are drivers and/or specific software for all of the above, especially the chipset. If you just move things, chances are that a lot of things won't work, like USB ports, network jack, onboard sound, etc. Chances are also good that trying to uninstall old drivers and installing the new ones won't completely work, and may cause conflicts when debris from the old install that couldn't be removed collides with the new stuff.

This is for all intents, a brand new machine. If you really want to get the most out of it, back up your documents and do a clean install. it may take time to replant all your favorite applications, but you won't be tearing your hair out from digging into the guts of the OS to figure out what's not working *this* time.

I appear to have overwritten the first megabyte or so of my main NTFS data partition with GRUB by typing sda11 instead of sda10.  While I have a backup from the 14th, I've made a number of highly entertaining Morrowind savegames which I would like to retrieve.
In any case, NTFS being a commercially-designed filesystem it should just be a matter of locating the backup superblocks and rebuilding the damaged portion, yes?

Currently I'm running the DiskInternal NTFS recovery software to see what it can do.  Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 19, 2007, 08:47:36 AMDid he also change microarchitecture, though?  Unless I'm missing something, Aridas is hoping to switch from normal 32-bit Windows to AMD64 and run all his software through some kind of emulation layer.

Didn't he say that he was running Athlon64 before, and Core 2 Duo now?  Both are 64 bit, so that part won't change.

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 19, 2007, 11:31:50 AMI appear to have overwritten the first megabyte or so of my main NTFS data partition with GRUB by typing sda11 instead of sda10.

I remember doing that.  I found this on NTK, but I've never used it.  It says that it will work on NTFS:

If you want to be truly loved, write a data recovery utility.  We can't imagine there's a day when Christophe Grenier isn't  swathed by offers of beers, steak dinners and marriage for TESTDISK and PHOTOREC, his two open source disk and file recovery utilities. The test TestDisk gives is sort of a final exam for your futzed partition block, quizzing your unreadable drive for tell-tale NTFS, HFS+, Ext3 or what-have-you data, and cribbing the lost partition data from what it finds.  PHOTOREC gives up on such fripperies as a filing system and instead grubs directly on the drive for file data, spotting beginnings for popular file formats and having a stab at where their ends might be hanging. PHOTOREC, as the name suggests, started as a utility for clawing back pictures from bit-rotten flash cards, but can now sniff out files from Ogg Vorbis to Microsoft Powerpoint. Both utilities will run on Mac, DOs, Windows, Linux, and probably vegetable oil for that matter.  Forget about them for now - when you need them, you'll find them.
         http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download
             - though you'll waste an hour searching NTK for "olive oil"

Quote from: superluser on August 19, 2007, 02:43:56 PM
Didn't he say that he was running Athlon64 before, and Core 2 Duo now?  Both are 64 bit, so that part won't change.

He said:

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 19, 2007, 07:52:58 AM
2. Is there ANY way to upgrade a 32 bit XP installation to the x64 version? I REALLY don't want to have to reinstall everything and the world.

...if that isn't an upgrade from Win32 to Win64, I don't know what is :P

As for the corrupt partition, I went with the DiskInternal thing.  £60 for a bunch of Morrowind savegames and screenshots.  It wouldn't even rebuild the partition, it just copies the recovered files.  Still, it should come in handy if anything worse happens.

New problem.  The damage I caused was part of a 64-bit Ubuntu installation.  I now have that booting in parallel with Windows 2000 and the 32-bit Linux.  The problem is, anything which causes it to go superuser causes the process to deadlock.
That includes anything like 'sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces', and the latter half of the boot process.
It shows up on ps as having a 'D' next to it, which IIRC usually means it's stuck waiting for I/O.  Any ideas?

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 19, 2007, 02:57:44 PM...if that isn't an upgrade from Win32 to Win64, I don't know what is :P

Right, but that's software.  You said that he was switching to AMD64.

Tape, sadly I don't have any 64 bit installs of Linux anywhere, so I can't say I've run across anything like this. :-/

Sorry I can't be more help.


(I'm only responding because I figure I'm well known as one of the Linux geeks on the forum...)

Quote from: superluser on August 19, 2007, 03:36:20 PM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 19, 2007, 02:57:44 PM...if that isn't an upgrade from Win32 to Win64, I don't know what is :P

Right, but that's software.  You said that he was switching to AMD64.

Yes, I meant the AMD64 version of Windows - as opposed to the regular IA32 version, or the IA64 version.
Switching the CPU is nothing, since it will run in IA32 mode by default.  Upgrading the OS from 32 bits to 64 bits in a somewhat different instruction set is something I haven't seen done before and is a far more interesting question.  In practice I suspect he'll have to do a complete install of the new OS, find that none of his hardware or time-critical software has support for it and then switch back.  It would probably be a lot safer to do a parallel install.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on August 19, 2007, 05:26:47 PM
Tape, sadly I don't have any 64 bit installs of Linux anywhere, so I can't say I've run across anything like this. :-/

It was having a very severe adverse reaction to the WiFi stick.  I've gone in and removed the broken drivers and compiled my own.  Last I saw it was working well enough to download the updates from Ubuntu - which probably means the knackered driver will have come back when I reboot...

toshiba satelite 115 I just got back from repair. 512 megs of memory (just the one thing it came with), and it starts crawling a little before the log-in screen for windows xp. A memory test utility I have pulls up nothing in terms of errors, so I don't think that's the problem. I think they had to replace the motherboard (lucky me my dad bought the extended warrenty for it, so it didn't cost me a penny), if that means anything.

Quote from: Kitsune Ascendant on August 25, 2007, 03:22:31 PMit starts crawling a little before the log-in screen for windows xp.

How do you mean crawling?  Going really slowly?  In that case, I think I'd start looking at swap space first.

here's a more detailed explaination:
it starts the boot normally, reaching the point just before where it would normally display the login screen, then goes so slow that it literally took two hours to get to a point where it normally would take seconds. then the actual login took another several hours, and when it finally did log in, I couldn't do anything, because I continuously got errors with... I think it was csvhost or something like that. "the memory at ... could not be read" stuff.

now, the damn thing is just getting thirty seconds or so into the boot, flashing a blue screen too fast to read, and restarting

oooh, bad... try booting in safe mode (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/boot_failsafe.mspx?mfr=true)

If it still crawls in safe mode, something hardware may have gone bad.

If that clears it up, you've probably got a crate load of unnecessary programs starting up (virus and spyware included) with your computer.

One of the first things I tried was booting in safe mode.

edit: Well, after poking around a bit with various things, I finally got it to the point where it's booting up again, and e remarkably faster it's still taking way too long and I seem to be limited in what I can do.

Task manager (pretty much the only thing I'm seeing now) is showing minimal memory and cpu usage.

Anyways, this swap space thing superluser mentioned might be worth looking into. how would I do that?

Quote from: Kitsune Ascendant on August 26, 2007, 05:08:36 PM
Anyways, this swap space thing superluser mentioned might be worth looking into. how would I do that?

Right click My Computer, hit Properties. 
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Settings button in the Performance box.
Click the Advanced tab.
The Virtual Memory area is what you're concerned with.  If you hit the Change button, you'll be able to set your swap space there.  As a rule of thumb, and I find that this does work out pretty well in XP, if you set both the Initial Size and Maximum Size to both be twice your RAM, it should help things along (for you it would be 1024).  This is a tweak that helps out Windows 98 more than it does XP, but I've found that it doesn't hurt XP, though more "experts" will tell you that you don't need to do this.

Quote from: Kitsune Ascendant on August 26, 2007, 05:08:36 PMAnyways, this swap space thing superluser mentioned might be worth looking into. how would I do that?

After hearing the other symptoms, I'm pretty well convinced that it's not a swap issue.  It still may be worth looking into your swap just to be sure.

EDIT: A QUICK GOOGLE SAYS THAT CSVHOST MAY BE A TROJAN.

I don't know a thing about XP, so there may be another csvhost that is OK, but you should probably look into it.

That depends on if you're typoing svchost, as svchost CAN be bad if it's malware under that name, but otherwise it's an important windows file.

Ok, new thing going on. I'm going to move my computerstuff from one to another since I'm not financially fit enough to buy a new, power supply. This is going to give me lots of problems since I won't be able to have this computer on while I'm setting up the other, thus making it impossible to do things right.

So obviously i'm going to need to figure out a few things...

One: The location of IE7 settings and history. I can get the favorites and probably save the more important cookies, but I can't figure out how to save the rest of it, which tends to come in handy if it's a page I don't want to fave. Typed urls are not so important, and I know those are in the registry. I'm mostly kinda in need of the autocomplete stuff, the saved passwords, and whatever else makes me spend less time doing things. I also need to know if there are any changes that make the 32 bit version incompatible with the 64 bit version, since that's where i'm headed with things.

Two: Some info on where Gaim/Pidgin stores its logs and settings, as I still need to find them from back when I used it. (and also, probably Trillian's settings, if they're not in the user profiles. They're a pain to set up.)Solved.

Three: Anyone know if there are any popular programs or things that don't work on 64 bit XP?Solved.

Sigh. If you were running Firefox and Thunderbird, I'd suggest Mozbackup. It saves all bookmarks, settings, cookies, passwords, and mail. I wiped the hard drive and went back to XP from Vista on this machine, and had two files to restore to get all my stuff back just as I had it.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 27, 2007, 05:07:20 PMOne: The location of IE7 settings and history. I can get the favorites and probably save the more important cookies, but I can't figure out how to save the rest of it, which tends to come in handy if it's a page I don't want to fave. Typed urls are not so important, and I know those are in the registry. I'm mostly kinda in need of the autocomplete stuff, the saved passwords, and whatever else makes me spend less time doing things. I also need to know if there are any changes that make the 32 bit version incompatible with the 64 bit version, since that's where i'm headed with things.

I don't use IE7 myself, but microsoft usually puts all settings in the registry, in one place or another.

There are two loactions that you can also find personal settings in IE6, which probably carry over to IE7:
Documents and settings\[user]\application data\microsoft\internet explorer
Documents and settings\[user]\local settings\application data\microsoft\internet explorer

I'm not sure where the passwords and all are stored, though, and my guess would be the registry (I also don't use remember passwords or autocomplete, as they are  security risks.)
Unfortunately, the location is most likely deliberately obfuscated in order to throw off data mining spyware, which would make it much harder to find normally.

