jaclaz

Care to share some data? Are there more recent tests? http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/ http://celtickane.com/webdesign/jsspeedarchive.php Or are you talking of "pure" javascript speed? http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-performance-rundown/ http://w-shadow.com/blog/2008/09/03/google...-js-speed-test/ It seems like latest 10 Alpha is much faster in them too: http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-10113913-12.html However, I guess that the small differences in tests cannot really be appreciated in "real life" use, and choosing one over the other should be made over a "personal feeling" rather than on benchmark data.... jaclaz

Yep , often first year covers part of the "downhill" section of the typical bath tub curve. jaclaz

Maybe the old IDE/ATA/PATA drivers had a role in it. You should check your Event Viewer, when such crashes as the ones you describe happen there should be an entry, something like "The device, \Device\Harddisk0\DR0, has a bad block." Unlike what is hinted in the message, this means often a bad driver or a bad cable/bad connection (which would be compatible with the CS thingie). jaclaz

I find difficult to believe that AVG is the culprit. CS (Cable Select) is known to be a trouble maker, there is no reason in the world why you cannot make it Slave with the HD jumpers that is generally speakking more reliacle. Let's for the moment get just the concept of BOOT and SYSTEM drive disambiguated: http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollar...em-volumes.html Let's define the bootstrap volume as the one containing NTLDR NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI (or bootmgr and BCD). Let's define the Operating System Volume as the one containing all the rest. How are the disk partitioned? Could you re-list the drives, the partitions (or Volumes) specifying which holds what? Just for the record: there is no such thing as a low-level format of an IDE/ATA/PATA/SATA hard disk, the most you can have done is a disk wipe. jaclaz

Sure , being a bit technically knowledgeable, and an engineer by education and trade, I do know what a MTBF is. But what I wished to see (and keep hidden to my PC's ) is data about actual MTBF declared by manufacturers AND the way they calculated this AND an actual database of past events to be able to analyze it's data statistically and find out what the actual Life of the object would be/have been, which is a totally different thing from MTBF. Since you like Wikipedia articles, in computer matters, very often Service Life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_life is shorter than expected MTBF but actual Life can greatly outnumber BOTH. Besides, there is also the Planned Obsolence problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence At least theoretically a computer should be a Durable good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good but MTBF does not make much sense or it is impossible to be calculated reliably on a complex system like the PC is. It can - at most - be applied to parts of it: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/pc_hardware_fa...t_34_years.html like an hard drive, but you don't really espect MTBF to be reliable and applicable to the particularly small sample (two units) the OP has: http://www.tech-faq.com/mtbf.shtml Here is a more accurate definition of MTBF: http://www.relex.com/resources/prediction.asp "Computer-life" is nearer to Reliability than to MTBF, this might be of interest: http://www.vicorpower.com/documents/quality/Rel_MTBF.pdf But still it is a probability, and from an engineering or mathematical point of view, "3 to 4" years is a non-number, it's a "vague range", and applying it generically to ANY PC, regardless of: how many hours per day how many days per week how many weeks per year it is on, regardless of: make/model/technology used type of applications running on it whether it is always on or swithed ON/OFF often quality of AC power ("straight", filtered, UPS) quality of environment (conditioned room/outdoor shed/cellar/your bedroom) maintenance performed (dust cleaning/checking fans/checking thermal paste where applicable) and of course: luck is simply inaccurate. In other words the "3 to 4" years does NOT represent "computer-life", it is simply puntoMX's report on his personal experience, or that of his friends, or that of the places where he worked, of course it is worth consideration , but not in the least represents a one-size-fits-all value, at the most it could be called "rule of thumb" or "common sense" . jaclaz

Read this: http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/inf-file.htm LAST is value (0) or if you prefer 0x00000000. 0x00010001 is flags, REG_DWORD in this case. jaclaz

