Potential Problems
Prajwal, Bangalore
You are experiencing the problem because your CD is not written properly. Due to this, some part of the installation works properly but the other does not, as some files have not been written accurately to the CD. There are many reasons for this to happen: running other programs while the CD is being written, an anti-virus software running in the background, bad quality media or even a faulty CD writer. You will need to rewrite the CD and this time, try to avoid any of the above and if possible, try burning to a different brand of media at a lower speed.
Will defragmenting my hard drive speed it up ?
Q. I have an AMD 2400 , 512 MB RAM, ASUS GeForce4 MX 440 64 MB, 60 GB Samsung hard drive. My computer was absolutely fine until I decided to connect my hard drive to a friend’s computer. I managed to connect the hard drive, but messed up on the jumper settings. Eventually, I just gave up and got the hard drive back. Ever since this episode, I have recollected the jumper settings and even got XP to work. But, my computer slowed down a great deal. In fact, all hard drive operations were painfully slow. I even did a complete format but that didn’t help either. I reinstalled XP with SP2 but the computer continued to be sluggish. I returned to normal XP without any service pack but the hard drive is still very slow. Copying files takes a very long time. What is wrong with my PC? Will a defrag solve it?
Arun, Via e-mail
In all probability, your hard drive has developed bad sectors. This could have happened while it was kept out of your PC. Hence, when Windows XP loads and tries to access these bad sector areas on the hard drive, it is not able to access any data there, and your system comes to a standstill.
You must run a check disk on your drives in order to mark these areas as bad sectors and correct this problem. To do this, open ‘My Computer’, right-click on ‘C:’ and click on ‘Properties’. Click on ‘Tools’ and click on ‘Check Now’. In the Check Disk options, check the options ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ and ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’. Although this will fix your problem temporarily, you should note that bad sectors point to a failing and unreliable hard drive and tend to increase. You should replace it with a new one soon.
Audio Formats in DVD
Q. In AVI to DVD software, while converting VCDs to DVD format, the audio stream box remains blank. It doesn’t show the formats. VCDs are generally ‘DAT’ files. Are AVI and DAT the same? How should I convert VCDs to DVD format and vice-versa?
Pratul Shrestha, Kathmandu
Audio streams of a DVD usually consist of six audio channels and are Dolby Digital encoded. To decode the audio, you need to have the appropriate AC3 filters to be installed. In the absence of these Codecs, the DVD audio cannot be decoded and hence you are unable to see anything in the audio stream box. You can download the free AC3 filters from www. ac3filter.sourceforge.net. Alternatively, you may also download and install DVD players such as Cyberlink PowerDVD 6 from www.cyberlink. com or InterVideo WinDVD 7 from www.intervideo.com.
The DAT format is different from AVI. DAT format is an implementation of MPEG-1 format whereas AVI is the native video format used by Windows. You may use software such as NeroVision Express from www.nero.com to convert VCD to DVD and vice-versa. You may also use TMPGEnc from www.tmpgenc.net/e_download.html to do the same.
Q. I have an AMD 64 3200 , 1 GB 400 MHz RAM, an MSI motherboard and a GeForce 6600 256 MB (PCIe) card. After installing Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, I get an error saying “NO Non power-of-two render target support detected”. No one seems to know how to solve it.
G Natarajan, Via e-mail
This error goes away after you download and install the latest patch for Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. The latest patch (1.31) adds support for this new texture cap and removes the error message. You can download this patch at www.ubisoft.com.
Auto Connect?
Q. I have Pentium 4 with 256 MB RAM running Windows XP Professional. I am facing a problem wherein my PC dials the Internet connection automatically, even when I open the command prompt or any software. Even when I restart my PC, it tries to connect to the Internet. How should I stop this?
Subarno Bhattacharya, Via e-mail
Subarno, it seems that your PC has been affected by Spyware dialler programs that try to connect to the Internet without permission. These programs install themselves on your computer without your knowledge if you have visited certain sites. The dialler programs can be removed by using anti-spyware software such as LavaSoft
Ad-Aware Personal Edition from www.lavasoft.com and Microsoft AntiSpyware from www.microsoft.com. After installing one of these programs, you have to update the definition files and then scan your PC for Adware and Spyware to remove them. You could also use Spyware Blaster or Spybot S&D given with the August 2005 CD of Digit.
