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I finished building a new system and encountered a problem with video. The video card would occasionally hang and continue displaying the picture that was on at the moment of the hang. To get it to respond again, I must reboot. In some cases the computer will not be bootable as if it had no graphics card (will fall back to integrated video, or beep if IGP is disabled) until I remove and reattach the VGA cable to its DVI-I port. Subsequently the D-Sub works again. After I assembled the system, I proceeded to configure the BIOS (graphical mode) and then test the system with memtest and hdat2 (text mode). In both cases, the display would sometimes hang when I just touched the PC, such as ejected and loaded the CD tray, or if I removed the video cable during a prolonged test to work on another computer. After I reattached the monitor, I could see the screen where it hang. Software could then still cause disk activity, make sounds through the PC speaker, and the computer could be soft-rebooted via Ctrl-Alt-Del. I tried re-seating the card in its slot, and adjust the speed of the PCI-E slot in BIOS, but this didn't solve the problem. At this point no drivers or OS are installed. I inserted another video card, an old Radeon X550, and the system appeared to be stable during installation of Windows XP, and remained so after I installed drivers and launched a game. Both cards should have comparable power consumption (<30W), with the replacement maybe slightly less. Upon inserting the faulty card in another computer, it initially failed to boot and went into a reboot cycle. It began working again after I, with power removed, switched the video cable to the other port, without removing the card itself. Video card: Asus GT 610, 1 GB Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H (uefi bios) Power supply: Fortron 500W CPU: Ivy Bridge G2030 Memory: 4 GB DDR3 What can I do to diagnose if the card or another component of the new system is faulty?

This works for most of the updated DX9 DLLs. None of the d3dx9_NN.dll need to be fully installed by executing the installer.nVidia Control Panel v3.4.772.10 / ForceWare 263.09 works well for me together with driver 314.22; all essential functionality is present, including custom resolutions and game profiles. The most recent Control Panel didn't install for me, but apparently there is significant forwards compatibility with this software. The driver indeed has an image quality issue; by default the driver will output studio range colors (16-235) with different contrast for green, unless changed using the Control Panel to full range (0-255). This manifests as reduced "washed out" contrast overall. I'm not sure where in the registry this setting is. It seems to be stored for each monitor output separately. REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{558F4A7D-61A5-48E1-B29E-4E2A1A28D53C}\0000] "_User_SUB0_CRT1_XALG_Color_Range"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "_User_SUB0_CRT1_XEN_Color_Range"=hex:01,00,00,80

Thank you for the good reference, Tripredacus, which cleared my doubts. MSFN is a trusted source, and usually critical of Microsoft if there is a reason. I feel that the question's been answered. These are two video games, which I am not proud to admit. One of them didn't run (Sports Car GT), and another one kept losing keyboard input (Half-Life), which may or may not have to do with how keyboard layouts are switched. They worked fine under SP1 on the same computer, set up similarly by myself. Discovering the underlying mechanism is beyond my skill level. I've used SP3 for only a month now, and have not too much experience with it. I guess the same question could be asked in the Win2000 forum, since XP is a subversion of the same OS line... My main XP SP1 system is still holding up well, even after upgrading the video adapter. I've successfully installed the nVidia driver, which initially failed due to DecodePointer. With the above patch, the most recent Opera browser, and Media Player Classic are working, to give a couple popular examples.

More and more recent software doesn't run under vanilla Windows XP and SP1 because of unimplemented functions DecodePointer and EncodePointer in KERNEL32.dll. I have found this 64 kB patch (mirror), which enables most applications to work again. They still don't work under Windows 2000, because of other dependencies, which makes this question unsuitable for the Win2k forum. I trust XP SP1 because I've ran it stable with great uptimes, and have also encountered software which doesn't work correctly under SP3 and reportedly also under SP2. Overall, my experience with this OS has been better than with Win2k even, which is why I want to continue running it on machines that are capable of that. This function appears to be security related. According to Microsoft, encoded pointers can be used to provide another layer of protection for pointer values. But is the real reason why it exists to sabotage older OS, and force an upgrade?

