Th3_uN1Qu3

Your P4 died because you didn't take good enough care of it... You ever heard of Folding@Home? This distributed computing program keeps peoples' CPU busy with calculations that are sent to a server and help in cancer research. People have been running this for YEARS and their boxes run just fine. On my main rig, my 98 VM takes up 50% CPU (one core) when it's running, and still takes 50% CPU when minimized, however it runs with lower priority when minimized so it doesn't slow my system down. And guess what, my highly overclocked C2D is still alive and kicking even with ambient temps over 30C. 100% usage does not kill your CPU, heat does.

Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, or Puppy Linux if you want something small and portable. Puppy isn't very good for a Linux beginner, as apart from the basic wizard-based configuration you'll have some stuff to do yourself, but it's a very good platform to learn Linux on, and it's FAST.

The board looks solid. As said above, if you aren't a hardcore overclocker go for it. I've never had any trouble with Foxconn hardware either. I think you'll be able to get 400MHz FSB out of that one so you'll be able to run DDR2-800 at 1:1.

Because Firefox, Flash and Shockwave are all memory hogs. I wouldn't run an internet machine with less than 256MB RAM anyway.

The Celeron-S are Tualatin cores, which beat low-end P4s. That's why they run so smooth. On a PIII under 933MHz XP won't run well. On my dual-PIII 700MHz chips overclocked to 933MHz on a Tyan Tiger 100, with 1GB SDRAM and a 320GB drive hooked via a PCI SATA card, it flies. I don't know about the rest of you, but i for one am used to "instantaneous computing". It's not that XP doesn't run on a >933MHz PIII, it's that it won't do it smoothly. However, it does run well on two PIIIs.

I've tried but no luck. Please help... As i've said, the drive is dead. You're going to need another one.

I never ever ever had to activate XP or Vista. However, this way is not very legit. But you are right. If you have to run illegal software to be in full control of it there's definitely something wrong.

The drivers of the graphics card matter if you're doing audio recording since you're going to need low latency. Intel still sucks at making graphics chips, and a bad video driver can cause DPC latency spikes which will end up as pops and crackles in your recorded audio, since video runs with higher priority than audio does (this is by chipset design and it cannot be changed). Ask around for a bit before you decide upon the graphics chip, but Nvidia has much better drivers hands down. You said you're going to use Photoshop a lot. Photoshop is very CPU intensive. The faster the CPU, the faster it will process effects and modifications to the image. From 2.0 to 2.4GHz there is a big jump for $100, i don't think it's worth $125 to go to 2.5GHz, and $50 for just a 100MHz increase certainly isn't worth it. With 3GB in single channel you'll still have 3GB usable memory, however memory bandwidth will take a big hit. Photoshop is a big memory hog, and it responds well to size as well as speed. I use Photoshop on the rig in sig, after getting used to how fast it runs on that i don't think i could accept it in less than 4GB of RAM. And for 6GB i have 2x1GB + 2x2GB in dual channel. On the old lappy i stick to Paint Shop Pro 8 for any gfx work. If you don't plan to run any recent 3D games you won't need DX10. The 8400 can't do DX10 at a playable framerate anyway...

Depends on what you want. You can find a fully functional laptop with good battery life for under $150 if you're lucky. I'd get either a Toshiba Portege 4000/4010 or an IBM T20. The Porteges are smaller, faster and look better but also more fragile, while the ThinkPad is a bit clunkier but it's a tough machine. I just saw a T20 for $75 on ebay, they say the battery is good and it also has a DVD drive. My guess is you're going to get about 2 hours battery life on that T20, the Porteges get up to 5 hours with the second battery installed in place of the optical drive, at least mine does. But if you want a solid laptop, get an IBM. Replacement batteries for the T20 are around $25.

Graphics: If you don't game at all get the GMAX3100. You may regret it later though, its drivers are totally junk. CPU: It is worth paying the $100 extra for the 2.4GHz. RAM: Definitely get 4GB. With 3GB you'll lose dual channel therefore you'll lose a lot of performance. I doubt OEM computer manufacturers bother to put 2x1GB + 2x512MB sticks in there so you can keep dual channel, they just throw 3x1GB in there so go for 4GB. And... If you aren't gonna need DX10, RUN XP. The 64-bit version so you can use all your RAM.

