DL.

There is no use in buying IDE anymore, go with SATA all the way.You definitely don't need a RAID controller for DVD drives, getting a simple non-RAID controller will save you some cash. Keep in mind that your mainboard (if you choose the one you mentioned) has eight SATA ports already. It's good to leave some room for expansion, but there is no use in buying a controller which will leave you with lots of empty ports. Do you really need that many DVD drives (a total of 8)? I would choose a G5 (v2) rather than the MX518, because I don't like the very smooth and glossy finish of the MX518 (even the slightest pieces of dirt will stick to it and make it uncomfortable). You should consider replacing the video card to something more powerful if you plan on using it for gaming. How are you planning to backup all your data? Don't forget to think about that too when buying a new system. USB 3.0??? It's not said to be introduced until maybe 2009. We'll have to wait and see what my own rig for 08 will be, I will most likely buy a new rig later this year when I graduate (university) and hopefully get a job. It's been long overdue with a replacement for my old machine (P4 3.4C/2GB/7600GS), but the uncertainty for the future that comes with being a student (when and where will I get a job, which additional expenses will that bring about?) has kept me from buying a new system (well, I could've bought it but I like to be safe just in case).

You can reduce the installed size (there is a thread on it), but as of yet there is no known way of reducing the source.

CPU and mainboard? Try SpeedFan.

As others have mentioned, using a Live CD/DVD is a great way to try different Linux distributions without going through the installation only to find out you don't like the particular distro. Which OS to choose depends on the way you use your computer, the everyday tasks you do may be easier to do on one particular OS. I've wanted to learn Linux, but I haven't had the time or the motivation to start all over with a new OS (I've booted it using a Live CD but that's it). The problem is also where/at which level to start; being an expert (not to brag) at Windows and the likes (DOS/cmd-scripting), but not a programmer in any way makes it difficult to find a guide that suits me without being overly simple (=just using the GUI) or too advanced (=programming). I'm sure others here at MSFN are in the same position.

A standard CD is 16-bit 44.1 kHz so you probably won't hear any difference if you rip it at a higher sample rate or bit depth. With headphones you usually get much better audio fidelity at a lower price compared to speakers. If you mostly listen to music at your computer anyway, headphones are a great choice. You can notice quite a difference in the way the music sound when using different media players (with the default settings for the EQ), depending on the soundcard and the speakers/headphones the difference may vary. I found the Creative DVD-Audio sample disc, will try it when I get back to my own place after the holidays (the old SB Live and home stereo we have at my parents place isn't quite in the same league). Here's an article on the topic of sound and sound quality.

I couldn't find any, the only one I know of is the DVD-Audio sampler they sent with the Audigy2 cards (which would probably do just fine). I've got one of those somewhere but I'm not really sure where (might be at another location far away, hence why I haven't found it).

Isn't those numbers absolute limits, i.e. 32-bit just won't work on a 24-bit (kind of like an x64 OS that won't work on an x86-only CPU). Also, are you really supposed to be able to hear any difference between 24-bit and 32-bit?

It was released on Dec 3, not exactly new. I wouldn't consider something only available to TechNet subscribers (which I am, by the way) as "available for public download", it would be the same as saying that for example Vista is also available for "public" download.

Very strange, none of those tweaks should have any direct effect on the internet speeds. How did you test the speed? Speeds may fluctuate at times. You should re-test the speeds, are you sure you didn't do anything else at the same time? Do you mean you had 3800 kb/s (kilobit) or kB/s (kilobyte)? 3800 kB/s (kiloByte/s) is quite fast. You could try increasing the "...Timeout"-values, set them to at least 3000.

