The Hardware Community's Journal (original) (raw)

Poster:	crippsy_99
Date:	2012-04-28 19:54
Subject:
Security:	Public

I posted a couple of weeks ago about a system that had died on me after the watercooler had split.
Took it to a shop to be looked at eventually, they tested parts and said it def seemed to be the motherboard at fault.

So I bought a new one, and rebuilt my pc. Ive got everything up and running now, although it does seem to be running slower overall, however that is except the pci wifi card! Its always worked fine before no problems. Ive tried two cards, and neither will pick up a wifi signal.

Ive installed both old and most recent drivers (ones that previously worked), ive tried different settings the lot..device manager says the card is working fine, but it just refuses to see any wireless signals! The windows network diagnostics though says "The Network adapter linksys wireless-g PCI Adapter is experiencing driver or hardware related issues' which makes me go back to drivers possibly, as Vista 64-bit drivers are a nightmare to get hold of apparently.

So im stuck now. The only way I have to get online with this computer at the moment is via usb tethering to my phone, with my phone connected to the wifi network and sharing the connection with my pc.
Will buying a new one solve my problem maybe? Though the last one I bought didn't/doesn't work either..
Only other thing I can think of is buy a usb wifi dongle, but I hear they can be problematic and dont pick up signals very well.

Poster:	crippsy_99
Date:	2012-04-12 22:56
Subject:
Security:	Public

Question for anyone who might know.

I had a Coolit Domino ALC liquid cooling unit in my computer running for the last 3 years and never had a problem with it. Last week, 'something' started making a noise in the computer, which I was sure was a hard drive about to give out, so attempted backing things up. However, the 1.5tb external drive I was backing up too decided it wanted to fail, and neither my desktop or laptop will pick it up as an external drive, but that's another matter.

Next day, my mother was on the desktop, when a nasty oily smell suddenly started. I was convinced it was a drive def burning up, and told her to shut down imeidietly. Disconnected everything, opened up the case to remove the drive..and happened to notice the water cooler had sprung a leak! Turned out it was that which was boiling and making the hissing noise!
Anyway, removed that as fast as I could manage, but by that point the graphics card was swimming with a pool inside the heatsink/case of it, coolant was running down the motherboard, and the psu was sitting in a puddle at the bottom of the case!!
Took all the components out and off the motherboard, gave them a dry, and left them drying out for 2 days. The psu im sure is fine, was one drop of wet on a fan blade, but couldn't see anything else. The motherboard I thought was all dry. However not so sure about the graphics card as while it looked dry, it stunk of coolant still.
So anyway, tonight I reassembled everything, pressed power on, and there's life! Sort of! Powers up, starts POST, but then powers itself down 10-15 seconds in!! And im not sure why.

I DON'T think its the graphics card as I could see the text on the screen fine in the brief time it tried to boot up, so there doesn't appear to be a display issue. Unfortunately, I don't have another one to test in the system to be 100% sure.
My guess is either a motherboard issue, as it doesn't like to go past the boot process, but my mobo has dual bios, so if the main is corrupted or anything, the backup is supposed to automatically load. Or, possibly the psu has had it after all, and cant handle the power drain as everything starts up?
Ive not been able to actually access the boot menu, as my keyboard is wireless, which doesn't kick in until windows does, and I don't have a wired one anymore.

So im stumped at which parts at fault! Motherboard is the worst case scenario for me, as all my data and files are on 3x 1Tb drives in RAID 5 configuration, and im let to believe if I change the mobo, that raid array will fail and i'll lose everything on those drives?? That would be a disaster after my backup drive has decided to die on me also. :/

My system btw consists of:
Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz Socket 1366
6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz Platinum Triple Channel Kit CL7 1.65V
4x Hard drives (3 in RAID 5, 1 stand alone system drive)
BD-RW drive
GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 INTEL X58 mobo
ATI RADEON 4890 1024MB GDDR5
Wifi network card
Coolermaster 1000W psu

Regarding the external drive..I get the message that the usb device has malfunctioned and cannot be recognised..is there anything I can do, or is it a big paperweight now? It has not been a good month..

Any help??

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I just bought a Visual Land mp3 player today, and XP is not recognizing it. I downloaded a driver for it, but I don't know what to do with it.
I extracted usbmphlp.pdr, usbntmap and usbstor and two setup information files, but I have no idea where these go.
What should I do with this folder of extracted files?

1 comment | post a comment

Hello. I am new to the community and need a little bit of advice.

I just purchased an HP SimpleSave 750GB External Hard Drive USB 3.0 on e-bay so I could move some stuff on my computer over to it to give me some extra free space on my hard drive.

I was looking through the list of HP computers this was compatible with, but could not find my HP laptop which is an HP G60 notebook PC.

I was wondering if this particular external hard drive would be compatible/work with with this computer.

I appreciate your help. Thank you!

1 comment | post a comment

Poster:	crippsy_99
Date:	2010-12-26 22:12
Subject:
Security:	Public

Is there a way to sort an external hard drive that has decided to start playing up?

