Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by Charsiupao

Persistent BSOD when connected

Charsiupao — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 20:27:58 +0800

My current PC is a few years old as follows:-

Processor Intel Core™ i3-7100 @ 3.90GHz
8Gb RAM
Windows 10 Home 19041.746

It used to work okay, if REALLY sluggish, and I suspected that it was infested with all kinds of processes in the background because my whole family used it, so after we moved house and set it up, I decided to stop ignoring Malwarebytes' messages and upgrade to premium to really try and scan the whole thing inside out. Something went wrong, and the PC started getting BSODs regularly. Sometimes immediately upon logging in, sometimes after a few minutes, and the BSOD messages ranged from "driver irql_less_or_not_equal" to "bad_pool_caller" and "tcpip,sys failed". There were one or two more, but I can't recall them.

I tried booting in safe mode and scanning the PC using Malwarebytes Premium and Bitdefender Free, and both returned a few infected files which were duly quarantined, but rebooting into normal Windows 10 resulted in crashes again. I thought Malwarebytes may be the problem and uninstalled it, but the problems persisted, so I reinstalled it. Searching forums everywhere, I found people saying that network drivers needed to be updated, but upon checking, they were all latest version. I disabled the wifi driver (D-Link DWA-548 Wireless N PCIe Desktop Adapter) and somehow the BSODs stopped completely. Unfortunately, operating without wifi is not really an option, and so I tried deleting the driver and letting Windows reinstall it, but it still crashed. I downloaded the latest driver manually from D-link's website and it still crashed. I then left the driver installed, but turned off the wifi, upon which time it didn't crash. I tried leaving the wifi on, but not letting the PC connect to any available wifi network, and it still doesn't crash. So it feels like the problem isn't the driver, but the actual connecting to the the internet, almost as if some thin malware is getting instruction from hq to BSOD my pc or something.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can go about fixing this, or even how I can try to narrow down the root of the problem even further? I tried running Malwarebytes and Bitdefender Free on the normal Windows without wifi, but both scan excruciatingly slowly when not connected, and I'm not sure if they'll even find anything they couldn't find while scanning in safe mode. The one thing I'm hoping to avoid having to do is connecting the PC to the internet via LAN cable and bypassing the wifi, as I don't have a LAN cable with me, and the router is in the next room .....

Thank you so much for any advice anyone can give!

Cannot log into Thunderbird

Charsiupao — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 22:10:14 +0800

About a month ago my Thunderbird refused to log into my Yahoo account, responding with the following messages:-

"Sending of password did not succeed. Mail server localhost responded: negative vibes from XXXX"

"Login to server localhost failed. Retry/Enter New Password/Cancel"

If I press Enter:-

"Mail server localhost responded: thats cool"

This used to happen many years ago when either Thunderbird or Yahoo upgraded, and the webmail extension then needed a few days to take into account the changes. It's been around a month, now, though. I haven't changed my password, I can log into my webmail using a browser without problems, and there are no modes in the Yahoo webmail page (there was once when we had to revert to classic Yahoo to get Thunderbird to work). I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong - does anyone else have the same problem, or have any ideas?

I'm currently using Thunderbird 17.0.7 and the following Extensions:-

Test Pilot for Thunderbird 1.3.9
Webmail 1.5.1
Webmail - Yahoo 1.5.7

As far as I can see all three are up to date as Thunderbird cannot detect any updates for them.

Thanks

Pao

Thunderbird problems

Charsiupao — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:50:52 +0800

I'm having problems composing emails in Thunderbird over the last week or two. When I type a paragraph and hit enter to leave a blank line between paragraphs, it looks fine when I type it, but after it's sent the email (regardless of what client you use to read it) doesn't display the blank line at the recepient end, making it look like a wall of text. It only seems to delete one line, though, so if I leave two lines between paragraphs it seems to work with a blank line between paras (and if I leave 3 it will display 2), but I'd like to fix this if possible. Does anyone have any idea what setting may have went awry and caused this?

Thanks

EDIT ----

Ook, I also have a second issue. Some emails come into my inbox with blank headers and subjects, although the main text is readable in the middle of all kinds of formatting messages such as:

-quote-

This is a multi-part message in MIME format built by the Yahoo extension.

--null
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
</head>

-unquote-

Is there some add-on I need to download? I can't even reply to this type of email as the sender's name is not there, although if I view it using Yahoo webmail everything works fine.

