When something goes wrong with the sound in our computer,we want it fixed,and fixed
now. Whether its our favorite game we are playing,or that new multimedia application we
just installed,we simply must have our sound.
When performing any troubleshooting procedure, always perform the basic procedures
before you remove that device. Its good to look at your sound card and become familiar
with its location,the type of slot it is inserted into or if it is motherboard integrated.
Carefully take note of any cable,connections on or near the sound card. Sound Card audio
loss is no fun when you are so used to multimedia sound blasting out of those super
woofers.
Follow these procedures as a guideline to correcting sound card woes. Be sure to consult
the sound card or computer manual for actual repair procedures.

First: you check to see if the speakers have power. Don't take this for granted. It does
happen that the speakers have no power or the volume was turned down.
Second: Check to audio cables that connect the speakers to the computer. Check to be
sure these cables are secure and that the audio connector at the rear of the system unit is
inserted into the right connector. These connections are color coded on new cards.
Third: Check the possibility that your speakers may be on the blink. Although the
speakers very rarely fail,it is a possibility that should not be overlooked.
Fourth: Before replacing the system unit cover, check and double check to see if the
card is fully inserted into the PCI Slot. Its a possibility the card may have crepted out of the
slot if it was not properly secured to the case.
Fifth: After replacing the system unit cover, reconnecting all peripherals,and turning on
the computer, check the Windows system folder to see if there are problems with the
device drivers which are small software used to allow the sound card to communicate to
the computer.
After you have performed these procedures and the sound card is not working at all,
remove the card from the computer and try inserting in another system. As a last resort,
you maybe able to save the purchase of another card,when there was no need.

When Windows fails to boot it is normally caused by you installing a program or device
and it has caused a conflict with one or more other programs. This will no doubt give you
plenty of heartache if you're not certain which program caused Windows to not boot up.
If you recently installed a program or application and know where it was installed,you may
be in much better shape as for as correcting the error. Here are common ways to correct the
problem of your computer not completely booting up or not booting up at all.
If your computer will not boot-up at all,hopefully you have made a good emergency boot
disk. You can always make a windows startup disk by creating one from another computer
running Windows 98 or Me. Perform the following if your computer........

The Ultimate Computer Repair Guide
Won't Boot-Up At All
FIRST: Put your boot floppy disk in the floppy drive and turn on the PC. On some
computers, you may have to access the bios and select the Boot priority to your A: drive.
Save any changes and select "Start Computer without CDROM support" and press Enter.
Once you are at the A> prompt,type dir c: and press enter.
If your programs and other files are present,try restoring your system Registry by
following the steps below. This may repair Windows,the Config.Sys and autoexec.bat files
to where the PC may boot up normally. When the files are present,its a good indication of a
good hard drive.
SECOND: To correct the problem of your computer not booting up,type in "fdisk /mbr"
and press Enter to restore your master boot record. Type "Scandisk C:" to check the hard
drive for errors that have occurred. You can also type "Sys C:" to hopefully restore files
needed to boot up your computer.
THIRD: If the above procedures fail to repair your computer,you can repeat the first part
of step one above and select "Start Computer With CDROM Support" re-install Windows.
Making a Windows XP Bootable Floppy, if You Still Have a
Floppy Drive
Windows XP users should create a boot disk now by placing a formatted blank diskette in
the A: drive, open Windows Explorer to the C:, select Tools, Folder Options, show Hidden
files and and folders, then View Tab.
Now you uncheck "Hide Protected Operating System Files (recommended).You will see a
warning and click Yes and click OK.

