The_Inquisitor
Member
What model tv do you have?
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Tech Support GAF Thread: No Case Too Big, No Case Too Small
- Thread starter Hawkian
- Start date
What model tv do you have?
parrotbeak
Member
OK I am stuck. I can only F2 and F12. F8 Safe Mode doesn't work. My computer only came with a Utilities disc, no reinstall disc.
The Microsoft help says if you can't get into Safe Mode from F8, either insert reinstall disc or reinstall from Safe Mode. No really, the link from how to reinstall if you can't get into Safe Mode says to reinstall from Safe Mode. Link also goes from Win7 to Vista help, so it's pretty useless.
The previously mentioned True Image backup doesn't work with the F12 install from usb. I only reinstalled from True Image once before and that was from a running Windows, so I don't know how to do it from F12. Maybe I was supposed to create a rescue file and I only made .tib files.
Laptop I am on is shitty so it's taking forever to google for help.
Garou
Member
You might mix up things. RAM and Memory are the same thing.
Garou
Member
Hard disk space and Memory are completely Independent from each other. You can have a 3TB hard drive and 1GB of memory, or a 32GB hard drive and 16GB of Memory. Basically you can mix and match whatever your motherboard supports.
i built a computer a few years ago. i gave it to my brother this past week, its a big upgrade from what he used to use. the integrated graphics are disabled on it, so using that is not an option right now to fix this problem. but here is the problem from what i have gotten from him through text message:
he was trying to play league of legends. he has played it just fine on this computer before. then he got blue screen and shut it down. now when it turns back on, it starts booting up, but nothing displays on his monitor. he has tried the other dvi output on the video card and it is still a no go. should i have him try to reconnect the pci-e 6pin connector or should i try to get him to reset the cmos? both will probably be like pulling teeth while i tell him what to do over the phone.
fwiw the motherboard is a m4a785td-m evo and it is a gts 250 video card
he was trying to play league of legends. he has played it just fine on this computer before. then he got blue screen and shut it down. now when it turns back on, it starts booting up, but nothing displays on his monitor. he has tried the other dvi output on the video card and it is still a no go. should i have him try to reconnect the pci-e 6pin connector or should i try to get him to reset the cmos? both will probably be like pulling teeth while i tell him what to do over the phone.
fwiw the motherboard is a m4a785td-m evo and it is a gts 250 video card
Cloudius12
Member
I think even though it is disabled, it will still be used if you go into safemode.
SailorCosmos
Member
Does Windows 7 have issues with PATA expansion controller cards? If I try to install Windows 7 with the controller card plugged in it takes forever to install. If I remove it it installs in a few minutes. If I insert the controller card after the installation it takes around 20 minutes to boot to the desktop. Without the card it takes seconds to boot to the desktop. I've tried different brands of controller cards and I've also used different PCI slots but it still happens. I've updated the BIOS for my motherboard and played around with the settings to see if that would solve the issues but no luck so far. Has anyone experienced the same problem or know a solution to this problem?
Are you using a laptop or a desktop? Upgrading (in case of a laptop) or adding (in case of a desktop) a hard drive is fairly straight forward. I would suggest reading up a bit on it and check tutorials on perhaps youtube?
You could always opt for a usb/firewire drive but the access time would be slower. If it's just for storage/backup it's fine though.
Try to get into Safe Mode.
If Bios doesn't even show up, it's possible that the graphics card might be fried.
If that's the case he should hear a couple of beeps (error code for not detecting any video card). This may or may not happen since there's an integrated card available, or if you haven't connected the PC SPEAKER (the one located in the chassi).
If you can get to safe mode i would suggest cleaning out the drivers. reboot and reinstall them in regular windows.
To get to safe mode, press F8 before the windows logo (several times).
Have you tried the dvi output that's on the motherboard?
If that doesn't work (which is likely since it's disabled in bios), the only thing to get it to work is to clear cmos.
Have you tried different drivers for the Pata controller? There seems to be issues with controller cards in general after a quick google.
