Zxian

Windows Desktop Search integrates pretty nicely with XP - more so than other search utilities IMO. Just be wary - I had troubles uninstalling it for some reason. I ended up having to create my own uninstaller from instructions on the web.

The version that's on the Luna Element homepage seems to be the "blue-only" version. Google for the theme, and you'll find a deviantart page with the download. It's got a blue and a black version.

You can use a third-party partition manager (such as Partition Magic or Disk Director) to move your D partition. Personally - I wouldn't trust backup software by Gigabyte. It soulds like one of those marketing gimmicks, but I'd rather use something proper like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost.

If I may make a request and a suggestion... 1) Do you have any pictures of the inside of your case? Maybe a bit of help with the cable layout or positioning would help out as well. 2) What kind of case is it? Like memnoch said, you don't need a whole lot of fans to keep a system cool. I've got two in my older system - one exhaust, and one for the CPU. Careful cable arrangements and the fact that it's a fairly small case mean that I don't need anymore. Also - 120mm fans are FAR better at moving air than 80mm fans. If you've got a case that uses four or five 80mm fans, I'd recommend saving up for a case that uses a 120mm fan for it's exhaust. For most basic systems, that one fan is plenty.

Sunny and warm today. 22C and a few clouds. Great day outside... I'm stuck inside...

A "binary" or executable, is a file that contains a set of instructions. For example, I could write a program does the following: Asks user for a number Asks user for another number Adds numbers together Displays sum The .exe extension is actually just a convention. From what I understand, you could add a new extension, call it .dxd (for example), and also have that run as a program.

My advice - listen to memnoch. Seriously though - I would also agree that you should use a couple of independent drives for the OS and programs, and then a separate storage setup. I went with RAID5 for my home storage server, but I'm not too concerned with extremely high I/O performance, or that more than one drive would die at any one time. Long story short - read the advice from memnoch. It's good solid advice.

The Rheobus has blinding LEDs... every one of these that I've given to friends I've cut the LED's out. @computerMan... you're talking about a fan controller, and then a USB hub...?

I'd stay away from anything with a fancy LCD display... they're unnecessary and IMO, ugly. Another point to note - LED's on the fan controllers are nice, but some are VERY bright. I've got the ZM-MFC1 (non-plus), and those blue LEDs are enough for you to walk around most of my suite at night without bumping into things. If I had to choose from your list - I'd go with the MFC1-Plus. It's sleek, simple, and it'll do the job quite nicely. EDIT - Man... you can't even find the MFC1 Plus anywhere in Canada... crazy.

RAID Levels Overview You can use the built-in RAID functionality in Server 2003, but I would highly recommend getting a dedicated RAID card - even if it's a cheap one. Hardware configured RAID is (almost) always better than software configured RAID. What kind of drives were you thinking? PATA, SATA, SCSI? What kind of demands from the users are you expecting?

Haha - yup. My problem has always been that music is there, video is here, installers are somewhere in the void, and backups went on what little RAID1 space I had before (started this whole RAID escapade with 80GB). The migration from 3 disks to 4 is taking a little while... 13 hours after I started it, it's at 21%...I was hoping to have this partition/disk structure figured out sooner rather than later. Goes to show you that you should do your research first, then your implementation. *facepalm*

The HX620 that I got a couple of weeks ago comes with a cable that has one 6-pin PCI-E connector, and a 6+2-pin PCI-E connector (basically - 8-pin). They just haven't updated their specs on their homepage.

I've been digging a bit more about the 2TB limit, and found out that they corrected it for Server 2003 SP1. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/LUN_SP1.mspx For those who don't know, GPT stands for GUID Partition Tables. They used to be available only on Itanium based systems, but should now be available for all Server 2003 SP1 and up. EDIT - Hmm... I just read that an MBR based volume cannot be converted to a GPT volume - it must be wiped clean and started fresh. Maybe I should let my expansion complete... purposefully degrade the array, and use the spare drive to put all the backup data on, then wipe the array and set it to a GPT volume, then copy everything back and expand again. That way I'd have a GPT volume that's ready for future expansions, and this is still when I've got less than a single drive's data on the array (which won't be the case next week...).

Have you tried running Dial-A-Fix?