Thank you BlackWingCat. I got them installed now. Also: nice, compact direct downloads of the Flash plugin.

I was trying to apply the Extended Kernel update to install the recent nVidia Driver. But Extended Kernel failed to install due to missing "MS12-052 (KB2722913)". The download for this that I was able to find was 3.3 GB, which is excessive. Could you list links to all the required components part of the update in your first post?

Is it possible to add a vertical scroll bar to the control containing BeginPrompt text to display more text in it than fits in the dialog (description of the archive contents, usage of the software in it, etc.)? I am considering migrating to SevenZip from WinRar to use a larger compression dictionary, and need this functionality that's present in WinRar SFX modules (both old ones and new ones that call a MSIE window to show the text). Sample screenshot

Thank you for your work. The Version 9.8 driver worked well for me. It even managed to to run a legacy DirectX game "Tonka Space Station", which didn't run before. However, I also received the dialog box with an empty list of Models. But it occurred only after attempting to install different versions of Catalyst and subsequently removing them. This appears to be a problem with Win2000 because I've never seen it on XP. I resolved the situation by selecting any built in driver (Match64 in my case) and installing it. After a reboot the driver obviously fails to start. But it now became possible to "Update" it with the correct version of Catalyst, and the exact same INF was now read correctly and the Models described in it were shown. I do not recommend this unofficial update for Radeon R3xx for which support existed in Catalyst 6.2 because of inferior OpenGL performance in 16-bit. I tend to agree, however, that choosing Win2k over XP has more disadvantages than gains. Anyone desiring to avoid the "fatness" of NT 5.1 should also consider the applications and other drivers, which are just as bloated graphically and code-wise these days. (For example this driver, that of Intel graphics or Realtek audio.) The "support" and "security" updates offered by Microsoft are not of direct concern, but the general perception that updating is essential has created a situation where 3rd party software stops being compatible and tested with older OS versions. Even when applications are not by any means graphical, they tend to link to uxtheme and gdiplus for no reason other than planned obsolescence... The set of software that works on NT 5.1 is considerably greater. I still chose Win2k today as a secondary OS.

It appears that aligning the partition is completely unnecessary for FAT, and the more compatible partition boundaries of 63 sectors can be used instead at no penalty. The aligment seems to always be mod2 with regards to partition start and depends on the exact size of the volume, but can be shifted forward or backwards using the "reserved sectors". I've recreated the file system on System with mkdosfs just to see how it's done, and now I have a 4k aligned partition with reserved sectors 38 instead of the default of 32.It didn't help that.... It neglected to write one bit to indicate that the file system is not on a floppy. The floppy drive would buzz, and the boot sector would print "Disk error. Press any key to restart." Where on the whole disk do I have an error!? To make the partition bootable again, besides boot code, I had to write 0x80 at 40h of the bootsector.

The problem has been SOLVED by editing the boot sectors. All files are still there, and the Extended partition is now on sector multiple of 63. Elegant solution, and much quicker than booting into Gparted. Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250058268160 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488395055 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xa129a129 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 2048 8386559 4192256 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdb2 20980890 488392063 233705587 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sdb3 8388608 10502143 1056768 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdb5 20980953 225793574 102406311 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdb6 225793638 488392064 131299213+ b W95 FAT32 Partition table entries are not in disk order Now, after I get the other System out of the way by removing the other disk, I'll get Programs as "D" in all operating systems. Win98 doesn't complain about having more than one primary partition. I wanted the swap file (also shared) out of the way so System can be easily backed up. I'll research that next.Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

I read up about Extended Partition on the web and understand the situation now, but still not the step that caused it. But that's ok. I have a "nested" extended partition with unused space. The first sector in extended is pointing to it+1 (that's odd), which contains "swap", and then points directly to "files". I have about 5 GB of unused space between "swap" and "programs" (that may have confused XP setup when it attempted to "activate" its partition). http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/88902520/misc/st250_lbas.zip Let me fix this myself. Is it acceptable to edit the partition structure from within running Win98 without it crashing? Would Disk Management later corrupt the extended partition of an existing disk if I used it to modify a new/another disk? Probably not, in that case I consider it "safe enough".

