zinglebarb

Once you own XP you can boot and install it from USB very easily indeed.You will also need a 1 gig usb flash drive Create a dos boot disc using this app HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8 Download - EXTREME Overclocking When asked point to the dos files I have uploaded for you copy i386 directory from you xp cd to your flash drive boot pc from flash drive you will be greeted with a C:\ or an A:\ type this command "cd i368" without the " and hit enter then you will get *:\i386\ here you type "WINNT" and the install should start. You may need to type WINNT32 but I dont when I use this boot files.zip

As a side point I bought a motherboard tester you plug it into a pci slot boot the machine and the device reads error codes from the board and gives a code that relates to source of problem thats listed in the manual. Very handy tool for such times as this

I have a version 4 of that and I use it on my media centre although its 32 bit I believe the driver from the above link should work

does the old card stillwork? I would swap it back and see. Is there anyone who can test the new card? is it new or second user? Perhaps see if a friend has a machine to test it in failing that perhaps at a shop? If you were close enough to me id test it for you but the chances of that are slim lol

Wrote this a while ago although the info should still be uptodate Important steps. First of all before working inside a machine ensure any and all important data is backed up safe and sound just in case something goes wrong Make sure you take your time ensuring everything is correct before you commit yourself. Read all manuals that come with the hardware or if misplaced download one from the manufacturers web site. Power down and if your towers psu has a power switch turn this to off if not unplug the system. Wear an anti-static wrist band if you can use an anti static mat if not maybe use anti static bags that ship with motherboards. I know some people argue the use of this but I always use one to ensure all components are in tip top condition. When removing components handle with care and be careful of the capacitors and try not to handle chips to much but as long as your static free you should be ok. Also take care not to catch anything on the motherboard. Motherboards. There are loads of different types and a few different sizes but one thing is common amongst them all and that is they are the backbone of your system. If you scrimp on this then your system will suffer. There are good cheaper boards out there but be prepared for them to be basic maybe not open to overclocking but they will suit budget machines. Ensure when buying a board it has all the features you need,good expansion for the future and obviously fits any hardware you want to fit to it. CPU. When removing a cpu you need to be very careful as often on older systems the heatsink and fan assembly can be stuck to the cpu so care needs to be taken or you could damage the cpu specially if it pulls away from the motherboard with the heatsink. Allow the system to run upto operating temps prior as this could give you the give you need. Lift retaining clip and remove cpu. Take note of the orientation of the cpu as it will need to be installed the same way. When reinstalling cpu that isn’t of the LGA (pins on mobo not on cpu)type take great care not to bend or damge the pins when moving the cpu. On a motherboard that is of the LGA type take care not to damge the pins on the motherboard. Always use a good quality heat transfer compound. I use artic silver but there are other brands. On a cpu with a heat spreader use a small pea amount of paste central on the spreader(see pdf1). The heatsink will evenly spread the paste when fitted. On a cpu without a heat spreader carefully apply a small even layer on the core maybe use an old credit card or similar to spread the paste(see pdf 2). There are various types of cooler the older ones (old PII or Amd skt A etc)require more force and a small flat ended screw driver to reattach . On the newer systems the coolers are a lot simpler to fit and pull tight using a cam system. Always ensure the cooler is correctly attached and the 3 pin (or 4 pin on newer systems) is plugged into the board RAM. Ram comes in varies types the most commonly found are SDR this is found in older machines and can still be bought if needed. DDR this comes in various frequencys there is no need to go into them all here. DDR II this is the most common on newer machines and also comes in various flavours. SODIMMS in laptops again plenty of different types of this so for whatever system you own ensure you know what type of ram you need before you buy it. If installing system memory check to see if your system is capable of running dual channel mode.If so its always advisable to install ram for this mode. Most motherboard manuals will tell you to use matched pairs of ram.In my opinion if your buying all new ram then buy a kit if not all you have to do is ensure you install the same amount of ram on each channel so 2 x 512 on channel A and a 1 gig stick of ram on channel B should work. Try to buy the same frequency. There are some online testing sites that tell you the type of ram you need or you could use a piece of software ir Sisoft Sandra or Everest Graphics cards and expansion cards. Well there is AGP, PCI –E x16, PCI-E x1 and pci. Some older systems will have ISA slots but these not found much anymore. When buying a graphics card ensure of course you know your slot type and if you wish to run 2 cards be sure to know whether your board is capable of running 2 and what type either SLI or Crossfire Installing expansion cards is simple in the case of graphics simply follow important steps and ensure any retaining clip is set to allow fitting of card. Bring the card to the system and line up with slot and apply even force to fit. Apply retention clip and fit to case either with a screw or any thumb locking mechanism . Connect power if needed. Fitting a pci card is the same only there will not be a clip or power to fit ATA Devices These basically can be either optical drives (Dvdrw Cdrw etc) or PATA hard disks. These basically connect to the motherboard via a 40 pin ribbon cable and can run 2 devices on a controller 1 in master (at the far end of the cable) and one as slave (middle of the cable).On the rear of the drive is a little plastic plug this is called a jumper and this makes the drive either master slave or cable select depending on the pins it shorts.The drive will have a diagram on the top to show what is what. These are very simple and if you cant attach one of these you should not be messing inside a pc. SATA These are mainly hard drives but there are optical drives of this type. They use a simple smaller cable to attach to the board and need power either from a 4 pin molex or a new type connector. Ensure your ppwer supply unit has provision for this. Newer machines will see one of these drives from post older machines will need a driver installed to be seen Power Supply Units Well I cant really say a lot about this. They come in either 20 pin atx or 24 pin atx 2 with a 12v 4 pin (some atx2 units come with 2 12 v 4 pin)cable and molex and sata power leads. Ensure your psu is correct for your board. Cases Again not a lot can be said. Use one big enough of good quality and ensure it has good air flow. Make sure all leads are neat and tidy to allow for good air flow Summary These are but a few basic tips for anyone who dabbles inside their machine.Ive not covered everything and im sure ive missed out some important points I of course accept no blame for any screwups by anyone ever [ATTACH=full]2371[/ATTACH]

