Mike: Find another of whatever heatsink/fan fits that case, and then just buy the cpu.

wouldn't he have to reinstall the OS (or at least manually update the HAL)?

AesopRock_00: Mike: Find another of whatever heatsink/fan fits that case, and then just buy the cpu.

wouldn't he have to reinstall the OS (or at least manually update the HAL)?

i guess not. maybe i should have looked into my own thoughts before i post.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283

"On Windows XP and later versions, the ACPI Uniprocessor HAL and the MPS Uniprocessor HAL recognize the existence of more than one processor and report the MP ID. Plug and Play detects that the computer devnode's hardware ID list has changed and moves the devnode back through the "found new hardware" detection process. Therefore, when you add a second processor, the MP files (HAL and kernels) are automatically installed, and you do not have to manually update the driver in Device Manager."

OK... Thanks!

One more question. When I was looking at the processors, they were listed as either Active Hs, or Passive Hs... What does that mean, and which one would I need?

The Heatsink in the computer now is a passive one...

The video card is a Nvidia Quadro NVS 285, so I should be fine in the power department...

Thanks again!

Hey y'all! I need to get a bit of advice. I'm upgrading a machine for a friend and I would like some advice on what parts to get. I need a MB, CPU, and Mem for about $300. The MB needs to have a micro ATX form factor, with a single pci-e 16 slot. The machine will be using 4 gigs of ram. I keep going back and forth between an Intel Q6600, Q8200, or an AMD Phenom II 920. There will be no overclocking on this machine. I wish I could find a micro atx P45 based board (for about $70) but that isn't going to happen. Thanks in advance!

Maddogjew: Hey y'all! I need to get a bit of advice. I'm upgrading a machine for a friend and I would like some advice on what parts to get. I need a MB, CPU, and Mem for about $300. The MB needs to have a micro ATX form factor, with a single pci-e 16 slot. The machine will be using 4 gigs of ram. I keep going back and forth between an Intel Q6600, Q8200, or an AMD Phenom II 920. There will be no overclocking on this machine. I wish I could find a micro atx P45 based board (for about $70) but that isn't going to happen. Thanks in advance!

The Phenom II 920 is the best processor of those three, but you're obviously not gonna find a P45 board to run one of those in.

The Q8200 will run cooler and use less power than the Q6600 for about the same performance, but it lacks Intel's virtualization technology if that matters at all.

Um.. silly question..

Is anyone else having issues with Google today?

I went to do a search for "yo gabba gabba live" and every site came up with a "this site may harm your computer" warning, even freaking Nick Jr's site.

Did the same for "google" and even their own site came up with a warning in the search results.

Am I doing something wrong, or did Google break it?

Link (new window)

Every website in Google search results now says "This site may harm your computer", including google.com itself. This is bad... for google.

Google Webmaster help (new window)

Thanks Wrong Trousers - I thought it was just us and our weird computer setup or something...

It appears that Google has decided that whatever they did was a very bad idea, and they have fixed it. W00t! Off to search and see if Yo Gabba Gabba is a live show yet :-P

FuturePastNow: The Phenom II 920 is the best processor of those three, but you're obviously not gonna find a P45 board to run one of those in.

The Q8200 will run cooler and use less power than the Q6600 for about the same performance, but it lacks Intel's virtualization technology if that matters at all.

Thanks, I went ahead and ordered the Phenom II 920, an Asus M3A78-CM AM2+ with the 780V chipset, and 8 gigs of G-Skill DDR2 1066.

Wrong Trousers: Link (new window)

Every website in Google search results now says "This site may harm your computer", including google.com itself. This is bad... for google.


Yes, but at the same time it's very funny because it's true.

I don't know if she's in here, but I want to personally thank Gamer Grrrl for pointing me to the book Little Brother.

At the start I was convinced it was just a hacker's manual thinly veiled as fiction, and not worth the time, but I kept reading.

It reads like Orwell, Dick, and Kafka all rolled into one.

I am amazed by this book, it is one of the most poignant things I've read in a long time. People will probably read this years from now and (hopefully) think that this is a ridiculous piece of slippery slope hogwash, but as things stand, this is almost a farking window into the future.

Granted, I'm only about halfway through.

If you have brand-name restore discs (or just a restore partition on the hard drive), most of them support some sort of user-data-backup, but it varies from brand to other brand.

If you're really stuck, you can attach a USB hard drive, stick in some sort of Linux LiveCD, and then copy your data.

In PHP, whats considered best practice, the native mysql commands(mysql_connect() etc) or the PDO stuff? Is there any advantages/disadvantages in using either one?