Hmmm, let's see if I can put down a "schematics" of your idea in the way I may be able to understand it: The USB stick (modified with Manufacturer's Tool) has two parts, LUN1 (CD-ROM) and LUN2 (HD-Like device). Th PC is booted from the LUN1 (CD-ROM), which contains: grldr as no-emulation bootsector menu.lst WHAT ELSE? The LUN2 (HD-Like device) contains: \I386 WHAT ELSE? The point you seem to have not fully considered/understood is the way NTLDR or SETUPLDR.BIN actually boot. Until you are in "real mode" (read Text Mode, including BOOT.INI choices or the blue screen SETUP) the information from BIOS (and the ones "faked" by grub4dos) are trusted. As soon as you "switch" to "protected mode" (read black screen/loading progress bar) ANY info from BIOS (and from grub4dos) is ignored, it simply vanishes in thin air, a new scan of the hardware is performed and unless a given hardware is found AND an appropriate driver for it is loaded, the booting will be aborted, possibly with a 0x0000007b BSOD STOP ERROR. The exception being that of a driver that is loaded "forcibly". The only known one to be working is the RAMDISK.SYS driver used in conjunction with the SETUPLDR.BIN coming from SERVER 2003 SP1 or R2 (NOT "gold", NOT SP2). There may be other possible ways, but it seems like the topic is not of much interest: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1507 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=5512&st=7 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=5512&st=9 Would you be "game" for this? The "trick" of the "XP kansas City Shuffle" is simply that of loading through grub4dos mapping a smaller image that appears to the NT booting IDENTICAL to the actual partition on hard disk. During "real mode" the mapped image is accessed, during "protected mode" the real partition is loaded. This allows for two newish things: 1) booting from USB on computers with no or defective booting from USB support 2) speed up the booting on computers with USB-2.0-chips-but-only-USB-1.1-speed-support-while-booting, since only the files in the smallish mapped image is loaded with the USB BIOS routines whilst the large number of files on the partition are loaded through the native NT drivers, at USB 2.0 speed In the particular case you posed, it could have the "advantage" of having a "fixed" LUN1 booting (but still with the "USB_multiboot" tricks) a "variable" part on LUN2, in other words you would only need to run the Manufacturer's Tool once and setup the DISK SIGNATURE of the LUN2 once, after which you would be free - within limits - to change the contents of LUN2 with ordinary file tools. jaclaz

Sorry to say so, but you appear to have completely failed to. Could you try to further explain your thoughts? If I get it right, and I am not at all sure to do so, what would it be the advantage over a "plain" XP from USB install? I also cannot see the use of Autorun on a stick that is used to install XP. jaclaz

You seem to have the "right " set of files. Look here: (google cache - forum seems down right now) http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:wdy_V...t=clnk&cd=1 Rather obviously, you mileage may vary.... jaclaz

Hmmm, yes, sure, compare these two pages: http://legroom.net/software/uniextract#technical http://www.7-zip.org/ jaclaz

The .SNY files are "parts" of a bigger .WIM file. You may also have a number of other files, with .MOD extension that are actually .WIM files that in their simplicity SONY decided to cripple. Please post the list of the .sny files you have, I may be able to help you in joining them in a .WIM file. First file needs to be patched, as it is crippled as well. To use the .MOD files, they need as well to be patched and it is possibly out of the scope of this thread since they are usually for added on apps and drivers. jaclaz

Really? Do you have any source for this? If you do, please keep it for yourself. I have a number of PC's working 24/7 since 2003 that know nothing about this fact and are still going strong...... @Naki The symptoms you describe being intermittent, it is also possible that one or more solderings on the board have "cracked" and thus they don't make a good contact or the contact is on/off depending on "sheer luck", temperature, amount of current/voltage going through them. In these cases, if you have LOTS of time and patience, an accurate inspection of the board with a mgnifying glass may reveal which ones have to be "re-flowed". jaclaz

Another idea (mind you completely and utterly UNTESTED ): Using the 30/40 Mbish image with "XP Kansas City Shuffle" or "Fake Signature method" and grub4dos on the CD part and your updated setup on the HD-like part. Since it is "Disk Signature" dependent, there should be no problems with \device\harddiskX\partitionY. Here: http://www.msfn.org/board/install-usb-driv...OS-t122505.html http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21242 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=21939&hl= The newish USB installer by pcuser for UBCD4WIN uses this technique: http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11375 jaclaz

For the batches, here is a good start point: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/batchfiles.html jaclaz

As expected, to update the BIOS, a DOS is needed: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=do...mp;prod_no=1474 PDF with basic instructions here: http://global.msi.com.tw/html/pdf/How_to_f...er_DOS_mode.pdf The downloadable file: http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=do...5&type=bios is NOT a bootable diskette, it contains just the file to be added to to it. Download a "clean" floppy disk image from here: http://www.bootdisk.com/ if you have a USB floppy you can use the "Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing" or, if you only have a CD-ROM drive you will need to use the slightly more complex procedure: "Need To Flash Your BIOS On A PC With No 1.44" http://www.bootdisk.com/txtfiles/flashcd.txt If you have any doubt about the procedure, ASK BEFORE doing anything that you (or your wall ) might later regret. jaclaz

