Log in ....Tribune-- Dr Tribune

Monday, February 5, 2001		Dr Tribune

I have a computer with a Cyrix 233 MHz processor with 32 MB RAM. I want to purchase a Motorola 56kbps fax / voice modem. Please tell me if it will work with my computer and also please explain whether the browsing speed depends on CPU speed or telephone line connectivity.

—Rajesh

Dr Tribune: There is no known contradiction of any kind for the Motorola Internal Modem with the Cyrix based computers. So, the modem should work fine with your computer. Regarding the speed of Internet browsing, the CPU is definitely not the priority no.1, rather for better Internet performance, you need a higher cache speed and higher RAM. However, full speed higher cache speed is only available in the latest computers like Pentium – III, Pentium -4, AMD – Athlon, AMD Duron etc. which remain a preferred choice even for Internet based applications. As far as the telephone line is concerned, it is the most critical part of your Internet connection. But since it is an outside factor, thus it does not form a part of computer configuration decision process, which will remain the same for all the processors.

I am a regular reader of Login…Tribune. My problem is as follows 1) whenever I receive e-mails with some attachments, I’m unable to see the attachments and get a message that Program.exe is missing. 2) Though, I have a P-111 processor, 10.2 GB hard disk, 64 MB Ram. My system takes a lot of time for booting. I once changed the logo.sys file while loading some themes and made two partitions in the HDD.

— Rahul Soni

Dr Tribune: To solve your problem, we will require to know the name of the e-mail client that you use. Regarding your booting problem, I do not think that any change in logo.sys is responsible for causing delay in booting. There could be many reasons, like unduly large registry, loading of too many programmes, etc. There may be many programs in your start up directory. You might have enabled floppy boot seek in the Bios Setup. Your Boot sequence may not have C as the first drive, etc. There are many reason that affect booting. However among all the problems, it is most likely that your registry has grown too large, if this is the case the you can use any good registry editor, to trim it.

I have Pentium III - 700 MHz based computer. I installed Windows 2000 on it and it was working properly, but due to some reasons I had to format my hard disk again. Now I have a problem in installing Windows 2000. Every time I try to install Windows 2000 it gives a message "Windows 2000 setup could not detect the version of Windows you are currently running. Setup cannot continue." I tried to install Windows 2000 on my friends computer but it gives the same message. I tried this on other computers also but the problem persists. Please help.

— Sukhjit Singh Sandhu

Dr Tribune: The only reason I could think of is that you maybe trying to install Windows 2000 as the second operating system on your computer in a separate partition with Windows NT or WindowsMe as the first operating system already installed on your system on C drive. It is always better to install Windows 2000 as the main operating system, loaded on drive C, though there is no hard and fast rule for the same. However, if you wish to install two operating systems, then you can install Windows 98 on one operating system and then install Windows 2000 on the other operating system.

I own an Epson 460 printer attached to a Pentium III Compaq Presario computer. Many a times when I try to print, I am confronted with the following message, "There was an error printing to LPT1. The printer is out of paper, add more paper. The status monitor says that a communication error has occurred. Check all cable connections and make sure all devices are on. If an operation check pattern is printing reset the device by turning it off and on again." There is no problem with the paper, etc. Please help.

— Sachin

It appears that the drivers for your printer is either corrupted or is not properly installed. If you have installed the printer driver from Windows directory and not from the CD, which comes with the printer, then you can either uninstall the driver and reinstall it again from the printer’s CD.

I have Pentium - III computer with 64MB RAM and Window 98 OS loaded. When I shut down the computer it hangs & gives the message "stacks overflow, change stacks configuration in config.sys", then I over write config.sys with stacks=36,128 but my problem remains unresolved. My hard disk is only 1/3 filled and I have only one game installed. Please tell me the solution .

— Divtesh Singh

Dr Tribune: Stacks are basically reserved memory, which is used by a program to process hardware events. Thus when this memory gets reduced then you get a message that stack overflow has occurred. This message signifies that there is not enough memory to run the hardware interrupt routines. However you can correct this problem by editing the config.sys file located on C drive by changing the "stacks=" line or by eliminating terminate-and-stay-resident program (tsrs), and eliminating hardware conflicts. As a first solution, change the stacks = XXXXX to stacks=64,512; files=60 buffers=40. If this solution does not solve your problem, then you may disable any non-boot device drivers in the config.sys and autoexec.bat files. As the third option you can also check for incompatible hardware configuration. Thus you must check the port and IRQ settings of the network card, sound card, and modem etc (in case these cards are installed separately). If there are any conflicts, then you may remove or disable conflicting device. As a last solution, in case if nothing works out you can get BIOS checked for necessary upgrades.

I have Intel PC, with Microsoft Windows NT Server as operating system. I want to change this operating system to Windows 98 or 2000, with out taking system/data backup. Please help me how to do this.

— Simritvir Singh

Dr Tribune: You can upgrade from Windows NT server to Windows 2000 professional. However, it is in your interest to take the necessary backup of the critical data. Though there are normally not any problems in upgrading your operating system, but at times some error may still occur, which may prove fatal to your system. Here in all such cases the back up of your critical data saves you from the loss. However, if you wish to upgrade without taking back up then the procedure is no different and all you need to obtain is necessary upgrade.

I can’t give boot password to my PC, I’ve tried going into the BIOS setup and hunt for the same, but in vain. Actually the BIOS has two options of a supervisor password and user password. I am unable to figure out the use of these two separately. I’ve entered passwords for both, but the only time the password is demanded is when I press <DEL> at startup to enter into the BIOS setup. The boot process goes on without any password interference. Can you figure out a solution. I’ll be highly obliged if you could help.

— Aseem

You are very close to the solution. Actually, the password, which you wish to install is available in BIOS features setup and not in the Supervisor’s password. If you wish to put a password before loading of Windows, then you must search the option Security option in the BIOS features setup. Under security option select system as the option and set the password. Now the system will ask for a password before loading the Windows. However, if you choose setup, then the computer asks for a password, when you press <DEL> button during the process of booting you computer. Since your computer asks for the password for entering the BIOS setup, thus it appears that by default your system is set for Setup security option mode and you may need to change it to system mode.