If you only have the controller card connected but not to a drive, is it still slow?
I would consider upgrading to SATA or buy an enclosure if you can't fix it.
SailorCosmos
Member
Yeah, I've tried the drivers that came on the cd that came with the cards as well as different updated drivers from the manufacturers websites. With the card connected but without any HDD connected it is still slow. I've had to resort to staying on XP since I need the info on the HDDs and I don't want to waste money on buying the enclosures.
Hm, weird. I've never heard of windows 7 having issues with it. You might get better response on sevenforums. Have you tried 32-bit win 7 and 64-bit win 7?
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/53785-ide-pata-dvd-drive-not-working.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/50153-install-marvell-88se6102-pata-controller.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/59333-cd-dvd-burning-slow-ide-ata-atapi-controller-missing.html
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/ComputerProblems/HardDiskDriveProblems/how-to-enable-dma-in-windows-xp-vista-7.htm
(Might not be of interest but posting anyhow)
@WedgeX: some of these links contain information on how to change sata drives to work in IDE mode, which i believe you have to in order to get the sata drive visible for windows installation (if you can't provide it with sata controller drivers at install).
Try reading up.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/251334-14-trying-install-sata-hard-drive
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/260696-14-500gb-hard-drive-motherboard-137gb-limit-windows
http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/260175-14-ahci-mode-work-help
Oh shit, there's jumpers on sata hard drives? I've completely forgot about that. WedgeX, this might be what you're looking for if so.
Hello, everyone. Need some help/advice, etc.
Looks like my hard drive is failing. Ran PC doctor and I got the following error message: HD521-2W
So, what steps do i need to take in order to replace the hard drive? I googled the issue but came across different answers.
I was planning on building a PC later this year(I'm sure that's another difficulty on its own) but since I can't afford to at the moment, replacing the hard drive is the best option for me right now.
Looks like my hard drive is failing. Ran PC doctor and I got the following error message: HD521-2W
So, what steps do i need to take in order to replace the hard drive? I googled the issue but came across different answers.
I was planning on building a PC later this year(I'm sure that's another difficulty on its own) but since I can't afford to at the moment, replacing the hard drive is the best option for me right now.
brandonh83
Banned
Having a font problem!
IGN on Chrome:
Twitter log-in page on Chrome (notably the bottom)
Twitter on IE9:
I've looked everywhere but can't find a similar issue so I'm stuck. Any help would be so great.
Things I have did: restored default font settings, messed with clear type, cleared my cache (although it's obviously not limited to a specific browser)
IGN on Chrome:
Twitter log-in page on Chrome (notably the bottom)
Twitter on IE9:
I've looked everywhere but can't find a similar issue so I'm stuck. Any help would be so great.
Things I have did: restored default font settings, messed with clear type, cleared my cache (although it's obviously not limited to a specific browser)
Have you installed any new fonts? websites have different fonts pre-selected (usually in the css, iirc). It then checks in your os if you have that font installed. If it doesn't, it reverts to the second font that they've assigned in the css.
I installed some fonts a while ago and some webpages looks messed up. specifically soundcloud.
NoRéN;36058733 said:
Does it appear to be fully functional at the moment? Backup everything that's important to an external drive or whatever you can get your hands as soon as possible.
And then just buy a new one. Check if you have a IDE or SATA drive (or if your motherboard supports SATA). Replacing your harddrive is dead easy and i recommend checking tutorials on youtube.
It's basically just unscrewing your old drive, remove two cables, screw in your new drive and then connected the appropriate cables.
Depending on the age of the computer you should go with a Sata drive. But you quite possibly need a Sata cable (unless you have one around).
Google images on how a hard drive looks like and also check images on how a IDE cable looks like and how a Sata cable looks like.
If you do not have sata ports on your motherboard IDE is the way to go.
Remember to have a windows/linux cd at hand because you will need to reinstall your OS and all your applications. When i say backup everything, that goes for game saves, web browser bookmarks, make a list of all software that you need and anything else important (music, movies, documents, whatever).