For xmas, I had a new 500gb portable drive to replace my portable one that died months ago. Great I thought, so i'll back some of my most important stuff up from the 1.5tb external drive ive got. Problem is, since I first connected that portable drive, the external is now being an absolute nightmare, and when I try and access it, all its doing is freezing up windows explorer.

It'll get through the first couple of folders, but now when trying to access the sub folders and files, thats when its not responding. Ive even tried accessing through disk burning software to try and back some of the stuff up that way, but that too isnt doing anything. I think the last time something like this happened was with a 160gb external drive I had ages ago, and the only way to fix it was to re-format the drive as was some file system problem :/

Edit: I connected the drive to my laptop, and it works perfectly on there as normal....this leads me to assume that the new drive must have something to do with the problem as it hasnt touched the laptop (and wont be now!)

2 comments | post a comment

Looking for a decent Wireless Laser Printer

Any good makes I should look at (Colour or Mono) and cheap toner carts etc?

-- ~ B ~

1 comment | post a comment

Last night while working on a friend's pc, it blue screened with C000008c4 (I think that was it) and the words "unknown hard error"---We turned it off, now it just hangs at the post screen, after it detects the dvd drive and memory and hd, it never goes any further. Any ideas? Hard disk shot? OS shot?

Thanks

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Looking for a decent netbook for my mother so she can surf the net but has to be light weight, long lasting battery and have a decent amount of USB ports.
I had a look at Asus One's in a shop but when i surf to the Asus website its like they all disappeared like they stop making them or something.

any suggestions on a good netbook?

-- ~ B ~

2 comments | post a comment

Any tips on good netbook type PC's?

Just need something small and light for my mom, just web browsing I'm guessing. Was looking at the ASUS One netbook but seems those are old now and cant even buy them unless i go to normal Electrical shops on the high street.

-- ~ B ~

post a comment

Hello guys,

I have recently begun to consider a RAM upgrade to my laptop. It's an Acer Aspire 5610 (5612AWLMi) which currently has 2 x 512MB sticks installed running at PC2-5300 (667 Mhz). I have been confused by ideas whether the laptop supports 2GB or 4GB maximum. Acer's own eSettings say that it maxes out to 2GB but then I have seen conflicting information which says it can go up to 4GB. It seems the Intel chipset used in this particular Aspire model is an i945GM which goes up to 4GB. Is there anyone out there who has this model of Acer and can tell me whether this system definitely does or doesn't work with 4GB. I have updated to the latest BIOS version of 3.60.

Also the Intel datasheet states for 945GM - Maximum Memory supported: up to 4 GB at 400, 533 and 667 MHz. If I used DDR2 800Mhz RAM on this chipset would it just fall back on 667 speeds (which I believe it should) or not actually work?

Cheers :)

x-posting to computerhelp, computersupport & hardware

2 comments | post a comment

Poster:	crippsy_99
Date:	2010-04-26 00:24
Subject:
Security:	Public

Oh the joys of everything needing to be replaced at the same time! My portable hard drive has decided to stop working!
I have my files backed up on there, and I use it for moving large files between my desktop and laptop, but it doesn't get that much use. Its never had a problem before, but all of a sudden now tonight, I plug it into any usb port and its coming up
"One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it."

Any ideas?
Its a WD Passport 250gb Drive, model WD2500XMS-00. Having googled it, seems others who have had a similar problem found it to be a faulty cable, however ive tried 3 other ones with it, on top of the one it came with making four, but still no joy.
Wont even recognise to run a disk scan or attempt a format. Ive tried on both my desktop and laptop too, and all 10 usb ports between them say the same.

Its annoying as I previously mentioned this had one of my sets of backups, and was the only mass portable way of moving files except via my 30gb ipod between systems, though it has given me a couple of years of good use.
Yet more money for me to find though if I need to replace!

1 comment | post a comment

Evening folks,
I'm thinking about building a new computer soon. My baby is getting abit old (7yrs old in June) now (P4 3.0Ghz) and I want to know what are the latest processor types out there. Last time I did research Intel P4's just came out so I'm abit out of the loop I guess.

Anyone recommend a good motherboard & process? Currently ASUS mobo in my baby so I may well stick with it as its given me 7yrs of no problems.

p.s comp is going to be used for mostly day to day surfing, photography, no gaming.

--
~ B ~

5 comments | post a comment

Right then folks I'm in the market for a new mouse. My second Microshite Intelli mouse is dying. Anyone know of any good mice that have the same functions as the Intelli one ? Wireless mice any good? Maybe a different kind of pointing device all together like a tablet?

--
~ B ~

9 comments | post a comment

Okay, so I know how to say no when windows asks me if I want to send a report to Microsoft about a program crashing.
But how do I make it stop asking if I want to send an error report? Photoshop crashes because my images are too big, so I know the reason for the crash. I get tired of clicking no. It asks me this when my internet is off.
How do I make those crash reports stop popping up when the programs crash?
This is really annoying.

4 comments | post a comment

I am hoping someone in this community can help me. I need a printer that can handle cardstock (67lb. or heavier) on continuous feed. My current printer can handle a single sheet at a time and I have to feed it manually, What a pain! Can anyone help? Thanks. JudySue

Poster:	stainsteelrat
Date:	2009-10-07 11:53
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	curious