Polarman

I got a score of 5.3 Processor: 5.3 Memory : 5.9 Graphics: 5.9 Gaming: 5.8 HDD: 5.7 Lowest score was the processor which is a AMD FX-62 (Stock). 5.3 is normal for this processor running at stock speed.

Same here! After giving it some thought. I made the jump. It's been 3 weeks now. I purchased Vista Home Premium (retail box), installed it on my main machine with all the newest Vista drivers and all is working smoothly. I was not easy getting the hang of it at first. After several years of XP, you need to explore to find everything again. The instant search thingy is really handy. All my previous XP programs and games work without a hitch despite negative comments. Acdsee 7 works, old games like Diablo 2 and Heroes 4 work. I don't see any performance difference in games like Company of Heroes or Supreme Commander. Note that i have a WEI of 5.3. Of course some don't, like my old Norton 2003. Peferct Disk 8 needed to be updated but works. The only thing (hardware) that did not work, was my old AGFA scanner that i bought during the time of win98. It workd on XP but not on Vista despite having it "recognized and installed" in the device manager. I moved it to the XP PC that my wife uses. Then again, It needed some time to mature. I remember the same sort of flaming during the time XP appeared and Win98 users where bashing it to the ground. It took some time, but some converted like my-self. It was the time for a change.

You can change the location of the page file. But i dont think you can with the hibernate file. Control Panel -> System -> Advance System Settings Click on settings in performance box -> Choose "Advance" on top. Click "Change" in virtual memory box. Now you can choos where to "SET" the page file. I suggest a min and max size of the same amount (static). It's not wise to put the page file at zero.

In this thread, i'll put down the web sites of the most obvious manufacturers. When you visit the websites, make sure you pick your specific model before downloading anything. Most of these sites are specificly related to motherboards and graphics cards. WARNING! Some of these websites may contain outdated drivers. Abit: http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=com_...download=driver Asrock: http://www.asrock.com/support/Download.asp Asus: http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx BFG (Tech): http://www.bfgtech.com/driverdownload.aspx Biostar: www.biostar-usa.com/downloadmain.asp DFI (Lanparty): http://us.dfi.com.tw/Support/Download/down...=MB&SITE=US ESC (Elitegroup): http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Downloads...D=6&LanID=9 EVGA: http://evga.com/support/drivers/ Foxconn: http://www.foxconnchannel.com/en-us/support/downloads.aspx GeCube: http://www.gecube.com/software-driver.php Gigabyte: http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Default.aspx HIS (Digital): http://www.hisdigital.com/html/driver.php MSI (Microstar Int): http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloadindex Powercolor: http://www.powercolor.com/eng/support_driver.asp Sapphire: http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/support/drivers.php Supermicro: http://www.supermicro.com/support/resource...rce_drivers.cfm Tyan: http://www.tyan.com/support_download.aspx XFX: http://www.xfxforce.com/web/support/showSe...versSerial.jspa Again, fell free to add some suggestions. Thank you!

The Great Vista Drivers Post: Access all the latest drivers for Windows VISTA here. VERY IMPORTANT! Always make sure that you always use the porper drivers for your specific brand/model. In this post, i do not and will not post any beta or 3rd party (modded) drivers. Check elsewhere! So with that out of the way... Lets start with the most obvious and important ones first. INTEL: Latest Intel INF version is 8.3.0.1013 Intel Desktop board only is version 8.4.0.1016 http://support.intel.com/ AMD: Waiting for Phenom i guess. http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Techni...,30_182,00.html VIA: Latest Chipset Drivers is 5.13A http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2 SIS: Not much here but there are some vista drivers: http://www.sis.com/download/ NVIDIA: Drivers for Graphics and Chipset: Latest ForceWare Release is 163.69 Latest nFroce release is 15.08 http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp AMD/ATI: Drivers for Graphics, Tv tuners and Chipset: Latest Catalyst release is 7.9 http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx Creative Labs: Drivers for Sound Cards (X-FI, Audigy) Latest driver version for Audigy 2 is 2.12.0002 Latest driver version for X-FI is 2.15.0002 Latest Creative ALchemy for X-FI is 1.00.07 Latest Creative ALchemy for Audigy is 1.00.08 (Must Pay 10$ to get this one ) get it here: http://buy.soundblaster.com/ http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/ Realtek: Drivers for Intergrated Sound and Ethernet. Latest driver version for AC97 is 6251 Latest driver version for HD audio is 1.76 http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/ These are the primary place where to get the latest drives from. If you have any problems, you could always try the drivers from your Motherboard/Graphics Manufacurer. See the next thread below for various links. Again... Make sure that you always use the proper drivers for your specific model. Now on to Secondary (Peripherals) drivers: Microsoft: Drivers for keyboards, mice, gaming devices, webcams. Latest Intellipoint, Intellitype version is 6.1 http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/downloads/default.mspx Logitech: Drivers for keyboards, mice, gaming devices, webcams. Latest Setpoint version is 4.0 http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/support_...s/&cl=us,en Ideazon: Drivers for gaming devices. http://www.ideazon.com/us/downloads/drivers.asp Viewsonic: Drivers for monitors. Latest drivers are dated 070914 http://www.viewsonic.com/support/drivers/index.cfm Samsung: Drivers for monitors, printers, storage. http://www.samsung.com/ca/support/index.asp LG: Drivers for monitors, storage. http://us.lge.com/support/download/search.jhtml Canon: Drivers for printers and scanner. http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controll...ownloadIndexAct Epson: Drivers for printers and scanner. http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support...UseBVCookie=yes Hewlett/Packard (HP) Drivers Printers, scanners, monitors, storage. http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/suppor...Display=drivers Lexmark: Drivers for printers and scanner. http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/sequentiale...78_0_en,00.html Brother: Drivers for printers http://www.brother.com/E-ftp/info/index.html Please note that not all websites are listed on this post because there's a whole lot more. But these a relatively the most popular ones. If you have an additional site that you believe should be on this post, feel free about sharing it with the community. PLZ Sticky.

