pc problems, part 2

[griffinspc]

To part 1 http://discussions.virtualdr.com/For...ML/055486.html

Been real busy so I apologize for being late. I see you have a Logitech Camera installed. That particular camera software has been the topic of a bunch of threads on this board. It has a history of causing problems. Hangs, blue screens, hardware conflicts, etc.

I wish I'd known that way back when.

Now something really important. The video you have is sometimes referred to as on-board. That means that it has a small amount of memory dedicated to video and whenever it needs more it takes it from RAM. This is a poor way of managing memory but works Ok for an average user.

For someone who wants to do burning, use a web cam and other intensive programs it can drain your RAM to the point that when your machine needs to re-paint the screen which it does constantly (that's the refresh rate) then sometimes there's just not enough left to do it properly. Hence a white screen with lines.

I "think" this is a possible reason for the white screen.

As far as a restore. I assume you mean restore Win98 from your disk, I don't think that's your solution.

I think you have a bunch of hardware with a ton of software that's been swapped in and out so if you want a really clean start you'd need to start all over and that means formatting the drive, partitioning it, reinstalling Win98 and then all the hardware with updated drivers and then all the software.

Just restoring Win98 isn't the solution. If anyone out there (WHO HAS FOLLOWED THE POST) disagrees please jump in I don't mind other opinions.

If you aren't using the web cam I'd like you to uninstall the software using add/remove and then remove the hardware in device manager. Shut down, then remove the camera physically, then reboot.

Now Greengoose has a good idea so I'm going to start a new thread with this post of mine and a link back to here. See you on the other side.

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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[Chuck Mielke]

I seriously doubt the need to reformat and repartition. I have yet to see or read a convincing reason to ever reformat.

I sent this person a personal E-Mail recommending that he simply keep his old Windows directory, rename it Windows2, create another directory called Windows, and reinstall the Windows.

Next, reinstall the applications one at a time. Same with the hardware. My advice would be to take his time about it, so as to give the problem time to crop up with the most recently installed application. If and when the problem comes up again, the most recently installed application was the likely culprit.

Of course, an extremely small C drive would be a problem, simply due to the hard drive space needed for the second install. It is possible, I suppose, to install Windows on any other partition, such as the K partition, for example.

Back when I was having problems, before I got his new Motherboard, I had at least 5 different installations of the Windows directory, named, of course, Windows through Windows4.


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If it doesn't work, kick it. If it breaks, well, what the hell, it didn't work anyway.

[griffinspc]

Olds, This is from Compaq support.
_______________________________
"On the intel 810 chipset, it can allocate 11MB dynamically and can not be adjusted by the user. The system allocates 1MB for video memory at post, and after windows is loaded, the OS allocates video memeory as it needs it."

Also:

"The following tables illustrate how much memory is allocated under various operating systems, with and without the GPA card.
Table 1. Total Graphics Memory With the 4MB GPA Card
System Memory Size 32MB 64MB 128MB
Windows* 98(5 + 4)=9MB(8 + 4)=12MB(8 + 4)=12MB

Table 2. Total Graphics Memory Without the 4MB GPA Card
System Memory Size 32MB 64MB 128MB
Windows* 98 6MB 10MB 10MB
Note: The above values in both tables do not include the 1 MB allocated for VGA memory.
________________________________
I know this is probably confusing to you but you seem like you want to learn some of what we're referring too. Here's the link if you're interested in more detail. http://program.intel.com/shared/prod...d=PCG+devside&

I'd like you to make sure you have no desktop wallpaper either.

Go to Start /Run and type in msconfig. Once the window opens click on the startup tab. I know this will be time consuming for your typing but try and list in ordeer top to bottom, all the programs listed to start when you boot.

Just list the items at the left of the screen for now such as:
ScanRegistry
Tweak UI
TaskMonitor

and all the rest.

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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[griffinspc]

Chuck, you misread what I meant:

I seriously doubt the need to reformat and repartition. I have yet to see or read a convincing reason to ever reformat.