QuoteThree: Anyone know if there are any popular programs or things that don't work on 64 bit XP?

64 bit windows should run 32 bit software just fine.  Drivers, OTOH, will not necessarily work, since they work as a lower level of the OS than does most normal programs.  Make sure any hardware you have or get comes with a 64 bit version of the driver, or that the manufacturer has such available on thier website.

Software that accesses hardware directly might not work, either.

Though, without software designed to take advantage of the 64 bit word length, there's not much point in having a 64 bit OS.

Unless the OS traps the instructions and emulates them, 64-bit OSes will not run 16-bit software, because the CPU doesn't implement them in 'Long Mode'.  So anything which has a 16-bit component to it - like the Zebra software - is likely to fail unless they make special provision for it.

I don't know if DOS software works, but you're probably going to use DOSbox anyway for stuff like that.

Anyone know why the MIDISPORT 4x4 firmware loader would stop working on my laptop after a kernel upgrade to 2.6.22?
As far as I know it's a script that uses FXLOAD to upload the firmware, after which the interface is recognised by the generic USB MIDI driver.

It's got to be something I left out of the kernel config, but I'm blowed if I can figure out what.  It still works on the desktop which I think is running '22 as well.

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 31, 2007, 02:29:57 PMIt's got to be something I left out of the kernel config, but I'm blowed if I can figure out what.  It still works on the desktop which I think is running '22 as well.

Well, what does diff -u say?

Quote from: superluser on August 31, 2007, 04:25:08 PM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 31, 2007, 02:29:57 PMIt's got to be something I left out of the kernel config, but I'm blowed if I can figure out what.  It still works on the desktop which I think is running '22 as well.

Well, what does diff -u say?

I'm not currently in a position to attempt that, but it will say loads of things because one is a dual-core AMD64 machine with SMP and the K8 optimisations turned on and SATA, and the other is a P3 laptop with all the wireless and SD-related options turned on in a vain attempt to make a PCMCIA wireless card and the onboard reader function.

And oh dear, the desktop is actually running 2.6.21.

**EDIT**
They broke the new kernel.
See also:  http://www.64studio.com/node/125

I've removed the pointless bitching. Those who were bitching should probably take a step back and think about it, because next time, I won't be friendly.

Misunderstandings are going to happen, that's ok. Fighting over it isn't.

you apparently also removed all the non-bitching that was bundled with certain bits of it.. For example, roughly 2/3 of the second post by me of the group you mined.

Oh no, now you have to type it again.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on September 04, 2007, 07:38:36 PM
you apparently also removed all the non-bitching that was bundled with certain bits of it.. For example, roughly 2/3 of the second post by me of the group you mined.

You're right. I did.

I get a choice - either I can delete a post entirely, or I can edit it. Since there were more than a few posts, I went for the former option en masse, rather than editing each one individually.

I -did- scan the posts, to confirm that there wasn't any irreplaceable content, and all the content I saw had already been listed in the posts I didn't delete, or was, in my judgement, moaning about how the offered solution wasn't helpful.

Feel free to copy anything you feel might still be helpful content into a new post, though.

that kind of breaks the sequence. You don't see people typing a question AFTER a response.

AMD systems always give me the most problems ever.

I just bought a new laptop.  An Acer Aspire 3100, it's got an AMD Sempron in it and an ATI Radeon XPress 1100 with a 40 gig drive and 1.5gb ram.

It originally had 512mb ram in it but I added a gig to it.

It came with Windows Vista on it, but with only 512mb ram in it I didn't want to even try running it with that.  So I wiped it clean and installed a fresh copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition.

Since I got it, programs that don't normally crash under XP for any reason have been crashing, mostly the games that I run on it.  At times, it mysteriously, and for no reason whatsoever, shuts off the wireless adaptor.  This should not happen.  To shut off the wireless adapter, I need to tell the Power Management program to turn it off, or use the little switch on the front of the laptop.

And then there's what's happened to me today. 
1 - All of a sudden, the ATI Control Panel complains that I'm trying to make changes to the Control Panel, but I don't have the priveledges to do so (even though my account is an administration account) and then it won't start the Control Panel.  I can start it manually, through Run.  Of course, it takes a good five minutes for it to even get there.  Until I get that error message, nothing else will start.
2 - My antivirus (Avast) all of a sudden says that it's virus database has been destroyed so it can't run.  WTF?  How did that happen?
3 - The DVD/CD drive in it won't read my StarCraft expansion CD, but it took the original CD.  The expansion CD is good.  It came up fine in another computer.
4 - I tried to do a system restore to fix all of these problems, but apparantly that's where I went wrong.  Now when I get through the login screen, it just sits there.  Explorer won't start.

I have been going to great lengths to keep bad software off this computer.  To that end, this computer has NOT even been on the internet since this past weekend.  It worked fine over the weekend.  It worked fine yesterday.  Heck I even gamed on it for a few hours yesterday with no issues at all, which was strange since it usually crashes at least once.  And when it's not in use, it's unplugged and left turned off.  And now today I can't even get explorer to start.

I'm gonna do a repair when I get home.  I will be very upset if I have to reinstall Windows... again.

These kinds of things never happened to me on Intel chipsets.  I always get stupid problems like this with AMD machines.  Is it just me?  Someone tell me it isn't just me.

Have you run Memtest86 on the system?

Apart from a brief fling with UMC about 15 years ago, I've always had AMD systems and apart from a stuffed motherboard they've generally been fine.

Thanks for that Tape.  It came up with a whole load of errors.  Now to find out which of these memory sticks is bad.  Of course now that means I get to spend more money on this thing...

EDIT:

As I feared, it's the new 1gb chip.  Lucky for me though, the place I bought it from put a lifetime warranty on their memory chips, so I should be able to get a replacement for free.

EDIT x2:

Explorer is still futz'd.  I'm still gonna have to run a repair when I get home.  I'm gonna keep a hold of that Memtest86.  That's a good diagnostic tool.  Thanks Tape.

Random errors is usually memory. Broken motherboards or PSU is generally more rare, in my experience.

FWIW, you may want to run memtest86+ for 12 or more hours to confirm that it's actually clear on the 512Gb - the other thing you might want to do is swap the bays that the memory is in, and see if it's the bay that's causing you grief, since it -may- be the socket that's gone bung (not likely, but best to check, right?)

Just a thought or two...

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on September 05, 2007, 01:53:23 PM
Random errors is usually memory. Broken motherboards or PSU is generally more rare, in my experience.

FWIW, you may want to run memtest86+ for 12 or more hours to confirm that it's actually clear on the 512Gb - the other thing you might want to do is swap the bays that the memory is in, and see if it's the bay that's causing you grief, since it -may- be the socket that's gone bung (not likely, but best to check, right?)

Just a thought or two...

I may do that myself this evening.

I upgraded this system from 2GB to 3GB of RAM, and now have 2 512MB sticks in one bank and 2 1GB sticks in the other. Ever since, the system seems a little sluggish in starting up applications if they haven't run for a while. Sometimes Firefox will take as long as 20 seconds to start up first thing in the morning. If the app has run in the last hour or two, it's as snappy as ever. I uninstalled Google Desktop to see if that helped, but there was no discernible improvement.

There aren't issues with apps once they're running, but since I made the change with the new memory, it just seems slower.

System is an HP Pavilion a1637c with XP Media Center Edition, and an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ CPU. Drive has been recently defragged. AVG and Zone Alarm 7 are the virus scanner and firewall setup.

Is there really something here needing attention, or is my perception just skewed?

My computer has similar problems, and the same program was used to test it (similar to Ryudo's problem, that is)

Unfortunately for me, it isn't the RAM.  I'd have suggested the same things everyone else did.  Anyway... DA

Check your motherboard documentation!

While you have the slots for it, and your computer can run it, it's quite likely that the RAM you have installed is more than your motherboard can support at the data rate your RAM is rated for.

Many motherboards that I've looked at for AM2, for instance, support a supposed 8GB of RAM, and a memory speed of DDR2 800 but don't support more than 2GB at DDR2 800, and only if the memory is of one of a few selected brands.

It's quite likely that all your RAM is being stepped down to a lower speed because of incompatibility.

It's also a good idea to make sure to double check which slots are which banks, since it is sometimes poorly or incorrectly documented.

@llearch
Hmm I will check the other slot anyway.  I'm certain that it was the newer chip causing the problems.  I pulled both chips and put the newer one in by itself and when I ran Memtest86 on it the errors popped up almost immediately, and when I tested the 512 chip it came up with no errors at all.  The good news is that they're replacing the chip at no cost (not even shipping).  Bad news, I'm not gonna see the replacement until well into next week.

My point was, Ryudo, that if you put them in different slots, the memory might not actually be broken. I expect it probably is, but it doesn't hurt to make 100% sure :-)

I tested them both in the same slot.  One produced errors and the other didn't.  I didn't test the other slot though.

hello all

well recently my computer has started acting a little screwy

When ever I play a game it'll work fine for a few minutes then the whole system will seize up.  the machine freezes and is compleatly unresponsive and I'm forced to do a hard reboot.

since I haven't changed anything in the past week and this just started 2 days ago I swapped out the battery hoping that a simple solution would fix it.  when that didn't work I ran my diagnostic and repair programs but it's still happening

does anyone have any sugestions?

Quote from: thegayhare on September 08, 2007, 04:39:33 PM
hello all

well recently my computer has started acting a little screwy

When ever I play a game it'll work fine for a few minutes then the whole system will seize up.  the machine freezes and is compleatly unresponsive and I'm forced to do a hard reboot.

since I haven't changed anything in the past week and this just started 2 days ago I swapped out the battery hoping that a simple solution would fix it.  when that didn't work I ran my diagnostic and repair programs but it's still happening

does anyone have any sugestions?

Do your diagnostic programs have any fan or temperature monitors? It could be overheating due to lack of ventilation or a buildup of dust. A hit or three with canned air may also help.

Again, try memtest86.  It wasn't clear from your post whether it only ever happens during games - e.g. will the machine run indefinitely doing less graphics-intensive tasks?  If so, it might be an overheating problem.  But do check the memory.

