Hardware & Devices

Dave Kreskowiak27-Sep-08 3:30

Dave Kreskowiak

27-Sep-08 3:30

Well, this is obviously going to be a hardware failure of some kind. Swap out the power supply, and if that doesn't do it, swap the CPU, and if that doesn't do it either, swap the RAM, then the entire motherboard.

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Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

Simon P Stevens28-Sep-08 22:21

Simon P Stevens

28-Sep-08 22:21

Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
Swap out the power supply, and if that doesn't do it, swap the CPU, and if that doesn't do it either, swap the RAM, then the entire motherboard.

Cheers. That's in order of how much I hope it fixes the problem. I really don't want to go through the process of buying and swapping the motherboard.

Thanks though.

Simon

Paul Conrad27-Sep-08 7:12

Paul Conrad

27-Sep-08 7:12

Something wrong with the motherboard's onboard graphics perhaps?

"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer

"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon

"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham

Simon P Stevens28-Sep-08 22:23

Simon P Stevens

28-Sep-08 22:23

Paul Conrad wrote:
Something wrong with the motherboard's onboard graphics perhaps?

Potentially. It was my first thought. But any idea how I can tell? With no output I don't even know if it's booting up or not. I've reset the bios, so it's not an incorrect setting issue. I have tried a spare graphics card, and it doesn't work, but IIRC you had to change the bios settings to use a graphics card, which I can't do.

Cheers

Simon

Johpoke28-Sep-08 2:41

Johpoke

28-Sep-08 2:41

Or, try to make a safe problem, which BIOS would normally beep about, like remove all the RAM. If the computer starts beeping then you know that BIOS, CPU, PSU are probably OK. If not the Motherboard/CPU/BIOS/PSU is damaged. If you have a loose PSU lying around then test that first, since you can just unplug the wires from the old one, and let the new one site outside. If that's not the problem look at the Motherboard/CPU. Note that in my experience these parts very rarely break (it's never happened to me at least...)

Hope you solve your problem.

//Johannes

Simon P Stevens28-Sep-08 22:26

Simon P Stevens

28-Sep-08 22:26

Johpoke wrote:
Or, try to make a safe problem, which BIOS would normally beep about, like remove all the RAM.

Nice idea, thanks. Tried it, still no beeping.

I do have a spare PSU (well, when I say spare, I mean the one in my wife's computer. I'll have to wait till she's not looking to try that out Wink | ;)

).

Lights do come on, and the drives all spin up, so the PSU is at least partly working.

Thanks.

Simon

Dave Kreskowiak29-Sep-08 1:50

Dave Kreskowiak

29-Sep-08 1:50

Simon Stevens wrote:
Lights do come on, and the drives all spin up, so the PSU is at least partly working.

You might get good power from the power supply, but that doesn't mean it's raising the PowerGood signal to the motherboard, so you may still have a bad power supply.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

Johpoke29-Sep-08 4:01

Johpoke

29-Sep-08 4:01

Hmm, still hard to to tell whats wrong. As dave says the PSU might be faulty, as HDDs only need +5 and +12v while the motherboard will need some other voltages too. Does your computer have a high-end or good quality PSU? Or some no-name (like POWER MAN)? I always try testing the easist first, too bad you dont have any PSU thats not in a computer... If PSU is not the problem then it's probably the motherboard or the CPU. CPU Overheated maybe? Fan full of dust? Or fan out of oil? (= it stops) Sometimes (yet very rarely) removing all components and putting them back in can help. (But if it has been going fine for ages and is not home built this will probably not help)

Some newer computers don't have BIOS speakers installed (and some have them installed on the motherboard), So if yours doesnt have any, install one.

Smile | :)

//Johannes

fat_boy29-Sep-08 5:16

How to check device drivers are installed properly in PC

29-Sep-08 5:16

Whats your time worth? If its upwards of 40 dollars an hour just buy a new box with new motherboard, RAM, CPU and PSU. Put you old HDD in and away you go.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Member 456732525-Sep-08 2:09

Member 4567325

25-Sep-08 2:09

Dear,

I need help in vb/vb.net to check wheather installed drivers (i.e) lan drivers, sound cards, etc are properly installed.

For eg., mycomputer->properties->devicemanager will give all the details of the driver installed in the machine, but this is manual involves user interaction.

But through either vb/vb.net i need to give status of the installed drivers to check wheather it is properly installed or not.

Re: How to check device drivers are installed properly in PC

fat_boy25-Sep-08 2:31

Re: How to check device drivers are installed properly in PC

25-Sep-08 2:31

Member 4567325 wrote:
For eg., mycomputer->properties->devicemanager will give all the details of the driver installed in the machine, but this is manual involves user interaction.

It only shows devices attatched to the system/the system itself. It wont show you all the drivers (inf files and respective sys files) that are available on the system.

However, what do you mean by properly installed? How do YOU intend to judge what is, and isnt, a propper installation? (Given that if an inf file exists in the inf directory with a respective pnf file then it HAS gone through SetUpCopyOEMInf() successfully.

