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The Main Sections: General Buying
Guides
Amazing Prices
High Quality Budget
What computer is
Main
Help Page
The Main Sections: General Buying
Guides
Amazing Prices
High Quality Budget
What computer is
Main
Help Page
The Main Sections: General Buying
Guides
Amazing Prices
High Quality Budget
What computer is
Main
Help Page
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These help pages were compiled for the use of customers of Best Price Computers Ltd. We will be delighted if they are of use to anyone else. However please read the disclaimer carefully:
(Links to other hardware help) Sound | Video | CD-ROM Drives | Printers | Modems | WindowsNT | Troubleshooting | Setting up the BIOS | Setting up USB
Note: The improper use of the CMOS/BIOS settings can cause your machine to stop working. It is advisable to get professional help before making any changes to the BIOS. The BIOS/CMOS on your motherboard stores information about your hardware. It stores, among other things, the size of your hard disk, the setting for your COM ports, and the location of your CD drive. The BIOS needs to be told where to look for the boot up files. If you want the computer to start from a boot up floppy you will need to verify that the BIOS is set to look first in the floppy drive for a bootable floppy disk. Fortunately, one does not need to access the motherboard to make changes to the BIOS. Many computers give a message on screen a second or two on turning the power on saying "Press Del to enter Setup". Other computers may operate on different keys like "esc" or the space bar. Contact your computer supplier if you are unsure about how to make changes to the BIOS. Once in, take care to navigate the BIOS menu screens carefully and change only the settings you need. Note: The BIOS on some computers may be protected with a password and not allow you access. This is a user defined password and if you have lost it then resetting the BIOS to circumvent the security password is a hardware job that requires opening the case, and is out of the scope of this help section. Installation of CD ROM
Drivers Installing drivers for a CD ROM Drive is easy in that many drivers will work on drives from other manufacturers. You may find that a Samsung CD driver will work on a Hitachi CD drive, which is something that cannot be said of soundcards, videocards or modems. However, you do need to have a certain few files on your hard disk before the installed CD driver will work to give you a fully functional CD ROM drive. The most important of these files is one called mscdex.exe. It will automatically be on your hard disk if you have MSDOS or Windows 95 already installed in the machine. You could also copy it from another computer onto a Floppy disk. The tricky part is that some CD Drivers may require that file be not just on the root directory of C but in a sub directory called DOS, or Windows. It wouldn't hurt to create a directory called DOS and one called Windows, and copy the mscdex.exe file into both of them. Since we are doing this in a DOS environment i.e. from a C:/ prompt it will require the knowledge of some of the basic DOS commands. You will need to type md DOS and md windows (where the md stands for Make Directory). Provided you have the mscdex.exe file on your floppy on the root directory C you can type in, either at the A:/ or C:/ prompt - the two commands: copy mscdex.exe c:\dos and copy mscdex.exe c:\windows. If copying from a floppy disk you can also copy it to your root
directory C using The next step is to actually install the drivers. You will need to use the floppy disk with the CD driver. Go to the A:/ prompt by typing A: and then use a dir/w command to get a listing of files on the floppy. The installation file will probably be called install or setup or setupd or cdinstall or cdsetup depending on the make of your CD Drive. It could also have another name but it will probably be an exe file i.e. a file with exe as the last part of it's name. Once you have identified the name of the file that launches the CD setup program, typing that name in at the A:/ prompt will start the CD Drive driver installation. Following the instructions on screen it shouldn't take more than a minute or two to be completely installed. On re-booting the computer from the hard disk C, you should now have a fully working CD drive. Place a non-music CD into the drive and you should be able to go the DOS prompt for the CD Drive (D, or E or F, usually) by typing D: (or E or F, as the case may be). You can use the dir command again to see what is on the CD ROM. If your soundcard is a Diamond Stealth Edge 3D,
please go to: Diamond Stealth Edge 3D Installation of sound drivers in Windows 95 can sometimes be a bit tricky even if it is a Plug n Play soundcard. First verify that you have the correct drivers and you know the name of your soundcard. You can usually get the name and model number of the soundcard from the start-up screen when you put your computer on. You may need to use the pause (break) key on your keyboard to freeze the screen long enough for you to read the details. Next you will need to locate the driver files on the floppy or CD ROM that you've got. A bit of intuition helps here. You may have to use explorer to navigate through the various directories and sub directories on your CD ROM. It goes without saying that directory names like Sound or soundpro or Win95 mean that you are on the right track. It may be a bit more cryptic. The sound directory may have several sub-directories through which you have to navigate. These relate to various operating systems and the directory you need may be called something like Windrv95 or 95drv8459. Within the correct sub directory if you have a choice of old or new drivers load the older ones - there's less of a chance you'll have a problem with the old drivers. Avoid directories that suggest they are for Windows NT or Windows 31, 3.1 or 