Sampson

If this is a Gigabyte board, you can try here: http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/Driver/Driver_List.htm to find the software to install to turn your AGP from 1X to 2X. These should be somewhere on the CD used to install your motherboard. They will be referred to as: These drivers may be referred to using any of the following names: * AGP Driver * AGP Miniport * AGP VXD Driver * Chipset Driver * GART Driver * VGART Often you will see the name of a motherboard chipset in connection with these terms. For example: * ALi GART Driver * AMD AGP Miniport * Intel VGART * VIA AGP Driver

Are you operating behind a software firewall? Are you using some kind of anti-virus program?

Have you tried making your default printer shareable as if it were on a network?

Compaqs can be difficult. You need to go into your BIOS and make sure that when it boots it defaults to AGP not PCI. Also, you need to see what IRQ is assigned to the video card. I am presuming that your AGP is at least 2X compliant and not 1X that mimics 2X. When you installed windows it is surprising that 2000 didn't recognize the video card and install the "windows" version of the nvidia drivers originally. To install either Nvidia drivers or ATI drivers the VGA Mode is supposed to be enabled in the first place. Bring up windows and uninstall all video drivers through Add/Remove Software from the Control Panel. Some people use Driver Cleaner: http://www.driverheaven.net/cleaner/ to get all of the driver residue out. In any case, you should go into your device manager and find out what IRQ the video card is using and check to see if it is strung to some other device that is making it not be recognized properly. Then, remove whatever video adapter is there to force Windows to find your new card and install it. Or, if it doesn't, reboot the computer and it should tell you that you have new hardware. Both of the cards are pretty old. Which ever one you choose to use, I would (at least the first time) let windows install the drivers it has available for that card. You didn't mention if the computer is seeing the whole hard drive or not. The Bios of some older computers may only see 20gigs and no more and this can be a problem. Finally, if your AGP slot is not working, you might try a PCI video card just to see if you can skirt the IRQ issue or the memory overrun issue since Windows has a bad habit of hooking the video IRQ to the universal bus controllers.

Shaun, the Creative 5.1 is a bear to install at times. Welcome to the fraternity of the frustrated. From your message this is a new card. What did it replace? Did you utilize onboard sound? Did you go into the Bios and diable the the onboard sound? Do as ConQueso suggests and download the new software. But, don't install it. Just save it in a folder where you can find it later. You will want to Remove all of the Creative software as ConQueso suggests. After this, reboot. Get into your BIOS and make sure that any onboard sound is disabled and that the BIOS recognizes the card. If you had to make no changes, ESC out and proceed otherwise save the changes that you made. Let it boot up Windows normally. You need at this point to check out what Windows sees. Right Click on My Computer choose Properties, click on the Hardware Tab, Click on the Device Manager and bring up your devices. You'll find under the Sound Video and Game controllers a reference to your SBLive. If you see something like Realtek AC'97 windows thinks that you are still using onboard sound. Remove this device if it is there. And, this is strictly your own choice, you can remove the SBLive device. You will see other things in there also, but leave them alone. If you remove the SBLive device, Windows will find it shortly and want you to install the software that communicates with it. Just Cancel the request. If Windows doesn't see the new Device, you can reboot and it should prompt you that it has found the Hardware. Be sure to Cancel its request. If you don't want to remove the SBLive device, you don't have to. Your call. Next, Use the downloaded software from Creative to install the card. One other tip. I don't know why but sometimes Windows will put a check mark in the mute entry on the Volume control. (Start>Programs>Accessories>Volume Control) There should be a lot of software that Creative loaded onto your machine, one such is to test the speakers called Creative Diagnostics and the other Surround Mixer. Bring these up to adjust the ugly noises to adjust the speakers.

You will want to make sure that windows is identifying the drives. You need to go into your Device Manager (Right Click My Computer-Properties click on the Hardware Tab, then click on the Device Manager Button. Next to the CD/DVD icon is a "+" button. Click on it to make sure that the DVD drives are identified correctly. If you want you can right click and choose properties for each to see if there are any conflicts. (As quirky as these things are, they will probably be correct.) Drop down to the IDE/ATapi icon and click on its "+" sign. It is the Primary and Secondary that you will want to pay attention to. You want everything detected Automatically and you want DMI if available for both Primary and Secondary. When you go through these make see what IRQ's they are on. The IRQ's are assigned by Windows so the number varies from computer to computer, but these two devices cannot share the same IRQ. One should be (as an example) IRQ 14 and the other IRQ 15 let say. They cannot share the same IRQ. Write these values down. Click on View and then Resources by Type and click on the "+" next to Interrupt request. You want to see here if there is another device that may be sharing the IRQ with one of your DVD's. Microsoft does allow for some sharing of IRQ's among devices, but DVD should be shared. This is just the start of tracing down the problem. Let us know what you see.

