bonestonne

replace the PATA cable on both channels with 80 conductor cables. PATA cables can go bad and cause issues like that.

I've only seen this happen once before, but when you install Vista x64, if you have trouble, you might try taking out all the RAM, and only putting in 1GB or less, and trying to install again. I know someone who had that problem with a Q9550 i think, when installing Vista x64 on 8gb of RAM or something along those lines. the install would constantly fail, she took out all but 1gb, and the install went fine. she had to install some patch to Vista from M$ before adding the rest of the RAM though...google it, i'll see if i can find the topic on another forum. ::edit:: here's the link: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewt...sc&start=61 first post has it all

well, when in doubt with hardware, if it doesn't work after the first or second troubleshooting idea, forget contacting the company, i just return the product, it's not worth the hassle, and i'd rather pay a restocking fee than shipping to/from the company for their POS product. not mentioning i only use wireless networking for mobile devices, laptops, phones...never a tower (only exception is when i'm not at my house and it's the only way to connect). although i will say, i do have a WG111 USB wireless adapter, and it's never given me trouble, however i only go wireless on linux (it's been a long time since i bothered running windows wirelessly). no drivers are needed, it's just plug and play, x86 and x64. i'd suggest a PCI based solution next time.

new specs! Core 2 Duo E6750 MSI Neo P45 ECS nVidia 9600GT M-Audio Delta AP 24/96 6gb G-Skill DDR2 (will be 8gb of DDR2-800 by the end of the month) HL DVD-RW drive (have yet to get one with Lightscribe, but i can still wait) Apple Mighty Mouse Logitech wireless ergonomic keyboard (i'm getting a normal wired USB soon, can't stand wireless much longer) FSP-300W (may be replaced with a 420HX soon if necessary) some generic card reader (but i need to replace it with one that can read SDHC) 1x HP f1703 (the second one died, i'm waiting for a good price on a new panel) For cooling, I've got a Scythe Ninja Rev A on the CPU, a Thermalright HR-05 on the Northbridge, and an Accelero S1 Rev 2 on the 9600GT. I would have done more on the southbridge, but i'd have to get the Thermalright HR-05 SLI, and even with that, I don't think it would fit with the chipset on an angle. Temps are solid and low, CPU idling around 28C, GPU idling around 35C, and both drives idling around 34C. Northbridge sits around 30C, southbridge is around 26C. I finally wired up the front panel audio as well, works like a charm, even though it's not exactly wired correctly. since there were no jack detection wires, i just plugged in the audio headers so it will actually play audio out front and back at the same time, the back doesn't turn off. also reinstalled XP and Ubuntu, i finally have full support for my hardware in Ubuntu, graphics look amazing, windows is much more responsive now as well. the new optical drive is also shorter, and gives a lot more breathing room to the case, it's nearly flush with the end of the drive cage. the inside of the case feels much roomier than it was, and much more complete, with the card reader and front panel audio now working. I'm also glad that the Scythe Ninja still fits, when i first got the P45 board i looked at it, and saw right away that the socket was closer to the edge than my old P965 board, which was a close call anyway. Luckily it all fits perfectly. and considering everything i'm running now, aside from the chipset and graphics card (which weren't out at the time) this is the exact setup i wanted to have when i built this computer for the first time. and with a spare drive running vista, my experience score is a 5.3, lowest being the hard drive at 5.3 (80gb WD SATA-II) , and the CPU being 5.5, all other scores happily at 5.9

Hey all, I've done this huge upgrade, went from P965 + Pentium D to a P45 + E6750, and the build is actually working out great, but i have one major issue. When i install the Eaglelake chipset driver for the P45, windows becomes unable to load the drivers for all of my USB ports. right now i've got all drivers but onboard audio and the P45 installed, and i consider myself safe, but i haven't really done much to prove whether or not it's a problem. Considering my Mouse, camera, card reader, palm pilot and plethora of other things are all USB, i consider it pretty necessary. thoughts? oh, major thing i almost forgot, i'm running Windows XP x64 with SP2. thanks, bonestonne

there are also PICO flash drives on www.thinkgeek.com, ranging from 4-8gb i think. pricing isn't so friendly though.

thought i got too skinny, so i had a 3/4lb'er from wendy's today. 2560x1024

Your Grade: B 84% You Passed with an Above Average Score

i bet its the cooler on the card. by the looks of it, it's got poor performance for even the 9800. if that was on a card like my FX5200, it would be perfect, but a 9800GT? don't think so. your case doesn't appear to have much ventilation for anything, i don't think you've got enough cool going in to take care of what's inside.

you can't set a fan with SMART settings, that's just for Hard drives. you can set the BIOS to give you fan failure warnings though. this way, if the fan ever fails to start up, you system will shut itself down to prevent overheating. the fan speed control is actually Smart Fan settings, it has nothing to do with S.M.A.R.T.