Thank you for your response. I read the articles about disappearing partitions. So, XP can't work with logical volumes that are not aligned to cylinder. I didn't know about this. I chose the default 1 MB alignment in GParted, because that's supposed to be the new standard format, although it doesn't matter with this old HDD. I thought I'd be prepared to clone the system onto a new drive if needed. To the compatibility issues between XP and Vista, I can also add that Win98 setup crashed with Stack Fault in SUWIN, if asked to install to a non-cylinder-aligned partition. Here were the steps I took: 1. Copy Windows 98 files onto the new system partition. 2. Write "msdos" Partition Boot Sector with BOOTICE (shouldn't in theory affect the MBR). 3. Verify that Windows 98 boots correctly. "Swap" receives drive letter F. I did not investigate further why. 4. Install XP onto the same partition as well (without formatting). It may have broken something here while updating the boot record. But it should only write the boot code to the partition as well. 5. "Swap" now receives drive letter E, indicating that something happened during installation and first launch of XP. (System is a primary partition on the other physical HDD.) Somehow the volume "Programs" has become the primary partition 3 and overlapping with the extended partition 2, which originally contained it. This explains why there is unallocated space within the extended partition. I think FDISK considers a "block" to be 1 kB here. I believe that is internal to that Linux system somehow. So I need to recreate "Programs" back in the extended to unoverlap them. I can use a hex editor. But I don't understand the Extended records. current_mbr.txt

The actual capacity is about 233 GB. GUI GParted, which is the exact same version I first used, now refuses to recognize the drive, complaining about "overlapping partitions". I guess the partition table should be cleaned up, but I am not sure how to proceed with it without losing data from "Programs" and "Files". fdisk -l /dev/sdb omitting empty partition (5) Partition 5 is deleted Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250058268160 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488395055 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xa129a129 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 2048 8386559 4192256 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdb2 8386560 488392703 240003072 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sdb3 20980953 225793574 102406311 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdb5 8388608 10502143 1056768 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdb6 225793638 488392064 131299213+ b W95 FAT32

I repartitioned my PATA hard drive connected via VIA VT6410 using GParted v0.13.1-git, and re-installed Windows XP SP3, after accidentally deleting the previous operating system. Partitioning involved deleting the primary partition, deleting a logical partition, and downsizing the extended partition to free up more space for a slightly larger new primary one. Now the drive is showing double the actual capacity and non-existant Unallocate space in XP's Logical Disk Manager. There don't seem to be any issues with accessing files, nor the disk at block level. Assuming I don' t attempt to use the Windows disk manager. The other SDA drive contains intentionally disabled partitions, and is supposed to look this way. The odd thing about the disk layout is that the SWAP partition is on a later entry in the Extended partition, except being physically located before D and E, since it was added later. I created this situation accidentally, but this causes Windows 98 (which works properly) to assign drive letter F to it (and put it at the end of the disk list). (not true anymore, the SWAP parition is now listed between D and F) I tried a few RAID driver versions. Have you seen anything like this?

So true. Also, the Microsoft knowledge base often seems to speak a different language that is more difficult to comprehend compared to an Internet forum. Instead of one paragraph summarizing a problem followed by instructions to resolve it, I see one warning about warranty, another warning about editing the registry, that is written in style that borders with legalese, after which I stop reading. I trust and value Microsoft's solutions the least because I expect them to be heavily biased and limited because of copyright or business reasons. They will usually not direct me to get files from an older operating system, or to a small patch that enables 48-bit LBA. But will load a webpage that is bigger than those files I need and that suggests to upgrade to a yet bigger SP or a newer product. Removing files is consistent with their practice of not offering a disk with retail and even Volume licenses (at least a few years ago when I was in the line of work). They can pull and replace versions at will, to decide what is best and ensure we have the latest Genuine Advantage and Rights Management.

