Recent content by charlie.

I bought 4GB of Mushkin DDR3 'Blackline' PC3-12800 RAM which was advertised on the packaging to have timings of 7-8-7-20 but when I installed it, the motherboard (an ASUS Maximus III Formula) configured it with timings of 9-9-9-??. I want to configure the timings manually but I only know the...

I have an Acer TM7720G notebook. It is brand new and has already been back to Acer (South Africa) for an LCD replacement. (Don't ask, I'm pissed about that.) The new LCD shows some REALLY BAD horizontal banding. Here's the wierd thing: putting the notebook into a "sleep" state and then...

We solved the problem by updating the BIOS.

This didn't work. I've tried to find descriptions of the beep codes for this motherboard. The manual has nothing. The motherboard uses an AWARD BIOS, there's no standard for those. So far, I have not been able to find out what the beep code means.

I'm trying to install a brand new AMD X2 5200+ (Socket AM2) into a veteran Asus M2N-SLI motherboard. I'm getting beep codes: one long, two short, repeating. I know the motherboard is good - it works with the owner's old 4200+. We put the old chip back when the 5200+ didn't work and it worked...

Last night, a particle of inspiration collided with the inspiration collided with the correct receptors in my brain and I solved the problem. I've known since the start that this is a 64-bit problem. The obvious solution was to force it back to 32-bit. One way to do that would be to change...

I'm sort of hoping that the problem is a 64-bit problem and the presence of Windows Vista x64 will force valve to open up and that the resulting fix will "backport" to XP x64.

No, seriously, how *is* that comment going to help? (@ RangerSVT) Why would someone *buy* a game when they know the demo won't run on their PC and the best help the community can give is "wait for release"? This isn't a BETA, it's a *demo*. Demonstration. Aka a distributed copy designed to...

Thanks, Cadaver. Those threads you linked were on topic. (The second one describes a problem with Alyx which is exactly what I'm getting when I use the popular work around suggestion: "ai_disable") They appear to think that this is a Vista problem, although one person does say that this bug...

I didn't install the game from the disks. I've had the GCF's on my PC for years - they've been kept up to date automatically and I have verified them with Steam's verify tool. There's no way I can afford the bandwidth to delete and re-download all the GCF files. As I said, I did verify them. I...

Well.. that was a helpful reply. Here's what happens: when you start a new, Single Player game, everything works. When you save and load, you get "A.I. Disabled" and nothing works. All the NPC creatures are frozen. The console command, "ai_disable" is supposed to treat the symptoms, but it...

It appears that, even after many long years of waiting, the ol' "Node graph out of date, rebuilding" and "A.I. Disabled" bug still plagues Half-Life 2 on Windows XP x64. Sigh. This is a pity, since you *really* need a 64-bit architecture to make Valve's loading times bearable. Anyway, I...

I don't have a monitor.inf file. If "ATI Control Panel" is supposed to mean "ATI Catalyst Control Center" (the control panel no longer exists, AFAIK) then I'd rather not use that solution. I can't stand the CCC, with it's dependency on .NET 2.0 and load of bundled software. I suspect that it...

I tried this: 1. Turn monitor off. 2. Restart PC and wait for windows startup sound. 3. Turn monitor on. 4. Restart PC. This has worked - monitor is running at 85Hz and Windows appears to have detected its capabilities correctly. I haven't tried it more than once, but it did work this...

Most of the time, Windows correctly identifies my CRT screen's capabilities and sets the resolution to 1280x1024 @ 85Hz. Randomly, it will fail to detect the capabilities and, even though Windows will *say* it's running at 85Hz, the monitor will only run at 60Hz. 1. The ATI drivers are...