If there is any error in the inf, or files specified, then SetupCopyOEMInf() would fail and the inf would not be compiled into a pnf.

If you want to know wether a driver is on the system then you can check all the inf files for the HW id of the device in question. If it exists in the inf directory, it will be installed correctly.

Of course the driver could be faulty, in which case it might not load, but in this case, you are in a different situation where the SetupDIxxx funcitons can be used to examine the state of devices on a system.

Define the problem, and the solution defines itself!

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Member 456732525-Sep-08 2:41

Member 4567325

25-Sep-08 2:41

Dear Thank u for your reply.

Let me be clear in my question.

In need to check whether all the hardware devices are installed in my machine without yellow mark. as we see in device manager.

I want to list all the status of the hardware drivers installed in the PC

Eg.

LAn driver- Status - Ok
Audio - Status- Not properly installed

Based on the yellow bang

Re: How to check device drivers are installed properly in PC

fat_boy25-Sep-08 2:46

How to extract a HID device raw report descriptor

25-Sep-08 2:46

OK, thats more like it.

You need to look at the setupdixxx functions. Start with SetupDiGetClassDevs(). Then read, and read, and read MSDN. (By the way, the device classes are in the registry: HKLM\sys\ccs\control\deviceclasses. Find the one that relates to the device class you are interested in and away you go.)

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

ZeWareN24-Sep-08 9:19

ZeWareN

24-Sep-08 9:19

Hello.
I'm trying to find a way to extract the raw hid report descriptor of a HID device.
I will have a filter driver attached to the device so I don't mind the mode (kernel/user) where I get it.

I don't want anything pre-parsed, I need the raw binary data.

Example of report descriptor: http://euc.jp/periphs/xbox-pad-report-desc.txt[^]

Does anyone know how to achieve this?

ZeWaren / Erwan Martin, French student.

Re: How to extract a HID device raw report descriptor

Richard MacCutchan20-May-20 22:48

Richard MacCutchan

20-May-20 22:48

The question was posted nearly twelve years ago. They either solved it then or gave up.

Vista and UAC

jung-kreidler23-Sep-08 22:25

23-Sep-08 22:25

Hi all,

we're developing a filter driver for the ip stack. Everything on XP works fine. On Vista we have to switch off UAC, otherwise the dll accessing the driver gets an access denied error. Running the app as admin works, too.

I do not understand why the app does not work in normal user mode. All applications accessing hardware do not have to run elevated. So, why do we have to elevate our app in order to get the access to our driver?

We've tried to use signed driver and application without success.

Any thoughts?

jung-kreidler

fat_boy24-Sep-08 0:59

24-Sep-08 0:59

Add a manifest file to the executable.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

jung-kreidler24-Sep-08 1:39

24-Sep-08 1:39

Hi fat_boy,

thanks for your comment.

Manifest is already part of the app and the dll. Additionally we've signed the app, dll and sys, but it does not help.

jung-kreidler

fat_boy24-Sep-08 1:47

24-Sep-08 1:47

So it works on XP as a non administrator but on Vista doesnt? (ie, it needs admin rights to work).

This should be the same, the issue on Vista is whether the exe will auto prompt for permission (thats what the manifest file does).

Have you checked the local security policy on the machines? Also, depending on how you are accessing the filter driver, you can accept a lower security level. If its via IOCTLs you can down grade the security needed so a non admin can access it. (You then use MAXIMUM_ALLOWED in the call to CreateFile() )

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

jung-kreidler24-Sep-08 4:21

24-Sep-08 4:21

Yes on XP it works, but Vista needs to elevate (run as 'admin') with UAC enabled.

Mhmm, local security is a point, but not practicable (...sorry), since most of our users won't dig around (or even worse: do not have the knowledge) in the security settings. We have to deal with a default Vista installation and there the UAC is enabled for sure, while security settings are strong...

We thought about having a second driver, which does the IO control between the app and the filter driver, but are not sure if this will work. Confused | :confused:

At the moment we're stuck Big Grin | :-D

...

fat_boy24-Sep-08 4:46

24-Sep-08 4:46

OK, so is the issue:

1) The app, when run, doesnt elevate, and thus cant access the driver.

or

2) The app, when run, does elevate, but then cant acces the driver?

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

jung-kreidler24-Sep-08 4:52

24-Sep-08 4:52

The issue is 1). We do not want to elevate our application, in order to avoid the popup dialog of the UAC. The app should run without any annoying dialogs, the way it runs on XP. E.g. Wireshark also accesses a filter driver, but without any elevation... and we do not know how...

fat_boy24-Sep-08 4:58

24-Sep-08 4:58

OK, so you want without a popup. Two questions:

1) Are you accessing the filter driver through IOCTLs?

2) Does your CreateFile() specify MAXIMUM_ALOWED?

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

jung-kreidler24-Sep-08 5:05