Alien

Fortrex "Magic" MG-780 ATX Full Tower case Macron MPT-300 PSU Athlon XP 1900+ [1.6Ghz] cooled by Zalman CNPS5100-Cu Abit KT7A-RAID v1.3 [northbridge HSF = Zalman ZM-NB32J & 45mm fan] 768MB RAM [2x128MB + 1x512MB PC133] 60GB Maxtor 5TO60H6 [DiamondMax Plus 60] 30GB IBM DeathStar 75GXP ATI Radeon 64MB DDR ViVo Creative Labs Audigy [OEM, cos it's cheaper ] Lite-On LTR 12101B [12x 10x 32x] Lite-On LTR-16SH DVD 3.5" FDD Antec EzUSB 2 Realtek RTL8029 based NICs Kensiko translucent blue PS2 keyboard [the ones Staples sell] Logitech USB Dual Optical Wheelmouse Motorola Surfboard 3100 cable modem Eizo Flexscan 9400 20" monitor

Ok, this is more of a "what bits have I bought in the last month" rather than the last week, cos I haven't gotten round to posting. 1st up, I got myself a Zalman ZM-NB32J northbridge heatsink, partly cos it was on sale, & partly just cos I felt like it. Of course, although it can work without a fan [& is intended to], I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't put 1 on it. :-) a 40mm 1 would have fit on perfectly with screws, but the only 40mm fans I had were pretty much dead anyway, so I tied on a 45mm fan I had that was still working ok. Next I got myself a new HSF for my CPU, another Zalman product, this time it's the CNPS5100-Cu. It keeps my CPU a bit cooler than the stock 1 that came with my retail/boxed athlon XP. It's also noticeably quieter than the stock 1 [even @ full speed without the fan speed thingy] - so much so that when I'd put the side of the case back on & powered it back up I thought there was something wrong with my HDDs because of the amount of noise they were making, then realised that they'd always made that much noise but that I just couldn't hear it because of the HSF noise! I also got 1 of those slot blower thingies that is intended to take the hot air from your gfx card & shove it straight out the back of the case. It allegedly is supposed to push 42cfm, but I've felt stronger airflow from a <30cfm fan. Oh well, it was only £5.99, I guess you get what you pay for. Then I found myself with a bit more cash to burn, so I decided to treat myself. I'd been wanting a DVD drive for absolutely ages, but hadn't gotten around to getting 1, then found that the PC World just down the road from me were doing OEM Lite-On LTD-16SH drives for only £35. While I was in PCW I also decided to have a look @ game controllers. I don't play games all the time, just occasionally - when I feel like it, but for quite a while I'd wanted some sort of joystick or gamepad for the few games I've got where 1 might be useful. I didn't want to splash out on something expensive that could do the dishes & make me a cup of coffee 1st thing in the morning as well, as I already had about £200 earmarked for something else. Sadly they don't let you try them out in store, but they did say I could take it back within 7 days if I didn't like the 1 I chose, which ended up being the Saitek P2500 Rumble Force Pad for £20. Tomorrow's [Monday] the last day I can take it back, so I'm going to have to try it out on a few other games before I go to bed tonight, but going on the 1 game I've tried it with so far [Moto GP Racing] it's going back. Yes, it looks nice, & it is also comfortable to hold, but whilst there is an option to calibrate the analogue thumb sticks with regard to how far they can be pushed in each direction, there's nothing to calibrate the sensitivity of them. What I mean is, that unless the game includes its own sensitivity option for analogue controllers & you try playing a driving game using the analogue sticks then you may find yourself wondering if your driver/rider is gonna get pulled over & breathalised!!! Right, almost done - been saving the best for last. What did I have that £200 [actually £199] set aside for? My new pride & joy, & currently my favourite piece of hardware - a Mordaunt-Short 907W 100w sub-woofer [mine's black, not that nasty cherry colour]. Now all the deep bass bits in films sound just like they should.

I think you guys must hace corrupted installs, corrupted MBRs, or be doing some other weird sh*t to your systems , cos aside from when I 1st moved to XP & the brief time it took me to realise that XP doesn't have to put the swap file in 1 place exclusively [like 9x did], & will actually allow it to exist in multiple places @ the same time, I haven't had any prob with it. I have 2 HDDs, which have a total of 13 partitions, all FAT32 - & the pagefile goes wherever I tell it to. [yes, I do have SP1 installed] You have to remember that, unlike 9x, if you tell it to put the page file in a new place, it won't get rid of the old page file unless you specifically tell it to. In the little Virtual Memory applet, click on any of the drives that have anything listed in the Paging File Size (MB) column, then click on No paging file, then click Set. Then click on the drive you want the paging file to be on, click Custom size, & enter the min & max size you want, then click Set. As for those who said that XP must have a pagefile [even of a minimum size] on the same drive/partition as windows is installed, I'm sorry for being blunt, but that's utter BS, & I suggest you have a "chat" with whoever told you that. The only time my page file is ever on C [where Windows is on my system] is between the time XP finishes installing & my 1st reboot after that. As for blaming it on LS-120 drives, sorry, but that theory doesn't fly either, unless it has some sort of jumper for setting what drive letter it uses, & then it's your fault [or the fault of whoever built your PC] for not checking it's set correctly. My mum has an LS-120 in her PC & it performs as drive A [both in DOS & Windows]. Even if you have another normal FDD in there, you should be able to set either that or the LS-120 as B.

Not my money, & not my system. I'm gonna test it before I send it to her though, but she couldn't really afford anything else & this was on sale, & she definitely needed something better than what she had.

