Dell Inspiron 1501 Chipset Error

Posted by Brad

I just worked on a Dell Inspiron 1501 that was having problems booting into Windows. It could boot into safe mode, but in normal mode it would sit at the Welcome screen twirling its circle. I ran the built-in diagnostics and found a problem with the chipset. I figured it might be a bad motherboard. I used Dell’s support website and found the laptop needed an updated BIOS to fix the problem. The only BIOS they had for download had to be installed in Windows. Since the Windows on the laptop did not work, I reinstalled Windows first. With a new Windows load, I tried to run the BIOS update program, but it failed and said it had to be run as an administrator. The account I was using was an administrator account, but I actually had to right-click and select “Run as Administrator” before the program worked properly. Then I was in for a treat – I had always updated a BIOS through DOS or by running a Windows program that rebooted the computer and updated in DOS. This program from Phoenix actually updated the BIOS in Windows. This was quite scary given the nature of Windows to crash at inopportune times. Someone might want to rethink updating a BIOS with a Windows program since a system crash or blue screen could potentially nuke your BIOS.

Anyway the update succeeded and the error was fixed. However, the laptop gave me a Fixed Disk 0 not found error once before and after reloading Windows and updating the BIOS. I checked the hard drive through the Dell diagnostics and Windows check disk and found no errors. I suspect there may be something flaky on the motherboard, but since the laptop is over 3 years old, I advised the customer of the problem which might occur every once in a while. A reboot bypassed the problem so they decided they could live with the laptop like that as it was only being used for getting on the Internet. I hate having an unresolved problem, but the possible hardware solutions cost as much as a new laptop and the customer was okay with the problem as long as the laptop worked most of the time.

AVG Add-on for Outlook Prevents Outlook from Starting

Posted by Brad

I had to tackle this issue on a computer recently. The computer was running Outlook 2003 and AVG 9, but could no longer open Outlook. The first in a series of error messages that popped up when you tried to start Outlook said “Unable to start out-of-process scanning server” then “The add-in “C:\PROGRAM FILES\AVG\AVG9\avgxch32.dll” could not be installed or loaded. This problem may be resolved by using Detect and Repair on the Help menu.” Too bad you cannot get to the help menu in Outlook (although when I finally could, running Detect and Repair didn’t help).

I found one tip that said run the Inbox Repair Tool on the pst file. I did that, it found some errors and repaired them, but the AVG error persisted. Then I found a page on AVG’s site which discussed the problem. The answer was to download a utility to address the problem. The link provided was for AVG 8 (guess this problem’s been around for a while), but I changed the link to reflect AVG 9 and it worked. The utility finally let me start Outlook, but when I restarted, the problem came back. There is a log file generated that you can send to AVG for analysis, but I finally used the utility to get into Outlook and just disabled the AVG add-on. I figure when the next version of AVG comes out, maybe the add-on will work again.

APA Template

Posted by Brad

I recently wrote about buying a new APA template for Word 2010 from Reference Point Software. The template works great even in the 64-bit version of Word 2010 I am using. I have used an APA template from Reference Point Software since 2002 for Word XP, 2003, 2008 for the Mac, and now 2010. Of all of the versions (XP and 2003 were essentially the same) the Word 2010 version seems to be the best and easiest to use. The template integrates into the accursed Ribbon (which I have grown to accept now that it is customizable) and this makes using the template easier to use. In previous versions of the template for Word for Windows a menu called APA was added to Word and the options were accessible from this menu. Now a tab is created with its own ribbon interface making all the commands easier to see all at once and easier to use.

If you have a need for using an APA or MLA template, I highly recommend checking out the templates from Reference Point Software. This company was recommended to me in my first Master’s class and I cannot thank my instructor enough for suggesting them.