Monthly Archives: February 2007

stuffed xp network settings

Computer Aid Posted on by

I had an odd problem with my own PC.

The internet suddenly dropped out.

I noticed my tp-link router had reset itself (its not done before), so I waited a minute for it to reconnect with the internet, but still no internet.

I reset the router and the adsl modem, but no internet.

I restart the PC, but still no internet.

I try my other PC: it works fine.

I do ipconfig: the IPaddress and gateway address looks ok.

I shutdown my personal firewall: still no internet.

I check the router: its not blocking anything…

I do an ipconfig /all on my PC, and on the other working PC: hey, there is a difference: the DHCP and DNSservers were set to 192.168.0.1 (my router is 192.168.0.122, and my PC is 192.168.0.16 (the DHCP pool goes from 12 to 65, so nothing should be using that IP address).

I do ipconfig /release, then ipconfig /renew, and everything sorts itself out at last! 

Its odd that a PC restart didn’t fix the problem… another mysterious XP networking problem.

A day later, the same problem happened again.

This has happened 1 or 2 more times in the last month, but I cannot pinpoint it (I have installed and upgraded some software, so that is another possible cause)…

ga-k8vm800m Motherboard + video (and GigaByte hidden bios menus)

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently upgraded my office PC… Just a GA-K8VM800M (rev 2.0) mobo, 512MB of 400Mhz RAM, and a sempron 2800+ CPU.

Installation went very well, but after a while, the PC would lock up… After some experiments, I found the motherboard BIOS options to be very limited… when booting up, I got a message saying that SMARTwas disabled… but couln’t find anywhere in the bios that would allow me to switch it on!

I eventually discovered that while in the BIOSsetup screens, pressing CTRL-F1 enables some extra hidden menus!

Ah, good, I can now enable SMART. 

With some help from http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=23&threadid=67494&enterthread=y , I found the onboard video needed some adjusting (ie change AGP from 8X to 4X, etc).

After that, the PC worked much better… but still felt sluggish while windows was starting and logging in.

I could reliably cause the PC to crash within a few minutes, by running my OpenGL3D screensaver (“beam“… BTW: an excellent screensaver…)

Before the PClockup, the 3D screensaver would be impressively quick. I looked at updating the BIOS, but it was already at the latest (R2-FD)

So after adjusting down many settings (and noticeably slowing down the PC)… the PC would still lock up. I decided to install an AGP video card (just a geforce4 MX4000), and adjusting all the BIOS parameters back to their optimal settings.

After that, the mobois rock solid… I just wish the onboard video would have worked better… it was as good (if not better than my GeForce 5500 card).

simple problem with MAC filtering

Computer Aid Posted on by

I have a good customer that has called me out may times (mostly to help with several of his wireless internet computers).

Its 4:30 pm, Saturday and he calls asking for help… I’ve had a long day, so I say it will have to be Tuesday (or maybe on Monday, depending on how existing jobs progress). After offering me something “extra”, I reluctantly get in the car and head out.

Each time I visit, he learns a little more, and this time he was hoping to be able to setup a laptop himself.

When I visit, I see he has manually set the IP addresses (he tends to do that, thinking that DHCP could be causing problems).

I turn on “Obtain an IP address automatically”, and it seems to work… but he then says that he disabled MAC address filtering (on the router), in order to try and get things working…

After some mucking around on the wireless router, I eventually turn on mac filtering again.

I then do an ipconfig /all, and I pick the wireless MACaddress. At this point, the customer has an “aha!” moment: he was using the wired ethernet MAC address, which is very different from the wireless MAC address. Simple things like this can be a real minefield for anyone trying to setup wireless networks on their own.

I enter the correct MAC address into the router “MAC address filter” list, and then everything works very nicely.

A weary Computer Aid engineer heads home (to update his blog 🙂 )

zcfgsvc.exe uses 100% cpu (another norton problem?)

Computer Aid Posted on by

A lady calls, saying she renewed her NIS subscription, went to install it, and got a message saying she should uninstall the older version. She uninstalled the old version of NIS, installs the new version, and then the computer slows down to a crawl… and she no longer has an internet connection (although the laptop wireless shows that it has a signal).

I was hoping to have a quiet Saturday, oh well…

When I get there, I find she has 2 Asus laptops… she says one has internet access and one doesn’t. Having 2 computers side by side should help me fix whatever the problem is.