Some routers will let you close a port down altogether, but I don't know that there is a way to limit the bandwidth through the router. If you want to hog the bandwidth you could use a large TCP RWIN, using the maximum possible MTU allows a single PC to efficiently and very effectively consume all of the available bandwidth OR some routers will allow you to exclude offensive sites, so put all the urls that the Kazaa users normally contact in there and it will shut that down.

Since it will boot now, try to boot into safe mode. Download and install BHODemon, Ad-Aware and Spybot. You can download from http://www.majorgeeks.com . Then, go to Pest Patrol: http://www.pestpatrol.com/ and find the specific pest that has infested your system. They usually do a good job of helping you to manually take out these elements from stopping services and processes to editing your registry and deleting files.

I spilled both Coke and Beer on keyboards which is a lot simpler than a notebook to disassemble and attempt to clean. I had no real success. There are several layers of stuff that liquids can get into. It isn't just the shorting from the liquid, but the deposit left behind is maddening to clean even when you can get to "where no man has gone before" inside those thin aluminum sheets. Think about a new computer.

In W2K the compatibility mode is not turned on automatically. To get it to work, do the following: * Click Start * Click Run * Type cmd * cd %systemroot%\AppPatch * regsvr32 slayerui.dll That should get you started.

This will depend upon your video card and drivers. You should detail what you have if it isn't something obvious. The obvious thing to do is to right click on the blank portion of your desktop, click on Properties and then click on the settings tab. Under the pull down for "Color Quality" make sure it is set for 32 or 24 bit. If it is set for 256 or 16 change it and this should fix the "obvious" problem.

Had the same thing happen to me with the same card. In my case the fan to cool down the processor on the card had worn out. I replaced the fan, but the card continued to be flakey so I put a 5200 PCI card in.

Some firewalls and certain anti-virus programs can interfere with USB connections. You might try disabling them temporarily and see if you can get it installed.

The USB2 drivers are on the driver CD but have to be loaded manually, they don't load with the MoBo driver package. Throw in the driver CD, select browse this CD, you'll see the USB2 folder, just click on it & run install.

Some people swear that Myway Search Assistant is spyware. I don't know, you can disable it or not. The Acrobat BHO is benign. Well since we've been down that path, Check the following. Under Tools in OE check to see that "read in plain text" is not checked. Next, we need to reset the default browser. Right click on the IE icon on your desktop, click on the Programs tab and Click on the button to Reset Web Settings button. Go into Regedit and see if the following key is missing: HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Classes\htmlfile\shell\open\command If it is you can import it from another machine. Be sure that your register the following: regsvr32 urlmon.dll regsvr32 mshtml.dll regsvr32 shdocvw.dll regsvr32 browseui.dll regsvr32 msjava.dll These should be found in your System32 directory under /Window

If you don't use encription to seal off your network, you certainly may be losing bandwidth through a third party.

Did you install the BHODemon and see if some particular "helper" belongs to spyware? and then attempt to re-register your .dll's?

You router could be failing or your signal from your ISP could be dropping to a level that the modem loses its connection with the ISP. On the off chance that your browsers have BHO's operating in the background and therefore killing your bandwidth, download BHO Demon and run it on all of your machines: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3550 . Then, you want to scan them with whatever anit-virus agents you have and with ad-aware.

Either could matter. When you install viewers some will use older .dll's and overwrite the default .dll's in your OS causing either software or hardware failure. You may have uninstalled the sonic player, but if it overwrote a .dll in the \Windows or \System32 subdirectory, it would not uninstall that component since it had become part of the operating OS. If you have available another working machine with a similar OS look at the dates of the files in the \Windows and \System32 directories. You might find the culprit that way. Ad-aware is a good program. It is not infallible. When it examines the registry particularly or a "registered" value in the system and perceives it as spyware, sometimes if is making a best guess. When you strip it out, it can be the component that communicates with a particular aspect of hardware. Let's say that your sonic player put in a mssonvrtdvd.dll (name made up for illustration purposes) and substituted this value for the default in the registry which was supposed to be mscrtdvd.dll, ad-aware might tell you that this is a spyware intrusion and allow you to strip it out. You do so, but the value in the registry, despite being spyware was how your DVD drive was registered and communicated to with the rest of your system. Ad-aware does not substitute the default value and therefore, with this value gone from the registry, your DVD may no longer be registered. Ad-aware keeps a log of all things it has removed. You could go through that log to see if there is anything that was quarantined or removed that may need to be re-enstated.