Thought I would post a simple guide to building a pc and installation of windows operating systems (obviously other OS can be installed) Pre installation Most importantly of all read and digest all manuals that come with your equipment and know exactly what you have bought ie ram speeds etc. Second thing to remember is to take your time and take due care to what you are doing. Check and make sure you have bought everything you need a simple check list follows 1:- CPU (whether AMD or INTEL) 2:- Motherboard (ensure its compatible with your cpu) 3:- RAM (again ensure its compatible with the motherboard ) 4:- Graphics card (of course ignore this if your just building with onboard) 5:-Hard disk drive (whether SATA or IDE ensure its compatible. If your motherboard is of the newer type often it will only have 1 ide controller if this is the case buy a Sata hard drive) 6:-Optical drive (id recommend a DVD rewriter) 7:-Case (make sure its suitable there are many types shapes and sizes) 8:-PSU (always better to buy a good one instead of cheap in case nasties. Make sure you buy one suitable for your motherboard either atx 1 or atx2.2 with 12 volt 4 pin or 12 volt 8 pin and most likely if buying a good graphics card a 6 pin PCI connector(or 2) If you need to buy adapters have these before the build) 9:- Any add on card you require 10:- Any custom fans or cooling 11:- Tools for the job (cross head magnetic screw driver, Flat head screw driver if needed for certain coolers, Pliers and anti static wrist strap) Area Preparation Be sure to allow plenty of space and be sure your near enough to electricity sockets etc.If you do not own a proper anti static mat then the bag the motherboard comes it will do. Make sure you have all the tools you need. Plug in your anti static wrist strap (do this it could extend the life of your parts) and put around wrist. First steps outside of case. Ok ensure you have followed above steps and most importantly read the manual. Remove motherboard from the box along with cables and driver cd etc. Remove Motherboard from anti static bag ,there should be a sponge mat to the rear,Lay this mat down with the anti static mat over the top. Place the motherboard on top. Whether using Intel LGA or AMD style sockets they all have a retention are at the side of the socket carefully lift this. Check motherboard manual for orientation of cpu and be sure your confident you know which way. Carefully and I mean carefully remove cpu from packaging and fit into socket. Please be careful here I can't say enough how important it is not to either bend pins on cpu or inside the LGA socket. Apply a very small amount of force to the centre of the cpu and close the retention arm. Most cpu coolers nowadays are very simple to fit .If your using an Intel cpu and LGA skt 775 motherboard its simply 4 pegs .If your using an AMD cpu of the newer type with heat spreader its simply a metal arm that attaches both sides of the cooler mount and a simple cam system that imposes force to get a good true contact. Again read the manual and fit the cooler carefully ensuring its fitted true . If your not using a stock cooler or you wish to use a better quality thermal compound now is the time to do this as once the cooler is used for a while removable can cause problems.Make sure your cooler is correctly powered by the motherboard.(3 or 4 pin white connector coming of the fan) Now its time to install Ram . If your board is capable of running dual channel memory I would avise you buy a kit of good quality branded memory from the likes of Corsair Kingston or many others but its best to buy good quality lifetime memory. Ok I will take it for granted you have bought dual channel and the motherboard is capable of this. Check the manual for how the slots are set up channel 1 and channel 2. Open the 2 clips for each primary slot check orientation ,carefully piece the first stick of ram in channel 1 or A and press downwards using even force across the top of the stick (you may be surprised how much force is needed) repeat this for the second stick. Carefully move assembled components out of the way leaving your workspace clear This completes the steps outside the case. I personally will fit a graphics card and attach a power supply unit and boot the setup on top of the box jumpering the power on off switch with a screw driver but I will not advise this in this text Installation into case Ok first of all open the case. Inside you should find a fitting kit this will include brass stand offs if needed (this keeps the motherboard clear of the back plate) screws ,paper washers, an IO plate ,occasionally plastic stand offs