MaximumPC 2007 04

USB-ORKED

I cannot figure out what is going on with my

front-panel USB ports! Every now and then, when

I plug in a device, my computer does a hard

restart. I initially thought maybe the front panel

wasn’t grounded correctly and was shorting out

the motherboard, but oddly enough, a few weeks

later my brother experienced the same problem.

We both have Gigabyte GA-8S661FXM-775

mobos housed in different cases.

—Matt Lazarow

The Doctor hasn’t seen that particular SiS

chipset–based motherboard, but an issue was

reported with Windows XP SP2 and certain

SiS USB controllers. The fix from Microsoft

(Microsoft Knowledge Base item 892050)

indicates a problem with devices not being

detected, not spontaneous rebooting. The Doc

suspects you have a hardware problem, but not

necessarily a problem with your motherboard.

You need to double-check that you connect-

ed the USB header correctly to the board. You

should also check to see if the USB cable going

to the front of the case is shorting out inside

the case. Oddly, low-quality power supplies can

also cause problems with USB devices.

The Doc also recommends that you

unplug all the USB devices going into the

machine and uninstall any USB devices

from the Device Manger. Restart and let XP

redetect the devices. Finally, make sure the

devices you’re plugging into the machines

don’t have issues. It’s unlikely, but maybe

you’re both using faulty USB devices.

BURNED CD BLUES

If I burn an audio CD using either Windows Media

Player in Windows or Serpentine in Ubuntu Linux,

my car stereo won’t play it. Yet if I use Nero, it

works. I tried using a different brand of CD-R, but

that didn’t make a difference. What’s weird is I

can sometimes coax the CD into playing in my

car stereo by hitting the Track button rapidly after

inserting the CD.

Do Windows Media Player and Serpentine

physically burn CDs differently than Nero, or is

this a DRM issue of some sort? Again, CDs that I

burn with Nero and normal audio CDs work fine.

—Andrew Robertson

The Doctor’s car stereo does exactly the same

thing. The solution is simpler than using a dif-

ferent app to burn your discs. All you have to

do is burn the disc at a slower rate, as some

older CD audio players just can’t handle discs

burned faster than 24x.

Also, make sure you’re actually burning your

discs as audio CDs instead of data CDs. Some play-

ers can’t read files with certain audio extensions

(like WMA) but will more than happily read CDs

that have been burned to a strictly audio format.

JUST CHILLIN’

I have a Compaq Presario s4000t I bought in

2003, and it has gone cold, literally! It won’t

boot if the temperature is below 55 degrees. All

the fans come on, and that’s about it. I’ll push

the Power button and after about two minutes, I

reboot and my computer will work.

I have upgraded from the stock 250-watt

power supply to a 400-watt PSU, and the CPU

still has the stock TaiSol heatsink and fan on it. Is

this a power-switch issue? Do you think I need to

replace the heatsink and fan? A friend told me to

try editing the BIOS—disable the cache, reduce

memory clock speed, and check temperatures.

Any other ideas?

—Dave Howell

You have an odd problem that the Doctor has

not seen before, but he can take a shot. Your

problem may not actually be related to winter

temperatures, as 55 degrees is hardly that

cold and most computers prefer colder

climates to warmer ones. But maybe, just

maybe, the humidity is a factor at the

colder temps. The Doc is guessing that

some component in your PC doesn’t like

the dampness in the winter months. One

other possibility: bad capacitors. Get a

flashlight and look at the capacitors on

the motherboard. If any are bulged out or

oozing, they may be defective—a problem

that was endemic in machines and moth-

erboards of that vintage.

WHERE’S MY KEYBOARD?

I have a PC that is a couple of years old. The

problem is that the keyboard doesn’t work

99 percent of the time. The POST screen

sometimes goes so far as to say “no keyboard

detected.” I have tried multiple keyboards,

including PS/2 and USB ones. I tried clearing the

CMOS and letting the BIOS reload to its default

settings, but no luck. Am I looking at a bad

motherboard, or is there another problem?

—David Downie

Hot-plugging a PS/2 keyboard in can very

well fry the keyboard controller chip or

super I/O chip on the motherboard, but that

shouldn’t affect a USB keyboard.

Your problem might not be a keyboard

issue, though. It’s possible you blew the PS/2

controller, which would cause PS/2 board

problems. Your USB keyboard problems could

actually be related to the vintage of your

motherboard. You didn’t say what model you

have, but it sounds old as dirt.

It’s also possible that your BIOS is not

correctly configured to recognize a USB key-

board. Just to make sure the problem is not

the OS install (it doesn’t sound like it is), boot

the machine using a Windows 98 boot disk

(available from http://www.bootdisk.com) and see if

the PS/2 keyboard works fine in Windows 98.

If it does, your OS may be wonky. More than

likely though, you’ll have to replace the board.

RENEGOTIATING THE REINSTALL

I am currently running Windows XP on an MSI

945P Neo2-F motherboard with a single-core

processor. The motherboard does not support a

Core 2 Duo processor. I want to go to a dual-core

system but want to do so without the headache of

Just burn that audio CD a little more slowly,

and you’ll be rocking out in no time.

Ask the Doctor

Diagnosing and curing your PC problems

INSTALL FILTERS

Continued on page 52 Ë

APRIL 2007 MAXIMUMPC