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[Wilse]

Hi folks,

My girlfriend has asked me for help with her PC and my Windows knowledge is even less than my Linux knowledge, so I was hoping someone could reccommend a decent forum for asking for advice.

Any tips?
Something similar to amiga.org would be just the ticket but I realise that's probably asking a bit much. ;-)

Cheers,

[that_punk_guy]

There's annoyances.org which I've come across a few times, and I occasionally use the pcplus.co.uk forums, although I'm sure there's better PC forums around.

Failing that, there's always Mikeymike :-D

[mikeymike]

Yep, email me if you don't want to post it here :-)

Speaking of forums though - I was thinking about this earlier, I want to find an answer to a hardware/windows driver related question, the only thing is I don't know a decent forum to ask it in (tomshardware forums are, really are, advocacy central... as bad as the worst newsgroups). I think it might be an idea to compile a list of decent forums on various topics that get aired on amiga.org and some people complain are off-topic, but also to point people in a potential better direction to get the question answered.

[Sue]

Hi Mikeymike this is Sue (Wilse's girlfriend). I am having a very frustrating time and would appreciate any help you can give. I don't know much about computers (as will be obvious soon!) but I managed to wipe my hard disk because pretty much nothing worked anyway, have reloaded win98 but now only have 16 colours and no option for any more that I can find. I have already bought a new modem because I didn't have the driver, and the windows couldn't detect my internal one, and the problem is the same with the colours I think - no driver. I have been told this is a common problem but I haven't found anywhere that tells me what to do, I've been to annoyances.org, pcnineoneone, and various others with no luck. Driverguide gave me some text file instead of a modem driver so I'm not holding out much hope there. I have a 6 year old Packard Bell with an original Win98 disk and it is driving me insane, can you help please?

[Cyberus]

To find a driver:
Have you tried the manufacturers website?
Have you tried typing the part number into Google?

(You probably have, but just in case....) :-)

[amigamad]

If you go here and download this program it will find all the imformation about your pc and display it in a web browser you could then paste any imformation to this forum

download belarc pc audit

This is the info it gives on my pc.
Operating System

System Model
Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2195)

No details available
Processor a

Main Circuit Board b
2.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7V333 REV 1.xx
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software, Inc. ASUS A7V333 ACPI BIOS Revision 1016 01/28/2003
Drives

Memory Modules c,d
122.94 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
35.42 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
AXV CD/DVD-ROM SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8161B [CD-ROM drive]
LITE-ON LTR-24102B [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]
Maxtor 6Y120L0 [Hard drive] (122.94 GB) -- drive 0, s/n Y40M8KGE, rev YAR41VW0, SMART Status: Healthy

512 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'DDR 1' is Empty
Slot 'DDR 2' is Empty
Slot 'DDR 3' has 512 MB

Local Drive Volumes
c: (on drive 0)
63.16 GB
13.64 GB free
f: (on drive 0)
59.77 GB
21.79 GB free

Logins

Network Drives
A7V333\asus

Installed Microsoft Hotfixes

Printers
Internet Explorer
SP2
(SP2)

Windows 2000
SP2
Q282522[SP]
(details...)
on 05/08/03

Click here to see all available security Hotfixes.
Marks a HotFix that verifies correctly
Marks a HotFix that fails verification
(Failing hotfixes need to be reinstalled)
An unmarked HotFix lacks the data to allow verification

None detected

Controllers

Display
Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
VIA Bus Master IDE Controller

NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 [Display adapter]
Default Monitor
Bus Adapters

Multimedia
AXVSCSI Controller
USB 2.0 Root Hub Device
VIA USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
VIA USB Universal Host Controller
VIA USB Universal Host Controller
VIA USB Universal Host Controller
VIA USB Universal Host Controller

Creative SB Live! series(WDM)
Game Port for Creative SB Live!
Communications

Other Devices
Realtek RTL8139(A) PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
Network Card MAC Address: 00:E0:4C:EA:30:47
Network IP Address: 81.104.34.8 / 24

Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Compatible Mouse
Generic USB Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub

Software Licenses
<snip>

- edited by mikeymike: we get the idea :-) -

[odin]

@amigamad:

Dunno if you have a legal Win2k key, but if so I wouldn't post it I think :-).

