Somewhere during my many troubles I had with setting up my TV as a secondary monitor, I was silly enough to download, install and (mis)use a piece of software called "TvTool" - It looked pretty outdated, but I thought "what the hell".
I accidently set my TV (on which I still wasn't getting anything!) as my primary (and single) monitor. My desktop monitor went all black and I panicked, heh ;)
I couldn't figure anything out, so I tried a hard reboot, but alas, as soon as it logged on to Windows, my screen stopped getting a signal. The TvTool thing must've messed with something pretty important.
I uninstalled the programme using a SystemAdmin version of XP [on a bootable CDROM] I have, rebooted again, and got the same problem as above. Blergh. I was on the verge of formatting and (finally) installing Windows 7, when it was brought to my attention that I could boot my pc in VGA mode, uninstall my display drivers, reboot, reinstall my drivers, and my problem should be fixed!
The reason I had to use VGA mode is because (as described in my previous post), Safe Mode is inaccessible for me!
Morale: LOVE THE VGA MODE, LOVE IIIIIIT
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Helpdesk #02: Svideo on an Nvidia card
Setting up a TV as a secondary monitor on an Nvidia card is hell.
It didn't work in a plug and play fashion, does anything ever work right away though? One does wonder.
Step 01: Connect the cable.
This plug goes into the svideo plug on your pc.
This is the SCART that goes in your TV (unless you have an svideo plug in your TV) - Make sure it's set to input!
Then I ran the Television Setup Wizard in the Nvidia control panel, rebooted, and noticed it wasn't working. Troubleshooting time!
Step 02: Update to the latest drivers. This was v190.62 at the time of writing.
Reboot after the installation and BANG, the display settings are stuck on 800x600 reso and 4bit colour. Double-U, Tee, Eff.
Argh, my bad, I just installed them when the previous drivers were active. Uninstalled the drivers in Device Manager:
To be safe, I'd best get rid of the crap that the uninstaller didn't get rid of too... I used Driver Cleaner to get rid of all the Nvidia display driver remnants, rebooted & reinstalled the drivers.
Normally, I'd do this in safemode, but somehow, my pc instantly reboots itself as soon as it fully boots safe mode, haha!
Reboot again, just to be safe, and go back to the Nvidia Control Panel and ran the Television Setup Wizard again:
Choose "Run Television Setup Wizard"
Which brings you to this screen:
In case your TV still hasn't been found yet, choose:
Click "My display is not shown in the list".
Try the first option, "Rigorous Display Detection" first. This didn't find my tv at first either, but I chose to enable the television connection anyway.
Untick and Retick the "Force television detection" box and choose "Restart now". If you're in luck, the software will find your tv by the time you reboot.
Unfortunately, after trying all of the above, it still didn't work for me >.<
Here's how I solved it in the end:
I used the "Force television detection on startup" function, rebooted, and then I clicked the systemtray icon, went to "Nview Something" and selected dualview there.
I then dragged my Media Player Classic window onto the desktop extension on the tv, fullscreened it, and enjoyed my movie.
I think there must be a flaw in the driver or something, since if I click the nvidia icon again after this, it completely resets, and the nview option disappears from the menu.
What.The.Hell.
So basicly I have one chance to do this per reboot, but that's good enough for me ;)
It didn't work in a plug and play fashion, does anything ever work right away though? One does wonder.
Step 01: Connect the cable.
This plug goes into the svideo plug on your pc.
This is the SCART that goes in your TV (unless you have an svideo plug in your TV) - Make sure it's set to input!
Then I ran the Television Setup Wizard in the Nvidia control panel, rebooted, and noticed it wasn't working. Troubleshooting time!
Step 02: Update to the latest drivers. This was v190.62 at the time of writing.
Reboot after the installation and BANG, the display settings are stuck on 800x600 reso and 4bit colour. Double-U, Tee, Eff.
Argh, my bad, I just installed them when the previous drivers were active. Uninstalled the drivers in Device Manager:
To be safe, I'd best get rid of the crap that the uninstaller didn't get rid of too... I used Driver Cleaner to get rid of all the Nvidia display driver remnants, rebooted & reinstalled the drivers.
Normally, I'd do this in safemode, but somehow, my pc instantly reboots itself as soon as it fully boots safe mode, haha!
Reboot again, just to be safe, and go back to the Nvidia Control Panel and ran the Television Setup Wizard again:
Choose "Run Television Setup Wizard"
Which brings you to this screen:
In case your TV still hasn't been found yet, choose:
Click "My display is not shown in the list".
