bonestonne

some people only want that much. i increased my friends battery life on his vaio by 2 hours disabling Aero Glass and a few other things he doesn't even like. you have the graphic capabilities for eye candy, not everyone else does.

^overall shot. you can't see the sound card from there, but its an Audiophile 24/96 by M-Audio. ^updated RAM pic. 3gb dual channel. 2x512, 2x1024mb sticks. Case is now a Cooler Master Elite 330 instead of the Apevia X-Dreamer. only further update not in the pics is my 160gb WD drive for music, just replaced my Hitachi, and there's a noticeable difference in noise as vibration.

yes, but further recognition that vista has its faults, and can be given "weight loss" to run on "legacy PCs" same is true for XP, but you don't need a DVD for XP.

ok, this is what i read that led me to believe it: for the system itself, since ram is getting cheaper, why only 4gb? given 64bit is public..

case closed? check the sig...PM questions about it.

i do lots of amateur photography, and i edit on linux, OS X and XP, and its hard to answer this question. i have PS 7 on my laptop, and it fits my every need for low power editing. i shelled out for a student version of CS2 just before CS3 came out, and i'm glad i did. 1) the icon looks better 2) CS3 only has more tools, CS2 has multi-core/multi-cpu support 3) i only work with a 4MP camera right now, and i'll be jumping to a 10mp DSLR soon, after i do that, i'll have more to say on the capabilities of CS2. CS2 runs well on your average system. i managed to get it to half-a$$ work on a P4 1.4ghz with 256mb of RAM...never said it was always worth running though. now i have 3gb of RAM [shelled out $100 for it] and its worth running every time i run, on any platform [i migrated licenses to use in linux] and it works well. i talked to my friend who lives on photoshop and just bought CS3 when it came out, and for him its perfect, but unless you use photoshop for everything, CS2 will do everything you need it to.

don't think hard about it. in fact, the less you think about it, the faster you'll find the answer. ripken, you throw out all of these "get vista!" remarks...i could blow all these "get linux" remarks and it would do as much good. its for you, or its not. man made computer, man solves problems with this overall problem he created, man continues to make problems with this much larger problem he created. its a never ending process. you can be happy with what you have or want, or not...its all in the size of the bill. i paid for everything in my rig, something i doubt you did. it means a lot more to me when people tell me i made bad decisions on a rig that i chose completely. i'm not saying its bad that you didn't pay for yours, but there's a large sense of pride in doing something all by yourself, "it works for me" takes away all the pride in putting what you want into your rig. i wanted linux, i put on linux, and i wrestle it to do what i want. to put it into more context: whoever paid for all the parts of your computer choses everything about it. that would irk you just as much as it would anyone else. its one thing to ask for advice. its another to blindly receive it. not in a bad way, but in a form of 'theres a lack of understanding' way. do you see where i'm coming from? conceptually, not vista vs XP.

if i could shake your hand DL.

i'm working on becoming a linguist, practice makes perfect. i'd say that for anything. i drive manual transmission, doesn't mean everyone knows how to use a clutch, the most important part of a manual car. do i have solid evidence that vista doesn't work for most people? yes, and plenty. does every single person in the world have a brand new computer? no. do most people have computers with Pentium 4s? well, to be very real about it, people are just beginning to get rid of pentium 3 based rigs. why is this important you wonder to yourself? easy: many people are switching to linux. you don't even need a P4 to have a decent linux rig. continuing on the train of logic, how many people are even running dual core? very very few. while you see forums like this, it clouds your mind of the many million more in the suburbs, ghettos, and rural areas of this country as well as the world. people like us are very lucky to have new computers like this, and here we are arguing over what operating system they've got..there are people who are really lucky to have Windows 98 running on their computer. with the world in mind, not just these forums, yes, i can easily say that Vista does not work for most people. if the world was just people on forums, then we'd all be closer to world peace, but also remember, there are places in the world that haven't even made it to running water or electricity. computers aren't even a word to them. i have a $130 soundcard, but i don't have speakers that are good enough to accompany them. how would you sort that out? SLi works just as well in DX9 than DX10, because there aren't as many DX10 games as DX9. heck, the most intensive game i own i could play with windows 98 and it would be blasting through frames with onboard graphics better than DX10 games on a pair of 8800's. also, good graphics is not all gaming, in fact an SLi system is very beneficial for people who use photoshop or other photoediting software, as well as video editing software. would you believe that a hummer got 20mpg in the city if the stickers told you? its a world much larger than the united states, and even in the united states there's lots of room for improvement. i don't say what i believe, i say what is true, and there's my proof.