3.x. Sound drivers for Windows 95 are of two types: They can either be exe files or ini ones. These tags refer to the extension name of the file that initiates the installation program. The extension name of the file indicates how you would proceed to install the sound drivers. With exe files the operation is relatively simple. With the ini files it's is only a couple of steps more difficult. Windows 95 has the habit of picking up some soundcards as other devices instead of sound devices. First ensure that there are no sound related devices that Windows has picked up as other devices. You can do this through the Control Panel. Click on System, then on Device Manager. Scroll down to other devices, double clicking it if necessary. If you find one or several sound related devices listed here, and if they have the yellow question marks (or a red cross), you will need to delete all of them before you proceed. While still in device manager check under sound, video and games controllers to ensure that you have no disabling yellow marks on devices listed there. If you do, you will need to delete them now. Installing from an exe file: Go into the directory you have identified as the correct sound driver for your operating system and run the setup.exe or install.exe file by double clicking on it. Installing from the ini file: Go to the Control Panel, choose Add New Hardware and select No to Windows detecting the hardware for you. You will then need to select the type of hardware you wish to install, which in our case here, is the sound, video and games controller. You will then get the Add New Hardware screen where you will need to click on Browse/Have Disk and navigate your way through to the directory where the sound ini file is stored. Here you may be presented with a choice of sound devices. If you know the exact model number of your soundcard then just proceed by clicking on it. Follow instructions on screen and re-boot the computer when asked. You may need your Windows 95 installation disk/s at this stage. Occasionally, on rebooting the computer may ask for the sound directory again when what it actually needs is the Windows 95 installation disks. The reverse happens as well. Keep both the sound installation and the Windows 95 disks handy. (When presented with that list of sound devices above if you are unsure about which device you need, then your only option is the old trial and error. Choose one at random and proceed with the installation, including re-booting the computer when asked to do so. If you find that your sound is not working then you'll have to go back to the Control Panel/Device Manager and delete the sound related devices with the yellow question mark or the red cross....and repeat all the steps from there.) Installation
of Printer Drivers All modern PC compatible Bubble Jet, Inkjet and Laser printers come with drivers for Win 95 and instructions on installation of the same. Windows 95 provides 'built-in' drivers for some of the popular printers. Should you not have the drivers it may be possible to use the nearest Windows 95 'built-in' driver but you may lose some of the functionality of the printer. Plug the printer into the parallel port of your computer, turn the power on and ensure that all the cables are secure. You will need to also ensure that you have a valid LPT 1 (working printer port). You can do this from the Control Panel/System/Device Manager - double click on Ports and verify that there is no yellow question mark or red cross on the printer port. Go back to Control Panel, then Printers, and Add Printer..... you will then need to have the printer driver floppy disk/s or CD ROM handy. Navigate your way to the correct drive and directory. You may have to restart the computer before your printer is recognised. For Diamond Stealth video cards click here Identification of whether video drivers are installed: Every computer has a video card, also called a graphics card or a VGA card (SVGA). This is what communicates images to the monitor. When installing Windows 95, video drivers are not automatically loaded (for most video cards). When the driver is not loaded Windows runs in restricted colours i.e. in only 16 colours. Once the drivers are loaded you have the option of choosing 256 colours, 16 bit colour (16,000 colours) ...or more. To verify your current settings you can take your mouse cursor to the middle of your main Windows 95 screen (also called the desktop) and click on it using the right mouse button. You should get a list of choices opening up where you need to choose Properties. This should open up the Display Properties screen where you can click on the Settings tab to verify how many colours you are using and what resolution you are running in. If you are running in 16 colours click on the box that says 16 colours. It should open up and tell you all the colour settings available to you. If you do not have a choice there for 256 colours then your video drivers are not set up correctly. Identifying your video card: Before you can install any drivers for the video you'll need to know what the name and model number of the video card is. In most cases, when you put your computer on, the first thing that flashes on the top of the screen is the type of video card you've got and the amount of video RAM on it. You will have to be fast to read this. On the TX Pro and TX Pro II motherboards (with the on board video) you will get a string of numbers at the bottom of the screen a second or two after turning the power on. Included in this list of numbers will be the date of the BIOS and usually, towards the end, the model number of the video card. It could read something like M571. On PI budget computers supplied by us the most common card is the M571. The M571 drivers are installed by going into the vga\m571 directory on the driver CD and running the setup.exe file (For more help on installing drivers using setup.exe file. See section below). On the PII computers supplied