Hi guys, still looking for a digital camera, and I'm getting closer to get one for the weekend, so as soon I have it, I will take a picture of the famous coffe cup for everybody to see it.
I would make a boot floppy off another computer, write protect it, then do an fdisk, fdisk the mbr after that, and reinstall if you think it is on the mbr. Or first you could just try fdisk /mbr, it wont' harm anything if your only running Windows 9x.
Just boot to a floppy and type fdisk -mbr, that clears out the master boot record. It shouldn't harm anything, you should be able to boot up windows after that BUT, most viruses that do hide in the mbr usually do infect other parts of the system and whatnot, so you may have to reformat if it is still hapenning.
Ok, thanks I will do it that way. I will let you know what happens.
Now is time for me to say good nite.
Now is time for me to say good nite.
how does it not show anywhere? it has too boot from somewhere. if you ctrl-alt-delete is it in the task manager? it has to be residing somewhere. look around, do you have a more computer savy friend to go over and help you? can you take a screen shot of the cup? use the print screen key, then go to paint and go to edit -> paste, then youll have a copy of your screen, i want to see this famous cup.
dam(eb[/b]ay)
dam(eb[/b]ay)
well, if it was walking around while formatting ( so in DOS) and was back right after, be sure won't show up in task manager. Probably as a process in the w2k manager, but not w9x.
Might want to check your config sys and autoexe bat, anyway.
Might want to check your config sys and autoexe bat, anyway.
kranky
Elite Member
- Oct 9, 1999
- 21,019
- 156
- 106
I looked on deja.com and found a couple threads that mentioned this coffee cup thing. No one had posted a definitive solution, but a couple people concluded it must be a BIOS thing, even though no one knew how that was possible.
Reflashing the BIOS doesn't take very long, so it might be worth it.
Reflashing the BIOS doesn't take very long, so it might be worth it.
fdisk /mbr doesn't erase anything, it only repairs it
u need to download the low-level format utility to actually erase/wipe anything
u need to download the low-level format utility to actually erase/wipe anything
heheh
maybe it's Starbucks new subliminal marketing campaign..
speaking of which...I need my daily fix...
maybe it's Starbucks new subliminal marketing campaign..
speaking of which...I need my daily fix...
Jalapeno
Senior member
- Dec 26, 2000
- 991
- 10
- 81
Gee, there's only one solution: carefully remove the HDD from your case (power off first, of course) and place it in an anti-stacic bag. Now you really have to prepare:
Extend your throwing arm with said cursed HDD grasped firmly, spin FAST around your own axis about 15 times and release in such a fashion so it will crash through your window into oblivion. This action should get rid of all Starbuck demons contained on it. Repeat above described procedure with ALL remaining items inside your case. Just to make absolutely sure, burn the case along with every single peripheral (and cables as well) that have ever been connected to it. Now, the hard part is over.
The next step is essential: Go to your local farmer, and buy a chicken. Take it home, light some incense in your living room and gather all the remains of your previous computer system in a heap in front of your fire place. Light a fire now.
Take your chicken, chant some 3dfx VOODOO rants. Twist chicken's head until it seperates from main body and splatter blood all over the heap of former computer parts and every single room in your house ( do not forget basement, if any).
Burn house to the ground, enter Federal Witness Protection Program, move to another state (country, preferably...). Start all over with your live, you know, finding a job, founding a family, etc...
Buy a new computer. (with your fingers crossed...) - see what happens - maybe you are more lucky this time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, I couldn't help it! This coffee cup thing is just too funny!!
I have never heard of anything like it before. Honestly, try a new mainboard and HDD. Goog luck!!!!!
Extend your throwing arm with said cursed HDD grasped firmly, spin FAST around your own axis about 15 times and release in such a fashion so it will crash through your window into oblivion. This action should get rid of all Starbuck demons contained on it. Repeat above described procedure with ALL remaining items inside your case. Just to make absolutely sure, burn the case along with every single peripheral (and cables as well) that have ever been connected to it. Now, the hard part is over.
The next step is essential: Go to your local farmer, and buy a chicken. Take it home, light some incense in your living room and gather all the remains of your previous computer system in a heap in front of your fire place. Light a fire now.
Take your chicken, chant some 3dfx VOODOO rants. Twist chicken's head until it seperates from main body and splatter blood all over the heap of former computer parts and every single room in your house ( do not forget basement, if any).
Burn house to the ground, enter Federal Witness Protection Program, move to another state (country, preferably...). Start all over with your live, you know, finding a job, founding a family, etc...
Buy a new computer. (with your fingers crossed...) - see what happens - maybe you are more lucky this time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, I couldn't help it! This coffee cup thing is just too funny!!
I have never heard of anything like it before. Honestly, try a new mainboard and HDD. Goog luck!!!!!
Oh wait a minute, part of that is a hell of a good idea Jalapeno!
Eltano1:
Disconnect the power or IDE cable for the hard drive(s) in the system.
Boot off a boot floppy made on another computer.
Do you still get the coffee cup? If yes, then it must have stuffed itself into your BIOs somewhere.
