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Frequently Asked Questions
Alt.sys.pc-clone.PackardBell
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Packard-Bell
A fully formatted MS Word document is available
at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Packard-Bell
1. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Table of Contents 2
2. Introduction and Intent 3
Acceptable Usage. 3
Disclaimer. 3
3. Netiquette 5
Spam. 5
Commercialism. 5
Off-Topic. 5
Picture Files. 5
4. How to Identify your Motherboard. 6
BIOS String. 6
FCC ID Number. 6
Packard Bell Syscred.exe. 7
System Lookup Configuration Utility.
7
Belarc. 7
PC Pitstop. 7
5. Drivers for Packard Bell devices 9
6. Useful Links 10
Packard Bell websites 10
Packard Bell user websites 10
Related links 11
Anti-Tracking, Anti-Spam & Netiquette
Websites. 11
7. Jargon and Abbreviations 13
8. References 14
2. INTRODUCTION AND INTENT
Consider this a living document. It will change
and evolve to meet your
needs. This is an un-moderated group is
dedicated to owners and users of
Packard Bell personal computers. The objective
of these Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQ) is to give you, the Packard Bell
user, some direction when
posting to this newsgroup. Since this is an
un-moderated group, these are
only suggestions. However, if you follow these
suggestions, you should
receive useful answers to your questions about
Packard Bell computers.
Acceptable Usage.
It is a violation of the charter of this group
for any participant to send,
knowingly receive, upload, download or use any m
aterial which is
disparaging, offensive, abusive, indecent,
defamatory, profane, obscene, or
menacing, or in breach of copyright, confidence,
privacy or any other
rights, or to cause annoyance, inconvenience or
needless anxiety among other
members.
This group is not affiliated with Packard Bell,
Packard, Bell, any "for
profit", or "not for profit" organization on
planet earth. Any similarity to
any organization or persons, either now living
or dead, is purely
coincidental.
Disclaimer.
Any unauthorized interception and/or
distribution of this group's messages,
in part or in whole, is illegal and may be a
violation of State, Federal,
and/or International Law. No information posted
on this group is intended to
be relied upon by any person without subsequent
written confirmation of its
contents. This group therefore disclaims all
responsibility and accepts no
liability of any kind that may arise from any
person acting, or refraining
from acting, upon the contents of the message
without having had subsequent
written confirmation.
Please read through the whole FAQ before
posting, it will make your
experience here much better. Also check out the
websites in the LINKS
section; you may find your answer there.
3. NETIQUETTE
Spam.
This newsgroup is not a moderated news group,
but Spamming is not tolerated.
If you do Spam here, you will be reported to the
appropriate authorities.
Commercialism.
Selling of any computer service or parts is
unacceptable. Do not post offers
of service, hardware, and software to this
newsgroup. Similarly, do not post
links to auction sites offering services,
hardware, or software.
Off-Topic.
A message that is not directly related to a
Packard Bell computer is
considered an off topic message. If you must
post something that is off
topic, please put OT: in the beginning of your
subject line.
Picture Files.
This is not a binary newsgroup. Please do not
post pictures (binary
attachments) to this newsgroup. If you believe a
picture is worth a thousand
words, upload your pictures elsewhere somewhere
and post a link to that
file. With the rise of the digital camera, there
are many excellent, free
photo websites.
4. HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR MOTHERBOARD.
When you raise a question to the newsgroup or
the list, include as much
information as you can obtain in your initial
posted message. The critical
information is often the identification of your
motherboard. If you do not
know the identity of your motherboard, post the
BIOS string and/or FCC ID#
with your question.
Packard Bell is infamous for confusing model
names and an equally confusing
(and customized) array of motherboards. The best
way to identify your
system, and get accurate info about it, is to
identify the motherboard.
BIOS String.
The first way is determined by the BIOS string
(BIOS version) displayed when
the computer goes through its initial startup or
POST. IF you then post you
BIOS string to this newsgroup, someone is sure
to point you in the right
direction.
BIOS string examples:
AMI 1.00.nn.xxxR
Phoenix 4A3NT0X0.86A.0062.P06
Award (format varies)
Packard Bell Bios x.xx
FCC ID Number.
You may be able to identify your motherboard
from the FCCID. Embedded in the
FCC ID# is a series of three numbers that may
identify your motherboard.
Beware! There are instances in which the FCCID
did not give the correct
motherboard model.
Example: FCC ID#: FOD680PT
This would designate it as a system with a 680
motherboard.
Packard Bell Syscred.exe.
Another way to find out what motherboard you
have is to use the SYSCRED.EXE
program that may be on your system already, or
possibly on your Packard Bell
Master Restore CD. To do this, first locate the
SYSCRED.EXE program either
on your hard drive, or on you Packard Bell
Master Restore CD. Then just
double click it to run, and it will tell you
info about your system.
System Lookup Configuration Utility.
You may use Priority One's System Configuration
Lookup Utility. You will
have to register to be able to use the system,
and use the FREE access
registration. Then the System Lookup
Configuration Utility can be found in
the Packard Bell driver section. This lookup
tool is for North American
systems only.
