danleff

Most likely it can be fixed. The question is how much do you want to spend to get it fixed. It probably is one of three issues; 1. Loose connection between the video cable and the LCD screen. 2. Defective LCD screen. 3. Defective motherboard If you are lucky, it is problem #1. In the fall, the cable became dislodged. If the fall caused either # 2 or 3, then either component would have to be replaced. Do you have an external monitor than you can hook up to the laptop to see if you get a picture? Is it under warranty? In other words, did you buy it new and the warranty is still good?

As answer "b" suggests, try looking to see what programs are running in the background and disable them one by one and see what happens.

Could you post some information about the hardware that you are using, such as the motherboard and hard drive make and model? This will help identify possible solutions. Foe example; Does this article apply? Look in the bios and see if the hard drive is properly detected, especially the size and name. Also see this article.

Did you try the suggestions on the Nvidia Knowledgebase; Quote: Question The clocks on my GeForce GTX 280/260 graphics card are stuck at max 3D levels and do not drop to idle clock levels when I'm on the Windows Desktop. Answer The clock level of the GPU is based on a number of things besides whether the PC is in a Windows idle state, including: a) Number of monitors attached - multiple displays require higher GPU bandwidth which can result in higher clock levels. Try configuring only a single monitor and see if clocks drop down to idle levels. 3D Applications - some applications may not appear to be 3D but in fact are making DirectX/OpenGL/CUDA calls to the GPU and can cause the GPU to operate at higher clock levels. These applications can include even control panels and utilities. Try closing all applications on the desktop and see if clocks drop down to idle levels Reference

Is this computer part of a work/business computer environment, or home computer? If the former, and your PC is on a network that has regular backups, check with the system administrator to see if it's possible to retrieve a saved copy of the file/folder. If the latter, do you have any experience with Linux? There are several free tools out there that may do the job. Did you also just let the recovery software recover all 40 gigs (if you have the free space), then look for the files that you need?

I was looking at the ECS support page for data on supported video cards, but did not find any information. Often maufacturer sites will post cards that work on specific motherbords, which takes out some of the guesswork in choosing a video card for motherboards. Anyway, look at this article that explains AGP aperture, as does this post. BTW, make sure to use good quality memory, since memory should be very inexpensive for your system.

I suggest that you do one upgrade at a time. In terms of the RAM, you max out at 512 mb of RAM. You need to consult the manual to see what configuration that you need. I also suggest that you try a supplier's memory configuration tool to see what is compatible with the motherboard. It will support PC 133 ram, but in certain configurations. Again, consult the resources available to you, the users manual and memory configuration tools that most memory sites have. If you use more than one stick of ram in your configuration, make sure that they are exactly the same make and model sticks. The video card needs to be an AGP 4X/8X card. You did not state what watt power supply that you have, which may make a difference. An example of a card that should work is here. Look at the specifications tab. Do a google search on your board and read what they suggest. An example is here.

There is a short guide on permissions here.

Quote: as you can see in the Minimum System Requirements in that page says "A minimum 300W system power supply" The link that you provided is dead, but assuming that you found that 300 watts is fine, just consider what box you have. If this is a tower, any card in this series should fit. If it is a slimline Optiplex, then you will need a low profile video card rated at 300 watts or less. Also consider what hardware is in the system. If you have a stock Optiplex with no added hardware (added more hard drives or other internal hardware that may draw on the power supply), this probably will be fine. However, if you have added internal hardware it will affect how much power is available to run the video card that you choose. I see that you posted on the Dell forums, which is your best bet for an answer, since their motherboards are often proprietary and have specific specifications. What you want is someone who has added an external card to the system and knows that it works. Your more likely to get good answer on Dell's forum specific for your system, unless someone here has tried it on the same or like system.

Is this motherboard in a Dell Optiplex 745 box? If so, read this thread. Note, that you need at least a 350 watt power supply anyway. See the bottom post.

What make and model motherboard are you using? Posting some specs. may be helpful, as most of these messages are a result of incompatible hardware for the motherboard, or faulty hardware. Ditto on the hard drive. Format the hard drive to NTFS. You can make a boot disk with the hard drive manufacturer's utility disk and format the drive. For example, if it is a Maxtor drive, use their Maxblast software. The RAM is the same with no mixing of makes and types, as recommended by the motherboard manufacturer?

Quote: i did that but then the direcetx features box said they were all unavailable What exactly did you do? That information will help folks to assist. Does your computer meet the system requirements for Sims2? Asssuming Windows XP: What video card is in the system and did you update to the latest drivers? Is Service pack 2 installed on the system? Most likely if all the options said that they were not available, then your video card is not adequate, or the drivers to support DirectX are not installed. Is this a laptop or desktop system?

Windows 7 refused to take the XP video drivers for my older video card (Nvidia MX4000). Also, last weekend, the system shut down unexpectedly. I got a BSD on restart "the system..to prevent damage to your computer. This was after loading the Windows 7 driver post install of the Geforce 7300GT PCI-E. I have not yet tinkered with this to see what the issue might be.

Are you sure that the processor is a socket 940, or is it a socket 939? If I remember correctly, the 940 is a server processor and will likely cost you more cash for a motherboard and memory, based on system requirements. I have two AMD systems that are socket 754 (MSI Neo 3H) and one that is 939 (Gigabyte GAMA69VM-s2). They all run fine with the latest versions of Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Puppy, Mandriva and SuSE Linux. There is tons out there on AMD motherboards and Linux.

dipsoul; Did you disable the onboard graphics in the system bios when you installed the add-on video card? Do you have the latest drivers installed for the current card, after uninstalling the drivers for the other video cards? Does device manager still show the onboard video as active (enabled)?

