Dalo Harkin

Seedy, Been in the PC industry officially for 1yr, started the MCSE as a part time study, but now need it :D I used to do sales for the money, but my heart wasnt in it, so decided to take the plunge and the pay cut and go into IT full time. I have been tinkering with PCs for over 10 yrs now, multiple servers in my house and a pretty hefty internal network later, I still need/want more :) I love PCs in every sense. Its a great industry to get into.

You can have a look here at the MS article:- How to troubleshoot a Stop 0x0000007E error in Windows XP If you are still stuck after trying the suggestions then come back here and we will help

Right so it has a PCI-E x16 slot, so it will be down to cost, the PSU is 375 Watts so thats fine, how big the case is, and what size monitor you plan on playing games on

BUT it should run with one or two of the sticks installed. I suspect that one is dead or dying (theory would suggest the oldest 512 stick, but dont bet on it :D) Try the sticks one at a time independantly in the slots until it boots to the BIOS, from there at least you can get into windows. I honestly think your maxing the RAM limit on the board. Pop the CMOS and try the newest stick on it's own

Personally, I would remove the heatsink, re apply thermal paste, get a decent uprated cooler like an arctic freezer 7*, whack that on and then look at updating the chipset drivers and all the other drivers from the Foxconn website. *If you have an after market cooler already what make is it? - if its says Intel on top of it then chuck it in the bin or use it as a paper weight. If its shutting down to heat then its not uncommon for the thermal paste to degrade over time, it should be reapplied every 2 or so years. Have you checked that all the fans are clear and not clogged with dust? get some compressed air and go over them all anyway. short sharp burst as extended spraying causes moisture to build up and thats :eek: I think with the above your PC will have a new lease of life :) If you need help with anything more there is always someone here on a daily basis :D Synapse - the PC is fit for purpose, you could get an i7 and a new MOBO and run Crossfire, but its no good if your favourite game is Pacman :D

Thats what SAFE mode is for, it starts the PC/Laptop with the minimal drivers (this is mainly for trouble shooting) As its not shutting down in safe mode, it means that something other than the bare windows OS is causing you problems. What was the very last thing you did before the PC stopped working properly, updated any drivers? installed any new hardware? installed new software? from safe mode you can choose to 'roll back' using system restore to a previous point in time, my experience of system restore is biased as I think its poo IMHO and you will be very lucky if it works at all, but you can give it a go :D)

In all honesty, you need a complete new build for W7 or Vista. New MOBO, CPU, RAM etc If you were looking to speed up your current system then just add more RAM and a better GPU ( I couldnt find much info on the MOBO, but I would guess it has AGP graphics which would severely limit your GPU upgrade options) not what you wanted to hear, but if you are looking to run Vista or W7 (bear in mind they are DX10 and DX11) then you really need PCI-E graphics.

In short, NO you need to do a complete reinstall of the OS. Not all add in SATA cards are bootable, when the PC starts and you get the POST screen (the black one with the system info on) there is normally a second screen which lists the add in SATA controller and allows you to enter its own firmware (a bit like a BIOS) from there you can configure the drives for RAID. You have SATA ports on your MOBO so use those initially just do the below* *If there are any jumpers on your new SATA HDDs to set them to 1.5GB per second and not 3.0GB per second you need to do that as thats an old MOBO and does not support SATA 2 If you need drivers go here MSI UK - Computers, Laptops, Notebooks, Desktops, Mainboards, Graphics and more

You wont see any 'real world' performance with a dual core chip over the one you have, not in the tasks you mention its performing. I would be looking at the root of the problem, has the PC always been slow since it was made/bought?

