More techno-shite (TM Jags2004) questions...

22 Jan 2005

A little background first.
Just after xmas I decided my 900Mhz Celeron was getting a little old and tired and decided to replace a few bits and pieces and part rebuild my PC.
I bought a second-hand a new processor, RAM and case.
From the old PC I stripped out the DVD, CDRW < Floppy and hard drives.
The hard drive is partitioned, ie drive c: and d: and there is stuff on drive d: that I want to keep so I can't do a full format. sad

First boot and sorted the BIOS options and made sure the clock ws set etc, inserted the Windows XP Pro disc into the master drive and off it went. Install took about 50 mins and it was fantastic.
I've been installing a few programs today and I've noticed that I appear to have some duplicated files. so my FIRST question is ...
If I follow the instructions will it just delete the files on drive c: (the os drive) and not on drive d: (storage drive)?
My second question is about Windows Media Player. Mine currently plays fast and without any sound. I've also got VLC media player and that plays at normal speed, but without sound, as well. No pings, dings and tadas from Windows either.
I've cheched the mobo settings about 20 times and they are correct (it ain't that hard is it?) and I've installed new audio drivers from the mobo website to no avail.
I suspect (from spending the morning Googling) that it may be an audio driver problem and if I reformat the c: drive it may cure this problem. Anyone ever come across this before and any other possabilities before I try and delete my hd?
:cheers: for the help.

22 Jan 2005

a) Back up your files. Format. Reinstall the backed up stuff.
b) Speakers turned on/up?

22 Jan 2005

Answer 1, it will format the OS drive and not touch what you have on your backup drive.
Answer 2, def a driver problem, you most probably have wrong driver for the audio chip on the board.

22 Jan 2005

you notice in those instructions it shows a single partition, on yours it would show 2 partitions and the name for them, in this case C and D
you are safe to format the C drive without worries, it wont affect the D drive because even tho its a single disk, once its been partitioned it becomes 2 seperate disks as far as windows is concerned
as long as you ensure you only format the C partition you will be fine
and as to that audio error, have you checked that your audio device has been detected and is working correctly first?
Start/Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager/Sound Video Game controllers
you are now looking for an Audio device which will have a yellow circle with a ! mark in it, that is a device which is not working currectly
highligh and right click to open the properties, then check the driver to see if its correctly installed, it gives the option to re-install or update the driver there, that can save a lot of time if its justr a driver error.
hope this helps you

22 Jan 2005

Have you checked that the speakers are plugged into the correct hole??... We had this problem with my eldest's puter and the speakers were plugged in to the wrong hole... You never know lol

Shireen
xxx

22 Jan 2005

Quote by shireen-steve
Have you checked that the speakers are plugged into the correct hole??... We had this problem with my eldest's puter and the speakers were plugged in to the wrong hole... You never know
Shireen
xxx

lol, the most basic check smile

, so why didnt I think of that as well redface

oh well, I aint purrfect by a long way

22 Jan 2005

Quote by kristof
lol, the most basic check, so why didnt I think of that as well
oh well, I aint purrfect by a long way

It took me about 4 hours of head scratching to figure it out :lol:
Shireen
xxx

22 Jan 2005

Thankks guys. Looks like I'll be installing windows again as I just installed a new copy without formatting. :doh:
As for the speakers thing I've tried all the obvious and the only thing that's left is some problem to do with the driver. Trouble is when I open device manager there's the new audio drivers and the old ones as well, so I'm guessing they're still there and usable, cos device manager doesn't show either a problem or a conflict with the audio.
Hopefully a clean and formatted install will do the job.
I'll be able to do a backup disk next month as I'll be getting a DVDRW , but trying to back up about 20Gigs worth of programs and data onto CDRW is just not going to happen.
Ah well... start again. it's all a learning curve I suppose. lol

22 Jan 2005

Quote by easy
Trouble is when I open device manager there's the new audio drivers and the old ones as well, so I'm guessing they're still there and usable, cos device manager doesn't show either a problem or a conflict with the audio.

One or more of those drivers is wrong for the chip you have onboard. There should only be one main audio driver. Updates would still be the same driver, so would still only appear as one driver.
Some MB manufacturers are notorious for using many dofferent variations on audio chip, each one needing a different driver. You need to be 100% sure you have the right driver for the chip on the board.

22 Jan 2005

Quote by BaldEagle
Trouble is when I open device manager there's the new audio drivers and the old ones as well, so I'm guessing they're still there and usable, cos device manager doesn't show either a problem or a conflict with the audio.