The XP drivers don't work under 2003. I tried the force install, and they didn't initialize properly - leaving me back with the default VGA drivers. I don't have a UPS, but I was contemplating getting one for this system. For my purposes, losing whatever is in the cache (which is probably not that much anyways) won't be that big of a deal for me. I never cut/paste files - always copy/paste, then delete. If something goes wrong during this process, then there's always a remaining copy of the actual data, and nothing to be lost in the cache. All in all though - the card is wicked. Thanks for the recommendation again. The only beef I had with the BIOS configuration was that the "create array" (or whatever that label is) didn't have any letters highlighted. Fortunately, I was smart enough to guess that Alt-C was the correct keystroke...

The SLI laptops will do better than your single 8600. Simple. The 7950 is a pretty high end DX9 card, so I wouldn't be surprised by the scores there. If you want to set your timings, go into BIOS and you should be able to lower them to the RAM's specs. Most systems have a key that you press to show the POST data while the system is booting up. It's usually tab or an F-key. You should also be able to see your FSB speed in BIOS.

First off - don't install Server 2003 on a laptop. It's a mix that's just wrong. The hard drives themselves shouldn't affect the RAID drivers that you use for the system. You should see if Oracle has a Vista compatibility patch. Otherwise, you should use XP, but not Server 2003.

Little update (since I have to wait for files to copy anyways): The Foxconn board ended up being no good for a server system since Intel silently decided to end video driver support for Server 2003. Since I would be connecting to this system through a KVM switch to my monitor (which is widescreen) from time to time, that was a no-go. So... I shelved the Foxconn board (I'll keep it for another system) and went back to NCIX. I picked up a P5B Deluxe and a 7200GS that was on sale. I also ordered the 3ware 9650SE-8LPML and another drive cage for my CMStacker 810 case. So... the final specs: P5B Deluxe Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 2x 1GB OCZ Gold DDR2-800 256MB EVGA Geforce 7200GS 3ware 9650SE-8LPML 1x Western Digital 250GB WD2500KS (system drive) 4x Western Digital 500GB WD5000AAKS (storage drives) Pioneer DVR-212D Corsair HX620 Coolermaster CMStacker 810 I was thoroughly surprised at the speed in which NCIX delivered the RAID card. They said that they'd have to order it from Toronto (I live in Vancouver), and that it would arrive "sometime next week" - this was last thursday. I come back today from my parents' place to get an email saying it had arrived. I'm currently copying over the data from my old RAID1 setup onto a 3-drive RAID5. Once that's complete, I'll shut everything down, plug the last drive into the system, and expand the array to it's final size of... *drum roll please* 1.5TB! In 3ware's web-configuration page, I've found the SMART data for the drives, but I'm not sure how to translate the hex data into something I can actually understand. I was hoping to have an easy way of reading off the data, like one can in SpeedFan. Any thoughts anyone? I also need to get myself a BBU - I completely forgot about this last Thursday when I ordered the card. Write speeds without caching are pretty horrendous, but I'm wondering what the risks are for me in terms of catastrophic failure in the event of a power loss (which is rare in my area) if I use write caching without a BBU. Does it just mean that I'll lose the last few KB of whatever I've downloaded to the disks, or is there a risk that the whole array goes bunk? I'm not running mission critial databases on this card just yet, so I'm wondering if I can make do without for the time being, and let my credit card recover once more...

Are you using XP Home or Professional? For XP Home - UltraVNC For XP Pro - Remote Desktop

This looks excellent... great work both of you. This is the kind of stuff that happens when MSFN's best put their minds together.

No - the question here isn't about transfer speed (as it rarely is). AHCI enables various SATA-only features, such as hot-plugging, NCQ, and some others.

Commander Keen!

I'm surprised nobody said FarCry. I love that game...

I haven't heard anything more about it, but here's a new proposal for rhythmnsmoke if he ever comes back. Write up a contract for one of us who would like to test the program (let him take his pick) which is legally binding in which we assure him that the program, source code, or anything else related will be released to others. We would be permitted to install the software on one system and test it for 30 days. If we are found to continue using the program after 30 days or if we have intentionally or inadvertently distributed the program, then his company can take legal action against us and demand whatever they deem appropriate. There - no trial version required - it's all in the contract.

Good stuff. I'm not sure if you had this before, but you can use some PHP functions to highlight the correct tab at the top of the page. In your header, you'll have to find out what the page that called it from was, and then highlight the appropriate tab. Not too difficult, and you should be able to find some guides online for a how-to.