Can anyone lighten my darkness?
My wife's pc has displayed the blue screen of death with the following detail:

STOP, 0X000000D4 (0XABB37F38, 0X0000001C, 0X00000001, 0X80502000)
rdbss.sys

It's an Packard Bell machine which has given her nothing but trouble - it runs on Windows Media, of which I am highly suspicious!

Splat

I doubt that it is caused by Windows Media Centre, I have a computer running on that and I reboot it 3 or 4 times a year.

There have been problems reported with rdbss.sys so you should make sure that you have all MS updates installed. Also run chkdsk incase it is hard disk related and run a full virus scan.

Thanks Optimist - will try all these things.

Incidentally, what is rdbss.sys?

Splat, I found this:
This is an know issue with MS. Solution provided see support.microsoft.com

Splat

The short answer is that it is one of the windows system files. If you want further details, try Googling it.

TP:

Did you find out whether you could tone down (yes, pun intended, sadly) the noise from the base unit, MM?

As promised, I went home and read the instruction manual (there's a first)!

On the Panasonic phone I have, you can control the volume of the base unit warble, even mute it, but you can't select a different tone (unlike the handsets). My phones are about two years old and cost about 180, looks like you can buy them by the gross (well, a four handset system) for about 100 these days. I don't doubt that the spec has improved as well.

MM,

"you can control the volume of the base unit warble, even mute it, but you can't select a different tone (unlike the handsets). "

Well that's progress.

I'll start looking at the alternatives.

Thanks,

TP

True, I'd forgotten that my Panasonic phone base unit is the same. In fact I have it on mute with the phones themselves on music.

Thanks folks for all the phone suggestions.

I spoke to a Panasonic retailer yesterday and it seems that now, Legislation!!, almost all the base units have to be fitted with non-disableable ringers. He stocked dozens of models but was unsure which had ringers you could mute.

So when I got home I took the base to pieces and found a little black object on the masterboard next to the word Buzz. I made the phone ring and it suggested an odds on chance that was where the sound came from.

"It came off in me hand, guv"

And now the base makes no noise and the handset tinkles discretely.

With regard to the range I also established that my wife had done her test whilst talking to a chum and searching from room to room for something they needed to check. What this was proving was that the phone will drop out with movement, presumably as it finds a new signal/frequency.

If you stand/sit still the range is actually not all that bad.

It does not reach nearly as far as the old Sanyo cordless I bought years ago, but that was an under-the-counter jobbie which you'd be hard pressed to find in the UK these days.

So, thanks again for all the ideas. We now have a quiet cordless with adequate range - and this thread can now revert to much more critical topics such as dreaded blue screens........

TP

Of course your cordless phone would probably show you a blue screen from time to time, if it had one, it's probably got a computer inside bigger than the one our whole university ran on 30 years ago :-)

Is anyone on here using Mac? I've failed to find a CFD account that runs on a Mac platform; the problem seems to be with the streaming prices. Has anyone had success with this?

Self19

I don't use a Mac so I can't help you directly.

However, I understand that you can get Windows emulation packages for the Mac that may well run the CFD software. Another solution would be to get hold of an old Win XP Pro box and usea remote desktop client on the Mac to operate it.

This would get round the compatibility problems, use fewer resources on your Mac and once set up, you wouldn't need a screen or keyboard on your Windows box (or even for it to be in the same room).

Self19: Not sure about the connection with streaming prices: MoneyAM's streaming works OK on the Mac.

Is it simply that the CFD platform software clients (i.e., the bit you download and run on your computer) are only available for Windows?

can somebody confirm for me that a download of a music video is about 0.75 gbs as BT have been telling me with my 40gb allowance i can only have 65 of them a month. did not realise the size of files and been playing TOTP unknowingly.
if true i will have to watch it , as running SCPro all day as well

Hi guys, got a prob with my laptop. When i turn it on it doesnt boot up and comes up with the following over and over:

For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller
PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE ROM.

Anyone tell me whats wrong and or how to fix it please?

maddoctor, it depends on the compression used for the video information and exactly what you're downloading. An hour's TV program can be around 0.75Gb, but that is not DVD quality or anything near it. Best thing to do is to look at the site you are downloading from, they must have the info somewhere, either on the file you are downloading or in the FAQ or forums.

fundy, it looks like your laptop is trying to boot from the network and finding there isn't one there. Look in the BIOS boot options and check that it is set to boot from the C drive.

Kayak

can you tell me how i do that please

Difficult to say exactly, depends on your laptop, but normally press the Del key while it's booting and then look for an option in one of the menus giving a list of devices to try on booting. The floppy drive or CD drive should be first, then C drive rather than the network. There might also be a separate option telling it to boot from the network.

I should say though that you might also find that the options are set correctly and that the reason it is trying to boot from the network is that your disk drive is dead, hopefully not!