nmX.Memnoch

That CPU isn't on the officially supported list on ECS' site...but that doesn't always mean anything. Have you tried installing the latest Athlon 64 processor driver? The link is 2/3's of the way down on this page: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Techni...71_9706,00.html

I just checked the RPC services on my 2003 R2 Enterprise box and they're set as "Network Service". Something has definitely jacked with his services though. The WMI Driver Extensions service is set to Manual on my server...and I know have haven't jacked with that one. I also noticed that Network Location Awareness is Disabled on his box. It's Manual, but Started on mine. I know those two aren't related to his problem...it's just an observation.

From what I gather about his first post, he replaced the RAM trying to fix the problem. So it appears he was having the random reboot issue prior to the RAM replacement.

It's not speculation at all. If you take the time to carefully read his reply, you'll notice that what he actually said is "he plays games 2-3 years old", not "his dad 'played some games'". Could you, in good conscience, recommend that his Dad get a very low end graphics card...only for him to have to turn around two days later and buy another one when he realizes the card he just bought provides inadequate performance for the games he plays? I can't. You're not going to come anywhere close to the performance of the 9800 Pro that he's trying to replace for under $50. And let's be honest...$150 isn't that much to spend on a decent video card. No one is recommending he go out and purchase a $500 top-of-the-line card. THAT would be insane in this situation.

It's kinda hard to say. It could be a hardware issue or it could be a driver issue. If you ask nicely, cluberti will diagnose your memdump for you.

The thing is...none of them are good choices. Especially for the games you've mentioned.

The 6x00 cards have been out for almost 3 years now (I can pinpoint it because the 6800GT I have was delivered to me at QuakeCon 2004...my buddy overnight delivered it to me after it was delivered to my home). They're perfect for playing games that are 2-3 years old. Wasting money on a sub-$50 card when he has every intention of playing games that are only 2-3 years old is what's insane. What's more is he'll have the graphics power to play some of the newer games out.

Glad you found what it was...

The only downside to that is that you would then have a script containing a clear text password of a user with admin privs on the workstations.

Turn off the "Automatically reboot on bluescreen" option in XP. - Right click My Computer, choose Properties - Go do Advanced Tab - Click Settings under Startup and Recovery - Uncheck Automatically restart under System failure Now when it restarts see if it's actually blue screening. If it is tell us what the error says. Yes, the CPU can cause random reboots if the cache has been fried (usually by too much voltage while overclocking).

A couple of quick searches tells me that of the cards mentioned in this thread you should be looking at either a 6600GT or 6800XT based card. They run about the same price. You definitely don't want to get a card with GDDR2 anyway.

Actually with AA the 6600GT holds a pretty good lead against the 9800 Pro in all of the benchmarks in that article. The 6800GS would definitely be a good purchase for your friend. Those slightly outperform 6800GTs.

You should let the chkdsk finish. Windows XP doesn't automatically schedule a chkdsk unless it's detected an error in the file system. Most of the time it can recover the files, but if there are bad blocks on the surface of the disk it may not be able to.

Widescreen is the way everything is going. If you plan on going to Vista at all (now or later) you may want to check for HDCP compliance as well. I'm about to purchase a new monitor (or two) myself and I'm still researching. Dell has a nice 20" in their Ultrasharp line that I've been keeping my eye on. The price just dropped by $40 too.

A 6800XT card would be much faster than a 9800 Pro. Unless you play SIMS 2, then the 9800 Pro will outperform the 6800XT easy... no joke... Not likely. Given that a 6600GT is faster than a 9800 Pro, and the 6800XT is on par or slightly faster than the 6600GT (slower memory clocks, but wider memory bus)...I'd say the 6800XT is definitely faster than a 9800 Pro. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3

Same. I have had it cause issues on servers though...mainly trying to install/configure ColdFusion MX 7.

You really should've started a new thread... The resolutions you see are dependent on what both the video card and monitor support. The video card you have shouldn't have a problem supporting the resolutions you're looking at. Since your video card supports a higher range of resolutions than the monitors you're looking at, then WinXP will show you only the resolutions that monitor supports.

Did you try the registry key I gave you? That will probably require a reboot of the workstation BTW. http://windowsxp.mvps.org/sharedfolders.htm

Sorry but RAID5 is slower than RAID1. Calculating the parity information adds to the time it takes to write files to a RAID5 array. RAID1 writes are a simple write to both drives and then check to see if they match. With RAID5 the controller has to figure out how to stripe the files, calculate the parity information, write it all, then check to see if it all wrote correctly. Don't get me wrong, a good hardware based RAID controller can make this happen VERY fast, but RAID1 will still be faster. There's also the additional overhead of cost associated with RAID5. Not only do you have to have at least three drives, but you also have to have a controller that supports it. A good controller that supports hardware RAID5 will set you back some bucks. Since the size of drives have increased, I've moved to RAID10 (two or more RAID1 arrays striped) on my newer servers. The difference is noticeable, and I potentially have better redundancy (one drive from each sub-RAID1 array can fail and it's still operational). Also, don't use Disk Management to do the mirroring. That's software based RAID and will be slower. Software based RAID will increase your CPU utilization on the server. It'll work in a pinch, but you should be looking towards a harwdware based option. As for the drives, you should always use matching drives in a RAID setup. It's not necessary, but highly recommended.

If you reinstall and it works fine until you start installing software...then you most likely have a software problem. The trick is finding out which piece of software is causing the problem. Do you have constantly high CPU utilization in Task Manager?

You can't move the entire profile, but you can redirect some of the directories under the profile to a different location. There are registry settings for My Documents, My Videos, My Pictures, etc, etc. What he needs to do instead of trying to move it is redirect it. That way when a user clicks on the "Shared Documents" item in Windows Exporer they will be shown the contents of his custom path instead of All Users\Documents.

The service would have to be running as a domain account that has access to the remote machine. And even then, I'm not sure it will work. Note that you would need to give the domain account the "logon as a service" right.

What about putting the update file in the same directory as the script? Would the script have access to copy it to the local workstation that way?

Odd... You should have plenty of power going to the AGP slot for that card. Which NVIDIA drivers are you using? And what are the specs of the rest of the system (mobo chipset mainly)?

One thing I noticed when I looked at the specifications of that motherboard is that the PCIe x16 slot is electrically only x4. This means you can put a x16 card in the slot, but it'll only run at x4 speeds. Gigabyte has a list of "officially" supported cards for that motherboard at this page: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...px?NewTechID=82 The problems you're having now may be attributed to the card you currently have not working correctly on that motherboard. I wouldn't take any chances on buying a card that's not on their list (even though I realize that lists consists mostly of Gigabyte cards, it's pretty obvious they've done something...wonky...with that motherboard).