Also, when you install your new hard drive it will be really handy to have all the drivers available. You will need to know what motherboard you have and download all the drivers from their website. You need graphics card drivers and sound drivers. Having a Antivirus software on an usb drive is recommended before connecting to the internet.
I usually save all drivers (and AV) on an external drive before changing hard drive so that everything is installed and up to date before connecting it to the internet.
Another way to go about it is that you can just Ghost the old hard drive onto the new hard drive. What that means is that you use a software (can't think of one at the moment) and you make an exact image of the old drive onto the new drive.
One thing to note about this procedure is that the new drive will have the same space as the old one and if it's bigger than the old one there will be space that needs to be formatted and partitioned in order to be able to access it.
This way you won't have to worry about everything i wrote before but it's not for the faint hearted. There's several backup/ghosting software out there but i can't recommend one because most of those i've tried have been a hit or miss (some people like acronis though, but i remember it fucked up the MBR for me..).
If all this sound like gibberish to you, suggest calling a friend. Everyone has a computer nerd friend they can call to. It's easy for us because it's something we've done a million times.
Oh, ghosting/imaging a old drive to a new drive requires you to have both drives connected.
brandonh83
Banned
Thank you. Yes, I install new fonts all the time but haven't removed any so I didn't consider that to be a culprit. If this is indeed the case however, I wonder how to go about actually figuring out what fonts are missing or corrupt.
brandonh83
Banned
Okay, problem solved. I inserted my Windows 7 backup disc and copied the missing fonts over. Restarted, no more issues.
Thanks for the reply. Not gonna lie, reading that was terrifying.
Yeah, the drive is fully functional.
So, how can I check whet motherboardae? Its an old Pc, about 6 yrs. Heck, I think it has an integrated videocard.
NoRéN;36109779 said:
Because of the age of the computer it can be quite a hassle. In some cases it's written on the motherboard itself but your best bet is using some kind of software.
http://www.hwinfo.com/
Will help you with that.
If you need any assistance, type out everything that's under the motherboard column.. Or provide us with a screenshot (push print screen and copy into mspaint. upload at a preferred site).
Downloading all drivers and knowing what to install can be terrifying to say the least.. The imaging process i explained earlier would be the best bet but as i said, i have limited knowledge of which software to use. I've done it a million times but for some reason i always forget which software i use.
EDIT:
Oh, is it an HP computer? If you know what model it is HP's website could provide you with all the drivers you need.
I have never bought an hp/dell/whatever brand it is computer before but iirc they usually come with restoration cds with all the drivers and the os all bundled in one.
I would contact HP and tell them about your situation and see if they can't ship out some cds if you don't have them available. There's a chance they would even replace the hard drive (and quite possibly for free).
Something is messed up with my iPhoto. It wasn't showing any photos when trying to set it up to sync to my iPad. I checked on my mac mini and although the thumbnails are there, it can't find the originals.
Weirder, if I click on the pictures folder, it launches iPhoto. If I do 'get info' I find that my pictures folder is now an iPhoto library file. Wtf!?
Is there any way to get back to normal? I have the original photos backed up, but then I'd lose the events etc. plus I can't delete the 'pictures' folder as it says it's needed by osx.
Weirder, if I click on the pictures folder, it launches iPhoto. If I do 'get info' I find that my pictures folder is now an iPhoto library file. Wtf!?
Is there any way to get back to normal? I have the original photos backed up, but then I'd lose the events etc. plus I can't delete the 'pictures' folder as it says it's needed by osx.
SO.....my dads network is ran by a linksis router. Windows XP and Windows 7 can connect to the router wirelessly just fine. Windows Vista machines do not connect to it at all. laptops and desktops alike, if they have Vista on the machine it will not connect to the wireless network. wired works fine.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
Thanks for the replies. It's a:
HP Pavilion a1320n
524 Intel Pentium 4 Processor
Overall, I'm sure it's a very outdated PC. It's out of warranty and HP wants a fee just to talk to them on the phone.