I don't want him to do either at this point I don't want him to further confuse things with a restore, however just between us, I have seen numerous reasons to reformat and start from scratch.

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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[Chuck Mielke]

Oh, well, I coulda sworn that I saw you say that was his best bet, or words to that effect. Guess I need to work on my understanding of the English language.

Well, the Tech that reformatted and repartitioned my HD obviously thought he saw a good reason for it.

But I didn't, still don't. I asked him why, and he couldn't explain it to me, so, as I said before, I still haven't seen any good reasons for it.

Personally, I think the problem my Tech encountered was with the MBR, and he just didn't know of an easy way to fix that. It was 2 HDs chained together.

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If it doesn't work, kick it. If it breaks, well, what the hell, it didn't work anyway.

[This message has been edited by Chuck Mielke (edited 01-21-2002).]

[greengoose1]

Bob O'Donnell wrote this on reformatting:

The desire to recreate that "fresh" feeling often leads people to start over with their computers by reformatting their hard drive(s) and reinstalling their applications from scratch. In fact, I’ve heard of several people who do this on a semi-yearly or even more frequent basis as a regular form of system maintenance. In addition, many computers now come with special boot floppy disks and installation CDs that are specifically designed to bring your system back to its pristine, shipped-from-the-factory state.

Another reason for pursuing this strategy is that no matter how hard you may try, there are times when your system reaches a point where it’s simply not worth expending any additional effort trying to figure out why programs keep crashing or other strange problems keep occurring. I know that dedicated PC troubleshooters never want to give up, but one of the hardest lessons you can learn is that sometimes it really is better to start over.

So a person that does everything right theoretically will never have to feformat.



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Seek knowledge and all else will follow


Please post back results - Press Ctl D to bookmark

[olds79]

hi guys yea you right griffin shes over my head .i tried that link ,i couldn't get it to load or what ever. anyway i copied everything that was checked i hope that is what you wanted. if not i'll go back and write all of it. scan reg, system tray , CPQeasyAcc, EAclean, VsstatEXE, VsecomrEXE. pigtail dashbvoard, ptsnoop, country selection, real tray, loadpower profile, hidserve, internet answering machine. this question maybe way off base but should my c drive have less on it than d drive. right now its like this. d capicity 2.77gb used 1.04 free 1.68 and c capicity 15.8gb used 1.67 free 14.2 also could you tell me in a easy way, what you were talking about. the stuff from compaq .
as far as the camera goes i rarely use it but im not sure how much my wife or son use's it. not much i beleave. one other thing that i use to have before i did a restore is called digital video creator 80 [dazzle] . iuse to have it down loaded but never got the thing to work right. i got it so i could go from my camcorder or vcr or stereo to my pc are you familar with this?
.one other thing i copied another cd last night had no problems. if i want to take a cd and put it on my hard drive how do i do it. thanks olds79

[olds79]

hi griffin i was just brousing around and i founf windows media player. should i uninstall this ?if so how would you like me to do it. thanks

[griffinspc]

Glad you found the new thread. Busy! I thought holidays were supposed to be relaxing? Geeesh!

OK, to you.

1st the link. It's set in PDF format which you need Adobe Acrobat for. I assumed your machine would have it since it comes with about half the programs you've installed. You can download it at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Do me a favor and don't install it right away.

As to the windows media player, I may have asked this before but what version is it? If it's 6.4 I'd leave it alone. It won't bother anything. If it's 7.x, uninstall it and you'll have 6.4 back immediately and automatically. I've found 7.x to be a problem on some machines as have others right here on the doc.

should my c drive have less on it than d drive. right now its like this. d capicity 2.77gb used 1.04 free 1.68 and c capicity 15.8gb used 1.67 free 14.2

I don't quite understand. These figures you wrote show C with 14.2 GB's free and D with only 1.68 GB's free. That's logical and normal. C is far bigger than D.

What I was trying to explain, obviously badly, is that a lot of PC's have a separate video board either APG or PCI. That's basically just a designation for the slot it fits in to you although it has a lot to do with performance too.

