Narayana's Computer Tips & Tricks

Update on Acer AL1711 Backlight flashing

2010-04-24T18:24:00.001-05:00

I posted a few months ago about a flickering and flashing backlight on my Acer AL1711. When I’d turn it on, it would briefly flash on for about half a second, but then go dark. I fixed that problem by turning down the brightness to the minimum setting (without the help of the backlight, which is quite a task, see bottom of this post for detailed instructions).

However, the problem continued to the point where the monitor wouldn’t stay on even at minimum brightness. Here are two alternative solutions if you’re not ready to part with your monitor:

1) With your computer on, turn on the monitor. The backlight will flash off, but leave the monitor on, i.e. with the LED indicator green, for about 5-10m. This warms up the components. Then turn it off and turn it right back on, and the backlight should stay on.

2) Buy a new Power/Inverter board for your monitor. I found one on eBay for $9 including shipping. It took about 10 minutes to install, and now the monitor seems to work fine.

Please leave a comment if this helps you out!

Here is the sequence to reduce brightness if the backlight doesn’t work: hit “Menu” button once, wait 2 seconds, “Menu” button again to select “Brightness/Contrast”, “Right Arrow” to select “Brightness”, “Menu” to enable the Brightness selection, then hold “Left Arrow” for 5-10 seconds to lower brightness to 0, “Auto” x 3

Photoshop Elements 3.0 “Initializing Threads” Crash Error on Startup

2010-02-18T00:51:00.001-06:00

A client had a problem loading her Photoshop Elements 3.0 software. When it reached the “initializing threads” phase of the loading process, the following error popped up, and Photoshop Elements crashed:

Error Code: c0000096, Address: 49e7629

Using Process Monitor to view what was loading at the time of the crash, I was able to isolate the perpetrator, which were Quicktime components. I am unsure why Photoshop Elements needed to load Quicktime libraries to work, but every time it attempted to do so, it crashed.

Specifically, the files were found in the C:\Program Files\QTSystem folder. I renamed this folder to “QTSystem1”, and now when Elements loads, it bypasses this folder which was causing the glitch, and loads right up. I don’t know if this will reduce the program’s functionality, but my client hasn’t complained.

Please leave a comment if this helps solve your problem!

Enabling Full S3 Standby Mode

2010-02-18T00:45:00.001-06:00

If you were disappointed to find out that when you put your computer into standby mode, the fans are still running, you may be able to solve this problem by following some of the suggestions at this link:

http://www.exoid.com/?page_id=47

I was able to help a client solve his standby issue. He had upgraded to a USB mouse (his old mouse used a PS/2 connector). By using the registry override, Windows XP re-enabled the S3 standby mode, and his computer went into full sleep mode.

Excellent Repair Reference for Lenovo Laptops!

2010-02-18T00:30:00.001-06:00

I was doing some hardware work on a Lenovo laptop, and found these excellent servicing videos created by Lenovo. They show you step-by-step how to disassemble and reassemble any of their laptops!

http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/

How to Recover the Menu in the Windows Task Manager

2010-02-18T00:27:00.001-06:00

You may have stumbled across a curious problem with the Windows Task manager where the menu and options disappear, leaving you with the feeling that a virus has hijacked your computer:

There is no problem with your computer, however. You must simply double-click in the thick white border area just within the edge of the window, and the menus will be restored!

Quickbooks 2008 Accountant Edition QBW Failure!

2010-02-18T00:20:00.001-06:00

I was using Quickbooks 2008 Premier Accountant Edition when my computer had an error and I was forced to reboot without closing any programs. To my dismay, after I restarted the computer, Quickbooks crashed every time I attempted to open it. I.e., before it even got to the screen where I can enter my company password, it would lock up and generate a crash report.

I decided to check if my company’s QBW file was intact, but every time I would open the folder where it was located, Windows Explorer crashed.

I found this link on the Intuit Support forums which gave me some good advice. Following the instructions there, I was able to load Quickbooks and select a company to load, but when I selected my QBW file, the program crashed once again.

By chance, I happened to move the two temporary files mentioned in the link (MyCompany.QBW.ND and MyCompany.QBW.TLG) to the Desktop, as well as the main QBW file. Then I reopened Quickbooks, loaded the company QBW file from the Desktop and it miraculously opened up as good as new!

Once I had this file opened, I immediately saved a backup copy (QBB). Then, I emptied the folder where I initially stored the QBW file. I closed and reloaded Quickbooks, and chose to restore a company from a backup file. I selected the QBB file, restored the company QBW file to my original folder, and then it worked fine as before.