So, it looks like buying a replacement hard drive and replacing it myself is the best option.
06nbarnhill
Member
So I just installed ANNO 2070 on my PC and for some reason now my windows task bar no longer shows up at the bottom of the screen whenever I have ANYTHING open full screen. It only shows up when everything else (browser, games, etc) is minimized. Also it does show up in some games like it covers up my action bars in WoW. Its just really annoying in general.
Anyone know how to fix this?
Edit: Essentially. My PC now treats my task bar as if the "hide automatically" option was selected, whether its actually been selected or not.
Anyone know how to fix this?
Edit: Essentially. My PC now treats my task bar as if the "hide automatically" option was selected, whether its actually been selected or not.
SailorCosmos
Member
That temperature is within the safe specification range for the card but the card probably shouldn't be getting that hot. I live in a hot place as well and I've never had my video card get that high. How is the airflow in your case?
parrotbeak
Member
Dell sent me a recovery disc by FedEx; came 2 days after I emailed them. System repair worked from that, so I was able to do a backup and then do a clean install. Still need to restore my backup via TrueImage.
So I have a piculliar problem.
When I press the power button, nothing happens. I reset CMOS and it starts (get error when I start CMOS settings wrong or something). After I have power down and try to start it again, dont work, need to reset CMOS.
If I (atleast sometimes) shut down the PSU, and the start it again and try to power on again it might start. Sometimes.
What I have done:
1) New battery for CMOS.
2) Removed all attached devices and plugged one by one... nothing.
Anyone?
When I press the power button, nothing happens. I reset CMOS and it starts (get error when I start CMOS settings wrong or something). After I have power down and try to start it again, dont work, need to reset CMOS.
If I (atleast sometimes) shut down the PSU, and the start it again and try to power on again it might start. Sometimes.
What I have done:
1) New battery for CMOS.
2) Removed all attached devices and plugged one by one... nothing.
Anyone?
PistolPete
Member
At boot up, I randomly have a single blue vertical line that appears on my monitor. It doent go away until I power off the machine (and sometimes that doesnt fix it).
Is this a video card problem or a monitor problem? I don't have access to a spare of either one and I would hate to replace one and have it be the other.
Is this a video card problem or a monitor problem? I don't have access to a spare of either one and I would hate to replace one and have it be the other.
I know this is not much help, but I had similar problems and I ended up having to replace the motherboard :/
I've run out of places to turn to. Decided to turn on iTunes the other day on my laptop. That lead to the Blue Screen of Death. Ok, whatever. It restarts and Windows will not boot. At all. Fair, 3 years is good mileage out of a laptop. Time to buy a replacement. I'm not worried as long as I can copy some stuff from the hard drive.
So I buy a new laptop and some cables to transfer some stuff from the hard drive. It connects and recognizes it just fine, but I'm unable to access pretty much all the folders I need. Annoyingly, my personal user folder says I do not have permission to access it. When it attempts to give me permission, it just hangs and never opens.
Most everything else works fine. I googled a bit and got suggestions to defrag the hard drive or run the recovery tool. Neither option progresses very far. It just hangs after a certain point.
Am I screwed?
So I buy a new laptop and some cables to transfer some stuff from the hard drive. It connects and recognizes it just fine, but I'm unable to access pretty much all the folders I need. Annoyingly, my personal user folder says I do not have permission to access it. When it attempts to give me permission, it just hangs and never opens.
Most everything else works fine. I googled a bit and got suggestions to defrag the hard drive or run the recovery tool. Neither option progresses very far. It just hangs after a certain point.
Am I screwed?
moojito
Member
Can you boot from this other hard drive? I'm not sure if it works the same with laptops, but it might be worth rooting around in the bios options to see if you can, then you'd be able to shift your stuff to some external source. Maybe windows would freak out with all the different hardware, but I've managed to boot an old copy of windows with a completely new pc before.
