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Packard Bell tower PC
Hi all,
Isabelle has a PB tower, Piii-500 (looks like this comes with some TATTOO??), and wants to do a clean win98 on the machine (I already checked, she has a full CD, and key, and does NOT want to use the PB recovery cdroms)
How do we go about it?
will she find the multimedia keyboard drivers someplace?
At the moment, there's no internet connection available, but this machine can be brought over to my place.
(if she does, I will most likely make a ghost image of the drive, as a precaution.)
why do it?
several of the hardware items she purchased and hooked up seem to have failed to do their job as they should.
the latest in this series is a scanner which works dandily as long as you do not try the copy to printer option.
iow, she cannot do a straight copy to her printer, and this is really bugging her.
scanner = Epson Perfection 1240U =usb
printer = HP deskjet 815C (on ECP)
I already removed a ton of debris from absent hardware. I also suspect some software problem with the EPSON interface.
(It Always complains there is no Epson PRINTER, and will not print to HP)
the machine needs to be seen to next monday, so I am trying to get some ideas about what to expect.
addtnl info
dvd drive
cdr/w (some HP)
usb joypad
HP digital camera (usb)
64ram
17Gb HDD
and it had me stumped when I looked at it on site. https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
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it's all caused by my Flemishness!
Jaak
[This message has been edited by jtdoom (edited 01-19-2001).]
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Hi mosaic1,
pls call me Jaak?
erm, if she brings it over, there are many options, and I will have all day monday, so can do this in depth, and try options.
One of the problems, (as usual), is that she has tons of user data in there.
She recently had the cdr/w put in, and got the printer and scanner at the same time.
have found drivers for the scanner (hopefully newer)
think I got MM-keyb http://pbsupport.alorica.com/home.asp
one needs to sign up there?
I really do not want to mess with the drive tattoo.
I intend to at least try the following.
I can hook up a newly fdisked drive and start from scratch, and see what it does.
(this leaves her drive out, so it is intended as test. If I can make the hardware work on a tattoo-less drive, I know we can do this. If not, it's probably gonna be as you suggest)
yesterday I cleaned out the old absent hardware, and then did a setup over the present system (setup was one without switches)
The harware I weeded out stayed out, and the stuff actually works, but not as it should.
I suspect a great many soft bugs krept in over time, and also that the dvd/cdrw setup ain't right either (you know, it loses the dvd while it reads drivers off it. It does not do that on the cdr-w. so I guess it was improperly hooked up)
I'll get myself in trouble on this one, no doubt... https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
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it's all caused by my Flemishness!
Jaak
should have tried look with hwinfo /ui but did not think of it at the time.
And as an added complication, this machine has user profiles. Grrrmmmmblll https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
[This message has been edited by jtdoom (edited 01-19-2001).]
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Don't know whether this applies or not, but I had an old PB 486 that came with win3.1 on it and restore disks and such, and when I went to win95 I formatted and just did a regular install with the boot disk and the win95 disk. Didn't use the restore disk at all. Course, maybe things have changed since early 1994.
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AMD K6-2 3DNOW, 350 mhz, 128mb ram, 6gig hdd. 56k modem
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Jaak
Go into device manager and check the usb. Might want to look for updated drivers or buffers for it. It has made a good difference for me. I can now https://discussions.virtualdr.com/.
Mosaic got it right on the overinstall that I do.
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SMILE
and post back
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You might check out this site for drivers before you start:
http://www.download.com.my/packardbell/manual.shtml
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FORMAT
Get rid of PB junk!!Do a clean install of 98 .Do not install over PB garbage!!!!!!I have hundreds or (thousands)of hours fouling
up the first puter i owned (PB)
You guys are great keep up the good work.
Have a great weekend
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Jaak,
Heed Mosaic1's words.
"I don't know about Packard Bell.. They are out of business here in the States.(Now they are NEC .) "
Those three letters make you cringe, don't it https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper
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I own a NEC and have so for about a year with relatively few problems. It came with a restore disk, which I'm afraid, I think is what most computer buyers will find packed with their new purchase.
