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Well spotted Randy, That's the correct window, but the Universal Plug and Play service does seem to be disabled. Right-click on it, and choose 'Properties'. Once you have the properties window up, change the startup type to 'Automatic' and then click on the 'Start' button. If you can't find any of that just say and I'll get some screenshots up.

Are you sure you are looking at the services window? It should look like the window below: http://www.neosoft-tools.com/articles/images/services_example.gif It should say 'Started' or 'Stopped' in the status column next to 'Universal Plug and Play Device Host'

If Start is greyed out, then the service may already be running, which is good. When you look at the 'Universal Plug and Play Device Host', under the 'Status' heading, what does it say?

Is that screen-shot from your own computer? If so, then that looks like IE 6. This is probably the worst browser in existance; it will leave you wide open to viruses and malware, not to mention hijacking attempts, etc. I'd reccomend you open windows update and let it check your computer, then download and install everything it asks you too. Run it again after you've re-started to make sure you have everything, especially IE 8, and Service pack 3.

OK bob, I think I can help you with that UPNP error. Danzil made some good suggestions, namely about AVG, and the various reasons a computer can lock up. Let's take care of that error first though, and see how it goes. First, a word of warning on using regedit: Editing the Registry incorrectly can damage your install of Windows. Make sure you have recent backups, and be sure to follow all instructions carefully. Click Start, then Run. Into the run box, type regedit Press enter to open the registry editor Navigate through the folders on the left to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\UPnP Device Host Right-click on the UPnP Device Host folder, and select 'Permissions'. Click 'Add', then click 'Find Now', scroll down to the 'Local Service' user and double click, then click OK. Click on 'Local Service' in the users list, and change the permissions underneath to 'Full Control' by ticking the box. Once you've done that, close the registry editor. Now click Start, then Run again, and type services.msc Press enter. Scroll through the list of services until you find 'Universal Plug and Play Device Host' Right-click it, and select start. Post back if you have any difficulties, and to let us know how you get on.

Hi Sirty, Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help The tabs and readouts you view inside the resource manager are (from the left): CPU: Shows current CPU use by program thread. Disk: Shows the current Megabytes per second each thread is reading/writing to the hard disk. Network: Shows current network traffic per thread. Note that allot of this will be 'internal' traffic between programs, and not necessarily traffic over your actual network. Memory: Shows how many times the computer has had to look for something on the hard disk, because it wasn't in your RAM (a page fault). There is a simple explanation for the game files being accessed. Vista has several running services that will do this. System restore/Volume shadow copy: Will make copies of folders for backup while you are logged on. Windows search: Will index all of the files and folders on your computer to make searching faster, this can be very disk intensive and will run constantly in the background. It will lessen once it has finished indexing all current files though. Windows Defender: By default this will scan your computer once a day in the background. Superfetch: This will cache the most used files on your computer into RAM, ready for fast loading. I think superfetch is the most likely answer, as it will index game files that are used frequently while a game is running. I see this on my own computer whenever I do a full restart. Some of these services can be turned off to improve startup time and system performance. I always turn off Windows Search and Windows Defender. If you'd like advice on that, then just say.

Try this: robocopy X:\EXAMPLE\ Y:\BACKUP\ /MIR This will mirror the contents of X:\EXAMPLE to Y:\BACKUP. Replace X\EXAMPLE with the path to the directory you want to save, and Y:\ with the letter of your USB stick, and give it a try. WARNING: It will MIRROR the directory; DELETING anything that isn't in the original directory. Do this preferably with a blank USB drive.

Hi Boothy, Try re-setting the motherboard's CMOS by taking the battery out, waiting for five minutes, and putting it back in again. Does this let you get into the BIOS?

If windows still has enough fuctionality to mount a USB drive, then yes. Connect the drive to the computer, and then open command prompt. Change to the drive by typing the letter of the drive, followed by a colon, then press enter, like; E:<Enter> If you don't know the letter of the drive, try d, e, f, g... etc until you access one, then use the DIR command to check it's contents. If you're really in dbout, place a file called 'USB DRIVE.txt' on the USB drive so that you can see it to make sure. To make sure you can run robocopy, type robocopy into the command prompt and press enter. Tell us how you get on, and if you can successfully access your usb drive.

If you have task manager open, try clicking File > Run(new task) and typing explorer then pressing enter. This should give you the desktop, but if allot of vital services have been disabled then it might not load. In this event, you could copy the files using the robocopy command from command prompt, but the syntax can be confusing, so post back before attemping this with a full description of your drives and their letters, and whether or not you have an external hard drive you can connect.

My only other thought is the part beyond the PC: what speakers are you connecting the PC too? Have you connected the PC to any other audio devices to check? Have you been using the same speakers, and same audio cable, throughout this testing process?

That looks great shrimply, congratulations on a job well done. I bet that monitor has gone down well ;)

Hi easy rider, welcome to the forum.

That's perfect Bob, no problems there :) You have normal AVG, so keep Zone alarm as it is. The next time your comupter does it, if at all, come back and tell us which programs were runnning when it happened.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help The first thing I can think of is to try disabling any power saving feature of the card. Do the following: click "Start" click "Control Panel" click "Classic View" doubleclick "System" select "Hardware" tab click "Device Manager" button click "+" to left of "network adapters" doubleclick "Realtek TP-Link ...." click "Advanced" tab select "Power Save Mode" select "off" select "OK"

Sorry Bob, I didn't realise that XP Home Edition doesn't have this feature (we all learn something new every day) Don't worry about it for now. try the other bit: Once you've done that, open up your copy of AVG. Is there anything about a firewall in the list of active components?

