Computer Glitches [F.A.O., vega]

[Maurice]

This is not really a new thread, [forgive me, TS] I am directing an old one at vega, having seen his full-time job, + he lives in England, as do I. [you're a brummie, & proud of it, I guess?]
If you look back at one of my previous posts, it may have been the last, you'll see that I said that my PC could send & receive emails & my installed AV was receiving up-dates, yet I could not get on line via my ISP, nor could I get there by clicking on items shown in emails [Company websites etc]
I rang a local chap, in the same trade as yourself, vega, he had been before, about 18 months ago & put things right. This time though, he had to take it away, [laptop] & lent me one. He tried again, in his workshop.....still no joy, & sent it back to the makers, & I am still waiting, a fortnight later.
Now, please understand, vega, I am only asking you if you had another view on this, I am not neccessarily saying that he went about it the wrong way, he is about the same age as yourself, & has been in the computer repair / build business for around 12 years, probably the same as you, hazarding a guess.
I would very much appreciate your comments, he apparently went into BIOS, but what else he tried, I couldn't say. When you reply, not too technical, I have only been involved in using computers for the last 18 months or so, + I'm "getting on a bit" [see my profile]
Hoping you can help.

 

[Masque]

Maurice, I've got a question. What happens when you try to launch Internet Explorer......specifically?

 

[StormBringer]

If you can send/receive email, and get software updates then this is almost definately a browser issue. What web-browser are you using? (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera)

 

[Maurice]

StormBringer, I use Internet Browser, & always have.

 

[Maurice]

Masque, the answer is, nothing, literally. The LCD flickers rapidly for a few seconds as usual when attempting to make contact, then settles down to an occasional pulse.

 

[Masque]

Just a hunch....could you get a copy of Ad-Aware (free version) from HERE , update it and run it? I just helped a friend with dang near the same thing and it turned out to be a browser hijacker....I don't remember which one. Let us know if it helps....I'm just curious.

 

[Maurice]

Thanks, Masque, but it had Ad-Aware installed at the time, & I ran it on a regular basis.
Thanks anyway,
Maurice.

 

[Masque]

Dang.....back to the drawing board.

 

[Maurice]

Like the expression, Masque, "Dang" is right!!, still, it means that people are still interested, & trying to help, I am sorry now that I originally directed this this post specifically to member "vega", I guess that he is on his Easter holidays, he lives in England, like me, & here there is quite an exodus on the first public holiday of the year, probably we think that we might get a lousy summer, & are going away when we can!!, it's not sunny most of the time, like in Auburn!

 

[Maurice]

Now there's a whole new ball game; my PC repair man rang me today, & told me that the laptop manufacturers have examined it, & are saying that it needs a new motherboard & hard drive, he disputes this very strongly, & is telling them that a code they sent him by e-mail,[to do with BIOS I believe] only made things worse.
What he intends to do now I believe, is to get them to reinstate the BIOS, [apparently the faulty code they sent, either wiped it out, or made it inaccessable] & return it to him without doing anything else.
Of course I can't predict what their reaction will be, to this, probably they will be only too glad to get rid.
I asked him if he'd mind if I e-mailed him your [TS's] responses to my posts on the matter, said send them on, the more opinions the better, he is very reasonable in that way, saying that even with 12 years experience, he welcomes second opinions.
I sent two e-mails, these queries & responses, + plus the other post on the same subject, that I made ,at the end of March, I believe it was, you'll find it of course, if you want to refer to it, & yes, I know how costly m/boards & hard drives are, for laptops!
I am going to look at my house contents insurance to see if I can claim, as it is outside the warranty.
The laptop an Iridium "Starbook" Intel Celeron 1.3 Ghz, if you want more details please say so, I'm expecting howls of disbelief, from you guys, about the latest developments, I know you won't let me down, the more "howls" the better!!
Cheers, Maurice

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Maurice, I have some doubts about your techie with the 12 years experience (in what?).
You don't return a laptop because the BIOS is screwed up. Anybody worth his/her salt, should make a backup of the current BIOS before s/he tries to load a new version. That way you can put back the old BIOS if anything goes wrong, like in your case.
Your not being able to go on the internet had nothing to do with your laptop's BIOS, but everything to do with the crap that Windows XP is. A re-install or a repair should have fixed it.

If all else fails, try to install Win2000 on it, a small step back perhaps, but a much more stable OS for your needs.

