General Problems

There is no display when I turn on my PC

It sounds as if the AGP card has become dislodged in transit. Surprisingly this is a fairly common occurrence with new PC's, or with systems that have been moved or received a knock. Open the system case and firmly push the AGP card into the AGP slot. Don't be afraid to push firmly! Be sure to leave the power cable plugged in at the wall but powered off at the socket in order to earth the chassis and prevent static damage from your hands. Touch the grey area of the chassis in order to discharge static to ground. After reseating the card turn on the system, it should boot normally in to Windows.


My printer does not communicate with my PC, or only prints garbled text

You may need to change the parallel port mode in the system BIOS to a setting more suitable for your printer. To access the BIOS tap the 'del' key from the moment you power on the system. Go to the integrated peripherals section and locate the entry for LPT mode, it may be set to bi-directional, try changing it to EPP, ECP or ECP/EPP. Save settings and exit, reboot and go into Windows. If a new port is not detected on loading go into the device manager and delete the parallel port entry, reboot and Windows should detect the change.

My PC seems to be excessively noisy, is there anything I can do about this?

Whilst perceptions of acceptable noise level are subjective and difficult to quantify we do find that people who have been used to a Pentium III system with only a CPU fan and a power supply fan often find a high performance Pentium IV or Athlon machine to be relatively noisy. Most consider the noise to be an acceptable trade off for the high performance. An Athlon system, for example, contains a CPU fan, a power supply fan, a case fan, a chipset fan on the motherboard and often a graphics card fan.

If the fans are working properly they should operate with a steady hum without changing pitch. If any one of the fans appears to be making a grinding noise then it has a dry bearing and needs to be replaced. Open the side of the case and listen carefully, if you think that any of the fans are faulty please contact our technical support department who will be happy to advise you.

My PC boots into the BIOS and reports an incorrect frequency setting, what can I do?

To prevent the PC from booting into the BIOS in future restart the PC, tap the 'del' key continuously to enter the BIOS, go to the chip configuration menu and set SDRAM configuration to user defined. Set the following three values (CAS latency) (RAS to CAS delay) (RAS precharge delay) to the lowest possible value, either 2.5 or 3T. Press F10 to save settings and exit.

One of my PCI cards is not detected by the system, what can I do?

Check that the card is listed in device manager (control panel>system>device manager). If the card is not present in the list then check for a category called ‘other devices’. If this is present and you have a device listed showing a yellow exclamation mark then you need to reinstall the drivers from the original CD. If there is no ‘other devices’ category then the card is not being detected by the PC. You will need to open the case and firmly push the relevant card back into the PCI slot. Be sure to leave the power cable plugged in at the wall but powered off at the socket in order to earth the chassis and prevent static damage from your hands. Touch the grey area of the chassis in order to discharge static to ground. After reseating the card reboot the system, Windows should detect the card and install the drivers.

How do I correct the time displayed by my PC?

Restart the PC, tap the 'del' key continuously to enter the BIOS and go to the main menu. Use the cursor keys to highlight the time and change the value by pressing the plus or minus keys or the page up and page down keys. Once you have changed the hours move on to the minutes. Once the time is set correctly press the F10 key to save settings and exit.

How do I change the BIOS boot order so that My PC will boot from a      CD ROM or a floppy disk?

1. Turn the PC on and immediately start tapping the DELETE or DEL key. Keep tapping this (approx 2/3 times a second will suffice) until a menu appears. This is the BIOS.
2. Use the LEFT/RIGHT arrow keys on the keyboard to move along the upper menu until you highlight BOOT. The boot device list will appear (There may be a pause before this list appears)

3. Use the UP/DOWN arrow keys to move the highlight so it is next to ATAPI CD-ROM or floppy disk
4. Press the + (Plus symbol) on the keypad (far right on keyboard) to move the ATAPI CD-ROM or floppy disk heading up the list. Do it again to move it to the top position.
5. Press F10 and then ENTER to save the change and exit the BIOS. The screen will go black and the system will reboot.

If you are trying to boot from a CD-ROM, have set the boot order correctly and still encounter problems this may be because you have two CD drives in your system. Try placing the disk in the other drive and try again. Note that the system will not automatically boot from the CD, a message will appear onscreen asking you to ‘press any key to boot from CD’, if you do nothing then the system will boot normally.

My screen is flickering, how can I remedy this?