It usualy works longer, but not always, when I'm not doing something so graphic intensive.  but it'll still sieze on me.

I don't think it's a heating problem since one of the extra fans I installed it set directly at the heat sink of the video card, as for ventilation I've had the side panel off for years to increase airflow.

But on the other paw it could be heat since I don't seem to have any temp monitors and it only started to freak on me yesterday which like today is unseasonably warm but I will run the memtest you mentioned

oh great now my floppy drive isn't responding

gah

Can you burn a CD of it from the ISO image?

I'm currently downloading a program to burn the iso to disc
what a pain

okay

memtest says no errors

Windows Vista has, for whatever reason, decided to block my access to the internet every damned day for anywehre from three to twelve hours.  Randomly all websites will simply stop loading as though my connection is dead, but aim will continue running just fine.

Then, if I try to fix the connection using the options the OS gives me (Such as resetting the LAN, or disabling and then re-enabling it) it either tells me it can't fix the problem, or it tells me it's fixed but I'll still have no internet.  Either way, it doesn't fix anything and only causes me to lose access to aim as well, cutting me off completely.

Eventually it just stops doing this and the internet comes back.  I have no idea what the exact cause is, outside of that I have ****ing Vista.  When I have the money I'm going to get a copy of XP and be rid of all of the problems this horrible OS has given me. 

Quote from: Goatmon on September 13, 2007, 08:05:48 AM
Windows Vista has, for whatever reason, decided to block my access to the internet every damned day for anywehre from three to twelve hours.  Randomly all websites will simply stop loading as though my connection is dead, but aim will continue running just fine.

Then, if I try to fix the connection using the options the OS gives me (Such as resetting the LAN, or disabling and then re-enabling it) it either tells me it can't fix the problem, or it tells me it's fixed but I'll still have no internet.  Either way, it doesn't fix anything and only causes me to lose access to aim as well, cutting me off completely.

Eventually it just stops doing this and the internet comes back.  I have no idea what the exact cause is, outside of that I have ****ing Vista.  When I have the money I'm going to get a copy of XP and be rid of all of the problems this horrible OS has given me. 

*looks through cushions for loose change*

Bupkis.

Can't help you with funding, but going back to XP is for the best. I had Vista for about 4 months before I gave up on it and went back to XP. Got tired of the canel or allow over and over again, having to run some programs as admin to get them to work at all, or others just flat out blocked for no apparent reason.

A couple caveats, though. 1) Did this system come with Vista preinstalled? 2) Did it come with any recovery discs or options to burn them yourself?

I don't have links this morning, but there are reports from Slashdot that manufacturers are refusing to honor warranties or do tech support if the OS is changed from Vista.

If you have the recovery discs or burn option, there's a slim chance the manufacturer got lazy and you already have a copy of XP on hand. If you have a window where you can get on the internet, check their web site for support details.

Considering this system came with 1 gig of ram, I'm pretty sure it was meant to have XP on it, as you need twice that much for Vista to run without excessive lag for things that shouldn't lag.  Things like playing ANYTHING on Windows Media Player which, on this system, takes a good 15-30 seconds to start running any song or video.  I also have periods where Firefox simply stops responding altogether for a brief moment, because it apparently throws a conniption fit handling a whopping 3 ****ing instances of firefox while aim is going.  Lord knows I couldn't possibly put more stress on the CPU. 

And no, I don't recall ever seeing a Vista install disc.  It also won't let me burn a new disc, and the Help Menu explained that it's more convenient that I be required to use the Vista Disc in order to reinstall instead of create my own disc;  Try not to think about that statement for more than 5 seconds, or blood will shoot out of your nose.

Essentially, I have been completely screwed. 

Heh.

Although, if you can find someone with a key and disk, the licence for Vista -should- cover you for a licence of XP installed on the same machine, PROVIDED that it's instead of Vista.

So you don't necessarily have to pay for another copy of windows.

You might want to check on that, but that's my understanding of the situation.

Quote from: DarkAudit on September 13, 2007, 08:30:30 AM
I don't have links this morning, but there are reports from Slashdot that manufacturers are refusing to honor warranties or do tech support if the OS is changed from Vista.

I read that too.

Linky (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/12/0011209)

The unfortunate thing is that they have every right to do that, even though the OS has nothing to do with the problem he was sending the laptop for.

The thing I really don't get, is why companies and manufacturer's are treating Vista as though it's quality **** and that you have no reason to not want it, when that's clearly not the case.  Sure, it has awesome features that trump what XP could do, but at what cost?  You have less control over your PC than ever before, and it's nowhere nearly finished. 

This isn't a case of, say, simple opinion over how things should or shouldn't be, where both sides have good arguments and no one is completely in the right, such as with the Console Wars.  Vista is an incomplete system that was  thrown together.  It clutters things up and makes things run far slower than than would be running on XP.  It wouldn't be such a tremendous problem if they allowed people to buy ANYTHING ELSE. 

They care about is making sure everyone is using Vista, more than having satisfied customers, more than giving their customers a choice in how to do things, more than doing fair business.  I've never really had an experience that made me realize just what a dick Microsoft is, until I found myself stuck with this piece of **** OS. 

There's money involved in there somewhere.  I'm thinking that they get a kickback from Microsoft whenever they sell X many copies of Vista, and they probably can't get any more copies of XP.  Most everyone I know that's in the biz can't stand selling Vista, much less telling people that that's all they get.

It's not so much a kickback as it costs less than listed price to sell -all- your machines with Vista.

You get a kickback for not selling any other OS, and Microsoft gets to list what you're going to sell. If you're selling PCs, you're following Microsoft's rules. But they're not a monopoly, honest.

*cough* Sadly, all this is hearsay, because anyone who can confirm or deny it is under NDA...

If it's a name-brand PC like an HP or Sony, usually somewhere in their support folder there is an option to burn a recovery disc (using my HP Pavilion as an example, it's in the PC Help & Tools as HP PC  Recovery CD-DVD Creator). This is a vendor-supplied app, not Microsoft.

If the Vista-disc-demanding app you were using was a Microsoft app, you may not be as screwed as you thought. You may have just been looking in the wrong place.

If there's no vendor support folder in All Programs, a browse through the Program Files folder may be needed to find what we're after here.

Quote from: Goatmon on September 13, 2007, 09:44:56 AM
The thing I really don't get, is why companies and manufacturer's are treating Vista as though it's quality **** and that you have no reason to not want it, when that's clearly not the case.  Sure, it has awesome features that trump what XP could do, but at what cost?  You have less control over your PC than ever before, and it's nowhere nearly finished. 

--snip--

Name them?

Anyway, if firefox isn't working properly... is IE working any better?

I'd guess that there's either a problem in the high level area of the notwork network stack, or with the specific application.  If it's the latter, a reinstallation of your browser of choice might fix things.  If it's the former, you might as well be reinstalling the whole OS.

(right now, you can get an OEM copy of XP Pro for 150-160 USD, and that includes the license.)

--edit--

fixed network... freudian slip, there. :P

Quote from: DarkAudit on September 13, 2007, 06:52:31 PM
If it's a name-brand PC like an HP or Sony, usually somewhere in their support folder there is an option to burn a recovery disc (using my HP Pavilion as an example, it's in the PC Help & Tools as HP PC  Recovery CD-DVD Creator). This is a vendor-supplied app, not Microsoft.

If the Vista-disc-demanding app you were using was a Microsoft app, you may not be as screwed as you thought. You may have just been looking in the wrong place.

If there's no vendor support folder in All Programs, a browse through the Program Files folder may be needed to find what we're after here.

I'll look for that, thanks for the tip.  And to the other question, I didn't really have specific manufacturer's in mind when I said that.  I just mean that other companies are forced to support Vista as well, whether or not they think it's shit.  Like others have said, you can act ually lose your warranty for installing something other than Vista, which would make a tiny amount of sense if Vista was not a horrible OS (But we've already come to that conclusion, haven't we? ;P)

Why is Adobe software so expensive???

It also concerns me that the price of older versions of the software cost more than the that of newer versions.

Quote from: GabrielsThoughts on September 23, 2007, 08:10:22 PMWhy is Adobe software so expensive???

What software are you looking at?

There are alternatives that may be almost as good, as good, or even better than some Adobe products.  Some are free; some are not.

Ok, I have a problem:
I am attempting to use JavaScript to grab the URL(and also the source later) of an iframe on my page. This page is local, however the page loaded in the iframe is *not*. I could probably use IE and it would work, however I will do that only as a last resort. Basically, I am attempting to *open* an XSS hole in Firefox for my locally-hosted page(and ONLY locally hosted pages).

This script is going to be running in iframe #1 of this page, with the page I am attempting to track in frame #2(called 'twwindow'). Sofar, I have this code:
<Script Language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">//<
var curloc = "http://remote-page.com";
function getLocation() {
var loc = parent.frames['twwindow'].location.href;
if(loc != curloc) {
alert("page has changed");
curloc = loc;
};
setTimeout("getLocation();",100);
};
getLocation();

</Script>
This code basically checks the URL of the frame 10 times a second(Or at least should), and upon a change, triggers an alert(), and sets the new URL to its var.

It seems to work in Firefox with other local pages(same domain), but I get permission denied for another domain. (Yes, I know its supposed to do that, but how do I allow it for a certain page/site?)

Once I get this working, the alert() will be replaced by a custom function which will check the url against a list, and if it is in the list, it will grab the source(Via innerHTML) and run through it, adding new/updated data to what is displayed in this frame.

I hope someone knows how to do this(some special Greasemonkey script perhaps?), and can tell me.

Thanks in advance.


-RobbieThe1st

This is only a guess, mind you, but I think you would have to enable, in your browser, cross site scripting (or, atleast, enable it for the domains involved).

Quote from: Reese Tora on September 27, 2007, 01:17:25 AM
This is only a guess, mind you, but I think you would have to enable, in your browser, cross site scripting (or, atleast, enable it for the domains involved).

Yea, I thought of that myself, but I didn't find anything in the options dealing with enabling it, and a search of google turned up just about nothing(theres quite a lot about how to stop xss though...).

If the current version of firefox doesn't support it, I guess just find me some non-IE based browser that I can use for this purpose...