Generally speaking , it is not correct to "generalize", mixing Linux with BSD and even talking of "Linux" or "BSD" is incorrect. It would be just like saying "Windows", which one? A virus may (ab)use of something that is peculiar to the specific "edition" or "distro" or "branch", besides attacking a certain "core". OpenBSD as an example: http://www.openbsd.org/security.html is much more focused on security, particularly: Other versions of BSD, like FreeBSD are a little more "open" in the number of default settings, but still it has a very good security response: http://www.freebsd.org/security/ http://www.freebsd.org/security/advisories.html Linux, unfortunately has far less effective security means, not because of anything "wrong" in it's core, simply because there is so many different distros that range from the "script kiddie project" all the way up to "Corporate International", you cannot put in the same basket distros like Knoppix, Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva, Red Hat, and Ubuntu (to name a few) together with a mis-known new "one man show" one. And as well you cannot compare a "security oriented" distro with a "multi-media oriented" one. It is also to be taken into account the kind of "activities" the user of a OS carries on. Usually BSD users are computers experts that use the OS as Server, know perfectly the innards of the system and do themselves security auditing. As well most Linux users (some kids excluded, the ones that use it just because it's a "hacker thing" ) have a more than average knowledge of the system, know about the dangers you are confronted with when surfing, etc. Just like the BSD ones, users of the "Server" editions of the various Windows are knowledgeable network administrators and it's unlikely that they are running a not-up-to-the-latest patched version and go clicking senseless on whatever is moving on a web page. On the other hand a large part of Windows XP Home/Pro and Vista (all versions) users, which are the more popular OSses currently, probably are people with a less than average technical background, largely unaware of the risks of clicking without thinking, likely to fall prey of spammers/phishers, etc. Thus it does not make much sense to compare an OS with another without any information on the capabilities of it's users, what they actually do with it, how many hours a day they are running/connected to the net, and so on. On the other hand, BSD and Server 2003/2008 machines are a much better "target" for malicious intruders, I mean who cares to put a trojan or backdoor that allows you to download all the personal files (possibly a few hundreds of family photos) of a John Doe? Whilst getting your hands on the archives of a Corporation or a Government Agency may be considered worth the risk. jaclaz

YES. http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollar...no-answers.html Expanding on the given proper answer above, I have one for the moment: why don't you post the name of those programs? Maybe some user has them working, or maybe there is a later version avialable that works on XP. You would take a lot of guessing work out of the equation, and probably get better answers. Check against "I'm ill, doctor. Help!": http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollar...ard-litany.html jaclaz

The good news are that you were accurate enough in your search, such a site does not exist. The bad news are that if it would exist it would be probably illegal and we could give you a link to it but would have to kill you afterwards. :whistling: Sure, we'll do our best, cruelty on walls is a misknown but really preoccupying trend, we like our walls healthy... Usually flashing BIOS is better done from pure DOS, and there are DOS images for this aim available. Post exact brand/model of your notebook, someone may be able to give you appropriate instructions/advice. Most probably the CD you have is a recovery CD of some kind. Usually - but not always - you can re-create a seemingly "standard" CD from the recovery CD+ (possibly) files on your HD + a ServicePack. You won't like the procedure, as it is lengty and boring, but it will keep you from banging your head on that poor wall. See this and links therein: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=91907 For experimenting ONLY, you could also try using the EVALUATION release of Server 2003 (should have 180 days trial time): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...r/bb430831.aspx jaclaz

I am not sure to have understood your perplexities. I mean, do you have a problem in using the batches? Then re-read the Tutorials and FAQ's: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=116766 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=5306 Are you willing to try to understand how the procedure works? Then read the "historical thread": http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=61384 Rather obviously you need a somewhat "more advanced than average" knowledge of the processes involved in booting a NT based system. It's hard to say how you can get the latter if not by reading, searching, reading, searching again and reading again. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask, but you do not expect a course on this, do you? jaclaz

Naah, it would be cruel it must be a shock to post the same question on different boards : http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?&showtopic=711206 http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/105091/ and get everywhere the same bad news about the motherboard being somewhat fried. jaclaz

You're welcome. Out of curiosity , was my guess right? jaclaz

Look at the top right of the page. Options. Display Mode. Switch to: Standard Let me guess , you clicked on a link found on a search engine that brought you back here and since then you see everything as "threaded" (read Outline or Linear+) jaclaz

nlite slims the SOURCE, i.e. it can only be used BEFORE installation. if you have an external USB CD drive, you can burn a new installation media, otherwise you can use your USB stick using these methods: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157 (just copying files to stick WON'T work) unattended means having an install media that you just start your PC with and then walk away and it autocompletes without ANY user intervention. what you want is not related too the install being unattended (and however, making an install unattended is the LAST step after having made a number of succesfull installs and "tweaked" them). what you want is: a way to reduce source (read nlite) a way to integrate drivers (read again nlite) Start browsing here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=89 most likely there are alresdy all answers to your questions. jaclaz

Sure, that's why I "translated" the link into a working archive.org cached page. You asked if anyone had an idea to what the long beeps meant, I provided you a link to the not-so-easy-to-find- original page of the maker of the BIOS. Case closed. You are free to think that they were lying or wrong, of course. jaclaz

Why do you want to make it more difficult than needed? RE-read this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=124169 Basically all you have to do is to translate isolinux.cfg contents into a grub4dos menu.lst entry. The syntax is very similar, and there is an example by ilko_t on the given thread. In other words, you already boot to grub4dos, grub4dos can boot directly a Linux kernel, thus introducing a level of complexity by loading another loader is unneeded. jaclaz