riderzen: those are estimated and projected power draws. real power draw is nowhere near that. i run a 9600GT on a 300W power supply, i have one expansion card for audio (soon to be two) and i have two hard drives, and one optical drive, and 3 fans. i do play one game a lot, Alice, and it's never had any problems with my rig. no overclocking or overvolting though. did i mention i run two monitors?

i updated my sig before i took any pictures, so here's the only thing that's changed: just don't get confused, it's dual channel, so the total of both channels is printed on the label...it's 6gb DDR2 not 12gb. i'm moving up to DDR2-800, but i'll worry about migrating the other 2gb when i've got the money to leap into 8gb. past that the next time i've got this thing open, i'm cleaning the cables, then i'll have a new full shot.

the card probably isn't being cooled very well. look into aftermarket GPU heatsinks...there are tons of options. also, you may want to re-assess the airflow of your system if it's giving you trouble, the card might just not be getting fresh air to keep it cool.

have you checked the dust situation? generally when a computer has heat issues, it's just dust issues.

If you get major distortion from the speakers when plugging in a mic it's because the mic is turned up way too loud. if you hear buzz when moving the mouse, you might want to make sure that the cable for the mouse is not running parallel to the audio cable. it's called EMI, and it comes from the 60hz hum caused by electricity flowing parallel to signal. electricity should never run parallel, and they should only cross at 90 degree angles, and at a bare minimum as well. it'll happen on thousand dollar RME Hammerfall cards....it's nothing special on a creative.

that's also a possibility, i just need to find a retailer that will do that.

wow...kind of out of the loop past couple days (problems with the lady-friend)... well, there's really nothing else i can do with it, i'll probably list in on ebay for a while...it's all packaged in a box and all. it just doesn't have the ring generators on it, so i guess i couldn't really get more than $200 for it... suggestions are very welcome...and thanks all for solving the mystery! if nothing else i'll have to see what anyone at the local dump has to say about it (that place is a gold mine for parts and people, there are guys there that work for phone companies that can probably tell me all about this thing). however it got to the hands of the electrician that gave it to me, i have no idea, maybe his uncle ordered the wrong part? (it's a family run business).

http://www.kwikpiks.com/files/84/IMG_0465.jpg maybe that will work? there's not much to get in the picture other than what's printed on the PCB

Hey all, I was recently given this thing by a friend who works as an electrician, he said it was a motherboard, but when i opened the box i wasn't really sure what to think of it. here's a picture, maybe someone can tell me what i can do with it: http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g142/bon...ne/IMG_0443.jpg i've never seen anything like it before, it has nothing on it that i can use to identify it with. right now i have it in an anti-static bag, in a padded shipping box...but it's pretty big, and if i can sell it, i'd like to...i'm running out of space. thanks, bonestonne

i've been dual booting with ubuntu since 6.10, and easily i can say 8.10 is great. a few setbacks though. my 9600GT works with it, i get dual monitor (horizontal, side by side) but the hardware effects don't work, if i enable them, i just get an error. also, during boot, i had to change it to "all_generic_ide" to see any progress. past that, i can't complain. audio works, i get both monitors, i can browse YouTube through totem (and what i listen to gets added to a playlist, so i can save that playlist, and it'll just stream through totem, which is great when i don't have the music). i've used it to burn DVDs, CDs, and no problems really, i know my burner is dying though. i also have my complaints with software, VMWare doesn't work, VirtualBox has too many issues, and the startup process still takes too long. beyond that, 8.10 is a good transition if you upgrade from an earlier version, but the transition from windows to ubuntu has too many gaps, and i almost feel that 7.10 is more suitable.

i'm sorry, but in reading this, this is what i read: "i get 8 miles per gallon, i drive an 03 H2. Improve Gas Mileage? Is there a promising solution?" answer: no. you drive a tank with a 6 liter V8 (unless you got some other package). what on this green earth possessed you to buy that cumbersome monstrosity?

no, the single sided 256mb RAM is high density, most computers had issues with that (although somehow just about every Compaq i ever tried worked fine with it). the RAM is fine, the motherboards just can't read the density.

Slackware, the first and the best. It's got just about everything on one DVD, multiple window managers, and tons of options. it tore me away from Ubuntu...i use ubuntu on my laptop for the hardware support (don't need extra drivers for anything) but on my spare desktops, running a spare desktop with Slackware in any window manager is a lot of fun. i remember having a distro that let me alternate which window manager i used, but i don't remember which it was. it doesn't take too long to install, and its got everything i need.

is that 658mb Pagefile usage, or actual RAM usage?....there's a huge difference.

i'm not one for vista, but i can say that you will most likely see a boost in performance with 3x the RAM available. at my school we have 3 Mac Pros (lets not get into that) but i will say the one with 4gb of RAM owns the one with 256mb of RAM (long story, don't ask).