03GrandAmGT

I 2nd the Universal Network Disk. Best **** tool out there for booting into a network. jd

Hello Why not make an external drive yourself. All you need is an external case and a HD. Below I listed a couple of references for parts. I did this myself about a year ago, and have had no problems. I listed the Seagate as they have a 5 year warranty. I used to be a hard core Maxtor fanatic until about 2 years ago my drives were failing just after the 3 year warranty was up. Seriously a couple of days or weeks after there was no support. External Case with USB and IEEE 1394/Firewire http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....&SubCategory=92 Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB 3.5" IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148036 jd

Camarade_Tux, U DA MAN!! I never realized that function was there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually I have never scanned anything with Irfanview. Thanks for enlightening me. ringfinger What Camarade_Tux says is true. Just tried it on my scanner with 7 documents and scanned it into one .TIF file. Best of all Irfanview is FREE!! Thanks Again Camarade_Tux jd

For this type of page insertion I use Omni Page. As far as I know it is the only one that you can insert "MULTIPLE" pages to 1 Tif file. Yes Irfanview will do this. GREAT application, but will only convert 1 page at a time so he would still wind up with "MULTIPLE" pages instead of just one Multi page tif file. jd

I think on the older MOBO's the barrel battery was soldered to the mobo. I also don't remember seeing cmos jumpers on that old of a board. Some supposedly had them but I never saw any. jd

huh? i mean to register the program... I still need to figure a way with 1.38 to enter name and serial number though. Meedio 1.41 runs on all my other machines, just does not seem to want to play nice on my main HTPC. jd

Yeah, the little mice running in the ram don't get tired. My Amigas still run top notch the same as when I first purchased them. One still has the orig. HD that I installed in it. Maxtor 540 meg scsi 10+ years. jd

Yes it can be done that way after the initial install. What I was looking to do was to have the configuration parameters in a text file for the install app to read these and then complete the install on a fresh install of OS and everything. I am trying to build a complete UA disk, so that after the complete install Meedio will automatically start pulling my Xmltv listings, Weather info down on the first login after the system has installed. Thanks jd

I have gotten this far with the 1.41 version. It will still ask about configuration, but this is after the main program has installed. I myself still need to figure a way with 1.38 to enter name and serial number though. Meedio 1.41 runs on all my other machines, just does not seem to want to play nice on my main HTPC. Which of course is in the entertainment room. For the silent install use this. This package uses the inno setup. MEEDIO.1.41.setup.exe /VERYSILENT jd Home Theatre System MOBO: Abit AN7 CPU: AMD 3200XP RAM: 512 Megs Ram Vid. Capture: PVR 250 VGA: MSI NX6600GT ViVo DVD Player: Sony DDU1615 OS:XP SP2 APP/SW: myHTPC/Meedio 1.38 DirectTV: RCA 486 Satellite Reciever MITSUBISHI WS-A55

BB, Try this site for Speedfan. I use it and it will display HD temps, CPU temps and System temps. You will need to register though "FREE". Forgot link. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php jd

As the above post states. Do an Administrative install (Setup.exe /a). This will create your admin point. After this edit the setup.ini file to include your serial, company and name. Example, ; Microsoft Office 2000 Windows installer setup.exe information file. ; If a file exists in the same directory as setup.exe named "setup.ini", or ; /settings <path to ini file> is passed on the command line, that file will ; be read and modify the default behavior of setup as shown below. [MSI] ; If a value is present, the MSI section gives the name of the MSI file to install. ; This file must be in the same directory as setup.exe, and both must be in the root ; of the installation tree. ; If no value is present, setup.exe will look for exactly one file matching "*.msi" ; in its directory and if found, use that. ; MSI=data1.msi [MST] ; If a value is present, the MST section gives the full path to a transform to apply. ; Specify it in the form MST1=path to MST ; Remember to uncomment both the section name and the value names. ; ;MST1=\\server\share\some transform.mst ;MST1=D:\transforms\my transform.mst MST1=H:\O2K\D1\Setup1.MST ;MST1=file-server\applications\O2K\D1\Setup1.MST [Options] ; If a value is present, the [Options] section gives the values of properties to apply to ; this installation. Specify them in the format: ; PropName=PropValue ; Remember to uncomment both the section name and the value names. ; ;USERNAME=Customer USERNAME=Why Do You Need To Know COMPANYNAME=Home PIDKEY=Serial Number Here xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx INSTALLLOCATION=H:\O2K\Office [Display] ; If a value is present, the [Display] section overrides default UI modes. ; Display has one of the following values: ; quiet, none, basic, reduced, full ; CompletionNotice - if this value is present gives whether or not to display ; a setup completion noticefor otherwise quiet setups. The completion notice will ; only appear if Setup does not need to reboot to complete the installation. ; Remember to uncomment both the section name and the value names. ; Display=None CompletionNotice=NO [Logging] ; If a value is present, the logging section provides default logging information. ; There are three possible values, all are optional and have defaults as shown below ; ; Value Default Description ; Type <none> Logging mode to use, e.g. ea ; Use * to get all logging modes; + to append to the ; logfile if it exists. ; Path %TEMP% Path to create logfiles in. May contain environment variables. ; Final component may be non-existent and will be created. ; Template SetupLog(*).txt File name for log file. May contain environment variables. ; Should end in "(*).txt"; the * is replaced with a zero-padded ; 4 digit number to make the file name unique. ;Type=icewarmup ;Path=\\OfficeServer\logfiles\ ;Template=Office %UserName%(*).txt Template=Office 2000 SR-1 Premium Setup(*).txt Type=piwae In the serial number DO NOT use the "-" group all serial number keys together and that should work. You will also need to change the file paths, as mine are for my setup and will not work under your system. The MST is used with Office tools to create a "CUSTOM" install which can be found here. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistan...1383061033.aspx As far as the updates for an admin install there's info all over for that. Good Luck jd