File/directory is unreadable or corrupted

Charsiupao — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:36:02 +0800

Last night I was burning some DVDs to my 1TB F: Hard disk (using Tipard DVD Ripper), and I clicked on the burner's output directory to see how big the file was, and I couldn't access it. I got an error which said that the File/Directory is unreadable/corrupted. I stopped the burner, and did a scan via the Windows XP drive properties tab. Nothing happened, so I rebooted and then CHKDSK started running. After a lot of error messages where it started clearing out bad sectors here and there, the PC started up fine. I clicked on the directory, and it was a bit strange, in that only about half the files were displayed, but when I deleted one another one would pop up - meaning the files were there, but only some were displayed. I moved the files out and tried to delete the directory, but there was one corrupted file in there which wouldn't delete. I tried deleting it or the directory, but neither worked (file/directory is unreadable or corrupted), and so I ran chkdsk again, and rebooted, and again chkdsk picked up a lot of errors, and after booting up F: shows up under Windows Explorer, but I can't access the whole drive anymore - same message (file/directory is unreadable or corrupted). Sometimes it claims it's not formatted, but usually it says unreadable or corrupted.

Is there anything wrong with the FAT or something? If I go to the CMD and type chkdsk f: it gives me the same error "unreadable or corrupted". I know that directory where it all started going wrong had a LOT of data in it (Ripped DVD episodes for handphone and Pad storage - probably way over 30Gb or so of videos) so not sure if that's what caused the crash. My other physical drive - partitioned into C: and D: - is perfectly fine.

Worse case scenario I'll have to reformat the drive (and this time partition it into smaller chunks so the whole thing doesn't die at once) but I'd like to recover quite a bit of photos and stuff from in there before I do that. Hopefully I won't have to reformat, but my gut feeling is even if I can get the FATs working properly again the safest way would probably be to reformat anyway.

Appreciate any help you guys can give, thanks!

English teacher @ Pusat Bahasa

Charsiupao — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:54:08 +0800

I've recently been offered a position at a Pusat Bahasa to teach English. I have no experience in this other than a few in-house classes for my colleagues while in my old job, and I have no teaching qualifications. Apparently, according to the Education Ministry, the only qualification you need to teach in a Pusat Bahasa is SPM, and so while I'm a bit shocked I do qualify, I guess.

Without going too much into my old salary and why I'm considering starting a new type of career, would RM2500 per month be a bit high for a teacher with no experience in education, but who has experience in language-related things like industry analysis, copywriting and investment banking? I'm already 40 but don't mind trying something new. What sort of salary would a fresh-grad be looking for, compared to that of a retired schoolteacher (so that I can place myself somewhere in-between, I guess)?

Do Pusat Bahasas normally pay full-time or part-time salaries, or do they pay on commission basis - like I get a cut of each student's fees? While that would leave my remuneration dependent on the centre's marketing ability, at least I know I won't be overworked (or underworked).

Thanks for any advice.

Wireless Adapter not detected upon startup

Charsiupao — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:05:40 +0800

Hi all

I just got a Wireless Adapter (ASUS USB-N10) for my new PC (running 64-bit Win 7) and it works fine. The problem is when I start the PC, it fails to detect the device at all. I need to unplug the device and replug it in in order for it to recognise it as a Wireless Adapter, search for the lines and connect. How do I configure it so that it is detected when I boot up? The driver is up to date (according to the Device Manager anyway - says it's the best driver available).

I plugged it into a USB port which was blue rather than black - is there a difference? The keyboard and mouse are using the black ones and the only free ones I had were blue.

Thanks

Yellow tint

Charsiupao — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:54:14 +0800

Hi all

I sent my iPad for cleaning today at iMalaysian in Times Square, because I had a dead ant stuck under the screen, and there was no way I could open the screen to remove it manually. The ant had also started decomposing and breaking up, and was quite disgusting to see right in the centre of the screen, so after a couple of trips to Apple Stores in KLCC and Gardens, they recommended (since the tech support people there claimed they couldn't open the screen either) iMalaysian. The service was pretty good, and within a couple of hours I got my iPad back and the dead ant was gone. The technicians there didn't have very clean hands, so there was grease all over the iPad and the cover smelt of cigarette smoke, so I took it home and gave it a good wipedown, and then I noticed that the screen was no longer a clear blueish-white as it used to be, and had turned to a slightly dull yellow tint. Google checks showed that some iPads were blueish white, while others were dull yellow, and the blueish white was usually the more desired one (it was certainly better-looking before). Some forums mentioned that the yellow tint can be caused by cleaning agents after the iPad's been cleaned with the chemicals, and will slowly fade away over a month as it evaporates fully.