These boards can have anywhere from 4 to 64 MB's of memory and then some. This allows your PC to use higher screen resolutions, more colors, higher refresh rates and re-paints the screen during heavy use such as a very detailed game, very fast.

I have a board with 64 MB's of memory in this machine. That's as much as my second machine has for RAM. Boards like mine have 3D acceleration, dithering and more and mine's not really a gamers delight. Some of those guys spend $400 on just a video board.

In your machine, and a lot of others, you have a chip on the Motherboard that has 1 MB of memory. All the other memory you need to do all of what I said above has to be taken from your machine's RAM when it's needed. Is that a better explanation?

I'm thinking based on what you wrote about the white screen ids that after you burned a disk(s) and had all of this stuff runing at boot that you ran out of spare RAM resources to give to your video which in turn caused the white screen and hang.

If this happens again you might go into display settings and make sure you're runing no higher than 800 x 600 resolution, refresh rate at 75Hz maximum and High Color 16 bit. Don't use wallpaper since your machine has to refresh that every time too.

digital video creator 80 [dazzle]

If there is still a listing in the ad/remove, remove it.

If you use the camera or your family does and it works ok, I guess leave it in, but if no one uses it and you have the software so you can re-install it after everythings A-OK, remove it like I posted before.

I'm not sure what you mean by copying a CD to your hard drive but explain a little better and I'll tell you.

Let me have a day to go over all the stuff you have starting and I'll tell you what it does and what you can stop from loading every time you boot.

I have a question. Are you still having shutdown problems and if so; 2 out of 10, 5 out of 10, every time, what?

PS: Congratulations on the clean burn.

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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[griffinspc]

Olds, I thought this might interest you. Pick up a copy of the January 29 issue of PC Magazine and you'll find a pretty good article (review) on players. Page 99 if you want to read it at the store and save a few bucks.

It reviews Media Jukebox, MusicMatch, Quicktime, RealOne, Winamp and Windows Media Player for XP.

Just don't go nuts and install any of them right now.

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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[olds79]

hi guys last night she hung on shut down two times in a row, third time she was fine. then i went to bed. hard to say % of times i swear it depends what im doing, like' letting pc sit at idle for long periods, 1 or 2 hrs. besides that a new problem i started pc up just now, desk top came up gray in color instead of blue. icons are large things look funny like this site has a lot of small dots. i dont think this is the safe mode but sure looks something on that idear i've shut down twice normally , and still the same screan help thanks olds

[griffinspc]

Originally posted by olds79:
hi guys last night she hung on shut down two times in a row, third time she was fine. then i went to bed. hard to say % of times i swear it depends what im doing, like' letting pc sit at idle for long periods, 1 or 2 hrs. besides that a new problem i started pc up just now, desk top came up gray in color instead of blue. icons are large things look funny like this site has a lot of small dots. i dont think this is the safe mode but sure looks something on that idear i've shut down twice normally , and still the same screan help thanks olds

1st the shutdown. I may have said earlier but I have a somewhat similar situation. If I'm on my home machine for a few hours as I was last night it doesn't shutdown about 50% of the time. I haven't worked on it since I spend all my time on yours but for now don't worry about it since it's getting to the Win98 exit logo.

Now to this other problem. Things seem to be cropping up at weird times. Every time we get 2 steps forward we go back a step.

Have you anytime recently opened your case, added RAM, or changed location on any cards, that type of thing.

At this juncture with nothing much to go on, I can only jump to conclusions which I hate to do but a RAM stick going bad or not seated properly, a cable loose, that type of thing?

This is the first time this happened and the white screen happened only the one time right?

Check all your connections first especially the connector from the monitor to the PC. Make sure there are no bent pins, you have to take it off the back of the PC for this and if it's OK make sure it's re-attached smoothly and snugged down. Don't over tighten the 2 thumb screws.

Let us know the outcome of this and also did you check the refresh rate, display size and all that I mentioned above?

