Plastic Nev

Hi, I have to ask why you are wanting to change the motherboard, is the original faulty and are you sure it is and not something else such as hard drive, CPU, or RAM. Although the two different motherboards look the same, and no doubt will fit the laptop, if the first was quite different to the original, we don't as yet know the full model numbers of the original, Windows may have seen a major change in environment with that first motherboard and will refuse to boot, most certainly the same will apply with the second motherboard, have you taken that possibility into account? Nev.

Edit= KenB beat me to posting. Ignore the below if you wish. Hum, exactly what did you want to achieve as I am puzzled? You followed that advise to remove the Windows XP from the dual boot option and that is what has happened. XP will no longer boot, you might as well delete all XP files if all you want to boot is Windows 7, or am I missing something, was it Windows 7 you wanted to remove? If so why, it is a much better system than XP ever was. Nev.

To save any other member wasting time if they don't know about your other post, do have a look here= http://extremetechsupport.com/threads/15151-Sound-and-video-lag?p=98651#post98651 From what you say in that other post, malware is a distinct possibility and is usually the first thing to be looked for. Nev.

Hi, on your other thread in networking you reject outright that your problem could be down to virus or malware infection, yet it is perfectly obvious from what you say here that there is something hogging resources. I seriously recommend you approach your problem as a possible malware one and act accordingly. If in fact it proves to be malware then all will be OK after it is cleared, if it proves to be not malware, then we can look at other reasons, considering it isn't going to cost anything except a bit of time, what is your problem? Nev.

Hi, does that sticker match exactly all of the other three? If so, you can fit three and leave one out as all slots are black so may not be any mismatch problems. If three out of the four are fitted and no problem, remove one and fit the other. If a problem with three, it means swapping around until there is no problem, the one not in is then the faulty one. Having said that, cleaning the contacts as Vr5fx suggests may actually clear it anyway. Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. Apart from the original laptop belonging to the radio station, how many other laptops and computers are affected? Was the original corrupted laptop connected to a network which included all other laptops? If so and there is an infection involved it may have carried over to all other machines on the network if insuficient security is used within the network. Please take just one laptop, perhaps the original one or any other and then make sure all other laptops are disconnected from the network for now. Each laptop will need to be dealt with one at a time if malware is present in them all, reconnecting any one back to the network may re-infect any cleaned computer. Yes it will require patience and we understand, so hopefully this will be cleared up as soon as possible. However do be aware we offer the service for free as it is on a voluntary basis with most of us having other work or interests outside of this forum, so this may take a little time. OK if you are willing to carry on, let us first see if indeed it is a malware problem, and I would like you to follow all instructions below, and we can deal with one computer at a time. In the meantime I will alert one of our malware removal experts. Step 1 Please download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and save it to your desktop. Make sure you are connected to the Internet. Double-click on Download_mbam-setup.exe to install the application. When the installation begins, follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings. When installation has finished, make sure you leave both of these checked: Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware [*]Then click Finish. [*]MBAM will automatically start and you will be asked to update the program before performing a scan. If an update is found, the program will automatically update itself. Press the OK button to close that box and continue. If you encounter any problems while downloading the updates, manually download them from here and just double-click on mbam-rules.exe to install. [*]On the Scanner tab: Make sure the "Perform Full Scan" option is selected. Then click on the Scan button. [*]If asked to select the drives to scan, leave all the drives selected and click on the Start Scan button. [*]The scan will begin and "Scan in progress" will show at the top. It may take some time to complete so please be patient. [*]When the scan is finished, a message box will say "The scan completed successfully. Click 'Show Results' to display all objects found". [*]Click OK to close the message box and continue with the removal process. [*]Back at the main Scanner screen, click on the Show Results button to see a list of any malware that was found. [*]Make sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected. [*]When removal is completed, a log report will open in Notepad and you may be prompted to restart your computer. (see Note below) [*]The log is automatically saved and can be viewed by clicking the Logs tab in MBAM. [*]Copy and paste the contents of that report in your next reply and exit MBAM. Note: If MBAM encounters a file that is difficult to remove, you will be presented with 1 of 2 prompts. Click OK to either and let MBAM proceed with the disinfection process. If asked to restart the computer, please do so immediately. Failure to reboot will prevent MBAM from removing all the malware. Step 2 Download OTL to your desktop. right click on the link and select 'Save Link/Target As'. if you have problems, try this download link: OTL Double click on the icon to run it. Make sure all other windows are closed and to let it run uninterrupted. When the window appears, underneath Output at the top change it to Minimal Output. Check the boxes beside LOP Check and Purity Check . . http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v708/starbuck50/new/newOtl2.png right click in the Custom Scans/Fixes window (under the blue bar) and choose Paste. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v708/starbuck50/new%20forum/scan-fix.png . Click the Run Scan button. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v708/starbuck50/runscan.png Do not change any settings unless otherwise told to do so. The scan wont take long. When the scan completes, it will open two notepad windows. OTL.Txt and Extras.Txt. These are saved in the same location as OTL. Please copy (Edit->Select All, Edit->Copy) the contents of these files, one at a time, and post them with your next reply. Note: Running the above script with OTL will : turn on your system restore and set a new restore point (XP only) set a new restore point (if system restore is turned on) Vista & Win7. In your next reply, please submit: MBAM scan report Both reports from OTL Whilst we are helping you, please don't run other programs/scans without our knowledge .... it only confuses things. Thanks.

