nmX.Memnoch

It probably wouldn't hurt to change the RDP port either. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306759

Yep, it does. Remember, a lot of laptops have the ability to use both the LCD and an external VGA connection for doing presentations. I believe Windows 98 was the first Windows OS to include full dual monitor support (95 may have, but I don't recall).

As previously mentioned...you won't. The AGP standard was never meant for more than one card. The better question would be why you're still running a 486 notebook! I was asking why you wanted two video cards in an attempt to find out if you were trying to run dual monitors. I never got a real answer as to why so I never brought it up (before now). Dual monitors can easily be done with a single AGP card.

What's your overall budget for this build? If you really want the ultimate setup then start looking at SAS drives instead of SATA. Those can be purchased at up to 15,000 RPM. You'll pay a price premium for it though (and you'll have to get a SAS controller as well), but that's the only way you're going to get the absolute best configuration.

I suspect that's the answer you're looking for. The SP3 version on MSDN probably includes the option to bypass the product key during install where an RTM -> SP3 manual slipstream won't have that option.

I'm going to inquire again as to the reason for putting two video cards in the system. No, it wasn't.

RAM, RAM and more RAM, a couple of fast drives RAID0'd for the scratch disk, and a 64-bit OS. CS4 is finally supposed to get native x64 binaries (under Windows only, Mac users will have to wait until CS5). http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_64.html

<---pretty much the evolution I went through after reading that...

Just a question as to why you would need two video cards in that particular system?

If I'm not mistaken, G43/P45/X48 will still use ICH9. As far as I know P45 officially supports both DDR2 and DDR3, just like the P35. However, the X38/X48 only officially support DDR3. DDR2 works, but it's not officially supported by Intel. Some X38/DDR2 motherboards (specifically the P5E) have been known to kill enthusiast DDR2 RAM sticks (those that require higher than spec voltage). Crucial actually de-qualified their DDR2 Ballistix modules on the X38 chipset for a while because there were so many failures. They've re-qualified them again, but I suspect it took some reengineering on their part.

You won't be limited to 3.2GB of RAM. If you have 4GB of RAM in the system, some will be reserved for addressing of peripheral cards (NIC, sound card, video card, etc). A 64-bit OS won't fix this. It's possible...it depends on what you do with your PC. If you game, some older games may refuse to run, or may not run properly. Most 32-bit applications will, however, work without any problems. I'm not too familiar with G.SKILL myself but I know a lot of people use them without any problems. It's a good choice on the motherboard. Just realize that Intel's motherboards don't typically have a lot of the tweaking options that other manufacturers such as ASUS and Gigabyte have. Also keep in mind that the X48 based boards should be hitting the market soon. The main difference between the X38 and X48 is official support for the 1600MHz FSB settings (not a big deal unless you're going with the very highest in Core 2 Xtreme CPU). It's also said that the X48 fixes a few minor problems with the X38. I have an X38/DDR2 based motherboard (Asus P5E)...and I can tell you from my experiences that the extra price for DDR3 seems to be worth it (the X38/48 doesn't officially support DDR2 and people have run into difficulties getting X38/DDR2 based boards stable). I can't really comment here as I personally prefer NVIDIA cards even though their drivers have hit a rough patch (no pun intended). If this is your primary data storage machine I would recommend going with either a RAID1 or RAID10 configuration for your data drives. RAID1 requires 2 drives and 2 drives only. RAID10 requires at least 4 drives (which is your limitation on arrays using ICH5/6/7/8/9 anyway). Both will give you data redundancy (if a single drive fails you won't lose any data). RAID10 gives you both redundancy and speed, and potentially greater redunandcy (2 drives can fail without losing any data, depending on which two drives it is). Absolutely do not go with RAID5 using any onboard solution. Performance won't be what you expect. Personally, I use RAID0 for my OS drives and RAID1 for my data drives. The OS drives get the operating system (obviously) and all applications. If a drive fails you lose everything, but that would be the case if you went with a single drive anyway. I use RAID0 for the added speed/space benefit. I think you're taking a HUGE chance going with a Creative product at this point. Even their "works with Vista" X-Fi products don't work with vista due to non-existant driver support. You can probably find daniel_k's modified drivers floating around, but having to rely on someone to "hack" the drivers for their flagship product doesn't give me a warm fuzzy. Asus' Xonar seems to be picking up a lot of support. I have read about potential problems with their PCIe bridge chip though. Everybody is also kinda waiting to see if Creative is finally going to pop their heads from where the sun don't shine...but I'm not hedging any bets there.