 

[Maurice]

Thanks, Irish, he SAYS he is an IT expert, now I am a layman [i.e, fairly non-tech] but have been around people for a number of years, I worked at a maximum-security English prison [Parkhurst] & had to deal with VERY crafty cons, Reggie Kray included, & usually know for certain if people are conning me, there voice,looks, attitude etc,gives them away.
Having said that, I'm incined to believe what your saying, it does sound odd, even to me.What I'll do now, is, see what he does now, & if he fails miserably to deal with it when it comes back to him, I'll give him a BIG piece of my mind,query his charges for his "services", show him your opinions, & take it elsewhere. sussing THEM out first, there are several good retail IT workshops nearby [yes, Irish, we HAVE got them in England, believe it or not!] but it's all going to cost me money, if the worst comes to the worst, I'll have to dig up that trunk in the garden, & buy a new one!
Tanks, boyo.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Here is another survey of Broadband on IOW
http://www.broadbandnow.x5g.com/

I hope you get your own laptop back soon, fixed and all.
You could ask around in Internet Cafes (if they have them) if they know of a reliable, knowledgeable PC enthusiast, who might be able to help you. Usually the guys that run these, are pretty good themselves.

 

[Maurice]

Hang on Irish, sure, & 'tis a slur you be puttin' on the Oisle of Woight again to be sure, to be sure, [no, Idon't think all the Irish talk like that, it's just an Englishman's poor attempt at a joke!]
Of course we have several in this "backward" place, in fact, in Newport, four miles distant, Ken runs an i/net cafe, & also has a workshop at the back, where he builds & repairs PC's.
I am in a cleft stick, however, I have a very good friend of the family, who does the same thing at home, & has been doing it for years, but is self-taught. He has built & repaired PC's for his son, & son-in-law, I have been there whilst he's been working on them.
Yes,I know I'm "going round the houses" but I'm in a quandry now, especially as he thought that I was wrong to let the other guy have it in the first place, & wants me to take it to him, if it comes back to me, still unresolved.

Sorry to put the ball in your court, but what do you think I should do?, you always give such level-headed, sensible advice.

Did you hear about the girl who took two pills each month, to be sure, to be sure?...........sorry!

 

[Maurice]

My "super glitch" must be catching, today I had a phone call from a friend, asking for advice, his wife's PC was sending/receiving
e-mails, but not getting on the internet,.....sound familiar?, yep, just what mine is doing, see my posts history.
I have asked him to tell his wife to try getting her AV to update, plus to try & get on the net via web addresses within the body of incoming e-mail messages. If she can't, then it is identical to my troubles.
I have e-mailed her fairly recently with a message for her husband, [he is not computer literate] guess it's VERY unlikely that I passed on a worm?, I think that you guys have already established that fact.
Obviously this is not a another cry for help, but it does seem an amazing coincidence, you will no doubt agree.

 

[Godataloss]

Get yer paws on a copy of mozilla or opera and install it.

 

[Maurice]

Please see my earlier post, above;- "Now there's a whole new ball game" etc., [18th May 2004]
Now let me bring you up to date, having heard nothig from my repairer [so-called] I have been sending him e-mails, which he obviously was gettig fed up with, because tonight he actually phoned. He says the position is still the same [this is six weeks since he took it away] I have now made him promise to put the whole situation down on paper, & send me an e-mail, which he has said he will do, this weekend, & if he does, this will be the first written evidence, from him.
I told him that I intended to forward to Techspot, & he said to go ahead, at least he is being reasonable in THAT respect, as he has before, [see the previous post again]
But, I don't know how to send it, he suggested "cut & paste", have I got that right?, snag is, I don't know how to do that, can you explain the procudure to me, remembering, as I have said in the past, I am fairly non-tech, & would need to be told slowly & carefully, a few brief words wont do, I'm ashamed to say, [doh!]
Thanks for any help you can give, have pity on an old guy!
I suppose forwarding it by Outlook Express is out of the question?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

I must have missed your earlier post to me on 04-24-2004.
Sooo much stuff in this forum....

You could type your letter/note to "techie" in Word. Leave Word open.
Start OE, new message, type in to whom and the subject.
Go to Word. Put your cursor immediately before the first word that you want to copy. Hold the left mouse button down and move the cursor to the end of the last word to be copied. The moused-over text turns blue.
Now press "ctrl" down, hold it and press the C (for copy).
Go back to your email and position the mouse where you want to copy the text from Word. Press and hold "ctrl" and press V (for virtual copy). Bingo, your Word-text is in OE.

in short:
CUT: ctrl-X
COPY: ctrl-C
PASTE: ctrl-V

 

[Maurice]

Thanks again, Realblackstuff, I guess that you have now read the aforementioned post, above, on this "page" of postings.
You explained the process perfectly, much obliged, will print off just your last message, & keep it for future reference,
Cheers!!

