I got a new DVD-RW (Pioneer DVR-111D) drive, installed it into my “new” office main PC, but after a reboot, the drive was not detected.
The tray ejects, the front panel LED lights up, all the cables, power, etc is correct…
A look at the device manager (control panel -> system -> hardware -> device manager) shows that there is some problem with the registry. (an yellow sign, and an error 19).
A quick search finds: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314060
Removing the upperfilters and lowerfilters registry keys did the trick.
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 9:32 AM EST
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I put windows defender on one of my office PCs, and when it started checking for the latest definitions and updates, I got error 0×80070422
OK, its a really old PII system, but it still works well, so I was hoping defender wasn’t limited to only working on PIII hardware and above.
The solution turned out to be a lot simpler: enable windows automatic updates. (control panel -> administrative tools -> services -> automatic updates (set to automatic, then reboot)
I probably shouldn’t disable so many services, but if the services were smart enough to startup only when needed, then you save yourself a lot RAM.
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 12:10 AM EST
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Ah, another wireless stumbling block…
This customer couldn’t get his laptop (he is visiting his daughter) to work on on her wireless router (a netgear MIMO WPN824… apparently, a previous tech had setup the wireless, but didn’t tell anyone what the wireless password was (It seems to happen a lot, unfortunately).
He eventually mucked up the second wireless PC… but the 3rd PC used ethernet, so there was a way out of this.
I connect to the router, and get to the wireless section.
I see it has WPA-PSK-TKIP enabled. I prefer WPA-PSK-AES (better security), so before I change, I make sure all wireless PCs have XP at SP2.
I change to (what I think is) WPA-PSK-AES, but I cannot get any wireless access… after a lot of stuffing around, I eventually realise that this router has 3 different WPA encryption methods:
- WPA-PSK-TKIP
- WPA2-PSK-AES
- WPA2-AES
Its amazing how the mind will sometimes see what it wants to see…
I didn’t notice the little number “2″, and assumed the router would be like most others, and support WPA-PSK-AES (but it doesn’t).
So after reverting to WPA-PSK-TKIP, and changing the wireless PC accordingly, the PC is finally on the internet.
Next, I go for the laptop.
Oddly, it still refuses to connect. I look at all sorts of settings, and after 5 minutes I get a message about the radio being off… I look at the lights on the laptop… the small blue wireless LED is off…
I find and press the little wireless button, and within 10 seconds, the laptop is on the net at last!
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 12:31 PM EST
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A friend of ours needed some help getting her ASUS laptop to scan using a Samsung SCX-4216 MFC laser printer/scanner/copier/fax.
I tried the scanner software, and it would open up another window with the error “Enter a number between 0 and -312601.75
Now thats a strange number.
the error appears a few times. So I have to click “Ok” a few times until it goes away, and I can see the scanner parameters.
The “width” parameter is interesting: it’s set to -312601.75
I try to change it to a reasonable number (I also tried a few unreasonable numbers) but to no avail.
A search of the web shows no reasonable matches for the error number 
I uninstall and reinstall the whole Samsung printer suite (including the smarthru scanner software), but the error reappears.
I uninstall again, and I scan through the registry, removing any stray samsung entries left behind by the uninstall program.
Reboot, then reinstall the software: and the error reappears!
I get onto the Samsung website, download the latest drivers and software, install them, and the error is still there.
I’m told the printer worked fine on another laptop…
Is it a corruption of the windows registry?
A yet to be discovered bug with the Samsung software?
The twain software that throws the error seems to have a windows title indicating it is trying to scan from a DC-112X device.
I figure its the internal identifier for the Samsung scanner.
A web search shows very few hits for DC-112X.
But with a bit of digging, I find its either a webcam of a phonecam…
I poke around in the Samsung scanner software, and find a spot where I get a list of installed twain devices… the DC-112X is the default device, and there are 2 Samsung scanner devices mentioned as well…
This is like printers… only 1 device can be the default twain device at any one time.
At this point, I can set the default device.
So I pick one of the Samsung scanners, start the twain scanner software, and now I don’t get any error message. Hooray!
I’ve since found out that the DC-112X is one of those webcams built into many laptops nowadays.
Having it appears as a twain device is strange, but having it not “scan” properly is even stranger.
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 10:36 PM EST
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A customer says his PC wont start.
He reinstalled XP, and then set about cleaning the dust from inside the case.
