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Noticed Strange Thing On Packard Bell PC's

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AngelfireUk83

AngelfireUk83

Member
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Joined
Nov 7, 2004
My old work place had a Packard Bell PC with a INTEL Celeron 2.4ghz CPU now everytime they powered up it showed the screen. Asking what to do either Microsoft Windows XP Home or Recovery Console now my brother has purchased the same design PC.

Same monitor, casing etc but it has a AMD Athlon XP 3200+ yes that's right he bought it with a 3200+ XP. After booting up 1st time then restarting after installing all the programs needed it does the same how do I stop it or is it just an OEM thing.
 
It's probably because the machine doesn't ship with a proper copy of the Windows XP disc, more likley just an image of the hard disk. The option is being shown so that if your windows install goes titsup you still have some method of accessing the recovery console without the cd.

You can probably stop it by changing the boot configuration, but I would advise against it unless you have a proper Windows XP cd.
 
Flamed_Chip said:
It's probably because the machine doesn't ship with a proper copy of the Windows XP disc, more likley just an image of the hard disk. The option is being shown so that if your windows install goes titsup you still have some method of accessing the recovery console without the cd.

You can probably stop it by changing the boot configuration, but I would advise against it unless you have a proper Windows XP cd.
Click to expand...
That's definitely good advice.
 
I knew it wasn't a proper copy of XP the amound of money they charge to buy these pre-built PC's only to find out it's not a full version of the OP system. I'm glad I built my own pre-built PC's have such a load of crap junk on them to me it's like advertising software your not going to use.
 
Packard Bell is still around? I haven't seen once since the early pentium days.

Anyway, if it an OEM disc, you might be able to clean the OEM folder off and it will run like a regular copy of XP. Worked for my brothers dell dim2400 anyway.
 
They always were a PITA. Do a search of your HD for a folder called :\I386. On older PB setups you could make setup disks out of that. Of course, that was a long time ago, and the option may not exist anymore.
 
This OS seems to be full but for a AMD Athlon XP 3200+ and 512mb DDR RAM (32mb shared for graphics). It seems to run slow even the hard drive which is 160gb IDE is slow I think it's a 5,200 rpm 2mb cache drive I'm not quite sure.

I've disabled some services unchecked some stuff in MSCONFIG like Office and Nero Check. Yes he has Internet Security 2004 and my brother installed Norton Anti Virus 2006 it seems to have removed the IS04's version of Anti Virus but kept the Firewall.

I'll see if I can find that folder I told him I could build him a A64 3000+ with at least 1GB GEIL Value Memory, 160gb Hitachi SATA HDD and a decent motherboard for under £600 BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
 
Last edited:
Off topic abit, but wasn't Packard Bell banned from selling stuff in America because they were relabeling the parts in the machines etc?

For example, said a ATi Radeon 9200SE was a Radeon 9600SE etc? I'm sure i read it on here ages ago.
 
Don't know if they were banned, but IMO they started selling real crap, and their market share dropped severely.
 
Packard Bell are owned by NEC, but they seem to have something to do with the UK Dixons group too, so as long as those corporate blobs stay afloat Packard Bell aren't likely to fold (unless they decide to can the brand that it).
 
AngelfireUk83 said:
This OS seems to be full but for a AMD Athlon XP 3200+ and 512mb DDR RAM (32mb shared for graphics). It seems to run slow even the hard drive which is 160gb IDE is slow I think it's a 5,200 rpm 2mb cache drive I'm not quite sure.

I've disabled some services unchecked some stuff in MSCONFIG like Office and Nero Check. Yes he has Internet Security 2004 and my brother installed Norton Anti Virus 2006 it seems to have removed the IS04's version of Anti Virus but kept the Firewall.

I'll see if I can find that folder I told him I could build him a A64 3000+ with at least 1GB GEIL Value Memory, 160gb Hitachi SATA HDD and a decent motherboard for under £600 BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Click to expand...

-Get rid of any norton products on the system, and replace them with better free software
-Run XPlite, and get rid of some of the rest of the bloat
-Stick a £10 dedicated gfx card from eBay in the thing, so it's not chewing into system memory

or ideally find the cd key and windows version and just borrow or download an OEM windows copy, nlite it and do a bloat free install from scratch, it's not a great system but you should be able to get it feeling quite fast, if my Celeron 1300 runs an nlited' XP speedily, then your brother's machine should.
 
>HyperlogiK< said:
Packard Bell are owned by NEC, but they seem to have something to do with the UK Dixons group too, so as long as those corporate blobs stay afloat Packard Bell aren't likely to fold (unless they decide to can the brand that it).
Click to expand...

i thought packard bell was now part of HP.
 
RJARRRPCGP said:
I would report fraud, because I never saw that problem before! It shall have a full OS!
Click to expand...

The system shipped with an OEM license, not the same as a retail version. They don't have to provide a CD with it, just the COA, and a "means" for the end user to re-install the software. The "means" to re-install the software is a partition on the drive with the system recovery files.
 
In most systems that do not ship with a reinstallation cd, thre is a install disk tool under start -> accessories -> system tools. I've seed this when the vendor does not ship with a disk, and it is used to create installation disks. If there is not, then its possible you could find the i386 directory, and with additional information, create a installation cd.
 
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