by us the most common card is the 4 MB AGP 3D card. The drivers for our 4 MB 3D AGP Video card are on the driver CD in a directory called vga\agp3d or vga\agp-pro or similar sounding directory. The only other video cards we've ever supplied are the S3, the Matrox Mystique/Millennium, and the Diamond Stealth Edge 3D. The S3 and the Matrox come with their own help files in the form of txt files on the driver disk. The Diamond Stealth card has it's own unconventional installation procedure - click here for Diamond Stealth. Installing the drivers: For the S3 or the Matrox - you should have a floppy or CD with the drivers. For the TXPro motherboards with the on board M571 video - you will need to use the motherboard CD (you will have either a purple or a red and black CD) or silver. The installation procedure for all of these is the same. Identify the directory on the CD (or floppy) where the video drivers are stored. A bit of intuition helps here. When browsing through the CD look for directories that have key words like VGA, Windows 95 etc. On PI budget computers supplied by us the most common card is the M571. The M571 drivers are installed by going into the vga\m571 directory on the driver CD and running the setup.exe file (For more help on installing drivers using setup file see section below). On the PII computers supplied by us the most common card is the 4 MB AGP 3D card. The drivers for our 4 MB 3D AGP Video card are on the driver CD (either purple or red & black), in a directory called vga\agp3d or vga\agp-pro or similar sounding directory. The only other video cards we've ever supplied are the S3, the Matrox Mystique/Millennium, and the Diamond Stealth Edge 3D. The S3 and the Matrox come with their own help files in the form of txt files on the driver disk. The Diamond Stealth card has it's own unconventional installation procedure - click here for Diamond Stealth. PII computers with the BX Pro 100 MHz motherboard come with a silver CD. We are updating this page shortly with information on this new graphics adapter which was supplied with all PII machines after 27/11/98. Installing from exe file: If the video directory has a Setup.exe or Install.exe file you will need to run this Setup/Install program. See After Installation. Installing from ini file: Go to the Control Panel, choose Add New Hardware and select No to Windows detecting the hardware for you. You will then need to select the type of hardware you wish to install, which in our case here, is the Display Adapters. You will then get the Add New Hardware Wizard screen where you will need to click on Browse/Have Disk and navigate your way through to the directory where the video ini file is stored. Here you may be presented with a choice of various devices. If you know the exact model number of your card then just proceed by clicking on it. Follow instructions on screen and re-boot the computer when asked. You may need your Windows 95 installation disk/s at this stage. Occasionally, on rebooting the computer may ask for the video directory again when what it actually needs is the Windows 95 installation disk. The reverse happens as well. Keep both the video installation and the Windows 95 disks handy. See After Installation. After Installation: After installation of a video card you may find that it is not automatically accepted into the control panel as the video card you are using. Go to the Control Panel, click on Systems and then on Device Manager and scroll down to Display Adapters and verify that you have the correct name of your video card. If you don't you can change it by double clicking on the device listed, then choosing the driver tab, then the Update Driver box. You should get the Update Device Driver Wizard screen. Choose "No, select driver from list", and then the driver you want should come up in a list (provided it has been installed correctly). You may have to restart the computer for changes to be recognised. What to do if the screen goes fuzzy and you
can't see a thing in Windows? This could be possibly because you've installed the wrong video drivers and/or have set the resolution/colours/refresh rate too high for your monitor to handle. Fortunately you'll find that you can still start the computer up in safe mode to correct this problem. (Read your Windows 95 manual for details on how to do this). You can start up your computer in safe mode using the F8 key provided you press it at the right time. When booting you'll need to wait for the line Starting Windows 95 to appear on screen and then keep tapping the F8 key till you get a menu where you can choose the mode of starting up. Once you've started up in safe mode you'll be able to make changes to your video settings and restart the machine for the changes to be recognised. Most of the modems we've ever supplied were based on the Rockwell chipset. The majority of this section relates to setting up the Rockwell chipset modem, the modem most commonly used in our computers. If you have a different make please choose from the following: USRobotics, Miro Connect 34 Checking your modem to see if it is working | Other problems with modems US Robotics: This Plug n Play modem should be the easiest to install but is in fact more difficult than some of the less well known names. Along with the USRobotics modem we would have supplied you with a User Guide on a 3.5 inch Floppy. Please read the text (txt) help file on the floppy. It should cover all installation questions. You can also try the USR help at: http://3kb.usr.com/wizard.html and http://www.usr.com/home/online/main_page.htm Miro Connect 34: This modem & sound combo card is undisputedly the easiest to install. You will need to ensure that you have an undamaged version of Windows 95 (this is important); preferably a fresh installation. Ensure that there are no yellow or red 'problem' markings in the Control Panel\Systems\Device Manager. Shut down any programs that may be running in the background and insert