Thursday, May 21, 2009

TO GO TO BIOS

BIOS SUPPLIERS KEYBOARD COMMANDS

ALR Advanced Logic Research, Inc. ® PC / PCI F2

ALR PC non / PCI CTRL+ALT+ESC

AMD® (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.) BIOS F1

AMI (American Megatrends, Inc.) BIOS DEL

Award™ BIOS CTRL+ALT+ESC

Award BIOS DEL

DTK® (Datatech Enterprises Co.) BIOS ESC

Phoenix™ BIOS CTRL+ALT+ESC

Phoenix BIOS CTRL+ALT+S

Phoenix BIOS CTRL+ALT+INS

Acer® F1, F2, CTRL+ALT+ESC

ARI® CTRL+ALT+ESC, CTRL+ALT+DEL

AST® CTRL+ALT+ESC, CTRL+ALT+DEL

Compaq® 8700 F10
CompUSA® DEL

Cybermax® ESC

Dell® 400 F3, F1

Dell 4400 F12
Dell Dimension® F2 or DEL

Dell Inspiron® F2

Dell Latitude Fn+F1 (while booted)

Dell Latitude F2 (on boot)

Dell Optiplex DEL

Dell Optiplex F2

Dell Precision™ F2

eMachine® DEL

Gateway® 2000 1440 F1
Gateway 2000 Solo™ F2

HP® (Hewlett-Packard) F1, F2 (Laptop, ESC)

IBM® F1

IBM E-pro Laptop F2

IBM PS/2® CTRL+ALT+INS after CTRL+ALT+DEL

IBM Thinkpad® (newer) Windows: Programs-Thinkpad CFG.

Intel® Tangent DEL

Lenova(formally IBM) Lenova BIOS Access page

Micron® F1, F2, Del

Packard Bell® F1, F2, Del

Seanix DEL

Sony® VAIO F2

Sony VAIO F3

Tiger DEL

Toshiba® 335 CDS ESC

Toshiba Protege ESC

Toshiba Satellite 205 CDS F1

Toshiba Tecra F1 or ESC

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Q. I purchased an EAH4650/DI/1GD2 V2 graphics card recently. This card should support HyperMemory function. That means part of the system memory can be allocated to this graphics card. However, according to the ATi control panel, no system memory is allocated to the graphics card. The memory size of this graphics card is still 1GB. This issue occurs under Windows XP only. HyperMemory functions properly under Windows Vista. How do I resolve this issue?

A. This is a software limitation. Windows XP will only support up to 1G of graphics card memory. Since the EAH4650/DI/1GD2 V2 card already has 1GB of onboard memory, Windows XP cannot allocate more system memory to the card. Consequently, it appears that the HyperMemory does not function.











Q. I purchased an Nvidia VGA card with HDMI port. As far as I know, the HDMI port transmits both output audio signal and video signal at the same time. However, there is no any audio signal at all when I connect the HDMI port to my HDTV. How do I resolve this issue?
A. Since Nvidia's VGA cards does not have onboard audio chip, the audio signal must be routed to the VGA card from the motherboard. Please use a SPDIF cable to connect the motherboard's onboard SPDIF interface to the VGA card. Then the HDMI port on the VGA card will be able to output both the audio signal and video signal.





Excel Issue

Q. When you double-click the icon for a Microsoft Excel file (or right-click the icon, and then click Open), Excel starts but the file does not open as expected. However, you are able to open the workbook when you click Open on the File menu in Excel.

A. 1.Click Start, and then click Run.

(WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. )

2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

3. Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0

4. Right-click the Excel key, and then click Rename.

5. Type OldExcel.

6. On the Registry menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

7. Start Excel, and then quit Excel.

8. Double-click the Excel workbook icon (or right-click the Excel workbook icon, and then click Open) to open the file.

9. In the Open With dialog box, click Microsoft Excel for Windows, and then click OK.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Onekey Recovery

Q. I have installed Windows XP SP2 with Onekey Recovery 5.0. When I upgrade it to Windows XP SP3, the system gets black screen after rebooting. How do I resolve this issue?
A. Since Windows XP XP3 is incompatible with Onekey Recovery 5.0. There are two ways to avoid this issue:
1. Use the Windows Update Web site to install the hotfix.
2. Upgrade the Onekey Recovery to version 5.1.
You can refer to Microsoft KB 951618 and KB 950717 for more details.

Q. After I upgrade my VGA card to ASUS ENGTX295 on M3N-H/HDMI, M3N-HD/HDMI , I find that my system sometimes freezes when I play online games. How do I resolve this issue?

A. Please update BIOS to the latest version to resolve this issue.For M3N-H/HDMI, please update BIOS to version 1601 or later to resolve this issue.

For M3N-HD/HDMI, please update BIOS to version 1701 or later to resolve this issue.