To prevent the screen from flickering you will need to adjust the refresh rate. To do so go to control panel>display>settings>advanced>monitor and set the refresh rate to 75 or 85hz. If this fails to remove the flicker make sure that there are no sources of interference nearby. These can include power supply units, speakers, television sets, mains sockets, fridges, microwave ovens and mobile phones.

My Windows product code is not being accepted, what can I do?

First of all check that you have read the code correctly. The font can sometimes be unclear; it is often a good idea to get some one else to verify and read out the code whilst you type it in. If the code is still not being accepted check that the version of Windows named on the product code sticker is the same as that installed on your PC. Windows XP Home codes will not work with Windows XP Professional, and Windows Me codes will not wok with either version of XP. If you think that you have been supplied the wrong product code for your version of windows please contact our customer services department, they will be happy to assist you.

I am trying to enter the product ID code and some of the keys on my keyboard do not work

Keys that do not feature as part of the product ID code are disabled on the product ID screen. Check the code again carefully to be sure that you are trying to enter the correct letters or numbers.

What is the actual clock speed of my AMD Athlon XP CPU?

The actual clock speeds of the AMD Athlon XP series CPU's are listed below:

The AMD Athlon XP processor 2800+ operates at a frequency of   2.25GHz or   166x13.5
The AMD Athlon XP processor 2700+ operates at a frequency of   2.16GHz or   166X13
The AMD Athlon XP processor 2600+ operates at a frequency of   2.13GHz or   133x114.5
The AMD Athlon XP processor 2400+ operates at a frequency of   2.00GHz or   133X14
The AMD Athlon XP processor 2200+ operates at a frequency of   1.80GHz or   133x13.5
The AMD Athlon XP processor 2100+ operates at a frequency of   1.73GHz or   133X13
The AMD Athlon XP processor 2000+ operates at a frequency of   1.67GHz or   133x12.5
The AMD Athlon XP processor 1900+ operates at a frequency of   1.60GHz or   133X12
The AMD Athlon XP processor 1800+ operates at a frequency of   1.53GHz or   133x11.5
The AMD Athlon XP processor 1700+ operates at a frequency of   1.47GHz or   133x11
The AMD Athlon XP processor 1600+ operates at a frequency of   1.40GHz or   133x10.5
The AMD Athlon XP processor 1500+ operates at a frequency of   1.33GHz or   133x10

BACK TO TOP OF PAGE

Multimedia

Why do I not get sound from my centre speaker?

The centre speaker is only used for dialogue when Dolby 5.1 source is being played, for example a DVD or a game soundtrack that supports 5.1 channels.

If you have a Creative Audigy or SoundBlaster live open the creative launcher (move the mouse to the top of screen, it will appear) and choose 'I want to watch a movie' from the 'I want to . . . ‘ menu.

This will switch the card into 5.1 mode, however you will still need to switch your DVD player software to output 5.1 in the options menu. Also be sure to select a 5 speaker mode in control panel > audio hq > speakers.

You can force the centre speaker to work with a stereo source by enabling CMSS in the creative playcentre, however this is not a true surround sound mode.

If you have onboard 5.1 or 6.1 channel sound then double click the C-Media icon in the task bar to open the mixer, click the advanced icon and select the required number of speakers from the ‘speakers’ tab.

My speakers are only producing sound from one speaker?

Are you sure that you have connected the speakers correctly. The speaker unit that features the volume controls should connect directly to the green jack socket on the rear of the PC. The remaining speaker should connect to the first speaker, not to the PC itself.

Why do the headphone sockets on the front of my DVD ROM and CD RW drives not work?

Your PC features a digital sound system. As supplied the analogue outputs on the CD drives, including the headphone sockets are disabled. If you wish to use headphones we recommend you plug them into the green 3.5 mm jack socket on the rear of the PC. This will involve unplugging your main speakers.

If you wish to enable the headphone sockets you can switch CD playback to analogue mode using the following procedure:

Click on start>settings>control panel>system>device manager> and click on the plus sign next to CD ROM/DVD drives. Double

click each device in turn to open the properties tab remove the tick from the digital out box. Restart the PC and try the headphones.

You may also need to do the following:

Open Windows Media Player, go to the tools menu>options>devices>drives and disable digital playback for both drives.