He says he removed the CPU, and cleaned the heatsink and fan, but when he reinstalled the CPU/heatsink/fan, the PC wouldn’t boot.
Once I get to the PC, I remove the heatsink clips, remove the heatsink/fan, and I see a familiar sight: a pentium 4 cpu stuck to the heatsink (luckily there are no bent CPU pins).
This happens a lot. A large heatsink, a small (and sometimes very hot) cpu, mix in some heat transfer compound, and when the compound dries out, it acts like glue… strong enough to rip the cpu from its ZIF socket when the heatsink is removed.
The customer didn’t realise that the ZIF socket needed to be opened, in order to insert the CPU, and besides, you can’t reattach the heatsink without closing the zif socket first… a slight catch 22, until I remove the CPU from the heatsink (very carefully).
The ZIF socket doesn’t seem to open / close as easily as I would expect, but the CPU does go in.
I apply some heat paste to the CPU, reattach the heatsink/fan, restart the PC, and then:
Nothing
The fans spin, but there is no beep, and nothing on the screen.
I check for loose wires, but everything looks ok.
I remove and reinstall heatsink, CPU, etc. but no luck.
Looks like the CPU, or the motherboard (or both) are stuffed. Either the ZIF socket got damaged by the force of the CPU pressing down on it, or the CPU got damaged by static or by the pressure of the heatsink.
I tell the customer that his options are:
- a replacement CPU / motherboard (and maybe some new RAM… he was wanting to upgrade from 512Mb to 1024Mb anyway).
- a new box (with some faster components than what he already had)… slightly more expensive, but an easier and more reliable solution.
So IÂ email him some prices… and I see what he decides to do (he might even get a new PC from a shop, but thats OK).
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 12:25 PM EST
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A customer calls, saying he is concerned about the disks in his computer.
He has 3 drive letters C: D: G:
C: is 98% full, and he doesn’t want to spend time re-installing software if something goes wrong (he does have everything backed up to an external drive, but doesn’t want to spend the time restoring everything…)
I suggest resizing the partitions, and he agrees
I get there, look at his drives. he has 2 drives within the PC, C: and D: are 2 partitions on the first drive, and G: is a second drive.
All drives are FAT32… this should make it easier to resize them… and after that, I’ll probably convert them to NTFS
I install partition magic 8, and set out to shrink D:, so that I can grow C: effectivly giving more free space to C:.
But as soon as I try to shrink D:, I get “error #2002 There are invalid entries in the FAT”.
OK, this should be simple (the manual say it can be fixed with a scandisk), I try to do a scandisk (via the windows scandisk interface), but I get an error about the drive being in use… do you want to schedule a scandisk at windows reboot time? I say yes, then restart the PC.
The PC does the scandisk, then I try to shrink D: again, but I get the same error.
I figure maybe a conversion to NTFS might fix things, but it doesn’t.
OK, maybe something has D: “locked”. So I go and stop all the usual programs that might be busy scribbling to D:, but PM still refuses to resize.
I try a command-level chkdsk, and it seems to find more errors! I let it fix everything, and then, finally, PM no longer complains. I reckon the checkdisk at system startup didn’t really fix anything.
However, it also refuses to shrink D:… yet the other partitions are fine to resize… what now?
I shutdown skype and a few other background apps, and, at last, I can resize D:
I let PM do its thing, and then I finish up converting C: to NTFS as well, and I ask the customer to do a defrag, and I’m on my way again (after spending a lot of time waiting for converts and defrags and partition resizes to complete).
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 9:13 PM EST
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After upgrading to XP SP2, and then performing lots of updates, I started getting the following while entering a URLÂ in the IE address bar:
the requested lookup key was not found in any active activation context
The updates were very slow (pc only had 200MB RAM), and it just didn’t feel right… also trying to view the diplay properties from control panel suddenly allocated 400Mb RAM (via rundll32.exe) … not good in a 200MB PC
With a bit searching, it turns out that ie7 can sometimes fail to install properly. The solution seems to be:
uninstall ie7, reboot, test that ie6 works fine, (i then reboot again, for good measure), then reinstall ie7, reboot, then everything should be fine.
For some reason the control panel display properties still allocates 400Mb (but then releases it when the display properties window is closed…
Given that the customer doesn’t want to buy any more ram to improve his PC speed, then I find its just not worth tracking down the problem.
