[Albert Lionheart]

I thought I might try and be serious for once and start a thread about some of the problems I come across and how I deal with them. If nobody comments or looks at them I will give up!
TFTT today 30/8/08
ASUS motherboards. ASUS are still shipping new boards with out of date BIOS settings. This means that they will not recognise CPUs that are fitted. This has happened twice in the last two days, with different boards and different CPUs.
To clear the error you have to download the BIOS update and the BIOS installation software from the ASUS site, copy the two files to a bootable floppy (yes, a floppy!) and run the DOS based install routine. There are different install routines for different ASUS boards - they all look different and some tell you what is going on, others tell you nothing.
Issues - 1) why are ASUS shipping out boards that do not have the latest BIOS? and 2) the install routines are just plain irritating so why are they not standardised?
Some of the BIOS settings page have BIOS flash routines built in but I have never managed to get one of them to work.
GIGABYTE board - despair if you want to download an update from their site and you are using XP - their site reports that if you have downloaded a specific update you cannot access the site. In fact you cannot access the site even without the download installed. Opera, Firefox and IE all failed. Rebooting the machine into Vista got round the problem but the recommended patch for this known problem failed to fix it. The problem - the Core2Duo board will not recognise SATA 1Tb drives.
TTFN!

[Blackmirror]

Interesting Albert
"strokes beard "
I would complain very loudly

[Albert Lionheart]

You have a beard, Donna? Another dream bites the dust!

[Joshuashawharvey]

You can also use removable USB storage to update the BIOS, that's how I do it now

Yeah it's really irritating how you have to everything yourself. I'd think "fair enough" if the BIOS updating with ASUS wasn't so risky. If it was as stable as MSI, then I wouldn't be hesitant about updating my BIOS, but now, after the tragedy I had with my previous ASUS motherboard, I don't think I dare to update this one, especially not using the ASUSUpdate utility. How a program can go from completely stable to as unstable as hell in a few updates is beyond me The previous ASUSUpdate programs were stable. Luckily I don't need to , but i'll probably need to in the future

[samjohnson]

Ya I am not gonna touch that part of my Asus board. Don't really need to update it anyway... at the moment. So I am fine. I do love my board though.

[Albert Lionheart]

By way of an update on progress with this ASUS board, the system is intended to run 4 advertising displays so I purchased 2 x E6200 PCI-E cards to run them (2 each).
I cannot get the second card to display anything - it shows up in device manager but is not showing the monitors as being available to extend the desktop to. I know the cards both work as I have swapped them over. May have to yell at ASUS again - this is beginning to turn this one into a loss!

UPDATE
Could not get these two cards to work so switched one of them with a NVidia 6400 I had in stock. Success! Beats me why as the motherboard is ASUS as were both of the E62[00 cards.

[Albert Lionheart]

Just discovered something really irritating - in case you have not noticed some of the pins on the DVI connections are no longer used so they have stopped fitting them. These are the 4 pins 2 on each side of the guide strip. Because the pins are no longer there the DVI sockets are also without the little holes.
However, there are still some monitors out there with the old pattern cables which will now not fit the new graphics cards - being a cynic I would think this is deliberate to make old pattern DVI connected screens redundant - or is it because there is a new standard out there and this is a way to make sure old screens are not connected to new cards??

anyone any ideas?

TFTT - fit the third
I am working on a machine at the moment (YES I KNOW IT IS SUNDAY NIGHT!) which has a really bad case of virus infection. XPHome SP1 would you believe.
It had PCCillin installed which clearly had failed to do the business - scanned with Kaspersky and so far found over 200 trojans, worms, etc etc you name it.
I think there is a lot of damage to system files so this may mean an OS rebuild.

UPDATE - found over 300 virus infected files so far, and rising. Also found how - the user has been to Kasaa and WinMX P2P sites.
UPDATE - 320 & rising. Is Conflict an on-line RPG - not one I know but all those files are infected as well.
UPDATE - final tally 351.

[Joshuashawharvey]

When will people learn with the P2P programs?

I feel for you mate must have been one looooong night

[Blackmirror]

Albert conflict is a game

Conflict - Denied Ops

Its possible they downloaded it

[Albert Lionheart]

And a long day - had to take the heap to Stowmarket for them to fix it which they said they did - so off I go happy happy joy joy until leaving Sheringham it all goes pearshaped again.
It is a long way to Stowmarket, especially in a car that is farting and coughing all the time.
We will try ourselves with a local outfit tomorrow but this has really screwed my week.
Sorry about the rant.

