Help out your friendly neighborhood Hus...
Tuesday, May 11, 2004 by Hus | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
...by pointing him in the direction of a taskbar replacement for Windows 2000. See, his XP broke, now he's on Win2k [again]...and can't stand the plain-jane taskbar. 
Anyone have any suggestions besides ObjectBar and Litestep?
Anyone have any suggestions besides ObjectBar and Litestep?
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Sugaree
Reply #62 Wednesday, May 12, 2004 11:37 PM
Reply #62 Wednesday, May 12, 2004 11:37 PM
My isp''s server took a dump. Give me a day or two to catch up ...and I''ll get back to you with a clever response 
[Message Edited]
[Message Edited]
Hus
Reply #65 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 9:45 AM
Reply #65 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 9:45 AM
Hey Gary, hope you see this...here''s the story...
So I got the new hard drive, installed it, my Mobo recognized it fine, I try installing XP, everything is going ok...then I get a blue screen. Something about IRQL_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL something like that. So I try it again, crashes again. One more time...I made it as far as reformatting the disk...then it just froze. Well, atleast we know it''s not the HD. So what else can it be? It''s obviously some other hardware...but what? I just moved into my new apartment so money is a little tight...so I sure hope it''s not a CPU problem. Any ideas? I''m stuck with no PC for atleast 2 weeks...I''m gonna go crazy man!!!!
I''m posting this from work...but if anyone has any ideas as to what piece of hardware will cause your PC to crash at random...I''d be glad to know.
[Message Edited]
So I got the new hard drive, installed it, my Mobo recognized it fine, I try installing XP, everything is going ok...then I get a blue screen. Something about IRQL_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL something like that. So I try it again, crashes again. One more time...I made it as far as reformatting the disk...then it just froze. Well, atleast we know it''s not the HD. So what else can it be? It''s obviously some other hardware...but what? I just moved into my new apartment so money is a little tight...so I sure hope it''s not a CPU problem. Any ideas? I''m stuck with no PC for atleast 2 weeks...I''m gonna go crazy man!!!!
I''m posting this from work...but if anyone has any ideas as to what piece of hardware will cause your PC to crash at random...I''d be glad to know.
[Message Edited]
Jafo
Reply #66 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:21 AM
Reply #66 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:21 AM
Ram will do it....[random crashes].
As for 'breaking XP'....it's made up of a Kernel and a Shell...and last I heard if you had both of those you had a 'nut' and they can certainly be broken [cracked]...
Watson
Reply #67 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:34 AM
Reply #67 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:34 AM
Jafo you have mail and Hus, I have to upgrade all the time too so don't feel bad
Watson
Reply #68 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:42 AM
Reply #68 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:42 AM
I'm thinkin you have bad ram, I work on comps alot of the time and that sounds like the issue in this case...
Hus
Reply #69 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:44 AM
Reply #69 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:44 AM
Jafo, how sure are you that it's RAM? I really cant afford to buy new RAM only to find out it's something else. I REALLY hope it is the RAM, as it would be the cheapest fix!
Watson
Reply #70 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:48 AM
Reply #70 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:48 AM
Yeah I worked on one not too long ago where the ram was bad to the point that the computer would completely freeze up when the poor guy tried to play solitaire, and it had a 120 gig hard drive, so that would be the first thing i would try
Hus
Reply #71 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:52 AM
Reply #71 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:52 AM
Ok, so that's 2 votes for RAM...I myself was thinking it's ram. I'll see if anyone else responds by the end of the day...if RAM gets the vote...I'll order it tonight. 
Watson
Reply #72 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:56 AM
Reply #72 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:56 AM
you could probably find some as cheap as 15$ go to http://www.tigerdirect.com/ or http://www.overstock.com/
Jafo
Reply #73 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:57 AM
Reply #73 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:57 AM
Hus....no-one can ever be totally sure about anything when it comes to computers....there's just too many variables.
A faulty ram 'address' being accessed can cause odd crashes...as can a system component overheating.
With ram...if there is more than one stick...try removing one or swapping positions...see if the behaviour changes.
In the bad old days it was common to come across faulty ram...and/or faulty mobo banks, but it seems less common these days.
My most recent BSOD [in XP] was initiated when accessing/updating a fairly large database...and my 'theory' was that 256meg wasn't enough to cope....and If I'd stuck in another stick it might solve it....but so much of this 'odd' problem solving is down to trial and error....[I haven't got a spare stick to try it....yet]...
Jafo
Reply #74 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 11:02 AM
Reply #74 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 11:02 AM
BTW...for hardware problem solving my vote would go to yrag....he never gets it wrong [although I expect China may beg to differ....sick him, girlie]....