 

[Maurice]

Oops, realblackstuff, think we're at cross-purposes, & have to have a re-think! my question was, how to forward his e-mail, [not letter] to me, on to Techspot, see my post above, dated May 7th, on THIS "page" of postings.
As it is an e-mail, how do I do it?.....cut/paste still, or somehow forward his e-mail to TS by e-mail, but how? obviously I can't send it by normal means as TS does not give out the site's address? [& rightly so, it would cause chaos!]
Sorry,........... don't know who is confusing who!

 

[me(who else?)]

Just copy and paste the body of the email...:grinthumb

edit: Select all the text in the email, press CRTL-C, then start a new post and select the text box where you type the text of the post. Press CTRL-V and publish the post (srry, just wanted to be thorough)

 

[Maurice]

Thanks, I'll try that, don't apologise, being thorough is good!

Cheers "me, who else"

 

[Maurice]

Regarding my long-standing problem with getting my laptop repaired,I have at long last got him to send me an email, laying out the situation so far, he seemed very reluctant to put it all down on paper, now here it is, please read through & let me know your opinions, I have a feeling that they will many, varied, & in some cases, incredulous & strident.
There are some things in his email that I would disagree with, in the first paragraph he says "internet crashing & slow speed", would you at TS call the inability to get on the Net via I/Explorer "crashing" I don't see it as that, the slow speed was probably correct, he blamed on having too much stuff, [his words] granted, I had a lot of programmes; four & a half coloumns, plus nearly five rows of icons, but would that alone, cause the problem with I/E?, remembering that O/Expess was working fine, & my AV was updating OK.
Please then let me know what you think, I value your opinions as always, if the weight of opinion goes against me, & you think that he isn't at fault, then that's it, & I shall have to accept this, but in addition, I have been advised by a friend, who is a Solicitor, to get a written evaluation on my laptop from a local technician, as I may be sending "chummy" a Solicitors letter to scare the s**t out of him, hopefully. [ I also have a friend there, too,.....handy!

I hereby vouch that I have not edited the email as shown below, I have merely copied it to here, thanks to help from "me, who else" & "realblackstuff" [I have of course printed off copies of the said email.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Maurice

Having discussed the problems you were having with your laptop – namely internet crashing and slow speed, I advised you that a system rebuild would restore the computer to its original condition with the use of the disks supplied by the manufacturer.



I took the laptop away with me to do this but was unable to load windows as the following error made this imposable.



File \i386\Ntkrnimp.exe could not be loaded. The error code is 7



After visiting the Microsoft Support Site, I discovered it related to an incorrect BIOS configuration or faulty Ram Module so I tested the hardware using software but found no faults. I informed you of the problems I was having and you were able to give me a web address of the manufactures support site and I was able cheque the Bios settings to confirm that they were correct.



I contacted the support team by phone and was told that the laptop should be sent to them for repair but I told them I had tested it and found no hardware faults and that I suspected a bios error and after discussing the problem was told that a bios update was available and that he could email it to me.



When it arrived on the 31/03/04 I followed the directions and proceeded to load the update which came back as UPDATE SUCCSESFUL but after a restart the laptop failed to boot, I contacted the support team to confirm they had sent me the correct software. It was confirmed it was, as the file name and size was correct and it was sent as a zipped file and if there was an error in the file after downloading I could not have opened it.



It is of my opinion that the file is incorrect as the binary file which contains the data for the bios is empty, as in file size is 0 bytes, which means that the update loaded no data in to the bios but wrote over the old data..

The support team denied this and after having no option but to send the laptop back for repair they come to the conclusion that a new main board and hard drive are needed at a cost of over £500.



At this time I am trying to contact them for the return of the laptop as at this cost it is beyond economical repair.



Having now read this I hope you can see that I have in no way damaged the laptop as this is a software error which I feel is not of my doing, but I am hoping to come to some sort of arrangement to bring this matter to an end.



Regards Carl…

 

[RealBlackStuff]

I repeat my earlier comments that your would-be-"techie" should have made a BIOS-backup before loading the new version.
nuff said.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I don't know what kind of a BIOS chip your laptop has, but with desktop computers, repairing damaged BIOS is quite simple. You just need another mainboard, preferably the same brand & model (sometimes the same chipset is enough) and change the BIOS chip on the fly when flashing it. In other words, start the 2nd mainboard, load BIOS flashing application, change the chip, flash, shut down, change chips back. But it can go wrong if you don't know what you're doing....

Another, safer, option is an external EEPROM programmer.