Dalo Harkin

Is the volume bar there from startup or after?? you can type in MSCONFIG into command and look at the start up items - but I would only do this if you have an understanding of whats on the PC

Could be a number of things:- PC is overheating - have you cleaned the inside of the case recently/ever? have you changed anything recently - installed new hardware/software?

Russ - when you removed office did you also remove the updates?? (originally)

Do you even see all the white writing on the black background when the PC is turned on??? and there should be options for going into the BIOS its normally delete or one of the F keys.

I agree in the fact that people are always banging on about how much energy PC's use - I have a Zalman device on m PC that tells me exactly how much power my pc is using and its all real time, when idle its around 110Watt and when at full load it's around the 400Watt mark. BUT bear in mind that this is a very high end PC:- Q6600 at 4GHz 260 GTX 8 HDD's and 2 DVD-RW I do not leave it on all the time but even so there is no way it costs £50 a year, just for the pc, BUT then again another point is that when people leave there pc's on I doubt that many unplug things like Monitor, Speakers etc - they leave them all on standby and this would also accumilate. I saw an episode of Dragons Den the other night and it was some guy banging on about an energy efficient server and Peter Jones absolutely tore shreads off this guy - all the components could be bought off the shelf and in the end they all dropped out and Peter carried on at this guy about how 'energy efficient' it was. - If you get the chance watch it - hilarious - was on BBC three on Monday night :)

The battery just holds the settings of the BIOS not the actual BIOS itself, when you remove the battery any and all of the settings in the BIOS return to their default settings and you need to turn them back to what they are when the PC is working - most BIOS's have an option to save multiple set ups. And then if you do remove the battery you select whatever settings you had when working. Not very useful now in your circumstances but when you get it working again useful to know incase the same happens and you need to remember all the settings.

Go into the BIOS and check that the HDD is the first boot device. and set the settings in the BIOS to LOAD OPTIMISED DEFAULTS

As Wolfey has said the battery is dead - batteries need to be maintained - they need a first long charge and then need completely draining every now and then. most people just leave them plugged in at ALL times and that just kills the battery. as for the screen - if it only happens at the start up and then when windows is loaded chances are that it is something else or it would do it all the time - try and get an updated graphics driver. :)

take it this has only recently happened - have you changed anything - graphics drivers etc?

Found this:- it turned out that mail.services.live.com switched to using application/pkix-crl content-type for message retrieval which was not allowed, on my firewall. Adding this content-type resolved the issue.

Right - I think that people are all talking about different things - Wandy lol

Yes but that point had already been answered - did we all confuse each other then?? lol

The parameters have changed but thats the case with all PC's when a new OS is installed as long as you REFORMAT the drive and when windows is loaded you install the MOBO drivers then that is no different from a new build

Yes to registered and activated - MS will not be too happy about you not liking Vista - but what would you do - allow the user to install XP or lose the customer to Linux?? The point is if the OLD HDD that has XP on and with it the key is installed into the new pc and the REFORMATTED (with which you will have to call MS and explain the problem then I don't foresee a problem) they may not like it BUT as in first paragraph they would have to lump it IMO

For the FF users - I know there are a few in here :D The improvements brought along with Firefox 3 made me much happier to be using the browser, on top of demonstrating that Mozilla is still responding to user feedback. They are taking that another step further for their future browser endeavors, putting out an open call for more than just feedback, but what exactly individuals around the world want to see in a browser. They have no defined intention of making these ideas into actual products – they are simply looking for “collaboration” and exploration. That is a great way to go about software development, especially in the world today where no longer is a piece of software relegated to a small portion of the population. There is no mention on how long they will be running this project, but if you ever wanted an idea heard by developers here is a great chance to not only tell them, but show them.

It is but as long as you have a working HDD and an OS and KEY then it's all ok (providing you do not have the key installed on another HDD as this would enable one of the OS's dead at the next update)

Yeah thats why I would recommend keeping Vista, it takes getting used to but I much prefer it to XP. They might not do it - I know mine was at the time of when Vista was having troubles and I know that they were getting inundated with calls - and it was Vista too, if you are asking for an XP change then there may be VERY VERY cautious about giving you anything! lol

No - it will be fine - you just need to give MS a bell - they even give you the phone number on the reinstall page lol and tell them whats what - last time I called was when I changed my MOBO from that ABIT one that didn't work with the Q6600 to the ASUS one and called them and the woman that answered just read me a code and linked it to my account :D dont know how they do it, but worked for me. (the Product code does not change BTW)

Paper Moon - have a close read of this Network Lab - A Guide to Networking An NTL Cable Modem - Linksys BEFSR41 Router

sounds like whatever program you used to burn the CD's has done them as BOOT CD's and not DATA disks

I presumed that these were 2 seperate OS's. So the old one has XP the new has Vista If you have the OS disk and the KEY and you use the old HDD and put it in the new PC and reformat the drive with XP then there is no problem with that BUT you must use the HDD that has XP on it currently!

Right - the problem with a router when not setup is:- there is one ip address - and whichever pc/laptop is turned on first will occupy the ip address and the other will not be able to access the internet. you need to go into the routers home page and there will be some settings for adding other pc/laptops to access the router and this is normally done by adding MAC addresses of the pc/laptops that will be using it. I used to have a linksys router - for 1 day and I took it back and got a Netgear one, there are lots and lots of problems posted all over the net with Linksys routers, but some people cannot praise them enough. I will have a look at the Linksys if you post the model number and tell you where if there are any places to add a pc/laptop. If you plug both into seperate ethernet cables and connect to the router that way they should work. (seperate ethernet on the laptop and seperate on the pc and then plug one into port one and one into port 2 for eg)

If you reinstall XP you need ALL the drivers - thats MOBO drivers and SATA drivers. Most people do not have these to hand. Vista will install 99% of the drivers that you need including SATA and MOBO drivers and all you need really are the Graphics driver. and then to install your programs.

The Acer data one looks like what you get on a ''tools and utilities'' CDROM normally programs like DVD/CD software etc and thats probably the 4% used figure. I think that they intended you to use this side for storing larger files etc.

Hi Danzil, Again I was not here on your first time here - Welcome back :)