Rhys_Rhaven

ok i wasnt going to post because i wasnt quite sure on what im doing, but i think i know more than these guys..cache is onboard ram. its ram levels built directly into the CPU, made for storing data to be used immeadatly. its something of the same to overflow from the cache to physical ram as it is from physical ram to pagefile or swap memory. im thinking stuff like games and media and such must use physical, but small memory apps like mail and such use alot of cache. not entirely sure, check toms hardware guide. (google it, on im on dialup and busy.)

ah in short, a good PSU unit is about 50$, i got a Antec TruPower330wt, and its done me very well. just to be safe, i set another old one with a switch to run all the fans when i game, then hit them off, leaving just my Watercooling to go in silent mode while i go to sleep.The problem usually with a bad PSU is the magic smoke left. Its a fact of life, things get hot, banged, all whatever and hell, but when you see the magic smoke leave (usually bluish or white) they are definitly shot. cause the magic smoke is put into the circuts and makes them go.now, all joking aside, the problem usually is bad capacitors. so my idea, would be to run a current through it, something small. if you had the diagram, you could check at certian points, slowly narrowing down the search. in the end, youd probably isolate a capacitor or 2, which are shot. so youll need to find the exact specs on them (wts, resistance,. charge held, capatiance rate. dunno, read the book on electronics, promtly forgot it 10 seconds later like any sane person should), go to radioshack, find the exact one, break the old one off, solder the new one in. me, personally id pay the 50$.

My home built baby.Asus A7N8X-E Delux. socket A mobo.AMD Barton 2800+ @ 2.23ghz1GB Corsair XMS pc3200nVidia 5950 128mb1x 120gb WD hdd1x 40gb Seagate hddDVD,CD burnerAntec 380w truePower ( a bad PSU will kill all your box very quickly)1- 19 inch gateway CRT, 1- 21 inch HP CRTfor cooling, 300gph pond pumpswiftech mw-6000 waterblock9x5 heater core from a freightliner in the junkyard. i love m'baby.

alienware is....:\. im sure they build good computers, but their cases are made of plastic and have a cheap feel to them. If i were looking for one, ive seem some very nice aluminum and steel lan boy cases, also Antec and Coolmaster do very nice brushed aluminum cases. heavy, hard and sleek. These ones made of plastic, be wary.also, i shop quite a bit at Tigerdirect, be -very- -very- careful. i cant stress that enough. Nothing is quite what it seems on there. they sell alot of cheap parts, and when i mean cheap i dont mean bargin, i mean shite. Look around that and newegg.com, somewhere around, find something you like and post it to see if anyone else has had it and has good experiences with it. (ps, not that anyone cares, but i like being able to try and give some help to people. it can almost balance my tendicys in KOTORII. )

Actually thats a known problem, if you had already had ATI drivers installed, then tried to update, it makes 2 sets of drivers causing all sorts of choas and mayhem.

build your own? i had an idea i never quite got around to, put up a cabinet, one of those double door things, cut a few holes and mount all the computer on the wall.

Personally, I think what your doing is a waste. Most games now are far more dependent on Video cards than they are on CPU. I run with a 2800+, but a good vid card and i get awesome results.The DirectX 9.0 is kinda a must, so your only choice would be for a 5200. Ive also mentioned this in another thread, but your best card in the 5/9 range (nvidia and ATI respectivly) is the 9800 pro at 150$. best deal you could get if your really pushing on cash. Nvidias reply to that is the 5950, which just doesnt compare due to clock speed.

ah, now in my own experience, in the 5000/9000 range, ATI wins with the 9800 Pro. (which is 150$) In the 6000/X series, Nvidia wins with the 6800GT being the top card. (I pick the 6800GT, and not the platinum, because your second best card is always your best Performance:Value ratio.) In this months computer gaming magazine, which i dearly love, that and maximumPC, they have a thing on top budget video cards.at 150$, the 9800pro wins, they best they have on here is a 6600GT at 200$, which scored 25% more in the synthetic benches, but double on the Doom3 FPS bench (compared to the 5/9 line). Once you jump into the 6/X line of cards, the extra pipelines become very evident in modern games like doom3, farcry, cronicles of riddick. If i were you id go with the 6600gt.

ah, i have had much the same trouble, with disks spinning down while working, in all sorts of stuff. I use windowsXP, and while installing a game, or buring a CD (Roxio, Nero), it will randomly spin down, stop reading, and the program that was using it will crash. Ive never figured out why.