[mikeymike]

I'd prefer to do this over email, as this will probably take quite a few posts/emails to completely resolve. My address is on my profile or if you hit the email icon under this post.

I have already bought a new modem because I didn't have the driver, and the windows couldn't detect my internal one, and the problem is the same with the colours I think - no driver.

Ok, we need to confirm a few things.

Right click on My Computer, select Properties.
Select the Device Manager tab.

There probably won't be a "modems" category, but under the "display" category, it will probably say "VGA adapter" or something similiar. Under the "other devices" category is all the devices Windows is unable to do anything useful with, you'll probably find "unknown modem" and "unknown VGA adapter" or something similiar. This will confirm what you think is wrong. Tell me what's under "modems" and "display" if anything, as well as "other".

When you start getting working drivers for your hardware, those unknown items will start disappearing and appearing in their respective categories instead, and so you'll know you're winning :-)

The hardware probing software that someone suggested is only likely to tell you what hardware that Windows knows you have already, which isn't of much use to you.

There is a possible easy way to find out what graphics card your PC has, but not all graphics cards do this. If you re/start the computer, the very first text you see is only a few lines long at the top of the screen and will quickly (like within a second) disappear. If your PC does do that, you might be able to read it off and get all the info you need. Give me a shout with what it reports.

If that method doesn't work, then things get a bit more difficult, ie. you need to open your PC, and read off what it says on certain chips in it. I can guide you through this, but insides of PCs vary quite a bit so it's not going to be that easy.

The one other thing that might help in finding out most of what we need to know is if you can give me some sort of model name of your Packard Bell box, I might be able to find some details on the Internet.

Am I right in thinking you have Internet access or not on that computer, btw?

[Sue]

Thanks to everyone who replied to me,

Wilse is looking very smug right now, because I've had more replies in one night on this site than to all my postings on Win98 forums in the last week.

I can't find device manager just now (2am and I've work tomorrow)but the only modem showing is the new one I bought, it did use to say Standard Modem for the same port but wouldn't connect so I deleted that.

I downloaded the hardware stuff and it was as Mikeymike said, only the things that work are listed.

Wilse reckons it's internal graphics and not a card.

I am connected now with the new modem but have to swap between internet explorer and netscape to read different sites because some don't show up on each.

There is nothing on the Packard Bell box except a snazzy windows sticker that I would love to burn at the stake right now.

Mikeymike will email you, and thanks again

Sue

[asian1]

>Old hardware

Hello
Perhaps you can try LiveCD Linux. You don't have
to install it, just put LiveCD into the CD-ROM
drive and boot the PC.
There are various LiveCD distros: Knoppix,
Morphix, SUSE, Slackware etc.
Unlike Windows 98, Linux have good support for
old hardware. Using VESA you can get at least
640x480 256 colors. Most Internal modems are
supported from HFC, HSF, HAM 536EP, Smartlink,
LTModem, AMR etc:
Linmodems
What is your type of computer? Is the modem
bundled with the PC? (from Packard Bell)

[atavus]

Try www.Microsoft.com

[BADHead]

@Wilse here is a site for you Sweaty Socks Click here ;-)

[Vincent]

Wilse is looking very smug right now, because I've had more replies in one night on this site than to all my postings on Win98 forums in the last week.

I know that feeling. I posted a question about Windows 2k a few days ago ( My Computer Icon in Win2k ) and got a little side tracked by gerbinist and lempkee so I replied:

You know, this is the best place to ask for PC help because you don't get patronising people telling you that you're useless and then giving you completely stupid replies that don't work. All this from people who think they are above you when all they're trying to do is put one-up on each other :-P

This is an Amiga USER forum. I'm an Amiga USER, it's just unfortunate that some of us need to use PC's from time to time :-(

So it's no surprise that Wilse is feeling smug :-D

--Edit--

Dammit, I knew I forgot something.

A few people I know used to use (I don't know if they still do) forum.pcanswers.co.uk for their problems :-)

[Cyberus]

British by birth; Scottish by the grace of God

edit: changed 'grave' to 'grace'

[melott]

Why not start a 'WINDOWS' forum here on
Amiga.Org under alternatve OS's. That way
those of us that need help would get it and not
be posting off-topic.
I don't think it would be 'Heresy' since Most of
us have a PC and could use the help.