Vista can be blocked too if you're that paranoid... The x64 version runs well given enough RAM and CPU power, and loads things faster than XP. However, it has a s***load of compatibility issues, bad enough to make me do most of my work in a 32-bit XP virtual machine. 32-bit Vista is more compatible but SLOW, besides, being 32-bit it can only use half of my RAM. If i wasn't a gamer, i'd be running Ubuntu Linux now. Besides, Vista is a lot like Linux, you can't do this, you can't do that, that doesn't work, that needs to be changed to be made compatible, that needs to be removed as it has bad drivers, and so on. There is one BIG difference though: In Linux you can do ANYTHING using the command line as root. Vista's command prompt is basically useless as it denies access to pretty much everything you'd need it for, even though you are admin.

Well, it happens. The only time i needed it it screwed up my windoze so bad that it took 5 minutes to boot and half the apps wouldn't run. That doesn't mean always does this, but that particular computer didn't like it. All i did yesterday on this forum was post a thread in the win98 section so i didn't notice this particular thread today. You implying i have something with you or what? I just added my two cents in, since i had a laptop DVD drive die misteriously right after i finished reinstalling XP.

Hit that Reset button will you? If it doesn't work after rebooting, your drive is dead, plain and simple. It has absolutely nothing to do with that System Restore crap, the only time i really needed it it messed up my windoze completely.

She's used to the XP look and feel so i'll leave them installed, besides on a CPU like the Athlon 2400+ it makes no difference if they're installed or not. And nah it's nothing too serious, besides the accounting programs she uses save data in a format that viruses don't infect. I'll do some additional security settings and install an antivirus/antimalware when i get there these days. I'll try to convince her to use another browser. And what do you know coincidence. At home i only use Opera, and am behind a FREESCO-based router box i use to share my internet between my computers and mom's. However i do use P2P from time to time, but i only download movies and music (and i know movies don't end in .exe). Same thing, no antivirus and no software firewall, but i do regular scans, mainly with Ad-Aware 1.06r1 and HijackThis. Have been clean for over two years. To share the internet between my cousin's computer and her mom's i bought a NAT router, so that's settled here too. However i cannot remove IE, as **** Yahoo Messenger is 99% IE. That's why there are so many exploits for it... Anyway, i'll see what i can do.

My Pentium-MMX oc'ed to 292MHz booted in 30sec and shut down in 4sec, however i needed that HDD in it for something else and the backup didn't get saved properly, else i would've posted proof. That was on a standard 98SE install, before i ever knew of this forum. Just a few tweaks in MSDOS.SYS, nothing special. However that system booted really fast, i installed XP on it as a joke and it was usable after 40 seconds since hitting the power button... PS. You got a PM on a matter i don't know if i can post on the forum.

I installed Opera after IE6, but for some reason it worked for 5 minutes then it wouldn't display any page, they would just stay blank. And plain and simple, she does not like Opera, if her daughter (my cousin) who convinced me to use Opera (i was with Firefox 3 years ago) couldn't convince her, it's pretty unlikely that i could do that. And it's not my machine, so i just set up the basics and left it alone. It may get XP pretty soon, that's none of my business. I bought the needed parts from home to replace the fried ones (i live in Bucharest, the capital city, here in Tulcea you can't find a lot of computer parts, especially if we're talking older ones), got the machine running and installed some usable OS on it. I found out some interesting facts about today's malware and thought i should post them. After i noticed the infection and deleted the files i ran HijackThis and Ad-Aware 1.06r1 to make sure i cleaned out all the stuff - and the scans ended up clean, i didn't miss a thing. Maxthon is far more than a shell for IE. It's got an ad/popup/layer blocker and you can restrict or disable ActiveX controls easily. I don't mean to start a flame war, but do you think keeping that old Celeron and saying it's unfair to run Flash is by any means better than what i did today? I have that kind of machines too, but i keep one as a router and the other one for old games. Btw, what's YOUR practice of security, since you're blaiming mine? Don't tell me you're running Norton on that thing...

Funny thing, i don't like Royale.

Well, my point is that the codecs work not only the installer.