Also, maybe some of the stuff in this old mskb article would work.
I tried all of the things you suggested and nothing was working.
I left my laptop on to run a chkdsk from cmd and was hoping that would fix the problem. After 8 hours it was only 2 percent done, so I went to sleep on it, not realizing my laptop would restart at some point in the night to update.
Turns out it fixed it somehow! Currently in the process of copying a bunch of stuff over. It's having a issue reading some things, but so far they're things I don't need. Hope it stays that way. Thanks for your help!
Help It gaf, i still can't figure this out.
I have a server, it might be acceded by several users. But the following restrictions apply:
Common user - must NOT be able to use the Windows Key (For shortcuts or just to display the start menu).
Administrators - No windows key restrictions.
How can I block the Windows key for specific users?
I have a server, it might be acceded by several users. But the following restrictions apply:
Common user - must NOT be able to use the Windows Key (For shortcuts or just to display the start menu).
Administrators - No windows key restrictions.
How can I block the Windows key for specific users?
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
The GeForce 7 series does not have hardware DX10/11 support. That is necessary for BF3 though. Buy a GeForce 8xx and up. Sorry.
https://help.ea.com/article/bf3-error-dxgi-error-unsupported
https://help.ea.com/article/what-are-the-windows-pc-system-requirements-for-battlefield-3
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
Hardly a crisis then eh haha
Thinking about replacing the 2wire 2701 HG-B wireless modem/router I got with AT&T...
Can anyone recommend a wireless modem/router to use for DSL that isnt too expensive, but is still pretty dependable? I've heard good things about Netgear...but i've never bought my own modem/router before.
Can anyone recommend a wireless modem/router to use for DSL that isnt too expensive, but is still pretty dependable? I've heard good things about Netgear...but i've never bought my own modem/router before.
Ready Up Already
Neo Member
TechSupport GAF, I need your help with creating a question for an interview for what is essentially a tier-2 help desk position. As part of our on site interviews, we have the candidate take a simulated help desk call.
For our existing scenario, what we've been doing is unplugging the ethernet cord from a PC. Then, someone calls the candidate, pretending to have the technical savvy of a regular user ("Help! I can't get to Yahoo!"). The candidate should be able to figure out, purely over the phone, that the network cable is unplugged. Of course, we also listen in to make sure they have a solid approach to customer service.
Due to whatever reasons, I can't use this scenario for my upcoming round of interviews, but I'm stumped on coming up with an equivalent scenario. I'm asking for GAF's help on coming up with a similar scenario that we can use to test basic PC troubleshooting skills over the phone, while also allowing us to evaluate customer service.
For our existing scenario, what we've been doing is unplugging the ethernet cord from a PC. Then, someone calls the candidate, pretending to have the technical savvy of a regular user ("Help! I can't get to Yahoo!"). The candidate should be able to figure out, purely over the phone, that the network cable is unplugged. Of course, we also listen in to make sure they have a solid approach to customer service.
Due to whatever reasons, I can't use this scenario for my upcoming round of interviews, but I'm stumped on coming up with an equivalent scenario. I'm asking for GAF's help on coming up with a similar scenario that we can use to test basic PC troubleshooting skills over the phone, while also allowing us to evaluate customer service.
Anyone here ever used Pagemaker 7.0 and/or Framemaker?
I got some weird issue here with users who are missing characters suchs as letters or numbers when using the Adode PDF printer in Pagemaker and saving them as .ps files, which then use Adobe Distiller to create the pdf file in question. The PDF file always have missing characters. We tried using other softwares than the Adobe PDF printer like PDF Creator, but same thing happen there.
They also have issues when trying to print anything in Framemaker, sometimes only 2 pages out of 20 will print, or nothing at all. Missing characters is also there when saving framemaker files as pdf.
I found a (very temporary) solution by installing other Adobe softwares like Acrobat Pro or Photoshop Elements which fix the issues, but they come back after a few reboots.