Edit:

It seems that what I am trying to do is not practical to do via normal javascript, so I have decided to go with a firefox plugin, which will do the trick, once I figure out enough XUL and plugin-Javascript to get things working properly.

-RobbieThe1st

Quote from: GabrielsThoughts on September 23, 2007, 08:10:22 PM
Why is Adobe software so expensive???

It also concerns me that the price of older versions of the software cost more than the that of newer versions.

I'm guessing they're forced to adjust costs to discourage illegal downloading, since piracy is the only reasonable method to get their software.

Honestly.  Their video editing software, Adobe Premiere Plus 2.0, costs $848.99.  $848.99, for video editing software.  When we're talking enough cash to buy a PS3 and  Wii (before tax) your software costs too much fucking money. 

Quote from: Goatmon on September 30, 2007, 04:19:39 AM

Quote from: GabrielsThoughts on September 23, 2007, 08:10:22 PM
Why is Adobe software so expensive???

It also concerns me that the price of older versions of the software cost more than the that of newer versions.

I'm guessing they're forced to adjust costs to discourage illegal downloading, since piracy is the only reasonable method to get their software.

Honestly.  Their video editing software, Adobe Premiere Plus 2.0, costs $848.99.  $848.99, for video editing software.  When we're talking enough cash to buy a PS3 and  Wii (before tax) your software costs too much fucking money. 

The problem lies in the fact that we're individual consumers trying to buy corporate level software.  Adobe, most of thier product line, is produced to be sold to companies who will be using the software to turn a profit, and can justify the cost.  The consumers that buy it are a small group of people, and the companies that use it, while alrger, do not make up a large group for the msot part.  Most consumer copies of this software are copies that, one way or another, they did not originally pay for for personal use. (company getting new version, giving away the licenses, employees taking home an instal disk, illegal copying on other forms)

The sad fact of the matter is, companies over-charge for software and hardware meant to be sold to other companies.  It's part economy of scale, part the fact that buisnesses will pay what they're told to pay, becasue they don't know any better, especially when if comes to technology.

Adobe does make consumer versions of some of thier software that costs less, but it also has less functionality. *shrug*

Quote from: Goatmon on September 30, 2007, 04:19:39 AM
I'm guessing they're forced to adjust costs to discourage illegal downloading, since piracy is the only reasonable method to get their software.

More likely because there are people out there who will only use Photoshop.  That means they can charge what they like.

QuoteHonestly.  Their video editing software, Adobe Premiere Plus 2.0, costs $848.99.  $848.99, for video editing software.  When we're talking enough cash to buy a PS3 and  Wii (before tax) your software costs too much fucking money. 

I disagree.  To keep things in perspective, the full version of AVID is about $9000 and that's way less than I was expecting.  You'd probably need a training course to use it properly, mind.  Not too long ago you would have done this on film or videotape and for a proper postproduction suite with audio facilities you'd be talking the best part of a million dollars for all the machines you'd need... editing unit, magfilm dubbers, console and probably a 24-track Studer as well.

$900 worth of software would probably do you some pretty slick training videos, but I doubt you're going to be making a feature film on it.  A guy I know did the training videos for Thorn EMI and he had about $60000 worth of kit, just to do fairly simple things on UMATIC and SVHS etc.  I'll have to ask him what software he uses nowadays.

For some crappy home video editing, you probably aren't going to be looking at Premiere in the first place.

It depends.  I used to be into AMV making, and there are some amazing vids out there that use premiere-level software.  Though I suppose it's pearls before swine, for the most part. 

hey umm i have a micro innovations webcam but i lost the driver for it does anybody know how i can get it?

Well if you know the model number, you can probably Google it.

Quote from: Goatmon on September 30, 2007, 04:19:39 AM

Quote from: GabrielsThoughts on September 23, 2007, 08:10:22 PM
Why is Adobe software so expensive???

It also concerns me that the price of older versions of the software cost more than the that of newer versions.

I'm guessing they're forced to adjust costs to discourage illegal downloading, since piracy is the only reasonable method to get their software.

Honestly.  Their video editing software, Adobe Premiere Plus 2.0, costs $848.99.  $848.99, for video editing software.  When we're talking enough cash to buy a PS3 and  Wii (before tax) your software costs too much fucking money. 

I don't really buy the piracy argument. Most people pirating that kind of software wouldn't have paid money for it in the first place (and are probably just doing it for the lulz). Even students too cheap to fork out for the academic versions could be future customers when they graduate and still need the software for work. And a lot of the people pirating Photoshop, for instance, don't actually need Photoshop. Their requirements could be satisfied by cheaper (or free) software. The current generation of free software is really good. The GIMP is almost Photoshop, and it can easily match some older versions of Photoshop in terms of functionality. But if you're gonna pirate anyway, you may as well pirate the best, amirite? :animesweat

Still the differences, between free/cheap software and the pro stuff matter enough to be worth the money, if you need it.

For a more practical example: I use an older version of Adobe Audition for my audio stuff. I got hooked on it while working for a local public radio station. You can do a whole lot of stuff with Audacity, which is free. Tapewolf uses it for most of the Radio Project mixing. I still use it for a few things, as well. In truth, you can accomplish almost anything you could in Audition with Audacity, some plug-ins, and some patience. But many things that you can do in Audition with a few mouse clicks require several minutes of fiddling in Audacity (or expensive external hardware). So I had to ask myself: Is "free" software worth wasting all those extra hours on projects? Audition isn't that cheap, but relative to what I spent putting the rest of my home studio together, it's fairly par for the course.

I need help with my psx emu because every time i play a game there is no sound no matter what plugin i choose, or what i click, it won't work. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, this is a much better place to ask.

/subtle

Once again i sneak on from work when i shouldnt- to rant

okay, so about a MONTH ago i moved into a new place, shortly thereafter the computer was assembled and we got all the wires strung across the place to connect to DSL, all we had to do was call up earthlink and get them to switch our service from our old place to our new place.

we called, a few days later they sent someone to visit our house and plug something into the wall to make sure we had a signal, which we did, and told us to call back a few days later

a few days later we call, asking about our service, which they say they have to process for a minimum of 3 days, please call back

4 days later just to give them extra time we call back, they say they will try to work it out and will call us by next week when its running. actually WE told THEM to call because they thought the best way to tell us our internet was working was to Email us, which tipped me off that something is not right.

a week and a half later we call back, signifigantly more angry, and they say they should be able to turn it on by the end of the day, or the next day... the day after we call again...

and they tell us "oh, you cant get DSL where you live, you are too far away from our office"..... we moved less then 3 miles from our old place, TOWARDS a major metropolotin area. they then suggest we use regular dialup, which they will provide 10 free hours of due to wasting a full 3 weeks of our time while we were paying for DSL.

however our computer had some coniption over a year ago, probably involving certan inbred members of my family dropping it, it no longer recognises the existance of the port the dialup cord connects to the modem.

mayhaps earthlink, or the specific office we are under, needs a tech support visit.

and this is where i slam my head against the wall and cry, the wife said tomorrow she will look for any other companies that will support DSL in the area.

Internet withdrawl symptoms are not fun, and im not sure what all of them are even

The phone lies are going to be the same, no matter who you pay for your DSL.  If you're really past the demark, you probably won't have any better luck with any other companies.  (Your local phone company would be the first to check with, they're the ones whose equipment everything will be running on.)

That said, I can't believe that Earthlink was d***ing you around like that!  I mean, incompetent tech support, fine, stupid sales reps, no problem.  But that they didn't just enter your new number in to thier little database and instantly determine your distance from the local switch and tell you flat out they can't offer service is downright criminal!

Quote from: Reese Tora on October 12, 2007, 02:50:04 AM
That said, I can't believe that Earthlink was d***ing you around like that!  I mean, incompetent tech support, fine, stupid sales reps, no problem.  But that they didn't just enter your new number in to thier little database and instantly determine your distance from the local switch and tell you flat out they can't offer service is downright criminal!

... which says to me that they're still dicking you around, and using it as an excuse to avoid doing anything.

Generally, the demarcation line form the local exchange (which is not necessarily the closest town, so you -may- have moved 3 miles -away- from the exchange) is the point at which the signal becomes low enough that you can't get more than the specified minimum of bandwidth.

It -may- still work, if you're willing to settle for less than that.

.. and you can always get a USB modem, or an internal one, instead of serial.

Hey, do any of you guys know of a freeware program to list IP's on a network?  I found a few shareware programs, but I doubt anyone here would want to pay for 'em.

nmap?

You want just a list, or a list of the active ones?

I need a list and the names of the computers that are using them.

Windows specific? Are the machines registered in the DNS, or are we talking WINS resolution?

Are you happy with "most, but a few leftover odd ones that need manually checking" ?

Something like this:
nmap -sP -R --system-dns 192.168.0.0/24 | grep -v down.

Would do most of the grunt work for you... Assuming DNS is up to date.

Windows specific.  I got it to tell me which ones are up and what they most likely are, but I'm not getting computer names, which is what I need.

Thus far, my command line is nmap -v -sP -oN C:\output.txt xxx.xxx.xxx.0-255

And I get a list that's mostly useful with items like:

Host xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx appears to be up.
MAC Address XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (Dell)

That's useful because I can differentiate which ones are my workstations and which ones are APC control cards, routers, firewalls, etc.  But I need computer names so I can match IP's to computers.  See what I mean?

So your DNS doesn't work. Hmm. You're gonna need WINS resolution, which is not so good.

ping -a will do WINS resolution, but that's on a single host basis, so you'd have to script the sod up...

My orkmate here suggests Look@lan (http://www.lookatlan.com/) and AuditISX (http://auditisx.krolrules.com/) as possibly doing what you want... Since he supports the windows machines, I suspect that may be of more help...

Ah, Look@LAN was just what I needed.  I remember using that a long time ago, in an earlier version at a different job.  Just couldn't remember the name.  Thanks llearch.

Bleh, I've become increasingly frustrated with how lagging this machine is, since it was built to run XP, but got Vista installed on it.  I've heard that it's possible to use external Disc space as makeshift memory.  Does that actually work?  If so, how can one do that? 

*wince*

The performance for that can't be good.

You're more likely to get a speed improvement by defragging, removing excess files, tidying up the disk, shifting large files off onto the external disk, and defragging again.

And, of course, adding more memory.

