DL.

You may have to set some filters to direct the mails to certain folders, the spam/junk filters doesn't always do exactly what they should and incorrectly classifies incoming mail as spam/junk. If you set your own filters properly they take precedence over the spam filters and make sure your mail is sorted correctly (most of the time). Having the addresses in your address book doesn't necessarily mean they are recognized and sent to your inbox. Which email program are you using?

I think that the distance and maybe the fact that many other devices share the same wire might have some negative effects on speed or packet integrity. In that case a larger antenna or a WiFi repeater might be a better option.

It's been around for some time now and as with all modern electronics it's probably quite safe. I don't know about security though, but the site says it has some built-in encryption. The speeds were said to be a bit lower than specified, or so I've heard. It sure ain't cheap, but in some cases it might be a better solution compared to be using cables.

I'm absolutely (100%) certain both of those CPU:s were at 199.99$ (I double checked it since I thought it was a bit odd!), they must've changed it or it was shown incorrectly for some reason. You won't notice much of a difference in any way when working with them between ASUS and for example GIGABYTE boards.

Stay with XP, there is no use in running 2k anymore. You could probably upgrade your current computer very cheaply with used parts; check out eBay or any other similar site. It's understandable if you don't want to shell out lots of cash for that old comp, but a slight (and cheap) upgrade will be worth it. Adding some more RAM will do that machine good, adding just one stick of 512 MB (PC133) is enough. You could also replace that P3 with a 933 or 1-1.13 GHz. These two should cost you less than 50$. The graphics card may also be replaced, but that is not as important. At my parents place we've got an old P3 1.26 GHz/896 MB RAM/GeForce6200, running XP and any normal program (haven't tried games on it) very well (it's really quick and responsive). Removing unnecessary startup progs, cleaning out malware and tweaking the services will also help your performance.

You can get a faster CPU for the same price, for example the E6750. The link for the mainboard doesn't work, but I found the board (P5N-E SLI) anyway. Mainboards with an nVidia chipset is according to a test I read recently (I don't know where) faster when using RAID. nVidia based boards have SLI support. The Intel chipset (P35) has official support for DDR2-1066, some even have DDR3 support (which is too expensive and not noticeably faster at present).

StartUpLite is nice since it just lists those unnecessary progs and not all autostarting progs/services/.dlls.

As others have said, it's not so much about the number of installed progs as the number of running/autostarting progs. You definitely have way too many running/autostarting progs. Autoruns is a great prog to see and disable certain autostarting progs, but be careful because you can mess up quite a bit if you uncheck the wrong things (the Logon tab is what you want). Try hitting Ctrl+Shift+Esc simultaneously and check the number of processes, with XP you actually only need about 13-25. Every single process uses some resources, it's like always carrying a heavy backpack with stuff you don't need most of the time. You should run Spybot S&D and remove everything it finds (geezery already said this, I know). Updating the drivers may also help a tiny bit. Untick "Show hotfixes" to hide all of them, which makes the list easier to read. Edit: Typos.

In Sweden 100Mbit Fibre-LAN is widely available to those in apartments (unfortunately I'm not one of them right now, but have been). Most of the time you won't even be close to those speeds since the servers etc are the limiting factors. Uploading was often faster than downloading.I've read somewhere that some Asians, I don't know where (probably in Japan or S.Korea), have even faster connections...

Read the entire MSFN Unattended Guide.

I found this and this nice comparison of many file managers. I've also tried some of them and particularly liked Directory Opus, but the other ones aren't bad either. I don't like the commander-style progs since they just look a bit too ugly for my taste.

They can download the updates on another computer, just like they would with AutoPatcher. If the computers doesn't even have Internet access they most likely don't need the updates.

It's bad news for many people, it was an easy way to apply many hotfixes for those with English Windows. Now they have to download all updates (WUD is useful here) and script the installation...

There really are lots of tweaking progs out there, and if that isn't enough there are a number of tweak collections to be found (here at MSFN for example). We don't need any more progs like that, nLite is for other tasks! Let nuhi focus on more important things! Don't be lazy people and don't expect to get everything served, search!

The Raptor is the fastest single-user drive today, but some of the new drives might beat it in some tests (but not access time). Are you planning on using the drives in RAID for increased data reliability and/or performance, or do you need 2TB of storage? Have you thought of some backup solution to backup all data on those disks?

The free versions may be missing some more or less important features, but stability shouldn't be a problem. It takes some time getting used to a new app when you've used a different one for years.