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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[olds79]

hi griffin alls ok ! my fault i guess . this is what happend. like i said about last nights shut downs. after i got it under control last night ,i was reading some of the other post. then i came upon a guy having shut down problems he was directed to do the same thing you told me to do. [disable fast shut down ] so i figured i'd go there. I rememberd that for some reason i couldnt disable it, anyway i went there and the same thing again . icould not find anything to uncheck. so i went back one ,i"ll call it a page . which is SYSTEM CONFIGURATION UTILITY first off i"d like to ask, which i beleave i did before but i"m not sure if i got an answer should i be starting in the selective start up .well since i did not see anything about shut down in the advanced trouble shooting page. so i tried checking off normal start up. then i hit advance button. again i didn't see anything . so iwent back and checked diagnostic start up. again i advanced still nothing, so i put the check back in seletive start up. then i shut down for the night. now this morning, i had the problems i desribed. i had no idea what was wrong and paniced, and wrote to you .well i was in a hurry for work but said to my self it must have been something i did so i back tracked. when i got to the system conf. utility page i beleave selective startup was still checked . but below that theres other spots for check marks. here they are, these were checked PROCESS CON FIG. SYSTEM FILE . PROCESS AUTOEXE BAT FILE . and unchecked was PROCESS SYSTEM INI. FILE . PROCESS WIN INI FILE. well i beleave these two were always checked so i checked them and rebooted. all better. i dont know why the checks were gone but there back . sorry for the inconvince . any idea why i can't find the fast shut down. and your right the white screan only happen once . everthing seems to be in order i think, except the shut downs. you said you weren't sure what i meant about putting songs on my hard drive. may be im saying it wrong . but what i want to do is take a music cd and down load it. so i can listen to songs on my pc with out the cd thanks olds79

[griffinspc]

On your shutdown not appearing. That happens when you have installed the "Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement". You must have done this in the past. Once that's installed the option disappears from where I told you and in the msconfig "advanced" tab.

As to your question, "should i be starting in the selective start up," that is OK and in fact becomes the default automatically if you uncheck anything in the MSCONFIG start up tab. The only thing you must not do is uncheck process autoexec.bat, config.sys, system.ini, win.ini and load startup group items. Winstart.bat should be grayed. Those options are for experienced users only for diagnostics or specific configurations. leave them checked.

We were going to go through your start up group and get you some resources and maybe solve a couple of issues, including shutdown but you haven't followed up on my questions.

You said,what i want to do is take a music cd and down load it. so i can listen to songs on my pc with out the cd.

Quite a while back I asked you to outline the remaing problems, One I know is shutdown but the other?

You never answered about your final decision on the web cam and the rest of the above posted questions and suggestions. You only brought new questions to the discussion (copying music to the hard drive).

I'm sorry but we're back to what we went through before, you keep interjecting new problems and trying new things before we get the old problems resolved and now as usual I'm lost. Counting the 1st thread and this one we're over 100 replys. I think it's the longest thread I've ever seen. I know the longest time I've ever devoted to a machine or member.

At this point I think you need to work on your own for awhile, decide what you really want out of your machine and your level of knowledge then when you have a handle on it and need help. Post back in a new thread with specific questions. I'm sure other members will try and help.


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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[olds79]

griffin, you know you probably right. this is way to long ,i've had the patients to try and work this out. ive made mistakes and apolized many times but not this time. you should read over some of the things you tell me to do. now you tell me im injecting new problems i thoght you told me to use my cd player, copier,etc. i guess down loading to the hard drive was wrong. i told you my wife and son uses the web cam sometimes. you replied that i can keep it if i want. OR if i have the disk to uninstall it untill everything is ok. where does it say to respond back. as far as selective start up i've already stated why i was there. also in that 500 word explanation I said everything seems to be[ ok except the shut downs ]by the way i'd say its 50-60%freezing . so any way i beleve ive been doing what you said, no down loads, no adding anything. i gave you my start up things, you said to give you a couple of days .what did i do so wrong since then. I think my only problem left is the shut downs, i hope.
we wont even go to the orig. problems that i posted .
so i guess what im asking for is help on my shut down problem either from you or anybody that is willing to help me thank you olds79