Need to find video card driver

My computer is so slow, have done everything recommended as far as disc clean up, removing programs not in use, stopping things @ start up, I ran a diagnosis and this is one of the problems it showed, if it in deed a problem. When I click on the link to look for driver an error comes up. I also need to know if I need more RAM.
I thank you in advance for any information you can help me with

 

went to microsoft and found this

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314854/EN-US/

and this

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309340/

I have to say even with the video explanation it sounds really involved (for me)

 

according to this
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/upgrading/sysreqs.mspx

xp home only requires 128MB of RAM, you have 256MB

Personally I would not run XP on less than 512MB, I have never tried but my system generally uses about 600MB just browsing the web and running security programs etc.

 

Not that I'm ordering from here but for instance how do I decide which kind I need?

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Memo...61+21012973/link/ref/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do

 

One of the easier ways
http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/

feel free to post the results you get from that site back here, and someone who is familiar with your memory type will give you some advice


Gateway provides a tool for this as well
http://support.gateway.com/support/upgrades.asp
scroll down the page to the 'memory' section and click on 'memory locator'

This is the link to your motherboard manual, the details should be in there too. (its about 23MB rolleyes)
http://support.gateway.com/support/manlib/eseries/E2000/E2000.shtml


As far as the video driver goes, you can give this a try
http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/dlcenter.asp

 

OMG. that was a 3 hour nightmare. I'm not even sure this is a gateway anymore. A while back the fan burned out so did the computer. Called someone from the phone book, he said he would have it back the next day. Three days later got a hold of him, he was having trouble because he said the case was part of the component, would get a new case and have it there that evening. After a couple weeks finally got it back, he put the insides ( notice my technical terms) in a large tower which now is mostly empty.

Anyway, sorry got off course here - after going to Gateway and downloading an assistant wizard and don't know what all, I could not access anything, restarted about 6 times before I could get rid of the Gateway downloads and manage to get to system recovery. Then a couple more restarts and got back everything else. Wow think I need a nap :cry :banghead

Thank you for taking the time to look up all those sites for me shanemail

 

Darlene, could you post what your make (Doh! It's a Gateway) LOL and model of your PC is? I should be able to find the driver for your video with that info.

 

Oh it's gone beyond that now. The BLUE SCREEN :eek whirring noises, couldn't bring up anything. I booted in safe mode and deleted some programs. Folding was one (for now) shhh, I couldn't even get to system recovery. What a nightmare, been burning photos, videos, music, documents all day before it dies completely. It's been getting slower and won't close so I did checks with anything I could find in the Help and Support. Said I needed a video card driver, actually I think thats the least of my problem at this point. Could it mean video card like for games or something cuz haven't had any trouble with videos on here. As long as I keep talking here I don't have to mess with it getting ready to open it up rolleyes now wheres that scalpel. :confused Doh, it's a gateway roflmao maybe not Homer :cry If I kill it I'll let ya know from Dan's. Thank You!

 

OK, got your frantic message. We'll start with the driver when you get the model # to me and maybe we can get it running good enough to start a new thread explaining your other probs.
Whirring noises aren't good...could be fans or the Hard Drive, neither of which I am to familiar with. If you have anything that can tell the temps on your PC we can rule out or point at the fans, depending on what the temps are. If it's the HDD, it's supposed to be easy and cheap to replace. $50 to whatever you want to pay. Good Luck getting things saved.

 

I'm back Jack LOL amazed meself, Dan opened it and I cleaned it, think it was the fans, they were pretty dusty, gritty actually. It's running good now, oh I hate saying that, watch it explode
Now I ask you does this look like a gateway, slimline no less, it's pretty empty in there huh.

 

So every thing is fine now? Do you need the video driver still?
You have me very confused. There was at least 3 mentions of Gateway in this thread with the first being your screen shot with the Gateway info. That case says MSI?
Was that just a glitch in the software you were using? Or is that a Gateway dressed for Halloween? LOL
If you still need that driver, we are going to have to dig deep into that thing, unless you 'fess up and give me the actual info. I am going away in a few days so I leave up to you about whether you need the driver.
One way you tell if it's a driver you need is to go to your Control Panel and then click on the System icon,click the Hardware tab and then Device Manager button. Last click the plus sign in front of sound, video, and game controllers. If you have a yellow ? or ! there, that means there is a driver problem.

