wutske

wow, guys, look at the date[] Jan 23 2005, 10:20 PM That almost a full year

I'd say, get a good case and motherboard. It's IHMO much better than a shuttle (tough I'm not telling you shuttles are bad). It can save you a lot of money.I'd take the 7800GT, the price difference between the GT & the GTX does not offer you the difference in performance (plus you could still overclock the GT a bit ).

This is what a thermal pad on a HS could look like: http://www.hadmilk.com/ebay/tpnew.jpg http://www.cheapcomputersandparts.com/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ If it's just a protective sheet, then there's nothing on the base and you'll only see copper (or alu). This is what it'll look like when it's just a protective sheet http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Haha, M$ geniousity .No probs for Opera

I'm currently using a Radeon9600Pro, I bought this one because of it's overclockability, most cards could easily do +500Mhz/340Mhz. Mine is stuck at 474/324 .I have no money atm, but I'll get myself a new compu next year

I have no experience with SLI mobo's, but if you want to overclock, then go for the DFI. But avoid the DFI Expert motherboard, it's a real killer (it already killed a lot of cpu's at xtremesystems).And if I were you, I'd go for the 7800GT, because when you overclock it, it'll be faster than the 6600GT overclocked.

I doubt that the heatsink already has thermal pad installed, otherwise it wouldn't come with a bag of heatsink compound. Here ( http://www.heatsink-guide.com/content.php?=compound.shtml )is a guide how to apply it, tough I have 2 small remarks. 1) Arctic Silver is very conductive, don't spill it on the pins or you'll kill the cpu (don't worry, you have to do strange thing to get the stuff there). 2) Don't use your finger to spread the thermal compound, best is to use something like a credit card and remember, the layer has to be THIN. 3. Doesn't matter, the recommandation is just to say what the highest graded cpu (w/ highest heat output) the cooler can handle. There is also this little thing you have to remember, be carefull not to crack your core. Never apply pressure when the heatsink it resting on a corner of the core. Keep the heatsink base flat on the cpu. On other tip, use a screwdriver that is wide enough, I've killed a mobo because the screwdrivers slipped out of the handle

Oops, forgotten to tell something, somebody mentioned something about dual videocard not being supported by AMD?They are . It's actualy the chip that controlls the 2 cards and the technology is SLI for nVidia videocard (you'll need an nForce4 chipset) and Crossfire for ATI (you'll need an ATI chipset, 200series or something).Even nicer thing to know, the nForce4 for intel came a lot later than the normal nForce4 (for AMD) and some intel boards have a bad implementation of it (but that's only a problem for the real monstercard wich have 2 cores on 1 card).-Over and out-

I must say, Intel did make some advantages considering heat, because their Dual Cores run as host as their Single Cores. They are also working on fast chips that consume very few power.About the 1.5x thingy, that's because most applications are made (yet) for Dual Core use, they can't take advantage of the second core (altough nVidia drivers optimize games a bit for dual core rendering).Other thing to point out, Intel is using the old FSB, AMD not. Even better, AMD's HTT bus is made for multicore, it supported it from the beginning.Other advantage for overclockers, AMD S939 Opterons overclock like hell (but AMD doesn't offer them anymore, a shame, not ).

LOL . You could also used nothing, works perfect (it's like this for a, wow, long time )

It's not fair, the only things I get are lame and cheap things (tough it's the gesture that matters). I've been working for years on 2 old 15" CRT screens, than ran way over their resolution (normaly it should be 800*600, but I preferd 1152*???).Now I have a Sony CPD-E220E, it's a 17" CRT that someone must have dropped (there are scratches on the case, some lines in the anti-reflections layer and there a chip out of the glass).But anyway, congrats with the new screen and a happy birthday

Other reason not to go for winXP64, it can't run 16bit applications.@Killer008r: are you saying that one of the best memory companies can't make reliable RAM??? I'm quite surprised to hear that, because most people advise it for it's reliability (and also a lot of overclockers use them and they run fine).I wouldn't go for Single Channel, if you want 1Gb and later (1 year later) you'd like to have 2Gb, it's best to buy 2*512Mb now, sell them later on and get 2*1Gb.And you were correct about the cooling, especialy if you take Intel coolers, it happens that the boxed coolers can't handle the heat and your cpu starts to throttle. AMD is doing a bit better, but best thing is to get a quiet cooler, like the Freezer64 PRO (mind the PRO, it's a lot better )

I've checked it with winMd5Sum: fe64837e1b57b27bcccac5d806b5aae8 So I guess yours is corrupted. You can download mine here: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ About the bootsector, maybe some linux app changed it, or a virus, not sure.

It's amazing, where do you keep getting these tips from???@Blix: good link, tough most tweaks are quite common, but there are 2 things I'd like to point out.First of all, the tweak of setting your pagefile at 1.5*RAM is not correct. It does depend a lot on your system and what you do with it.Second thing, use bootvis at your own risk, m$ stopped the support for a reason, and for once they where right, it managed to kill a fresh install of XP1 on my computer.