Well if you plan on going to a Home Theatre situation later, you might want to look at this one. It is covered by MOST if NOT ALL 3rd party software for home theatre applications including MythTV (Linux). http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16815116602 jd Home Theatre System MOBO: Abit AN7 CPU: AMD 3200XP RAM: 512 Megs Ram Vid. Capture: PVR 250 VGA: MSI NX6600GT ViVo DVD Player: Sony DDU1615 OS:XP SP2 APP/SW: myHTPC/Meedio 1.38 DirectTV: RCA 486 Satellite Reciever MITSUBISHI WS-A55

5 psi?? You'll never get anywhere near that with an ordinary fan... much less a quiet one. It's very difficult to have such a high pressure and a high flow rate at the same time. OK OOOOPPPS. Yeah should have thought that one through. Anyway, I am posting this as it has been over 2 weeks now and my temps haven't raised due to a dirty box inside. I pulled the box apart the other day as I was doing my HTPC at the time and everything inside this desktop box that was the original subject was clean. I will be monitoring the temps and as soon they start to raise I will open the box to find how much dirt is on the filters. My original temps were in the mid to high 30C normal and low 50C when dirty within a few days. Now they are running at 40-42C constant. I would still like to find some nice quiet high output fans though. The fans I run on this box are just some leftover stuff from another project and don't put out too much air. It appears though as putting filters on the box makes these fans work harder and noisier. But, hey the inside of the box is clean and the temps are stable, even when editing and encoding a movie. So are there any high output quiet fans out there without costing me my house??? Thanks All!!!!!! jd

Well finally. Yes the system is back in operational state WITHOUT the **** searching for a driver. Yes, puntoMX I did flash the bios several times with no luck. Yes I ripped everything out and it was still there. I removed ALL power including the cmos battery still no go. What did I do. Ha, this is frigging unbelievable. I ripped the power cord out of the back pulled the battery out and went to bed. I let the system set overnight, hooked everything back up this morning and all is well. I really find this STRANGE as there are no CAPS on the motherboard that should hold a charge for that long, espcially when you discharge the cmos. Like I said in the first post I have Uncle Murphy in all my pockets. Thanks for all the tips and ideas. jd

tcsenter, I think Bashrat has done an EXCELLENT job in his developement and long hours of working with this project and answering many e-mails/topics on this board. I had problems when I first used the driver pack only to my own STUPIDITY of not reading far enough into the instructions of creating your own driver to use with the driver packs. I wish I could get back the hundreds of dollers I have spent in the last 10 years of STUPID software NAV, Systemworks and ALL the like. But Bashrat has done the ENTIRE **** community a favor by spending his time creating this package. And with you only having 3 posts to your name all of which relate to this topic and NONE for asking of help in the DP community well all I can say is you are not a very resourceful person and you just want everything to be PLUG-N-Play or handed to you. If you were that technically inclined you would know ALL software will have problems and you would contact either the forum or the author of the package for assistance. I am not a software person strictly hardware here for me, but if I run into a problem with vendor products guess what I do?? Can you guess???? Can you????? I contact them for ASSISTANCE!!!!!!!!! That is why the great internet has allowed us to have forums and tech support and e-mail within out vast community. If your not sure of how to ask for help all I can say is maybe you shouldn't be using a computer!! Oh and before I forget. If Microsoft products weren't working right for you would you call them up asking for your money back?? I tend to thing Billy Boy would laugh you out of the community!! LEARN HOW TO WALK BEFORE YOU RUN (You Know Who You Are) Common Sense If it was so common we would ALL have it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jd