Tell Dan he did a great job cleaning that PC up! :clap

 

I cleaned it Dan opened it.
Thats what I was trying to say, the so called thch took the insides out and put them in this big empty case. He said the gateway case was part of the componants. :confused
no yellow line. So is that what it's for, games?
Your going away, oh no, already? Bummer,or maybe your meaning something else. Good luck with what ever is going on. :wave

 

OK I knew if I started to brag it would all go down the drain, it did! Can't bring up any program (again) was working pretty good and fast after cleaning it then went back the way it was. I wonder if it's a hardware or program problem. Dan is suggesting we go get a tower. Any one have any thoughts on that or what else I can try? Thanks, will check back, going to the store before we starve.

 

Looks like the video driver is ok. It sounds more and more like you have a hard drive problem. This is not really my territory, but you can run chkdsk. This will check your drive for errors and if it finds any will have windows fix them. You might want to start a thread in hardware about the probs you're having and see what they say there.
Manual steps to run Chkdsk from My Computer or Windows Explorer

1.Double-click My Computer, and then right-click the hard disk that you want to check
2.Click Properties, and then click Tools
3.Under Error-checking, click Check Now. A dialog box that shows the Check disk options is displayed,
4.Use one of the following procedures:
•To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
•To repair errors without scanning the volume for bad sectors, select the Automatically fix file system errors check box, and then click Start.
•To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start.
Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message: The disk check could not be performed because the disk check utility needs exclusive access to some Windows files on the disk. These files can be accessed by restarting Windows. Do you want to schedule the disk check to occur the next time you restart the computer?
Click Yes to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.

The following table lists the exit codes that Chkdsk reports after it has finished:
Exit codeDescription
0 No errors were found.
1 Errors were found and fixed.
2 Disk cleanup, such as garbage collection, was performed, or cleanup was not performed because /f was not specified.
3 Could not check the disk, errors could not be fixed, or errors were not fixed because /f was not specified.

 

It did that it self booting it up and pressing f10 , scrolled some stuff after that went by to fast to catch, (like I would understand it anyway) can't believe I go on this far, aw hell jinxed myself again probably. This is driving me crazy yeah-yeah I know short trip.
I have not been able to access anything, tried to do system restore but it only goes back to yesterday.
I so appreciate you helping, I'm sorry I'm so dense. I'm going to try to keep this up while I follow what you have listed. maybe I better print it. Later, thanks again.

 

It really sounds like the hard drive. (I know, I'm repeating myself LOL)
Make sure to post that thread in Hardware.
Tell them what is going on and that you ran Chkdsk but don't know what it found.
Chkdsk should have created a log somewhere, so someone that knows where that is should be able to tell you. Maybe after you run it manually from the steps above , you will be given it.
I had a drive problem when I first came to MG and ended up having to run Chkdsk from the Windows CD. Don't really remember what all I had to do to get it to work but here is a link to that thread.
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=109521

I am so stupid There is an easy way to check your disk for errors.
That is IF your PC will let you get to it
Double click My Computer, right click on the C Drive (I am hoping you only have one drive), click Properties, click the Tools tab, then click Check Now. It will give you a report when it is done. If you can't decipher it, post back here and I'll see what I can see.

 

I'm not getting an answer from anything

 

Got a match?

 

I am at the end of my knowledge on this, Darlene. I hope you got all your important info off that drive.
Good Luck
AND
Get that post out to Hardware!

 

think it might be ok - knock wood! http://bestsmileys.com/fingers/1.gif

 

I brought this back simply because I don't know where to post it. Things still are not working right, most I can live with. This is strange though, and I use it a lot, I seem to be limited as to where I can send something. There used to be a longer list of choises (i used to send to Documents quite a bit) now there are 2, does anyone know why? Thanks

 

Hello Darlene

Looking at this thread for the first time.

