Oh, and if that is above your budget, tell me what you have to work with money-wise and maybe I can find a cheaper alternative that will work for you. I hope all of this helps!

Maddogjew: Oh, and if that is above your budget, tell me what you have to work with money-wise and maybe I can find a cheaper alternative that will work for you. I hope all of this helps!

It's at my budget limit, really. I haven't a need for a mini ATX sized board, but less than $200 is preferred for a cpu. Was looking at E8600s weeks ago, but it's pretty expensive and a matching MB would be over $100. Especially for SLI--haven't got two cards now, but want to have that option.

Right now I've got a 6000+ (runs hot, OCing is utterly impossible on air) on an Asus M2N-32-SLI. I'm not sure there's anything out there that was fit on my board and give me way better performance.

Thanks for looking around.

gayb: Right now I've got a 6000+ (runs hot, OCing is utterly impossible on air) on an Asus M2N-32-SLI. I'm not sure there's anything out there that was fit on my board and give me way better performance.

Nope, you are maxed out on that board now cpu wise. Unless you have the M2N32-SLI Premium VISTA Edition. If you have that version of the board, you can drop a triple or quad core phenom in it. (with the latest bios update of course. Of course if you can buy piece by piece you don't have to get everything at once.

Good luck

// you can play GTA IV on your current setup, you just have to turn some of the eye candy off and it will play ok

quickdraw: strafe: Alright shiat, this one again. K,

Well what was happening was that it just would not shut off and it wouldn't go into safe mode. So I put it in hibernate and left it to drain the battery and then when I went to start it again it was fine.

There were no usb's or other devices plugged in or disks in the optical drive or anything like that. I had not installed any new software or downloaded any updates during that session. It was apparently just one of those things. gah

Meanwhile the system has crashed several times with an assortment of BSODs. I farking hate Vista. I turned off all the Aero and UAC "features" and CS4 still runs slow with 3G RAM. I am trying to figure out if I can put XP on it because I am about ready to crack the damn thing open and feast on the goo inside.

Even though Vista is a flaming pile of dog crap it should run fine on 3 gigs. Running on 2 here right now fine. Somethin's wrong. Don't know what exactly though.

That's the third time I've seen something similar on a tablet. The hotfix fixed one, a clean install of Vista fixed the other, but I don't really know.

If you can keep it running long enough you may want to do a memory test with Vista's memory diagnostic program. Just type memory in the Start Menu search bar.

Other than that I bet it's a bad hardware driver that needs updated like a USB driver or wireless driver or something that got broken from a software install/uninstall. Anyway, A clean install of Windows and maybe a BIOS update would fix it right up as long as hardware isn't actually broken.

gayb: Was looking at E8600s weeks ago, but it's pretty expensive and a matching MB would be over $100.

E8600 is high cost-to-performance. Look at the E8400 instead. And good P43 motherboards are ~$80.

FuturePastNow: E8600 is high cost-to-performance. Look at the E8400 instead. And good P43 motherboards are ~$80.

It's got to be better than the 6000 I've got now.

AesopRock_00: 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."

I just installed it and everything is working just fine!

Now if only there was a way for a 32 bit OS to recognize more than 4gb of ram!

Dumb question, but one I can't imagine askin' anywhere else...

I saw a SATA to Compact flash adapter the other today.

It's my understanding that a RAID array can be set up so that a small and very fast drive can be used for applications and a larger drive for storage... well, would a compact flash drive with an OS allow for a substantially faster operation given that there are no longer any moving parts to wait for? Do you think there would be clear speed advantages compared to a SATA mounted 7200 RPM drive? Would there be any worries as to the service life of the card because of the constant use?

SATA-Compact Flash Adaptor (new window)

I'm bad at finding accurate release dates when it comes to video cards, does anyone know reliable sites about computer hardware and release dates?

I'm curious about the next batch of graphic cards. I have my eye on a HD 4870 1GB and I thought ATI was going to lower the prices on all their cards in January to combat Nvidia's release of the GTX 295, but they have yet to break below $200.

I try to use my Google-fu but I end up in sketchy forums where everyone "works in the industry."

I would appreciate any help.

TehNacho: It's my understanding that a RAID array can be set up so that a small and very fast drive can be used for applications and a larger drive for storage... well, would a compact flash drive with an OS allow for a substantially faster operation given that there are no longer any moving parts to wait for? Do you think there would be clear speed advantages compared to a SATA mounted 7200 RPM drive? Would there be any worries as to the service life of the card because of the constant use?

The fastest speed I've heard of from a CF card is about 30 meg/second. You would do much better to just get a sata drive instead. even if you RAID 0, you are not going to get any kind of comparable speed from a cf drive compared to a standard sata drive. I hope that helps.

TehNacho: Dumb question, but one I can't imagine askin' anywhere else...