Quote from a bloke on Seagate freephone info line "We make drives for IBM also" Nuff said.

For those who had probs with it - don't suppose you know which revision of the board it was? 1 or 3?

Another pack of thumbscrews, & a 512MB stick of PC133 [£44.99 from PC World].

Quote: From my experiences alone, the Audigy drivers have compatibility issues with XP... I haven't had any probs with my Audigy & XP, infact I got it to get rid of the probs I had with my previous soundcard, a Sonic Vortex 2. However, having said that, I have heard that there are sometimes issues with the KR7A & the Audigy. :shrug:

it depends on what exactly is damaged on the HDD. as long as the motor, etc is ok, then there is a possible chance, but it's a longshot - & don't blame me if it don't work. It may be that just the controller circuit board on the HDD is fried, & not the motor, etc - if that's the case, I have heard of ppl with a similar situation getting another identical drive - same make & exact model & revision & taking the controller card off of the working 1, putting it on the knackered drive & then getting their data off the damaged drive that way. I should note that there are drawbacks to this method: 1. It might not work. 2. You might damage the card from the working drive in the process of transferring it from 1 drive to the other. 3. both 1 & 2 might happen. 4. It depends on finding another drive - if you have 1 already, fair enough, if you know someone who has 1... good luck in trying to persuade them to let you do it!

Does anyone know how to disable the onboard graphics adaptor for an HP Brio BA410? I'm trying to help a friend out with upgrading her machine, & she's having difficulty getting her Radeon 9000 to work, which I'm hoping for her sake is just a case of having to disable the onboard graphics adapter, & not a compatibility issue. Apparently the computer is posting [after a emitting more than the usual single beep], & booting, cos she can access the HDD from her other PC via the network, but she can't get anything to come up on the monitor when the R9000 is plugged in, regardless of whether the monitor is connected to the R9000 or the onboard VGA. I told her all the usuall places to check for anything, manuals, BIOS options, any jumpers on the mobo, etc - no joy. I've even downloaded the manuals & userguides myself & gone through them - no luck there either. The userguide describes how to replace everything, including the CPU, but mentions nothing about disabling the onboard sound or graphics. I haven't even been able to find out what the motherboard is, altho from running the BIOS ID through a dedicated search site which indicated that the mobo could be made by FIC, but it looks like either that's wrong, or it's some sort of board made solely for OEM useage. Can anyone help?

LOL, Oh, right - 's not a prob, I just read it & thought WTF???

Quote: Oh, and I am happy to report that it appears to be fully compatible with both Windows 2000 and Linux. Eh? ;( Is that meant as a joke?

I must admit I would rather have a WD SE, but my Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 is quite quiet - more so than my DeathStar, even though [AFAIK] it's not 1 of the 1s with the fluid bearings.

Have you tried right-clicking on the ATI icon in the system tray, then Schemes, then Default Single Display?

With regard to tables, I think the thing that's even worse than the loading issue mentioned already is the fact that a lot of web designers don't put much thought into how to set & keep the size of the tables, or they havn't done the formatting of the text right for the table cells, so that if you don't have text-size settings set to default then you end up having to scroll to the right just to read the end of sentances, etc. I dunno so much about frames, personally I think that if they're done right. What really bugs me is the use of fixed-size fonts, [hint] even if they are the default fonts set in phpBB [/hint]

Nevermind, I managed to fix it myself, found a downloadable [as opposed to that online thingy] installer for the Flash plugin & it works fine now.

Try doing a search through the registry for entries that list that folder. Maybe you'll find 1 that gives a clue as to why it's happening.

Quote: Hmm ouch, I have 3 death stars and was considering buying a Seagate for my server box, that only leaves me with Maxtor or Western Digital, darn, I need silent drives!! Well my 60GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 is fairly quiet, then again it has a couple of relatively noisy fans to compete with anyway. Do you mean the constant noise of the disc spinning or the noise the drive makes when it's actually doing something? I think the constant noise is less than that of a DeathStar, & the operation noises are [for want of a better word] softer than those of the DeathStar. As you may have read elsewhere, I was saving for a WD SE, but the DeathStar had other ideas.

Quote: Athlon XP 1.6ghz (2000+) You're underclocking it??? ;( My 1900+ is 1.6Ghz, AFAIK the 2000+ is 1.67Ghz.

Quote: Quote: so does anyone know how to auto log or diable logging in. Go back to Windows 98 Actually, he'd have the same prob in 98 if he has a network card installed, though in 98 you could get rid of it by just deleting a key in the registry.

Quote: Quote: Phlipp - PLEASE don't use fixed sized fonts on the forum, as this stops IE's View -> Text Size setting from having any effect on it. That is because of the XHTML templates. I possibly add more styles/template sets in a few days. Umm...Philipp...???? I know you're a very busy chap, but any chance of this happening any time soon? If you don't have the time to do it yourself, could you delegate it to someone who does, please? I'd offer to do it myself, except I don't know anything about making Custom Style Sheets.

Quote: ahh... i am too lazy for dat. Lazy? ;( I didn't mean actually create some dedicated page about it with titles, graphics, & everything including the kitchen sink. All I meant was something like pasting/typing the specs into Word [or anything else that has the ability to save as html file], saving it, then uploading it & putting a link in your sig.

Quote: i wanna include all me systems in my sig, but i don't wanna take up 3 pages doing it. In that case, howabout putting the specs on a page on your ISP's webspace, & then putting the link in your sig, like several other members have done?

Quote: I wonder what your avatar would be ? yeah, or another 1 I like would be this 1

Any update on the possibility of avatars? Please?