Pulsar unregistered itself and is locked now ??

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T204
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Post by T204 »

Hi,
I have been happily using my 2nd hand Pulsar for about a year or so running Scope 4 untill this morning...
I woke up, booted up my computer and was surprized to find a SCOPE box asking for my serial numbers. OK, I had a copy of my allkeys.skf handy so I imported that and got a nasty error saying Scope could not start error 0001. Since then I tried uninstalling Scope4 and then reinstalled but now when asked to provide my keys nothing happens after importing allkeys.skf or entering keys manually. 'Next' button is grayed out and installation cannot proceed :sad:
Any ideas anyone?
I probably need to email CreamWare support but judging from the amount of time it took them to send me my keys in the first place I'll still be stuck with this problem a month down the track...

Please help !

T204.

SPECS:
AMD 2700+
ASUS A7N8x DLX
2X512 PC3200 RAM
WinXP SP2

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: T204 on 2006-06-16 00:09 ]</font>
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garyb
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Post by garyb »

well, try and make sure that everything is well seated and clean the card contacts with 99% or purer alchohol, isohexane or similar.

if that doesn't help, you need to write rb[at]creamware.de and explain the problem to Ralf. he may be able to regenerate the keys for the card and he's the guy to speak to if something on the card has failed. there's a solution and he'll usually respond pretty quickly. he is just one busy man so it can take a couple of days sometimes, but normally he responds in a day.

if you really want to be careful and rule out the os(since you've been reinstalling stuff anyway), you could repartition and format the hd, although i suspect the card...
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Janni
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Post by Janni »

I had a similar problem and:
NO SOLUTION...
Pulsar1-cards are known to forget their keys and there is no other possibility except to transfer the keys to another card and use pulsar just as srb...
Since Pulsar1 is the old sereies there is no chance of repairing or exchange...
Since this, my pulsar1 is not in use, because randomly this problem reappears, even in srb-mode...
Sorry ... I was totally screwed ... hope you have another problem...
Greetings,
Jan
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T204
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Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 4:00 pm

Post by T204 »

Just installed a fresh copy of windows on another HD I had lying around...same problem :sad:
Damn...seems like I'm screwed!

gonna mail creamware anyway and see what they say...

T.
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H-Rave
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Post by H-Rave »

Did you try a system restore.I get the serial number box when scope doesn't shut down properly, I imagine it's a scope.rgy thing.Having said that I've had the no next problem as well.Did you uninstall scope before reinstalling it ?.It might be a windows pci problem as well.Just brainstorming it.
:smile:
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T204
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Post by T204 »

I did actually did try system restore but that didn't fix anything...Also tried cleaning the board and moving to different PCI slot.
After having installed a fresh copy of windows on a clean drive and still getting the same thing I'm convinced there's something seriously wrong :sad:
I mailed Ralph, hoping he's got some sort of trick up his sleeve.

T204
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H-Rave
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Post by H-Rave »

No,seriously wrong is when your card is physically defective.What you have is known as "A slight pain in the arse", you did install scope after the card had been detected by windows ?.Did you delete the scope directory after uninstalling it? Try that, I think It's a small windows problem.
Good Luck.
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astroman
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Post by astroman »

yeah, hopefully it is like this.
I'm not sure about the 'reliability' of the error code 0001, but I remember it from 2 situations:

once the installer 3.1 wasn't able to detect the card, but an older version did.
Admittedly the config wasn't officially supported (upgraded Mac), but it shows that under certain conditions the software may miss a working card.

the other time it was after the card was removed physically and the software was started unintended.

did you unplug (!) the powercord from the PC, switch it on/off a few times (with disconnected power) to discharge the buffer caps from the PSU, and then wait a minute before starting it up again ?
that very often 'unlocks' mad hardware

good luck, Tom
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irrelevance

Post by irrelevance »

where exactly is the discharge path going to be if the psu is unplugged? I've had issues with software not starting and cards not being recognised and it ended up being poor connection. Is it possible for you to try the card in another machine?
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Shroomz~>
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Post by Shroomz~> »

On 2006-06-16 14:06, irrelevance wrote:
where exactly is the discharge path going to be if the psu is unplugged?
Basically, the Motherboard will *fully* power down, which it won't unless disconnected from the mains PS.
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astroman
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Post by astroman »

where exactly is the discharge path going...
the PSU output itself is a load if unplugged.
if you switch the PC on without the powercord connected, you may hear a short start and stop of the fans and disk motors due to rests of power in the big capacitors on the PSU.
With the next switch the PSU is already discharged and acts as a load for the caps on the mobo which are then discharged as well.

it's probably not just about removing voltage rests, but to additionally generate a few transitions as some semiconductor states seem to be 'locked' - even though it's technically nonsense.
Normally the power-on reset function (of the circuit board) is supposed to do this job, yet experience shows it doesn't always work that way :wink:

of course the first check should be if everything is properly connected, but for the strange and mysterious cases the uplugged PSU trick is a reliable (and prooven!) method.

cheers, Tom
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T204
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Post by T204 »

Guys I tried everything mentioned here including installing the card on another PC. Stil 'Next' is grayed out and installation cannot proceed. Something is clearly wrong with the card :sad:

T204.
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garyb
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Post by garyb »

sometimes the card loses it's memory of the keys. sometimes a new set can be generated. depending on the problem, repair is also possible. wait 'till next week's correspondence with Ralf.....
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T204
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Post by T204 »

Ralph is asking me for "the resulting request-string ( from the registration-dialogue-box )"
I don't really understand what he means by that...
Can anyone help me please?

T204.
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garyb
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Post by garyb »

sure.
when then registration dialog opens, there is a window for the request string(letters and numbers). copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into wordpad. save the file and then attach it to your email to Ralf. OR, copy the string to the clipboard and paste it into your email to Ralf.

Ralf can then genrate a new keyfile for you.
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T204
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Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 4:00 pm

Post by T204 »

well...I still can't understand what this request-string is all about....perhaps because that string simply does't appear on my computer!?

when I launch SCOPE4 setup this comes up :
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/imag ... p1.7ce.jpg
and then that :
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/imag ... p2.8c2.jpg
after that I try to import/enter keys and nothing happens :sad:

where is the mysterious request-string?

T204


ps: I tried posting the images here but for some reason it doesn't work. please visit the above url's to view the pics.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: T204 on 2006-06-27 18:49 ]</font>
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garyb
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Post by garyb »

well, the request string is usually generated by an already present scope software not finding the keys and popping up a registration dialog. i'm really not sure how to generate one at install. it can be done, i'm pretty sure, i believe i had to do it once, but i don't remember what i had to do. this is one for cwa.
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T204
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Post by T204 »

OK, Ralph just mailed me with a solotion how to get the request-string...quite obvious actually...
simply run SFP.exe from the installation files. I wonder how I never thought of that :razz:

T204
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garyb
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Post by garyb »

aaah yes.
that's it.
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