I feel like i'm getting nowhere with these Adobe glitches and all these tests. Its frustrating and the users are losing patience. And so am i.
I got some weird issue here with users who are missing characters suchs as letters or numbers when using the Adode PDF printer in Pagemaker and saving them as .ps files, which then use Adobe Distiller to create the pdf file in question. The PDF file always have missing characters. We tried using other softwares than the Adobe PDF printer like PDF Creator, but same thing happen there.
They also have issues when trying to print anything in Framemaker, sometimes only 2 pages out of 20 will print, or nothing at all. Missing characters is also there when saving framemaker files as pdf.
I found a (very temporary) solution by installing other Adobe softwares like Acrobat Pro or Photoshop Elements which fix the issues, but they come back after a few reboots.
I feel like i'm getting nowhere with these Adobe glitches and all these tests. Its frustrating and the users are losing patience. And so am i.
I should start this off by saying my knowledge with PC parts is extremely small, I had a friend build my PC when I decided to jump in to PC gaming.
My hard drive died about 2 months ago and I was sent a "new" one about a month ago, and ever since I got my computer set back up I've had this sort of buzzing or squealing sound coming from my computer.
I can't seem to pinpoint where it's coming from and it's not always noticeable. For example when I look at gifs here or when I load videos on Steam it gets louder, and when I minimize games it's much louder. I've looked around the internet and can't seem to get a consensus on what part could be causing it. Common sense told me it's the hard drive since it's the only changed part but the parts that I've seen most talked about with this kind of issue is the power supply, motherboard, CPU and GPU.
So does anyone have any history with this kind of issue? Taking parts out and testing the PC is a bit out of my knowledge range and I'm not sure it's feasible to just send in 80% of the computer to get refurbished parts that might end up worse than what I have now. I'd like to get it resolved though.
My hard drive died about 2 months ago and I was sent a "new" one about a month ago, and ever since I got my computer set back up I've had this sort of buzzing or squealing sound coming from my computer.
I can't seem to pinpoint where it's coming from and it's not always noticeable. For example when I look at gifs here or when I load videos on Steam it gets louder, and when I minimize games it's much louder. I've looked around the internet and can't seem to get a consensus on what part could be causing it. Common sense told me it's the hard drive since it's the only changed part but the parts that I've seen most talked about with this kind of issue is the power supply, motherboard, CPU and GPU.
So does anyone have any history with this kind of issue? Taking parts out and testing the PC is a bit out of my knowledge range and I'm not sure it's feasible to just send in 80% of the computer to get refurbished parts that might end up worse than what I have now. I'd like to get it resolved though.
There's a term called coil whine or capacitor whine. Basically, under certain voltage loads, some of the components will resonant at an audible frequency emitting the whine.
Usually it comes out of the graphics card or motherboard. Sometimes the power supply.
Nothing you can do about it unless you want to open up the electronics (void warranty) and put some epoxy glue on the components. If you open a power supply, you can see manufacturers often put this white caulking substance on the inductor coils to prevent this from happening although other components like ceramic capacitors are guilty to making this sound as well.
Some companies can take them as a legitimate RMA complaint. Is the power supply still under warranty?
Oh yeah it has a 5 year warranty, which I thought was crazy long but I'm not complaining. I'm going to email them soon and see if they'll take it back. The sound might have been in other places but it was loudest when I had my ear up to the power supply fan.
I have to get it fixed or replaced though because it's a maddening sound and I think it might even be the cause of the ringing I've been having in my ears (I can detect HF sounds easier than my dad, who can't even hear the power supply noise).
Are you able to bypass the check disk prompt? If you can, just start windows and disable the check disk feature. You can use google to decide the best way to do that. If you can't start windows than your forced shutdown physically damaged the hard drive and that's a little more serious.
I can bypass the disk check prompt. I'll give that a try thanks.
To expand on that scenario slightly, leave the cable plugged in and disable the network interface card and have the candidate walk the user through the ping process under a dos prompt to realize no response back, or through the network connection window to renable the NIC.