Tag Archives: m1188a

HP Media Center PC m1188a (sound) part 4

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Customer calls me back after encountering a few further minor issues: ftp doesn’t work, emails can be sent, but not received, and sound isn’t working.

email is easy: smtp email address / userid is incorrect.

ftp is also easy: some sites require “passive ftp”, so once this setting is enabled, it all works fine.

Sound is a bit trickier: I download some sound drivers… at 20Mb each, they take a while… the first one doesn’t work, but the second one does (after a MS update over the internet).

While waiting for the downloads, we decide to call HP support, so we can get the “correct winXPMCE install CDs. It turns out the PC is still under warranty (I thought otherwise), and it has “onsite warranty” which means HP will send someone out to your house!

However, The PC must have the original failing HD installed & no non-HP hardware inside… somewhat inconvenient, given that the PC has now been almost fully repaired anyway… Anyway, we decide its not worth the hassle & decide to get the proper install CDs (for $66!)… But the friendly chap from HP says: the install CDs will only let you do a clean reinstall (none of the convenience of an in-place reinstall).

Oh well, scrap that idea… let’s just wait for the sound drivers to download & see what happens (turns out they work well, since the sound isn’t HP proprietary hardware).

HP Media Center PC m1188a (wireless fun) part 3

Computer Aid Posted on by

Once the PC is back in its home, and everything plugged in, I fire it up. Since this is a new windows install, it naturally finds new hardware & prompts me to install the software for the new hardware.

oh, look, the mouse doesn’t work. Oh, the keyboard doesn’t work either… Ah, they are wireless, so it should just be a matter of pressing those little “resynchronise” buttons on the KB & mouse & on the radio receiver… hmmm, that doesn’t work. Try again… nope. We try a few different combinations, but nothing works.

So I go to the car & get a wired KB & mouse, plug them in, restart the PC, then finally say: yes, please install that software for the new hardware that you found.

So what does windows do? it installs the software drivers for the wireless keyboard & mouse!!! Argghhh!

Now thats an interesting “catch 22” situation: wireless KB & mouse won’t work until the drivers have been installed, but cannot install the drivers unless we hit the OK button… but cannot hit the ok button unless the KB & mouse work… etc etc.

I tell you: wireless keyboards & mice are more trouble than they are worth.

Anyway, with that little hiccup out of the way, I finally reinstall the modem software (the bigpond software doesn’t work very well, but it eventually does something after a few reboots). sigh.

Check the web, setup email, and I’m finally finished.

phew!

HP Media Center PC m1188a (poor design) part 2

Computer Aid Posted on by

While re-installing Windows XP MCE, I notice that HP have crammed a lot of hardware into a very small case (all the motherboard slots seem to be occupied).
To top it off, the location of the HDD is in a top-front corner of the case, with very little ventilation… I’m not surprised that the 160GB disk failed after just over 1 year. Very poor effort, HP.

Anyway, while installing XP MCE, it won’t accept the XP code on the side of the case… Grrr… oh well, a little “creativity” will fix that.

Once the install is complete, I do a full windows update, then I copy the customer’s data and applications (Program files) back into place, but I suspect many apps will not work unless they get re-installed.

Anyway, all I need to do now is take the PC back, setup the internet & email, and leave the customer to the tedious task of re-installing apps.

HP Media Center PC m1188a (disk failure) part 1

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer rang saying she is having trouble starting her PC. Something about being unable to find windll.dll, so the PC won’t even start windows.

I think: an in-place windows reinstall should do the trick.

I find out that she has also contacted HP (who say it’s not their problem… it’s microsoft & their windows product) and contacted microsoft (who predictably say it’s a HP issue), and the seller (a large department store – Myer), who have no inhouse technical support for products that they sell, so they cannot help (except to pass on my details).

Anyway, when I get there, all my tools show that the main C: partition is either not there, or unformatted… Ok, this is going to be a lot more complicated. She agrees to my taking the PC away to work on & I’ll keep her informed of my progress.

After some investigation, I decide that a chkdsk is the best way to go (if slightly risky… if the disk is about to fail, a chkdsk might make things worse… but I’ve heard some very good reports about the NTFS XP chkdsk.

The chkdsk repaired a lot of errors, but at the end, said that the errors were only minor (or words to that effect).

The PC now boots & complains about another corrupt dll file (still no windows), but booting from bartPE, I can now explore the C: partition.

I take a spare HDD & connect it to the PC, so that I can backup all the user data & eventually generate some backup DVDs.

All goes well, & after trying a second chkdsk, & noticing the drive has a few more errors that need correcting… it seems very warm to touch (warmer than most hard drives)… So it’s days are numbered.

Customer agrees that a new HDD is best. I try to image the old HDD to the new HDD, but the imaging software just cannot handle the old disk…

Now, the PC did not ship with any windows CDs, And this is not a windows XP home or pro pc … It’s a third variation called “windows XP media center edition”… Since the PC has a legit licence, I see no problem with downloading a WinXP MCE iso image, so that I can install it onto the PC. The pc has a valid license number on the side… We just don’t want to spend $66 on the official media (and wait 2-5 days for it to be delivered).