buckdog05

I just reinstalled Windows XP on a HP Pavilon a1250n desktop computer using a copy of Windows XP Professional issued from a university bookstore rather than from the restore disks because I replaced the hard drive and recovery disks were not when Windows was previously installed on the computer. The install went fine, but the hard drive in the computer shows up as the "I" drive. This doesn't seem like it will be a problem, but when I try to install any of the driver files from HP, I get an error that says "you must be logged in as an administrator to install this update." I am logged in as an administrator, and am using an administrator account separate from the built-in "administrator" account. I am thinking that this is an issue with the hard drive showing up as "I" from what I read here: http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-...all-update.html but I don't know how to force Windows to install to the "C" Drive rather than the "I" drive besides disconecting the media card readers in front of the computer while installing Windows XP on the computer. Other programs such as Firefox install without a problem on the computer. Any suggestions to get the drivers installed? I tried doing it through the Device Manager, but Windows Update couldn't find drivers, and I don't know where the temporary location is that HP extracts the exe's containing the drivers files in so I can manually point the device manager to these files. This information might help me to fix the problem. Thanks!

I also am reformatting my flash drives and running a full AVG scan on the infected computer I tested on just to be safe

Thank you very much for all of you help. I figured out that if I run Combofix from a flash drive it fixes the problem. Even though the desktop won't come up, if you hit control+alt+delete, open a command prompt window, and than browse to combofix on the flash drive it will open and remove with virus without crippling windows. I really love Combofix, it's saved my butt multiple times. Here's an article on using it properly with download links: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix

Thanks for all of the help. I have scanned my personal computer and found a lot more malware than I thought I had, and am working on figuring out a non-destructive way to fix the other computers with this virus that still allows the icons to come up on the desktop. Any insight into why deleting the svchost.exe that is in the wrong location would cause the computer to stop functioning properly would be much appreciated, though. Perhaps when I get my hands on one of the computers that was having this issue, I'll see if the svchost was deleted from it's original location and moved? That's all I can think of, thanks!

Sounds good, I'll do that. What confuses me if that it's not supposed to be there than why do the icons not come up on the desktop after it is removed from that directory. can you do a stsrem restore to a point before you got this virus warning, That will rmove those files. If they come back after that, then the USB flash drive has the virus on it. What is strange is that I have not gotten this warning on my own computer, also running AVG Free 8.5. I have used one of the flash drives in my computer (I use two flash drives, one stays at home, one is on my keys) that came up with the virus warning on another computer (this computer running McAfee), but I guess that I have not ran anything from the flash drive on my computer, just had it in to add files to it. I am a little reluctant to run one of the files on my flash drive on my computer because I do not want to infect it if it's not already infected. Besides my personal computer, the other computers are back with their owners, but I could get them back to remove the virus if I need to. What I am trying to figure out if it is a really a virus, and how it replicates. Would it be possible for a virus to get installed on a computer from a flash drive just by inserting it in a computer, or does a program from it have to be run. The only programs that I ran from it on the other computers were Windows XP Service Pack 3 Network Install, AVG Free 8.5, Firefox, and Flash. It seems like if the virus had attached itself to any of these files that I'd get a warning saying that it was in these files, not in autorun.inf or system.exe, but yeah, doing a system restore would help determine if the virus is on the flash drive or not. I'm really confused, thanks for the help!

Sounds good, I'll do that. What confuses me if that it's not supposed to be there than why do the icons not come up on the desktop after it is removed from that directory.

