kservice

My first computer was an IBM with a Intel 286 processor, then i had a Pentium 133MHZ, later a AMD k6 -3 450MHZ because AMD cost 50% less than Intel, and since this time i saw that the technology of AMD beats INTEL so I bought the AMD thinderbird of 1ghz, and then Athlon XP 1.8GHZ, but today's i want to buy low price laptop and INTEL have better options than AMD, for example in the Pentium M is a very good mobile processor, I know that the AMD Turion is better but it is more expensive too.kservice

I really sorprended that people who has a PS1 have problems to buy replacement parts, And i want to tell you something that maybe is very sorpendent for you, In countries like Argentina, Brazil, etc, Today's besides of the PS2, PS1, XBOX, etc, the shops are selling the console SEGA GENESIS III ( a 16 bit console that was launched nearly 1994) and other of 8 bits that i not remember the name.... So If you need a PS1 part, come to South America that here is a young console ;-) kservice

I know that it is easier create 2 accounts, but in this case the idea of 2 system is that all the soft that you install in one OS, not affect the performance of the other, if behind the Game OS, are kids and a virus gain access, all the system is affected.......so taking in mind that the Office Os need to have the best protection i think that is better if it separated from the Game OS. Because is a notebook without the best hard for games, if i install a antivirus and firewall software i going to pull down the performance of it . I am Wrong? kservice

1. Someone that have a desktop and U$S850 in the pocket, prefer to buy a laptop than upgrade the desktop. 2. Many are concient that today's laptops are very good performer. I'm not agree with the guys that saids 1. "With a U$s850 laptop you couldn't develop applications", you think that with for ex. a Pentium M 1.3GHz , 512MB RAM, etc, is not possible to use a C++ compiler, Visual Basic, PHP, etc...... 2. If you want to play music with extreme volume, buy a Music PLayer with 1000 Watts PMPO, MP3 capabilities and your problem is solved. And other question, a Desktop not produce Heat???, so why a Heat Sink of a P4 or a ATLHON XP (Desktop) is bigger than the laptop chipset heatsink?? Well, the final question is: If you haven´t a computer, (you sold it, it is broken, etc), and you have U$S 850 in your hands, What do you prefer a Desktop , or a Laptop? kservice

Hello, a client with a hp notebook with this spec..ATLHON XP 1800+512MB DDR 266ATI RADEON IGP 32040GB HDHP ze4145want to have a dual boot system, one OS for work, and the other for games, dvd rip, etc, etc (Because the graphic card is not very powerful)So i think in a W98 & WXP dual boot system...... but Hp haven't w98 drivers for this laptop so i decided to install 2 Win Xp, one with all the visual effect off, to bring the best performance, and the other with default settings.Partition 1 3 GB..................Win Xp Gaming,DVD, etc.....NTFSPartition2 5GB ....................Win Xp Office, Internet,etc NTFSPartition 3 27GB...............NTFS in this one, he will install all the thing that then will uninstall so only this partition will be fragmented, like big .AVI, 3CDs Games, etcI think that in Partition 1 and 2 a 4k cluster size is ok, and in P 3 a 8k cluster is better for big files.But I don't know what version of Windows Xp is better, meanwhile the Pro edition is more expensive than the Home ed., The Service Pack 2 is recommend, or not yet....................Tell me what do your think about the Disk partitioning and the OS.....kservice

Well, obviously in performance, the desktop wins, but i asking about in the near future if you have U$S850 in your hands, What do you prefer a Desktop , or a Laptop......Before you answer consider this thingsLaptop Advanteges:-You could carry it everywhere and with a wi-fi enabled laptop you are connected everywhere too.- Today's laptop are more powerful than in the past, you have very good video board and high clock processors and a lot of memory.-Instead of buy a DvD-player, the laptop also give you the capability of burn a dvd........etcDesktop Advantages:-At the same price you could buy better harware.-With a powerful desktop you could play all games.So, Tell me What do you prefer and if you want tell me with what chipset.Kservice

My favortite Anti-Virus program is AVG, for a lot of reasons:1. It's Free2. It have updates everytime3. It is faster than Norton4. It require low amount of ram than other Antivirus so it can be placed in any machinekservice

I have the same problem caused by Zone Alarm. My Server went down (XP) wouldn't reboot, so when my computers went out front to the Internet I had to install fire walls. I had to used Zone Alarm on one system since the Windows installer was not working there on my Windows 2K Pro (note to programmers don't count on Windows installer).When the network went back online, that Zone Alarmed computer couldn't see the network.Anyway what seemed to solve the problems was turning off all the systems and pulling the Network Cards, resloting them so that the system had to find them again. The clue is in network connections, as they had dissappeared there.My NEW problem is EVERYTHING can see each other and access the net through the bridge, but XP Service Pack 2 seems to have locked me out of the Server computer. I don't even get a log into the Server. The message says I don't have permission to log in - contact my Admin - well that's me! I believe I need to create a list of my user/systems to grant them access. But where?kservice......