(although probably the easiest speed increase is reinstall with XP...)

It sucks, I know, but that's how it came.  I'd install XP if I had the option, but I don't have an XP disc of my own.  I've got a friend who'll lend one to me but I don't have the means to get over to his house anytime soon.  And as it is, I have 202 gigs free, out of a total of 288, so it's mostly free already.  I'll see about defragging though.

Any idea on how to get emergency memory?  A friend suggested that I could even use my external hard drive as extra memory, if I have enough space to spare on it. 

Mind you, it'd only be a temporary solution; I plan to get more ram, but for now I don't have the money. 

You can use disk space as memory, in terms of swap space.

An external disk is even slower than internal, so your preferences for working space are (with speeds):
L2 cache (~10 nano seconds)
Memory (~10 micro seconds)
internal disk (~10 milliseconds)
external disk (~30 milliseconds, at a guess)

That's a guess, but it's roughly right, so it gives you an -idea- of how much preference the various levels have.

I'm not entirely sure of what you're getting at.

<----Computer retarded. 

You can sue a good flash memory stick for swap file space.  Flash memory is/can be faster than internal HDD.

If you default installed Vista (most likely) then Ready boost should already be enabled.  Just stick your flash drive into the nearest USB port, and, if it's fast enough for ready boost, your computer will automatically start using it as a swap file.

point of note: do NOT remove this stick of memory without first safely removing it from the system! you may end up corrupting your swap file and crashing your computer.

you should also be able to check ready boost settings on the flash stick by checking the stick's properties in "my computer"

Quote from: Reese Tora on October 17, 2007, 07:53:40 AM
point of note: do NOT remove this stick of memory without first safely removing it from the system! you may end up corrupting your swap file and crashing your computer.

Ooh!  A self-destruct button!  You know, that almost makes me want to try out Vista.

Quoteyou should also be able to check ready boost settings on the flash stick by checking the stick's properties in "my computer"

Pretty much all the memory sticks I've seen the other day explicitly said they were NOT suitable for ReadyBoost.  In any case it's likely to cost the same as a new memory module and be orders of magnitude slower.

Another fun fact is that flash memory has a limited number of erase cycles.  It should be fun to watch when one of the flash cells containing kernel-mode code starts to die  :mwaha

Note that "limited" is fairly large in actual numbers.

However, also note that swapfiles tend to get read/written a -lot-...

It's left as an exercise for the reader to figure out how long the flash file can be used before it dies...

Goatmon:
I mean: Disk, while cheaper, is much slower than memory. Much Much slower. Like, 1000 times slower. While you -can- use external disks, flash disks, etc, as additional swap space, the aforementioned issues (don't unplug before windows is done with it, write cycles, etc) make it a losing game, really. It might eke things out for a while, but it's not really optimal.

You're likely to get about as much speed as you're gonna get from defragging the disk. At least, IMO. I don't run vista, so there's probably some neat things you can do with it that I have -no- idea about. After all, it's twice the size of XP, so there's got to be -something- useful in all that bloat...

Quote from: Tapewolf on October 17, 2007, 08:02:45 AMAnother fun fact is that flash memory has a limited number of erase cycles.  It should be fun to watch when one of the flash cells containing kernel-mode code starts to die  :mwaha

Yeah, this is why I tried to find a small (<10G) hard drive that didn't have a flash cache to use for my swap drive.

Quote from: Reese Tora on October 17, 2007, 07:53:40 AM
You can sue a good flash memory stick for swap file space.  Flash memory is/can be faster than internal HDD.

If you default installed Vista (most likely) then Ready boost should already be enabled.  Just stick your flash drive into the nearest USB port, and, if it's fast enough for ready boost, your computer will automatically start using it as a swap file.

point of note: do NOT remove this stick of memory without first safely removing it from the system! you may end up corrupting your swap file and crashing your computer.

you should also be able to check ready boost settings on the flash stick by checking the stick's properties in "my computer"

That sounds...complicated.  And dangerous. >_>

I think I'll just wait until I can afford some more ram. 

heh.

You -did- defragment your disk, right? It's possible that that could be the cause of the slowness.

Alternatively, this link (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2181865,00.asp) has a bunch of suggestions for things you can do to optimise the speed. It may be that turning _off_ all the flashing menu shite that Microsoft feels improves your computer-using experience will, well, improve your computer-using experience.

Usually you can search the problem on Google and something will come up

The major problem with that is coming up with good words to search on. Which is why, since not everyone can do that, I tend to link to some useful, or at least useful-looking pages.


And welcome, btw.

Okay, we have DSL. One system is a Windows Vista with a router and all that, well the other system is a windows me, and has to have a adapter. Whenever I install the adapter and everything, it says it can reach the access point, but cannot establish a internet connection. Could it be the distance between machines, or interference? That's what I get from it, but I'm not so sure.

"adapter" ?

There's a few things it could be. I'd say likely the adapter is the issue, but it could be any number of things.

Could we have more details on what the adapter is? Like, say, the name off the front of it or something, if you don't have anything else?

Its a linksys wireless network adapter.

Ah!

So.. your W2k machine has wireless to get to the DSL wireless point, but your WinME machine (beat me, whip me, but don't Win ME...) doesn't have wireless, so it needs a wireless adapter to reach the DSL wireless point?

Am I following you correctly, here?

Got WinME specific drivers for it?  Betcha WinME doesn't support it natively.

Basically, no it has the drivers for it. I checked that out. There is just no connection coming up. Could it also be a fire wall issue?

Possibly.  What firewall is on WinME?

okay, i got one.

a while ago my mouse gave up the ghost, and the wife picked out a wireless mouse to replace it. theres a few available usb ports in back of the tower, but none of them seemed to work. guess the signal couldn't reach the mouse. so the wife puts the wireless receiver into the only usb port on the front of the tower... but now i cant use my flash drive without removing the tower from my computer desk and risk fouling up the complex nest of cords.

is there some problem i can fix so that i can put the wireless receiver in back or can the signal not penetrate the wood of the desk and half the tower in between?

The signal should be able to penetrate the wood, if wood it be. (not that it's likely to be anything metal based in home furnishings!)

How long a cord does the wireless reciever have, or is it a USB stick with no extension?

If you can run the cord up the back of your desk, ther will be less interference from your computer (metal case, EM interference from electric cooling fans) and the RF should be able to penetrate whatever wood or cardboard backing the desk has higher up.

Two things you wanna be sure of...

1 - The USB ports in the back actually work.  Try using a known good USB device (such as your flash drive) in each of those ports.
2 - The mouse and it's reciever are porperly sync'd up.  There's usually a button on both the mouse and reciever that you have to push to sync them.

:< Heya.
I'm wondering what you guys would recommend for an Intel desktop that just ...died out of the blue. Will not turn on any more at all. Other than 'buy a new computer,' obviously.
Thanks.

That sounds like the PSU. It could be something else, of course, but that's the likely cause.

You might want to get some test ram, like borrow some from a friend.

Definitely sounds like the PSU, if it's completely dead.

That happened to my Dad's computer - one day it simply refused to boot up. I said "I bet it's the PSU", we took it to the local computer tech, and sure enough...

Fortunately, PSUs are not usually that expensive, and if you have some knowledge of your machine's innards, you can fit a new one yourself and save even more. I've done it myself - all you need is a screwdriver and a steady hand. (And a bit of patience.)

Quote from: LionHeart on November 02, 2007, 06:05:37 AM
Definitely sounds like the PSU, if it's completely dead.

Not necessarily - if the motherboard isn't giving the correct Power Good signal back to the PSU, the system will be pretty dead.  That said, I would replace the PSU first since it's cheap.  If that doesn't help, you may have to try replacing the motherboard as well.  But definitely start with the PSU.

QuoteFortunately, PSUs are not usually that expensive, and if you have some knowledge of your machine's innards, you can fit a new one yourself and save even more. I've done it myself - all you need is a screwdriver and a steady hand. (And a bit of patience.)

For a moment I read this as 'fix it yourself'.

Sometimes, if my little brother and I are logged on at the same time, and one of us tries to log off, the screen goes black and won't respond anymore. This only seems to happen to me and my brother, and it's been happening less and less because we've been careful, but I've always wondered what causes it. Any idea why this might happen?

Quote from: Black_angel on November 05, 2007, 02:51:06 PM
Sometimes, if my little brother and I are logged on at the same time, and one of us tries to log off, the screen goes black and won't respond anymore. This only seems to happen to me and my brother, and it's been happening less and less because we've been careful, but I've always wondered what causes it. Any idea why this might happen?

Logged on to what? A game? A site? A single PC?

Help us help you.

Just the PC. We haven't tested other variables, seeing as we just wanted the thing to work. I finally realized that this thread might help us, so, here I am.

Huh. I typed up a thank-you for you guys, but I must not have posted it or something. :B I dunno. But hey, thanks for the advice! It's great to hear that it won't take too much to fix, if it is the PSU. :)

Quote from: Black_angel on November 05, 2007, 07:53:06 PM
Just the PC. We haven't tested other variables, seeing as we just wanted the thing to work. I finally realized that this thread might help us, so, here I am.

Are you using Fast User Switching in Windows XP?

Is the PC attached to a network domain?

Quote from: Ryudo Lee on November 06, 2007, 08:57:35 AM
Are you using Fast User Switching in Windows XP?

Quote from: Tapewolf on November 06, 2007, 09:10:38 AM
Is the PC attached to a network domain?

Yes, and I'm not sure. It's hooked up to a wireless router.

Does this describe your problem? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/872789/en-us

 :U Yes! I just sent the link to my dad, so hopefully this problem will be fixed in a little while. Danke schön!

Sometimes the MSKB can actually be useful.  Glad to help.

Well I finally got my hands on a copy of XP so I can downgrade (if you could call it that) from Vista.  Only it's blocking my attempts becasue I'm trying to install an older version, and I don't know how to enable it to install.  Any suggestions? 

Quote from: Goatmon on November 08, 2007, 09:26:22 PM
Well I finally got my hands on a copy of XP so I can downgrade (if you could call it that) from Vista.  Only it's blocking my attempts becasue I'm trying to install an older version, and I don't know how to enable it to install.  Any suggestions? 

