[PC] Ask The Experts Thread

[Sackboy]

bhai in india range is limited , it is your best bet ~!

[Pushy]

:|

[piper]

Hi All,

 

I have a Creative 5.1 Speaker and unfortunately, the wire from the woofer to power control broke and I am unable to use the speaker now. Creative Support said they don't have a spare for this and also, I have searched most of the second hand shops in Chennai with no luck.

 

Could someone provide me a workaround for this? Or I am ready to buy (online or forum) the cable.

 

Any suggestion to connect my speaker to PC (at least) and or PS3 to make is work is much appreciated.

 

Thanks a lot!

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/3784/creativeinspire5200.jpg

First, post the model number of your speaker setup. Second, pics of the connector where the power control pod is connected to the subwoofer.

 

Eventually, you should rewire the whole thing. I had the exact same issue with my 2.1 and it was hell for too long (I connected them direct without vol control and used to manage volume from the PC itself). Eventually I got another 2.1 system and kind of connected both the speaker systems to make it a 4.1

[Pushy]

sacky, no audiotrack listed in p'abgb/theitwares

 

what about asus xonar/xona stx?

[Bird Bird Bird]

So my lappy is driving me crazy since the past 2-3 days.

The problem started 4-5 months ago when my lappy just went into a random lock & rebooted. After that I could see some random artifacts on screen, but it booted aight & there was no problem subsequently.

Now the number of times it locks up or gives a BSOD just kept on increasing with every passing week till 2 days back when nothing could just make it boot. It either gets stuck @ the windows logo screen or just shuts down. And even on the BIOS scree, I can see crazy amount of artifacts & lines (both horiz & vertical) playing checkered squares.

Now earlier this used to happen from anything ranging from copying a file to pen drive to browsing to watching a video. 2 days back it happened while I was watching two & a half men (served me right ) when the screen suddenly started flashing as if it's a disco ball , the sound became jittery and everything came to a halt. I switched it off and rebooted only to be greeted with artifacts on the BIOS screen. The OS failed to load.

On trying after 5-10 mins, it loaded but again the OS got hung after 4-5 mins of use. On restarting, it asked me to launch the Startup Repair, which I did and as expected, it couldn't find anything wrong with the PC. :|

Now the strangeness of this is that these random hangups & reboots don't happen in safe mode. So that's how I'm browsing now. :|

Anyways, things I have tried in the last 4 months:

 

1) Reinstalling the Nvidia latest drivers (and sometimes old ones too !) - this seems to alleviate the problem for a couple of days but not permanently.

2) Reinstalling the OS - no help.

3) Running Memtest & BIOS RAM test - Everything aight.

4) Running BIOS HDD test & HDD Sentinel at every boot - HDD in superb condition.

 

So HDD & RAM are ruled out. Drivers & OS are ruled out. What can be the problem ? I'm inclining towards some kinda motherboard fault (related to the graphics chip). Anything that can be done about it ?

P.S: Opened and cleaned the lappy yday night, so I doubt it's an overheating issue.

P.S. no. 2: Everytime BSOD occurs, the error given is: "There was a problem resetting your graphics driver." and then it just dumps the memory contents and shuts off. :|

[piper]

^Fats, one thing you can try is to download a liveCD of any lightweight Linux distro and boot up your laptop into that. Run it for as long as possible (a few hours) and see if the issue recurs.

 

This will isolate ANY software issue whatsoever.

[Bird Bird Bird]

^Fats, one thing you can try is to download a liveCD of any lightweight Linux distro and boot up your laptop into that. Run it for as long as possible (a few hours) and see if the issue recurs.

 

This will isolate ANY software issue whatsoever.

Seems like a good idea. The only drawback is I can't install anything on the HDD as it's kinda full and can't transfer anything to external HDD as the USB ports are malfunctioning. The moment I attach any external HDD, lappy goes kaput.

 

Is there anything which will run off a 4GB drive & has innate drivers to play MKV/AVI/MP3 as well ?

[Sackboy]

sacky, no audiotrack listed in p'abgb/theitwares

 

what about asus xonar/xona stx?

Xonar STX Is a no go for gaming and I think it doesn't have Digital input...

 

 

Try lynx ?

