Zenskas

Yup I always install the latest BIOS on any mobo I have, even if the changes in later versions do not effect me as it is always good to know the BIOS is up to date and in most cases you won't need another update later on down the track if the board is already a few years old as they probably stopped making newer versions. Anyway do that first!

Then again, PerfectDisk also does this, it's significantly cheaper, defrags better IMO, has several very useful editions that Diskeeper doesn't (e.g. those made specifically Exchange/VMware/Hyper-V), the VSS compatible mode works out of the box, supports multi-TB volumes for cheaper (diskeeper won't, unless you buy very expensive versions with TVE), requires less free disk space to do its job, has somewhat better admin tools and a bunch more things. So PerfectDisk 10 Pro is good for a home user then? That is what I have, so its good to see it is a feature rich program.

Good man. Now buy something you can play for 50 hours+ instead of the 2hrs you will get until you get sick of seeing everything in green with the goggles

MUCH better! I have a friend with and X1650 Pro 512MB AGP with a 3GHz P4 and 1GB DDR400 and he can run Far Cry 2 fairly well at medium settings I think.

LOL. I really don't know why you would bother. It would be a terrible experience compared to 30FPS+ which most people would play it on. How come if you want to play newer games like Crysis and FC2 you don't upgrade or build a new PC? At least a new GPU, even something mega-cheap ($15) 6600GT 128MB can run FC2 better than that. You would be amazed at the difference you will see between 10FPS and 20FPS. EDIT: Yep, a 128MB 6600GT AGP would whoop your current card. I think its time for an upgrade

Well there you go! Not useless, as for people that like things clean it helps. Also, if you install CCleaner on a PC that has gone without a reformat for years, and has an owner that is generally not "geeky" and does not already keep things clean (eg. family PC), then giving the PC a clean with CCleaner can prove to help out in performance. A lot of people (probably not many people on this forum) just don't see it, but your PC will slowly loose it's performance over time with huge amounts of background processes, task bar icons, temp files, history files, registry problems/errors, old drivers, outdated software etc. I have seen many PC's that are just loaded up with crap, and sometimes a reformat is the only way to get better performace, or at least faster than going through and optimizing/uninstalling/deleting everything un-needed.

Temps after doing what you requested: System: Min-33 Max-37 CPU: Min- 30 Max-45 So the system temp was actually lower than while playing a game! Bear in mind it is probably cooler where I live than where you do, although like I have said I only have a very basic case and just the two 120MM 1200RPM case fans (the northbridge heatsink doesn't get a whole lot of air). Hopefully the DS4 will solve your heat worries! It does have more heatpipes and also the heatsinks themselves are far more open and do not have those good looking yet useless covers over the top.

I bought myself a 16GB Kingston DataTraveler 100 for $50 a little while ago (here in Aus), but now they can be bought for $40. Look at it this way: an 8GB costs $25, a 16GB costs $40 and a 32GB costs $100 (all the same brand/model). The 16GB is the best value for money ATM! Can't wait til 32GB USB sticks drop under $50 But yeah that looks like a good price (as stuff is cheaper in USA) and does not look too good to be true at all

Darn it! My E7300 does not support hardware virtualization...oh well, I hope everything I need works when I upgrade to Windows 7.

That's not really that hot at load, at least I don't think so. In HWMonitor 1.13 my system is still 34C at idle. I will use it for a few hours for gaming, extracting RAR files, and a fairly short (10min) audio/video encoding benchmark then report back the min and max temps seen on the system, CPU (not the core temps), GPU, and HDD. EDIT: Well I didn't really put the PC under too much load (COD4 for 20mins and that benchmark only went for 5mins actually) but here's what I got: System: Min-34 Max-38 CPU: Min- 30 Max-43 GPU: Min-39 Max-57 HDD: Min-30 Max-32 Not very hot really. I have two 120MM 1200RPM case fans, and a very basic ATX Foxconn case.