You'll probably have to boot from the CD and do a fresh install. You'll lose all your installed applications if you do.

Probably your documents, too. I don't know if it works in reverse, but the WINDOWS.OLD directory Vista created when I did a fresh install had all my documents, music, etc. stashed away there. I just had to move them to their new homes.

So your case will probably need to back up all your documents, and install as a fresh install instead of an upgrade.

I've already got everything backed up.  I need to create a boot disc so I can have it reformat the hard drive and allow me to install XP, becuase it won't install it otherwise since it's technically a downgrade.

However, I don't have a floppy drive, and it's not allowing me to format a CD or DVD into a MS-Dos boot disc either.  Frankly, I'm sick of dealing with it for tonight, and I'll find out what I have to do tomorrow.  This shit is exhausting. 

Quote from: Goatmon on November 08, 2007, 11:46:41 PM
I've already got everything backed up.  I need to create a boot disc so I can have it reformat the hard drive and allow me to install XP, becuase it won't install it otherwise since it's technically a downgrade.
However, I don't have a floppy drive, and it's not allowing me to format a CD or DVD into a MS-Dos boot disc either.

I don't suppose it would.  That's a very convoluted process, since floppies and CDs are fundamentally different in the way the data is stored.  Even if you could, the only way to install XP is to boot from the XP CD itself, AFAIK - in short, you're barking up the wrong tree  :B

With Windows 2000 and prior, the CD came with a set of disk images to boot from floppy.  I think XP finally abandoned that since as a rule, if your machine can't boot from a CD, it's probably too old to run XP anyway.

What you -could- do is find a linux boot cd, boot off that, and run a shell.

In that, run "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=1024" - which will wipe the first Mb of the disk with zeros.

Once that's done, it'll look like an unused disk to the Windows install cd. Of course, that's not going to let you save anything, either...

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on November 09, 2007, 05:19:32 AM
What you -could- do is find a linux boot cd, boot off that, and run a shell.

Ah, I missed that he was trying to use the boot cd to clear the existing system.  Does that mean the install disk just shuts down before it allows you to get to the disk partitioner?

The last two posts of this thread make little to no sense to me.  Could you translate that into retarded for me? 

Quote from: Goatmon on November 09, 2007, 07:45:04 AM
The last two posts of this thread make little to no sense to me.  Could you translate that into retarded for me? 

The linux one, no.

As for mine, I thought that the XP installer would bring up a list of disk partitions and offer to let you erase them prior to installing XP.  Are you saying that if you do this on a machine which previously had Vista on it, the installer will abort before it even gets to that point?

That's exactly what it does.  This isn't a case of having to simply go through a few options and menus to reassure the computer that I know what I'm doing, that's not it at all.  Microsoft has long since abandoned the notion of convenience, and made it blatantly obvious that they care more about having control over your PC than they do about bringing you a product that works. 

Without a separate boot disc to erase Vista without a trace, my XP disc is nothing more than an expensive coaster. 

(I should also mention that my PC doesn't have a floppy drive so, as of now, I don't even have the option of creating a floppy boot disc.)

Quote from: Goatmon on November 09, 2007, 08:07:57 AM
Without a separate boot disc to erase Vista without a trace, my XP disc is nothing more than an expensive coaster. 

That's remarkable because it would have made their life a misery too during testing.  It would prevent you from being able to dual-boot and all...

Okay.  Can you boot from the Vista install CD, get to the point where you can delete the existing partition, delete it and then turn it off so you can boot from the XP disk?

The only other thing I can think of is to use a Linux boot disk.  Llearch suggested doing it from the command line, which is what I'd do personally but is probably not the answer for thee.  However, you should be able to do more-or-less what I suggested with the Vista CD... pretend you're going to install Linux, and use the point-and-click disk manager to blow Vista away, then reboot he machine and install XP.

I don't have a Vista CD.  This computer didn't include one when I bought it.  In fact, none of the last few PCs I've bought actually came with the OS disc. 

The XP disc I have now is the first copy of windows I've ever purchased. 

Quote from: Goatmon on November 09, 2007, 08:29:46 AM
I don't have a Vista CD.  This computer didn't include one when I bought it.  In fact, none of the last few PCs I've bought actually came with the OS disc. 

I thought that might be the case.  In that case you'll probably have to download Ubuntu or something, since you probably can't get vista itself to nuke the partition while it's still running.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Eh?  You mean install a new OS over Vista, and use XP from there? 

What you can do is make a DOS boot CD and then format the drive there.
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Downright_pages/Boot_Disks_and_Boot_CDs.htm
Just scroll down to the section that says "Boot CD – DOS 6.22 boot CD with internal CD-ROM support (USA)".  They come in ISO format so all you do is use your favorite CD burning software.  Then you just boot from the CD and start playing with FDisk and Format.

Quote from: Goatmon on November 09, 2007, 09:13:59 AM
Eh?  You mean install a new OS over Vista, and use XP from there? 

Pretty much, except you don't need to finish installing it, just get as far as where you've removed Vista, and then use XP from there.

Quote from: Ryudo Lee on November 09, 2007, 09:22:04 AM
What you can do is make a DOS boot CD and then format the drive there.
.....
Just scroll down to the section that says "Boot CD – DOS 6.22 boot CD with internal CD-ROM support (USA)".  They come in ISO format so all you do is use your favorite CD burning software.  Then you just boot from the CD and start playing with FDisk and Format.

I'll have to check the site, but I'm not sure that's legal.
That's not legal  :<

Quote from: Tapewolf on November 09, 2007, 09:35:47 AMI'll have to check the site, but I'm not sure that's legal.
That's not legal  :<

Legally, you can do the same thing with a Linux boot disk.  I think that there are a few distros actually designed for this sort of thing.

[Google google]

Knoppix is the famous one, but the GParted (http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/) LiveCD looks promising, as well.

Many computers now do not come with physical recovery media. They have gone to the option of having the user burn their own set. check your applications folders and menus (usually in a "Maintenance" or "Support" category.

I had to burn my own CDs on the laptop and desktop PCs I bought recently.

Quote from: Ryudo Lee on November 09, 2007, 09:22:04 AM
What you can do is make a DOS boot CD and then format the drive there.
Just scroll down to the section that says "Boot CD – DOS 6.22 boot CD with internal CD-ROM support (USA)".  They come in ISO format so all you do is use your favorite CD burning software.  Then you just boot from the CD and start playing with FDisk and Format.

Another problem with this is that MSDOS 6 isn't going to support LBA, which the Vista machine will almost certainly need.  It might garble the partition table enough to throw XP off the scent, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I think the GPARTED disk is probably the best for what you (Goatmon) are trying to do.  Either that, or make some Vista recovery disks.

Quote from: Tapewolf on November 09, 2007, 09:35:47 AM
That's not legal  :<

How do you figure that?  

From my POV, seeing what their legal disclaimers say, the software on the site is their copies and they're allowing them to be used under certain restrictions.

On section 6 of their Terms and Conditions of use found here (http://www.answersthatwork.com/Legal_documents/terms.htm) it says:
"The material used on AnswersThatWork website, including without limitation, text, logo, software, graphics, illustration, is the property of AnswersThatWork and is protected by Copyright, Trademarks, and other laws. You may use this material for personal and commercial purpose subject to the conditions expressed in clauses 6 and 7, and subject to any non-AnswersThatWork copyrights acknowledged within specific documents. You do not have the right to copy, transform, modify, re-publish, any of the content of this site without the written permission of AnswersThatWork."

So long as he's not modifying the ISO and only using it for it's primary function, then there's no legality issue here.

Quote from: Ryudo Lee on November 09, 2007, 12:49:41 PM
From my POV, seeing what their legal disclaimers say, the software on the site is their copies and they're allowing them to be used under certain restrictions.
So long as he's not modifying the ISO and only using it for it's primary function, then there's no legality issue here.

Well, from what I can see, they seem to be distributing Microsoft's copyrighted code without permission.  While it's dead useful, I'd be very surprised if it's legal to do so (notwithstanding some US-specific exemption clause which I am unaware of).

It's been a while but I'm fairly sure that the terms of use of MSDOS and Windows 3.11 prohibit it being redistributed, and even if it does under some kind of resale provision, it's a transfer of ownership which means they must remove their copy.
From the looks of it, what they seem to be doing here is sub-licensing it which I'm 99% sure is an absolute no-no...

Well I'm sure that if MS actually cared about it, they'd have already sent them a Cease and Desist letter.  They do pay people to look for that kind of thing.

EDIT:
A thought occurs.  These aren't full copies of Windows or the full version of MS-DOS.  These are recovery disks, which is perfectly legal.  Even the MS-DOS recovery disk is simply a skeletal system with boot functionality and basic system utilities.  It's practically the same as the old Win98SE bootdisks that you can find anywhere.

Quote from: Ryudo Lee on November 09, 2007, 03:14:58 PM
Well I'm sure that if MS actually cared about it, they'd have already sent them a Cease and Desist letter.  They do pay people to look for that kind of thing.

True, although it took them a while to close down that slipstreamed service pack thing.

QuoteA thought occurs.  These aren't full copies of Windows or the full version of MS-DOS.  These are recovery disks, which is perfectly legal.  Even the MS-DOS recovery disk is simply a skeletal system with boot functionality and basic system utilities.  It's practically the same as the old Win98SE bootdisks that you can find anywhere.

It's still the OS kernel.  Caldera made a tidy sum just licensing their kernel (i.e. ibmbio, ibmdos and command.com) for use in PartitionMagic and the Ontrack disk manager.  General Systems did too, and there was another company as well whose name I can't remember.
**EDIT - Datalight ROM DOS.  That was it **

Either way, I'm not sure it would actually do what he needs since MSDOS 6 won't support disks bigger than 8 gigabytes without help  :3

...

The windows XP install disk should not be failing when you go to install. (I've installed XP from newly bought XP disks on five or six vista laptops in the last few months)

When you boot from the CD, what options do you select to get to the point where the install fails?
you should be moving the cursor over the Vista partition, pressing 'D' 'enter' and 'L' then either selecting the newly unpartitioned space or pressing 'C' to create a new partition if you want something smaller than the entire drive

(side note: do make sure to identify the devices on your ocmputer and get copies of the XP drivers for them, I've wasted hours getting the right drivers for the laptops I reinstalled...)

