Alien

Quote: 1 phrase.........I have a GeForce2 MX You fishing for sympathy?

Catalyst isn't just for 8500 users, I think the drivers for all Radeon cards are called "Catalyst" now. The price slash would be a good thing, except I wish they'd hold off for a bit so that they actually have some left [i wouldn't mind a 128MB 8500 AIW] when I can afford 1. However, I need a new HDD 1st, & by the time I've got that they'll probably have sold out - only just got my 64MB DDR ViVo before everyone had sold out. Maybe if I start saving now I might have enough for when the R300 gets reduced to make way for it's replacement.

Quote: But that doesn't get rid of it completely though it just replaces it with something different. It's stupid for M$ to make it so difficult to disable it. Just do it with a plain black bitmap. Not sure whether BootXP would let you get away with it or not [haven't played around with it much - just glad to have my fave boot screen back]. You could try using a 1x1 pixel black bitmap - that would load quicker

There's only 2 things that I really want now - 1 of those 120GB WD Special Edition drives. & a DVD drive - so far the most suiable candidate seems to be a Toshiba 1 that I've seen. However, as much as I would like a DVD drive, I need a lot more HDD room, so having to pick 1 thing then it would be a HDD.

Quote: Hi, We have a LAN and we would like to monitor the bandwidth usage of all the users connected and using a High Speed Internet. Is there any program we could use to monitor the activities? A.R. DU Meter is a great prog - not sure that it's exactly what you're looking for, but have a look & see.

Quote: Open My Computer Tools / Folder Options Click the View Tab Remove check next to "Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items" I don't think those are the ones he means, that's tooltips, etc - he's on about the things like the bubble you get that tells you your HDD/partition is full, or telling you to take the windows tour.

Quote: Every time I switch my computer on it shows this screen saying "Windows XP Professional." How do I disable it? [size:9]easy: don't switch the computer on [/color] Or you could use BootXP to replace it with whatever boot screen you want - either 1 of your own design, or 1 of the myriad of ready made ones you can find on the net. Quote: Its annoying ya, but mainly, I dont want chicks to hear it. Its bad enough I have a modded case, dual monitors etc. Ah, I see - you'd rather they thought you were a "jock" instead of someone with a brain? Go on, release the inner evil :cough: I mean inner nerd.

Marktait - I realise this is gonna sound like a stupid suggestion, but it's not quite as stupid as it sounds - have you tried CD-RW discs in there? or just CD-R? I know someone who has a DVD player [i forget make/model] that won't play CD-R, but will play CD-RW. I know it's weird, but it's worth a try [if you haven't already].

Quote: It also seems to run fine either at the shop he bought it, or downstairs. That led him to believe it could have been heat (his room is hot) or a power instability as its plugged into a 10-plug adaptor. It sounds like the temps could be the cause [or @ least increasing the prob]. What are his system & CPU temps @ idle & load?

To get rid of the Windows Tour bubble, simply click it so that a window for the tour opens, then hit cancel in that window - sorted.

Quote: I was going to ask him to make sure to install the 4 in 1 drivers. Reinstall video drivers, pci latency patch, usb filter patch, and directx 8,1 why replace your stuff when you can just fix it Who are you? & what have you done with the real sapiens74? Just kidding dude. I would also add that they ought to check that the heat sink is on properly, & that their CPU temps aren't too high.

Now that I got my Audigy - hopefully not very often. Though I do plan to do a reinstall in the [hopefully] not too distant future, because things have got a little cluttered, etc, & that will mean plenty of reboots as quite a few apps/updates/whatever require a reboot. Aside from this, I'm also a perfectionist [whenever possible ].

Ummm why? For what purpose I mean.

Well you could try playing MP3s of show tunes - that might keep it happy. Seriously though, right-click on My Computer, select Properties, then Advanced, then Error Reporting - that's where it is.

Quote: Was asking a legitimate question. Then i was going to offer a soultion. Need more info tho :consults crystal ball: Let me guess - that he should get rid of the VIA based board in favour of another, especially a P4 board & CPU?

Quote: Then by definition, if the pagefile is contiguous any other place on the partition then it is also not in the way of other files Not necessarily. If the swap file is the only file over about 10MB or so then you'd be right, but if you have some large files, eg video, then it may end up that the defragger decides that the startpoint for a file should be @ a specific point [due to what area it should reside on the HDD because of filetype or last date of access or whatever it's basing it's decisions on for file placement] & that point happens to be less then the file's size away from the beggining of the swap file then you end up with a fragmented file. Basically, having the swap file @ the beginning of the partition/drive means that the defragger [& the file system] doesn't have to work around the swap file. Surely I can't be the only 1 to see the logic in this? Quote: Using Microsoft's defrag APIs under NT4, Win2k and WinXP - No. Under Win9x/Me - Yes. SpeedDisk under NT4 and Win2k doesn't use Microsoft's defrag APIs and is able to consolidate directories online. Under WinXP, SpeedDisk uses Microsoft's defrag APIs and therefore can't consolidate directories on FATx partitions. Exactly! I never said that what I wanted was a defragger to do what I wanted & to use MS's API - I just said that I wanted them to do it - I don't care how!