[piper]

Seems like a good idea. The only drawback is I can't install anything on the HDD as it's kinda full and can't transfer anything to external HDD as the USB ports are malfunctioning. The moment I attach any external HDD, lappy goes kaput.

 

Is there anything which will run off a 4GB drive & has innate drivers to play MKV/AVI/MP3 as well ?

I was talking about the liveCD, which would be less than 700MB in size and generally burnt onto CD (no hard disk space required). But if you have a spare pen drive you can format it so that it is bootable. Considering your laptop is kaput, you're gonna have to use a friend's system to do this. If you were in Bangalore I could've helped with that.

 

Regarding what you're asking : playing movies and all, I guess Ubuntu should allow you to do something like that. Not sure, though.

[Pushy]

sacky, what about creative SB X-Fi 5.1 PRO(~5k) /7.1 (7.4k) - prices from ebay

[achilles]

So my lappy is driving me crazy since the past 2-3 days.

The problem started 4-5 months ago when my lappy just went into a random lock & rebooted. After that I could see some random artifacts on screen, but it booted aight & there was no problem subsequently.

Now the number of times it locks up or gives a BSOD just kept on increasing with every passing week till 2 days back when nothing could just make it boot. It either gets stuck @ the windows logo screen or just shuts down. And even on the BIOS scree, I can see crazy amount of artifacts & lines (both horiz & vertical) playing checkered squares.

Now earlier this used to happen from anything ranging from copying a file to pen drive to browsing to watching a video. 2 days back it happened while I was watching two & a half men (served me right ) when the screen suddenly started flashing as if it's a disco ball , the sound became jittery and everything came to a halt. I switched it off and rebooted only to be greeted with artifacts on the BIOS screen. The OS failed to load.

On trying after 5-10 mins, it loaded but again the OS got hung after 4-5 mins of use. On restarting, it asked me to launch the Startup Repair, which I did and as expected, it couldn't find anything wrong with the PC. :|

Now the strangeness of this is that these random hangups & reboots don't happen in safe mode. So that's how I'm browsing now. :|

Anyways, things I have tried in the last 4 months:

 

1) Reinstalling the Nvidia latest drivers (and sometimes old ones too !) - this seems to alleviate the problem for a couple of days but not permanently.

2) Reinstalling the OS - no help.

3) Running Memtest & BIOS RAM test - Everything aight.

4) Running BIOS HDD test & HDD Sentinel at every boot - HDD in superb condition.

 

So HDD & RAM are ruled out. Drivers & OS are ruled out. What can be the problem ? I'm inclining towards some kinda motherboard fault (related to the graphics chip). Anything that can be done about it ?

P.S: Opened and cleaned the lappy yday night, so I doubt it's an overheating issue.

P.S. no. 2: Everytime BSOD occurs, the error given is: "There was a problem resetting your graphics driver." and then it just dumps the memory contents and shuts off. :|

 

You think you have problems, try this

 

In the last 5 months all of these have happened. In particular order:

 

Laptop charger conks. Out of warranty. Have to get a new one.

Laptop charger conks again. Since I have a year's warranty on the new one, I have to get it replaced but have to wait for 2 weeks

Laptop screen is shattered by Mom, 'accidentally'.

I scope for the screen at Nehru Place coz Apple charges more than what the computer is worth to replace the screen. f**k that bitch.

Have to wait for 3 weeks again.

Charger conks again. I mean YOU f**king a**hole> fluctuation at my place.

Need to 'sweet-talk' my way into getting another replacement so soon.

I drop the laptop and the only thing that broke..you guessed it, the screen. FFFUUUUUUUU

HD crashes. Have to wait for a replacement to be shipped to me.

Wouldn't you know it, charger conks again. This time they can't replace it coz there is some acute shortage on chargers and 3 in 3 months, even Apple isn't that generous. Have to buy another one.

 

Which is now.

 

And I hate living.

[piper]

You think you have problems, try this

 

In the last 5 months all of these have happened. In particular order:

 

Laptop charger conks. Out of warranty. Have to get a new one.

Laptop charger conks again. Since I have a year's warranty on the new one, I have to get it replaced but have to wait for 2 weeks

Laptop screen is shattered by Mom, 'accidentally'.