This puts a whole other light on the situation. First, try BHO Demon - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3550 to rid your IE browser of "helpers" which are possibly hijacking your system. Personally, I would uninstall Norton's. You will find that Norton's is so deeply embedded in your system that you won't be able to get it all out, but perhaps enough of it will be gone to allow you to install a different anti-virus like AVG or Anti-Vir. Are there any other symptons that the computer is giving that can give us a clue as to what possible virus you may have? Anyway, do these two things. Be sure you have PestPatrols latest definitions and scan your machine. Then, go to HouseCall Trend Micro's online scanner and scan your machine with it: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Outlook Express defaults to IE when you click a link. Changing to a different browser as default may cause hyperlink to fail. Then, again, it can bust itself. From Microsoft: To resolve this problem in Internet Explorer, follow these steps: 1. Quit all programs that are running. 2. Click Start, and then click Run. 3. Type regsvr32 urlmon.dll, and then click OK. 4. When you receive the "DllRegisterServer in urlmon.dll succeeded" message, click OK. If this does not resolve the problem, repeat steps 2 through 4 for each of the following files (in step 3, replace Urlmon.dll with each of the file names below): * Shdocvw.dll * Msjava.dll * Actxprxy.dll * Oleaut32.dll * Mshtml.dll * Browseui.dll * Shell32.dll (Windows XP and Windows 2000 only) If the problem is still not resolved, verify that the following registry values are present and correct: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Interface\{00020400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} Name: (Default) Value: IDispatch HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Interface\{00020400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\ProxyStubClsid Name: (Default) Value: {00020420-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Interface\{00020400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\ProxyStubClsid32 Name: (Default) Value: {00020420-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

Had you installed any new software lately? Or had you run something like Ad-aware?

First, download and install BHO Demon: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3550 This will allow you to remove Browser helpers from IE that may be using these .dll's. Then, if you do not have Ad-aware, download it and install it and run it. The same goes for Spybot. You can find both on Majorgeeks. If these work, you have it made. If not, you have your work cut out for you. So........ Download and install moveonb.exe: http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html Don't use it yet since it will add a value to Windows Explorer when you right click that will mark a file for deletion when you reboot. The problem is not simply deleting the files but stopping them from being replaced after rebooting. Bring up your Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-ESC) and look at the processes running. Write them down. Those that you don't recognize type into a Google search to see if they are legitimate or associated with software that you know you are running. If you find that one or several are associated with spyware, click on it and then click on the button to end processes. (Do not reboot) Bring up msconfig (Start-run and type in msconfig) Look through all the tabs but pay special attention to the Start tab. Write down what starts at bootup. Again use Google to search for anything you don't recognize. If somthing comes up as spyware, uncheck that entry. (Don't reboot yet) Go to your registry (Start-Run and type regedit) If you have never done this before, act like you are walking on eggshells because you can cause a lot of misery for yourself if you do things wrong. Anyway, click on find and then type in the files you mentioned above one at a time. Then search again for anything you found when you looked for processes or found in your start. If you find these things and are sure that they are spyware, you can save the keys first (these will be saved in your My Documents folder usually) and then delete the values. Remember, your registry is nothing to fool around with so if you are not sure, don't do anything just write down the key where the value is found. After this, use Windows Explorer, find the files you want to delete and right click on them and use the new value to delete on reboot. Then, reboot If you unchecked an item in msconfig, XP will probably give you a message about your new config not playing according to Hoyle, but reboot anyway. Tell us how it comes out or relay to us some of the questionable stuff you found. BUT, heed what christianb advised. If a product is advertised with Adware - it is spyware (or at least susceptible to exploitation). Don't even think about installing it. If you are going to explore pages that are "risky", install Spywareblaster (its free and will stop a lot of things), but to be sure, shellout a little money and get some proactive protective software like PestPatrol that will try to stop this kind of thing on the fly or be able to detect this stuff on your hard drive and remove it.

Perhaps you could give us some of the devices that are installed on your machine - name of the video card (which drivers you are using), USB devices, CD Roms, etc. Bring up your startup manager (Start-Run - type msconfig) and look in all of the tabs, but particularly Start to see what you have initially loading that may conflict with something else in the system.

This is Micorsoft's solution: To resolve this issue, follow these steps: 1. Restart the computer in Safe mode: 1. Restart the computer. 2. Press F8 when you receive the "Please select the operating system to start" message. 3. On the Windows Advanced Options menu, use the arrow keys to select Safe Mode, and then press ENTER. 4. If you are running other operating systems on the computer, use the arrow keys to select Microsoft Windows 2000 in the list that is displayed, and then press ENTER. 2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then press ENTER. 3. Locate and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\Shares 4. Back up the registry key: 1. On the Registry menu, click Export Registry File. 2. In the File name box, type Shares_RegKey, and then click Save. This step saves the Shares registry key to the Shares_RegKey text file, which you can use to restore the key in the future. By default, the file is saved in the My Documents folder. For information about how to restore the key, search Regedit Help for the Import Registry Key topic. 5. Examine the list of values in the right pane of Registry Editor. Notice that the Data column contains the paths to shared folders. For example, you may see a line similar to the following: CSCFlags=0 MaxUses=4294967295 Path=E:\NS Permissions=0 Remark= Type=0 This refers to the E:\NS shared folder. 6. For each value, use Windows Explorer to make sure that the path displayed in the Data column represents an existing shared folder. Delete all values that do not correspond to shared folders. 7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.