Hi Fed, I think Ken meant RAM, the memory sticks plugged into the motherboard. If you have only two, do as he suggested, if more than two, remove one and test, if no change put that one back then remove another till all have been tried. Nev.

Hi Mike glad that is all it was, it can sometimes only be a slight knock that will disconnect the drive from the plug inside the enclosure. Good call Ray and thanks. I will mark this solved. Nev.

OK, good to hear all is now OK and the new larger drive running well. Best of luck with the other machines, any problems you know where we are and only too glad to help. Nev.

When the graphics card is plugged in and power to it, just a few questions that answers to them may help. First have you looked in device manager to see if it shows up there? Also did it come with any driver software and have you installed that? And finally the old card that was in may need to be disabled for the new one to be recognised, have you looked into doing that? Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help, no doubt there will be someone else available with a bit more knowledge and idea's than I have. However I doubt that the fact your system is only PCIe 1.0 and the card is PCIe 3.0 is the reason for not working as PCIe of all numbers or speeds is supposed to be compatible. However if your system is only capable of PCIe 1.0 (Are you sure about that?) the card once it is made to work, will only run at the slower speed, this is known as 2.5 gigatransfers per second for number 1.0 For PCIe 3.0 the speed is up to 8 gigatransfers per second. Considering the speed reduction on your motherboard, you may not see a great improvement in performance even if we can get the card to work is what I am saying. I will let one of our graphics guys know you need help though. Nev.

Hi, Starbuck is away till Monday he is moving house, however I will post asking etavares if he can have a look, he is in America so there will be some time differences. Nev.

For when KenB gets back, I think the most important ones he will need to see are all temperatures, CPU, Graphics, Motherboard, and if shown hard drive and power supply temperatures. Also if shown, the CPU information such as type or make and model, plus how many cores and if more than one, how many of them are running. Nev.

That wall is fairly new and was put up as part of a kitchen extension by my neighbour to replace the boundary wall between his terraced house and mine. That type of efflorescence is common in cheaper brick or sometimes the sand used in the cement mortar. Especially if the sand is recovered sea sand. It is his wall and not my problem, though it does look a mess it will eventually weather away. As for the welding, by the odd bits of slag on some of the original welds the original frame must have been done with the old stick welder, I could have done the same but don't have any good sticks at the moment as those I do have, have been kept in the shed too long and suffered the damp conditions, so are now useless, hence why the MIG was used. I always keep MIG wire in the warm and dry and really should have done so with the various sizes of rod or sticks I have. Nev.

Without a wired connection you could be struggling due to interference from other wireless signals from neighbours wireless connections. Possibly not much help but just for the upload can you not wire connect close to the router and just leave it till it finishes the upload? Nev.

