RG

A good way to find the driver is to enter the partnumber of your soundcard or motherboard if it is integral into Bing and follow the links. Try to go to the manufacturers site if you can. Installing dodgy drivers is a good way to get viruses.

To get the part numbers, try:-

A physical inspection.
Sometimes the come up at startup or in the BIOS setup info.
Device manager.
Belarc Advisor.

Optimist, thanks ;-)

looks like the motherboard is a Micro Star MS 6701, but can't find the drivers for it

R69, no idea if this is helpful but have a look anyway.

http://download.cnet.com/Realtek-AC-97-Driver-Windows-98-Me-2000-XP-2003/3000-2120_4-10238712.html

klal, thanks ;-)

Already had them installed but still now sound, but finally found out the onboard speaker not working for some reason, was able to find spare speakers and plug them in and the sound works fine now ;-)

Got myself a lovely little Dell Optiplex GX 620 on ebay, only thing is that it's got a dodgy copy of XP Pro on it, and has an XP home COA on the case. I also have another unused Home COA, as well as an XP home oem disc.

I want to install XP Home on it, so how do I go about this? I believe I've got to reformat the HD (it looks as if it's an 80Gb SATA), then do a new install.

Sounds easy. What's the catch?

I did find this site that promises to find all the drivers required easily once the OS is installed:

Dell driver downloads

edit - all it's going to do is sit there and run MetaTrader in the background. It did come with a copy of Office 2007 installed, but my guess is that's dodgy as well! How do I find the registration no for that in case it is legit (fat chance), as I have an Office 2007 disc as well which could be used for an install on the reformatted drive.

What exactly do you mean by it being a dodgy copy of XP Pro, Seymour? Is there a splash screen which says that it's not been activated or something else?

No, it says (after downloading the updates last night) "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting" or something like that, which means to me that (as I suspected) the vendor has put a copy of Pro on because that's all he had. I can be bothered with going round the houses to get a clean COA key, when I've got prefectly good keys for XP Home.

That suggests your copy of XP Pro is probably genuine, Seymour, but that it's already in use on another machine (or umpteen other machines) somewhere. The Windows Genuine Advantage concept matches each copy of XP to a single machine via the machine's hardware (where have you seen that before?). It may even be that an organisation with a VLK has had their security compromised by an ex-employee.

There are ways around it if you are interested and can't be bothered to do a fresh install with a clean copy of XP Home, albeit not for a public forum. You know where I am.

Sorry, been out shopping for a car. You're probably on the money there Hils. I'll be in touch :-)

No problem, SC. I wouldn't want you to think that I was into hacking and cracking, btw, but I do like to know what tricks the scavengers get up to so as to ensure that our own goodies are as secure as possible.

:o)

I use Vista and Outlook 2003

Does anyone have a gizmo that displays their Task list on the desktop please?

I found a Sidebar jobbie, but it only listed 3 tasks max. (No use with the number of things I'm procrastinating on !!)

And, on the same topic, does anyone have a gizmo for grouping Shortcuts so I have them in little blocks depending on the sort of thing they do?

TP

Hi again. More home PC problems.

I'm getting the following message:

We apologise for the inconvenience but windows did not start sucessfully. A recent hardware or software change might of caused this.

If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good Configuation to revert to the most recent setting that worked.

If a previous startup attempt was interuppted due to a power failure or because the power or reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose start windows normally.

Then I have have the following option

Safe mode
safe mode with networking
safe mode with command prompt

Last know good configuration (your most recent setting that worked)

Start windows normally


:O(

KEAYDIAN

You should normally try Start Windows Normally, then Last know good configuration then Safe Mode.

More important. is what has caused this?

Did you have a forced shutdown?
Have you just installed something new?
What is the history of problems on this machine?


TP

I don't know of any gadgets, but Outlook 2007 has a seperate task pane. You could download a 60 day trial and before that runs out, switch to Office 2010 beta and then to the Office 2010 release trial.

You might also fint the free Xobni addin useful although I think you will need the paid for version to cover tasks.

Opt,

Thanks.

In the end I went for Task List from here.

It'll cost me a tenner, but all the free ones looked too big and messy.

TP

Opt.

I've tried Start windows normally first, that made the pc kept restarting itself.

I then tried Last Known Good Configuartion, that also made the pc keep restarting itself.

I then tried safe mode. I can log in using this but the icons have terribled in size but you can't use the internet. So I'm using safe mode with networking.

:O(

The only thing that yo can do properly in safe mode is put things right.

Open a command prompt window and use chkdsk /f to check the disk for faults.

If that doesn't fix it, try using system restore to restore to a point before your current problrms.

If that doesn't work, boot from the install disk and let setup try to repair it. If your install disk is pre SP2 then don't connect to the Internet even for updates until SP2 is installed.

You would do well to backup all of your data before attempting any of the above.

Opto.

Seems to be working now. I done a Norton Go Back which seems to of fixed it.

The icons are bigger because you are using the default screen driver in safe mode and it probably 640x480 or even 320x240 depending on the basic graphics capabilities of your pc graphics chip.

How to Defraggle your motherdisc!

How to Deffraggle your Motherdisc :o)

MB Thanks for that -Brilliant!!

I actually tried that procedure last month. Unfortunately I didn't get past step 9 as my wife claimed the discs for use as glass mats. Iwonder if white wine is as good a protective agent.