One or more of those drivers is wrong for the chip you have onboard. There should only be one main audio driver. Updates would still be the same driver, so would still only appear as one driver.
Some MB manufacturers are notorious for using many dofferent variations on audio chip, each one needing a different driver. You need to be 100% sure you have the right driver for the chip on the board.
very true m8, I suppose the other alternative is to buy a soundcard, standard PCI dont cost much nowdays, most computor stores have thenm starting aroung Â£5 for basic cards

22 Jan 2005

Ok heres another problem,yes my computers pissing about again.
I had an ever so slightly dodgy copy of nortons professional,all was working fine after my problem the other week,but yesturday when i rebooted it took over 10 minutes to load the taskbar and when it did it couldnt load any of nortons programs,messenger and a few other programs.
Ive now deleted nortons and downloaded AVG,which picked up 2 trojon horses straight of the feckers was in one of my windows files and i'm thinking that it may have lasting now on reboot its still taking a long time to load everything even though it is finally loading up messenger etc.
Any ideas on the problem???

22 Jan 2005

Even when you remove Norton it leaves alot behind that is still tied into the operating system.
I wouldn't touch Norton with yours, never mind mine.
Run MSconfig and see what is loading at startup and disable what looks suspicious.

22 Jan 2005

I must be getting old, i remmeber days when seeing a topic started by Easy guaranteed it would bes omethinginteresting!! rolleyes

22 Jan 2005

Quote by BaldEagle
Even when you remove Norton it leaves alot behind that is still tied into the operating system.
I wouldn't touch Norton with yours, never mind mine.
Run MSconfig and see what is loading at startup and disable what looks suspicious.

yus thats what I would do as well, you didnt mention if you had any spyware detectors installed or not, if you dont get 1, adaware from is a dammed good tool, easy to use and best of all its free smile

also, just because AVG say ut found a trojan I would recommend doing a online scan with somebody

all those are free to use and reliable as hell, I always do these checks when notied of a trojan as some scanners will report genuine programes as a trojan and or viruslike activity
I dont build repair or troubleshoot computors for a living, but it seems I am the 1st call for most of my friends and family as I spend most my time online and building rebuilding systems for a hobby, in the last 3 years I have been bitten 4 times by either a virus or a trojan, 2 were false alarms generated by the scanner heuristics being set to fine, the others were due to my son coming around and using my sytstem to copy disks from friends
A site I recomend to everybody is Steve Gibsons GRC site you either love him or hate him, but the guy is a top notch security concious computor head, I personally use a lot of his programmes to help keep my system safe and running sweetly :)

23 Jan 2005

Duplicate copies of audio drivers can cause conflicts - try safe mode and deleting all audio drivers and rebooting. Windows will then just pick up the correct ones (should they have been installed in the first place)

23 Jan 2005

Quote by foxylady 123
I must be getting old, i remmeber days when seeing a topic started by Easy guaranteed it would bes omething interesting!!

Sorry...... redface

Normal bollox will resume shortly. :thumbup: kiss

OK just to update My first problem is solved. biggrin

Partition formatted and a clean install of windows got rid of all the old files.
However I'm still having bloody issues with the sound on this flaming thing. If I disable the onboard audio via the device manager the video play speed in windows media player returns to normal. confused

The chipset for this board is a Creative CT5880 and it all seems to be functioning correctly. The speakers make a pop when I enable/disable them so I know they work.
I've googled the hell out of this and I still can't find a solution and it's getting a little irritating now. mad

Part of the reason I got rid of the last pc was due to audio playback problems (sound breaking up when scrolling another window, like IE). I really don't want to have to buy a new soundcard as the audio on the mobo isn't a bad setup, just can't get it to feckin' work.
Oh and which mod changed the title of my post...... ? smackbottom

:P

23 Jan 2005

Quote by easy
If I disable the onboard audio via the device manager the video play speed in windows media player returns to normal.

That still points to it being the wrong driver or an IRQ conflict. Are you using the driver that windows installed for the device ??
Which Windows ?? XP, 98se ??

23 Jan 2005

Part of the reason I got rid of the last pc was due to audio playback problems (sound breaking up when scrolling another window, like IE).

ah, mine does that too. thought it was normal? dunno

i keep MP3s / videos on the D backup drive, thinking they could spool off of that ok when windows and apps read/write drive C, but they still stutter when i refresh a webpage or load apps. thought it might be the winmodem using CPU time so put in a new hardware modem but still does it?
and while i'm here, i used to have C partitioned as a dual boot Win98 / Linux install. had to reformat C and reinstall windows, and now can't see the linux partition. i'm a bit wary of fdisking it, cos no doubt i'll break something rolleyes

but want to use the 2nd partition for XP and setup dual boot. any easy tips?
neil x x x ;)

23 Jan 2005

Quote by neilinleeds
[ but want to use the 2nd partition for XP and setup dual boot. any easy tips?

A machine with XP and any other form of Windows will always try and boot off the XP partition, no matter how you try when using IDE drives (BIOS overide). You need a boot manager to overcome it. Linux, of course, has a boot manager.. So, XP and Linux on two partitions or two drives (I prefer separate bootable drives)
If you have SCSI drives, you can have any number of Windows on, as XP does not overide the SCSI boot BIOS.