I'm hoping it's the cleaning agent, but is there a possibility that something was switched in the iPad during service, like a good blue screen was taken away and replaced with a dull yellow screen? It's the same iPad with the same serial number and all the apps are in there etc.. I'm just worried that either something bad happened during servicing which made it yellow, or someone in there decided to cannibalise a desirable part and replace it with a less-desirable part - is that even possible? If the screen quality is tied down to the entire iPad and not changeable through swapping out something removable then I'll be much more relieved.

I couldn't tell the colour difference (just checked for the removed ant) when I collected the iPad. I thought the dullness was due to the greasy fingers of the technicians and that it would clear up after wiping it down.

Thanks all!

Where is a good place to service iPad

Charsiupao — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:18:30 +0800

Does anyone know of any good places where I can get my iPad cleaned? My son used the iPad and after that a lot of ants attacked it. I cleaned off all the ants, but one managed to crawl under the screen and now died in the middle of the screen, underneath so I can't wipe it off. I took it to Apple service centre and they said they don't do that, and told me to bring it to a PDA phone service centre who will know how to open the screen and clean it (I have no warranty anyway so it won't void anything).

Any particular shop in Low Yat would be good for this? Thanks.

DVDRW Suddenly stopped working

Charsiupao — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 04:14:11 +0800

I have an ASUS DRW-1814BLT DVD player which was working perfectly well until this evening.

This evening I opened up my PC, and wanted to install a new SATA HD. I opened the PC casing, used one of those camera blowers to blow away the dust (there was so much!!), plugged in the SATA cable to the MB (P5N-E SLI - it had two ports used, and two free) and the other end to the new drive, screwed it in, then turned on the PC. After trying unsuccessfully to get the PC to recognise the new drive, I realised I forgot to plug in the power cable , and since I had no power cable extension (the point near the Power Supply will never reach the HD bay) I unscrewed the HD out, removed the SATA cable and closed my PC, waiting to go to LY tomorrow to get a SATA drive power cable.

After doing all that, my DVD drive no longer works. It still has the access light when I boot, and it still shows under Windows Explorer as Drive E: while the Device Manager shows the drive still installed. When I eject it (both using applications and the physical button) it tries to eject (you can hear it go HKKK as if starting to eject but got blocked) but can't. If I pull the tray out manually and press Eject again it makes a little spasm as if trying to close, but not being able to. If I manually close the drive with a CD in it the drive refuses to read the CD even if closed. It's like it's there, it has power, the PC can see it, but the tray is just physically stuck. Could it be dust particles which went in when I was blowing, or maybe I disturbed the SATA connection between the MB and the DVD drive while failing to install my new HD, or is it just time to get a new DVD drive? It was working perfectly before I opened the PC.

I tried uninstalling the driver and rebooting but it still has the same problem. any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

[addedon]March 29, 2011, 4:29 am[/addedon]
EDIT

Sorry - I sorted it out. It was the SATA connection loose or something, I think. I re-pressed the SATA wire connection, moved the cable around a bit and now it works.. sorry for the post!

Satio not detected in PC Suite mode

Charsiupao — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:25:13 +0800

I got a new Satio yesterday, and was trying to import my contacts and old SMSes from the old P910i. It probably won't work, but I need to connect to the SE PC Suite and import the data from the synched P910i backup data in Outlook. My phone connects to the PC under Mass Storage mode perfectly, but when I try to connect in PC Suite mode it refuses to detect the phone. Windows pops up asking where it should look for U1 drivers, while the SE PC Suite says that Windows has found a phone, and is now installing drivers for it. After a few hours it's still at the same place, and then I have to cancel it.

I've used the SE Update service to reinstall my phone software (even though I was already using the latest, just in case), I've checked that the PC Suite I'm using is the most current. The cable works fine because the Mass Storage connection works - but it just refuses to connect in PC Suite mode for the phone management. The online Sync thing doesn't work (my P910i never gets the SMS it's supposed to get from SonyEricsson) and so I'm kind of stuck, and reluctant to manually copy each contact manually. Even if I was willing, I can't find the contacts in the P910i's SD Produo card nor on the phone memory. I checked out Myphoneexplorer, but it specifically mentions that it doesn't support P910i...

Does anyone know how I can get the phone to connect to the SE PC Suite properly, or failing that, know of any method to sync the two phones so I can transfer all my contacts and SMSes from the old phone to the new? Thanks for any ideas!

