Top 10 Compaq Presario 5000 PC Desktop Questions & Answers

Hi I have a Compaq Presario 5000 and it will not switch on - when I press the power switch a red light flashes and nothing happens - any ideas?

I'm trying to find/copy all the macros I created in my old Microsoft Word 2000 program to my newer computer with Microsoft Word 2003. I can't find the file that contains the macros. I really don't want to recreate them from scratch. Help!

Hi! Just after Y2K, my wife & I bought a Compaq Presario computer, tailor-made, through a special offer on TV. It uses a COMPAQ SPS-BD 1394 Motherboard. As a former tech, 1982-89, with a mainframe peripherals manufacturer who downsized big time in '89, I probably know just enough to be dangerous anymore, but here goes: Some background info, and a description of our problem(s). We appreciate any advice on this:
1. I'm also a musician and former music teacher (got tired of baby sitting!), who writes a lot of his own stuff & orchestrates accompaniments on MIDI software. Eventually learned that our AMD ATHLON processor runs at something like 0.8 GHz, and that something 2 Gig or above is better for creating musical instrument sounds on the computer.

2. For audio and video purposes, including a desire to put a reasonably professional video demo of my stuff on my web site, I maxed out the three SIMM slots and bought a Pinnacle Studio Deluxe video editing program. To catch up with the system requirements, I upgraded from Win 98 to XP (Home Edition), and later downloaded Service Pack 2. So far, so good. The motherboard has five regular expansion slots, plus one for the video card to access the COMPAQ model MV920 19" screen display we ordered with the system, to help with editing music scores on the screen.
3. The video software also needed more horses than our 20 GB original hard drive could handle, so I added a MAXTOR Diamond Max Plus 9 160-GB hard drive and Silicon Image Ultra ATA 133 PCI dual channel controller board, since our system might not recognize HD capacity of over 130 GB without the controller board. I had hoped to configure the Maxtor as a replacement boot drive, but it looks like our system would only support it as a slave. We got along OK with that for awhile, even networking it to a 2.4 GHz HP Pavilion we later bought for my wife to use for her special ed teacher job and for archiving family photos. (I know what you’re thinking: she won’t part with it, and I value my life, so please don’t even go there.) By the way, the network is CAT-5, not wireless, because we use 2.4 GHz cordless phones. But there's a new development...
4. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law died about a year ago, and left us a Compaq Presario S5010NX, Prod. # DN032A-ABA, with a 2.5GHz Celeron. I had hoped to somehow cannibalize the two Presario systems into one eventually, to max out our options, and especially to take advantage of the new Presario's much higher processor speed. But in the middle of running an educational book sales business for the past 4 years, to support my "music habit", and printing all my business cards, order forms, etc. at home on our Konica Minolta PagePro 1350W b/w laser, I hesitated to upset the apple cart until I had time someday to really dig in to the project & do it right.
5. Well, time doesn't always work that way. Gas prices went nuts, of course, and my book sales business operates like Reader's Digest's "Books Are Fun" program, delivering sample displays of our product to over 300 schools and other client organizations. As a sole proprietor, operating on a consignment basis from my supplier, I had to pay all my own gasoline, with no reimbursement until I could write it off at tax time each year. By Nov. 2007, as customers bought less, because all THEIR money was going into gasoline, it got so bad, I had to pull the plug. So although I'm training for a new "day job" as a truck driver, and continuing to work an old second job as a radio DJ, there's still some time to tackle the project now. But meantime, our system somehow failed to archive stuff to the new Maxtor secondary drive - I apparently didn't have programs & data content properly separated onto different physical drives, or something like that. Bottom line, the 20 GB master drive apparently overloaded, and the Config.sys file became corrupted.
6. Since January 2008, I've gone ahead and managed to set up the Maxtor as boot drive on the faster (Celeron) Presario, even by-passing the ultra-ATA adapter board, and although I'm back to XP Service Pack 1, and somehow unable to properly download SP-2 from microsoft.com, it will still run Microsoft works (which I use a lot for databases of business contacts, tax prep spreadsheets, etc.), as well as Microsoft Internet Explorer and our Outlook Express e-mail. One of the 3 expansion slots is already occupied by a video board, since the motherboard's on-board video connector won't drive our big display. That problem might be just a matter of downloading a new driver from Compaq, I'm not sure. Even so, the two remaining expansion slots might be enough for our sound card, which uses a MIDI adapter cable to access my electric piano and some old MIDI sound modules; plus the final slot for the interface card for the video processing software. So, finally, here are the current remaining problems I'm trying to solve:
