jcarle

Windows XP Pro with the RAID-5 hack is godly. I'm simultaneously in love with Windows Server 2003, but the two just don't compare. A server OS and a workstation OS do different things, and it's not quite fair to say that one is better then the other when the two aren't the same.

Can you access 192.168.1.1 from your wired computers?

The WORST anti-virus is Norton. I hate Symantec products. They BOG down a machine and the anti-virus protection doesn't stop the slew of people's who's computers I have to rid of viruses even though they have Norton installed. The only anti-virus I would ever concider actually running on my machine is Trend Micro's PC-Cillin Internet Security 2005. I don't run an anti-virus on my machine. However, if I ever do need an anti-virus, I always use (with great success) Trend Micro's web based scanner, HouseCall.

Use these steps to attempt to resolve your issue, usually works for me. Turn off all your computers. Disconnect the power to your router. While the power is off, and since you should wait at least 3 minutes before powering it on again, check all your connections. Make sure that your telephone wire is okay and well plugged in. Do the same with your network cables. After 3 minutes have elapsed, plug your router back in. After your router has finished initializing and is back online, usually 2-5 minutes, turn on all of your computers. Check for the internet on each computer. On computers that do not have an internet connection, in Windows XP, open a command prompt and type ipconfig. Check to see if you have an IP assigned. If you do, then you're having a routing problem. If not, then your problem is possibly the router. Either way, try the resetting technique above, and if that does not fix your problem, then post here and we'll help you work through it.

If Windows 95 is any indication of anything, combined with the fact that the difference in hardware speed is becoming less and less obvious, I have a feeling Windows XP will be around for at least 10 years. I personally will not move to Vista unless I REALLY REALLY have to. I love Windows XP and will be buried with it if I have to.

They checked in Google...

OMG That is the best thing in the world!

You know, I love Microsoft operating systems, I love how everything is standardized in the Microsoft world (almost) and how things just work out of the box with Microsoft products. What other operating system other then Microsoft's own Windows XP let you do so much will so little preparation. I mean you buy an external hard drive, plug it into your USB socket and it just works. No drivers to install, no configuration to make, just litterally plug and play. There is a LOT of things that have become plug and play with no drivers to install thanks to Microsoft. Nobody else has done it so well. However, on a realistic side of things, Microsoft software and licenses are way too expensive for an average person. If you want a full retail copy of Windows XP Professional, you're looking at $229.95 USD. Add on a full retail copy of Microsoft Office 2003 Professional at $379.95 USD, you're already up to $609.90 USD. If you're a programmer, like I am, you'll also need a full retail copy of Visual Studio .NET Professional 2003 at $699.95 USD. So just to be able to start using my computer, I have to buy $1,309.85 USD of software from Microsoft. That's without calculating the taxes on that and looking only at the Microsoft software. In my case because I do web development, I'd also have to buy a full retail copy of Macromedia Studio MX 2004 at $949.95 USD, a full retail copy of Adobe Photoshop CS 2 at $559.95 USD and a full retail copy of Adobe Illustrator CS 2 at $499.95 USD. Now we're up to $3,319.70 USD of software. If you add all the little applications that I need as well, such as Nero, Winzip, WinRAR, VMware and some other small things, I'm well up into the $3,500 USD mark. I make about $675 USD per month in income, and about $580 USD of that goes to my rent, bills and food every month. So at $95 USD a month left over, assuming I never went out and used all of my spare money to pay for this sofware, I'd have for 37 months, or 3 years of payments. By which time, everything would be out of date and I'd have to start over again. How is a normal person expected to be able to pay for this? I didn't even dip into what it would cost me if I wanted to build myself a server at home that ran Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition. That would cost me more then a brand new car would.

Bytecc enclosures like the ME-350 work great. I have two, one of which has a 250GB Western Digital inside. Love it to death.

Make sure your Windows has all the updates installed and that your motherboard's USB drivers are installed BEFORE you install your printer.