The post in not about what types of games, because all the games of pc, are available for console (only in a few cases like Strategy games). kservice

I read two things about Intel Graphic's, the first is that Intel bought KYRO GRAPHICS some years ago and all the technology of this brand was applied in the Intel Graphic Arquitecture, this manufacturer had good video board but without T&L by hardware, the other thing that i read is about the existing GMA 900(also without Transforming and Lightening by hard) , this one have support fot Pixel Shader 2.0 (DX9) an is very interesting for the mobile market, because will be capable to support Windows Vista, Yo could play games like UT2003 or SIMS 2, etc, (DOOM 3 is unplayble), And is cheaper and low power consumption than the NVIDIA and ATI boards, In the desktop market it is true that HP, DELL, prefer this boards, but experienced user may prefer the NFORCE IGP solution, because the performance is better ex: NFORCE2 with GF4 MX .So I think that:The GMA 950 could be the best solution fot mobile market, and a very good solution for HP, DELL,etc manufacturers.kservice

All of you need to take in mind, that the technology appear first to help cientific activities, the high powerful and relative small computers were launched to satisfy the Space exploration (ex:NASA), engineering, medicine, etc etc etc......... Also the Hollywood indrustry promote the DvD (a high quality format to sell their movies ), and most films require Ultra powerfull video cards to make special effects(ex: I remember the Quantum that had 32 VSA-100 chips ( 2 VSA-100 = 3dfx Voodoo5 5500)) So, when all this technology is made and is cheaper, then is inserted in all the devices that you want, for example a console , a mobile phone or a final user computer. So, it is logical, that the new technology appears first in a computer than in a console, because most of the cientific activities that i mentioned are made with a computer, So I think that if you want take the newest hardware, keep your computer, but if you want to have the best gaming experience buy a console. Kservice

I am computer gamer, and iam a bit tired of need to upgrade my video card, or processor one time per year, i am thinking in sell all the High cost part's of my computer like video card, extra ram, etc, and buy a console, so i agree to have a console to play games, and a computer to the other things.... kservice

Hello Everyone...I need to put in the images table of the DB, 10 pictures of 60kb each one, when i do that, i lost the connection, but if a upload 10 pictures of 10kb each one, i haven't got the problem.I'm getting the following error when I run my select query within my VB code: [MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver][mysqld-3.23.27-beta-log]Lost connection to MySQL server during query.This seems like a timeout error to me, but I don't know how to compensate so that it doesn't time out.I read in some places that there is a max_alloweb_timeout or something, that is set by the Hosting Provider, soAny suggestions would be greatly appreciated.kservice

Hello Everyone...I need to put in the images table of the DB, 10 pictures of 60kb each one, when i do that, i lost the connection, but if a upload 10 pictures of 30kb each one, i haven't got the problem.I'm getting the following error when I run my select query within my VB code: [MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver][mysqld-3.23.27-beta-log]Lost connection to MySQL server during query.This seems like a timeout error to me, but I don't know how to compensate so that it doesn't time out.My VB code is using Microsoft's OLE DB provider for ODBC, and mysql's odbc connector.Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Thanks for your time...

Hello, i need tu put in $width (a php variable), the screen width of the client, and then do some arithmetics operations with it, I did this : $width = " <script>document.write(screen.width); </script>"; I tested if $width get the value, with this:echo $width;And, is ok, but when i multiply $width with any value, I got $width = 0;example;My Screen is at 1024 by 768 so:$width = "<script>document.write(screen.width); </script>"; echo $width; ---------------> 1024$width = $width * 2; echo $width; ------------------> 0 Please, Can someone tell me why? and is there a manner to do this!! Thank's kservice Notice from Johnny: Added code tags.