Needless to say, I now backup my QBW file whenever Quickbooks tells me to (every 4 days or so), but I was lucky not to lose any data this time!

I hope this helps you; please leave a comment if it does!

Script Error 54 in Outlook Express, Services.msc

2010-02-18T00:09:00.001-06:00

A client recently had a very strange error that occurred when she opened Outlook Express. When OE opened, it begin by generating an Internet Explorer Script Error with code 54, and the welcome screen would not load (only the folder list on the left):

I was able to bypass the error message by clicking “yes” in the prompt, and everything seemed fine. However, I was unable to see the home screen, and when I tried to compose a message, I could not enter any text in the message window.

Similarly, when I tried to load services.msc to check which services were running, the same Script Error 54 came up when I clicked on each service. I began to realize that the error was related to generating dynamic content in Windows, because the description of each service would not display.

By chance, I tracked the problem down to the jscript.dll file in C:\Windows\System32. If I unregistered this dll (open cmd prompt, type Regsvr32 /u jscript.dll), and opened Outlook Express, I did not receive the error (but the same problems still arose).

I checked the version of jscript.dll, and it was 5.7. I was able to update Internet Explorer on that computer to version 8, and this subsequently updated the jscript system on that computer to version 5.8. I suppose this reset and settings that had become corrupt, and everything worked fine after this update.

If this helps you out, please leave a comment!

Get Rid of Avira Antivir Advertisement Pop-ups!

2010-02-17T23:10:00.002-06:00

I have recently tested Avira Antivir and have found it to be effective, fast, and efficient. I now install it on my computers that I repair, because AVG Antivirus has become a huge resource hog, and Avast has licensing issues. However, the free edition of Avira has annoying pop-ups that nag you every time you update the program, trying to coax you into buying the professional version:

It is quite easy to get rid of these pop-ups by disallowing the avnotify.exe program from executing. Simply follow the directions found at this link.

Run Command Prompt While Installing Windows XP

2010-02-17T23:05:00.001-06:00

I found out that it is possible to access a command prompt while running the Windows XP installation, when it is in the GUI phase after copying all files from the disc (see image below).

Simple hit Shift-F10 and the command prompt will pop up. Any normal commands can be executed at this point. For example, you could run notepad.exe to open notepad, or “sysdm.cpl” to open the System Properties control panel.

Fixing flashing backlight for Acer AL1711 17" LCD Monitor

2009-12-22T19:01:00.001-06:00

I was testing to see if changing the brightness on my LCD caused differences in the pitch emitted from the inverter when it adjusted luminosity. With my ear against the back of the monitor, and my finger pressing the increase brightness button, I listened for differences in loudness. Unbeknownst to me, when I reached 100% brightness, this overloaded the inverter and the backlight turned off.

After that, I thought the inverter had by coincidence come to its end, because when I would turn off, and restart the monitor, the backlight and screen would flash on for a quarter second and then immediately turn off.

Then I started troubleshooting. After a couple hours of trying to configure the monitor using the OSD on an unbacklit monitor (which is very hard, do it in daylight so that you can see the contents of the screen), I finally solved the problem. What I did was decrease the brightness to minimum on the OSD, and I exited the OSD. The backlight did not come back on when I decreased the brightness in the OSD. I had to save the settings, exit the OSD, and restart the monitor. Then, when it lit up, the reduced brightness was within the (aging) specs of the inverter, so it didn't flash off immediately.

Hope this helps someone. If so, please leave a comment. Enjoy!

PIO Mode slows your computer to a crawl

2009-12-22T16:53:00.002-06:00

I’ve come across several computers in the past few months that have experienced an inexplicable slow down in performance. They were all single-core Pentium M machines running Windows XP. The owners complained that recently the machines had been running extremely slowly. Simple multimedia tasks like watching Youtube videos or browsing the internet while on a Skype Video call were too much for the computer to handle, causing choppy video and sound.

At first I checked all the usual candidates such as startup programs, antivirus, etc. Optimizing these settings did nothing. And it seemed like the hard drive was extremely slow. Processor usage was also always spiking near 100%. My initial conclusion was that these multimedia programs had become too resource-intensive for the older processors to handle.