Try this. Control panel --> System --> Advance System Settings (left pane) Now click SETTINGS in "Startup and Recovery". Now in the System Failure dialog box UNCHECK "Automatically restart" then press OK. This will take care of your black screen/reboot issue.

No problems here. Then again, all pc's are not built the same way. You said you did a clean install first then you installed 7.8 and it did not work? Then you simply updated to 7.9 and this one failed also right? Mmm... Did you install the latest chipset drivers before your video drivers? The chipset drivers should always be the first to install.

Sorry about taking this long to reply. After trying out various software and suggestions here, i came to this conclusion: ATI Catalyst Media Center 1.0 (aka power cinema 3): I really hope that version 2.0 will be better because it sucks royaly right now. Cyberlink Power Cinema 5 (3902) trial: Way too overloaded! 208MB to install just to watch tv and a few dvd's. Come on... it feels like the bloated Nero software. Too much nonsense. Like i need that. Snapstream BeyonTV 4.6.1 trial: Smaller than PC5 but what's this... I CANT STOP IT FROM RECORDING CONTINUOUSLY. It can fill up your hd in no time. Uninstalled immediatly. No fix on their forum. Dscaleer: Smallest out there. I did not like it. feels like the old DOS days. Media Portal 2.2/2.3: Seemed good until all the flaws popped out. Fullsrceen did not work neither resizing. Alt-tab srews it up.I type 45 and it goes to channel 56?? to get channel 45 i have to type 40! Too many booboo's. You know what, i feel i'm better off installing MMC 9.16 from when i had my all-in-wonder card. At least, i could choose what apps to install. Simple as that.

After fixing my little vga slowdown issue on my mobo (bios problems), i ran the 3Dmark06 demo to see if it worked. It gave me a score of 8370. FX-62 + X1950Pro(Crossfire) Stock Speed. The demo version did not give me anymore details.

And now for a real answer! Speed wise, you will NOT see any real diffrence between SATA and IDE for a optical drive. The rotationnal speed of any CD/DVD cannot exceed a certain point anyway (~52X). I know that IDE is slowly beginning to fade away on motherboards. That's why SATA is slowly replacing the older interface. Some people could have some issues trying to boot from a SATA CD/DVD drive unless they have a new generation board. Maybe the future will resolve the speed barrier. Personnaly, I prefer to keep my SATA Hard drives separated from a CD/DVD drive. I'm still using a Plextor PX-708A IDE. Note that i don't burn 2000 cd's a week. I use to have a Plexwriter16/10/40A before. If i had to choose one today, I'd go with the Plextor PX-810SA. For my part, i never had any problems with plextor. Heck! my mother still uses my old Plexwriter.

Did you ever "clean" your keyboard in those 5 years ? You'd be amazed how much dirt gets under those keys in a year. If it's too much trouble, you could always get a new one.

ATI has the TV Wonder 650 in PCI-E now. http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/pcie/index.html

I was very happy with my recent build last month with everything up to date until i decided to run 3Dmark05 just for the hell of it. I got a pathetic score of 9018 USING CROSSFIRE (2 X ATI X1950pro). After looking around for similar setups i found that i should be getting between 14K-15K. Something was definitely wrong... So i tried the following fixes: Clean install = Nada Swap Video Card = Nada Update to Catalyst 7.8 = Nada Various settings change = Nada Disable Cool&Quiet = Nada Disable all kinds of stuff = Nada Check PSU at Store = PSU was Fine After some endless investigation in forums, i finally found someone with the same board that was having the same issue and a fix was there too! The fix was something that i had not considered. The old motto is "make sure that everything is fully updated". Not this time. REVERT TO THE PREVIOUS BIOS = FIX So short of RMA my board, i decided to try it out. IT WORKED!!! My 3Dmark05 score jumped to 14933 (Stock). YEAH!. Company of Heroes jumped from 41.8 to 92.8 (Average FPS) in the performance test. So to all out there with a K9A Platinum Motherboard, Do not use BIOS 1.6 unless your running Vista Ultimate 64 + 4GB of ram. Stick with BIOS 1.5. Hopefully a fix will be made for a next version. I've emailed MSI about this.

