More, more, more...

I really am not having much luck with this PC.

2 weeks back my PC was playing up and the screen would go to black and restart without ever getting to the log-in page. I was advised by the guys over at www.fixmyxp.com to do a system restore.

So, I did that system restore and it worked fine for a bit, but eventually the problem occurred again. It got to the point where my PC wouldn't turn on.

So, I used my recovery disk and the PC worked again.

The majority of things that were in My Computer are still there though, which I thought was odd. Things like PC games (Football Manager) and MSN Messenger are still all there, yet nothing but 'BroadJump Client Foundation' is in Add/Remove Programs. Surely that's wrong, no? Should/will I have to re-install all the other programs that were there before despite them being in My Computer? I mean, MSN and Football Manager work fine. What should I do?

What's more worrying is this...

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/5523/devicemanager2yy.jpg

I have no sound on my PC at the moment, but how do I rectify that and all of the above with yellow exclamation marks?

And to top it all of, my PC is running nowhere near as good as it was before. When I scroll down a page it takes about 1/2 seconds to register (on and off the internet), pages take longer to load pictures, etc.

What do I do?

 

Well the reason you have all those exclamaition marks is that the drivers for the devices haven't been loaded. For instance when you reload the video driver the last two errors in that list will disappear. Load your sound card driver and the top one will go too. The PCI and Bus controller along with the bridge device are drivers for your motherboard (this is why it it running slowly). I suspect the unknown device may be a modem but I'm guessing there.

So reload all the drivers and then report back.

 

Cheers for the help mate, but I have to say that the majority of the above means nothing to me. I'm not the most computer literate, I must admit.

I'm guessing all the drivers are on my Recovery disk because there is a folder on there called 'Drivers', but I'm having trouble re-loading them. I know there's an option to get Windows to explore the disk and re-load them, but I can't quite get that to work properly. It's always saying it can't find the correct software.

Is there any chance you can explain to me in idiots terms how I can get it to work?

Thanks.

 

Well the drivers you require certainly should be in that Drivers Folder. Does the Drivers folder have sub-folders named, for instance, Audio or Graphics? And are the files in the folder(s) .exe files or .inf files? If you can give me a bit more info then I'll certainly try and get you pointed in the right direction.

 

There are no sub-folders in the Drivers folder. These files are in it though...

http://img340.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled1tm1.jpg

I go to $OEM$>$1>DRIVERS>SCSI and then I have all files shown in the above pic.

Everything on the disk is here...

http://img511.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled2hw.jpg

No other 'Drivers' folder in any of the other folders.

 

Well as far as I can tell from that most of the files in that first link are drivers for a SATA RAID controller. Do you know whther you have a SATA Hard Drive or not. (Oh and SATA is a type of drive not a brand name ).

So I think that at least some of these are the drivers you are looking for. Are these files .exe or .inf I can't tell from your picture. You may need to turn on the view for extensions. (Open Windows Explorer Tools>Folder Options>View and untick the hide extensions line)

 

Cheers for the continued help mate.

I'm not sure whether I have a SATA hard drive to be honest with you.

As for the file extensions...

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/6983/types4ek.th.jpg

Some of them are .inf ... is that good?

 

Means it's easy to install the drivers.

Now as I'm still not exactly certain what hardware you have we'll try this a small bit at a time as we can then see the effect of each driver install.

The first driver I think we should try is the file SI3112R.INF.

Right click on this file and a menu will appear and on that menu is the word Install Left click this and that will install that driver. Then after a reboot go back to the device manager and see if any of the yellow exclamation marks have disappeared. Let me know if any have and which still remain.

 

Ok mate, I've done that and rebooted, but all exclamation marks are still there. None have disappeared.

I'm not sure if the process is meant to be more long-winded, but once I pressed install it loaded for about a second and then stopped. Did it install the driver in that short space of time or is it meant to go on longer?

 

Maybe there are other ways to install the drivers other than the CD...

Is your computer a common brandname like a Dell, an HP, or a sony? Most big-name manufactures offer the latest versions of their drivers on their website, so maybe you can go to the manufactures website, plug in your computer model or serial code from the case, and then go to the driver download section of the site and get all of the drivers in one easy to install place.

Good luck, let us know if this is an option for you!