Of course i know it's because it's an old platform no one bothers to develop on anymore. But the hard work of the members of this forum have made some important new programs run on 9x, which is a big achievement. The important stuff keeps running, the viruses keep away. And since that computer will only be used for internet and accounting software, it doesn't need XP. The machine should've had another 128MB of RAM but those vanished since last time i came here, and XP doesn't feel good in just 256MB so i decided to throw Me on it. The unofficial service pack and KernelEx keep it updated, while Uberskin and XP Icon Raider make it look just like XP. The perfect work platform. Here's another amazing piece of software: CPUIdle. I had a pretty crappy cooler for that Athlon and i also wanted to keep the system relatively quiet. With the CPU fan running on 7v idle temps hovered at around 55C, and under load they got to almost 70C which was a bit worrying. I remembered CPUIdle and installed it, set Athlon Options to Advanced Cooling Mode and watched the temps drop. I had a bit of a shock when after a few minutes the CPU temp was at 35C, that's the case temp and only 6C over ambient!!! All this without slowing down the system at all. Under a medium load temps don't break 50C anymore, it's simply amazing. Of course the full load temp will be the same, but the use of this computer will rarely (if ever) load the CPU fully. And if something bad happens, CPUIdle has this magical option which shuts down the computer if a certain temperature is reached, i set that to 80C. The motherboard's BIOS usually has this option, but this particular mobo doesn't. This is how the old Duron 1300 in it got fried btw. Nice story cyberformer. Keep that box going, you never know when you'll need it. A deeply infected XP can be ridden of viruses too, however it's so much slower in doing that because viruses can infect the system backups as well and regenerate themselves every reboot, forcing you to eventually reinstall. HijackThis + AdAware 1.06r1 FTW, but still, i miss DOS in XP. You basically had full control over Windows there, and no Windows virus could run under DOS, making cleaning up a simple job. And yea i miss those DOS games i played when i was like 5. *finds DOSBox installed so goes to get some games* DOS FTW.

I just set up a box for my cousin's mom as she needs it for work (Athlon XP 2400+, 256MB SDRAM, TNT2 M64, 60GB HDD) and needed to go to a site and download some stuff. The site had a lot of ads, and i was using IE6 since i just barely finished installing WinMe. Mind you, with this processor WinMe boots in 20 seconds. I started my download and left the room. When i was back to check on it i saw a couple notepad windows open and the message "NWUH.EXE has caused an error in USER.EXE. NWUH.EXE will be closed." I googled the name and turned up nothing, so i went to see where the file was located. It was in System, and checking the startup entries it sure looked like a virus, and it was a virus. Score one for Windows Me: The virus crashed and i could delete it easily. I proceeded to inspect the System folder for any other signs of infection, then thought about hitting the magic 3-key combo to see what's running. And what did i notice... Bpk. I know this program, it is a powerful keylogger. So someone was trying to steal the passwords from this computer!!! Luckily i hadn't inputted any. This keylogger is supposed to be invisible to the task manager, and it is invisible on XP indeed. I killed the program, restarted Explorer and deleted the rest of its files. Job done. Score two for Windows Me: "Invisible" viruses appear in the Close Program box. PS. Now i've installed Maxthon, and my cousin's mom has no problem with it as it's very similar to IE. B) And the bottom line: Win9x rocks, but IE6 sux. If you're still using IE, please reconsider your choice.

How long has it been since you've tried it? I'm using Miranda version 0.7.4, Yahoo Protocol support via libyahoo2 library. [built: Apr 6 2008 18:31:48]. It usually logs in and connects in 2-3 seconds. Miranda updates quite often. I installed it in late February and I'm already 3 versions behind. It has nothing to do with the login time, Miranda logins faster than the yahoo messy. However, photo sharing doesn't work, file transfers only work with certain users, HyperIM (powerful status manager for a lot of IM clients) started supporting Miranda only recently, and while i can see other users' display images, they can't see mine. It's been more than an year since i last used it but i doubt much has changed. I may try it again but don't count on it. @ BenoitRen: It's not like MSN is the official chat client of the European Union. Cut it out please.

Maybe, just maybe, this can change that behaviour: http://www.plop.at/ http://www.plop.at/en/bootmngrusblog.html jaclaz I'll try that, thank you. It does boot from an USB floppy drive (but my guess is that it emulates a legacy FDD, although a Linux boot disk sees it as an USB floppy indeed), but will not boot off flash drives. Haven't tried an USB CDROM, will try to get a hold of one.

Uh, is RP8 out? What did i miss?? I can do a Win98 version if you'd like.

Coz my laptop can't boot from USB.

I have used Miranda in the past. There are so many things wrong with it that i don't know where to start. Sure, it is small and fast, and the yahfoo chat client is a slow piece of junk, but at least it does what i need it to do. What, you want a dual-chip ATi Rage? It should work with that.