[Albert Lionheart]

TFTT today - not your usual boot failure.
2 year old system from P/Bell progressivly stopped doing things until it failed to start at all. Inspect motherboard for fat caps - none. Test PSU - no faults.
Initial thoughts were a dead hard drive so ran the Seagate tools over it using a USB floppy to get it running - no faults, not tripped and the heavy scan was clear. Memory got the same treatment - passed no worries. Disconnect DVD & CD drives as I have seen those cause problems - no improvement. Try a Windows OS repair - gets stuck halfway through. Twice. Decide to format & reinstall - check with client about backups - there are none. Typical. Remove hard drive and fit to wksps system and find I can get at the files OK - copy across and refit the drive.
Format - OK. Install Windows - stops halfway through and at the same place as before.
Rats to this - it is taking too long to make it commercially sensible to carry on so will tell the punter he should have a new system - which he already said he would like to do if I can get the files off the old one.
Lesson 1 - flogging a dead 'orse is a waste of money
Lesson 2 - If the client says he was thinking of a new machine, oblige him!

[Rik]

Personally, i think that Asus mobo's are pretty good for the money. Having said that, I personally would never buy a newly released one.

Reason!
I have an Asus mobo i got cheap from a friend as it kept crashing on him constantly. (See my system spec's for more info)
I left it sitting in it's box for about 5 weeks, waited for new drivers to be issued, then got it going and it hasn't caused me a single problem since.


Albert, keep the information flowing, it makes for a very interesting read.

[Albert Lionheart]

Originally Posted by Albert Lionheart

GIGABYTE board - despair if you want to download an update from their site and you are using XP - their site reports that if you have downloaded a specific update you cannot access the site. In fact you cannot access the site even without the download installed. Opera, Firefox and IE all failed. Rebooting the machine into Vista got round the problem but the recommended patch for this known problem failed to fix it. The problem - the Core2Duo board will not recognise SATA 1Tb drives.
TTFN!

Back on this one - still no reply from gigabyte so I will try and talk to a human being this morning. I have updated the BIOS on the board with the updates they recommend for the problem (so they do know about it!) but no improvement - 1 Tb drive seen as 33Mb !

The farcical situation with their website still exists - and the bit that doesn't work is a bit of flash that does nothing anyway. I will express my opinions in a suitably overbearing, pompous and arrogant manner when I catch up with them. See if I don't.


Update:
Gigabyte say it is down to the firmware on the drive, and Samsung don't want to talk to me about it, There are no firmware patches on their site so I am sort of stuffed with this one.
I had a rant at them about the website - they know about it but have not fixed it. Nice one Samsung! Lets hope a bot finds this post!

[Albert Lionheart]

Update 1
The ongoing saga of the 1Tb drive rolls on - Samsung have it in their heads that the drive may be faulty. At least they are being helpful which more that the useless ornaments at Gigabyte have been. Despite the row with Asus about the board (I have taken them to the small claims court about it) I will have to go back to buying their boards as they do score higher than the rest.

Update 2
The threatware or rogue malware (this is what kaspersky call it) is out there in increasing numbers. I'm surprised nobody else has come across it. Kaspersky's fix is Malwarebytes - but they have no explanation why their AV software failed tt detect or stop the infection.
I have had 2 more machines in over the last two days with it - and earlier tricks for removal no longer work so it is changing.

[Blackmirror]

Malwarebytes is excellent at removing rogue avs Albert

[Albert Lionheart]

I agree - but does not provide real-time protection, which is a great pity.

[Blackmirror]

It does if you pay for it
well worth the price

( mine was a gift )

[Albert Lionheart]

Ooer - best have a better shufti at it as I have only ever seen the freebie download.

[Blackmirror]

Protects me ALbert
( thanks Rubby Ducky )

[Albert Lionheart]

Tales from the Toolroom update
todays little offering has been three - yes 3 - machines all with failed PSUs. One of them went bang in a big way and seems to have taken the motherboard with it. One PSU was an Antec, another a Coolermaster and the one that went bang was a cheap and nasty.
Lesson? Yes - don't skimp on your PSU and make sure it is powerful enough.