Disappearing DMA
Q. I have P 4 (2.4 GHz) processor, Intel 845GVSR motherboard and 256MB (DDR) RAM. My problem is that the DMA disappeared when I installed the Intel Application Accelerator in Windows 98. What is the reason?
Ranjit Kumar, Via e-mail
When you install the Intel Application Accelerator, it takes over the control of the DMA transfer rates of IDE devices. Hence, you are not able to see the DMA settings. You can still access these through the Application Accelerator utility where you can decide to limit the transfer rate of a particular device.
Do I Need An AGP Card?
Q. I have a PC with the following configuration: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, 865G chipset, 256MB, 400Mhz RAM (64 MB on-board shared memory), 80 GB HD, 1MB Cache and 800 MHz FSB.
This is a Zenith PC and I opted for 865G chipset rather than 915G since the vendor told me that the AGP graphics card cost almost a third of PCIe cards. I have DirectX 9.0c installed. Max Payne 2 runs fantastically on the PC but my other game, “True Crime: Streets Of LA” that requires less resources than Max Payne 2 gives a fatal error saying “No capable 3D hardware found on your system. This game requires direct 3D compatible hardware that either supports either T&L or vertex and pixel shaders version 1.1 or higher”. Also, the demo of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory 3 gives an error saying: “<?int?splintercell3.General.DirectX shader model 1.1 is required?>”. Now will this problem be eliminated by adding an AGP card?
Parimal Rajkuntwar, Via e-mail
The games that are giving you the errors require full DirectX 8.0 compliant graphics card. The on-board graphics of your motherboard is not compliant with this requirement. These games also require hardware transform and lighting, which the on-board graphics lacks. You will require a DirectX 8.0 compliant card, which means at least an NVidia GeForce 3 or an ATi Radeon 8500 to be able to play these games. Since these cards are no longer available, you can opt for any of the GeForce FX series cards, such as the FX 5600 which are available at a reasonable price.
Standalone DVD As Drive
Q. I have Pentium IV, 1.8 GHz, 256 DDR RAM, Mercury Main board. I wanted to know if I could use my DVD player as a DVD drive.
Ujjawal Goel, Via e-mail
If you are referring to a standalone DVD player, the answer is No, you cannot use it as a DVD drive for your computer.
Q. I have a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz (that supports Hyper-Threading technology), Intel D865 GBF motherboard, 512MB of KINGSTON DDR memory and a 40 GB Seagate hard disk running Windows XP Professional SP2. I have disabled on-board sound and installed a Philips PSC705 5.1 surround sound card. I have also installed Pixelview Play TV Pro Ultra TV Tuner Card version 3.3. After installing the TV Tuner Card, I noticed that there is some disturbance in sound quality (popping and crackling) when playing songs and games. I disabled Conexant 2388x video capture driver from the sound, video and game controllers. After disabling it, the sound is clear. But to watch TV, I need to enable it again. Doing this repeatedly is getting to be a chore Please tell me how can I get a clear sound without disabling the driver of TV tuner card?
Sugat Tuladhar, Kathmandu (Nepal)
To solve your problem, download and install the latest version of the Philips PSC705 sound card drivers from www.philips.com and the latest drivers for PixelView PlayTV Pro Ultra from www.pixelview.com. Also install the latest version of your display drivers and DirectX 9.0c. Your problem will be solved and you will be able to get clear sound without disabling your TV Tuner card.
Which Motherboard Do I Have?
Q. I have a Compaq Presario 5600, P 5 1.5 GHz, 128 MB SDRAM, nVidia VANTA 16 MB video card running Windows XP. However, on my motherboard, it says ‘PC 133 SDRAM’ only. Can I install DDR RAM on it? How can I determine which motherboard I am using? Would upgrading my SDRAM or buying a new motherboard with DDR RAM slot be beneficial? Also, I’ve heard that DDR RAM slots can be inserted in any motherboard. Is this true? I am an average gamer and particularly play racing games.