your Miro Connect CD (also called CompuTime or Communication centre) into your CD ROM drive. Then just follow instructions on screen. There are NO com port settings to mess with, no IRQs to experiment with, and no conflicts that the installation program can't rectify on it's own for you. You will need your Windows 95 at some time during the installation process, so keep it handy. After installation remember to install a good comms package like Supervoice, Winfax, or Bitware or run the mlsetup program from the same CD to setup the excellent Communication/Fax software that the Miro modem comes with. . With the Rockwell chipset modem please refer to the CD that came with your machine. It could be one of two types: The Supervoice CD or the Trio CD. Installing from the Supervoice CD: Your modem is as ISA card and has jumper settings on the card that determine which Com port and IRQ the modem will use. Details of the settings will be in your modem manual. Most computers with this modem were setup using com port 2 on IRQ 3 for the modem. You will need to disable the on-board com 2 if you wish to use the modem on this setting. You can do this by going into the BIOS (by tapping delete on your keyboard at start-up). You will then need to find the location of the com port information - usually under Peripherals Setup. You can disable com 2 here. Start up the computer, go into the Control Panel/System/Device Manager. You should have no com port 2 listed here now. Go back to the Control panel and choose Add New Hardware/modems and browse to the Rockwell directory on the Supervoice CD. This should install the Rockwell chipset internal modem on Com Port 2 using IRQ 3. Installing from the Trio CD. If you received a Trio CD you will also have the HCF floppy disk to go with it. Installation will be first from the floppy. You do not need to go into the BIOS to verify the com port selection. All you will need to do is go into the Control Panel, double click on System and Device Manager. Scroll down to Modems. (Double click on modems if necessary). Verify that you have no modems already installed. You will also need to check under Other Devices for a PCI Serial Controller. If you do have a PCI Serial connector listed, delete it now. For good measure go into the Ports (COM & LPT) and ensure that you don't have more than 2 com ports (Com 1 and Com 2) listed here. Restart the computer - you will get a New Hardware Found screen. Place your floppy in the drive now and click on next. Windows will pick up the drivers from the floppy. If Windows cannot find the dpal.vxd file and asks for your Windows 95 CD use browse to direct it back to the floppy instead (or type in A:\). The file is on the root directory of the floppy disk. When you get a message saying Dos support is now installed you will need to restart your computer. Should you then wish to install a communication package you may find the Supervoice program in a directory called sv on the CD-ROM or a program called Trio in a subdirectory with the same name on the CD ROM. Note1: Before installing this modem please
ensure not only that you have no "PCI Serial Controller"
devices listed under Other Devices in the Control Panel,
but also that you go into the modem (from Control Panel)
and delete any modems that may be listed there. Once you have installed your modem there is an easy check in Windows 95 to ensure it is working. Go to Control Panel/Modems, Diagnostics, highlight the Com port the modem is on and click on More Info. You will get a box with various AT commands and their responses. At this stage you won't need to know what they all mean. Suffice if none of them have any error messages like "No response received". Congratulations. Your modem is working. Universal Serial Bus is a feature that is not available on all computers. You can tell whether your computer has the USB by going into the BIOS and scrolling through the various options and menus till you see a setting for USB. You will need to ensure that this is set to enable. Start the computer up and go into control panel, systems and device manager. Delete any references to USB that have the yellow or red 'problem' marks against them. You will then need to go to the main driver CD we supplied with the computer. Navigate to the USB\Eusbsupp directory and run the usbsupp program file. On restarting the computer you may need to use the Browse feature to direct the installation program to the Windows\System directory where the uhcd.sys (or hciusb.sys)file is now stored. In fact, you may need to do that twice. Congratulation! You have successfully installed the USB driver. Now, it's just too bad that you can't use it because there aren't many USB devices on the market. At Best Price Computers Ltd we do not recommend that you open the case of any computer that is still under warranty, as you may invalidate that warranty. We always suggest that hardware problems are best rectified by a qualified engineer. However, should you wish to do it yourself you may find the Troubleshooters link useful: Troubleshooters
We, Best Price Computers Ltd have provided substantial help information in our on-line help section. Please note that advice here relates only to computer hardware bought from us and may be inappropriate and damaging to equipment purchased elsewhere. We, along with our service providers, hosts, telephone providers and associated companies take no responsibility for any damage, loss, or malfunction caused directly or indirectly by use or misuse of any information contained in the help pages and the pages/sites that they are linked to.Users of this help section do so entirely at their own risk. We regret that we cannot accept telephone enquiries for hardware/software support on equipment not bought from us. Before calling us for support please have your purchase receipt number from Best Price Computers Ltd,all your drivers,and your item serial code ready.
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