This Season, A Gift for your PC Too. #1: RAM

Want to boost the speed of your computer? Try adding more RAM. It is one of the first upgrades you should try on your computer.

A typical absolute minimum memory to have today is 512 MB. If you do lots of work on your computer - run lots of programs, browse the Internet with lots of tabs open etc, you should try a minimum of 1 GB RAM. If you are an advanced user, run latest software and can afford it, go for 2 GB RAM.

The First constraint is the maximum amount of memory that your motherboard supports. To find out your computer's limits, look up your computer's specifications. If yours is a branded computer like HP, Dell etc, you can easily find the information on their website. You can also contact their customer support for the information.

If you have an assembled computer, or if you are unable to get the information from your computer vendor, you can look up the information from your motherboard manufacturer's website. You can open up your computer and find the motherboard model number printed on the board itself. Then, look up the information on the motherboard manufacturer's website. Also make note of what and how many modules are already installed on the computer and how many slots are available / free.

For example, Intel® Desktop Board D845GRG supports the following memory configuration:

• Two 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets
• Support for single-sided or double-sided DIMMs (DDR 200 and DDR 266)
• Support for up to 2 GB system memory

For latest Intel motherboards, click here. For legacy / archived Intel motherboards.

The Second constraint is the number of Available Memory Slots on your motherboard. Lets consider an example. Your motherboard has a total of 2 DIMM slots. You have one 256MB memory module already installed. That leaves you with just 1 more slot free.

If you need to upgrade to 512 MB, you can buy One 256 MB module. If you need to increase your system's memory to 1 GB, you have to buy One 1 GB module only. Leaving the old module intact, Your computer will have a net of 1GB + 256 MB: 1,280 MB memory. Or you could add just one 512 MB RAM and get a net of 768 MB RAM.

If your system does not have free DIMM slots, you may have to discard the old modules. (You may be able to readily sell them in the grey market).

HP Pavilion - Code Purple Error

Problem:

On HP Pavilion systems, while doing a full System Restore, during the first boot, Win XP says it has detected changes to the system configuration and will not proceed. It says you to contact HP Customer Care and says Code Purple. You have no option other than rebooting the system.

Cause - My Guess:

Microsoft's OEM licensing requires that the computers have a unique "tattoo" (an Build ID string stored on your BIOS memory) to which your copy of the operating system software is locked to. While creating the Recovery Partition for your system, during the OEM imaging process (process of installing OS and creating your OS copy on your Harddisk), the OS is locked to run only on a computer with your computer's tattoo. This prevents you from installing the software on another system (even from the same vendor with same specification).

You might be facing this error due to so many causes;

1. Your motherboard might have been replaced - either by your or HP Service.
2. Your motherboard is having a corrupt tattoo.
3. May be you are using the wrong Recovery CDs.

I came up on this error while recovering my HP Pavilion whose motherboard was replaced by HP Authorised Service. Wonder why they did not set the correct tattoo on the motherboard then? They knew while replacing the motherboard that I will not be able to recover my system didn't they?

Solution #1:

You can let HP resolve the issue for you. Reports on the net indicate that they will do it promptly for you but it may take a few days. If your system is out of warranty, it is reported that HP may ask for a nominal service fee. (I have no first hand information on this).

I did not use HP Support to resolve the issue. I hit upon the problem at 9'o clock at night and the tech support guys had gone to sleep. Am not the type who waits for them to wake up - so I did my homework.

Solution #2:

If you want a DIY solution, and don't mind taking some effort, you can bypass this tattoo check yourself. Actually, it is very easy to do. I doubt that it is intentionally so!

When the OS first boots, It runs a batch file c:\hp\bin\ConfigCheck\CFGCHK.bat which does this:

c:\hp\bin\hpdmi r > dmiout.txt
python c:\hp\bin\ConfigCheck\run.py
del dmiout.txt
cd ..
rd /s /q c:\hp\bin\ConfigCheck


So, this is the batch file which insists on your computer having a tattoo! It runs c:\hp\bin\hpdmi to get your Bios String Build ID. Then there is the python script that hangs the system and displays the popup message. All you have to do is remove all the lines from the batch file and make it empty. Or do whatever else you want. (Like say Hi to you?)

Problem is, to edit the batch file you need access to the file and an editor. And your system won't boot up! Starting in safe mode does not work - it insists you to complete setup first.

So you need a bootable CD that lets you do it. You must be able to find many on the Internet but you need one that can read and write the XP NTFS file system on your hard disk. So your MS DOS boot disks are useless. You can use Ultimate Boot Cd, you can also try something from www.allbootdisks.com (I haven't tried them - tell me how it works).

You can also try removing the HDD, adding it to another XP/Linux computer as an additional hard disk and editing the batch file - Tell me if it works.

You need to use a boot disk, go to your system's C: partition, overwrite the edit the c:\hp\bin\ConfigCheck\CFGCHK.bat file and remove all the lines.

If you are using Ultimate Boot CD, you will have to keep in mind that the Linux distros on the disk do not seem to support the NTFS partitions. You will have to use their Avira NTFS4DOS Personal tool under File system Tools menu. On my system, AVIVA crashed when I did a DIR! So I had to overwrite the file from the command line without using the DIR command like this:

ren c:\hp\bin\CFGCHK.bat c:\read.txt
copy con c:\hp\bin\CFGCHK.bat
@ECHO OFF
(Press Ctrl+Z to save file)


The c:\read.txt copy is for you to read later, if you are interested. Now reboot the system and enjoy.

For more info, see this blog post: Code Purple — The Compaq/HP Booby Trap