Quote from: Tapewolf on November 09, 2007, 12:48:41 PM

Quote from: Ryudo Lee on November 09, 2007, 09:22:04 AM
What you can do is make a DOS boot CD and then format the drive there.
Just scroll down to the section that says "Boot CD – DOS 6.22 boot CD with internal CD-ROM support (USA)".  They come in ISO format so all you do is use your favorite CD burning software.  Then you just boot from the CD and start playing with FDisk and Format.

Another problem with this is that MSDOS 6 isn't going to support LBA, which the Vista machine will almost certainly need.  It might garble the partition table enough to throw XP off the scent, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I think the GPARTED disk is probably the best for what you (Goatmon) are trying to do.  Either that, or make some Vista recovery disks.

I'm quite sure Vista doesn't make recovery discs.  I went through the system looking for a recovery wizard that would enable me eto do so, and it informed that, unlike XP which made users go through the trouble of having to make a new disc, Vista allowed it's users to recover and all I would need is the Windows Vista Installation disc. 

It's very good that it informed me of this, because otherwise I never would have realized that such a thing is actually better, and not a gigantic fucking inconvenience. 

My laptop keyboard isnt working, I had to compile this post with a copy paste method.

Rebooting didn't help?
Is it still under warranty?

Right click on 'my comptuer' and select the manage option, select 'device manager' from the left box.
Is there an entry in the right pane with a yellow triangle or a red x on it?

It's likely to be a hardware malfunction, you're best bet would be to send it in to the manufacturer for service.

Alternately, if you think the keyboard mayu have come loose and you're comfortable with opening it up, you can go to the manufacturer's website and find instructions for installing the keyboard, and use them to open your laptop up and check to make sure that the keyboard is properly connected. (if it is, you'll still need to send it in... or get a replacement keyboard and install it yourself.)

Well, this isn't the first time this has happened, and I suspect it happened this time due to my cat most likely walking on the keyboard while I was gone. The last time this had happened it was when I had fallen asleep at the desk, with the laptop still open. (I suppose I ought to be embarrassed by that...)

However, due to it being a shared computer, I wanted to see if there were any other options open before needing to shutdown.

Compiling messages from other ones was definitely getting old though...

By shared, I assume you mean that it has fast user switching enabled, and other people are logged in and have applications running?

How long has it been since the last time it was restarted?

If it's been longer than a couple days, a restart really is a good idea anyway.  It's amazing how many problems in windows can be solved with a reboot.

Well it's Windows Vista and I would assume this to be the case, however my mother and I just share the same account/I use hers.

Edit: Right, and doing what you said, it actually tells me the keyboard is working properly.

BTW, as opposed to cutting and pasting, you might go and use the on-screen keyboard

if it's in the same place in vista as XP (no promises :< ) then you go to start>programs>accessories>accessability>On-Screen Keyboard

atleast, until you can get your keyboard working properly again...

(the pretentious geek in me wants to say "using vista, well THERE'S your problem!" but I know that this sort of thing can happen with any PC style OS)

It's kind of sad to me that you can't get XP anymore (even if it did laugh at me every time I started it... *grumble*) Anywho, every post except for the first one was done on a different computer, so I havn't been doing too much.

Also, once I got my mother to sort out her files, a good shut-down was all it needed (we were both right, yay!) So it works just fine now. For future reference though... I might give the on-screen a chance. :)

Thanks.

Actually, PC Buzz sells copies of XP, at a pretty good deal.  I got XP Home Edition for about $120, and that was including sales tax and shipping.

Newegg also carries copies of XP... though I think you are required to make/have made qualifying purchases.

PC club has copies of XP too.

Why in the world someone would want a copy of XP home, though...
(oh, right, power user here, carry on...)

I wanted professional, but I didn't have an additional $50 in my budget.   :P

where do you live? that's something like $20 over the normal market price (by which I mean how much I'd end up paying for an OEM copy from one of the stores I mentioned... I always go OEM 'cause you get the important parts: the disk and license key, and you don't have to pay for the extra packaging you don't need anyway.)

Well I could have gone to the store but, it's a pretty good round trip so, whatever I made up for in the retail would have probably been half consumed by gas money. 

At least that's what I'm telling myself to feel better about it.   :B

Quote from: Reese Tora on November 20, 2007, 01:50:29 AM
Why in the world someone would want a copy of XP home, though...

Because I was earning peanuts at the time.  The upgrade to Home was $200 and Pro was about twice that.  I should have upgraded to W2K there and then, but that was about the same price.

If you're going Newegg or similar, why not go MCE instead of Home if the price is right?

Quote from: DarkAudit on November 20, 2007, 12:09:14 PM
If you're going Newegg or similar, why not go MCE instead of Home if the price is right?

'cause MCE is teh suxxor ;)

I like Pro because it has a number of management tools not available in home, but MCE just adds in listener services that I don't care about, and other stuff for acting as the center of an entertainment center.

MCE's listener services also interfere with programs I use at work (they scan all ports in the computer at regular intervals, which prevents the test software my company uses to interface with cell phones, fortunately, we can disable those services in the MMC services manager)

The only reason i use XP-MCE is cause it came packaged with my Pissy World Laptop. Actually it was curries, but what ever, its the same store group.

Quote from: Tapewolf on November 20, 2007, 04:21:36 AM

Quote from: Reese Tora on November 20, 2007, 01:50:29 AM
Why in the world someone would want a copy of XP home, though...

Because I was earning peanuts at the time.  The upgrade to Home was $200 and Pro was about twice that.  I should have upgraded to W2K there and then, but that was about the same price.

Isn't it Y2K?  :B

Quote from: dannysaysnoo on November 20, 2007, 02:45:11 PM
Isn't it Y2K?  :B

No. Y2k is "year 2000". W2k is "Windows 2000".

You're not about to install the year two thousand on your PC.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on November 20, 2007, 03:25:23 PM

Quote from: dannysaysnoo on November 20, 2007, 02:45:11 PM
Isn't it Y2K?  :B

No. Y2k is "year 2000". W2k is "Windows 2000".

You're not about to install the year two thousand on your PC.

...let me save you the bother...

Quote from: dannysaysnoo on November 20, 2007, 02:45:11 PM
Isn't it Y2K?  :B

FAIL.

Quote from: dannysaysnoo on November 20, 2007, 02:45:11 PMIsn't it Y2K?  :B

Congratulations.  You had me thinking that this was some sort of middle-case gamma or something, and thus part of an obscure joke.

i don't even know if this is suitable for the thread but recently i found my diablo 2 disks and the expansion packed away in a box. i was able to install the game OK but on the expansion it says that the number on the paper sleeve was not the correct number to install the game. i only have two numbers, one was on the game and the other was on the expansion, but both say they're not for that disk. is there anything i can do?

Did you do any patching before installing the expansion?

(quick lesson in product keys: the key is not tied to the disk, it is a number that hashes to a private key embedded in the game's code, and uniquely identifies only the package. any key for the expansion should work with any disk for the expansion, with a few exceptions)

It's possible that your key has been put on a blacklist that was downloaded with a patch, it's possible that they key is incorrect (the numbers damaged by age, perhaps?)

If you successfully installed before, I'd say human error or enemy action are the most likely culprits for the failure.  Try contacting blizzard and see if you can get support from them; the worst they can do is tell you that they won't support you.

Quote from: Reese Tora on November 09, 2007, 05:07:27 PM
...

The windows XP install disk should not be failing when you go to install. (I've installed XP from newly bought XP disks on five or six vista laptops in the last few months)

When you boot from the CD, what options do you select to get to the point where the install fails?
you should be moving the cursor over the Vista partition, pressing 'D' 'enter' and 'L' then either selecting the newly unpartitioned space or pressing 'C' to create a new partition if you want something smaller than the entire drive

(side note: do make sure to identify the devices on your ocmputer and get copies of the XP drivers for them, I've wasted hours getting the right drivers for the laptops I reinstalled...)

Oh, was this directed at me?  Heh, I'm so slow.

Vista specifically refuses (Not blocks, flat-out refuses) to let me downgrade while it's OS is still intact enough to be recognized.  Vista has taken Microsoft's method of controlling a user's computer the next step further, by enabling it to completely refuse to do what I want it to do.  In this instance, it's 100% unwiling to install XP. 

I pretty much washed my hands of the issue for a while because I get frustrated extremely easily and this sort of thing is high-stress for me and I really am not good enough with this stuff to go into it with much confidence, which makes it even more stressful.  I'm currently downloading ubuntu, though it's going to be a while before it's finished and ready to be burned. 

@Goatmon
wait, what? no...

you are booting from CD, yes?

No copy of windows will allow you to run the installer of an older version through windows, ever, but the OS isn't on to stop you when you boot from CD.

Booting from the CD changes nothing.  It ignores the disc in that scenario, and I've already configured it (From the boot menu) to boot from the disc before it turns it's attention to the hard drive. 

Quote from: Goatmon on November 24, 2007, 05:04:09 AM
Booting from the CD changes nothing.  It ignores the disc in that scenario, and I've already configured it (From the boot menu) to boot from the disc before it turns it's attention to the hard drive. 

That ain't right.

Some computers have a "press any key to boot from CD or DVD" pause. If there's no input after a certain amount of time, it will proceed on to the normal boot sequence.

Does this happen when you put in a bootable CD/DVD that's *not* an XP install disc? (Like say, Ubuntu?)

I figured something out earlier this morning.  The guy who was helping me out earlier had me extremely confused about a very small little detail during the booting process.  We kept going into what I thought was the boot menu, but what was actually the setup (BIOS) menu.  By some random moment of what I like to call "Oh, hey, duh?" I found the actual boot menu, and got it to boot from the disc instantly. 

several hours later, I am now sporting XP once again.  And there was much rejoicing.  (yay...)

I appreciate all the help from everyone, although much of my stress and irritation seems to have been a tremendous waste of effort.  Oh well.  Thanks a bunch regardless, it's always appreciated when people try to help however they can.
*Hugs the forum* Mmmmm....


quick question: Where and how do I tweak the settings for windows that stops it from chugging so much while scrolling?  Whenever I click and drag a window it wants to display the entire window while It's being moved, and it's sloowing things down quite a bit.   And, as I said, it's chugging a lot while scrolling, as though it's loading more than it usually does for some reason, and I dunno what to adjust to fix this. 