Computer cases come in two major flavors. ATX and microATX. Those are the motherboard form factors, which is an industry standard. ATX will support ATX motherboars as well as microATX, however microATX (being smaller) will only support microATX motherboards. There are other standards, but there's too many and not very common, so you need not worry about them. Your motherboard is an ATX motherboard. So the case you choose must support ATX motherboards. You can pretty much pick any case you like, the differences in cases are mostly quality and style. One thing to remember though is the number of bays a case has. Internal 3½" bays serve to put hard drives, external 3½" bays serve to put floppy drives, card readers and zip drives, while external 5¼" bays serve for optical drives. The bays you need depends on the expansion you want to make with your computer. If you plan on having only one optical drive and a single hard drive, then a small mid-tower is enough for you. If you choose to go with more hard drives and multiple optical drives, you'll want something more towards a full size tower. Just remember one important thing when picking your case. If the case is not made by a quality company such as Antec or InWin, then chuck out the power supply that comes with case and buy yourself a reliable Enermax, Antec, PC Power and Cooling or Sparkle Power power supply. Here are some of my favourite recommendations for ATX cases that will support your motherboard: Antec TX640B, $105.00 USD Antec SLK3700-BQE, $79.99 USD Antec Titan550, $180.00 USD (If you're wondering why they're all Antecs, it's because they're quality cases that you won't cut your hands on when working inside that feature some of the best power supply on the pc market today.)

There are no jumpers on a laptop's hard drives people!

I didn't fully explain myself, what I meant was two different physical DIMMs. I do understand that they have to be matched pairs, I just didn't spell out my sentence properly. Doh!

If you still can't disable it anywhere, just disable it in hardware manager.

It's best if you install Service Pack when it's already slipstreamed into your windows cd. In other words, make yourself a windows cd with SP2 and the hotfixes slipstreamed into it and use that to install your laptop. Then install of your laptops latest drivers and your wireless should work fine.

Someone walk over to his house and fix it... I give up...

Dual sided is NOT dual channel. Dual channel means two DIFFERENT memory sticks will work TOGETHER. Your 1GB memory stick is dual sided. Which means that stick of memory is NO GOOD for your computer since your motherboard can only access HALF of that stick. Thank you, come again.

What you need is something like the 3ware 8000 Series Serial ATA Raid Controller cards.

@mendipjohn - On the contrary, you can never spend too much on the power supply and the motherboard... those are determining factors in everything else that you will build into your computer. They also determine the life of your computer. Buying the highest technology motherboard available combined with a reliable high quality power supply gives you the option to upgrade for years to come. Anyone building an Intel based computer should always go for LGA 775 socket, DDR2 memory, PCI Express slots and SATA II interfaces on their motherboards for the highest upgradibility life possible. @ringfinger - Aside from that motherboard, the only other must have recommendation I would have for you would be a solid reliable power supply from a quality driven company such as Enermax or Antec. After you have a high technology, reliable, quality motherboard (for the reasons above) such as the ASUS P5WD2 Deluxe and a solid reliable power supply, then the rest comes down to your budget. The rest doesn't matter as much because it can be upgraded, changed and improved as your budget allows. I do however recommend that you stick to either Seagate or Western Digital (with 8MB buffers, 2MB buffer hard drives are of lower quality) for your hard drives if you value your data. Stay away from Maxtor, Fujitsu and IBM. That board would allow you to install a Pentium D 820 which is reasonable in price and give the power of a dual-core processor. Kingston memory is lifetime garanteed and of great quality and works wonders with ASUS boards. I like to match ASUS boards with ASUS video cards, but that's just a personal preference because their video cards match the quality of their motherboards and are always compatible with each other. And I'm in love with the Pioneer DVR-109 dvd-/+rw dual layer drive. That's an all-in-one optical godsend.

We should open up a 1-900-MSFN-SUPPORT line...

MySQL. 100% Free and 100% Powerful.

If you could somehow record the beep and post it online, any one of us could tell you if it's normal or not.

Nothing. Just save the changes.

ASUS P5WD2 Deluxe is king of the world right now.

I think it would be useful to make a list of all the files that need to remain uncompressed... this way we could create a utility to compress the windows CD no matter what's added to it and insure that the necessary files stay uncompressed.