I am not able to record from the microphone input on the rear of my PC

In order to use the microphone input you need to select the microphone as the active recording device in the Windows mixer. Go to start>all programs>accessories>entertainment and open the volume control. Go to the options menu>properties and choose to show the recording controls. Return to the main mixer view and make sure that the box (or circle) under the mic slider is selected. Turn the slider up full. If the mic level is still low go to properties>advanced controls and enable the mic boost.

If your are using the onboard C-Media sound chip then you may also need to open the C-Media mixer and disable six speaker mode. Six speaker mode changes the function of the mic socket to a line out for the centre speaker and subwoofer and if it is enabled you will not be able to record.

BACK TO TOP OF PAGE

Hardware

What are all these connections for on the back of my PC?

How do I use the TV-Out features of my PC?

If your PC features an Nvidia graphics card use the following procedure to connect your PC to your television set.

(1) Locate the TV-Out adaptor supplied with your PC. This may be one or both of the following: a) A short 4 pin male S-Video to female phono adapter b) A long male-to-male phono cable.
2) Connect one end of the TV-Out cable to the S-Video output socket in your Nvidia graphics card and using an extension cable if necessary connect the other end to your TV.
If your TV features an S-Video input you can connect directly to this, if your TV only features a composite (yellow phono plug) input you will need to use the S-Video to composite adapter supplied with the system. If your TV only features a SCART socket then you will need to purchase an additional S-Video or Phono to scart adapter.
3) Once the connections have been made you will need to activate the TV out functionality of the drivers. Go to control panel>display>settings>advanced. Select the device selection tab and select the TV option. If the TV option is greyed out, check that the TV is connected correctly, if this does not help then download the latest drivers for your card from http://www.nvidia.com.
Change the Format to United Kingdom - Pal I and leave the video output format - Auto select.
4) Set your TV to the correct input. This will be AV1, AV2 or AV3, depending on which socket you used to connect the TV-Out cable. You should now be able to view the windows desktop on the TV.
5)- If you wish to hear the PC sounds through the TV speakers you will need to purchase an additional audio cable. In most cases a stereo mini jack to left and right phono cable should suffice. Connect the mini jack to the green socket on your sound card and connect the white phono plug to left audio input on the TV or scart converter (if used) and red phono plug to right audio input.

If you experience Black and white picture on TV change the active input to either to AV1, AV2, or AV3.

If your PC features an ATI graphics card connect the cables as described above.

To enable TV display in the drivers go to control panel>display>settings>advanced and click the ‘display’ tab. Click the red button next to the ‘TV’ display icon to enable TV-Out. Be sure to set the output mode to UK or PAL-I.

Once TV-Out is enabled you monitor may turn off or change to display a very flickery image. This is normal, your TV will only display images at 50 or 60hz and the monitor has to use the same frequency when TV-Out is enabled. We recommend you turn off the monitor whilst using TV-Out to protect the screen (and your eyesight).

How do I connect two or more of my PC's via a network?

To set up a basic peer to peer network (without a server) use the following procedure:

1) Make sure that the PC's are both fitted with network cards and are connected together using a crossover cable or a hub.
2) Go to control panel>network and check that the following protocols are installed on each machine: TCP-IP, client for Microsoft networks and file and printer sharing.
2) You will need to share at least one drive or directory on each machine. Right click the drive or folder, choose 'sharing' and enable sharing for the drive.
3) Go to control panel>network>TCP-IP and check that you have assigned a valid IP address to each PC, i.e. 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2
4) Check that both machines are using the same subnet mask, 255.255.255.0
5) Each PC must use the same work group name.
6) Each PC must have a unique computer name within the work group.
7) Check that you have created a user account on both PC's using the same user name and password, OR that the guest account on the XP machine is enabled (control panel>users).
After changing all these settings reboot the PC's and on restart they should be able to see each other on the network.

I have opened My PC, How can I determine where the individual components are?

BACK TO TOP OF PAGE

internet

I get a 'No Dial Tone' error when I try to use my Modem

Make sure you have correctly connected the Modem to your phone line.

Make sure that the phone cable is plugged into the 'line' socket on the modem and not the phone socket.

How can I prevent the modem from making a screeching noise on dial out?

The following AT commands can be entered in HyperTerminal to quieten the modem:
ATM0       mute speaker
AT&F1     reset modem
Alternatively you can set these commands to operate permanently by going to control panel>phone and modem settings>modem>double click your modem in the list>advanced and enter the commands in the 'extra initialisation commands box'.