80 different thermal pastes from the best to the absolute worse display a difference of no more then 5C and I'm misinformed? Yes but I'll bet they applied all 80 pastes fairly well perfectly. A lot of the time it can be over applied from the factory, or dry up after time and loose effectiveness. Also a 5C drop can be very good to some, as that could be the difference between 4.8GHz and 5GHz, while extreme OCing. I still think that just trying to RMA or sell and get either another one or a DS4 would be the answer to lower mobo temps. EDIT: My DS4P is running at 34C right now. CPU is at 31C. System temp never gets too hot, even in my cheapo case.

That's utterly incorrect. As in most situations, you can't generalize the entire gaming spectrum to determine hardware. There are many games that are CPU starved so badly that even the fastest GTX 295 is insufficient alone. When I play WoW at full resolution of my 24", even with my E8400 overclocked to 3.6GHz, I'm STILL running into 100% CPU issues. Not utterly incorrect. I have seen you having a go at many things ripken204 has said the past week and I don't think it's very nice to correct him for everything he says. Not to say he is entirely right, but GENERALLY speaking, upgrading the GPU will improve performance in gaming far more than upgrading the CPU. I even have a real life scenario for you. I have a friend with an old P4 3GHz CPU, 160GB HDD, 2GB DDR400 RAM and it's just a basic box. He had a Geforce 6600GT. He spent a small amount of money (about $160 or so-remember this is Australia!) and bought a 9800GT. It flew! He ran plenty of games on his 22inch monitor (Crysis, Fallout 3, GRID, anything new) and they ran fine. Now getting a better CPU (say... a P4 3.8GHz, or a P4 4GHz if one existed) would not have improved performance as much in games. Getting a 9800GT increased performance multiple times over. So as you can see he is not utterly incorrect. With the PC in my sig I highly doubt upgrading the CPU to a top end dual core E8600 would increase gaming performance as much as upgrading to a new GTS 250 or GTX 260 would. GPU power may be somewhat limited by the CPU (as getting an E8600 and a GTX 260 would be the best option if I had the money) but it's not like upgrading the CPU is better at all most of the time. Any modern CPU (45nm Intel or AMD) would benifit more in the graphics department with a GPU upgrade. EDIT: I would be interested in how many FPS you get playing WOW? If it is over 60, then who actually cares if the CPU is running 100% load? With less intensive games, of course you will run into CPU bottlenecks. That's why when people benchmark CPUs for gaming performance they put the game settings down to a low resolution so it is easier to see any differences in gaming performance as it will often be close. 180FPS vs 220FPS at 640x480 sounds great, but for modern games will not be much of a difference at larger resolutions. EDIT 2: @TheWalrus: I don't see anything wrong with having an Athlon 64 with a 6800GT. They came out within a year of each other, and a half decent Athlon 64 3200+ or something would go fine with a 6800GT. I got a Shuttle PC lying around right now with just a P4 2.8GHz and a 6800 GPU, which plays COD4 and CSS half-decent at 1024x768.

Yep it is cheap! But you have to wait for weekend deals. Even without weekend deals, games are cheaper on Steam. Assassins Creed was $10 one weekend but the normal price on Steam is $20-still cheap! Right now you can get Dawn of War+Dawn of War Winter Assault+Dawn of War Dark Crusade+Company of Heroes+Company of Heroes:Opposing Fronts for just $25 in the 'Relic super pack' this weekend! Or the new Dawn of War 2 for $30 instead of $60 normally on Steam! There are also those massive packs like the Valve Complete Pack for $100 which comes with Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Ricochet, Half-Life, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead!

Looks like you may start gaming a little then! Valve's Source engine games are very easy to run these days and looks nice which is a big plus for PC's. Also UT3 looks very nice and runs fast. As for Crysis...well looks the best but runs the worst (quarter of the speed of Source engine games on my PC-while not looking 4 times as good!). I recommend buying games off Steam as they have great weekend deals every week if you check (off the top of my head - Orange Box for $10, GRID for $15, Company of Heroes for $7.50, UT3 for $10) and so long as you have a large internet cap or it is unmetered then it's great!

