Spaceman
I think the unimodem thing is a sound driver for a modem I have installed.
I will remove the modem and check, later.

The problem I have is that when I remove all of the sound drivers they get re-installed by Windows on the next restart.

I do have sound devices on the motherboard but I believe I have disaabled them in the BIOS, and also I think the BIOS should do that anyway when it detects a sound card in the system. Later I think I will remove the sound card and try the motherboard devices - if that works with Real Player so I can get the bbc radio programs, that's all I need.

kajman,

dont remove the modem if you dont need to, just right click on it in the device manager and then uncheck the 'enable this device' box.

and in my experience I have had to manually disable the sound card in the bios, it wasnt automatically done...

J.

Having another bash at the ongoing problems on my computer.

Gigabyte GA7n400Pro, 1024 Mb DDR400 Ram, AMD XP2500 Barton processor. Win XP pro.

Problem is the flicking of the screen and the fact that a limited amount of windows can be open until the system protests and fails to respond

I thought it was specific to the graphics card, changed the card, now an NVidea product. Removed RAM, to see if one 512Mb lump was incompatible with the other, no joy. Adjusted virtual RAM to that specified, ie 1.5 times physical RAM. Problems persist.

I have always had problems updating the bios for the motherboard as it never seems to want to do it. (dual bios)

I am now considering that it could be the processor itself that could be breaking down or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Even changed the power supply, no change.

The faults look as if there isn't enough guts in the system to run the programs. Currently running an ETrade platform, DJ Newswires,(2 windows) and about 4 other windows.

To top it all I noted that my Norton was not opening up on the initial start-up and no matter what I did it would never open on boot up. Eventually deleted and reloaded. Starts OK, now I find that the virus definitions are out of date and the live update operates but the definitions remain as they were, out of date. Norton are spectacularly useless, all roads lead to paying more money for a new version or to pay them $40 to fix it!

Or could it just be that Windows is simply not up to this multi-tasking, no matter what they say.

I hope you can assist me in my despair, before I junk the processor and M/board for something newer.

2Abbey, some info and a few questions :-

I havnt had a chance to check the specs etc of your mobo and graphics but before I do ......

The processor amd memory sound fine for what you are running, we always want the quickest fastest best etc but that spec is fine and isnt in itself a reason for your machine to not work correctly. However what are the '4 other windows' ? if they are database servers, web servers etc etc they could be the problem. Although I cant rule out a problem with the CPU I do think this is unlikeley, in my experience they normally work or dont!

The power supply is a often overlooked source of potential problems, I know you have changed it but what have you changed it from and to? What power is the power supply.

On to BIOS, this could be relevant and woul be my first point of investigation. I havnt used a dual BIO but they should update as normal, they just give you a bit of extra protection in case the flash goes wrong. Still with the BIOS, what type is it and have you checked the settings?

What is the system load like? have a look at performance in task manager.

What sort of screen do you have? how is it connected (DVI/D15 analogue).

Is your win XP patched up-to-date? (Windows update)

Are you using a domain?

Didi you sort out your disk query that you posted about a few days ago?

I am sure people here can help sort this out.

Windows is up to date, using SP1 and all updates. I was using a dual display card, reasonably old, pre Xp, but had the relevant drivers from Ati. My problems with the graphics seem to start after a driver download from Microsoft, the driver would not install and moreover the existing driver seemed to be corrupted. Reinstalled new drivers etc. Problems seem to be resolved when I would back the system on Xp to the previous drivers. However when I rebooted it seemed to install the other corrupted drivers. I became so irritated with this that I put in an NVidea card from my other machine but the problems of flicking when data from the newswire service comes through remain.

Analogue monitor via the graphics card, Dell M992, (Sony Trinitron I think)

System load runs at around 300Mb, however sometimes the CPU seems to be churning for no apparent reason, hard disk operating etc.

Problem with the hard drive was of a clattering on boot-up. I had this on a previous Maxtor drive, and the drive eventually refused to boot. Possibly the O/S is on the same point on the drive so more wear at that point? Drive OK in use with no clattering.
Power supply is 350watt, the one I changed it with was also 350watt. It did occur to me to get a 450watt but I wasn't sure if this was the cause of the problems. The spec of the motherboard doesn't seem to give specs for a power supply, but it seemed fine until I started with the DJ Newswire service.

It has occured to me that the DJ service, running entirely in RAM, was the cause of the problems, the straw that broke the camels back etc.

Other windows are Bloomberg TV, runs in RAM, MoneyAM, and maybe another

2Abbey, I will try and investigate this a bit more later today. One point have you checked with the newswire people to see if there are known issues?

This memory problem, or whatever it is, is really annoying. Had to close down selected windows in order to open an email now!

Attempting to open another window results in a tone being played. Opening Task Manager when the machine is playing up is impossible. Even right clicks on the mouse won't work!

2Abbey

Out of interest, you could run an Audit on your PC. The result from doing this would be to give you a full list of all your software (and it shows you where it is too) and hardware (this might tell you some of your RAM is not working)

The Audit I would recommend is the Belarc Advisor. This is carried out whilst you are online and is obtainable as a Free download from here:

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Having done it, you can then copy and paste it to a Word document and print it off. This serves as a good record for when you have to take your machine in for repair too.

Thanks for the suggestions Spaceman and Croc, I've now solved my sound card problem.
I think the problem was that after re-installing Windows I applied the latest updates to it before installing the correct sound drivers.