In my opinion the restore disk has about as much practical usefulness as some of those bright-n-shiny AOL disk that come in my mail. I'd poke a hole in it and make an earring, except I don't have anything that would go with that awful baby poop yellow.
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I want my old name back part deux...
Trish-A
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Hi Train,
buffers on usb?
I have nothing with USB on my machine so cannot easily find such settings when look into this. But it sounds like something I should know more about.
Has anyone got hints and tips or live links on this?
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Remember, it's only free advice...
Jaak
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Well lets see, i have a packardbell II400 about 1 and a half years old. When i first got it i had hardware problems as well. Modem was not being recognised, so i decided to use the pbell boot up disk and chose to reformat the hard drive. I then chose the operating system option only, this loaded on just win 98.
From here i went to the smart restore application: start>programs>tools>smart restore. This allowed me to choose what softare or hardware i wanted to install. If the application is not in tools it should be in one of the master cd's that comes with the computer.
A few months later i started getting messages that the epson 640 i had connected was not being recognised, when it was connected to the computer and had been working fine for months. The solution to this was that somehow the LPT port had become disabled in the bios, after enabling it(press del at boot up to enter bios on my machine)it ran fine.
G-fuNk
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sometimes i forget, but patience is a great virtue!
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Jaak
This statement scanner = Epson Perfection 1240U =usb Is why I suggested checking out the usb for up dates. As MO stated about Viatech. [check Device manager USB controllers]
Also, I install the printer first and then the scanner. Do not know why, but other way gives my computer fits.
I suspect there was a Epson printer on that computer at one time that left stuff in dos.
[Found that problem last night on a 486 win95 machine]
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SMILE
and post back
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Train, could be.
Isabelle had a lot of stuff hooked up to this machine before I saw it.
she has an older parallel scanner (but then she had no drivers for it. dunno if it was ever hooked up, I guess she tried.)
She has an older printer, what I saw looked like a HP too but I did not closely look at it (it's currently hooked up on the kids machine)
I am gonna try find out tomorrow.
Think I am gonna need find out https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
She told me about things she returned to the store because it would not work or broke down.
I reckon it's gonna be complicated.
First thing will be my friend Mr Phillips and a magnifying glass.
I wondered what a voodoo5 was doing in there.
Come to think of it, it looked as if this machine had dual screen enabled on the single screen. The time I spent there, I saw a good many glitches and some weird stuff going on.
btw, del did not get me in bios on this one.
Will have to look it up.
thanks for the input so far.
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Remember, it's only free advice...
Jaak
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Hi all.
well, the hard drive is fdisked, partitioned and formatted.
(orig setup is ghosted onto my machine)
checked the cables, they are NOT cable select cables.
(mobo port 1 is black, 40 wire ribbon, two connectors. The one on port two had but a single connector, the port is white)
I think we have a hardware problem all right.
When I copied the windows cab folder to D: partition in DOS, the DVD had trouble keeping "on line". this error repeats itself at different points in copy process on several repeat trials. (If other jumper placement don't fix this, I'll get it out and clean the lens...)
the cdr/w gets it done without hiccup.
my reasoning is, if it won't properly work in DOS, windows will have problems with it as well.
TBC'd
dang, voodoo3 acts up... banshee drivers in winSE complained of not being right ones.
and I need my bed.
will try locate voodoo 3, 8 MB drivers. voodoo is integrated in bora pro mobo.
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Please remember, it's only free advice...
Jaak
[This message has been edited by jtdoom (edited 01-31-2001).]
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What are the models of the DVD, CDR/W and mobo?
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Hi Imm,
motherboard MSI 6186 bora pro -integretaed sound (got the drivers, and found a CD from a SB128 works dandy on it)
the 8MB agp integrated vid reports
voodoo 3 2000 TV bios version 1.00.01
(got this info with debug)
(I need better drivers for this voodoo)
the DVD
SAMSUNG DVD_MASTER 6E model SD-606
the cdr/rw
LG model CED-8080B ROM VERSION 1.06
EDIT; lens is clean...
and I have all night to get this thing going...going....going to pot...into the dustbin...Hmmm, have various sizes of hammer, which would be better?... https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
[This message has been edited by jtdoom (edited 01-31-2001).]