Copy the files ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini onto the disk. Remove the disk and label it
the Windows XP Boot Disk.
After making your boot disk,recheck "Hide protected operating system files and folders
(recommended)" in the Folder Options dialog box.
To use the disk when Windows XP won't boot,place the disk in the drive,and unto rebooting,
the computer, Windows simply bypass the basic boot files on the hard drive and
continue to boot up.
If The PC Won't Boot Past Windows
FIRST: If your Operating System is Windows Millennium,turn on the computer and
immediately press and hold down the CTRL key. Once the startup options appear, release
the CTRL key. Select Safe Mode and press Enter. You are now in Windows limited
version. If you know what caused your computer not to boot, you can now either change or
delete that program.
SECOND: Repair your Registry by selecting Start,Run and typing "scanregw/fix" and
press enter. This will fix any damage done to the Registry. You can also restore your
registry which replaces your current registry with an earlier copy that was backed up by
your computer. Click on Start,Run and type "scanregw/restore" and press Enter.
To repair your Windows 98 Registry,hold down the CTRL key as you start the PC and
select "Command Prompt Only".Type "scanreg/fix" and press Enter and "scanreg/restore"
to restore a previously saved copy of the Registry.
If you have Windows XP,press F8 after rebooting the PC should Windows freeze while
booting up. You can select "Last Known Good Configuration" after rebooting to allow the
computer to boot the last backed up files. And you can choose "Safe Mode" to remove any
files you know caused the operating system to hang up.

Be prepared when your operating fails to boot. It would be a great idea to go over this
article a few times and print it. Make yourself s notebook and place this and all related
articles there.
If your computer fails to boot or begins to become unstable,you can refer to these articles
to make corrections that are needed. Learn these steps from your television set with the PC
Super Pack.
Be sure to note any changes you make to your Registry and if you're not sure,its best to
find a friend that's pc savvy first. Above all,be certain you back up your registry before
making any changes and know how to restore as well.

Once in a while it happens to every one of us, an Operating System crash of you computer.
Then you have to reformat your hard drive, reinstall the operating system. You cannot
prevent the loss of time you suffer while working to get everything in order again.
There are some very easy things you can do right now to make ensure your peace of mind
for your business. You need to be back up and running as quickly as possible in the event
of an operating system crash.
When you buy your computer, be sure to ask the dealer for a diskette or CD-ROM with the
drivers for every hardware component that is not standard in the operating system.
('Drivers' are those pieces of software that the operating system needs for handling a
hardware component.) Usually such a diskette or CD-ROM has an "autorun" program
stored: You just need to insert it in the diskette/CD-ROM drive – and the driver installs it.

Document everything including usernames, passwords, merchant account numbers,
important websites and especially software unlock codes. Anything that is not written
down on paper is subject to be lost.
Back up your hard drive as necessary for how often you have new updates that you cannot
afford to lose or rebuild.
Important! If you have to completely reinstall your operating system, the "My Documents"
folder is usually lost. Make sure you don't forget this folder when you do the back up.

In addition to 'daily backup', I prefer to do a 'weekly backup' every weekend. You should
use one directory on your portable computer for "long-term backup". Particularly if you
often download a software and don't have any physical representative of it.
Re-arrange the directory structure on your desktop computer , creating one primary root
directory, with a sub- directory for every application you use to work with. The subdirectories
under the root "Own" are only to take the data files associated with Winword,
Eudora or any other programs that create output.
Whenever you create or modify a file (whatever the file type), be sure to write/update the
current date in a comment line near the top.
Finally, let's not forget that, especially in computing there is hardly anything bad that
wouldn't have any positive side effect. Over time a lot of the "scrap" will assemble on your
hard drive. Nowadays that's not much of a problem, just some wasted storage space. But
remember the performance is diminished when the operating system has to struggle with a
lot of complicated entanglements.

Following These Steps To Recover Your Hard Drive

First, turn off the computer. If the computer continues to restart after the Windows logo appears
without giving a chance to access the desktop and a blue screen flashes for a split second, it is
most likely a registry problem, virus or hard drive fail.
The impending loss of important documents and files is a sickening feeling, but there is a way to
recover them before reformatting the computer. For an affordable price, external hard drive cases
can be bought at any retail outlet specializing in computers. After the case is purchased, carefully
remove the hard drive from the computer by detaching the connected wires, plug the hard drive
into the case and it will act as an external USB drive.
Once this is completed, attach it to another computer and hopefully it will show up as another
drive. If this works, simply drag and drop the important files onto the computer and back them up
onto a USB stick or DVD disc. If this doesn't work, the hard drive has either failed or it's not
connected properly.

Now that the files are safe, it is time to reboot the computer. Ideally, when a computer is
purchased, the user will make a back up disc of the operating system in case of a meltdown. If
you don’t have the disc, contact the company that makes the computer and perhaps they will
supply one.