No? Then it's definitely on part of your hard drive which a normal format, and even some low level format programs may not touch...
Eltano1:
Disconnect the power or IDE cable for the hard drive(s) in the system.
Boot off a boot floppy made on another computer.
Do you still get the coffee cup? If yes, then it must have stuffed itself into your BIOs somewhere.
No? Then it's definitely on part of your hard drive which a normal format, and even some low level format programs may not touch...
Hi,
It's hard to believe that an animated coffee cup could be given life from the BIOS, but I suppose it's possible. I would think that any "animation" under such circumstances would depend upon graphics card / monitor synchronization characteristics. And that kind of sounds like what Elatano1 is describing. If I understand correctly, they are seeing this apparition move slowly across the screen. (Left to right? Same position vertically every time, or different vertical position? Same rate all the time?) At any rate, removing the hard drive from the picture and booting off a KNOWN clean DOS diskette (or a bootable CD) is likely to be a good aid in diagnosis.
BUT... although a continued appearance by the coffee cup under such circumstances would preclude the hard drive being involved, it doesn't necessarily limit the culpability to the BIOS. I know for a fact that I could CAUSE a coffee cup to appear on a monitor that wasn't even hooked up to a computer. I had been operating under a misconception before. When Eltano1 was writing about trying to use the cursor to affect the coffee cup I mistakenly thought that the coffee cup was disappearing under "it" -- it being the cursor. What Eltano1 was really saying, and what I didn't understand, was that the cursor was disappearing "under" the coffee cup. Right? My mistaken assumption was leading me to think that the coffee cup's behavior was affected by the cursor.
Bartman39 said this was probably RFI early on. I agreed, but with reservations because of my misunderstanding of the results of the "cursor test". If the cursor could affect the coffee cup, that would (I think) almost certainly preclude this being BIOS related OR RFI.
Unless disconnecting the hard drive causes the image to go away, I think RFI is still in the running. Eltano1 has said that there are no known emitters nearby, but it doesn't take much to produce a visible response on a monitor. Amplification can do wonders for a little bit of signal. It sounds almost like a screensaver on someone's "noisy" system could be transmitting this signal. (Deliberate hoax transmission by third party is still possible, too.) It's also possible that a shielding or power supply problem on this system has made it vulnerable to an external signal. I wonder if more information about the environment of this system would be helpful. Is it in a house, dorm, heavily populated neighborhood, lab? RFI can be transmitted through power lines as well as through space. Have the video card and monitor been swapped out? Is there a TV tuner card (or a graphics card with input for TV signal) installed on the system? (Did I ask that before? Sorry, I don't know the model numbers that have been discussed. I'm a recent arrival from the RISCstation universe, and I've never been into hardware anyway.)
Oh boy, oh boy. This is so much fun!
Regards,
Jim
It's hard to believe that an animated coffee cup could be given life from the BIOS, but I suppose it's possible. I would think that any "animation" under such circumstances would depend upon graphics card / monitor synchronization characteristics. And that kind of sounds like what Elatano1 is describing. If I understand correctly, they are seeing this apparition move slowly across the screen. (Left to right? Same position vertically every time, or different vertical position? Same rate all the time?) At any rate, removing the hard drive from the picture and booting off a KNOWN clean DOS diskette (or a bootable CD) is likely to be a good aid in diagnosis.
BUT... although a continued appearance by the coffee cup under such circumstances would preclude the hard drive being involved, it doesn't necessarily limit the culpability to the BIOS. I know for a fact that I could CAUSE a coffee cup to appear on a monitor that wasn't even hooked up to a computer. I had been operating under a misconception before. When Eltano1 was writing about trying to use the cursor to affect the coffee cup I mistakenly thought that the coffee cup was disappearing under "it" -- it being the cursor. What Eltano1 was really saying, and what I didn't understand, was that the cursor was disappearing "under" the coffee cup. Right? My mistaken assumption was leading me to think that the coffee cup's behavior was affected by the cursor.
Bartman39 said this was probably RFI early on. I agreed, but with reservations because of my misunderstanding of the results of the "cursor test". If the cursor could affect the coffee cup, that would (I think) almost certainly preclude this being BIOS related OR RFI.
Unless disconnecting the hard drive causes the image to go away, I think RFI is still in the running. Eltano1 has said that there are no known emitters nearby, but it doesn't take much to produce a visible response on a monitor. Amplification can do wonders for a little bit of signal. It sounds almost like a screensaver on someone's "noisy" system could be transmitting this signal. (Deliberate hoax transmission by third party is still possible, too.) It's also possible that a shielding or power supply problem on this system has made it vulnerable to an external signal. I wonder if more information about the environment of this system would be helpful. Is it in a house, dorm, heavily populated neighborhood, lab? RFI can be transmitted through power lines as well as through space. Have the video card and monitor been swapped out? Is there a TV tuner card (or a graphics card with input for TV signal) installed on the system? (Did I ask that before? Sorry, I don't know the model numbers that have been discussed. I'm a recent arrival from the RISCstation universe, and I've never been into hardware anyway.)
Oh boy, oh boy. This is so much fun!