Ok, I can see that the Universal Plug and Play service isn't starting, and that a program associated with the BBC iplayer seems to be stalling. First, you will need to enable the file options we need to correct this. Open My Computer. Click Tools at the top. Select Folder Options. Go the view tab. Look through the list of tick boxes for the option: "Show hidden files and folders" Select it. Then find: "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" And UNselect it. Click Apply then OK. Now, navigate to the file "C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data\Microsoft\UPnP Device Host" Right-click on it, and choose Properties. Go to the security tab. You should a list of groups at the top. Select "Users". On the list of permissions at the bottom, select 'Full Control' and click Apply, then OK. Go back into Folder options, per above. Find: "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" And Select it again. Click Apply then OK. That should deal with UPNP. Now Click Start, then Run, and type in services.msc Scroll through the list until you find "KService". Change its startup option to Disabled, and stop the service.

If you click 'Add new post' there will be a little picture of a paper clip beside the smiley face on the tool bar. Click it, and you will get a new window that will allow you to add attachments. I assumed by AVG Pro you meant AVG internet security? Comparison here: AVG Antivirus and Security Software - Download AVG Trial Versions for Free If you just have the antivirus edition then that's fine, but if you have internet security then you will be running two firewalls: Zone alarm and AVG. To make sure, open AVG and check for a firewall section.

I've nearly been stung buying second-hand hardware, so a few points to make sure of: First, get him to open it up so you can look inside. Make sure it is relatively clean, no clogs of dust on the fans, etc. Make sure none of the cards are bent, warped, damaged etc. Look at how many fans are installed, there should be at least one on the case, and one over the CPU. Make sure everything is installed, no extra bags of hardware laying about for you to take with you, and that everything he said is there, is there. Close it back up, then connect a monitor, mouse, and keyboard to the computer. Power it up, and let it load windows if it has it. Check the size of the local disk(s) to make sure they are as advertised. Ask the owner to show you it browsing the web. You can check the temperature it is running at in the BIOS, buy pressing 'Del' or 'F2' during startup, and going to the 'PC health' section, or equivalent. Make sure the CPU is under 65 degrees. If it is hotter, then chances are it has been running hot for allot of it's life, and the CPU may be damaged, or not last all that long. Pentium 4's don't like running hot for long periods of time, and they can start to throttle incorrectly, severely impacting system performance.

Hi Bob, welcome back, we are indeed open for business again ;) OK, where we'd got to last time: Ran sfc.exe with no errors, but it asked for a disk you didn't have. Ran a full disk check with no errors. Disabled the windows firewall service. If you run AVG pro with a firewall component, and also Zone alarm Pro which is a firewall, then these might be causing conflicts. You could safely remove Zone alarm Pro if the firewall part of AVG is running, as this will protect your computer. Have another look at your event log (both System and Application). Are there any new entries now that you have the windows firewall service disabled?

My own machine (Vista 64bit) is using 1.88GB of RAM right now, and I've turned off a good ammount of services, so yes this is perfectly normal. If you have 4GB or more Vista will pretty much take all it wants, but this is good, as it caches frequently used items and parts of the OS. You wouldn't want to spend good money on RAM and never have it used for anything :) As for fan noise, the fans included with cases and especially the Intel stock CPU cooler fan will be loud. Xilence redwing fans are much quieter, but kitting your whole PC out with them can be expensive, and they can't replace the stock cooler fan anyway, so if it's not bothering you too much I'd try living with it.

The disappearing hard drive space might be due to volume shadow copy (System Restore) making complete backups of the drive. In windows vista VSC backs up the data on the drive as well as the settings, and I've seen it take allot of space up. As you know, disabling system restore can limit your options in the event something goes wrong. If in doubt I'd leave it on. Once it's taken up the extra space it needs to store snapshots of your files the disk space it uses should level out. Edit: Just like to say I agree with everything Tootech said above; none of those warnings are anything to be concerned about.

Did you make sure to type ipconfig /all into the command prompt window? If you just type it into the run box then what you described will happen. Another way of opening command prompt on Vista is: Click start, then type cmd into the search box at the bottom of the start menu. You should see cmd.exe appear above. Click it to open the black command window. Then, once it is open, type ipconfig /all and then press Enter on the keyboard. Lots of information will come up. Copy it by right-clicking anywhere in the black window, and choosing 'Select All'. Paste it into your next reply.

Seagate drives come with a jumper on them. This setting puts them in 1.5Gbps mode. Having looked at your motherboard specs, it seems to only support SATA, and not SATA 2, so: Leave the jumper on the drive, exactly the way it came. As I said you will need to install it alongside your old drive, so that your computer has an operating system to boot from. You will be able to use the drive once you are in windows.

Hi, If you simply replace your existing hard drive with a brand new one, then all you will have is an empty, blank drive in the computer, and you won't be able to start windows, because windows is installed on your old hard drive. If you want to use the drive, then the easiest way is to connect your old hard drive back up the way it was, and insert the new drive in a slot beside it, and connect it to a different port on the motherboard.