O_o well, despite anything, i think that XP x64 is better than Vista. but at the same time, why would unused RAM be a waste? its one thing if you're throwing more and more into a system that does almost nothing, but if you're actively using VMWare, or Photoshop, or Adobe Audition, or something that needs more RAM, its no waste if you go a day without using it. i'm just trying to reach a point where i can migrate to XP x64 without a problem in the process, and currently i have a large problem that's stopping me, so whatever. "so far it works for me" is hardly something that would convince me to switch to vista, what about some SOLID evidence that it can do better than XP for someone who does no gaming whatsoever, or someone who wants to have complete driver support. i don't see Vista Compatible on everything.

let the man run XP! gosh, vista really isn't all that cut out to what it should be yet anyway. compatibility and support over eye-candy! and don't tell me that vista is compatible with everything, because there's a large opposing list.

i already told you, but for everyone else, the PSU fan header and ATX cable conflict with it. the PSU fan header i can technically do without or move, which i just dont want to do. motherboard surgery like that is rough. RAM is cleared by a 6 3/4" drive though, that isn't the problem at all. annoy at the size of the CPU cooler, thats about the limit. the front panel is wired up and working well, i added the lead for the speaker, but its not necessary and my board doesn't have speaker headers either. glad there's just more metalwork left for this. i'd die if there was much more. 66 solder connections is enough!

i still need a short optical drive [no slim drives are cheap enough] and some RAM, but this ones almost done. there are TONS of pictures of the work i've done so far on that thing. front panel power LED and Power Switch work and are confirmed, Reset Switch is wired but not confirmed working. if anyone knows of a standard optical drive less than 6" long, that would be amazing. 6" is just about the max i can squeeze into this. i also have to cut a new or the existing backplate to fit. after that, this things' ready to rumble. i plan on running XP or Linux on it. if you want to see more pics, i'll be glad to post them.

not necessarily a 550W power supply..that does nothing if its not quality. 430+W power supply is fine, but it would need to be 80% or more certified [meaning at any given time its producing 80% of its rated wattage].

at home its just force of habit, i just lock it when i walk away unless i'm still in view of the monitor. in school its required though, my account has admin privileges so its very important that i do.

Computers/Engineering...#1 on my list [if i were after the same major] would be RIT. I know one person who goes there, another who's either applying or was accepted [not sure if they were or not]. computer courses there are large and incredibly good. Boston U is very all around, its on my personal list, but i haven't looked into it too deeply because i know a college that's closer that i could go to. i know people who go there for communications, business and engineering, so its mixed really, there's a lot you can go to boston for. of the others, i either haven't heard of them, or don't know enough about their courses.

DivX has a file compressor...if you were using a mac that had the software, i'd recommend using Compressor. I've used it on videos i've made in Production class. a 5 minute video down to ~450mb encoded to HD.[something, can't remember what]. file compressors are hard to come by these days, surprising to me, seeing as videos are so large.

western digital external drives are really not the best choice. i have one that was given to me, it has this 30mm cooling fan at the bottom in the back, that fan alone is louder than my PC. i've taken it apart, inside it looks ok, but really its poorly designed, and that fan is terrible. Glyph makes incredible external drives, i use them at school, silent, the look good, and they have a small footprint [and you can rackmount them].

old supermicro boards were made in america...by old, i mean 8-9 years old. its been a long time since anything was really made in america....stuff that's made in germany is very high quality though..more specifically the mechanical type stuff.

over the Antec PSU, i'd go for Corsair VX430...nothing against Antec, but i'd prefer a VX430. for a brand new system, why not a larger hard drive as well? i'm not much for debating chipsets, so i'll let the more educated spins circles around heads over it.

jumping a clock speed that high will also require much more vigorous cooling, i'm not sure if its a good idea at all. the voltage would have to be the same and the TDP would have to be very close...and with laptops, not just anything will work. i can fit a P3 1ghz into a celeron socket, but that doesn't mean it'll work

check jumpers? does it come up as newly installed hardware? if not then you may have to use a linux live CD to get to the data. do you have plug n play aware OS enabled in BIOS? those are my only thoughts.

by the looks of your sig, i think your rig is nearing 4-5 years old, and if you haven't cleaned it up inside since you got it, you've got that many years of dust inside. its well worth cleaning, and you'll see a noticeable performance increase. while compressed air is great and all, don't clean out the computer in the house or with a vacuum. there's a static charge to contend with as well as just re-circulating the dust. also check the power supply. dust in there is a major fire hazard.

while i would suspect dust, this server is my baby, so its very well kept [and in an ATX tower case rather than rackmount case]. i ended up changing the order of the RAM in the slots and its working now with the RAM. the second RAM slot doesn't like 256mb anymore? it was having issues with CD/installing the OS because i accidentally set a jumper wrong [hard to read some labels upside-down]. all is well, and i'm going to dual boot XP with Fluxbuntu on this thing now with a pair of deskstars, and look for a new case as well [this one is beat up, and lacks one 5.25" bay cover]. i may buy a second Cooler Master Elite 330 or a Centurion 530. or i may just wait for my 4U rackmounts to be free. thanks for the tips though everyone, i'll be dragging this to the air compressor soon...interesting how it rejects this IBM RAM though. Supermicro S2DGU board, Dual PIII Xeons 700mhz OC'ed to 783mhz, with 640mb of SDRAM.the extra 256 would come in handy, but ah well. at least i know its still running again...its my workstation for school for the next few weeks.

ok, so i haven't cleaned the contacts yet, but its on my to-do list...i hadn't touched the compt at all yesterday...i put the RAM back in 'bout an hour ago, and its all fine and dandy again. i guess i'll clean the contacts and put them back in later..but i did notice that there were no error codes, so thats weird...the board is nearing 10 years old, and this has happened before but a restart didn't fix it this time. next up i have to figure out why its having so much trouble booting off CD. [i suspect the IDE cable]. thanks for the cleaning advice though! -bonestonne