I would like to install 64-bit Windows XP/2003 on a remote computer I cannot have physical access to. Before I waste any time on it, which would be slow process in any case, I would like to hear a prognosis if there is any chance it can be done at all. The installation should resume after all files have been copied from the "CD" (onto the active harddisk partition by me) and, without asking a single question, including about the serial number and languages, proceed with the installation, reboot as many times as needed, configure the network adapters with DHCP, and give me access via Terminal Services. Edit: Failed to do it. The installation might be missing a mass storage driver.

The screenshot looks alright. Ffdshow is being used for both video and audio, and the MP4 splitter is invisible because it doesn't have a property dialog. Haali splitter hasn't been installed. Haali Media Splitter has very high compatibility with different files of types MKV, MP4, AVI and OGG. It is very possible that you'll receive a file in the future that is unplayable with other decoders. Haali also offers the useful choice of language (audio stream) from within the basic Win98 Media Player.

I have not used these cards in while. But I remember ATI X550 lacking support for high resolution VESA modes. On the other hand, nVidia 6200 with 128 Megs of RAM, had it. There may have been other issues with the nVidia card, which may have revealed themselves later on, though.

Utopia sounds from the win95 CD: http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/4/26/3297107/utopia95.rar

Sorry for not getting back sooner It is an exe installer, but because of my web hosting I had to chage the extension to .ex_, which I thought would be obvious. Rename it and run it. As far as I know, versions later than 2007 do not work under Windows 98. You disable the icons. Call up the configuration dialog for both video, audio. You have links for them in the Start Menu. The go to Tray, dialog & paths, and choose not to display any icons (screenshot, may differ slightly). Nero installs components for MPEG-4 playback. To see which codecs are in use during playback, run Windows Media Player (mplayer2.exe), and look at the stream properties (screenshot). You want to see ffdshow there for good quality playback. AFAIK, the Microsoft Codecs are only needed for WMA/WMV/ASF playback or authoring.

I am assuming that you're using Windows 98. There is only one video decoder needed for nearly every format out there, ffdshow. • Haali Media Splitter 2007-06-03 (MP4, MKV, AVI, MPEG) • ffdshow_beta5_rev2033_20080705_clsid.exe Try an older build if this doesn't work for you, but it should. This decoder will even play old QuickTime Sorenson-encoded MP4/MOV streams. Format support for every stream type can be enabled or disabled, make sure the relevant H.264, SV**, XviD are ticked. ffdshow can also do audio. Media Info can be used to analyze your file, and determine the formats of each stream in it.

Have you actually installed the correct device driver for USB Mass Storage, either through the Unoffical Service Pack or by running the seperate NUSB*.EXE installer?

Using ATI PCI-E cards, I was not able to set a VESA video mode in DOS that required more than a megabyte of video RAM. On the brighter side this also for some reason made the DOS console open quicker.

A complete old computer does bring back memories of events, unrelated to electronics, that occurred around that or a similar machine. I recently set up Win95 to satisfy my curiosity, and it was the old custom wallpaper that finished the picture and made me pause for a while. Not sure what you mean by deep-rate. Win95 had 16-color icons. I am, however, using WinXP SP1 with Windows 98 icons. Detailed listings are much more usable, with 16*16 icons readily distinguishable. I tried to make a patch for SP2, but it has way too many new functions for which a suitable icon doesn't exist. +1. I get accustomed to this speed and can't settle with less.

Support for .RTPatch. This is a format for software updates. A patch may contain differences from the original data, as well as complete files. The complete files can be extracted using a command-line utility that is redistributed inside some self-installing patches. It takes the patch data file, stripped from the "SFX header" as an argument. The piece of code is not free, though.