I see immediately you are on the bottom end of useful memory. 256MB is barely enough to run XP. Looking at the inside of the pc its hard to tell but you appear to have one memory slot of 2 free. this is good news as you could get another 256MB stick and the really notice the difference.

This is the biggest single thing to do to improve performance.

Secondly your hard drive is now more than half full. From here on to XP performance will slowly degrade until it will be like a snail at 15% free space.
This is not yet urgent but I would plan on getting a new hard drive either to move everything across to or just to add on, move your data and keep a fairly empty Windows drive.

I really can't easily say where all your send to list has gone (is there a 'more' drop down turned on?). Perhaps its simply easier to replace them.

Let us know what you want to do

 

I did start dumping (burning actually) photos, videos, got to music and got over whelmed so haven't done anything for a few days now. Is it better to replace the hard drive or add a second (if thats possible)? And thank you for your help. A PS, Dan just mentioned he heard of an external hard drive that plugs into a USB port, any thoughts on that? Thank you again.

 

Well I had just finished a reply at 1630 this afternoon when the 'moving server' hit. Sigh Shrug.

The hard drive is one of the most hard working components in the computer. Drive life expectancy has been increasing but obviously remaining LE is less for a drive that is a few years old than for a new one.

So I usually move the whole system bodily over to the new drive and, when every thing is working hunkey dory, reconfigure the old one as a data storage drive. The system drive (windows) works the hard drive hundreds of times harder than simple data storage. So this approach ekes out the remaining life on your old drive and draws on the youth of the new.

Seagate in particular come with a utility to move all your stuff including XP over.
Alternatively you can download a drive cloner from MG.

If you don't fancy chancing this you can simply install the new drive as an internal one for data. I see from your picture you have plenty of room in the tower and a spare power sonnector dangling there.

As to external drives, they are more expensive and certainly less reliable (witness the many agony threads here) and you can't use them as a system (windows ) drive. Also unless you have another pc somewhere else to connect to as well the box is an extra thing to cope with. Some also require an extra power outlet as well.

But remember the first priority is more memory.

Post some system details (mainly processor speed) and we well see what to recommend.

 

Found this, I'm assumeing this is not what you asked for though
Sorry, I'll look again

 

It's enough I expect.

If you don't have it the system manual is a useful download - its 250 pages and 25M.
I'll comeback when I've looked through it.

http://support.gateway.com/support/manlib/eseries/E2000/E2000.shtml

 

It's taking me so long because the darn thing keeps freezing up on me. No I don't have a manual, like I mentioned before also I have no idea whats been changed on here. It started out as a Gateway Slimline, hard to beleive huh? The guy who worked on it put it into this big empty case and I really don't know what else could be different about it. He said the case was part of the component, too much for me.

 

I found more, I know it's late for you so don't bother tonight, sorry I'm not better at finding the information. Well thanks again

 

Well page 185 of the manual gives a pictorial guide to replacing or adding memory, and the following section deals with replacing the coin cell battery.
Replacing the battery while you are at it is a good idea as they have a 3 to 5 year life and they are very cheap.

Page 233 gives you memory specification. As I thought you have two slots available to total up to IGB.
You can discard the existing 256 and obtain two 512 modules
You can obtain one 512 module and move the old module to the secon d slot and put the new one in the first slot. This will give 768 of memory.
You can obtain a second 256 and add it into the second slot. to give 512 total.

I would not expect much increase in performance once you have reached 512.

The actual modules you need are the old type 184 pin 133Mhz (also called PC2100) modules.
You may be able to get some for next to nothing from a local pc shop.

 

Thank you very much, I'll print this and take it to town later in the week. If you don't hear from me, I blew myself up LOL

 

Time for a cuppa here.

The manual is certainly worth downloading if you can somewhere along the line.

Let us know how you get on with the memory hunt.

 

Got new problems, don't know if I should have made a new thread.