Synchronising SE P910i and Satio

Charsiupao — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:07:40 +0800

Does anyone know the easiest way to transfer all my contacts and SMSes from my old P910i to my new Satio? Both phones use different versions of the Sony Ericsson PC Suite, and I can't install both on the same PC. I've synched the contacts into Outlook on an old PC which had the P910i Suite on it.. can I transfer the file over to the newer PC which has the Suite for the Satio?

MyPhoneExplorer doesn't support P910i, so I have to use the PC Suite. The online sync on the sE website doesn't work for me (the P910i never receives the SMS it's supposed to).

Thanks for any help!

Pao

Monitor sound

Charsiupao — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:37:12 +0800

Hi all

I have a Samsung Syncmaster 2253BW, and it works really well. However, sometimes when I run games which change the resolution of the screen (I run at 1680x1050, but some applications don't support it and have to set to 1280x1024 or something like that) the monitor displays everything perfectly, but has this sound similar to a kettle whistling.. or maybe an old dial-up modem's static hiss. Not sure how to describe it, but it's this audible airy sound. It comes from the monitor, not from the sound card or speakers, so I'm wondering if anyone else has this problem, if it can be stopped, and if it will damage the monitor if I keep it like that. I kind of solve the issue by turning the speakers on louder so the whistling is drowned out, but it would be nice if I could just make the monitor silent.

Thanks

Pao

Why does my PC switch off?

Charsiupao — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:30:19 +0800

Hi all

For the last few weeks, I noticed that my PC sometimes switches itself off for no reason. It doesn't shut down or anything, but just loses power and everything shuts down. When I turn it on again, XP boots up fine, with no message regarding not switching off properly etc. I don't hear any beeps or any warning whatsoever, it just goes ... OOooooooouuuu.... (the fan slowing down and stopping) and the monitor goes black. Is it likely to be a failsafe heat issue?

Thunderbird Webmail

Charsiupao — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:32:36 +0800

Hi, all

I started using Thunderbird again today after a break of a few months (used Yahoo's own webmail) and I saw that Thunderbird 2 (which I updated to) no longer supports YPOPS!. I then downloaded the webmail add-ons and configured everything as per the instructions. Every time I try to log on my mail account, I get this error:-

Sending the password did not succeed. Mail server localhost responded: negative vibes from xxxxx@yahoo.com.

A look at the error console shows:-

YahooPOPClassic.js: loginHandler : Exception : Error.
Error message: error logging in
271

Does anyone know how to fix this? I'm using Thunderbird v2.0.0.17, my Webmail add-on is v1.3.2, and Webmail-Yahoo is v1.3.4. I've checked that the password I key in is correct.

Thanks for any help!

Pao

Using KVM Switch

Charsiupao — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:06:52 +0800

Hi, guys

I'm running two PCs linked by KVM switch, connected to a Samsung Syncmaster2253bw monitor. The two PCs are a 3.0Ghz, 2GB RAM, P5N-E SLI with a GeForce 8800gtx, and the other is the old AGP machine, 2.0Ghz, 1GB RAM, NF-7 with a Radeon X1600. Both PCs and graphic cards support the recommended reso for the Syncmaster, 1680x1050 widescreen.

My problem is this. When I turn on a PC, it boots fine, and then automatically adjusts the screen reso when Windows loads up and everything is perfect. The problem arises when I turn on a second machine while working on the first machine (i.e. using machine 1 on the KVM, then turning on machine 2 while selecting machine 1 using the KVM). If I switch to the second machine and watch it boot up, it's fine. If I don't, and only switch over once it has booted up and loaded windows, I find that although it has loaded 1680x1050, the screen has not been fit to my monitor, and I can use the mouse to scroll the desktop when I push it to the edges. It's like the resolution is 1680x1050, but the monitor is running at a lower reso, so it won't all fit on one screen. This happens when the AGP machine boots in the background. When the PCI-E machine boots in the background, it defaults to 1280x1024 reso, but I can easily manually set that to 1680x1050 using the desktop settings, and everything works fine.

Is there any way to manually adjust the screen so that it fits once it's gone beyond the borders of the monitor? I tried pressing the Auto-Adjustment button but that only seems to adjust clarity, not resolution. It would be great if I could boot up my second PC while working on my first, without having to switch screen and watch it boot up.

Thanks!

Pao

Extracting video clips from VCDs

Charsiupao — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:09:10 +0800

Hi all

I love Chinese wuxia serials, and something I like to do is to take my favourite scenes and use Windows Movie Maker to cut the short clip out and save it as a wmv file so I can view my favourite wuxia clips without having load my VCDs into my pc.