These were some additional symptoms that I noticed:

Windows XP took 2-3 minutes just to get to the login screen
The hard drive light blinked slowly, like there was a delay in loading data
Every computer operation seemed to take an inordinate amount of CPU usage, and multiple tasks slowed to a crawl.
DVD’s played very choppily, with continual breaks in the sound

I then remembered about an obscure setting that could be causing the problems. The hard drive had reverted to a slow transfer mode known as PIO (Programmed Input/Output) from the default DMA mode (Direct Memory Access). Essentially, in PIO mode, the CPU has to process any data accessed from the hard drive instead of the data directly transferring to system memory. (See the image below).

This explained why simple tasks required so much processor usage. Also, in streaming videos, because the processor had to both process the downloading data as well as process the video, it was simply overloaded.

The reason that the hard drive or optical reverts to this mode is rather obscure. According to Microsoft:

After the Windows IDE/ATAPI Port driver (Atapi.sys) receives a cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical redundancy check (CRC) errors, the driver reduces the communications speed (the transfer mode) from the highest Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver continues to receive time-out or CRC errors, the driver eventually reduces the transfer mode to the slowest mode (PIO mode).

Windows automatically reduces performance if it detects errors which arise when the computer resumes from Sleep mode.

Anyway, the fix is quite simple: Go to Device Manager, locate IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, and right-click on each IDE channel (primary and/or secondary). Under the Advanced Settings tab of each channel, check if any of the connected devices show PIO as the “Current Transfer Mode” (see image below). If so, go to the Driver tab and choose uninstall. Then check the secondary IDE channel in a similar fashion. When you restart the computer, the IDE channels should be restored to full speed DMA mode (confirm this in Device Manager). Test your videos and general computer performance. You’ll be pleasantly surprised!

This fix brought new life to computers that I had assumed as obsolete.

If this tip helps you solve a problem, please leave a comment! Enjoy!

Windows XP start-up lag due to Services not starting

2009-12-22T16:19:00.001-06:00

This was a very strange and annoying problem that I had to troubleshoot on a client’s computer which was running Windows XP Home. Basically, every time I rebooted the computer, the system would hang for an unknown reason. Web pages wouldn’t load in Internet Explorer, I wasn’t able to load system properties if I right-clicked on My Computer.

I looked at the services list (Start—>Run—>services.msc). Two services were hanging in the “starting” state: Server and Fax. Apparently, Print Spooler was trying to start before Server, which can cause this hanging behavior.

To fix this glitch, I reconfigured the Spooler service to be dependent on Server to prevent the wrong start-up order. Simply open regedit, navigate to:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Spooler

Locate the “DependOnService” entry, and double-click to edit. Under Value data, add a new line and enter “LanmanServer” (see screenshot below). This will force Print Spooler to wait for Server to load before attempting to load itself.

This solved half of my problem. When I restarted, I no longer had the hang-up in the system. However, Fax service still did not load fully. To fix this, I disabled it from automatically starting. It was an unessential process on that computer, and if needed, it could be easily started up manually.

If this helps you solve a problem in your own system, please leave a comment. Enjoy!

Unable to Access Files on a Networked Computer – “Not enough server storage is available to process the command”.

2009-12-22T15:45:00.001-06:00

After a long days’ work for a client repairing, updating, and optimizing his workstations at the office, I was disappointed to hear back from him the next day that he could not access the critical files that were stored on his main computer when connecting from other computers on the network. All his workstations are running Windows XP Home.

If computer A is his main PC, and computer B is the secondary PC, computer A could access network shares from B, but B could not access network shares from A. From computer B, I could see the shared folders and printers in computer A, but when I tried to open a shared folder, I received the following error message

“You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

Not enough server storage is available to process this command.”

At first I assumed it was a firewall problem, but that wasn’t the case. I hadn’t changed any major on the machine except a few Microsoft updates, an AVG update, and installing Acronis Drive Image 2010, so I was quite dumbfounded at first.

Digging a bit deeper, it turns out that the problem was related to the second half of the error message: “Not enough server storage is available to process this command.” On Computer A, I checked the event log which showed many entries with Event ID: 2011, similar to the screenshot below.

Apparently, Acronis has an incompatibility that causes the IRPStackSize parameter for the Server service in Windows XP to be insufficient for incoming network requests. Thus, when computer B would attempt to open a network share on computer A, the error was returned.

To solve this, I followed the steps outlined here to add the IRPStackSize in computer A’s registry. The default value for this parameter is 15, but according to some research I did on the web, a larger value is required to remove the error, between 16-25. I tried 16, restarted the Server service, but had no luck. I then tried 18, and it worked. Apparently 16 and 18 seem to work well.

This setting allowed me to keep Acronis installed as well as maintaining full network access functionality.

If this helps you solve your own problem, please leave a comment. Enjoy!