Zxian

The P4 can serve other purposes if you don't want to get rid of it, but playing HD content is a fairly intense task (hence why you need the upgrade). All of my Intel systems are built on ASUS boards (P5B Deluxe, P5K Premium, Maximus Formula), and I've got an AMD based media center using a Gigabyte board. Your best bet is to read the reviews on a site like NewEgg to find out real world experiences from users.

Extreme editions of processors typically just have unlocked multipliers. At stock speeds, there's no difference between my Q6700's and the QX6700's. An E5200 (which is still at the bottom of the performance charts of today's CPUs) will still run circles around that P4 you have.

3360x1050 - 34KB New dual monitor setup at work... much better than a single big screen IMO.

Thanks for the replies. I'm using an IOgear VGA/USB switch now, and it's working great. However, I've got dual monitors setup at work now. One screen is connected via DVI, the other is VGA, and the difference in screen clarity is definitely noticeable. I can't see why the jump from VGA to DVI has to be so bloody expensive. If anything, you could get away with lower quality hardware in a DVI switch since the signals are all digital.

Why is the CNPS9500/9700 pointing up? Is there a top vent in the case, or is the PSU at the top? The best orientation for that thing would be to have the airflow run front to back - not bottom to top.

The separate storage server is another option (it's what I do at home), but I probably wouldn't recommend running JBOD for your local storage. If you're not going to combine the drives in RAID, I'd just leave them separate and mount them in your current file system. From my understanding, Vista and Server 2008 have a very similar driver model - so what works on one should work on the other. I'm not 100% confident about this, but perhaps some of the more knowledgeable members can shed some light on this.

Vista has out-of-the-box support for Intel's onboard RAID controllers (ICHxR). Setup the RAID in BIOS, pop in the Vista disk, and you're off to the races. I've setup multiple systems on Intel RAID controllers without having to worry about driver issues. As for 3ware, their website needs to be updated. They have a KB article regarding the issue, and the while you're out of luck with the 9550SX in terms of official support (they say 9.5.1 should work), the 9650SE has driver support in Vista and Server 2008. See here. I'm going to be updating my server to 2008 soon (it has a 9650SE), so I can let you know how things go if you'd like. Discrete and Multi-lane describe the type of cable used. Discrete cabling means that there is a cable plugged into the card for each drive attached. ML cables are a 1-to-4 breakout cable, shown here. The 9650SE just requires a PCIe slot with enough lanes for the specifications. From the looks of that Intel board, you only have one PCIe x16 slot (which I'm assuming will go towards the graphics card). Clearly, you'll need something with an additional PCIe x4 slot (or higher) in order to fit the card. Also, just because I would feel bad not to mention this, if you use the 9550SX in a regular PCI slot, you'll severly hinder the performance of that card, and possibly bog down the rest of the system depending on what else is connected to the PCI bus. Hope this helps. EDIT - After being corrected by cluberti, it turns out that Vista supports ICHxR controllers up to ICH9R - but not ICH10R. My bad.

For what it's worth... I think the layout of that site is incredible. Very clean, very easy to navigate.

I'll usually run my site through a validator to make sure that everything checks out. Better to follow the rules than have something that's halfway there. My usual check for browsers is IE/Mozilla/Opera

I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions on quality DVI KVM switches. I've got two systems here (One Windows, one Linux) and I'd like to use them both via a KVM switch. For the work I do, VNC software is not an option, and I'd much rather use DVI over VGA (for obvious reasons).

My PSU is modular, and I like to keep a minimum of cables in use if possible. Floppy connectors are only attached to the molex cables on my PSU. It would be the only device that uses that cable, and routing cables to a half-length card across the motherboard is just a pain in the rear.

PCIe is nice, but if it requires a floppy connector like the DX or the D2X do I'll gladly pick the PCI variant over PCIe.

I'm really sorry to hear that. Sorry I haven't been responsive on MSN. The end of the school term caught up with me and the end of last week was pretty busy. I hope you can remember your uncle for the good things he provided in your life.

On the PCIe version, it was necessary. The PCIe x1 slot simply can't deliver the power needed by the onboard amplifiers.

From what I've read, the Xonar is a far better card in terms of sound quality. The Auzentech might have high reviews in the realm of gaming because of it's Creative heritage, but that's not the be-all and end-all. I'd have a Xonar in my system now to replace my XtremeGamer if it fit amongst my other expansion cards...

I disagree. There have been several times that GUIs (especially *nix GUIs) fail to produce the correct operation. While switching from Windows to a terminal takes some getting used to, the best control often comes from looking at config files yourself. Besides, once it's setup and working, what else do you need to change? Servers are there to be used, not fiddled with.

True. I was talking about the computer industry where it's simply cheaper to replace a DOA product than to test each item that comes off the assembly line.

Windows Hosting = ASP and ASP.NET pages. A lot of the large websites are starting to migrate over to ASP.NET sites because of improved performance, but the downside is the higher cost (due to licensing) Linux Hosting = PHP, Perl, etc. These are typically what you find with large scale, cheap hosting. I've still got my account with Dreamhost and I would highly recommend their service. Their support is quite good and the performance is generally acceptable for a personal site.

It's simply not possible to test every device that's sent out from manufacturers. Random samples are often taken to get a statistical analysis of failure rates in manufacturing, and for the most part the tolerances are pretty strict. Some DOA products are expected in just about any market today.

Windows file shares would seem best in this case. If you're looking at transferring a large number of small files, the overhead with FTP is just brutal.

Is hibernation enabled? Do you have 2GB of RAM in the machine? If so, it's hiberfil.sys. You can reclaim that 2GB if you're really concerned about it by disabling hibernation, but otherwise it's harmless.

I've tried Folding@Home on and off for quite a while. My main problem with it is the lack of support to run it as a service. BOINC is mindless to setup, and as long as the project software is stable, it's out of sight, out of mind. I have it running on all my systems in the background, and I've never had it noticably impact the performance of my system(each Einstein app uses about 60MB of RAM, priority is always set to Lowest). F@H seems like a great idea, but like a lot of simulation software I've dealt with it's simply unrefined and not easy for the "common joe" to setup and use. If you'd like to start an MSFN team under F@H, please do. I'd be glad to get my PS3 running on that whenever it's not in use.

You won't be able to get into the BIOS without a CPU and RAM installed. Put the old CPU and one stick of RAM in. Make sure to clean the old thermal paste from the heatsink before installing it with new thermal paste. Once you get to that point, remove the old CPU and install the new one. Again, clean the heatsink and apply new thermal paste.

MBP doesn't have the OpenGL based graphics card...

Toshiba = EEEWWW!!!! Honestly, stay away. I can't count the number of half-broken Toshiba's I've had to fix in the past couple of years. Their quality control is terrible, and their customer service isn't that much better either. If you're serious about using CAD software on the laptop, you'll want to look into one of the OpenGL targeted graphics cards. This means looking for a Quadro or FireGL based notebook. I know you can get Lenovo's with Quadro cards for not that much money - roughly $1200 base price. With modelling and drafting tools, the graphics card is just as important as the processor. The Dell Inspiron lineup just doesn't cut it here... I'd look into a Lenovo Thinkpad T61. The base price is about $950, and you'll want to upgrade the CPU up one notch (T8300) and buy some RAM upgrades from NCIX or the like (should be less than $100 incl shipping). All in all, it might break the $1000 budget slightly, but the increased quality will more than make up for it (just ask any serious business person).