Monday, August 12, 2002		Dr Tribune

Q I am getting two main problems. The first one is — When I start my PC, it shows nothing on screen. The computer acts as if it has crashed. When I press F4+J on switching on, it shows a message that the CPU speed is changed. Press any key to continue. When I press Del and exit without saving the changes, the Windows run perfectly fine. I am facing this trouble since last 4 months. Please tell me how I can fix that problem. I have P III, 64 MB RAM and 10 GB hard disk. The second problem is that I am using a program gatekeeper to protect my files. Last week, I got a message — Invalid password. But the password is perfectly okay and I am using the same password since past 5 months. Please tell me how can I get my files back. I do not want to delete files, as these are important for me. I want to get these at any cost.

A Regarding your first problem, you may need to change your CMOS battery as the weak battery might be causing this problem. Since you have mentioned that the computer works fine after correcting the CPU speed, so it eliminates the chances of nay hardware failure. Therefore it looks like a problem of the CMOS battery and thus I hope that changing the battery would solve your problem. Regarding your other problem, please make sure that you are entering the password correctly and taking due care of the letter case. IN majority of the cases the passwords are case sensitive and thus using wrong case could cause this problem. However, if you are using the password correctly, then you should contact the help desk of the software vendor.

Q I have a P III system with 20 GB hard disk. It worked well earlier but now it gives me some problem. It all started when I deleted all partitions with the help of FDISK and tried to create primary partition. The error message appeared: No space to partition. This error cropped up in FAT32 but in FAT16 it worked well. I created a primary partition with FAT16. After restarting the system, when I again tried to make a partition it gave the error: No space to make partitions. The disk is of Samsung 20 GB.

A From the description of your problem and more particularly the error message mentioned, it appears that you followed some wrong steps while formatting your hard disk. There is a set procedure of steps, which is to be followed while partitioning the hard disk. If you do not follow these steps then you may get problems like the one mentioned by you. However, I would suggest that before partitioning you must also format your hard disk so that the hard disk space is being optimised. The problem mentioned by you could also happen in case your hard disk is not formatted.

Q I am having P III, 1 GB system with ASUS TUWE 810 Intel chipset motherboard, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB hard disk with three partitions: C, D, E (20,10 and 10 GB, respectively. I have installed Windows ’98 on C:, Windows XP on D: and recently installed Mandrake Linux on to the system. While installation it prompted me to further partition E: Since E: was already having some data stored on it so I allowed it. After the partition was created, it asked for the selection of packages. Here I found that I could select only three out of 15 because the new partition was having a space of 395 MB. I tried to change the location but in vain. Finally I installed those three packages and it worked well. Now I want to remove the newly created partition and combine E: and the new partition so as to reinstall Linux on E (10 GB). But I could not locate the newly created partition but its presence is indicated by reduced space of drive E: Please guide.

A In order to solve this problem, you should first of all remove the present instance of the Linux from your system, and claim the hard disk space used by the software. Then if possible format the partition where you would like to install the Linux. Also, it is essential to keep some reference material for the installation of Linux as it may come very handy in correctly installing Linux on your system. The problem mentioned by you is basically simple and can be easily solved with the help of reference material, while installing. Since Linux will create its own partition so it is necessary that correct option is being chosen for allocating the required space. I am sure that reinstallation of Linux with the help of reference book will solve your problem.

Q I have IBM G70 monitor, it is quite old but still has a good display & is 17", which is still quite current. I have been using it on a no name brand PC for a long time and have found the monitor shuts down intermittently while in Wind98SE or sometimes will not come on at all first thing. After a shutdown like this, it will not come back on until I unplug it from the wall and leave for 10 minutes or so, then all is fine again. It will work fine for 8-10 hours with no problems while using graphics software or playing games then other times it will happen within minutes of switching on. The PC is P III, 666MHz, 128Mb ram, 60Gb h/drive, Geforce2MX Video. It also did this on another no name PC which had a ‘all in one’ type motherboard with shared Video RAM (I had hoped this was the problem). My question is: Do you think this is a faulty monitor or do IBM PC’s have a different video signal output or refresh rate that is more suited to IBM monitors? I feel it is not a monitor power supply problem but something to do with a PC bios and/or Windows video type setting that is just not compatible with this particular type of monitor. It is more like a sleep mode orshutdown mode where after a period of time the monitor detects a certain signal (or lack of) then powers off completely). The problem is it does it randomly. I have tried other brand monitors on both PC’s with no problems at all. Unfortunately I do not know anyone local with an IBM PC to try out my theory.