 

The computer's a MESH (and a mess ), but I've been on their website, registered the model and serial number, yet I can't find a way to download the drivers. It does say you can, but I can't for the life of me find out how.

I've used the "request help" section on there, so hopefully someone gets back to me.

 

if you would like to post a link to that website i might be able you help you find where to download the drivers from also knowing what parts you have inside the computer is also handy as you could just go to the manufacurer of the parts and get the drivers from there like your graphics card ( provided your not using on board graphics )

 

I've had a reply from MESH and they say I can download the drivers from the following website...

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?model=A8N-e&SLanguage=en-us

I have downloaded the first one and it is a .Rom, can I have help installing them please? Cheers guys.

EDIT - Also, will I have to download all the downloads on that link or just some?

 

Unfortunately using the ASUS download pages you still need to know what driver you want to download and for what device.

It would be easy for us if you could tell us what is in your PC. MESH usually provide a complete spec list when you buy the PC but if you don't have that or don't actually know what is in your PC you can always use a program such as Belarc Advisor or Everest or AIDA the last two of which can be found here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20.

I think that this may be the easiest way - you post the specs and we'll work out what drivers you need to download.

 

I've downloaded Everest, no problem. If you can explain what you need from me and how I can do it using Everest I'll do it straight away.

 

Sorry for the delay - I don't use Everest myself so I had to download it to see what it does _ it gives me a BSOD!! But it runs okay on my other PC

So install the program first of all. Then run the program

Then click on the Computer icon and then on the Summary icon this will give you a list of virtually everything your PC has. What we need to know is the mobo, the video adapter, and the audio adapters. That should hopefully be enough to start the ball rolling.

 

I've taken a screenie of the Summary page...

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/2359/details5yg.th.jpg

Cheers!!

 

Well nice piece of hardware you've got there.

I believe that the driver SI3114R should at least cure some of your problems.

Go to the device manager select the first suspect device and then click on proerties> Driver> update driver. Then point it towards the drivers directory you specified earlier. In theory it should automatically find the driver I mentioned but if it doesn't point it at the inf file. If it still doesn't like it try the other inf files because I'm sure those are the drivers you require. You may need to try this for the other suspect devices too.

In fact on Everest if you go down to Devices then Windows devices then in the top right panel expand each of the branches and select each device and in the bottom right panel it tells you the inf file it has got associated with it.

 

When updating the driver I can't actually specify the exact .inf file for it to be looking at. I can only specify the folder, to which I then get 'The correct software cannot be found'. I've done this for every device and all get the same result.

As for Everest, I'm guessing it only tells you the .inf file it has associated with it if it is in fully working order. In my case they're not, so it doesn't tell me.

Is there nothing I can download off that website that will help?

 

I'll see what I can find and get back to you tomorrow. Gotta go now.

 

OK go here: http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?model=A8N-e&SLanguage=en-us

Download and install the NVIDIA chipset drivers (about third up from bottom of page) and see what that does for you.

 

It's downloading now, but how do I install them? Right click and press install or is it another way?

 

I've now for the download but there are XP_32 and XP_64 folders on it, each with a pataraid and a sataraid folder in. And within each one of them there is a MakeDisk.exe.

Any ideas what one(s) I have to use?

 

It downloads as a Zip file. You need to expand the file MakeDisk.exe with the path of MakeDisk\XP_32\sataraid\

Then follow whatever instructions it gives.

I'll be back again sometime tomorrow.

 

Is there any chance you can explain things in a little more detail please?

I mean, I've extracted the Zip file and gone to MakeDisk>XP_32>sataraid and then double-clicked on the MakeDisk.exe icon, only for this to come up...

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/681/help4gh.jpg

I then can't select any Drive, and if I try pressing Extract it says 'Unable to get disk information'. Specify the floppy drive it says, yet I haven't even got a floppy disk drive!

 

I may have missed something. Did your motherboard came with a mother board driver disk?

On a side note, you are running an nvidia chipset.

Download and install (double click the executable): http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/nForce/standalone/6.70/nForce4_amd_6.70_winxp2k_english.exe

What video card do you have?

 

I've got a driver disk, no.

I will install that download now, cheers. What will it do?

Lastly, I haven't a clue what video card I have. How can I find out?