and a power lead. First thing to do is find which screws fit the stand offs this will make the job of fitting the motherboard into the case easier . Then its time to prepare the case. Remove the cheap nasty psu if your changing it and fit the new one this is simply 4 screws at the rear (do this first as sometimes if left till after fitting the motherboard you will be out of space) then decide where your optical drive will be placed and remove cover from front of case . Often you will find a metal plate still in place why case manufacturers leave these is beyond me because they have caused many a cut finger . Remove this carefully and install optical drive into case. This device should be set to master by the jumpers and should ideally be on an IDE channel on its own or with another optical drive. If it has to be in place with a hard drive and there isn't a second channel then set it to slave (not advised).If you are installing a floppy drive prepare the case in the same way to accept this. Now also would be a good time to check to see where the graphics card and any other add on cards will sit as often the slots in the case for these are still in place and you often have to bend them to snap them out of place. Doing this with the board in situ could cause problems so do this first. Also remove and IO plate thats fitted to the case and install the one that came with your board. Now its time to install your motherboard. Carefully check where all the mounting holes are in the board and the relative holes in the case.If required screw a standoff into each of the case mounting holes that correspond to the motherboard. Tighten these with your pliers not to tight but tight. Now move the motherboard into the case carefully guiding the IO ports into the IO plate and rest the board carefully onto the standoffs . Use the screws with the paper washers and lightly tighten all four corners and any other until the board is down. Then gently tighten them down. DO NOT USE TO MUCH FORCE. I personally would now find the front connector details in the motherboard and wire up the switches , hard drive activity light power light and speaker also if the case comes with it any front usb connector , firewire and audio. Im going to take for granted you have a Serial ATA hard drive so fit this to the 3.5 inch space in proximity to the sata connectors on the motherboard. Carefully fit either a sata power connector from the power supply unit to the power in of the drive if the psu does not have this your motherboard should come with an adapter (if the drive has 4 pin molex and you are going to use this fit this after the data cable )Then fit one end of the sata cable to the primary sata port (normally called sata 0) if your fitting molex do that now. Make sure these cables are left neat and out of the way you can secure with cable ties if needed. Now fit the IDE cable to the rear of the optical drive . There will be 3 connectors on the cable 2 closer together and 1 further apart normally blue. The cable should come with a step so you can only fit it one way. If it does not then there is 2 little grooves use these as the side with a step. Fit the drive to the end of the cable which has the second connector closest to it this is master. Then fit the other end to the primary IDE connector on the board. This can all be modified to suit but do not run a hard drive on the same controller as an optical unless you have no choice.If your board has 2 controllers and you are using IDE hard drive fit this to master and optical to secondary. Fit a four pin molex power connector from the psu to the power in of the drive. If you intend to use the drives headphone socket (a lot of newer optical drives do not have these) then you will have to fit a digital cable to the the drive and the motherboard please see manual for relative information. Again tidy the cables out of the way and secure. If you are fitting a floppy disk drive now is the time to do this install into case and use the smaller cable to attach the device to the floppy controller on the board and use the smaller 4 pin power in from the psu. Now to attach the power supply to the motherboard. Depending on which type you have bought the board will have either a 24 pin or 20 pin power in plus a 4 pin or 8 pin 12 volt in. Check the manual again and connect these cables to the board carefully route them as to not be in the way and tie back if needed leaving any cable required for graphics. Now its time to install the graphics card. There will normally be a retention clip at the rear of the slot either AGP or PCI-E open this ready. Now carefully line up your chosen card