Multifunction printer, 83ppm? Have you checked that Yellow is in place securely? Y M C K - Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, Black

Have you set the CD/DVD rom drive as the 1st bootable device. 'normal method' would be:- CD/DVD ROM HDD Floppy (these are now only used on pre Vista systems) Removable device (only used with bootable USBs etc) Boot from Ethernet (on workstation PCs/Servers etc) I advise people:- HDD Disable Disable Disable Disable Then you can just change the 1st to CD/DVD rom when booting an OS, it saves any conflicts and avoids the delays in the post

Definately look at the likes of Dell and HP then, they will do everything you require :)

Thats overkill for what you plan on using it for. The CPU and RAM are impressive but it lacks GPU power (which is what you will need in the future) Look for a system with a quad core CPU, 4GB RAM and a better GPU 12GB of RAM wont be used for the next 5 years (unless you plan on editing video and audio)

G31/33 chipset is not old enough to have anything other than a PCI-E

Ae you using a crossover cable or a straight through CAT5e? you would then need to enter the NIC of the PC controlling the internet connection and select 'allow other computers to access the internet though this connection'

It's VERY VERY unlikely that all the RAM has gone bad at the same time. (99.9%) I leave the .1 just incase :D If you have tried all sticks independent and in each DIMM slot and nothing works, MOST MOBOs have a limit on how much RAM the bus can handle and although 4.5GB does not seem alot it can be on older boards (most of which only support 2GB max, one GB in each slot) if there are 4 slots then (4x1GB is normally maxing the bus) that being said there are modern MOBOs that can take 16GB over 4 slots (4x4GB) I would remove the CMOS and try the dimms one at a time. again.

Did you change anything the first time it displayed the error? depending on who you listen to they tell you different things, IMO enter the BIOS and set the first boot device to HDD-0 then disable the rest of the other boot devices such as:- CD/DVD rom floppy drive (99% of people dont use these anymore) removable media boot from Ethernet (this is more common on business PCs) when you do the above and SAVE and EXIT the BIOS, it should be fine.

Have you been into the BIOS? as you may have to configure the controller from there, on some MOBOs you have to do it all from within the BIOS and on some others you get an additional screen after it POSTs.

If your router only supports Wireless G and you have a G wireless dongle then nothing will give it better performance, unless you reduce the distance or objects between the router and the device. Personally I would wait until you upgrade to a wireless N router, there are many guises of wireless G/G+ all improve over the previous. I wouldnt use anything other than wireless N though, and dont waste your money on anything less

I doubt its possible, If I were you I would be looking to take the components out and install them into a bigger case, then add an ATX PSU, then upgrade the GPU. As its a slim case if it has a standard size ATX MOBO and backpanel I/O plate then it wont have any issues going into a bigger case

The case power/reset switch wont work if the cables are the wrong way round.

You have to unplug from the mains too when you remove the CMOS have you checked and re checked ALL the wires including the ones that connect the case to the MOBO, as they have to be in the way as in + -

You mentioned you ran a defrag before the system stopped working (there was a post recently that I advised against using defrags, look it up at some point) Now you say that you cannot shutdown the PC via holding the switch, if this is recent and it used to then I would say the MOBO or PSU are the suspect. You say that the fans run at full speed now, this happens when the BIOS is reset*, due to a fault. Have you tried unplugging the PSU power cord from the mains and then popping the CMOS battery out for 30 seconds, reinsert the battery and then connect the power cord and try and power up. *Note that if the BIOS has been reset then the MOBO will revert back to using the onboard video as opposed to an add in card. Hope some of this helps you

First of all what is the lappys main usage? if its just browsing the net and playing flash games then you can get away with less. on the other hand if you plan on playing games ect and using it to edit photo/video files then you need a realistic budget as the power needed isnt cheap. Does it have to be a laptop? is it just the convenience rather than sitting at a set location, or do you need to be 'mobile' with the PC? give us a main use and a budget and we can see what we can come up with ;) you want to consider the major manufacturers such as DELL, HP, PACKARD BELL, you tend to get 'more' for your money than you do with the likes of ACER, SAMSUNG, ASUS etc. and if anything ever goes wrong with the lappy there are lots of help channels available

Technically you will be (but if you run the install from 'THE' administrator account) you shouldnt get any access violations. right click on the game .exe and run as administrator (in W7 that is) for Vista right click on the game shortcut icon from either the desktop or program file location its installed and then select advanced properties and there are some options 'run as administrator is a tickbox' tick it and then apply and ok, then relaunch and see if it loads