Try the first option, "Rigorous Display Detection" first. This didn't find my tv at first either, but I chose to enable the television connection anyway.
Untick and Retick the "Force television detection" box and choose "Restart now". If you're in luck, the software will find your tv by the time you reboot.
Unfortunately, after trying all of the above, it still didn't work for me >.<
Here's how I solved it in the end:
I used the "Force television detection on startup" function, rebooted, and then I clicked the systemtray icon, went to "Nview Something" and selected dualview there.
I then dragged my Media Player Classic window onto the desktop extension on the tv, fullscreened it, and enjoyed my movie.
I think there must be a flaw in the driver or something, since if I click the nvidia icon again after this, it completely resets, and the nview option disappears from the menu.
What.The.Hell.
So basicly I have one chance to do this per reboot, but that's good enough for me ;)
Friday, 25 September 2009
Random Point of Interest #01: TED
Saw this ages ago, but apparantly the photosynth software is now even better than before, definitely worth checking out! (Requires Silverlight)
As always, you find one thing on TED and you have to keep looking for more...
I found a video that I also remembered seeing ages ago, on which the tabletop computers we've seen hyped up recently are based.
Multitouch, Multi-user, sounds like something we could've used in class today instead of the "limited" smartboard ;)
Check out the TED Website for more awesome videos.
Stageverslag
Or: How to occupy a trainee with menial and timefilling tasks.
It was hard enough to find moments where I was free as well as the ICT-coordinator, so I had to go back after my training had ended to do some more hours of ICT-coordination. I didn't really do two half days, but rather 3x3 hours.
I got the feeling the position of ICT-coordinator wasn't really that special, at least not here. The "ICT-coordinator's office" was shared with another member of staff, who had nothing to do with ICT, at all. The "office" basicly consisted of two desks, one for the other person and one for the ICT-coordinator. There was a table to work on, and the school's servers were also located here. (In a server rack)
There wasn't really that much to do, as I was told all I could do was "wait for problems to occur". So we sat around in the teacher's lounge, talking to other teachers for a while. Then Mrs Van Hauwermeiren remembered something I could do: Make networkcables. I hadn't done that in a while, so I thought sure!
After I made some cables of varying length (on my own! I'm such a big boy :x ) my first three hours were up. I wouldn't get a chance to catch Mrs Van Hauwermeiren again until after my training.
The second time I went to school to complete my assignment was much later, but some of the problems I encountered during my actual teaching hours were still unsolved, so I was allowed to try and fix those. (Un)fortunately for me, the problem was a bit annoying. Some of the computers in this part of the school's only IT classroom were unable to sign in using the network logon.
I'd already checked whether or not the pupils were trying to type their passwords with CAPSLOCK on, or if the keyboards were even plugged in at all, when I first encountered the problem. So I knew that it wasn't THAT obvious. A quick scour through the bios showed no issues. The on-board networkcards looked fine.
Maybe it had something to do with the cables? Luckily, I'd made quite a few of those a few weeks ago, so I went to get some, and tested those. No effect. Meh. Maybe the ports on the patchpanel were faulty? Nope.
This is a great way to waste time by the way; Troubleshooting. I opted to reinstall the motherboard drivers (as they included the on-board networkcard ones) - But to no avail. I was totally out of ideas, so I considered formatting the PCs, but my time was up and the school would close pretty soon, so I offered to come back later and finish it.
During my last session, I spent most of my time bringing the PCs from the (unoccupied) classroom to "the office", I managed to fit all three of them on the table, and swap one monitor between them. I deployed the image, and booted all three machines. Everything seemed fine. ("Deploying an image" is just another way of saying "waiting around for an installation to finish" if we're completely honest. Most of that time I spent waiting in the teacher's lounge, and helping some of my old teachers change some of their e-mail settings on the PCs there)
Anyway! The images were deployed, PCs tested, so I moved them back up to the classroom (up three flights of stairs, at the other end of the school) and hooked them back up. The teacher login worked, which was all I could really test. So I was happy.
I only have one question: Who puts the "ICT Office" at the other end of the school, 3 stories down from the only ICT classroom on campus? :(
It was hard enough to find moments where I was free as well as the ICT-coordinator, so I had to go back after my training had ended to do some more hours of ICT-coordination. I didn't really do two half days, but rather 3x3 hours.
