Dalo Harkin

No thats just the SATA controller, It should have a model number P5K or something like that, possibly a MOBO make:- ASUS GIGABYTE MSI

how odd... Did you remove the CMOS and unplug the kettle lead (the PSU one :D) If you have done this then it sets the MOBO (Motherboard) back to how it was when it left the factory. ok, do you know if it has onboard video or an add in card? If its onboard it will be physically attached to the MOBO near the USB and speaker ports on the rear of the PC. An add in card would be situated much further down

The de de der sound (he he is this the technical term lol) Is this PC built by you or someone you know or someone like DELL or TOSHIBA? What was the very last thing you did on the PC before it started doing this? did you install any new programs, drivers etc?

Hmmm, its not quite as simple as getting a new MOBO unfortunatley. It supports an Intel Celeron D processor and comes with 512Mb of RAM. Personally if this were me I would buy a more modern MOBO, CPU and RAM, so if you can let us know your budget we can source the best value for you. As you say that you are PC Illiterate, it may be 'easier' for you to get a friend or a local PC shop to do the installation for you, Dont get me wrong we can talk you through the process step by step but it depends how comfortable you would feel building the PC yourself :)

Jelly Bean wanted to know the make and model of the PC eg Toshiba M300 or Dell *** (with this info we can find out whats in the machine) It will only be the GPU driver, so if you have an add in card (not on the MOBO) then it needs an updated driver from the manufacturer. There are only 2 reference companies that make GPU add in cards, one is NVIDIA and one is ATI and they have their own drivers. Hope this makes more sense. You could also try running windows update and look under the 'additional hardware' there should be a GPU driver listed if the one you have is out of date

Yeah no problem at all - :)

If its stuttering then you are using the windows default GPU driver. Install a more upto date one from your GPU maker:- NVIDIA or ATI are the add in card type, if its onboard video then go to your MOBO manufacturers website

Did you get any disks with your lappy or just a recovery partition? with a recovery partition it would normally show when you boot the lappy and then give you 2 options, 1 for the OS and the other would be for the recovery partition. If you only had a recovery partition, then you would need to source any drivers you need from the lappy manufacturers site

It shoudnt be that some are dedicated and others not, on older boards you had a SATA cable that ran from one of the actual SATA mainboard ports that then went to the external to supply the data link. If some of yours are specifically for ESATA it would say in the manual, BUT they would still use the same drivers as the non ESATA ones. ESATA in itself is swappable, you can use the ''remove device safely'' but I never have :D

If its running a Quad then it should have a PCI-E slot or two. so any PCI-E card will be fine, BUT check that your PSU has both the connectors needed and the Wattage to cope with a new card.

First thing to do would be remove the side panel on the case and check that everything is 'actually' turning on inside the PC, hearing a HDD whir away only means that device is running, do you have onboard video or an add in card? Next thing I would do is pop the CMOS battery (the round watch one) out of the MOBO while the PC is off and unplugged from the mains. Wait 30 seconds and then reinsert it, see if anything changes.

Depending on the size of your home network and PCs, if you have some old kit knocking around you could build a WHS (Windows Home Server) im always plugging this I use one at home amongst other things and its amazing and they have just launched V2 codenamed 'vail' worth looking into if you can....

I know this is in hindsight, but never use anything for backup that is mechanical unless its backed up more than once spanned over a few drives... for anything else use media such as DVD-R or blueray depending on size

If the SATA connectors are physically soldered onto the board and this is not a PCI add in card then the ESATA drivers are controlled via the same drivers that normal SATA ports use which are 'normally' included in the chipset drivers :) If you look in device manager and there is a yellow exclamation mark next to it, double click it select update driver and make sure the MOBO disk is in the drive, it should search the PC and then the CD/DVD rom drive and then install the driver. If it doesnt do advanced search and select your CD/DVD drive normally D:/ if you just have one HDD and one CD/DVD rom

The easiest and simplest way is to right click on a picture you want to use and then select 'set as desktop background'

I honestly dont think that you can on an OS that is not business based, here is the normal method for Server 2003 etc Send a message to a user: Terminal Services - you could try this and see if it works, im not at home so could not try............

James, Did you have a look in the startup items? and device manager? These 2 things if not running smoothly can absolutely cripple performance And dont worry Match, I know you think I am great :)

Whats the make and model of the laptop, you mentioned that you are connecting wirelessly and that works fine, have you tried connecting with Ethernet? You will have 2x drivers for networking:- One will be the wireless LAN card or similar and the other will be Intel family ethernet or something similar. With your lappy you would have received a driver disk, if you do not have this then with the make and model of the lappy we should be able to source the drivers for you.

Hi, First of all your drivers should be here Drivers & Support | GAME.AMD.COM Uninstall the old ones via add/remove program and then restart, then install the one from the above link - any better, you HAVE to use the Catalyst Control Center to enable Crossfire - its in one of the options ( I haven't used Crossfire for a while as its not as good as Nvidias SLI IMHO) When you have enabled Crossfire, your FPS should jump quite considerably, BUT bear in mind that if you have ALL the graphics detail options set to High and AA and AF on full, and at a resolution higher than 1680x1050 you will struggle with those cards. (my advice for anyone reading this in the future is not to bother with SLI or Crossfire and just get the highest spec single card you can afford) GPU technology changes so fast you will be stuck with old technology in less than 6 months.

Have you tried resetting the printer:- How to Reset Photosmart Printers - HP technical support (United Kingdom - English) If you have had a jam and then pulled the jam through, it can sometimes need resetting :)

Ha ha, I'm here :eek: Read the thread as Barry has asked, if you suspect a drive of failing then there can be some serious repercussions from defragging an 'underperforming' HDD :D

On the back of your MOBO there should be 3/5/7 jacks normally 3 is most common on older boards and is for 2:1 then 5 is 5:1 and then 7:1 GREEN - front audio BLUE/BLACK back audio and RED/ORANGE Sub you need to use the Green one on a standard 2:1 setup. I still think that the BIOS would be a very high possibility, go into the BIOS and you are looking for something saying realtek audio : Enabled/Disabled. Its normally under integrated periferals ;)

Unless they have a BIOS update available, then it could be linked to hardware, a USB device will operate in USB 1 form ONLY if its an old PC and does not support USB 2 or 3 or if there are no drivers installed for the host controller and it uses the windows built in USB 1 drivers

Any PCI-E card will be fine as long as your PSU can output the power. (and it has the connections 6pin PCI-E, or a 2x molex to 6pin PCI which often come in the new GPU box) just make sure if you use this method that you have no fan 'passthrough' cables attached. the biggest factor when buying a new GPU is the monitor, as in what resolution you plan on gaming at, as even some mid level cards would be overkill for a 20-22'' monitor

If Its the socket 775 P5Q one have a look here:- ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support- Its part of the chipset drivers - so you need to make sure you have the latest one :)