Belarc.
You may use Belarc's free system analysis
utility. It may be downloaded free
from http://belarc.com.
PC Pitstop.
You may also use PC Pitstop's free system
analysis and diagnosis utility.
This is a web-based program that requires a
small, free download.
Registration is free. It has the advantage of
archiving each test of your
computer(s) on their website. It may be
downloaded free from
http://pcpitstop.com.
5. DRIVERS FOR PACKARD BELL DEVICES
If you need drivers for your Packard Bell
systems, the device that you need
the driver for must be correctly identified.
Packard Bell came out with
hundreds of hardware configurations, and similar
to identifying a
motherboard, it
is impossible to know what devices are in a
Packard Bell system by model of
Packard Bell you have. But there are ways to ID
a device in a computer.
The first way to id a device is in the DEVICE
MANAGER, which can be accessed
by STARTCONTROL PANELSYSTEMS and then
clicking on the DEVICE MANAGER
tab. Then scroll through and find the device in
question. This is sometime
inaccurate, as Windows may not have installed
the correct drive when Windows
was first setup.
A second way to ID a device would be to open the
case and actual look at the
card. Look for the manufacture, model #, or
chipset. Then go to the
manufacture's website, or any driver website
(see LINKS section), and see if
you can find what you need there.
You can also use the FCC ID# to find out who
made your device. Just enter
the number on the FCC's ID# search page (see
LINKS section), and you will
find out who made your device.
NOTE: When using the FCC ID# and web page to
find out who made your device,
make sure you are using the FCC ID# and not the
FCC Registration Number (see
LINKS section).
6. USEFUL LINKS
Packard Bell websites
http://www.priorityonesupport.com
Official Support site for Packard Bell in North
America. Requires free
registration.
http://www.packardbell.com
Official World Support site for Packard Bell
Packard Bell user websites
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Packard-Bell
The Packard Bell user group on Yahoo groups.
Free registration required.
http://www.geocities.com/anotherpackardbellsite
http://mywebpage.netscape.com/_ht_a/...ackardbell.htm
(mirror)
Packard Bell website created by Velix.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/8774/
Ray's Packard Bell website. This is one of the
very best!
http://www.geocities.com/paul21_56304/index.html
Paul's Packard Bell boot disk/Restore CD website
Driver websites
http://www.driversearch.com/sites.php
A searchable driver website
http://driverguide.com/
Another driver website
Username: drivers
Password: all
Related links
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/
FCC ID lookup page to find a manufacturer via
the FCC ID#
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/help.html
Help page for FCC ID
http://microsoft.com
Microsoft's website
http://www.wimsbios.com/
Wim's BIOS page for information on various BIOS
types
Anti-Tracking, Anti-Spam & Netiquette
Websites.
http://www.inet.bg/faq/netiquete.html
Excellent basic netiquette
http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/notifyfaq.html
SPAM: What to report, how to report, where to
report.
http://spamcop.net/
Spam Cop's original Spam reporting service will
help you report Spam quickly
and accurately. Alternatively, choose from a
variety of filtering options
ranging from the easiest web-mail account to
advanced network-wide Spam
blocking.
http://spam.abuse.net/
Lots of info, one of the best anti-spam sites on
the net.
http://www.cauce.org/
Coalition Against Unwanted Commercial E-mail
http://www.turnstep.com/Spambot/
Here you will find information on how to avoid,
detect, and harass Spam
bots. Spam bots are programs that extract email
addresses from web pages,
which are then used as targets for Spam.
http://www.lavasoft.com
Ad-aware is a free, multi-component detection
and removal utility. It scans
memory, registry, hard, removable and optical
drives for known data mining,
aggressive advertising, and tracking components.
7. JARGON AND ABBREVIATIONS
AMI=American Megatrends
BIOS=Basic Input Output System
FCC=Federal Communication Commission
POST=Power On Self Test
8. REFERENCES
The original author of the
ALT.SYS.PC-CLONE.PACKARDBELL FAQ is unknown.
Anthony updated this version on February 13,
2003.
The Packard-Bell Yahoogroups List further
revised it on August 20, 2003.
If you feel there needs to be some additions to
this FAQ, please send your
suggestions to
All suggestions are welcome.
My work on the FAQs for this news group is
copyrighted, and it was never "derived" from the
original faq of ALT.SYS.PC-CLONE.PACKARDBELL. My
work is not public domain, and not for you to
modify, plagerize, or use in any form. Please
remove any mentions, and any plagerisms, of my
work, from your "faq". I am the owner of FAQs for
this newsgroup, and you area here by notified to
that fact.
If you have any "modifications" that you may feel
are apropriate for the FAQs of this newsgroup,
please respond to my FAQ thread, and I will
consider adding it to the FAQs of this group with
the input of the "regulars" of this group. If you
search back in the GOOGLE GROUPS archives, you can
see that I have put a lot of work into the
creation of the FAQs for this newsgroup, and I do
not appreciate what you are doing.
Regards,
Anthony