Before I added the RAM I was burning everything I could so I would not loose it. Pictures, music, the more I deleted the slower it got. I finally went to restart it a while ago and IT WON'T.
It reads NTLDR missing Press Ctrl Alt Delete to restart. That doesn't work either.
I tried to catch it when it was starting, flashes (real fast) like F2 or F10, those were no help to me, thought I could start in safe mode.

 

\



Hard Drive was possibly on the edge of failure....just thank yuour lucky stars you managed to save somrthing on disc.....Use the KISS principle....Keep It Simple Stupid...........................

 

If you have a friend with an XP computer ask them to format a floppy and copy the following three files to it for you.

C:\NTLDR (note this has no extension)
C:\NTdetect.com
C:\boot.ini

If you can't get these files PM and email and I will send them, they are not large, but to big to upload here.

the boot.ini file can be read and edited with notepad or the edit command in DOS.

It should contain lines which read

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

The emboldened bits
partition(1) may need amending to partition(2) if your disk has a recovery partition

When you have this floppy, insert it into the pc and try to boot. If you can boot successfully, copy the three files from the floppy to the root of the ahrd drive to replace the ones which have gone missing or corrupt.

 

Actually I'm on a computer in another room, Dan's, it has XP. Can a CD be used? If not will have to get floppies. Thank you
Sounds really confusing to me, just read it again, probably will take a few more (few dozen), oh dear would replacing the hard drive be a better way to go?

 

Good observation. I would plan on replacing the drive fairly soon.

The XP Bootfloppy is only to get you going until then.
Sorry CD won't work
You only need one floppy, but do need to make sure
'boot from floppy'
is the first boot device in bios.

 

Well, your going to get sick of me but- Dan's computer has no floppy slot.

 

Surely there's someone in California with a floppy drive?

I think my Aunt Mary in Santa Barbara has one.

 

Darlene, take the floppy drive out of your computer, use it, then put it back.

E

 

You can use a disc...but only if you go into bios and change the boot order around and put your dvd/cd drive as the first to boot off instead of the Floppy drive.
I had to do it recently....If you can find out how give it a go....if you plan to change the HD anyway it can be a learning experience.

Press 'DEL on startup to get into BIOS and find the boot list then change the order. then put in the CD, save and exit... it should boot then from CD. You may have to restart the comp with the disc in the drive.

You will then have to turn off comp and restart into BIOS and change Your settings back once the programs are loaded.

 

I'm reluctant to do anything actually, I emailed my grandson and sent this link to see what he has to say. Waiting to hear from him now, but thanks.

 

I did try copying just those three files to a CD and booting from it.
It is very hard to tell but I think it did work.

The problem might come if you need to use an slightly different boot.ini file as described earlier. You can't edit it on CD like you can on a floppy.

 

Update

No it didn't just my too helpful bios.

If you have any XP CD you can also replace ntldr using the recovery console,
but the procedure is much tougher.

Make sure the target pc is set to boot from CD as the first boot option in BIOS
Insert the XP CD, and press ctrl+alt+del
Watch the screen
At the question 'press any key to boot from CD'
tap the space bar ....................................Recovery will fail if you miss this.
When the setup screen opens
Choose typein 'R' for recovery console
The next screen will say which windows do you wish to repair
select the C drive number (probably 1)
Type in an administrator password, or press enter if you have none

type in
c: (enter)
copy d:\i386\ntldr (enter)
Y (enter) to overwrite file
copy d:\i386\ ntdetect.com (enter)
Y (enter) to overwrite file
exit (enter) to reboot

If it still won't load go back to the console
typein
fixboot (enter)
Y (enter)
fixmbr (enter)
Y (enter)

exit and (enter) to reboot.

 

Thought I would let you people know, while unpacking some stuff (long over due) I came across the reistallation cd, took like 3 - 4 tries but it finally reinstalled, whew, had to upgrade a lot of stuff, there were at one time 56 from windows. It still isn't good but it should hold til my grandson gets here. Thanks to you all. I may be back LOL