Q. I have downloaded the beta drivers for Windows 7 from your download site for P5Q Pro Turbo, P5Q-E, P5Q SE Plus, P6T Deluxe V2, M4A78-EM, P6T, M4A79T Deluxe . As I tried to install the downloaded drivers, Windows 7 does not allow me to install them. How do I resolve this issue?

A. At the moment, the drivers for Windows 7 are beta version. They have not yet passed WHQL verification. Windows 7 does very rigorous checks on driver signature. By default, Windows 7 does not allow non-WHQL driver to be installed. To work around this Windows 7 restriction, please follow the steps below:

1. Press F8 after POST and before the OS loading. If there is any Option ROM, please press F8 after the loading of the Option ROM.

2. When it is done successfully. Please select "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement" to continue booting into Windows 7.

Q. When I follow the steps below on M3N-HT Deluxe, the system always gets black screen.1. Boot into Windows XP.2. Reboot the system by clicking "Start", "Shut down computer" and "Reboot".3. After the reboot, ASUS Express Gate screen will appear. At this time, click "Power" at the bottom right corner of the screen.4. Let the system power down.5. Power on the system again.At this time, there is no display on the screen unless I disconnect the power supply, and then connect it again. How do I resolve this issue?

A. Please upgrade BIOS to version 2302 or later to resolve this issue.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Change the Name of Your Computer Icon

Launch Regedit and navigate thus:
A) Precaution: Rename the existing value:Locate with regedit HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\ {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} rename LocalizedString to LocalizedString.Old

1) Create a new VALUE. Note type should be Expanded String Value. Name it: LocalizedString
2) Edit the 'Value data'. Double click LocalizedString, then click in the dialog box and type: %Username% at %Computername%
Incidentally, you could choose more creative words in place of 'at'. For example, 'King of' or 'Queen of'.
3) To see the result, just press F5 to refresh the desktop, your computer icon should now say the equivalent of: YourName at YourComputer.

AutoAdminLogon

1. Launch Regedit. (See more details on starting regedit)

2. Navigate to:HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\winlogon Set: AutoAdminLogon = 1 (one means on, zero means off)

3. Tip: Try Regedit's 'Find': AutoAdminLogon

4. Create a new String Value called DefaultPasswordSet: DefaultPassword = "P@ssw0rd"

5. Check for the existence of a REG_SZ called DefaultUserName. The value should reflect the user who you wish to logon automatically. If this value does not exist, then right-click in the right pane, New, REG_SZ, name it, DefaultUserName. Set the string value to the required UserName.

6. Optional Item: If your Vista Machine has joined a domain, then create a String Value called DefaultDomainName. Set: DefaultDomainName = "OnlyYouKnowDomain"

NoDriveTypeAutoRun and AutoPlay

One interesting feature of NoDriveTypeAutoRun is that you can set the value in either HKLM** or HKCU.
If you go overboard and configure both, then the Local_Machine over-rides the Current_User.
1. Type 'regedit' in the Start Search dialog box. (See more details on starting regedit)
2. Navigate to this path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
3. If necessary create a dword called NoDriveTypeAutoRun
4. Set NoDriveTypeAutoRun = 000000FF A value of 000000FF (decimal 255) disables AutoRun on all drives.
5. Refer to the above table, and use a Hexadecimal calculator to compute the most suitable value for your machine.
6. There is no need to logoff; the NoDriveTypeAutoRun setting should take effect straightaway.

Windows Vista Activation issue

Research indicates that even using the SkipRearm registry hack, you can only use this technique 7 times to delay Windows Vista activation. Additionally, you can use slmgr.vbs -rearm three times, making 10 delays in all.


Preliminary experiment, check the activation expiry date with the command: slmgr -xpr

Launch Regedit. (See more details on starting regedit) Navigate to this path:** HKLM\SOFTWARE \Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SL Double-click SkipRearm and change the value to 1.

Note: this registry hack does not make any sense on a machine which has already been activated!

Now remember to run the 30 day extension command: slmgr -rearmRestart the machine.

After it reboots, run slmgr -xpr and check the expiry date.Check the registry setting SkipRearm, slmgr resets the value to zero.

Friday, May 1, 2009

M4N78

Q.Recently I bought this motherboard to build my new system. When I connect my new SATA hard disk to SATA5 or SATA6 port, this hard drive is not detected in BIOS or Windows. However, BIOS can detect my hard disk successfully when I connect this hard drive to SATA1 ~ SATA3 port. If I changed the SATA mode option from SATA mode to AHCI mode or RAID mode, the hard disk can be detected in BIOS even when I connect the hard drive to SATA5 or SATA6 port. Is it normal?


A.Yes, it is normal. Due to the chipset limitation, the SATA5 and SATA6 does not support SATA mode. These two ports support only RAID mode and AHCI mode. If you would like to use your hard drive in SATA mode, please avoid using SATA5 and SATA6 ports at location indicated in the diagram below.