Well, I violated my own policy...I agreed to look at this laptop for a co-worker's son. I usually only work on my family's systems. The system originally had Windows Media Center installed on it. The youngster decided that he wanted to put Windows XP on the system, so he truely wiped the hard drive clean. Unfortunately, he apparently wiped the recovery partition in the process. He is the legal owner of the laptop. The laptop will not load any OS. The DVD drive just spins down and halts the process. I told them to call Sony and ask for a set of recovery DVD's which they did. Same issue with the recovery DVD boot (1st disk). The cd starts and hangs on "please wait"...dead in the water no matter how long you wait. I tried mimicking as best I could, from what I could find on Google, to be the original partitions on the system. No go. I can run the Puppy Live CD fine (which I used to try and partition the hard drive). System Rescue CD will spin down as well and halt, as does any other system utility CD. The keyboard dies as well, as a valid Windows XP Pro CD hangs at the menu to choose recovery or install..no keyboard input. I reset the bios back to factory defaults with no results. I assume this system is dead in the water, as the hidden recovery partition held either some bios settings, system ID settings, or drivers needed for the system. All drivers out there on the Sony site are for Windows Media Center. Any ideas out there? I have had the system now for a week and need to either find a solution, or give them the bad news on Monday that a Sony tech. needs to recover the system. Dan

I thew together a test system with the following hardware that is supposed to mirror (generally) the minimum system requirements; 3400+ Sempron Prossesor 1 GB Kingston Value RAM DDR400 Seagate SE340810A 40 gig IDE hard drive Nvidia MX4000 AGP video card (128mb DDR) Viewsonic VA902B LCD Monitor Toshiba SD-RS372 DVD Writer Neo 3H (MS-7135)motherboard All hardware was detected, except for the video card, which was marked as a standard video card. Spider Solitare would barely run, so I switched out to a Geforce 7300GT PCI-E card which was detected right off the bat and improved the video dramatically. Boot time is real slow and the system needs to settle down for about 30 seconds before I can run any programs. But once it settles down response time is reasonable. Wilhelmus, thanks for the MP3 update hint. There are constant reads to the drive at idle, so I will see if I can switch to a more sane sata drive to see if performance improves.

Try the following steps taken from the Wetern Digital web site to connect the drive; 1. Turn on your computer and allow Windows to load. 2. Plug in the power to the external hard drive and let it spin up. 3. Connect the data cable to the drive first and then to the computer. 4. You should see a new icon appear in the system tray and the drive should appear in the Device Manager. The idea is to let the drive spin up before connecting the data cable to the USB port.

Assuming that the XP disk is not the culprit, you seem to be pointing toward the memory sticks. I looked them up and they run at 2.75v? I then looked at the Asus bios support page and bios 1005 or newer has a fix for memory running at 2.8v. Perhaps a bios update may help? Quote: ran memtest and DFT on the hardware it was previously installed on. So are you saying that the memory and/or hard drive were previously on another system? If so, I would try the bios update. Did you try booting the XP disk on another system to see if it starts ok on the other system?

Can you post the exact model of Satellite that you have? This may assist folks in helping with your problem. What I am getting at is that there may be a knowledge base article on the Toshiba site that may address this, since you say that it seems to be a common problem. Also I found this article.

I looked at your link, thanks for posting this. From the thread, it looks like you downloaded Knoppix, but did not burn the iso image, just copied the iso onto a cd disk? This is not correct. See here. What boot disk did you download and how did you burn it? Or are you speaking of a floppy disk? Please be specific. An XP repair install may be your ticket, but you have to have a valid XP disk to use. In other words, one with a validation code that you can use for new installations. Quote: i can however get to a C:\WINDOWS prombt, will this help? It sounds like you got into the recovery console and not the repair install mode when booting from the XP disk? Again, you need to be specific to know exactly what you tried...ie; I booted with the XP cd and got to the C:\WINDOWS prompt, will this help? A repair installation is described here. But before you try this, it is a good idea to back up any important files first to any good media. Knoppix is helpful for this. You may also want to ask a friend who has good computer knowledge to assist, as any recovery that you try may be complex for you to achieve.

Quote: ive installed xp sp2 from scratch on this rig before using the same hardware Different hardware...a new drive. Were the previous installs on a sata or ide drive? Boot to the bios (note the bios revision number). Does the bios see the new hard drive? If this is a sata drive, what exact model is it...sata I or II? If this is a sata drive, is the drive jumpered for 1.5 or 3 Gb? What memory is in the system, make and model?

Did you install and software, update any drivers, update the bios or do a Windows update at about the time that the problem started to occur? Are there any exclamation marks in Device manager for any devices? Do you have the mouse always plugged into the same USB port? What exact model laptop is this?

Help the folks that respond to your post, by adding a little more information. What internet provider are you using? Whay make and model router/modem are you using? It may not be the router/modem, but limitations on bandwidth from the provider. Have you contacted their customer support and asked them, or searched on their web site faq? Often this yields either a response or faq that suggests fixes. If you are using DSL that comes into your house via a regular phone line, you need a method of connecting to your computer. The modem/router does this for you.

Yep, when you install the OS' in the correct order it does work! Remember, that the last Linux distro that you install and allow it to install grub to the MBR is always going to be the one that creates the boot menu. If that distro does not automagically detect the other Linux installs, you have to manually add that entry. You can just add the entry from the missing distro's menu.lst, assuming that you installed grub for each distro along the way. I suggest that if you add any more Linux distros, not to keep installing a new grub, but get comfortable with editing your Fedora one. Also, try to keep your partition order the same and not change it. You can add another hard drive to add more distros and add them to the menu. I currently have six distros and Windows in my menu. Nice work!