I have been having some really strange issues lately. I fix malware issues on people's computers using various programs contained on a flash drive such as Combofix, Malwarebytes, and AVG Free. Recently when I plugged my flash drive into a computer with AVG Free installed, it told me that there was a virus on the flash drived in the "system.exe" file on the root of the drive. I went ahead and deleted the file, and later AVG came up and told me that a file called "autorun.inf" was infected. I also removed this file, but the next time that I plugged the flash drive into a computer and tried to click on it in My Computer, I got an error saying that it was inaccessible. I figured out that I could remedy this issue by going to "run" and entering the path of the drive, but I would rather be able to click on the drive inside of My Computer. Anyways, that is not the real issue. Commonly I reformat and reinstall Windows on computers in order to fix malware problems. I have reformatted three computers since I started having the flash drive issue, one using a university copy of XP, one using an OEM Dell copy of XP, and one using the built-in recovery partition (gateway). After I reformat computers, I always install SP3 from a flash drive to speed the update process. The installation of SP3 went fine, but when I installed AVG, it came up and told me that there was a virus in "svchost.exe" located in C:\program files\microsoft common. I did a little research and it looks like viruses can indeed be located in svchost.exe in this location, but I know that svchost.exe is an important system file. I went ahead and deleted it anyways, and the next time I restarted the computer, the desktop picture came up but there were no icons. The only way that I could get the desktop was manually browsing to system restore from the run menu that I got when I hit "ctrl+alt+del," but that of course restored the svchost.exe file. This time I added it to AVG's exception list, and the computer seemed to be working fine, except for a 15-30 second delay before the icons came up on the desktop (I assume AVG is finding the svchost.exe file during this time and processing the exception). I am stumped as to whether there is a virus on my flash drive automatically replicating itself on the computers that I insert in or not. It seems like if that was the case, removing it would not cause the flash drive to stop working properly. Also, I have never seen viruses like this before, does such a thing really exist? The last thing that I want to do is infect every computer that touches my flash drive as I use it heavily in many computers. What I am kind of thinking is that because I put my flash drive in so many infected computers that it obtained some kind of infection, but besides the AVG warnings, the computers that I have inserted it in do not seem to be acting strangely. I am happy to run virus scans and remove the viruses, but I obviously can't make the computer so that the desktop does not come up. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

It might be a virus, but I saw a computer that was having a problem like this because of a bug in HP Wireless Printer software. An update from the HP website fixed the problem. It was pretty obnoxious, considering I reformated the computer before realizing that the HP Printer Program was the culprit. It was also giving me an error about "Dr. Watson," believe, are you also getting this?

Thank you! The part came today and I applied the grease as you said. The computer works perfectly now, it's great!

With something like this, but some aftermarket coolers have them included. You're the best, I didn't even know something like that existed. I picked one up off of eBay for $8 shipped. I'm going to keep the old heatsink because I don't think there's any problem with it, just the retention bracket. One other question, I already wasted a half a tube of thermal grease putting the heatsink back on the processor and when I removed the heatsink now half of the grease is on the processor and half is on the heatsink. Should I clean the grease I put on the other day off with alcohol and reapply grease, or if I just set the heatsink back down on the processor once I install the new retention bracket will it be ok? Thanks!

In Outlook 2007, some emails that I receive are coming into both my junk folder and into my inbox. Also, some emails are coming into the inbox twice. It's strange, because it only happens some of the time, but always from the same senders. How can I stop this from happening? Thank you!

I`ve seen that many times before, but less with Dell. The clips need to push the heatsink down with force and with the stock Intel cooler the motherboard even bends.I would look for an aftermarket cooler, clip the green part to the back-ventilator off and connect the cooler with a 3 pin to Molex connector to the PSU as I don't recall that Dell uses any standard 3 pin headers for ventilators on the motherboard. Most heatsinks come with a new pad and thermal-paste, just clean the top of the CPU with thinner and then with alcohol to clean the grease/oil of the thinner off. Thank you very much for your reply. If the clips that hold the heatsink (not the green part that directs air to the back ventilator) is broken, though, how could an aftermarket cooler stay connected to the motherboard, though? Thanks again!

I was working on a Dell™ Dimension™ 2350 yesterday that would shut down after being on for a few minutes, than turn off almost immediately after it was turned on after that. I opened the computer up and noticed that the heatsink clips were off and that there was no thermal grease at all on the bottom of the heatsink. I applied some new grease and went to clip the heatsink back on, when I realized that there were only latches for the heatsink clips on one side of the processor area on the motherboard. I was stumped on how to get the heatsink on with only one set of latches, so I looked at the Dell support documentation and saw that there were indeed supposed to be two sets of latches (one on each side of the processor enclosure). I took a closer look at the computer and sure enough, it looks like the latches on one side of the enclosure are broken. Would there be any kind of replacement heatsink that I could install that wouldn't require these latches, or some other way to install the existing heatsink (I may even try duct tape if I get desperate)? Has anyone ever seen something like this before? I have no idea how they got broken, but that would explain why all of the old thermal grease burned off. Thank you!

Would it be likely that both sticks or ram or bad or that it needs two in to run? The ram stick says PC2-3200U Thanks!