Thanks for the reply LLXX. I might think it would be the jumpers, but I do 2 things when I build a box. 1. Once the MOBO is up and running the way it should I print the MOBO jumper list out and tape it to the case side. 2. I place a dab of RTV "Silicone Adhesive" on the bottom of the jumper to securely "glue" it to the MOBO. I have had too many jumper issues in the past so this is what I have been doing for about the last 6 years. Any More suggestions?????? Thanks jd

again everyone. Today I opened my HTPC up for the weekly cleaning, everything went fine with that. Cleaned, put everything back together and fired it up. Well sorta, windows boots fine, everything works. Problem I am having though is when it booted and got to the desktop, it starts searching for a PCI device driver. This has never happened before, so I went into device manager. Low and Behold a nice little yellow exclamation mark for PCI Serial port (see attached image). Now nothing hardware wise has been CHANGED, and again everything is working KNOCK ON WOOD . I rebooted the machine and while the initialization of the Bios scan was showing on the screen I paused it just to see the PCI scan. I have even cleared the bios to see if that would fix it NOPE. I even unpacked all of the driver packs from Bashrat and threw them on a dvd just to see if the system would pick something up and still NO GO. This is what it shows. Slot 8 Bus 1 Device 10 Funct. 0 ID Simple com. controller Well that would be great EXCEPT are you ready for this I don't have no STINKEN com. controller!! Last time I saw this error was many moons ago on a friends machine that I was helping him with and it turned out to be a issue with the modem, ok that's great and all. But I don't have a modem on this box and the only thing that is on the PCI bus that I have put in myself is Lan Card (Linksys LN100TX) and a TV Tuner card (Hauppauge PVR 250). My system appears to work fine, Live TV, sound everything so why is this happening?? And before anyone says well it's working so don't worry about it. IT BUGS me as this could be the start of something else and for me packing Murphy's Law in all my pockets lately, something sure as HE** will break. Below are the system specs. Home Theatre System MOBO: Abit AN7 CPU: AMD 3200XP RAM: 512 Megs Ram Vid. Capture: PVR 250 VGA: MSI NX6600GT ViVo DVD Player: Sony DDU1615 OS:XP SP2 APP/SW: myHTPC/Meedio 1.38 DirectTV: RCA 486 Satellite Reciever MITSUBISHI WS-A55 THANKS jd

Don't forget that you TYPICALLY have a 13-18 percent overhead also which downgrades your overall speed. Your speed also has to rely on the line condition of you phoneline within your house. Last year I was getting some really eratic speeds during the summer. I pay a small monthly fee for my phone company to repair anything phoneline wise within my house. They came out and found that we had the starting of a yellow jackets nest that was interfering just enough with the line to disrupt DSL but not standard voice. Your performance is also based on how far away the TELCO switch is also. One site I go to to check my speeds regularly is DSL Reports. They have a great forum and a few tools to hep optimize your DSL. Doctor TCP is one I use and have had good results with it. DSL Report Website http://www.dslreports.com/tools jd

You might try over here. http://thegreenbutton.com/default.aspx I believe is the biggest community for the MCE users. jd

Have you tried MS Virtual PC?? http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx Using VPC is a must read for Dos applications though. jd

Yes! Never put your burner and your main HD on the same IDE port (data cable). Cheers This is a stupid question... Why? I have my main HD and my CD-RW drive on the first IDE cable and a second HD and my DVD+-RW drive on the second cable... No problems of any kind have occurred. (I have two burners because my DVD drive has problems burning CDs sometimes... DVDs burn fine.) gamehead200 I have never timed this myself, but internet consensus dictate that if you mix a CD-/DVD drive on the same ide channel that it hurts the hard drive's performance transferwise not rotational speed as some think . This could be one of those URBAN MYTHS jd

You might check here also. http://www.shspvr.com/ and here http://thegreenbutton.com/default.aspx jd

Yes Ripken. There was a site moons ago where all you had to do was punch in the model cpu that you had and the final OC'ing MHz you wanted to run and it would come up with the info for you. I've looked at some other sites just now and they have the info and what not just have to read thru a bunch of "Ads" and crap. I'd like to find that site again and keep it for reference. This was strictly a AMD Socket A site at the time. Thanks jd FOUND IT!!!!!! http://www.ocinside.de/go_e.html?/html/wor..._resistors.html jd

Hey Everyone!! 2 Things!!! 1. HAPPY BD TO ALL OF US TAURUSES TODAY!!!!!!!! B) B) 2. Well I can't seem to find the site I used when I originally OC'd this AMD 900MHz (4++yrs?? ago). The site was really cool in the fact you could punch in what you wanted and it would come back with a list and pictures of the "L" bridges that would need to be opened or closed. So does anyone here remember that site? Ya, your probably wondering what the &%^* I'm doin with a 900MHz. Well it's a little project I'm doing with my son. This way if he blows something it won't be any of the good stuff. Thanks jd

Hey Djé, Thanks for the info. Will give that a try in the next couple of days and let ya know how it works. Just by looking at it, it appears that will work for me so with fingers crossed and a 12 pack I might get it done. Thanks Again