Actually...Intel usually includes BIOS updates for the GPUs in the graphics driver download. Download the zip version of the latest 945 graphics driver. Inside the zip is another zip file, vbios_945gm.zip. It contains a utility and two other files. Disclaimer: I've always noticed them there but never used them before. I take no responsibility for any potential damage so try this at your own risk. It's generally recommended not to upgrade any firmware or BIOS unless you have having a specific problem addressed in said BIOS update.

I don't know why Intel doesn't list it for the DG965RY and DG965SS boards, but the CPU support page for the DQ965GF states support for Core 2 Quad CPUs. The 965 series chipset supports Core 2 Quad CPUs so Intel must be specifically disabling support for them on those boards through the BIOS. More than likely since it's a mATX motherboard they're using a lower spec VRM and/or less power phases to reduce the cost, which would mean the components on the board itself probably can't support the power requirements for a quad-core CPU.

Of course they can. The 965 chipset officially supports any Core 2 CPU using up to a 1066MHz FSB, including the Q6600, Q6700, QX6700 and QX6800. Some 965 based motherboards even has BIOS updates for unofficial 1333 support for the QX6850. At this point though, on a new system I wouldn't look at anything lower than a P35 or P45 based motherboard.

Sometimes I wish DEC had kept Alpha and Microsoft would've continued support... When I was stationed in South Korea there was another gentleman who had a Digital box running NT 3.51. That was absolutely one of the fastest NT 3.51 boxes I'd ever seen...and it was running all of a 486/DX2 66! I don't recall how much RAM it had, but I do remember that it had a SCSI drive subsystem.

Couldn't they be used as PDCs/BDCs and file servers? But yeah, their use was limited since the full BackOffice suite wasn't ported (IIRC).

They are the same (or should be) except that you can't use a Retail key on a VLK or OEM disk, can't use a VLK key on a Retail or OEM disk and can't use an OEM key on a VLK or Retail disk. Basically, the keys aren't interchangeable between the different types of media. You can, however, update your own installation media pretty easily. All it'll cost you is some time and the price of a blank CD (or DVD if you integrate other applications as well).

Yeah, but they were still PDQ!

SPARC support was never publicly released (as stated in the Wikipedia article). Most NT4 deployments were done on either x86 or DEC Alpha.

You don't need to slipstream both service packs...just slipstream the latest SP you can/want to/need to use for your environment.

I think the User State Migration Tool will do what you want.

I believe you have to make sure the file is named PK5.ROM. I know the instructions don't say this but give that a shot. If all else fails you can try it from the CD that came with the motherboard (just put it in the drive and turn the system on).

It's The Inquirer so take it with a few grains of salt...but they're claiming that NVIDIA is moving the launch of the GT200 forward to July. http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/new...ping-early-g200 Note they keep calling it the "G200" in the article, but it's supposed to be GT200.

You've already learned the first lesson...never, ever use the ASUS Update utility. It used to work really well but for whatever reason it almost always results in a corrupted BIOS now. Here are the steps from the manual to recover the BIOS: Insert the USB flash disk that contains BIOS file to the USB port. Turn on the system. The utility will automatically check the devices for the BIOS file. When found, the utility reads the BIOS file and starts flashing the corrupted BIOS file. Restart the system after the utility complets the updating process. NOTE 1: The flash disk should be formatted as FAT or FAT32, NTFS is not supported. It should also bee smaller than 8GB. NOTE 2: DO NOT shutdown or reset the system while updating the BIOS.

Nah, if your PC already does those things without any problems there's no reason to upgrade just to get a quad-core CPU. If he were doing a complete upgrade I'd agree with you...but he already has a dual-core setup and was wondering if just upgrading the CPU to quad-core would give him any benefits. In all likelyhood it won't for the things he mentioned he does, so why waste the money? He should wait until he's ready to do a complete upgrade.