I got the feeling the position of ICT-coordinator wasn't really that special, at least not here. The "ICT-coordinator's office" was shared with another member of staff, who had nothing to do with ICT, at all. The "office" basicly consisted of two desks, one for the other person and one for the ICT-coordinator. There was a table to work on, and the school's servers were also located here. (In a server rack)
There wasn't really that much to do, as I was told all I could do was "wait for problems to occur". So we sat around in the teacher's lounge, talking to other teachers for a while. Then Mrs Van Hauwermeiren remembered something I could do: Make networkcables. I hadn't done that in a while, so I thought sure!
After I made some cables of varying length (on my own! I'm such a big boy :x ) my first three hours were up. I wouldn't get a chance to catch Mrs Van Hauwermeiren again until after my training.
The second time I went to school to complete my assignment was much later, but some of the problems I encountered during my actual teaching hours were still unsolved, so I was allowed to try and fix those. (Un)fortunately for me, the problem was a bit annoying. Some of the computers in this part of the school's only IT classroom were unable to sign in using the network logon.
I'd already checked whether or not the pupils were trying to type their passwords with CAPSLOCK on, or if the keyboards were even plugged in at all, when I first encountered the problem. So I knew that it wasn't THAT obvious. A quick scour through the bios showed no issues. The on-board networkcards looked fine.
Maybe it had something to do with the cables? Luckily, I'd made quite a few of those a few weeks ago, so I went to get some, and tested those. No effect. Meh. Maybe the ports on the patchpanel were faulty? Nope.
This is a great way to waste time by the way; Troubleshooting. I opted to reinstall the motherboard drivers (as they included the on-board networkcard ones) - But to no avail. I was totally out of ideas, so I considered formatting the PCs, but my time was up and the school would close pretty soon, so I offered to come back later and finish it.
During my last session, I spent most of my time bringing the PCs from the (unoccupied) classroom to "the office", I managed to fit all three of them on the table, and swap one monitor between them. I deployed the image, and booted all three machines. Everything seemed fine. ("Deploying an image" is just another way of saying "waiting around for an installation to finish" if we're completely honest. Most of that time I spent waiting in the teacher's lounge, and helping some of my old teachers change some of their e-mail settings on the PCs there)
Anyway! The images were deployed, PCs tested, so I moved them back up to the classroom (up three flights of stairs, at the other end of the school) and hooked them back up. The teacher login worked, which was all I could really test. So I was happy.
I only have one question: Who puts the "ICT Office" at the other end of the school, 3 stories down from the only ICT classroom on campus? :(
Helpdesk #01: BBox + Router + WiFi
My first blogpost on my new blog, yay!
My family recently opted to go for a new Belgacom package, which includes Telephone, Internet and free Digital TV. This is basicly the Belgacom equivalent of a Telenet Shake.
The main difference is, you have to get rid of your old modem/router combination, and start using a bbox. We received a B-Box2:
You hook it up to the phoneline, using the new box thingie:
And then you can start setting it all up. The included booklet is actually very useful, so I won't go into it that much.
Customizing it can be a little confusing at times though, so here is some extra information:
Surf to http://192.168.1.1/
Step 1: Click "Advanced Settings"
Step 2: Click "Wireless"
Step 3: Select WPA under Security
Step 4: Select "Passphrase" under WPA type
Step 5: Enter a password
Step 6: Click apply.
If you don't use wireless, you can just deactivate it alltogether at the top of this screen.
As you can see near the bottom, this is also where you apply the MAC filter, but I personally don't use it.
My family recently opted to go for a new Belgacom package, which includes Telephone, Internet and free Digital TV. This is basicly the Belgacom equivalent of a Telenet Shake.
The main difference is, you have to get rid of your old modem/router combination, and start using a bbox. We received a B-Box2:
You hook it up to the phoneline, using the new box thingie:
And then you can start setting it all up. The included booklet is actually very useful, so I won't go into it that much.
Customizing it can be a little confusing at times though, so here is some extra information:
Surf to http://192.168.1.1/
Step 1: Click "Advanced Settings"
Step 2: Click "Wireless"
Step 3: Select WPA under Security
Step 4: Select "Passphrase" under WPA type
Step 5: Enter a password
Step 6: Click apply.
If you don't use wireless, you can just deactivate it alltogether at the top of this screen.
As you can see near the bottom, this is also where you apply the MAC filter, but I personally don't use it.
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