and carefully push into its slot . The retention clip should close , Now either screw the front of the card to the case or use any thumb clip thats provided . Fit power if needed to the card and your nearly there Fit any other add on cards required carefully and fit to case. Final check before first boot Check now to make sure everything is fitted correctly and all the cables are as neat as possible. Make sure all drives are secured in place this may mean removing the other side of the case and fitting a couple of screws to each. Now would be a very good time to go have a cup of coffee and a ciggy if needed and relax for a bit First boot Ok as long as your happy with what you have done its time to plug in your monitor keyboard mouse and sound. Then of course plug the mains into your power supply. This for me is always a nervous time as its time to press that switch your hoping here the screen comes to life and the cpu fan spins, and you hear 1 beep oh what a beautiful sound that 1 beep is as this means your machine has passed its Power On Self Test. Now press whatever key gets you into your bios screen (either Del or F2) Once you can see bios check you manual and ensure A) CPU is set at correct speed B) Ram is correct frequency C) Temperatures are correct D)Sata controllers are enabled if using sata hard drive As this is a new machine you will not need to set cd as first boot device you may need to turn off boot up floppy seek if your not using one (this also may have errored at post but it would not have caused a system stop) Put operating system cd into drive and press F10 to save and exit hit return and the system will restart. Installing Operating system I'm going to take it for granted you have opted for Windows xp as this is the most prevalent most installs especially windows are similar anyway. The system will automatically boot from cd as the hard drive has no information on it so you will see it go through a few stages just leave them for now . You will be shown an EULA click F8 to continue , now if your motherboard needs a sata driver then it will tell you now it has not found any hard drives .What you will need to do is using a different pc put the motherboard driver disc into its rom and find the create sata driver floppy creator (or similar) allow this to create a floppy disc . Reboot your new system and watch at the bottom of the screen for install drivers etc (not sure of the wording but its obvious) press F6 and allow it to install the driver from the floppy.This is rare nowadays so you should not need to do this. Ok you have either gone straight into install or added the driver either way you will be greeted with a screen showing your hard drive. If you are only using 1 and its a fair size I would create a partition about 60 gig for your operating system so press c then change the size down to 62000 leaving the other to act as a second storage drive.Create a partition in the remaining space to take up the rest.(If your using 2 drives I would advise the primary be around 80 to 160 and the slave as big as you wish.)Highlight the first partition and click enter then format the drive to NTFS (I normally just use the quick as its a new drive) Windows install will not copy files to pc reboot and start installing . After a few minutes you will have to set up country ,keyboard text option etc and it will ask for your cd key. Then it will install windows possibly stopping to ask for network options leave these default as they can be changed later. Once install is complete the machine will boot up again and you will be asked to add a few personal details before windows starts. Now if all has gone well you will be greeted with a nice green hill and a recycle bin.First thing I do is right click on desktop background select properties then desktop and customise desktop and add the 4 things on offer or any mix but add my computer. Install motherboard drivers graphics drivers and any other application you need. Remember you will need to format either a second drive or partition. Right click my computer click manage and disk management and this will allow you to partition and format and secondary partition/drive installed. This guide I wrote a while ago and most people will be installing Vista or Windows 7 now but do not be worried by this Vista and Windows7 are easy enough to install but you will have to follow on screen instructions as its not entirely the same This is a guide to basically outline for the novice how easy it is to build a pc. If you intend to water cool or overclock etc then the assumption has to be made that you are not a novice and do not need this guide :)