Ive made 3 mods so far, all utter failures. because ya, they looked cool, but they were just so damn hard to work on. and i change my box around alot. so what im thinking, my next project should i ever have the money, get me a wardrobe cabinet, put server racks in it. mod the entire thing. ahh the possiblilties.

Ive seen the 5,400 rpm hdd, at a LAN party my mates and I set up while back. Couple of them were using lappys. It would take rougly 1-2 minutes to transfer 2 700mb ISOs on a desktop machine, 7,200rpm hdd. The hdd was faster than the 10/100mb lan. Which is good. On the other hand, trying to transfer the same ISOs to a laptop, it took forever to save. Reading/writing to and from that hdd, both of them (2 guys with lappys) , took close to 15minutes. the LAN was capable, but the hdd just wasnt. I dont know if thats with all of them, or maybe these were just crappy. My advice would be to get a good USB300gb hdd or something to that effect, small and effective, you could even put a harness on your lappy to hold it. Put it underneath, strapped to the laptop, in in the space underneath, put a better cooling solution if it needs it. Always seems to me these lappy companies skip out on the cooling. Buit this is just one hicks idea.

i snitched a huge logitech outta the schools dumpster, massive thing. I replaced my m$ optical with it, even though it was a ball mouse. I have big hands, and i just always feel like the mice are too damn small. Little clickys on the side, wheel, an all. it just feels better. and i know i just dropped my rep by using the phrase "little clickys"

I dont own an Xbox nor PS2, cause i dispise consoles. Im a hardcore gamer, i just have no use for the dinky little things, game pads (all hail WASD!), and shite resolution.As to which is better, Xbox. Graphics dont really matter, considering most consolers are very shallow and non-techy individuals (i know alot here arent, but almost every console owner i know is.) Maybe cause my hands are huge, but I love the massive controller. What really is cool is HALO2. Best FPS ever, simple. Since xbox uses all standered networking, they ask me to come to the parties of 4 xboxes (we get 12-16 people on lockout. ) to hook them up, and ive had some awesome times, all because of dear Master Chief. I dont think you can network ps2 like that, to hear your mate from the other team yell pwn4g3! as he gets rampage with the plasma sword, killing your entire squad. Shame it was made by (m)$atan.

Desktop wins. I have a dual monitors, watercooled beast. I love my machine, it wrapps around me, i have a giant control station. My desktop does anything i need, i have my special split egronmic keyboard that im used to, comphy white leather chair. Powerful, alot of storage. I have no use for a laptop, mainly due to the low battery life, and there still too large. I cant just take it out while walking somewhere down the street and check my mail. Whenever im sitting down somewhere, theres usually a terminal i can call my home and connect to my box. The ideal thing for me would be a powerful plam pilot, such as the old HP journatas. Not these little dinky things they have today. Somewhere between a lappy and a palm, the truth lies. If anything, buy a roll out keyboad to connect to it, keyboard being the main thing lacking on a palm. A laptop justs seems to gather all the bad of both desktop and palms together.

Im not familliar with Mac hardware, but Ive heard you can run linux/unix on it? In that case, the macmini would be freaking awesome. Being as small as it is, it could be used for all sorts of specialized applications, the one i have in mind for a car. Teacher of mine uses a 200mhz laptop hooked into his car to run all of his programs, he adjusts everything from fuel richness to timing. Being an ex NSA programmer, hes written all the programs. For such a think like that, it would fit wonderfully under the dash of his camero. Such small things, its size is the only real advantage.