The first thing I notice is that task manager is at 100%

Next, I notice that neither laptop has a working wireless connection.

After some investigation, it seems that the wireless router (a few rooms away) has a dodgy power connector. A bit of a jiggle, and the router is powered up again.

Back to the laptops, and sure enough, one can see the internet, the other cannot.

Task manager shows that zcfgsvc.exe is using almost all of the CPU. A quick search of the internet shows that zcfgsvc (which is part of the intel ProSet wireless software) will often go haywire, and then, most advice is to reinstall the drivers, or to disable the service… or failing that, rename the program.

But if I disable it, then there will be no wireless connectivity…

I start wondering how I’m going to remove and reinstall the intel wireless drivers and software. Then it dawns on me: I should just disable it completely, and use the (better quality) built-in XP wireless software.

After that, the internet is working (at last)… but after another reboot, the laptop is slow again… zcfgsvc is running again (but this time its not blocking internet access).

Ok, I look at all the standard windows startup areas and the services. I disable a few intel wireless – related applications. but nothing that has a name even remotely like zcfgsvc.exe… I do a few restarts between various attempts, but zcfgsvc is still running.

Ok, I’ll do as suggested in places like: http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/zcfgsvc.exe.html … I’ll disable zcfgsvc in c:windowssystem32… but its not there…

OK, I run a windows search of the whole hard drive… but nothing shows up. I change the windows explorer settings, so that it doesn’t hide anything… but still no luck.

So, I now have a program running berserk, I don’t know how it gets started, and I don’t know where it gets started from. Interesting!

I look at the intel entries under start -> all programs, and I see they are launched from c:program filesintelwirelessbin

Aha! There it is! I do my usual trick of renaming an executable to zcfgsvc.exx , then reboot the laptop, and the cpu hog is gone at last!

Now I can finally install NIS, and the install runs flawlessly.

Now to get home and enjoy the rest of my “day off”… (or so I thought)

Corrupt XP user profile (which mysteriously dissapears)

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer believes that he has corrupted his PC and it will need a windows reinstall. 

The PC gave a corrupt user profile message… and most importantly, the cable internet then stopped working.

Seems that the PC would randomly reset… but not often enough for me to diagnose.

I suspect a faulty PS or some other hardware failure. Anyway, it managed to start… looks like its using user profile “ABC” (from name on the top of the start button menu)… but running a command prompt takes me to c:documents and settingsTEMP.{some hex number} (and there happens to be a user profile with the same name!)

Looking at the “ABC” profile, all the desktop icon, favorites, etc, are all still there… good.

I create an ABC.bak folder (so I can backup the profile before I start working on it).

The customer asks me a quick question… when I turn back to the PC, I find the whole ABC folder tree is gone!

I do a search on the whole c: drive, deleted items folder, etc… but I cannot find any trace… 🙁 not good 🙁

I try restarting… This time I get no “corrupt user profile” error… strange… I see the ABC folder… I take a look inside… and I see that it just has default settings… the customers data has vanished.

Luckily, he has a backup (a few months old) of his my documents… but that doesn’t help with favorites and outlook express emails and addresses.

So I recover the my documents, setup the telstra cable internet connection, and setup his email.

After that, I recommend that he backs up more frequently, and that he expands the backup to include at least the documents and settings folder, or even better: the whole drive (minus the windows folder, so everything will fit onto 1 blank DVD).

But the vanishing user profile is very mysterious!

adding a dlink dvg-2001s voip adapter to a DSL-G604T router

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer was struggling to get her new dlink dvg-2001s voip adapter to work with a new dlink dsl-g604t wireless modem-router.

Since she is using a laptop over an unsecured wireless link, I decide to first get the wireless working securely.

I connect to the router, change it to WPA–PSK(as usual, the router doesn’t tell you if it will use WPA-PSK-TKIP, or WPA-PSK-AES)… So after restarting the router, I find I cannot connect using either TKIP or AES. But its happened to me before: its just a case of being patient.

In the meantime, I take the laptop over to the DVG unit, and connect to it via ethernet cable (disconnecting it from the router).

But I can’t connect to it. I cant even ping it.

I manually enter the appropriate IP settings for windows and then restart the PC and the DVG.

But I still cannot connect to it. I figure the customer must have mucked up something while trying to get everything going. So all I can do at this stage is reset to factory defaults.