6-1. Although we don't currently need to use an expansion slot for networking/internet/e-mail, since the new Presario has an on-board Ethernet adapter that accepts CAT-5, a new problem has developed: the Konica Minolta Page Pro 1350W black & white laser hangs up whenever the CAT-5 cable is connected to the CPU. Unplug it, and maybe re-boot, and you can print fine. By the way, we're still using the old Centronix type of printer interface cable, although the printer is USB compatible, and the new Presario has multiple USB connectors, so we can archive stuff on a flash drive easily. But if we want to archive a hard copy of an e-mail or some web info, or want to save ink by printing something from my wife’s computer to the laser, via the network, we’re screwed. The day before composing this message, I e-mailed Konica Minolta about this, and am waiting to hear from them. But that’s not all…
6-2. I’ve recently added several new contacts to an address / telephone database of business contacts. Suddenly, I’m beginning to see markedly slow performance, plus messages about the virtual memory being low. I’ve learned that the Task Manager has something to do with optimizing the virtual memory, but can’t seem to figure out how to do it, without maybe re-partitioning the physical hard drives, and not sure if I can save current data, or would have to re-load it, after re-partitioning.
At first, I thought I might have to return to the old Presario, due to limited number of expansion slots. But even though that no longer appears necessary, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t maybe still return to it, this time due to limited number of SIMM slots - 3 on the old computer, versus only 2 on the new. I did a defrag today (3-18-08), and only one of four partitions seemed to need it. But now, I’m wondering whether or not I can boost virtual memory by re-partitioning. It’s also looking now like the new Presario is failing to recognize a large part of the big Maxtor hard drive. Maybe I didn’t properly partition it to begin with, or maybe the ultra ATA adapter board WILL be necessary, after all, in order to enable full hard drive recognition.
I thought an easy solution would be to add another SIMM card, but then I realized that the new Presario has only 2 slots for them, and both are already filled with SIMM cards.
So here’s the REALLY insane part: I’m wondering if the OLD Presario has sufficient qualities, like number of memory address bit lines available, and sufficient speed in any other hardware on the mother board to enable swapping out the 2.5 Ghz Celeron processor from the NEW Presario, and installing it in the OLD one. I haven’t gone far enough to see if the microprocessors’ physical mounting systems even allows this, like whether they are soldered in, or just mounted in a socket. But I have a notion that these two motherboards are not physically compatible in their real estate enough to allow this kind of a swap - or whether any other factors prohibit this idea. Does anybody know?
For what it’s worth, I don’t have a pile of money right now, but can offer a link on my web site, as thanks, to parties that fit in with the site’s family-oriented philosophy. For details, you can e-mail me, at [email protected], and we can discuss the site & maybe refer you to it.
Thank You!
Patrick “Pat” Quance (‘Kwahnss”)
PS: For the many who are saying, “Get out of the stone age, man - get a new computer - maybe two - a PC and a MAC - and use the MAC for the music, and the PC for other stuff.” - Well, maybe, once I have the money. Commuting long distance to a couple teaching jobs, due to limited openings in my specialty of music, drained our credit cards, and began several years of eliminating them and catching up. Once we can, we’d love to upgrade everything - computers, vehicles, house, you name it. We hope the Class A CDL and driving job will enable this.

How do i fix tis problem. each time i start up computer this error displays on my desktop?

My computer will not power up. When I hit the power button the lights come on briefly then shut off. Sometimes the lights will stay on for several minutes then but it does not boot up. I cannot get it to boot up at all any more.

i need an 8 character referral key. You may find that referral key on a white sticker on the outside of your product packaging. This key is optional. If you have it pls provide it to me. I have downloaded Ms-Office 2007 and installed to my PC, it ask for 25 character product key and when got the solution again it's asking for 8 character referrral key please help.

My Laptop is running so slow and different programmes are not responding as they should.
All i wish to do is set the laptop back to how it was when i bought it.
It came with no disks and I dont care if i lose all my info, most important stuff is saved to various websites anyway.
Can you help.
About 2 weeks after i bought it i had to reset it with the help of an HP technician over the phone as the keyboard would miss letters out .
so i know it is not a very big job , but cant remember how to do it.
Thanks
p.s. it is about 10 months old now.

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SM BUS CONTROLLER NOT INSTALLED

WHEN I START MY PC A RED LIGHT FLASHES 4 TIMES THEN IT SHUTS DOWN PC WHAT DO I DO?