Using PDO will give you the advantage of being able to use different database backends (as long as you don't do anything specific to one database).

As for best practice I definitely recommend prepared statements. And PDO will make prepared statements possible even for database backends that don't actually support such a thing.

For that reason alone I'd say go with PDO rather than the old mysql_connect() et. al.

Yeah, I'm trying to convince my boss to keep the PDO stuff in (its done, working and using prepared statements) but he wants to use the old mysql extensions since he read somewhere that it was faster. But php has essentially depreciated the mysql stuff, and now are suggesting people use the mysqli extensions, so we'll see what happens.

aguynamedadam: ...he read somewhere...

I was going to crack some smartass comment about how he believes stuff written by random people on the Internet - and then irony walked up and slapped me across the face.

Do you guys pack/minify your Javascript? How about your CSS? Do you have mod_deflate (gzip) working (assuming you're using Apache)? No? Then a few milliseconds difference between PDO and old mysql_connect() type stuff probably doesn't matter :-)

The best reason not to use mysql_connect() stuff though is this:

"...its done, working and using prepared statements..."

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And for FSM's sake don't make it less secure for the sake of an unnoticeable increase in execution time.

quickdraw: Hiya geeks

I'm getting a BSOD on my brand new Vista Ultimate tablet PC. It wont shutdown and I can't get it into safe mode.
The error info looks like this


Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: fe
BCP1: 0000000000000008
BCP2: 0000000000000006
BCP3: 0000000000000006
BCP4: FFFFFA800573A000
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini020309-03.dmp
C:\Users\Rachel\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-49077-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\Rachel\AppData\Local\Temp\WER2155.tmp.version.txt

Any ideas? Google has not been helpful.

Alright shiat, this one again. K, I don't know really what causes this, but here goes. Does your computer boot at all? Does it only do this when the battery is low? What exactly is plugged into to your USB ports? I'm talking about things like a wireless mouse, external HD, external CD burner or a USB flash key. Anything like that?

Did you get a message saying anything about a BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER? If so there's a hotfix (if you can get the computer to boot) but it doesn't always work. Hopefully someone will have a better solution.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930568/en-us

I'm looking at the code BCCode: fe here BTW because without the dump files I can only take my best guess here.

I'm glad people here use LiveCDs to recover data. It worked for my wife's laptop even when the hard drive went bad. S'just really useful.

Also you could probably use it to get to that dump file there. Since, you know, you know where it is and all.

Quick question. What regulations/lack of regulations led to japan getting 1gig a month for 30 euros?

Thrashersk: Quick question. What regulations/lack of regulations led to japan getting 1gig a month for 30 euros?

Its not so much regulations, or lack thereof, but more that Japan has a population density of 337/km2 and the US has a population density of 31/km2. You see the problem? If you have more subscribers in a geographical area it is more lucrative to bring high speed data services to them.

Hi y'all! I'm having a bit of trouble with my tv tuner card. It is a Hauppage PVR-150 and the device drivers won't start. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers and reseated the card on the mobo to no avail. I've just recently upgraded my machine and finally got around to putting the TV card in my new build. I'm running Windows 7, 64 bit on a I7 920 with 12 gigs of ram. The card worked just fine on my old system which was a 6000+ with 2 gigs of ram. I've looked on Hauppage's site and have had no luck. I even installed (on a different HD) Vista Ulitmate 64 (what I was running on my old machine when the card worked) and still have no luck. Any ideas, work around etc... that you all could come up with would be helpful. Thanks!

/As a by the way, has anyone had luck with getting GTA IV to run in Sli mode? It keeps crashing on me and it kinda sucks to only be using one 280 on it.

I did put the card in another machine to test it and it worked fine.

Maddogjew: ...12 gigs of ram...

Sweet FSM, what the hell do you do with your computer that you need that much RAM?

Sorry I have nothing helpful to add with regards to your question. I have a PVR350 but it's in a MythTV box rather than a Windows machine. Great card though, had it for years and no complaints.

No_47: Oh I take that back

Microsoft Windows "Vista" support

WinTV-PVR-150 and WinTV-PVR-500 driver for Vista is now included in CD version 2.7 or later (see above). Support is also available from the Vista installation CD though the WinTV-PVR-150/500 "in box" driver

have you downloaded those drivers?
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_pvr150.html

Sure have, thanks for looking for me though. I don't want to have to buy another tuner card.

Benny_Hill: Sweet FSM, what the hell do you do with your computer that you need that much RAM?

Need it? well, I suppose I don't really need it. The price was good though and so I figured I might as well. It's all a tax write off for school, so why not get something nice?