Why would anyone object to police being a bit less liberal? [@ least I think that's what you mean] As far as I'm concerned, if a football thug has an "accident" whilst in police custody, then that's just part of crime prevention - it might discourage the brain-donor [a.k.a. football hooligan] from acting in such a way in the future.

ha ha, very funny No, I have 384MB, I just resent have anything running that I don't want to run.

Sapiens, change the record old chap, that 1 has a scratch in it.

Because I don't want anything to run on startup unless it's necessary, or unless it's something I want to run.

Quote: What is the significance of placing the swap file at the beginning of the partition? As a hard drive is comprised of several platters and defragmenting occurs at the logical cluster level, where is the beginning of the partition? On which platter? If it's @ the beginnning of the partition [howver that's defined] & a fixed size, then it doesn't get in the way of other files. Quote: On NTFS partitions, folders can be defragmented online. It is technically possible for any defragmenter that uses Microsoft's defrag APIs to defragment folders and consolidate them. Whether they choose to do so or not is a different issue. On FATx partitions, directories can only be done at boot time. Well I use FAT32, & as I already stated I've proven that folders can be sorted whilst windows is running. Ok, so my method does involve a little cheating & wouldn't work on ALL folders, such as system ones like Windows, but for others it works just fine. There are a couple of drawbacks to my method, but then I'm not a programmer, so I'm sure someone else could figure it out. I've fogotten the exact details of how I did it as it was a while ago & I have no incentive to repeat the experiment. One of the possible drawback to it [aside from not being able to use it on system/protected folders] was that it would leave the folder with a different time & date of creation, though I know that can be tweaked as well.

Found it!!! [@ least I think I have - I'll know when my download finishes & I get chance to reboot] Incase anyone else would like to know, you have to run the Creative Splash Screen app from the program group on the start menu, then click the bottom right button [looks like a circle within a circle] which then reveals the option to load on startup. Would be better if this was off by default, but is [hopefully] sorted now.

Time for another update: Fortrex "Magic" MG-780 ATX Full Tower [a.k.a. that rather big full tower that Maplin sell under the wrong name ] [They call it a "Jupiter Full Tower"] Macron MPT-300 PSU Athlon XP 1900+ [1.6Ghz] Abit KT7A-RAID v1.3 384MB RAM [3x128MB PC133] IBM 75GXP 30GB ATI Radeon 64MB DDR ViVo Creative Labs Audigy [OEM, cos it's cheaper ] Lite-On LTR 12101B [12x 10x 32x] BTC BCD24XHM 24x CD ROM 3.5" & 5.25" floppy drives [1 of each] Antec EzUSB Realtek RTL8029 based NIC MRi PCI1456 56K modem [just in case cable server dies ] Kensiko translucent blue PS2 keyboard [the ones Staples sell] Logitech USB Optical Wheelmouse Motorola Surfboard 3100 cable modem Eizo Flexscan 9400 20" monitor Goodbye & good riddance to my Sonic Vortex 2. Ok, so in fairness, it's not a bad card as such - when it works, it sounds nice - but let's face it - nobody wants to have to keep rebooting their PC whilst watching a video file because the sound dies on them. If I ever get round to building a second machine running on either Linux or 98SE then I might let the SV2 take up residence there, but until then it's on the sidelines indefinitely.

Beats me - my monitor only goes upto 60Hz anyway. LOL

Quote: Actually MBM can display HD temps. too, with the adition of the HDDTemperature plug-in (although thats only free for one drive) and unfortunatly, no HD monitoring programs that I've seen can yet monitor them off a RAID controller Yeah, it sucks that they can't read temps through a RAID controller. I want to run my HDD from my RAID controller, so that my CD [which will hopefully soon be replaced by a DVD - thinking on getting a Toshiba SD-M1612, 's not region free, but can be made so with a patched firmware] & CDRW can each be master on their own channels. Quote: Yeah.. Uptime 2000. Thanks for that, wow, 2days, 13hours-ish since last reboot - if I ever get nostalgic for 98SE I'll just run that prog to see what my uptime is. After tomorrow morning, which is when my Audigy should get here [finally got around to ordering it Saturday afternoon], & not counting the reinstall I wanna do soon, I should have much longer uptimes. :crosses fingers: Quote: The radiation symbol is the World Time Servers Atomic Clock synchroniser. The one built into XP times out a lot for me (firewall problem no doubt) and I prefer to use this anyway. This used to bother me more with my old mobo as the clock wasn't too accurate - think the battery may have been going, but with this new 1 things seem a bit better. Quote: Have fun with the Audigy! If you have trouble and want to give it to someone else... hehe. LOL, yeah, right! If I have any probs with it it's going back for a refund. Dunno what I'd get as an alternative, though. Hey guess what? [this'll give the VIA critics a laugh] Before I ordered my Audigy I phoned OcUK tech support just to check if they knew of any issues between my mobo & the Audigy as they sell both [or did until Abit stopped making it]. They said it was a bit hit & miss - some cards would work on 1 mobo [with various makes & models], but on an idetical mobo it would cause probs - the funny part is that they said the only CL sound card they hadn't seen any issues with mobos of VIA chipsets is the Extigy - a USB soundcard! I think that's quite amusing considering the number of probs I've heard ppl complain about with VIA-based boards & USB.