As a little add on. I installed ZooTycoon 2 in VM which would not play on Vista X64 and it was flawless.Do not expect it to run like a top spec machine but it is a simple enough option to save having to format and install. So all or at least most of your old games should work thanks to the new better 3d acceleration support :)

I use Windows for my operating system always have and unless something seriously changes I always will. Sometimes though even the widest most compatible used operating system can not utilise all the software you want it to. So what do you do? Format and install the operating system the software uses? Buy a new computer? Well why not consider a Virtual Machine I will quickly link to a couple of variants and then go in depth and show the install of Windows XP on machine running VistaX64 Virtualbox is free and runs on various operating systems from Windows to FreeBCD to MacOSX http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads it is available for this link as you see it is available for a lot of different systems Microsoft Virtual Pc available from this link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/get-started.aspx as you can see they are pushing the windows 7 version which when installed with the XP mode add on it is meant to seamlessly integrate apps installed on the Virtual machine inside windows 7. My experience of this is not that great. Although there are other versions of this around the one I use is the paid for client called VMware workstation.There are versions of this for Windows and Mac I will now run through a simple install process for XP while running Vista. Here you see the open program all I have done is selected to install a new virtual machine http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/01.jpg Load XP cd into optical drive and select it from the menu seen here http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/02.jpg It will find the cd and recognise it as XP Add your cd key now and details otherwise you will see the normal menus once setup files etc have loaded http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/03.jpg Select where you wish your virtual hard drive to live http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/04.jpg Select how many processors you want the VM to see 1 or 2 is available I do not think you need a screen shot of this J Allocate memory to machine use 512 as a minimum http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/05.jpg Leave Networking as NAT unless you wish to change it (no screenie needed ) I leave the hard drive as standard http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/06.jpg Create a virtual disk and assign space to it(select drive type I leave default) Size of disk depends on how much you think you will need to install on the machine. Leave enough to cover your needs. Name the drive as required http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/07.jpg http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/08.jpg http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/09.jpg Time to customise hardware. http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/10.jpg http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/11.jpg Make sure 3d acceleration is ticked if you want to play legacy games Now click next and the machine will start http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/13.jpg If you have not set the machine easy install you will get a break in the install process to add details and keycode.Other virtual machine may need you to point to your virtual drive but it is all the same as if you were installing from scratch http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/14.jpg http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/15.jpg As you see the install looks that same as normal. Once complete the machine will reboot and start. As windows opens it triggers install of VMware tools allow these to install as they are helpful. http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/16.jpg http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn319/zinglebarb/17.jpg You can adjust the desktop to any size you wish even upto full screen resolution of the host machine. You can expand to full screen by pressing CTRL ALT and Enter and reduce the same way. You should now have a full functioning operating system which will act exactly the same as it would if it was on its own hardware. You can use it to install and run apps that do not work under your main OS or test suspect files safely without exposing your data. Remember you do not have to install XP it might be Windows 98 Windows 95 or even DOS it also runs happliy with none Windows operating systems such as Linux