Maddogjew: it kinda sucks to only be using one 280 on it.

It does? I was mildly interested in that game. Damn.

gayb: It does? I was mildly interested in that game. Damn.

The game is really good, it is just that it has ridiculous system requirements. I just want to run in SLI because, well, I paid for the damn cards and it makes me feel like I have been ripped off if I can't use them both. The game is worth buying, but only if you have a triple core cpu and at least an 8800GT.

I seem to have acquired some crappy screws that are a little to small... enough to grab in and twist endless, and firmly enough to be difficult to unscrew. I really want to make sure my hard drive doesn't go anywhere. Any tricks for removing them and trying with new ones?

Kinda limited to normal household tools here, not computer tools.

geekybroad: I seem to have acquired some crappy screws that are a little to small... enough to grab in and twist endless, and firmly enough to be difficult to unscrew. I really want to make sure my hard drive doesn't go anywhere. Any tricks for removing them and trying with new ones?

Kinda limited to normal household tools here, not computer tools.

See if you can wedge a razor blade under the head of the screw, while doing that, turn the screw and pry up on the head of it at the same time. If you don't have a razor blade handy, you might be able to use a piece of dental floss the same way. Just slip it under the head of the screw and pull up on it while you are loosing the screw at the same time. Hope that helps.

Have no blades that seem to be working, thanks for the floss idea!

geekybroad: Have no blades that seem to be working, thanks for the floss idea!

No problem. I have had the screw problem many times myself. The screw problem I hate the most is when the stand offs under the mobo become loose and spin when you try to take the mounting screws out of the mobo. That always drives me bug shiat. I've started putting loc-tite on stand offs when I build a machine now.

/Good luck with getting your MCSE and CCNA.

Maddogjew: The game is worth buying, but only if you have a triple core cpu and at least an 8800GT.

mmm, yes. Someday. Have a 260, but am stuck in an AM2 rut, goddamn it.

gayb: mmm, yes. Someday. Have a 260, but am stuck in an AM2 rut, goddamn it.

The new Phenom II's are a pretty good bang for the buck if you have an AM2+ board already. You can pick up the 920 for under $200. I built one for a buddy last week and it plays the GTA IV very well. If you don't have an AM2+ board you van pick one up for under $70. If you use a Micro ATX form factor, may I recommend the Asus M3A78-CM. It ships from New Egg with the latest bios with no flashing required for it to see and use the new Phenom II.

Maddogjew: If you use a Micro ATX form factor, may I recommend the Asus M3A78-CM. It ships from New Egg with the latest bios with no flashing required for it to see and use the new Phenom II.

Don't tempt me. What does the plus sign mean? Mine is just an am2. Would it take a phenom II with a bios update maybe?

Mike: Random idea: if it's a PCI card instead of PCI-E, try backing down to 4 GB of memory and see if the Hauppauge works then. I don't think PCI cards can do DMA outside of the first 32 bits of address space, and unless there's a 64-bit driver that does bounce buffering...

Ding ding ding! That worked! Damn, it means I have to buy a new card though. I'm not giving up 2/3rds of my ram just to use the damn thing. Thanks!

gayb: Don't tempt me. What does the plus sign mean? Mine is just an am2. Would it take a phenom II with a bios update maybe?

What motherboard do you have? I'll look it up and see if you can upgrade to a new cpu. You may get lucky depending on what chipset you have. Right now newegg has some of the older Phenom Quads for under $150. I would spend the extra $39 and get a Phenom II over the original Phenom, it has much better performance. Here is the Wiki article on the AM2+ (new window).

Here is a price break down for a new CPU, Mobo and RAM.

ASUS M3A78-CM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780V Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813131330
$72.99
AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDX920XCGIBOX - Retail
Item #: N82E16819103472
$189.00
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
Item #: N82E16835100007
$5.99
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - Retail
Item #: N82E16835185125
$19.99
VANTEC TF9225 92mm Case Fan - Retail
Item #: N82E16811999617
$7.49
2x- G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail
Item #: N82E16820231241
$95.98($47.99 ea)
Subtotal $391.44
Tax $0.00
UPS Ground $18.96
Order Total $410.40

Your shipping cost will vary, That is from the upgrade I did for a friend last week. You won't need 8 gigs of ram or the third party heat sink or thermal grease or the case fan. I stuck all of the above (along with a 260) into a old Compag micro atx case. I thought for a moment I might need a shoehorn. I did get the Phenom II 920 clocked up at 3.6 gigs on air ( stable, prime 95 on all 4 cores for 48 hours straight) though with a loaded temp of 42c. None too shabby, if I say so myself.