I'd wait at least a full year. Leave them time to fix and tune it. All new stuff come with new bugs.

Ouch! 7 (120)Fans. You might as well put the whole PC in a freezer. That's a hard choice. I suggest to check the cutomer reviews on NEWEGG for both products. It could give you a better opinion.

Try this. Do not unplug your video card. Put one stick of ram at the right place. make sure your 20pin connector is plugged in right and the same goes for the 4 pin CPU connector. Remove anything plugged in the IDE socket (both of them if u have 2). Start the PC and go in the Bios. Leave it there for 30min to an hour. If this works, replug your hard drive and/or cd. If it fails after that. That means that your IDE connector is defective. CHANGE YOUR BOARD! This story happened to my brother in law. He did not listen to me and tried to make it work some other way. long story short: He blew is PSU and most of is hardware in the process. CHANGE THE BOARD i told him. Good luck

You should throw in a 8800 ultra for running Luxor. No but seriously. Consider a Low power CPU like a 35Watt X2-3800.

XP

Recently upgraded my PC, so here's some pics. My desk did not change, just the PC Case (Inside too!) Here a look at the inside. And yes i took the time to paint parts of inside the case (Red) and cleaning up the wires while waiting for my new Mobo to arrive. So here's a recap on what has changed: Enclosure: went from a Antec Sonata 2 to a Antec Titan 650 ( The TruePowerTrio 650 is great and the case is so roomy. No messy wires in the way. Long video cards are welcome). Motherboard: went from a MSI K8T Neo2-F to a MSI K9A Platinum (I got no issues with MSI. But i did have a hard hard time to find this board). CPU: went from a AMD X2-4200 (939) to a FX-62 (AM2) (My very first FX processor, price was low and more power to boot). CPU Cooler: went from a Zalman CNPS9500 Led to a Zalman CNPS 9700 Led (I could not use the older one because of the new socket. It keeps my FX cool). Memory: went from Corsair XMS DDR-400 (2X512MB) to OCZ DDR2-800 (2X1024MB) Crossfire Edition (A bit more expensive but super stable). Video Card: went from a ATI All-in-wonder X800XT to a pair of ATI X1950Pro 256MB Crossfire setup (OMG, what a diffrence, Games are meant to be played this way... MAX everything). Tv Tuner card: The All-in wonder was replaced to a ATI TV Wonder 650 (I'm watching tv and typing right now.) What did not change are my 2 Raptors(74), my 2 dvds(Plextor and LG) and my SB Audigy 2 ZS. And before anyone here treats me has an "ATI FANBOY". Your right in a way. But let tell you one thing... IT WORKS! My system is rock solid stable. After adjusting the Bios with a fresh XP install, it booted with no issues whatsoever. Best Build ever. I'm not here to set world records in various benchmarks. I like the idea of having one manufacturer (AMD) that did the CPU, chipset and video cards. I do not like to have too many mixed components. Less problems with compatibility.

I purchased a ATI TV Wonder 650Pro TV tuner Card when i recently upgraded. It comes with Catalyst Media Center wich is basicaly Cyberlink PowerCinema 3 remake. I did not find it to my liking so i tried Cyberlink PowerCinema 5 trial instead. It's not too bad but still... Too many useless gizmos and gadgets, resources hungry and lacks overall customization. + It did not save some settings. (I don't care about the temperature in New York or whatever) Is there an alternative that i could try out that is not overly bloated and probably eats less ressources that works with the type of card i use. Maybe there's an open source project out there? who knows! Thx for any suggestions.

ACDSee 7 (Registered)

Just curious about the computers usage of the people on this forum. So post your daily PC usage in hours and what is your PSU wattage. Are your "power user" ? For me, i use it less than 4 hours a day. I usually turn it on around 6PM and shut it down around 9:30PM. I have a 650W PSU to power up my stuff. Contrary to popular belief, your PC won't die sooner if you turn it off everyday.

Be fore you make your choice, consider this: The pixel pitch of any 22" is greater than a 20". So your 22" will look fuzzier than a 20" at the same resolution (1680X1050). The 24" on the other hand should have the same pixel pitch as a 20" but it's standard resolution is much more, so you need more video horsepower to run it. (pixel pitch = distance between each same colored pixel. The bigger it is. the fuzzier the image is.) That's part of the reason i chose a 20". The image quality looked better. So my choice was a Viewsonic VG2030WM (1680X1050) 5MS. Good price too. The only negative aspect about this monitor was some bleeding around the edges, but i dont really see it anymore. The speakers are a bit on the cheapo side, then again i don't really mind because most of my gaming is wearing headphones. Almost 9 months now without any problems.

Geez! Just use a Q-tip! I would not risk opening my PSU. It would void the warranty.

It's 50$ cheaper here: http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=...facture=SAMSUNG And you can pay with paypal too. I bought a lot from them.