In general it is great, running around this forum for example, a swipe of the finger scrolls the page up or down, handy for the long posts and quicker than using scroll wheel or mouse pointer on scroll bar. So then, bring out the on screen keyboard and write whatever is required, hide the keyboard when done and tap the post reply box. Job done. Everything is at finger tip control. I still hit the wrong key now and then while writing, (No change there then :D ) but easily corrected as usual by backspace, or shift cursor and delete, whichever is required. The only thing slightly vexing is that to achieve the equivalent of a right click, you hold on the spot for about five to ten seconds, then the right click menu pops up, just the few seconds waiting time till it works is annoying. It is sometimes needed for spell checking and getting the correct spelling of those odd words you aren't sure about. Also for other menu's, especially in some of the software I have where a right click on say a picture in Photofiltre, which brings up the resize tool, normally quicker than digging it out of the normal tool box, but slightly slower due to the wait for it to come up. Result is that the mouse is sometimes used instead. Mouse and keyboard are sometimes still needed, but certainly a lot less used with the touch screen. I now have a completed stand, just needs a plywood top varnishing, and some black paint on the stand to cover where I welded the modifications. The table or stand is actually a heavily modified wrought iron coffee table, originally glass topped which stood about a foot or so high. The original sides were cut in half to make legs, the original ends used as sides with some bits of the original legs now added to strengthen the frame at the top. The original glass top was toughened glass, it got a light tap on the edge from something hard a long time ago, which terminated it completely by exploding into thousands of little pieces as toughened glass does. Shame I didn't take a picture of the original coffee table frame, but here are some shots of the completed table stand. http://i73.servimg.com/u/f73/14/68/69/96/frame_10.jpg http://i73.servimg.com/u/f73/14/68/69/96/frame_11.jpg http://i73.servimg.com/u/f73/14/68/69/96/frame_12.jpg Angle grinder, hacksaw, some use of my steel cutting bandsaw and a hammer and chisel to get the original frame into the bits I needed, and then the MIG welder to put the bits together again in the new order I wanted. Nev.

Hi and welcome to Free Pc Help. I can only assume that the files may have an odd file extension, or even perhaps a doubled extension such as MP4.MP4. Which program or software are you using to convert the files to MP4? Also the files, if commercial may also be copy protected to prevent them playing once copied. Nev.

Hi, first fit the new drive, next is power on and open the disk drive drawer to put the disk in, also access the bios to make it see and boot from the disk drive next time it is restarted. Shut down, then plug in the external hard drive and restart, if you got the boot priority right it will boot from the disk, you then navigate through to find the external drive and then the cloned copy that is on it, there should be some instruction or similar for what you click next to copy the clone onto the laptop's new drive, it may also reformat that drive first as an automatic thing so saving you from doing that manually. Not knowing the software you are using I can only generalise of course, however it should go in the way I describe in a general sort of fashion. Nev.

Just a small question, if no floppy drive available, can the drivers be loaded from a flash drive? I seem to remember seeing that providing the USB is active that they can! Just another thought, if all else fails why not try a linux system on it? Nev.

Hi Ray, check my last post, is the hard drive a SATA? If so as explained above XP will not recognise it. Nev.

Back again, Kicking myself as I have just realised something, it will not install XP as XP was not configured for SATA drives or systems, it will only recognise the older IDE type of drive, there may be a way round it though so have now asked Ken to look in. Nev

Hi, a bit of a long shot but does the previous owner have any restore disks? Although possibly not as old as the one I used to have, there is a possibility that it was supplied with restore disks as mine was. Back to the refusal to install XP, is the hard drive totally reformatted? If not and there are Vista drivers installed they might also be the culprit. I will send a PM to Ken see if he knows why it won't detect the hard drive in XP. Nev.

Hi John and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. I have found a link to download the part of the manual for complete restoration to factory settings here= http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/Download/ShowDescription.asp?Info=FTS&SoftwareGUID=89BDD58D-1F5B-4494-9569-16D9D943D6C8 Click the accept conditions first to be able to download the manual. You will need Adobe Acrobat, or similar PDF file reader. It is in several languages but the English is second one down. You will see various options depending on what type of recovery system you have, either disks created by you, a recovery system on the hard drive or with disks supplied with the computer, in all cases they do say you may lose all data, which in this case is exactly what you want! Best of luck, Nev.

Hum, nearly forgot to mention I have now bought a touch screen, it is the View Sonic TD2220. link here Quite pleased with it so far and still learning how to get the best out of it. Also making a stand for it as the normal computer desk is too high for the best ergonomic use, once completed and set up I will post a photo. Nev.

Very good point Synapse, when I did it I didn't have a caddy or enclosure at the time that I could use. However once I had the new large drive fitted and running I realised I had a small drive that could be used as an external for small stuff, so then bought a caddy for it. So what I am saying is to go buy a caddy now, follow the way Synapse described, then you can put the old small drive into the caddy, reformat it, and then you have a spare small external drive for storing stuff that you don't actually need to be on the main computer drive. Nev.