Athlon64 cpu's do have SSE3 extensions.I'm not shure about this, but isn't the Net Burst architecture rather slow because of it's longer pipes???Next thing, compare DualCore vs. Dual Core, so you should compare the 8xx series to the AthlonX2 series.Next thing, A64 cpu's consume less power and create less heat.For me it's clear, AMD wins

It all depends on what you will do with your computer.If you're a gamer, you're better of with some low latency ram and of course and AMD64 FX in combination with a SLI setup (tough that would cost you over $1200)If you just want to do some office work, you can look for something like a A64 3200+, some cheap ram and a normal videocard.There are a few tips:CPU wise:- High End Intel Chips tend to get HOT and they also consume a lot, try to avoid them.- If you do a lot of multitasking (eg. videocompression and gaming), you can buy a Dual Core CPU. These CPU's have (like the name says), 2 CPU cores and the power of 2 CPU (it's not like intel's HT, there yoy only have 1 CPU). AMD offers you the A64 X2 and Intel offers you the P4 D.-Don't get SocketA semprons or S754 A64 cpu's, these sockets don't offer any upgradability in the future.Memory wise:-If you go A64, make shure you don't buy 4 Double Side RAM, because these will have to work at a Command Rate of 2T, wich is slow(er).-Don't be happy with only 512Mb, 1Gb is the standard nowadays.-Latencies are important, 2.0-2-2-11 is a lot faster than 3.0-4-4-11, but you'll have to pay for it.-You could also consider getting higher clocked memory (250Mhz). A64's can have lower multi's, so you can up the HTbus and memory clock while maintaining the same clock speed, of course, this will work faster because of the higher bandwith.VGA wise:-PCIe-512Mb is fun, but not worth the money-There are a lot of cards out there, you'll have to find some reviews to get the best choise. I (and probably other) can help if we know what you'll be doing with the pc.-SLI/Crossfire can yield high performance, but it's an expensive step, only get it if you realy need the power.Just tell us what kind of computer it'll be, so we can help you more specific.

I haven't read this complete topic, so it might be that I tell something that has already been mentioned in this topic.I mostly agree with what is said, spam is caused by dumb users, but it's not only m$ to blame. M$ just HAD to make windows more easy, if they didn't, we would never have so many computers connected to the internet, so many resources available and we wouldn't even have Xisto to host our own websites.The OS M$ made is an OS that has to do many thing, it has to be capable to do office work, entertainement and must have the capability to connect to the internet.It's not up to M$ to teach us how we should surf the internet in a safe way, no, the ISP should provide free lessons/books that users MUST follow before they get on the internet and as a not-dumb computer user we must know that it's nearly impossible to comabine easy to use and waterproof.SP2 was a small step in the good way. Service center informs you about the use of a virusscanner and automatic updates, but the firewall (which is absolutely not a very good one) gives users a fake feeling of safety. M$ has also forgotten to mention anty-spyware software.I believe that Longhorn is even going to make surfing safer for home users, because of the improvements in IE7, but, WinXP isn't outdated at all and most simple home users won't immediatly feel like upgrading to Longhorn.-Just my 2c-

So, actualy the problem isn't realy solved, right ?There still is one thing that bother me, why can you play at 640*480 but not at a higher resolution ???I realy don't know . Try some programs that can stress your cpu (prime95), memory(prime95/memtest68) or vid. card (rthdribl).And than there is another strange thing I noticed. There is some kind of foam behind your motherboard (right behind the cpu). No clue what it's doing there.

You can pick up lots of stuff at e-bay. Normally, any laptop hdd that doesn't have a high capacity (depends alot on the bios, but when disks capacities grow, the technology also grows, so chances are that it won't work). Try to find something like a 4Gb laptop hdd.The same for the ram, I doubt it'll be PC100, it's probably more something like EDO-ram. Do note that you can use regular memory, laptops use smaller sizes of memorycards.A battery can be found easily, just search for GP Batteries B905.This site has one for $129 (http://www.baber.com/laptops/batteries/dtk_laptop_batteries.htm).I think you're better of if you'd buy some cheap laptop from ebay, but that my point of view.

if you're happy with your current onboard sollution, you'll surely be with the onboard solutions that are now available. You don't need to buy a power supply, the case already has a good one. If you realy want that Audigy2, you might look for an MSI K8N Diamond Plus, this is the only motherboard that has an Audigy2 onboard. For the rest, it looks nice. One small tip, if you often do lots of thing together (especialy CPU intensive tasks like ripping or encoding), you might want to get an A64 X2, those cpu's have 2 cores one die (so it's like you have 2 independant cpu's): This one is about the same price as the A64 4000+: http://www.newegg.com/Common/MessagePage.aspx?MsgCode=-1&ID=38

Sry for not putting in previous post :$Price: $34.95

2 years is waay to long to keep a windows xp installation. The best thing is to make some time and reinstall it, you'll see it'll get much better (plus it gives you the opportunity to install the latest version of every program).

interesting topic, going to follow it a bit, because I still don't know what do study next year.I might start programming, but I'm still not shure. There are so many things to do with computers.If I won't go with computer, I might start studying electronics.

Just an ideaCPU: AMD Athlon64 3200+ (budget minded and gaming means AMD CPU)Mobo: can't realy tell, there are too many to say it now (too late too, almost falling asleep)Memory: 512Mb should be enough for budget gaming (you might use the memory you already have)VGA: something like the 6600GT (cheap card and allows you to run 2 of them in SLI if you have some money later)Case: use the one you already have, maybe a new PSUHDD: use the one you already haverest: use the ones you already have (<- saves a lot of money)

maybe going to try that sooner or later, but now I honestly don't really care if I write some mistakes, not in english, not in dutch, if you read fast enough, and the first and last letter is correct, you'll understand and won't see the mistake (we have cool brains, don't we )