Prateek Rajput, Via e-mail
The Compaq Presario 5600 supports only SDRAM and hence, you cannot install DDR RAM modules. To install DDR RAM modules, a motherboard must have DDR RAM slots. Not all motherboards are equipped with DDR RAM and hence cannot have DDR RAM. Upgrading to a new motherboard with DDR RAM would definitely benefit you due to the high memory bandwidth on these motherboards. Utilities such as SiSoft Sandra 2005 from www.sisoftware.net and Everest 2.00 from www.lavalys.com can be used to determine the motherboard details of a PC in addition to other hardware and software details.
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Partition Woes
Q. I have P 4 2.6 GHz, 80 GB hard disk and 512 MB RAM and currently, there are four partitions on the hard drive. I would like to have only three; two of 30 GB and one of 20 GB. I want to keep Windows 98 SE and XP on one of the 30 GB partitions, and create a 20 GB dump. However, I have heard that you cannot increase the size of the partition that has an OS on it. How do I go about doing this? Gacarot, Via e-mail First, you need to create a Windows 98 Start-up Disk. To do that, insert a freshly formatted 1.44 MB floppy disk in the floppy drive. In the Windows 98 Control Panel, double-click on ‘Add-Remove Programs’ and click on ‘Start-up Disk’ tab and then on the ‘Create Disk’ button. Boot using this disk and at the ‘Start-up’ menu, opt to boot with or without CD-ROM support.
At the command prompt, type FDISK and press ‘Y’ when prompted to enable support for large disk drives. Since you already have multiple partitions on your hard drive, you will need to delete them first. In the first screen, press ‘3’ to delete partition or logical DOS drive. In the next screen, press ‘3’ to delete the logical DOS drive in the extended DOS partition and press ‘Enter’. You will be asked “What drive do you want to delete?” Enter the drive letter and press ‘Enter’. Next you have to enter the volume label, enter it and press ‘Enter’ and press ‘Y’ and ‘Enter’. Press ‘Esc’ to return to the previous screen and delete the other two remaining partitions in the same way. Press ‘Esc’ twice to return to the main FDISK menu and press ‘3’ to delete partition or logical DOS drive and press ‘Enter’. Press ‘2’ to delete the extended DOS partition and press ‘Enter’. Now press ‘1’ to delete the primary DOS partition in a way similar to the logical drives.
After deleting all the partitions, press Escape twice to return to the main FDISK menu. Now press ‘1’ to create a DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive and press ‘Enter’. In the next screen, press ‘1’ to create a Primary DOS partition and press ‘Enter’. You will be asked if you wish to allocate the maximum available space to this partition, press ‘N’ and enter the size of the partition required as 30,000 MB and press ‘Enter’. You will then be returned to the previous screen where you have to press ‘2’ to create an Extended DOS partition and press ‘Enter’. Choose to use all the available disk space for this drive because this extended partition will hold all the remaining partitions that you will be creating. You will once again be returned to the previous screen and you must now press ‘3’ to create a Logical DOS drive in the Extended DOS partition and press ‘Enter’. Choose 30,000 as the size of the partition and press ‘Enter’. Thereafter, you will be asked if you wish to create a partition in the remaining space. Press ‘Y’ and hit ‘Enter’ to use all the remaining space to create the last partition. Press ‘Esc’ to exit FDISK and reboot your PC and after formatting, your partitions are ready to use. It is not possible to change the partition size of a drive on which your operating system resides unless you use a partition managing utility such a Partition Magic. |
Removing Colour Profiles
Q. When I go to shutdown the computer, a blue screen appears and displays the following message: A fatal exception OE has occurred at 0187:BFF9DFF.The current application will be terminated.
* Press [CTRL] [ALT] [DEL] to restart your computer. You will lose any unsaved information in all application.
Press any key to continue.
Arka Banerjee, Via e-mail
A graphics/image program that you have installed is changing your monitor/printer ICC profiles. These are files that calibrate the colour for all the input and output devices. Find out which program is doing this and if there is an option to disable profile settings.
Alternatively, you can reset Windows to use the standard colour profiles by opening the ‘Display Properties’ in the ‘Control Panel’. To do this, click on Settings > Advanced > Colour Management, where you will be able to view all colour profiles installed on your computer.
Remove all these profiles by clicking on each of them and then clicking on ‘Remove’. Click on ‘Apply’ to apply the new settings.