A Regarding your first query, I do not think that this is a problem related to different video signal output or refresh rate for IBM monitors nor it appears to be a critical fault of the monitor. I have come across a similar problem, and found that it was basically due to the faulty connector, which goes into the back of the computer. Sometimes the pins of the connector get disturbed inside the connector and often create problem of monitor going blank Please check out the connector and the power cord of the monitor as it could be the real culprit. There is no special refresh rate for the IBM PCs and this problem could not occur due to refresh rate frequency. If there is anything wrong with the refresh rate, it will be reflected at the beginning only. The computer also does not generate any video signal, which could shut down the monitor. One more possibility of this kind of an error could be due to some wrong settings or may be disturbed power settings in BIOS feature set up. Try loading the default/fail safe default set up in BIOS feature set up. I hope this will solve your problem.

Q I have assembled PC with P III, 700 MHz, 810e Intel chipset based Tiga motherboard, LG CD ROM, Seagate 20 GB HDD, 128 MB SDRAM, Microtek monitor. My problem is that I can’t play multiple sound files on my PC e.g. if I play a song in Winamp and also I try to play song in any other media player an error message is displayed as "Cannot play back the audio stream: no audio hardware is available, or the hardware is not responding." Please tell me whether it is hardware or software problem of my motherboard. My friend’s having the same configuration but different motherboard of ‘Kranion’ or ‘Mercury’ can play multiple sounds.

A This problem could occur if the hardware acceleration slider is set too high. You can resolve this problem by lowering down the hardware acceleration from full. This can be done as follows. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click Multimedia. Click the Audio tab and then the Advanced Properties button under Playback. Move the Hardware acceleration slider to a notch closer to None in the Performance section. Click OK, and then OK again to close Multimedia Properties. Click Yes if you receive a prompt to restart your computer. I hope this will solve your problem.

Q My system configuration is as follows — Pentium III, 700 MHz, 815 Intel MB, 128 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD. I have installed Windows 2000 professional and Windows ’98 SE as OS. The problem is in Windows ’98. Whenever I boot up in Windows ’98, there is message — "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." with title ‘Msbb’. I don’t know the impact of this error message but it should not be there. Also while running the Internet, there comes an alert message that some illegal operation has been performed in iexplore.exe and it shut downs all running Internet Explorer windows.

A In order to solve this problem; please delete the Msbb file from your system. This solution has worked in many cases, though this is a little unorthodox solution. Deleting this file has so far not caused any problem as far as I have noticed. Regarding the second error message, please clear your memory cache and disk cache and also do not try to open too many instances of explorer window at one time. Also try increasing the size of the swap file for reducing the chances of this error. I hope these solutions will solve your problem.

Q I shall be thankful to you if you solve my problem. I have Conxent 56 KBPS data, fax, voice modem (v.90). When I try to check or download my mails through Outlook Express, it freezes at authorising (for Yahoo! account) asking for password again and again (my password/ID is correct because it is OK with Yahoo! messenger). It gives the following message:

There was a problem logging on to your mail server. Your password was rejected. Account:’pop.mail.yahoo.com’Server:pop.mail.yahoo.com,protocol:pop3,server Response:-’—ERR Error logging in. Please visit http://mail.yahoo.com; port 110,Secure(ssl);No,Server error:0x800ccc90,Error Number:0x800ccc92. It will be helpful to mention that I have installed my modem again (at home myself) because my disk crashed. It was OK before crash.

A There is no problem as such in your case as the Yahoo has stopped its email client support, which means that you can access your Yahoo mail from the web only like any other email account and cannot access it through your email client like Netscape mail, Outlook Express, Eudora etc. for free. Simply Log on to www.mail.yahoo.com and check your e-mails.

Q I have Windows ‘98 operating system. I have my own Internet connection at home. I have visited many sites on my computer. I have set my Internet properties such that when I visit any site, site downloads automatically. To do this, I go to Internet properties then settings then I select automatically and I adjust current location to c:\ windows\ temporary internet files where temporary Internet files are stored. My problem is that when I tried to open any site offline that I have visited on my computer, the site did not open. Some days ago it was working properly. The problem arose when I cut temporary Internet files folder and pasted it in C: drive and adjust current location to: - (c:\ temporary internet files) And tried to open site offline but failed. Then I moved temporary Internet files folder again to (c:\ windows\ temporary internet files) and adjusted current location to (c:\ windows\ temporary internet files). Then also the site does not open when I work offline. Please solve my problem. Please tell me the whole procedure for visiting the site offline.

A The solution to your problem is simple, just reinstall Internet Explorer and all its contents and this will solve your problem.