Regards,
Jim
kd7fhd
Senior member
- Dec 5, 2000
- 339
- 0
- 76
Have you tried this "coffee cup" monitor on a someone else's system which you know is in good working order? That would narrow it down as to being your computer (possibly a corrupted bios) or the monitor. If it is the monitor it would be a good idea to check with the manufacturer - they may have a fix or possibly want the monitor back so they could investigate further.
OMG...I can't believe nobody has mentioned this.
It sure sounds like the monitor is to blame. Some monitors have a "saftey break" feature that basically reminds you to do something other than stare at the monitor for hours on end...this is to help prevent eye strain. The coffee cup may be symbolic for "take a coffee break".
Example:
On an old NEC, you could set it to flash a message like "stretch your wrists for 1 minute" "get a drink of water" "organize your desk for 5 minutes" at 20-120minute intervals.
I'm willing to bet that if you place the monitor on another computer, the problem will "appear" on that computer.
Another thought....do you have the monitor hooked directly to the computer, or does it go throught a switch box? If through a box, a similar "take-a-break" reminder scheme could exist.
It sure sounds like the monitor is to blame. Some monitors have a "saftey break" feature that basically reminds you to do something other than stare at the monitor for hours on end...this is to help prevent eye strain. The coffee cup may be symbolic for "take a coffee break".
Example:
On an old NEC, you could set it to flash a message like "stretch your wrists for 1 minute" "get a drink of water" "organize your desk for 5 minutes" at 20-120minute intervals.
I'm willing to bet that if you place the monitor on another computer, the problem will "appear" on that computer.
Another thought....do you have the monitor hooked directly to the computer, or does it go throught a switch box? If through a box, a similar "take-a-break" reminder scheme could exist.
First, I wants to thanks all you guys that are getting crazy about this "coffew mug thing", including those ones that has time to recomend me to go a buy a new pc (this one is only 6 months old), or call a priest to do an exorcist to the pc.
Now I going to ask for a little time, since I'm going to get a digital camera by the weekend, that means that's when I'm going back to the "haunted pc".
Meantime, I will try to answer some of your question.
1) yes, the cursor dissapears under the solid image of the mug, so there is no way to right or left click it.
2) the pc, is in a house, which is in a nice neighborhood, and it doesn't have any power lines nearby.
3) I have ready to go, another bootable floppy and an extra monitor, so I will try to connect the extra monitor first, and if that it doesn't work, then I will disconnect the HDD and reboot and see what happens.
So guys, be patience and give me 2 more days (until saturday).
Best regards
Eltano
Now I going to ask for a little time, since I'm going to get a digital camera by the weekend, that means that's when I'm going back to the "haunted pc".
Meantime, I will try to answer some of your question.
1) yes, the cursor dissapears under the solid image of the mug, so there is no way to right or left click it.
2) the pc, is in a house, which is in a nice neighborhood, and it doesn't have any power lines nearby.
3) I have ready to go, another bootable floppy and an extra monitor, so I will try to connect the extra monitor first, and if that it doesn't work, then I will disconnect the HDD and reboot and see what happens.
So guys, be patience and give me 2 more days (until saturday).
Best regards
Eltano
Eltano, DAM above said you can just do this so you dont need a camera:
"use the print screen key, then go to paint and go to edit -> paste, then you'll have a copy of your screen."
"use the print screen key, then go to paint and go to edit -> paste, then you'll have a copy of your screen."
Well, print screen will oonly print it out if it's from the pc, and this will exclude the monitor: OSD doesn't get into printscreen.
I like Souka's suggestion that it might be some malfunctioning in-built monitor function. I've been using this stuff a long time and haven't seen that coffee break feature, but it sounds vaguely familiar. Seems like the monitor would have to be really OLD, though, but who knows...
But Eltano1 definitely needs to narrow down the number of possibilities. Anything that gives a yea or nay answer to one of the possibilities in this scenario is going to contribute to finding a solution.
Or maybe there is no solution! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Regards,
Jim
But Eltano1 definitely needs to narrow down the number of possibilities. Anything that gives a yea or nay answer to one of the possibilities in this scenario is going to contribute to finding a solution.
Or maybe there is no solution! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Regards,
Jim
A couple of years ago I got a virus that I could not get rid of. It wasn't a coffee cup. I tried Fdisk and format then I would try to clear the bios, nothing worked it kept comming back.
Try downloading the utilities for your hard drive. I know IBM and Western Digital have an option to write 0's to your drive. This will destroy everything, including partitions. Power system off. Short pins on board to clear cmos. Start system fdisk and format.
As a friend explained to me, paraphrasing I don't remember the specifics. The virus installed itself into the bios memory and copy back to the drive each startup.
I hope this helps.
interesting.................very interesting
Try downloading the utilities for your hard drive. I know IBM and Western Digital have an option to write 0's to your drive. This will destroy everything, including partitions. Power system off. Short pins on board to clear cmos. Start system fdisk and format.
As a friend explained to me, paraphrasing I don't remember the specifics. The virus installed itself into the bios memory and copy back to the drive each startup.
I hope this helps.
interesting.................very interesting
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