I got into a position where I couldn't completely remove all existing sound drivers because on each restart Windows detected the hardware and insisted on attempting to re-install them which it couldn't do correctly.

Eventually I found a repair utility from the Creative site that let me overwrite the mess that Windows Plug and Pray had left.

Altogether I had to remove and replace the hardware and do a total of about 20 restarts. I'd like to go and see "Kill Bill" now, (you know who).

Kajman, now that WOULD be a film worth seeing!


I have a brand new Aldi PC bought two weeks ago which is still in its box. The first job I want to do is make a backup of the system before I install any programs, so that I can, if neccessary, reinstall XP and have the machine run in its virgin state again.

It has a copy of nero burning rom preinstalled, I also have a copy of Norton Systemworks 2003 which is unused. What would those in the know do to make this copy of the initial setup?

Thanks for any help.

SC, I would use something like Norton Ghost to make an image of the hard disk.

However these sort of backups soon beome less usefull as you install and change things on your machine. Image backups overwrite the whole hard drive when they are restored.

You might find that there is a application on the PC to make copies of the main programs (eg xp), some OEM vendores do this as when they dont provide original disks, check with the documentation.

Is it one of those aldi Medion 800 pound PC's? they look very good to me and excellent value especially if you can pick them up for 400ish, I saw one on ebay that went for something like that.

2Abbey

A couple of things that are worth checking just in case:-

Are you logged in as an Administrator?
Have you checked the Event Logs (accessible through the Computer Management Applet) for any indication of the problem?

Also you could try firing up the perfomance monitor (in Administrative Tools). This has a very comprehensive list of things to monitor. Your problem will then be deciding what to look at and how to interpret it.

For some unknown reason the thing is behaving itself today. No flickering, opening windows etc. Done nothing!

Thanks to everyone, keep you posted.

Spaceman, thanks. Yes, I'm aware of the changes that occur when you install new software. Norton Ghost is on Systemworks I think so will have a go with that first.

Yep, it's a brand new Medion - 750 with every bell & whistle I think I'll ever need and a few more besides - and they provide all the software backup discs so very good package. Monitor not included but I have a lovely Dell 17" TFT dvi so looking forward to bootup in the next day or so. Only had it since 1st April & it's still in its box!

I've got a few PC problems normally I can sort them out myself but just going around in circels ;-(

1) A few weeks ago I had windows 98se not running brillantly but had basic sound and ok graphics with my matrox g200 quad card. Then I lost sound after having found viruses, tried to reinstall win98se didnt help went back to win98 still nothing tried updating all direct x9 you guessed it nothing again ;-(

2) I have a dodgy second matrox 13gb harddrive and tried to install Windows XP-HE the drive works as if a mouse was running at full pelt, so cant use that either over the weekend I moved and deleted files from my matrox HD to my 3rd 40gb hard drive, so that I can format the 13gb drive and try again, but still got windows xp which will not load and therefore wont uninstall. Can I delete winxp directory as normally or will this destroy my bootup options as I get to chose at the moment when I swich on????

3) I might have to get another HD so I want to move all programs/files and systems to the new one without install all the software again what is the best software to do this ?????

thanks

Jason

Richgit

I can't help you on Win98 but if you are upgrading to Win XP then the best way to do this is with a clean installation on a new hard disk. I also suggest that you get XP Pro.

Some time ago I fitted a quad mattrox card without too many problems. However after a motherboard failiure I started with a new hard disk, bog standard graphics card and no other accesories. Once I installed XP there was the Marathon task of installing SP1 and the numerous security updates.

Only then did I change over to the Matrox card and install other hardware. This was the easiest Win XP installation that I have done.

After that I had to reinstall all of my software. So far as I know there is no way round this in a clean installation but Doc Proc gives an excellent link above to some audit software which will tell you what you have installed.

Assuming that you buy a new hard disk then you should install the original disk as a secondary drive so that you can copy over all of your data.

When installing XP always use NTFS file system.

Machine is still behaving, see above, however I still have the hard disk sometimes operating for minutes at a time. When I open the Task Manager it gives the Page File usage as 308Mb and cpu usage at rates up to 15%. The PF Usage history is at flat line.

My query is, is this normal? With 1024 Mb RAM I would have assumed that there would be sufficient for the purposes without using the virtual ram. Or is this just a quirk of Windows (Xp Pro)

2Abbey, I dont think the usage in task manager is unusual, the usage history is always a flat line until you start it as it doesnt store a history.

Do you have a virus scanner that does some additional work at system start?

You dont seem to wanty to believe me but 1GB of Ram should be fine and windows will still use VM!

Have you done the thing that DocProc mentioned above as that would go some way to seeing what is running.

Thanks Spaceman. I have just downloaded and ran the advisor. It has brought up some issues that I will look at.

Thanks for reassuring me about the PF issue.

Virus scanner is not up to date, keeps updating, but remains out of date. (Norton 2003) Might just buy the 2004 version and be done with it.

2Abbey

The PF Usage figure in task manager is not the same as the virtual memory that is currently written to disk. In simple terms it can be regarded as the computers current memory usage. As this figure approaches the installed RAM limit then more memory is swapped out to disk. With the figures that you quoted above hardly any will be on disk (Windows always uses around 20MB just to keep it happy).