[olug] Fwd: PC Hardware Annoyances Needed for New Book

[Jay Hannah]

Anyone annoyed w/ any PC hardware? -grin-

j
(on his Mac -grin-)


Begin forwarded message:
> From: Marsee Henon <marsee at oreilly.com>
> Date: February 24, 2004 8:06:16 PM CST
> To: jay at jays.net
> Subject: PC Hardware Annoyances Needed for New Book
>
> Dear User Group Leader:
>
> Thanks for the great response to our call, a few weeks ago, for
> annoyances, gripes, and complaints about Excel. The email we got was
> extremely useful and a lot of your members not only sent annoyances, 
> but
> fixes! So, a thousand thanks for the help.
>
> As you might guess, we have another book in the wings--this one 
> focusing
> on PC hardware annoyances. We're not just talking about PCs and laptops
> per se--we also talking about all the hardware that's inside and 
> attached
> to your computer, such as memory, motherboards, hard drives, printers,
> scanners, home networks, DSL/cable, CD/DVD, and host of other annoying
> hardware devices.
>
>
> If any members of your group have PC hardware annoyances they'd like to
> see solved, have them email me (marsee at oreilly.com) with "PC Hardware
> Annoyances" in the subject. Just have them note what hardware is giving
> them grief (e.g. Dell Dimension 8100 with 1.3GHz P4; LaserJet 3150;
> Verbatim Producer 44 DVD+/-RW; etc.), and any relevant software that's
> involved (such as the OS, a driver, OCR software, etc.).
>
>
> As thanks for sharing, we'll make sure to get copies of "PC Hardware
> Annoyances" sent to your group shortly after publication.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Marsee
>
> ***
>
> An example:
>
> Hardware Windows Setting Blocks DVD Upgrade
>
> THE ANNOYANCE: I want to update the firmware for my Sony DRX510UL DVD
> burner, and the site said to disable the DMA setting in Windows XP 
> before
> doing so. But it neglects to tell you how.
>
> THE FIX: The Sony drive is terrificit burns DVD+R and DVD-R discs, and
> uses both DVD-RW and DVD+RW rewritable media. But ask Sony for support,
> and it responds with a virtual raspberryits online instructions are
> complex and often impossible to understand. Luckily, fiddling with DMA
> isn't difficult. Here's how to turn it off:
>
> Windows XP/2000. Open the System control panel, choose the Hardware 
> tab,
> and click the Device Manager button. Double-click "IDE ATA/ATAPI
> controllers" and double-click "Secondary IDE Channel" (your DVD drive 
> is
> most likely located on the secondary channel; if not, choose "Primary 
> IDE
> Channel"). Click the Advanced Settings tab, and under Device 0 
> (master) or
> Device 1 (slave) (depending on how your drive is set up), select PIO 
> Only
> from the Transfer Mode drop-down menu. Click OK.
>
> Windows 98/Me. Open the System control panel and choose the Device 
> Manager
> tab. Double-click CD-ROM, then double-click your drive. Select the
> Settings tab, uncheck the DMA option, and click OK. Remember to reverse
> the previous steps once your DVD drive's firmware is installed.
>
> ***
>
>
>