Hus
Reply #75 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 11:02 AM
Reply #75 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 11:02 AM
Ok, thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated. I'll order the RAM, and worst comes to worst...I'll just end up with a bad PC and new ram...hehe.
Thanks again.
Thanks again.
Watson
Reply #76 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 11:03 AM
Reply #76 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 11:03 AM
I agree with jafo. Another problem is that there are a certain amount of thigs that could be causing your problem, so many that you have to go down a list, and even if none of the things on the list of possibilities isn't individually wrong, then there are certain combinations of things that could be causing the problem. This is way it takes so much time to learn to become a computer technician, you may already know how yto fix most things but part of the comp tech training is learning how to quickly and efficiently recognize the symptoms of the problem, once you've mastered that it's either time to graduate or you've had job for awhile and finally got the hang of it
yrag
Reply #77 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:18 PM
Reply #77 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:18 PM
Before you buy anything, lets see if we can't figure out what it is and isn't first. Go here http://www.memtest86.com/ and download. When you execute it, it will put it on a bootable floppy. If you look at the contents of the floppy it will appear there is nothing on it, but there is. When you get home, boot your machine with this floppy and run at least 2 tests. If it shows an error then that's your problem...if you have more then one stick of memory installed then shutdown and remove one stick at a time and do the tests until you get a clean test. That will tell you which stick is bad....don't forget you can change the sockets the memory is sitting in. Many times, it's not the memory, but the socket. You should have 4....try them all.
Now, if all that comes up clean, then go after any PCI card you have installed. Sound, TV cards, modem boards, even your ethernet card, if you have one. (Don't need Internet on a dead machine). If it runs without them, then do the same thing as the memory.....one at a time until you find the culprit.
Finally. I am still not completely convinced that this graphic card is faultless. When you un-installed your drivers and it came up clean on the re-boot, it shouldn't have. It should have given you the new hardware found prompt and when you ran NFR, it should have showed the main driver back in the system folder from the backup folder.....it didn't do either. If it's possible, burn any 'Detonator' drivers in the 4x.xx series to a CD and try them. you can get them here ftp://download1.nvidia.com/Windows/
Now for the simplest test of the day....make sure your Bios clock matches your system clock and while you're in the bios, set it to either 'Failsafe' or 'Default' ...some have both, some only one.
If all these pass and you still get the BSOD then we're down to the CPU, the PSU or the motherboard itself. The first two would be the most likely, with the MoBo being a remote possibility.
If you can get to a computer at home (friends, what not) that works then let me know what happens so we can fix this damn thing.
Now, if all that comes up clean, then go after any PCI card you have installed. Sound, TV cards, modem boards, even your ethernet card, if you have one. (Don't need Internet on a dead machine). If it runs without them, then do the same thing as the memory.....one at a time until you find the culprit.
Finally. I am still not completely convinced that this graphic card is faultless. When you un-installed your drivers and it came up clean on the re-boot, it shouldn't have. It should have given you the new hardware found prompt and when you ran NFR, it should have showed the main driver back in the system folder from the backup folder.....it didn't do either. If it's possible, burn any 'Detonator' drivers in the 4x.xx series to a CD and try them. you can get them here ftp://download1.nvidia.com/Windows/
Now for the simplest test of the day....make sure your Bios clock matches your system clock and while you're in the bios, set it to either 'Failsafe' or 'Default' ...some have both, some only one.
If all these pass and you still get the BSOD then we're down to the CPU, the PSU or the motherboard itself. The first two would be the most likely, with the MoBo being a remote possibility.
If you can get to a computer at home (friends, what not) that works then let me know what happens so we can fix this damn thing.
Watson
Reply #78 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:22 PM
Reply #78 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:22 PM
See. Told ya there was lots that could be wrong...
Hus
Reply #79 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:52 PM
Reply #79 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:52 PM
Gary, right now I have a hard-drive with 1/4th of XP installed...and obviously it's not working. I'll try the memory tests...but if that doesn't work...I won't be able to do any other tests because I can't even install XP right now. On top of all that, I'm without a cable modem for atleast 2 weeks, I scheduled a service call for June 5th, it's the only day I'll be available. I'll run the mem tests when I get home, I can only let you know how things went tomorrow. Thanks for the input though...always appreciated!
IPlural
Reply #80 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:59 PM
Reply #80 Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:59 PM
Hus...
What motherboard are you using?
Or better yet, what on-board IDE controlled / RAID chipset? " Promise " by chance?
You might very well have to install the motherboard drivers while installing XP so it knows how to communicated with the chipset on the motherboard and such....
What motherboard are you using?
Or better yet, what on-board IDE controlled / RAID chipset? " Promise " by chance?
You might very well have to install the motherboard drivers while installing XP so it knows how to communicated with the chipset on the motherboard and such....
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Reply #61 Wednesday, May 12, 2004 1:38 AM