I can connect now. Since the DVG happens to default to the same IP address as the DSL-g604t, I decide to try something simple: I change it to a fixed IP (10.1.1.253… it was 10.1.1.1).

But now I’m back to where I started: I cannot connect to the DVG… So, factory reset again, and then do the job properly, get it to obtain its IP address from the router, and configure the router to always give a specific address to the DVG. I pick address 10.1.1.222.

So, I connect the PC to the router, connect the DVG to the router, power-cycle everything, then connect to the router and see whats going on (the wireless network still hasn’t kicked in yet… So I’ll look at that again).

Looks like the wireless security is now on WEP… I’m sure I set it to WPA… So I set it back to WPA, apply the change, go to settings, click “save and reboot”, click on reboot button (dlink should rename these buttons: are you sure… are you really, really sure… etc).

After the restart, XP detects the wireless network… at last.

I try connecting to the detected wireless network, but it fails (both tkip and aes)… I connect to the router again, and I see it is still on WEP… I repeat this cycle about 3 times, until the WPA settings finally “stick” Grrr.

Ok, I get XP to connnect (after restarting XP and waiting a few minutes…)

I now unplug the ethernet cable between the PC and the router , restart the router and laptop, and look forward to some wireless computing from a more comfortable position.

But when XP restarts, It doesn’t find the wireless network anymore… Huh?

I go over to the router (I’m almost ready to yell at it!). Hold on, the router WLAN light is off… it shouldn’t be off. All the other light are working correctly. Why has only the wireless decided to fail?. Anyway, I try restarting the router (again! except this time, I wait 15 seconds before reconnecting power).

OK, the WLAN light comes on now…

The laptop connects to the router correctly again.

I setup the router to hand out IP address 10.1.1.222 only to the MAC address of the DVG adapter, so it should always have that address. I save the settings and restart the router and the DVG.

I then setup the router “virtual server” (otherwise known as port forwarding), so that port 5060 is allowed to pass through the router firewall, to the dvg adapter. Save and restart.

Once I’m sure all the settings are correct and I can connect to both the router and the dvg, I then try the voip phone… I hear a dial tone, but cannot call out…

Now we call the voip company, and it turns out the DVG was pre-configured with the customers details (passwords, etc) (all lost after the factory reset). So we connect to the dvg and enter the correct details and restart it.

pressing **1 on the phone gets the dvg to “speak its IP address” to you over the phone… neat.

Anyway, we make a call, and it seems to work.

I thank the voip technician, and a short while later, try to call my mobile… there is a disconcerting delay between the mobile ringing, and the voip phone sounding a ringing tone. I hangup the voip phone, but my mobile keeps ringing… what?

OK, I’ll power-cycle everything again, just to be sure.

But now, the voip phone doesn’t play a dial tone then the receiver is lifted… I start hearing Yoda saying “patience young jedi”… but I snap out of it when I hear the phone make a short ring… hmmm

I eventually figure out that once the DVG is up and running, it will usually take 1 or 2 minutes before it logs in to the voip server (and gives a quick ring when the phone is ready to be used)…

Some instructions on all this would have been nice!

Anyway, after the power-cycle and the delay waiting for the voip to activate, everything seems ok. I try ringing a few numbers and it’s all working well (at last… after 3.5 hours!).

Getting a Wii onto the internet (securely) via a wireless router

Computer Aid Posted on by

A prior customer has bought a wii and xbox360 for his kids, but is having problems connecting them up (and connecting a newer/faster cable modem to the router)… all PCs are wireless.

So I work on the new modem, until I finally get it going after a few power cycles and peering at router firewall settings.

I then look at the Wii. It looks cool. Small, unobtrusive, unassuming, yet the wiimote controllers are great.

I get some help from http://www.wiichat.com/nintendo-wii-online/5820-official-wii-wireless-internet-connection-guide.html

But the router has MAC filtering (which is good for security, but makes adding new devices more problematic). OK, how do I get the Wii MAC address? In general, MACaddresses are printed on a small sticker on the device itself (eg laptops, wireless cards, etc)… but not on the Wii.

But I eventually found the MAC address by reading  wii mac

Ok, now lets try the xbox360… Hmmm, the interface is a little more confusing, and many settings are greyed-out… After much head-scratching it becomes obvious that the xbox doesn’t have built-in wireless networking… you need to purchase a wireless module!

Customer will go buy one, so I show him how to add a new device to the MAC filter in the router, and then I’m on my way again.