Post by Keith Heitmann on Nov 6, 2003 4:13:31 GMT -5
Whew! I just dodged a bullet with my system tonight.
It all started off simply and innocently enough (doesn't it always.
)
I was playing one of my movie soundtrack CDs and decided to rip the tracks to MP3 files so I could listen to them anytime I wanted without the bother of loading the CD. I put the CD in and the XP program finder came up asking me which program I wanted to use. My usual program wasn't on the list, and I was just doing a quickie rip, so I picked one and ripped the CD...no problem. So far so good....
Ok, so I open my other program and run it attempting to rip the same CD. Got a floating point operation error message. Never had that before. Next I noticed that the CD was not ripping digitally but in analog, which means it was making the files in real time while it played the music. Not what I wanted. Checked the settings and found the only option available was "Analog" and "MSCDEX" and "ASPI" were greyed out.
So I go back to the previous program I had just used and it too would suddenly only rip in a analog manner. Bummer. Corrupted files most likely or some other settings problem.
I open XP's Restore System function and try to reset to a restore point made just 2 days ago. Unfortunately, the restore failed. I had had a similar instance of that problem last month, but the problem I was attempting to fix by a restore disappeared and I forgot about it...until tonight.
So I make a call to Dell technical support and get in touch with the appropriate department. After uninstalling and reinstalling the two audio utilities and getting them working again. We started working on why the restores were not working. After a trip through the BIOS settings and a few key presses and then running a boot menu option we began to run CHKDSK /R. After about 45 minutes of chatting with the tech guy while we waited CHKDSK was finally done. A few reboots later all seemed normal. A quick check of the audio programs seemed to indicate we were all done and we hung up. That all took some 2-1/2 hours on the phone, so I took a break.
Fired up the system again about 3 hours later and noticed that it was running sluggishly. CHecked my task manager cpu usage meter and it was showing 100% usage. Something it had never done before. I knew the culprit was my Seti@home application. Once I got it to shut down the CPU usage dropped to 0%. Next I checked my device manager hardware devices list and my heart dropped when it showed only one CPU under the CPU device listing where it had previously shown two CPU listed.
I began to envision the need to backup all my applications and data up and having to wipe the hard drive and reinstall it all as the tech support guy mentioned was a possibility. I was starting to feel a little sick and stressed having just gone through this all back in June with my old computer.
So after much fiddling around on my own and about two hours of head scratching, an idea finally hit me to check the BIOS setup. I rebooted and opened the BIOS CPU settings menu and sure enough Hyper Threading was DISABLED. Evidently the key presses I had been instructed to use in my previous visit while talking with the tech guy turned it off and he neglected to tell me to turn it back on again. I can't fault him though we were covering a lot of territory during our time on the phone together. Once the HyperThreading was enabled my system sprang back to its usual speedy self. And all is well.....so far.
I hate it when things like this happen and I have no idea why the original problems occurred in the first place.
All I can say is I got my money's worth in tech support tonight. I'm glad I signed up for their extended care package, because I would have been out of warranty already (my usual luck) had I not. Whew! (Again.)
It all started off simply and innocently enough (doesn't it always.
)I was playing one of my movie soundtrack CDs and decided to rip the tracks to MP3 files so I could listen to them anytime I wanted without the bother of loading the CD. I put the CD in and the XP program finder came up asking me which program I wanted to use. My usual program wasn't on the list, and I was just doing a quickie rip, so I picked one and ripped the CD...no problem. So far so good....
Ok, so I open my other program and run it attempting to rip the same CD. Got a floating point operation error message. Never had that before. Next I noticed that the CD was not ripping digitally but in analog, which means it was making the files in real time while it played the music. Not what I wanted. Checked the settings and found the only option available was "Analog" and "MSCDEX" and "ASPI" were greyed out.
So I go back to the previous program I had just used and it too would suddenly only rip in a analog manner. Bummer. Corrupted files most likely or some other settings problem.
I open XP's Restore System function and try to reset to a restore point made just 2 days ago. Unfortunately, the restore failed. I had had a similar instance of that problem last month, but the problem I was attempting to fix by a restore disappeared and I forgot about it...until tonight.
So I make a call to Dell technical support and get in touch with the appropriate department. After uninstalling and reinstalling the two audio utilities and getting them working again. We started working on why the restores were not working. After a trip through the BIOS settings and a few key presses and then running a boot menu option we began to run CHKDSK /R. After about 45 minutes of chatting with the tech guy while we waited CHKDSK was finally done. A few reboots later all seemed normal. A quick check of the audio programs seemed to indicate we were all done and we hung up. That all took some 2-1/2 hours on the phone, so I took a break.
Fired up the system again about 3 hours later and noticed that it was running sluggishly. CHecked my task manager cpu usage meter and it was showing 100% usage. Something it had never done before. I knew the culprit was my Seti@home application. Once I got it to shut down the CPU usage dropped to 0%. Next I checked my device manager hardware devices list and my heart dropped when it showed only one CPU under the CPU device listing where it had previously shown two CPU listed.
I began to envision the need to backup all my applications and data up and having to wipe the hard drive and reinstall it all as the tech support guy mentioned was a possibility. I was starting to feel a little sick and stressed having just gone through this all back in June with my old computer.
So after much fiddling around on my own and about two hours of head scratching, an idea finally hit me to check the BIOS setup. I rebooted and opened the BIOS CPU settings menu and sure enough Hyper Threading was DISABLED. Evidently the key presses I had been instructed to use in my previous visit while talking with the tech guy turned it off and he neglected to tell me to turn it back on again. I can't fault him though we were covering a lot of territory during our time on the phone together. Once the HyperThreading was enabled my system sprang back to its usual speedy self. And all is well.....so far.
I hate it when things like this happen and I have no idea why the original problems occurred in the first place.
All I can say is I got my money's worth in tech support tonight. I'm glad I signed up for their extended care package, because I would have been out of warranty already (my usual luck) had I not. Whew! (Again.)