I saw a SATA to Compact flash adapter the other today.

It's my understanding that a RAID array can be set up so that a small and very fast drive can be used for applications and a larger drive for storage... well, would a compact flash drive with an OS allow for a substantially faster operation given that there are no longer any moving parts to wait for? Do you think there would be clear speed advantages compared to a SATA mounted 7200 RPM drive? Would there be any worries as to the service life of the card because of the constant use?

SATA-Compact Flash Adaptor (new window)

CompactFlash is sloooow

FuturePastNow: TehNacho: Dumb question, but one I can't imagine askin' anywhere else...

I saw a SATA to Compact flash adapter the other today.

CompactFlash is sloooow

Hm... hadn't realized that. I assumed that with no moving parts it would be faster. Well, back to the drawing board.

Mike: DRAM, way too volatile even w/ battery, but yeah, fast.

The SSD market's a bit fragmented right now... so many different technologies calling themselves "SSD" that it's hard to tell what kind of performance, write wear prevention, etc you get for the price on each one. I'm waiting another year or two.

What's the performance goal here, what's the application, budget, durability, etc... or are we just kicking ideas around here :)

Well, I was just thinkin' outloud. No real goal in mind.

Mike: Oh ok, then get eight 15K SAS disks, that'll do ya :)

LOL

You know, thinking about it, I do have one goal that I've been mulling around; quieting down my PC. With all those fans, it's pretty farkin' deafening.

At the same time, that would be a lot of work and an outlay of cash for probably negligible gains. I have a pretty good idea of my options; get a better, all aluminum case, get a set of Memory Fans (to keep them cool with fewer larger fans), get a larger heatsink, take out the two fans in the top of the case and put a silent fan up front... or just get a water cooling setup... but I don't have room for an internal or an external on my desk.

TehNacho: At the same time, that would be a lot of work and an outlay of cash for probably negligible gains. I have a pretty good idea of my options; get a better, all aluminum case, get a set of Memory Fans (to keep them cool with fewer larger fans), get a larger heatsink, take out the two fans in the top of the case and put a silent fan up front... or just get a water cooling setup... but I don't have room for an internal or an external on my desk.

You might not have negligible losses either if you took a few out. Just have one in the front and one in the back so the air moves in and out consistently. Might be quieter. If you've got aluminum covers on your RAM already, that's probably good enough, unless you're significantly overclocking it.

Uh, I changed the format of the arrangement of the folders of my music folder from default (which pretty much put them in the order that they were added) to alphabetical... I tried finding a sort by modified but there wasn't one. Then, someone I knew suggested sorting them by Year, I knew it wouldn't work but I wanted to show him it wouldn't, and boy howdy did it not work.

Now, whenever I open my music folder up, it rearranges all of the files again, nearly causing my computer to crash (it takes about 45 seconds to respond, but it eventually does).

Oh man, is there a way to fix this?

(When installing a new DVD-rw drive, ensure the cable really is plugged all the way in.

I did not know you could still open and close the drive without the data connection working.)

the short
is there a way to boot off an old hard drive without putting it back into the computer? i've already tried an IDE-USB adapter and booting from USB, it starts, and then i get a bluescreen which disappears too quickly for me to see what it says, if anything.

the long
I recently upgraded my computer to Vista Ult x64. I just put a new hard drive in and installed to that. I still have the old hard drive with XP on it. other than the HD, all other components of the computer are unchanged.

what i'm trying to do is this: when i first synced my Windows Mobile Cellphone to the Vista PC, it deleted all my contacts and everything on it. I know that i have a good save of all my stuff on the XP hard drive, but i'm too lazy to open the computer back up to swap out the hard drives just to resync my phone. I'll do that if there's no other option. I've since starting using the new Beta Google Sync, which works great, so i'm wondering if I can get my old stuff back, resync with google, and have everything old and new on my phone.

I thought i could just connect the drive via an IDE to USB adapter, but when i select boot from USB on startup, it tries, gets through the first loading bar and to the loading Windows XP screen, but quickly bluescreens and reboots. the bluescreen is just a split second and i can't read if there is an error listed.

Is there anyway i can boot into the drive? maybe in some sort of virtual machine or other program? or am i stuck opening up the computer and just swapping the drive back out (which i probably could have done instead of typing out this long ass post)?

AesopRock_00

Having neither a cell phone nor Windows, I know shiat about that syncing stuff.
But do you really have to boot XP for that?
Can't you just hook up the XP drive via USB, boot Vista and then get a copy of the data from your XP drive?

If you have a USB adapter for the drive, why do you need to boot up from the drive? Just plug it in as an external HDD and copy the files off.

The Voice of Doom: Can't you just hook up the XP drive via USB, boot Vista and then get a copy of the data from your XP drive?