In the unlikely event that it becomes an issue, then a memory upgrade will help a lot, and it will give me time to find out why rundll32.exe suddenly uses a lot of memory on behalf of display properties
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 4:53 PM EST
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Customer cannot run outlook…Â He recently moved house (I recently gotten calls from many people who have recently moved house… maybe its house moving season 
).
Over the phone, I find out he has broadband, and web surfing still works, but the whole PC seems slow.
When I get there, sure enough, starting outlook gives a runtime error in outlook.exe. you can actually see the emails and email folders behind the error message… so close, yet so far!
I run through some simple tests (ie start outlook in safe mode: outlook /safe), but the error persists.
I start XP in safe mode, but I still get the error.
I start doing a virus / spyware scan, but I cannot see any obvious signs of infection. While I’m there, I also do some “tuning” ie I disable things like ituneshelper, webclient service, etc… just to speed things up a bit.
In the end, nothing I do can fix it. I take the PC to the office for some in depth analysis.
While trawling the net, I eventually come across this nice article:
http://www.pctoday.com/techsupport/detail.aspx?guid=&ErrorID=32867
It seems that norton antispam and MS outlook cannot live together… Symantec blames Microsoft, and microsoft blames symantec/norton. No one takes responsibility, and the customers suffer for it.
The workaround (as long as you don’t need norton antispam) is to navigate to c:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\AntiSpam
find the file called msouplug.dll, and rename it to something else (I like: msouplug.dlll ie 3 L’s instead of 2)
Restart the computer, and outlook works like a dream (maybe a bad dream, but at least there are no errors).
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 2:49 PM EST
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A customer had a minor spyware infection (webhancer and some other spyware item).
After removing the nasties, I take a look at speeding up the PC.Â
His system has 512 Mb of RAM… a decent amount for a plain PC that is used for internet, and some old games… yet it is using around 550Mb (Ie its using the much slower paging file for extra RAM)… I disable the usual useless XP services, and various useless startup programs, and after a reboot, memory usage is still around 460Mb 
I find a process called tmproxy.exe using about 65Mb. It turns out to be a trend process, and its a large chunk of memory considering how ineffectual trend is at blocking spyware…
Combine it with 30Mb for AVGAS, and I can see where all the memory is going.
I’ve read reports that say the tmproxy.exe memory footprint can be improved (made smaller) by reinstalling TIS… others say disabling anti-spam and as many other features as possible (whats the point of that!?).
If the customer hadn’t just paid for a 12 month subscription renewal, I would tell him to toss TIS.
For the moment, he will buy more RAM, buy a 1 year subscription to AVGAS, and after that, remove TISand buy a 2 year subscription to AVG Anti-Malware (ie AVG-antivirus and AVG-antispyware).
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 12:25 PM EST
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I’ve recently seen a few customers with fairly new Acer computers (both laptops and desktop computers). The odd thing is that they all seem to use the FAT32 filesystem.
With one particular customer, when I started the laptop, it proceeded to perform a filesystem check (which I didn’t interrupt, as it usually takes around 5 minutes)… Well after 20 minutes, the FS check finally completed, and I was able to “start work”.
Its very frustrating, when I know that if the HDD had been using NTFS, there would probably not have been a filesystem check (or at least a much quicker one).
A quick search on the internet shows that some people believe that FAT32 is faster than NTFS… that might be so, but with the speed of todays systems, I doubt that anyone can notice the difference.
Given the reliability of NTFS and how quick it is to convert (just type convert c: /fs:ntfs)… usually around 10 minutes. I just cannot understand why FAT32 is used anymore (especially by a large company like Acer!).
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 1:35 PM EST
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I got a laptop that was infected with newdotnet and webhancer.
I needed to take it back to the office, in order to properly update AVGAS (customer was using a slow telstra wireless card)
Ok, remove using AVGAS, do a disk defrag, remove temp files.
Then I decide to do a MS update, but at some point, I get “files required to use microsoft update are no longer registered or installed on your computer”. I then get a choice to repair… but then the update does some work, then loops back to the error message again…
After the 3rd loop, I find a nice solution at: http://www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=4502
is summary:
Start -> run -> cmd
regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wucltui.dll
regsvr32 atl.dll
regsvr32 msxml3.dll
after typing those commands, everything worked perfectly
Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 8:41 AM EST
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