23 Jan 2005

Easy
A bit late now I know, but I have found from experience if you are having sound problems. the easiest way to check if it is a hardware or software problem is to go to the sounds icon in the control panel and select a sound, such as exclamation or windows start-up, and see if the little play button is greyed out. If it is, then the problem is likely to be software (drivers) If it is black and when clicked looks like it has played, then the problem is hardware (probably speakers). There are probably more technical ways of doing this but this is the easiest I have found.
smile

23 Jan 2005

Quote by BaldEagle
If I disable the onboard audio via the device manager the video play speed in windows media player returns to normal.

That still points to it being the wrong driver or an IRQ conflict. Are you using the driver that windows installed for the device ??
Which Windows ?? XP, 98se ??
Nope it's the drivers that came on the mobo disc. I've also tried with the drivers from the gigabyte website, but still no difference. Beginning to think I shoulr remove all the audio drivers and let windows try and find it as new hardwear. :?
Running XP with sp2 and updates installed.

Quote by luv2lick
Easy
A bit late now I know, but I have found from experience if you are having sound problems. the easiest way to check if it is a hardware or software problem is to go to the sounds icon in the control panel and select a sound, such as exclamation or windows start-up, and see if the little play button is greyed out. If it is, then the problem is likely to be software (drivers) If it is black and when clicked looks like it has played, then the problem is hardware (probably speakers). There are probably more technical ways of doing this but this is the easiest I have found.

OH FLUCK don't say that. The do look as though they play, but no sound. Only other option is a screwed mobo. Ah well I was thinking about a new soundcard earlier today anyway. dunno

23 Jan 2005

try plugging some headphones in the sockets....incase it is the speakers. Also if there are sockets at the front of the case, try those. Are the sockets built in to the board or do you have to connect them via cables to the mobo inside the case?
If the little sound icons are playing...I will be very suprised if the drivers are installed incorrectly.....um just a thought...the sound isnt muted is it?...click on the volume icon at the bottom RHS of the screen and check all audio channels are active and the sound is up.

23 Jan 2005

Quote by luv2lick
try plugging some headphones in the sockets....incase it is the speakers. Also if there are sockets at the front of the case, try those. Are the sockets built in to the board or do you have to connect them via cables to the mobo inside the case?
If the little sound icons are playing...I will be very suprised if the drivers are installed incorrectly.....um just a thought...the sound isnt muted is it?...click on the volume icon at the bottom RHS of the screen and check all audio channels are active and the sound is up.

I'll try the headphones now. I know the front sockets aren't connected because I could work out the cables so I left the mobo exactly as it was.
Sounds not muted on any channel and the speakers are working. (tried from minidisc)
Still think this is a driver problem due to the Windows Media player spped issue. confused

Might email Gigabyte and see if they have any bright ideas.
Headphone are exactly the same. No sound. sad

23 Jan 2005

More techno-shite (TM Jags204) questions...

Not too shaby for a woman who's 1801 years old. :shock: lol

23 Jan 2005

Thinking about it some more, I used to hae a gigabyte board and had a system for installing windows....once installed the sound and game ports didnt work either. I had to delete all the sound and game devices themselves from the hardware manager, then re-boot the system with the mainboard setup disk installed, when windows detected the devices on startup, it would download the drivers required. This may not help as they are probably not XP drivers but might be worth a try.... it dont work anyway :O)

23 Jan 2005

Quote by luv2lick
Thinking about it some more, I used to hae a gigabyte board and had a system for installing windows....once installed the sound and game ports didnt work either. I had to delete all the sound and game devices themselves from the hardware manager, then re-boot the system with the mainboard setup disk installed, when windows detected the devices on startup, it would download the drivers required. This may not help as they are probably not XP drivers but might be worth a try.... it dont work anyway :O)

Tried that and still no luck. It looks like the mobo has a problem. rolleyes

Ah well I can get round it hopefully by fitting a soundcard.
I'll give it a couple of days, but if I don't have a flash of genius by then I'll go out and pick up a new soundcard.

23 Jan 2005

Trying a PCI based card to see if it works is a good trouble shooting option.
You must disable the onboard soundcard, either by jumper or in the BIOS if you use another PCI based card.
Just a thought, you have enabled the onboard sound in the BIOS havn't you ??

23 Jan 2005

Quote by BaldEagle
Trying a PCI based card to see if it works is a good trouble shooting option.
You must disable the onboard soundcard, either by jumper or in the BIOS if you use another PCI based card.
Just a thought, you have enabled the onboard sound in the BIOS havn't you ??

Errrrrrr.............. do ya have to do that?
Back in 10 mins biggrin

OK checked and there's 2 options auto and disabled. It's got auto selected at the mo. :D sad

23 Jan 2005

Quote by easy
OK checked and there's 2 options auto and disabled. It's got auto selected at the mo.

Should have worked then under normal circumstances. Set it to disable if you fit a PCI sound card.

23 Jan 2005

JUMPERS

have you made sure that jumpers 5-6 and 9-10 are connected on the f_AUDIO section of the mobo? they are number 22 in the manual, and you'll get no sound if you have them disconnected, unless you've connected the front panel instead.