FuturePastNow: Just plug it in as an external HDD and copy the files off.

the problem here is that, vista and xp use different sync tools. I have the profile from XP's activesync program that was placed in my old MyDocs folder, but there isn't an easy "contacts" folder or file that i can find which contains only the info i need (Activesync also doesn't store any info in the "application data" folder under my old user). additionally, Vista's Mobile Device Center doesn't seem to save profile info the same way, and i can't find where it keep my synced files/info at all. Vista's MDC isn't as nice as Activesync was, or maybe i'm just not used to it yet.

Like i said, it's nothing major. and I think I can always boot back into the old drive to sync the phone, i'm just being lazy and looking for a software solution (which could be cool for other uses if it exist). unless someone has some suggestions to try in Vista's Mobile Device Center.

Making things even more difficult, i don't sync my phone with Outlook either, though as I mentioned above, i'm trying out the Google Sync, which is pretty nice so far.

AesopRock_00: Is there anyway i can boot into the drive? maybe in some sort of virtual machine

You can get a copy of MS VM for free, however I am not sure if it works on Vista64. As far as what sync does, it just does a comparison of files and updates. So there will actually be a contact or address book of some kind somewhere on the xp drive. All you really need to know is where that is then you can actually copy the file from the drive without booting it. Depending on the program that made it, it may be an exchange file, outlook file or some other database file. DBX is the outlook extension, PST is for exchange. If it used the phone exclusively then there should be a folder with the phones name on it somewhere and the sync data will be in that folder. Good luck.

Is Flash spyware? Or am I just being paranoid? Last night I was surfing around the web and one of the the websites I visited was Mazda's which is basically all Flash. Then when I come here, I now see an ad on Fark which I've never seen here before for the Mazda6.

/really doesn't like how Flash is taking over the web

That's creepy.

Flashblock. It only becomes awesomely useful when you whitelist sites where flash is needed, like youtube or something.

I'll second the recommendation for Flashblock, it's good stuff™.

Befuddled: Is Flash spyware? Or am I just being paranoid? Last night I was surfing around the web and one of the the websites I visited was Mazda's which is basically all Flash. Then when I come here, I now see an ad on Fark which I've never seen here before for the Mazda6.

/really doesn't like how Flash is taking over the web

It's probably more likely a cookie.

I second (or third..?) the Flashblock idea. NoScript is good too.

/Flash sucks, IMHO...
//Works as a QA person for an organisation that *loves* flash...

Legios
It's probably more likely a cookie.

Could be both, check your Flash cookies.

On the subject of super awesome FF add-ons, Remove It Permanently is another one that kicks a large amount of ass. It can turn an immensely annoying site such as espn.com into an almost useful one.

//tempted to click on espn to see what you're talking about
//doesn't...

Befuddled: Is Flash spyware? Or am I just being paranoid? Last night I was surfing around the web and one of the the websites I visited was Mazda's which is basically all Flash. Then when I come here, I now see an ad on Fark which I've never seen here before for the Mazda6.

/really doesn't like how Flash is taking over the web

Flash itself is not spyware. It is my understanding that it could be used to harbor spyware though.

Flashblock and NoScript are great- the thing is though that once you turn them on, unless you manage them using the control panel (some people don't get this or feel it's a hassle), sites like Mazda probably will not work the right way. Me, I love my adblock, flashblock, and no script.

The way I see it, Mazda, the motor company, has very little reason to trash your computer with spyware. They probably have many morons giving them private information, and don't need to mine for it.

But I could be wrong.

Hm. Just experiencing some oddness, so I'm just going to test some HTML out here..

test
test 2

Thanks for the replies. I learned something new; how to clean out the cookies that Flash writes.

Mike
Tests go ovah hyah :)

Apropos:
Is there a reason why you never integrated a link to the scratchpad thread somewhere (e.g. in the "Tools" box)?
It seems kinda odd to expect people to use the scratchpad thread while not mentioning its existence anywhere.

The Voice of Doom: It seems kinda odd to expect people to use the scratchpad thread while not mentioning its existence anywhere.

And yet, lots of people know about it anyway.

I bet there are some really weird posts in thread 69.

I would f*cking kill to read a few pages of that thread. heh.

I'm going to be doing some House Call Tech Support as freelance to earn extra cash on the side. I have a small batch of computer tools, and a USB with a few choice programs. However, I also need at least one CD to use on PCs that are heavily infected (so it won't spread to my USB).

What are good programs to use for malware removal, utilities to improve efficiency (perhaps something for a fast defrag), and so forth that will run from a CD (meaning they don't have to write to their source folder/directory)?

I'll be including the common installs (Ad-aware, AntiVir); any other suggestions for common, useful programs to install on a customer's computer (with their permission, of course)?

No_47: There is no such thing as a fast defrag.

Well, faster defrag, rather. Thanks for the links.