Some VCDs, however, have dual language options, and the left speaker is in Cantonese while the right speaker is in Mandarin. When extracting the clip, how do I eliminate one of the voices so that my clip will be either pure Mandarin or Cantonese?

Thanks!

Formatted Drive recovery

Charsiupao — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:04:41 +0800

I feel like such an idiot. Today my pc stopped working because of some jgogo.sys driver thing, and I couldn't access my pc at all, not even through safe mode. Some people on some sites I googled up mentioned that a fresh install of Windows helped, so I went home and did it. I thought you could reinstall Windows without deleting everything on your HD. Maybe you can, but I obviously did something wrong, and reformatted my entire drive C:...

Is there anywhere I can bring my HD for data recovery? Somewhere reliable as I don't trust myself to recover the stuff anymore. Any shops in Low Yat which can do that for me? It's a 300Gb SATA disk, so would I need to get another 300Gb disk for them to put the recovered data in, or do the shops sell harddrives as well?

For the first time in a long time I really feel like crying... even if I do manage to recover the important data such as my Thunderbird, My Documents and Opera directories, it's going to be a long time before I get all my apps up and running again..

Desktop Icons

Charsiupao — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 03:03:03 +0800

Hi all

Over the past 3 days or so, my desktop icons have started to annoy me. Ever so often, they would rearrange themselves so that Icons I'm used to being somewhere end up someplace else. It's not like I've got them all arranged in some fancy layout - it's all aligned to the left anyway. When they change, it's all aligned to the left as well, but the order has changed - it's almost alphabetical but not quite.

The only programs I installed over the past few days are a couple of BigFishGames ("And then there were none" and "Pirateville") and Daggerfall. I also set up a few DOSBOX shortcuts for Daggerfall and Arena, but those games are so old (designed for DOS) that they're hardly going to affect anything on the Win XP OS. I've also never had problems with all other BigFishGames either.

AVG doesn't mention anything about a virus, so I'm assuming I'm clean. Is there anything obvious which is causing the desktop to rearrange the icons ever so often?

Thanks

Pao

Installing Chinese for specific programs only

Charsiupao — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:18:11 +0800

I've been playing Chinese games for a few years now, and in all cases I needed to install Chinese (Traditional) for displaying of non-Unicode text. The problem is when I do this, I find that Firefox, IE, OWA, even those little pop-up messages all come in Chinese. My Chinese is good enough for gaming, but not really good enough to read all the technical stuff, so I have to guess a lot when reading menus. I end up using my notebook (which has no Chinese language installed) for browsing and checking email, and using my desktop for Chinese games.

How do I configure it so that only Chinese applications display in Chinese, and everything else which has English options display in English?

Changing modem - is it faulty?

Charsiupao — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:17:41 +0800

Broadband provider
ISP/package: Streamyx 88pm
Location: Taman Desa KL
Have you called your ISP's helpline?: Yes, but they advised me to continue checking my configuration

Personal equipment
Modem: Aztech DSL600EU
Router: Linksys Wireless B
Firewall used:

Problem details
First occurence of problem:
Problem frequency:
Problem description:

I posted this on the pinned self-help thread up there by mistake, sorry...

3 years ago I set up my wireless connection at home, using an Aztech modem and a Linksys router/AP. I configured the router/AP to use the modem to dial Streamyx using PPPoE and establish a connection, after which the router/AP would broadcast the signal for my PCs to use.

A few weeks back my Aztech modem started to go senile (after 3 years I'm told it's normal). It has incredible difficulty picking up a DSL signal when I turn it on, and after Streamyx very kindly sent a technician to my home to test my phone line he found out that it was my modem problem as the modem he brought with him picked it up with no problems (paiseh). I then bought a new Aztech modem.

I plug the Aztech modem into the phone line, and sure enough, the DSL indicator lights up after a few seconds. I plug in my router/AP to dial in and the Ethernet indicator lights up as well, showing that everything is working well. However, when I try to use my PC, it says that I have the wireless signal but no internet connection - even though the modem shows the Ethernet indicator on.

Is there something I need to configure? All my settings in the router/AP have not changed, including the DNS settings (and when I plug in my old modem - which still works sometimes as it can detect a DSL line one time out of maybe a 100 times I turn it on, I just don't have the patience to spend hours turning it on/off/on/off/ad infinitum - the signal works fine and I can use the net). Do I have a faulty new Aztech modem, or do I need to configure something on the new modem side to make the connection work? I don't remember ever installing anything for my old modem nor configuring any setting for the modem - they were all at the router level.

Thanks!

Pao