Quote from: Goatmon on November 24, 2007, 01:58:56 PM
quick question: Where and how do I tweak the settings for windows that stops it from chugging so much while scrolling?  Whenever I click and drag a window it wants to display the entire window while It's being moved, and it's sloowing things down quite a bit.   And, as I said, it's chugging a lot while scrolling, as though it's loading more than it usually does for some reason, and I dunno what to adjust to fix this. 

right click desktop, choose properties
go to the appearance tab, click 'effects...' in the lower right
second check-box from the bottom will disable/enable show window contents.

can't help with the scrolling thing, though.

Thanks.  I'm thinking updating my vid drivers will help with the latter issue. 

Edit: Yes, it helped.  All is well. 

Any advise on building my own computer?

I'm thinking of buying a case that allows for four 120mm fans and a motherboard that supports AMD.  Any other ideas?

Quote from: Joe3210 on December 09, 2007, 07:53:35 AM
Any advise on building my own computer?
I'm thinking of buying a case that allows for four 120mm fans and a motherboard that supports AMD.  Any other ideas?

Depends what you plan to use it for, really.  And which OS you plan to run on it.

I'm actually having a problem with Portal, and I've run out of ideas.

Certain textures in the game are flickering.  The textures are:
-the frames around the signs (the ones that show the chamber number and the warnings)
-the trapdoors that deliver the cubes
-the little clipboards that you see in the offices
-the mechanical arms that appear in the first turret ambush, and in the ending that snuffs out the candle on the cake

I've tried every possible video setting, I've replaced the video card (I had to anyway, my old one was going out), I've reinstalled DirectX 9c, I've completely blown away Portal and reinstalled it (from Steam). 

This started happening shortly after I saw a mod on putting the Portal gun into HL2, and I tried it (instructions found here (http://www.primotechnology.com/2007/10/17/half-life-2-portal/)).  It required copying a bunch of HL2 files into the Portal directory.  Now these textures are flickering and I don't know how to make them stop doing that.  It's only doing this in Portal.  HL2 and it's episodes and mods are working perfectly.  I'm out of ideas.  Any suggestions?

... when you un-installed it, did you check that the files and directories were gone?

If not, chances are the uninstall removed the Portal files, but not the HL2 files... so when you reinstalled, it reinstalled them right next to the problem.

I did think of that.  Steam has a "Delete Local Content" command which performs an uninstall of the individual game.  But I did go in afterwards and delete the folders and files that were left behind.

Nuts.

Registry clean out after uninstalling?

I only found one registry entry for Portal.  I've uninstalled Portal again and removed the leftover folders and then cleared out that registry entry.  Reinstalling now.  Will edit when the installation is done.

EDIT:
Clearing out the Portal registry entry and reinstalling it didn't do the trick. 

But somehow I ended up fixing it.  I went into my Add/Remove Programs list to see if there's anything in there that might be interfering with all this.  I found the Ageia PhysX drivers that I needed to install because Clive Barker's Jericho required it (it's a good game, btw).  I uninstalled them, but that also didn't do it. 

So I redownloaded the PhysX drivers and at the same time I downloaded the latest Forceware drivers (I'm running an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT, btw).  I reinstalled PhysX and then installed the new Forceware drivers.  I don't know which one did it, but now the textures aren't flickering anymore!

Quote from: Tapewolf on December 09, 2007, 08:13:58 AM

Quote from: Joe3210 on December 09, 2007, 07:53:35 AM
Any advise on building my own computer?
I'm thinking of buying a case that allows for four 120mm fans and a motherboard that supports AMD.  Any other ideas?

Depends what you plan to use it for, really.  And which OS you plan to run on it.

Ubuntu/Windows duel boot.  Ubuntu to check email and such, but Windows for gaming and the like.

Quote from: Joe3210 on December 12, 2007, 09:11:09 PM
Ubuntu/Windows dual boot.  Ubuntu to check email and such, but Windows for gaming and the like.

Get a 64-bit system for the future, preferably a multicore one.  No-one is really utilizing either feature in general-purpose environments yet, but it's still good to have.

For now I'd avoid a 64-bit OS since there isn't much in the way of drivers and native applications, especially for Windows (*).

You'll be wanting an nVidia graphics card.  The linux drivers are not open source which is a pain, but I believe Ubuntu normally manages this itself without intervention.  Someone else will have to confirm that as I run a modified kernel myself (and have to do a manual update).

Unless you're doing something weird like high-end video editing or running a 32-track home studio with thousands of dollars of plugins, you'll probably be happy with 2gb of memory or even 1gb.  I don't think XP32 and Vista32 can see more than 4gb of memory unless they use PAE and in any case they can't provide more than 2gb per process owing to the way the win32 memorymap works.

In short, with the current state of the industry I think you'll be hard-pressed to build a system that isn't overkill for basic usage purposes.  (Although Vista comes close in my experience).

I realise this is very general, but hopefully it should be some use...

---

(*) Vista64 prevents non-WHQL drivers from loading.  This is an exciting development as I believe it finally heralds the end of the Windows era.  Once no-one can use any device  at all unless its drivers have been signed by Microsoft for tens of thousands of dollars a go, it will only be economically viable to develop new hardware or market anything sub $100 for Linux and the MacOS.

Quote from: Tapewolf on December 14, 2007, 09:39:17 AM
You'll be wanting an nVidia graphics card.  The linux drivers are not open source which is a pain, but I believe Ubuntu normally manages this itself without intervention.  Someone else will have to confirm that as I run a modified kernel myself (and have to do a manual update).

Why specifically nVidia? Personally, I prefer ATI, since the drivers tend to be more stable and more easily included in things like the debian package system, but I'll admit I haven't bought any new hardware for a couple of years now...

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on December 14, 2007, 11:27:51 AM
Why specifically nVidia? Personally, I prefer ATI, since the drivers tend to be more stable and more easily included in things like the debian package system, but I'll admit I haven't bought any new hardware for a couple of years now...

I've had a number of bad experiences with ATI's earlier efforts and heard awful things about their current crop of drivers.  Now AMD seems to have forced them to release the source for the drivers which were previously closed, very buggy and IIRC often took months after a card came out to appear at all, things will slowly improve.  If they've already fixed it and got a fully-accelerated high performance driver for the latest cards in the Xorg mainline, then awesome - but I was expecting it to take longer than they've had so far :(

I'll have a word with Saist, and see what the latest is from his point of view.

I've had some bad experiences with nVidia cards - long-term instabilities and annoyances, and no updates to the linux drivers for -years- at a stretch - so it depends on precisely what hardware you use it with, and what you do with it, I guess. *shrug*

Yeah, it would be nice to have a working fbcon that didn't break X, but they weren't even able to get that working with the Radeon 7200 or 8500 which had the specs, so I'm not holding my breath.

actually, My gaming mag that I got yesterday says that there's little difference between ATI and nVidia in terms of performance and stability, so the best choice would be what's the most cost effective performance and for which you have the easiest time getting Linux drivers

As for windows addressing RAM, XP and Vista can only address 3 GB of RAM unless you get the 64 bit versions (and, IIRC, you need to do some fiddling with the boot.ini to enable 3BG in XP, though I may be thinking win2k)

Quote from: Reese Tora on December 14, 2007, 12:26:48 PM
As for windows addressing RAM, XP and Vista can only address 3 GB of RAM unless you get the 64 bit versions (and, IIRC, you need to do some fiddling with the boot.ini to enable 3BG in XP, though I may be thinking win2k)

AFAIK it's still the case with XP.  I don't know about Vista.  I've been going over this again and again on HomeRecording, where someone was actually defending - for audio use - an OS which is purpose-built to prevent audio processing at the sample level (!).  There, they said that the performance issues with Vista and the fact that it seems to need 2GB for itself would cease to be a problem as more memory becomes cheaper, to which I pointed out that it could only see 4GB total and less owing to the 2G/3G limit...

But I digress.  The point is, that to the best of my knowledge the 2G/3G limit is how much memory is exposed to each application by the VMM - the total amount of memory the OS can see is going to be 4GB, or maybe 64GB at a performance penalty if it uses the PAE extension.
Which again is probably a kernel parameter.

**EDIT**
Substantial reworking of the 2G/3G limit

Just to chime in about the ATI vs nVidia thing...

I've had issues with ATI cards dying out completely (as in hardware failure) within a year of purchase, but every nVidia card that I've ever bought has lasted me 2 or 3 years until replacement is called for or a hardware failure occurs.  As it is, my laptop came with an ATI Radeon XPress 1100... I don't have much hope for it.  So I always recommend nVidia over ATI.

But this is just one man's observations.  Other people I know have had the exact opposite experience with ATI and nVidia cards, where nVidia cards die within a year and the ATI's last forever.

I guess it can be attributed to what the computer is being used for (gaming vs internet/work) or the environment the computer is in (high/low humidity) or even how much dust and hair floats around in your house.  I once lost an nVidia card after three years of running fine due to the fan freezing up because it had become clogged with cat hair, and the card subsequently overheated.

I find the same situations apply when it comes to the Pentium vs AMD argument.  I've always had issues with AMD processors but Pentium processors have never given me any trouble whatsoever.  And yet other people I know tell me that their experience is the exact opposite.

Thanks for all of the information.  I'll go out and purchase an 64-bit capable motherboard and see about buying other stuff as money flows in.

by the way, the PAE extensions suck for performance.

If you're buying a new machine today, I wouldn't buy -anything- that wasn't 64 bit.

AARGH!  I can't take it anymore!

Why is it that no one supports 64-bit applications/libraries?  I mean, it's not like we've had 64-bit processors since 1991, or that we've had Intel-compatible ones since 2003.

My current beef is with Adventure Game Studio, which has a Linux port that needs a 32-bit version of libxml.so.1.  Naturally, I only have the 64-bit version.  So I tried their statically linked version, which links to the same files as the dynamically linked version.  Yeah.  (I remember having similar fun when somebody decided to dynamically link something in sbin to popt.)

So does anyone know of a way to get 32-bit libraries for a 64-bit system?  I'm running Gentoo, and gcc -march=i386 gives me errors.