Plastic Nev

Hi and welcome to Free PC help. I see no problem, all you need are the leads with the right connectors at each end. Use the line out socket on your sound card and if you have one, line in on your sound system. If you need to go the other way round and send sound into the PC, just reverse the connection to line in on the card and line out on the sound system.

Hi Diurno, looking at both the link for the mother board, and also the device photograph, the "Poster" is a device to inform you of any fault on the motherboard or peripherals of the machine in general. Quite a good idea actually, but if the computer and motherboard are working perfectly OK, it does indeed look like a fault in the "Poster" device itself. Unfortunately a case of the diagnoser needing diagnosing eh? I wouldn't worry too much about it, and just disconnect it if the computer itself is OK. You never know, a week turned off it may work properly again later. These things do sometimes happen. I suppose it is now too late to send it back under warranty?

Seems to be a handy tool, especially if having trouble already. I will bear it in mind should I ever need it. McAfee site advisor shows red for the "Who Crashed Introduction" page, but that is only because of links from it. The page itself is safe, just read what it says, but be careful of clicking on any links.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help Paul, hope we can be of some assistance, and if you want help building your own have a look in that section, which you can find in Hardware issues. Also have a look at Dalo Harkin's signature you will find links to how he built his.

Thanks for the reply, and glad all is sorted for you. You can if you wish still retain that hard drive, and providing it is still working can be used as extra capacity either inside the new machine, or as an external in a caddy so that it can be moved from machine to machine. (I don't like seeing good usable gear just discarded) A great and Happy New Year to you to.

Hi, we would not normally advise the replacement of components individually on a mother board. Mainly because of what I now suspect from your description of those capacitors. They have obviously blown, unfortunately, in doing so they may well have done further damage. Rather than replace them we would normally advise to replace the entire mother board, as costs of repair, plus the likely hood of further damage, can far outweigh any cost of a new board. Look at the link Tootech gave, and see if a new board of the same type is still available, or if not, a compatible or similar board may be the best answer.

Well at some time Bob may have been at the cute little baby stage, but I am afraid it didn't last long. (sorry Bob, I couldn't resist that) :D :D

Goku, it would appear I am in perhaps the lucky position of 0 points for I am single. However during the times I wasn't, I think that in most cases us men would be lucky if we could maintain an average -10 points. The big negative point scorer was "I shouldn't have to tell you what is wrong, you should know!!"

Oh my goodness, I am running terribly late, Sorry Diurno, and welcome, I hope you are settling in OK and finding we are a friendly bunch.

Sorry Beeceebee, it is two separate issues, we seem to have sorted the memory problem, (which may be only temporarily). The shut down issue is, as above, now being looked at by Goku.

I also agree, about SP3. but a lot of folk, especially those who follow and read through forums such as this, have seen there have been problems with SP3 so have been reluctant themselves to allow the update to take place. A look at the help page link Wolfeymole posted is to be well advised, and then take it from there. If the instructions on that page are followed, there should then be no problem now, as most of the early issues have now been patched or sorted out.

OK Simon, if indeed it stays OK, you may well be right about the sockets on the board. Intermittent faults can be a nightmare. See how it goes, and if OK we will see what can be done about it not shutting down.

Yes indeed thanks for that Tootech, I also was a little unsure as to what RAID was. You learn something new every day. I am also glad it was of help to you Diurno, thanks for asking the question.

I do hope the roll back to SP2 goes OK for you Lee. Installing SP3 is not as simple as you may think. It has caused many problems for some, please have a look at this help page regarding SP3 from the MS help pages.- Information about Windows XP Service Pack 3 Let us know how you get on, so we can help further. Nev.

Hello Andy, Good to see someone with a few qualifications joining us and a warm Welcome to you. Please join in and help with the battle against malware wherever you can.

OK, Simon, lets get the RAM issue out of the way first then, and we can return to the shut down issue later. Best of luck and I hope it soon shows up which stick is faulty. Also try the free test from here, do it on each stick in turn. Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic Just click the free download button to the left on that page.

Hi Simon again, having seen the spec for your board, now I know you have in total 2GB of memory, it isn't too much for the board as it will support 4GB. So it is looking like one stick is faulty, the only way to find which one, is as you say, try each in turn for some time. Let us know how you get on. Incidentally will the machine shut down OK with only the one stick in? it may be connected, or may not.

Woops, first day nearly over already, Happy new year from me also, and a great greeting card Mara. Thanks.

Happy Birthday, and at least a new machine is one answer. However is there much data on the hard drive that you may need to get at? If so the hard drive may be used either fitted internally to the new machine, or put in a caddy and used as an external. Let us know and we will help you get that sorted if you need to.

Hi Simon, have you tried the other stick on its own? for it is looking like a faulty RAM stick. However, if it runs OK with either one in, but fails with both, it could be that your mother board can't support more than a value of less than the both sticks together, what size are they in MB?

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help mohawk, Which socket on the sound card did you connect the amplifier to? ideally it should be the line out one. Also which input on the amp? I don't know that particular one but does it have a line in socket? If you used say speaker out on the card, and then say microphone in on the amp, there will be a terrible mismatch of what is know as impedance, this would account for your poor sound quality as the end result. You need to use both line out on the card, and line in on the Amp for best results.

Hi again, myself and Beeceebee are working together on this, can we just get one thing straight so we can all understand where you are at now. The disk you have been using, is it a full copy of XP, or what is known as an OEM version, or is it the recovery disk that came from the computer manufacturers.

Hi Bob, if as you say it is a few years old now, there is probably no drivers for Vista available now anyway. You may be better buying a new one if you do need it.

To put it a bit more simply and follow on from Beeceebee, you cannot have windows installed on a hard drive, and move it to a different machine. Windows will see an entirely different environment and refuse to start. It would only do so if it was a move from one PC to another that was exactly the same. Mother boards in your case are totally different, so there is no chance of a hard drive with windows on it, from one machine, working on the other. Please go back to the beginning, return the Hard drives to their original machines, then we can help from there.

Hi, you say you tried all slots, do you mean you removed the sound card and then plugged it into another slot? Try removing it again, and using a pencil/biro type eraser use the slightly abrasive bit of the eraser to clean the contacts on the card, wipe them off and reseat it in the slot. See if that improves things.