 

use everest it should tell you what you have if not have a look in device manager under video but it seems like ur vid card is installed and working fine coz you havent mentioned that windows has found new hardware and has been trying to install it
but still check everest under video section should tell ya there

 

Having downloaded and installed what theefool gave, I now only have the following exclamation marks...

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1700/devicemanager1yi.jpg

Now for the video ones and whatever that 'other device' is.....

 

ok for the video things man check in everest what your vid card is
then post back

 

Where exactly in Everest can I find it out? Any chance you can give me simple instructions?

 

on the left hand side click the little plus sign next to display it should expand to show you more fetures if not just click on display if it gives u more things to choose click windows video hopefully that shold help you mate post back what you get

hope thats a bit easyer to understand sorry i probably should have elaborated before

 

I've just done that but nothing shows up when I click Windows Video.

 

nothing at all ?? hhmmzz thats odd well man sorry but im stumped for the moment ill have a think and see if i can come up with anything else

 

Anyone with any ideas how to sort the video card?

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1700/devicemanager1yi.jpg

 

When you click on the plus sign next to Display when using Everest does GPU appear?

If it does select that and the first item on the list on the right hand side should be your video adapter.

 

I think only something comes up if everything is fine with the video card/adapter...

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/313/gpu7sw.th.jpg

 

Ok - Now this may help or do absolutely nothing but it's worth a try.

Boot to Safe Mode (by continuously tapping the CTRL key as the PC boots and you should then get the option to boot into Safe Mode).

Go into the device Manager select each of the three "Unknown Devices" and delete them. Ok out of the Device Manager then reboot the PC normally the suspect devices should be redetected either as Unknown again or with luck this time Windows may work out what they are.

 

Delete as in clicking on them and pressing the delete key or another way?

 

Right click> Remove

 

There isn't a 'right click>remove' option, sorry. In safe mode, when I right click and select uninstall, it warns me that I'm about to remove the driver from my PC. By telling me this I'm beginning to think it won't bother to re-detect any on the next start up.

 

You don't want to uninstall any drivers. Just remove the device. Try selecting the device(s) and hit the delete key that should work too.

 

Nope, hitting the delete key brings up the same message about uninstalling.

 

OK. As I'm only 99% certain there won't be any problem in doing that we'll leave it for the moment.

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type msinfo32, and then click OK.
3. In the left pane, expand Components, and then double-click Problem Devices.

A list of the devices installed on your computer that may have a problem is displayed in the right pane, as follows:


The Device column lists the common name for the device, or the name of the device driver associated with it.

The PnP Device ID column lists device IDs, such as Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) ID, Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) ID, an ID for some other bus type, or an unknown type.

The Error Code column lists the error code associated with this specific problem.

Let me know what it says.

 

A quick question.

Did you buy this computer from a friend. Did you buy this computer component by component? Did you buy this from an OEM (HP, Compaq, etc...)

Does the word Nvidia or ATI ring a bell for the video card?

Something I rarely recommend. If you run windows/microsoft updates. Clicking on Custom (instead of express). Within the Critical/optional updates, should be a Hardware updates. What hardware updates are available?

 

It's ok now, the guys over at www.fixmyxp.com fixed it for me. Cheers for the help I got here though too.

 

Well, I thought everything was sorted.

A few days later the computer just wouldn't boot up for me. The three blue bars on the Windows screen would scroll across the screen and eventually stop; restarting the PC in the process. Upon restart I would often get a choice whether to start the PC in safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with something else, last known good configuration settings or start windows normally. Needless to say I tried them all but with no luck.

Sometimes I'd get 'One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency' and it would go through the process of checking. However, often it would say 'An unspecified error occurred' and the machine would restart yet again. A few times it went through the whole process, deleting corrupt files etc. as it went, and then said it'd restart once finished, but once it did the whole cycle happened again!

Anyway, after phoning up Mesh Computers they advised me to wipe everything off the PC and re-install Windows. 'Finally the PC works again' I thought when I went to bed last night as I'd successfully done everything Mesh had said, but when I turned it on this morning the same bloody problems happened!!!!!!! All that re-installing for nothing!!!!!!

After leaving it a couple of hours it finally booted up properly, but now I'm afraid to turn it off again. Anyone heard of anything like this before? I really need help on this.

 

Well MESH are fairly good at trying to sort out problems for you. So give them another call and explain the situation. If their techies can't sort it and the PC is still under warranty they'll fix it for you.