Running a virtual machine would be once its set up and an OS is put on it lol click to open VMware click to start the machine and click to run the app lol

I was trying to offer a simple cheaper to run system. If you want to build another computer on your network and burn 200 - 300 watts an hour or 6 kilowatts a day (as servers tend to be left on is this the case?) or 219 quid a year based on 250 watts idle usage running 24 hours a day and average of 10p per kilowatt hour There is of course nothing I guess stopping you from building the same itx kit and throwing WHS at it though

have you considered building a NAS ? mini itx mobo plenty of ram raid controller couple of hard drives Free Nas operating system and best of all low power consumption. Incidentally I serve a media centre PC , my daughters laptop my second machine and any machine I am working on all just from my main machine anyway. if you see my spec below there is plenty of storage. The media centre streams wireless HD content included while the laptop and the rest are wired

IIRC the slots were different and a none compat card should not fit http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/AGP_%26_AGP_Pro_Keying.svg/424px-AGP_%26_AGP_Pro_Keying.svg.png

Have you tried the old card back in the machine? it sounds to me like the new card is doa. You say the new gfx needs a power connection? if this is the case try booing it without this connection the system should beep . Also the system appears to be old I am guessing the psu is pretty weak also. Also if you do intend to start playing games on your system you need more system memory

ok right click my computer select properties then advanced then start up and recovery and untick the auto restart option. Then right click my computer and select manage then event viewer have a look around (critical,warning,error) for anything that could relate. The jump to black screen with beeps does this happen with a crash from inside windows? if so my initial suspisions fall on the hard drive

XPM is poo if you do need something then use vmware :) I got it off msdn has it not been made public? you need windows virtual pc beta for win 7 and xpmode beta to set it all up

I do realise that and did not realise you hosted that lol I dont need seconds ;)

Arrr I knew stuff like that existed just didnt know if it was legit :)

there could not have been enough in the first place lol @senna You do not need a lot all it has to do is fill any imperfections in the metal so heat transfer is efficient also I only use artic silver the 1.99 stuff from maplin aint gonna be much cop :)

If you want to set up a dual boot system leaving vista intact and installing xp you will need a vista dvd to repair start up. The sequence needed to follow would be defrag operating system hard drive. Shrink partition hoping there is enough space for xp install create partition inside vista or using xp cd. Install xp to said partition. This will kill bcd meaning vista will no longer boot. You repair start up using Vista dvd ( there are other methods but dunno on legality of the media) Vista then boot sbut xp will not. You then run easybcd to add xp to boot and you have a dual boot system. To delete the partition and just have recovery software would not allow for a secondary install of vista after xp you will need a proper vista dvd for this

only problem with setting this system up as a dual boot is lack of Vista installation media. Personally I gave up dual booting a long time ago in favour of the caddy set up I use now. Under do you have a spare optical drive bay? you can get caddys that will fit in colour wise black and silver tend to cost more than beige though and a cheap hard drive just for xp only needs to cost 25 pounds sterling

you missed out efficiency also you need 80% plus efficiency if your running a powerful card My ex wife has a integrated intel chipset in her laptop and it does play it

I run a swappable ststem. I do not dual boot my main os(vista) hard drive is in a caddy.If I want to play with something like win 7 nix or whatever I shut down remove caddy install other draw with drive installed and install whatever.Clean and simple :) bog standard beige caddys are cheap but remember you need 2

let us know how you get on :)

If its in device manager but not in my computer follw these instructions The CD drive or the DVD drive does not work as expected on a computer that you upgraded to Windows Vista once regedit is open select file and export and save the reg as a file somewhere safe Edit does it show up at post? should be easy to remove on a laptop slide it out blow the contacts and put it back and see :)

so it does not show up at all ? is it in device manager?