That's a nice write up you have done there geek! (I like the old name better ) There are negatives for all of them, but you can't really complain about everything on PC having a MP. It's not like console's have heaps of single player games with multiplayer modes while for the same game on PC it is only multiplayer! That would suck! Consoles have their place for some people, so do PC's. When you think about it though, how much more stuff can PC's do? Office tasks, photo editing, video editing, gaming, emulating console games (try getting a console to emulate a PC game!), etc, etc, etc. I would have a new-gen console but would rather spend any money I have on a PC right now. Probably later I will get a console as racing games, RPG's and third person games are funner on consoles for the most part. I play FPS's and some strats though so my PC plays these types of games much better (mouse vs controller). @CoffeeFiend: If you can get an XBOX 360 Pro for $300 I say go for it. Over here an arcade (the one you thought was an elite in your first post) costs $300! A Pro costs $400 ($100 more than over there) and an Elite costs $550. So if you can get a Pro for the same price as I could buy an Arcade bundle over here (with no HDD) then it's pretty good in my eyes.

Well it didn't come out in mid-2009 so of course it isn't going to be amazing. But there is no MS operating system on it to slow it down and it does not use DX10 either. Also, the resolution of most TV's (e.g 720p) is inferior to most PC screens (say... 1650x1050-which is almost full HD!) so it can run games faster for the LOD (level of detail) it puts out. I know the PS3 has a similar GPU to a GeForce 7800, yet looks way better than a 7800 ever would. The elite is actually better than the pro (at least in Australia) with a 120GB HDD and HDMI cable etc. I think you may be talking about the 360 Arcade model. If you buy a 360 these days, you have a very high chance it will not RROD as they have fixed that up. The 360 is way better than the original. Looks better (physically) plays better games and has HD graphics. I'm a PC gamer all the way as I want the best graphics I can get out of a game at 1440x900 which always looks better than a console. But there are plenty of good reasons for consoles...such as being able to sit on the couch easily! And better portability, plus never any hardware issues that effect the software (the software is made JUST for the 360, and not for a range of CPU's and GPU's etc) and like it has been said, when you buy a console game you know it will run with a decent frame rate. Hope this helps your decision!

That can be very annoying. I recall returning a defective Athlon XP years ago. Took 3 weeks to get a replacement part. That sucked hard, even though we had other PCs. I know the feeling guys, when I bought the parts for my PC the Seagate 7200.11 HDD failed after a few days (this was at the start of my school holidays to make matters worse) and I did not get a replacement for over a month! Meanwhile I went and bought a WD 640GB drive after using a pentium 3 for a few weeks. Very annoying...

My DS4 runs nicely even though the heatsink looks a little small thanks to multiple heat pipes and being made of copper. But I would try RMA first.

This is a great idea! I don't have a digital camera of my own but what I do have in my pockets is: 1-Unlocked Nokia 6300 with a 2GB SD card and fake leather pouch 2-Wrigley's 'Extra' chewing gum packet (just the wrapper unfortunately ) 3-Kingston 'DataTraveler 100' 16GB loaded with all sorts of good stuff 4-List of random stuff I want to download off the internet soon (not saying where from ) 5-List of computer parts+prices of a PC I will be building for a friend soon And sometimes I might even carry my wallet and some cash around with me

It shows the effects that vibrations can have on hard disk drives and also how loud it is in a datacenter!

Looks like $5-$10 US according to E-bay, assuming it works. Ah well, I got a NES console, two controllers, two zappers and ten cartridges so maybe one day I will sell it as I'm a PC gamer.

Wow I have a few old NES games lying around. How much do you think I could get for say 'Zelda II: The Adventure of Link' (gold cartridge)?

Here is a great guide on how to overclock and then test core 2 duo's and quad's. Even this wikipedia page is useful and has numerous links at the bottom of the page for extra info.

Ah well the 4650 will completely destroy the 4350 as it is only a small upgrade from the original 3450 which it shipped with.

I reckon you will be fine. There are plenty of other people with your PC who have upgraded to a faster card and have had no issues with heat or power.