I also tried taking out one of the sticks of ram (it had a total of 512mb ram in two sticks), and than taking out the other stick to see if bad ram was causing the problem but that didn't work either. In addition, I tried taking out both the graphics card and PCI modem. Are both sticks of ram bad or is the mobo shot? The strange thing is that when I take out both sticks of ram, the computer's fans stay spun up and it gives me a series of low-pitched beeps until I turn off the computer. Also, when the ram is in, the fan spins up for a second after I hit the power button. The computer is a Dell Dimension 5100 with a Pentium 4 Processor. Thanks!

I'm working on a Dell XPS 400 that used to have a raid set up to mirror the drives. The computer was having problems booting, and I thought that the raid was causing the problem, so I disabled the raid and reinstalled Windows using the disk that Dell provided. The new installation had the same problem at the last, and I determined that the problem was actually with the video card that I was using. Now I would like to get the RAID back but can't figure out how to. Before I could hit "ctrl+I" when selecting a boot device but that option is no longer available. The raid manager was Intel, and the computer has a VIIV processor and 2 SATA drives. Thanks!!!

I just replaced the heatsink/fan on my computer because I had replaced the original CPU with a dual-core (Athalon X2) and the old fan was running very loudly. I searched Newegg for a new heatsink/fan and ended up getting the ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler. Here is the Newegg page for the heatsink/fan: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835185125 It worked perfectly for most of the day, but when I went to watch a movie this evening, the computer had turned itself off. When I turned it back on, it came up with a message on the screen that said, "the CPU fan has failed and your computer will turn off in a few seconds to avoid damage to the CPU." Before the computer turned off, I took the case off of the side of the computer, and the fan was running (albeit slowly). When I installed the fan, it had a 4 pin plug, and the motherboard (an Asus inside of a Compaq computer), only has a 3 pin connector. There were guides on the connector that fit with the pins on the motherboard, but I had to leave the forth pin hold just hanging off of the side. I did some research and it turns out that the 4th pin is used to control fan speed. The old fan, however, did not always run at the same speed and only had 3 pins. Do I need to buy some kind of converter to use my new heatsink, or was what I experienced just a fluke? The computer is running right now, so I figure that it will be good for a least another 8 hours. Is it safe to leave it on? I was also thinking of keeping the new heatsink but putting the old fan on it. Do you think this would work? Thanks, and happy holidays!

When I am composing a new message inside of Windows Mail, when I start typing a contacts name the contact does not come up as it did in Outlook Express. How can I turn this feature on? My address book has lots of addresses in it, and I imported them from Outlook Express.

Problem: Computer doesn't start. It's not windows. I know this because ________ ?? Solution: **ck it. Buy a new one. Can't go wrong with that logic. You might want to check the fans, as well as the temperatures in BIOS before chucking it. When the CPU overheats or the CPU fan stops working, the system shuts down to avoid damage and a possible fire hazard. This would explain why its shutting down so quickly the second time. The CPU is already pre-heated and when you turn it on again, it shuts itself off quickly to avoid bursting into flames. If its not the CPU, check the North Bridge as well as your videocard since they can also overheat. Haha, I will check the fans next time I get the chance, thanks/.

I have already replaced the power supply and still am having the same problem. It will shut down after I log on, and then when I restart it, it will shut down after a few seconds. After the computer "cools down" a little, it will repeat the process. I don't think it's a problem with the Windows installation because the second time I turn it on it shuts down before it even gets to the BIOS screen. I don't think it's RAM because it starts period, so I guess it is the motherboard and I need a new computer, but I wanted to confirm my logic. Thanks!

Thanks! I went ahead and bought a single key on eBay for $6 and installed it myself. It took me about 10 minutes but was not that hard. Thanks!

I just plugged the PSU into a tester, and all the lights came on except the "-5v" light. The tester didn't beep, however. Does this mean that the PSU is bad?

The key broke off but I can't figure out where to get a new one. I looked around Dell's website, and when I tried to email them or chat with them to find the right place to buy a key, it wouldn't let me because the computer is out of warranty. Where would I go to get a new shift key?

I have tried using different video cards and I have also tried moving the ram to different slots (DDR2). One strange thing is that the computer also does not seem to be going through the normal boot process, as I can't hear it "thinking," and the lights on my PS/2 keyboard won't come on (although my PS/2 Optical Mouse does light up) When I turn it on, however, all of the lights and fans come on and the CD drive opens like usual. Any thoughts, or is the motherboard shot? Thanks!

Would I also be able to get drivers for wireless? Thanks for all the help!