On the subject of noise levels, always install the drive with some anti-vibration drive mounts and not just in a solid steel/aluminum cage. Also put the entire case on something soft, like a carpet, an old newspaper or similar (be ware of static electricity). Both of those simple measures can reduce the low-frequency noise significantly. It will be interesting to see the reviews of the Seagate 7200.11-series.

I gave you (and anyone else reading this) a few options to choose from, since Autopatcher only works with the English version of Windows. Autopatcher has been around for a long time, but I heven't tried it because I use a Swedish version.

So to access the Internet your computer needs all updates, that's odd. Do they say that or does it actually not work without them? Use Windows Updates Downloader (WUD) to easily download all updates. Put them in the same folder and then script the installation by placing this file (copy/paste in notepad and save as InstallUpd.cmd): @ECHO OFF&SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS CD /D %~dp0 FOR %%A IN (*.exe) DO "%%A /quiet /norestart /n" ENDLOCAL Or you could just use AutoPatcher.

The Raptor without the window is just "Raptor" and the one with a window is "Raptor X". Everyone has different experiences with HDD:s, a brand may work very well for some people but not for others. I don't think the quality of the drive is the only major cause of failures. Cooling, handling and other hardware (primarily PSU) also has their impact on whether or not a drive will fail. Active cooling (a fan or water), a high quality PSU (not some cheap no name stuff) and careful handling will make a drive last long. Power spikes or sudden blackouts may also kill drives, using a UPS when the PC is in use and unplugging it when it's not can help. I've used only Maxtor drives for the last five years (the oldest one still works as the only drive in a frequently used PC), my current drive is a 300GB DiamondMax10 (completely cloned monthly just in case) which has been heavily used (but not 24/7) since I bought it back in -04. A number of people I know have Maxtors that still works flawlessly. A friend of mine had a number of drives, mostly (if not only) Maxtors, fail on him in just a few months (last year I think). But he had the drives placed closely together with no cooling and some crappy PSU to power them. Since he (per my advice) separated the drives and replaced the PSU, he hasn't had a single problem. Of older drives from the mid-late 90's, Quantum (later bought by Maxtor) and Seagate often still works. I've seen a few WD-disks fail over the years. Maxtor, Fujitsu and Samsung where less frequent than WD in failing, but more than Seagate and Quantum.

Since you're in the UK (according to your flag) it probably isn't very expensive to send it to Ireland, of course it depends on whether that's even possible as punto said. But it may be worth a shot if you care to do it... Edit: Corrected a typo.

As nmX.Memnoch said; integrated graphics shouldn't even be an option if you're going to be playing anything on that comp. So skip the G-series, wait if you can until the new chipset is out and read the reviews/comparisions to see if it's worth the additional cost. By then the other chipsets will probably be cheaper. The fact that new things are always on the horizon makes computers an expensive hobby, if you want to stay on top that is. Buying yesterday's stuff will make it feel even older when todays new stuff is old tomorrow. But it always depends on what you need and if you're willing to pay for it.

Smaller amounts of data that are frequently updated can be backed up to rewritable media such as DVD+/-RW or DVD-RAM. DVD-RAM is very simple to use, works like an external HD or a floppy (just copy the files to the disk in your file manager or script it). The problem with it is (just like any DVD) the limited storage space available, and the fact that it's very hard to find fast media (I haven't been able to find any higher speed than 5x, even if 12x is supposed to exist).w Backup media for normal people (=no expensive tapedrives) haven't managed to keep up with the size of HDD:s. Unfortunately in a few years when the prices for HD-DVD or Blue-Ray has come down we might still have similar problems as we have today with limited backup space. Online backup is not an option for many GB:s of data when upload speeds are less than a MB/s, even if you got one of those 100Mbit Fibre-LAN connections (widely available here in Sweden) it would take quite some time to upload hundreds of GB:s. Using a combination of DVD:s and HDD:s (maybe with RAID) is the way to go at the present time. A separate backup-server or a NAS with RAID:ed (level 1 or more, maybe nested) disks might be a good choice. Cloning it regularly to one or more other disks which are kept at a safe location (=off-site) will give you more than enough (probably overkill) storage safety. You got to have very bad luck if a solution like that would fail. The price of such a solution (500GB, 2-disks in RAID1 NAS+1 extra disk) starts at about 800$ (may differ a bit), it's not cheap but what is? This may not be the solution for the thread starter (the price may be too high) but others may find a solution like that suitable for their needs.

@ZaForD: Yeah, LH means "Load High" but those numbers made me curious since I haven't seen them like that before (and I've used Memmaker with DOS 6.20).

Those I mentioned are the most popular ones, but there are more: Read here, and here's a list of file managers. Let us know if you find something extraordinary.