I agree, disabling services will give you a bit smoother Windows experience in more than one way. We're not talking huge improvements but enough to justify doing it. You won't see much of a difference in actual benchmarks, but general usage will be quicker. Services also have quite an impact on startup times, but disabling the wrong ones may have the opposite effect. It requires some testing to find the right services configuration for your needs, it's different for everyone. I know what I need personally, but I'm a lot more careful when disabling services for others. It depends on which hardware and software you use, the more additional peripherals you use the higher the risk of problems because of disabled services. Always read up on each service you disable to hopefully avoid more common problems. You cannot disable Remote Procedure Call from the services manager, so no problem there. If a service is set to MANUAL and still starts at every boot you should rather set it to AUTO, that way Windows won't have to ask it to start and thereby saving some time. Limiting the number of active processes (by removing items from autostart) is also crucial for performance, for XP you should have no more than 20-30 processes before you open any other programs. And those numbers are to be considered absolute maximums, keeping the active processes below 20 is recommended (I have less than 15). You can even get down to around 10 when you want to maximize free memory (make a script to temporarily stop some of the services). For Vista those numbers are a bit higher, I haven't played around with it that much but you should at least be able to get below 30. @Vishal Gupta: Having a graphical tutorial like this one may be quite useful for beginners; connecting the reg setting with an image of the same setting in the GUI (including a short description of what it actually means) would be a good idea. But it will require a lot of work to do it.

I've tried those songs and others on the site, but unfortunately they seem to be just ordinary MP3:s (but thanks for those, they may be useful too). The problem is finding HQ songs/samples, I've tried searching quite a bit but haven't found anything long enough (more than a few secs) to be useful.

Does anyone know where I can find and download (fully legal and free) music/songs to really be able to test (hear) the full potential of my SB X-Fi and Sennheiser HD595 combo? CD:s and MP3:s won't quite cut it, music in 24-bit/96 kHz is more like it.

Might do if you overclock it a bit too much and/or if the cooling fails. A slight overclock most likely won't hurt.

Are you still into this project? Is it possible to get all of these in one package? Would make it a lot easier to try doing something similar to what you do, some direct links would be useful as well. I'm planning on doing something like this as a lesson of practice for my cousin who's a young "techie in training".

Why not?? It's easy to enable the services again so why not have a try? But you should do some research first and test it thoroughly. If you run into problems with Windows (depending on the type) and have disabled some services you should try enabling some of them as one of the first things you do.

No offence to you guys but this one is nothing special, there are better guides available. Most of the reg tweaks listed won't improve performance in any way, but a few of them will, somewhat. Adding descriptions to the tweaks was good though, may help some people.

Try Undelete Plus.

Which kind of data recovery do you need: -Deleted files -Data lost by formatting -Data from bad/faulty disk -Other kind of data loss Please specify and we may be able to help you better.

You should post the info in the thread instead, makes it easier for more people to get it.

The programs you mentioned will probably also do just as well as any other similar prog. But any of those sure can mess up your collection, just as almost any utility to automatically do things. So be careful and just tag/rename/normalize/modify a few albums at once (and verify the results the first times just to be sure it's ok). Sorting the music like this may be quite ok, but it depends on your preferences (folder structure): -Genre/type ....-Artist ........-Album(s)

Read all parts of the guide thoroughly until you get everything, not just about the tweaks/registry stuff. The easiest way to add the reg-tweaks is to use cmdlines.txt.

The link doesn't work, gives a 404. Did you mean this one?

Would be nice to know, since I'll probably build something in its pricerange (or close to) next year.

QMP (Quintessential Media Player) for audio: +It's fast, stable, user-friendly (in a good way) with all the controls easily available, can be used to edit tags and names of multiple files at once. -Limited support for different file types, playback progress slider is buggy, cannot change the playback speed. For video: VLC and WMP+FFDShow Don't really like any one of them since both have too many annoyances and faults, but they complement each other quite well because they are good at different things. Real and QuickTime Alternative with MPC: For those rare cases when the media on websites are in any of those formats.

FPS or RTS games where you can play COOP with other players against computer controlled opponents. I don't like the very fast paced action in most player vs. player games, where speed i the single most important factor. I've always been more of a SP gamer, but COOP is ok because it's not that far from SP in that you can control the pace more by yourself.