I scope for the screen at Nehru Place coz Apple charges more than what the computer is worth to replace the screen. f**k thacomputh.

Have to wait for 3 weeks again.

Charger conks again. I mean YOU f**king a**hole> fluctuation at my place.

Need to 'sweet-talk' my way into getting another replacement so soon.

I drop the laptop and the only thing that broke..you guessed it, the screen. FFFUUUUUUUU

HD crashes. Have to wait for a replacement to be shipped to me.

Wouldn't you know it, charger conks again. This time they can't replace it coz there is some acute shortage on chargers and 3 in 3 months, even Apple isn't that generous. Have to buy another one.

 

Which is now.

 

And I hate living.

For the charger, buy a stabilizer or sine wave ups..

 

As for the screen, handle your Mac better. Now get over it.

[Sackboy]

sacky, what about creative SB X-Fi 5.1 PRO(~5k) /7.1 (7.4k) - prices from ebay

Isn't that an external sound card ??

[Kakarot]

Seems like a good idea. The only drawback is I can't install anything on the HDD as it's kinda full and can't transfer anything to external HDD as the USB ports are malfunctioning. The moment I attach any external HDD, lappy goes kaput.

 

Is there anything which will run off a 4GB drive & has innate drivers to play MKV/AVI/MP3 as well ?

 

Is your laptop more than 3 years old?

Which proccy?

I faced a similar issue with my C2D Desktop..it was my motherboard at fault then..

Edited September 25, 2011 by -= L O L =-

[Bird Bird Bird]

You think you have problems, try this

 

In the last 5 months all of these have happened. In particular order:

 

Laptop charger conks. Out of warranty. Have to get a new one.

Laptop charger conks again. Since I have a year's warranty on the new one, I have to get it replaced but have to wait for 2 weeks

Laptop screen is shattered by Mom, 'accidentally'.

I scope for the screen at Nehru Place coz Apple charges more than what the computer is worth to replace the screen. f**k that bitch.

Have to wait for 3 weeks again.

Charger conks again. I mean YOU f**king a**hole> fluctuation at my place.

Need to 'sweet-talk' my way into getting another replacement so soon.

I drop the laptop and the only thing that broke..you guessed it, the screen. FFFUUUUUUUU

HD crashes. Have to wait for a replacement to be shipped to me.

Wouldn't you know it, charger conks again. This time they can't replace it coz there is some acute shortage on chargers and 3 in 3 months, even Apple isn't that generous. Have to buy another one.

 

Which is now.

 

And I hate living.

I feel better already.

 

Is your laptop more than 3 years old?

Which proccy?

I faced a similar issue with my C2D Desktop..it was my motherboard at fault then..

4 years old. Runs on a C2D T7250 with 2 GB RAM & Nvidia 8600GS (512 MB).

Even I'm inclining towards a motherboard issue because of 2 reasons - the hallucinating lines/ boxes/ other artifacts on screen & the USB ports not working properly (don't provide adequate power to the external HDDs/ iPad etc). Did you get yours' changed ? How much did it cost ?

Mine's out of warranty, so I'm guessing something in the range of 15-18k.

[achilles]

For the charger, buy a stabilizer or sine wave ups..

 

As for the screen, handle your Mac better. Now get over it.

 

Wow. You must be the one they call chatur.

 

I feel better already.

 

[Bird Bird Bird]

Just went through your post again. That stuff is golden !

 

And in hindsight, I was thinking of ditching MS in favor of Apple. Not now !

[Bird Bird Bird]

 

MacBooks aren't built for Panipat. Believe.

We have a Haryanavi Apple fan ? :panic

[achilles]

Just went through your post again. That stuff is golden !

 

And in hindsight, I was thinking of ditching MS in favor of Apple. Not now !

 

Lol. It's more to do with the power fluctuations here. Plus the heavy duty work going on at my place. Those heavy machines render the voltage somewhat f**ked. One TV & the RO has conked too.

 

I won't tell you to go for Apple but today, and this isn't IMO, its f**king fact, there is no reason to not go for a Mac over the PC.

 

 

MacBooks aren't built for Panipat. Believe.

 

You don't say..

[Pushy]

Isn't that an external sound card ??

 

internal one bru