DreamWeaver, and Fireworks, are great programs, but they are shareware...... I think that in the next month, we could get a New revision for this list , so continue adding freeware soft in this threadGood luck!!kservice

unless you are going to be doing lots of video editing, 3D rendering, hardcore gaming or the like, I'd just keep what you have for another year or so. Unless you plan to overclock the living sh*t out of your new venice, in which case it would be uber faster than what you have now ... In all seriousness I'd only upgrade if: - Your current system will be inadequate for what you plan on doing in the next year at school (read above examples) - You REALLY need to show off and show your school bros whats up. kservice

I work a week to post this thread, It's very long, but it could be updated with more software titles, so if you know about something that isn't here, tell to us.A reminder: This thread is not another "cool programs" thread. It's just meant to show that there are free replacements for a lot of commercial software that people commonly pirate. As far as I know, none of these programs have spyware. Please let me know if I'm wrong. Computer protection and maintenance Antivirus software: Anti-Vir - According to Schadenfroh's article, it has the best detection rate of any of the freeware AV solutions. It's also pretty bloatfree. I'm using it on both my desktop and laptop. It has an update wizard, but it does not automatically update for you. Schadenfroh's antivirus roundup Panda Antivirus - Free to just about anyone who is affiliated to a school, corporation, or government institution. A note about using Panda: - After I registered my installation of Panda AV, I got a call from John at Pandasoftware. He verified that I work in IT and then asked if I plan on buying for my company. If not, then take a look at E-Trust EZ Armor Security Suite - According to Virus Bulletin, this AV suite is better than Avast Antivirus Home Edition or AVG. Server Antivirus: Bitdefender Free Edition. I installed this on the free NFR copy of Server 2003 that MS sent me. It works perfectly. Panda, antiVir, and others won't even let you install their free versions. The only downside is that it doesn't provide realtime protection. Firewall: Kerio Personal Firewall. Kerio seems to be the favorite among forum members. Also take a look at Sygate Personal Firewall. Both are very good and free. The firewall that comes with the E-Trust EZ Armor Security Suite, seems to be the free version of ZoneAlarm. Embeded firewall software package: m0n0wall. " m0n0wall is a project aimed at creating a complete, embedded firewall software package that, when used together with an embedded PC, provides all the important features of commercial firewall boxes (including ease of use) at a fraction of the price (free software)." Spyware scanner: Try Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-aware. Also take a look at Schadenfroh's thread about spyware removal. Office Office suite: OpenOffice. It's a very professional looking office suite that is compatible (to a certain extent) with Microsoft Office. AbiWord (Word processor) and 602Pro PC Suite 2001 are good free alternatives too. PDF maker: CutePDF. It's pretty much the same as PDF955, but without the nag popup. OpenOffice also has an option to export as PDF now. PDFCreator - An open source PDF maker written in VB. Email Client: Thunderbird. It's not as full featured as Outlook, but it's a great alternative to Outlook Express. If you want calendar features, take a look at the Calendar plug-in. You can import your settings from Outlook if you export them first to a more generic format (CSV maybe? Don't really remember). Also look at these free email clients: Eudora (ad sponsored but very good), Foxmail, and Pegasus Mail. Calendar: Sunbird. I mentioned this application as Calendar along with Thunderbird for an email client, but apparently they made it into a stand-alone application like Thunderbird and Firefox now. Outlook Express backup: OEBackup. This program seems to simplify the process of backing up OE. Outlook Express doesn't have an easy one-button way to backup all of your emails, settings, and address books. File compression: IZArc - suggested by theAnimal. No adds, small download, ugly icons, nice interface. Probably the plainest of the three listed here. AlZip - suggested by Flashram. Freeware, but presented as a commercial product. Lots of features, cute icons, and relatively small download. I think they have a very small, unintrusive banner in one of the windows for themselves. ZipGenius - suggested by Mem. Tons of features. Largest download. Nice icons and interface. Has a good community following too. Tax software: TaxAct - They let you use their Federal Tax software for free. I tried it out last year and found it to be pretty easy to use. Presentation/Wizard maker: Wink - (suggested by hasu) Internet/Networking Email server: Mercury Mail Transport System. FTP server: Filezilla Server - A little more difficult to use than GuildFTP, but I've found it to be a lot faster. FTP client: Filezilla. Filezilla recently replaced SmartFTP as my preferred FTP client because SmartFTP started to nag me about purchasing a license if I'm a corporate user. Filezilla is great because it supports multiple connections to the FTP server. You can still browse the FTP server while downloading several files. Drag'n'drop support still needs a little work though because you can't drag into Explorer yet. ugh suggests BlazeFTP. It's pretty similar to Filezilla except that it supports connections to multiple sites using tabs. SFTP/SCP client: WinSCP. WinSCP is an open source SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) and SCP (Secure CoPy) client for Windows using SSH (Secure SHell). Telnet client: Putty. It's simple, powerful, and free. Download manager: Star Downloader. It's a nice, clean, simple download manager. My only complaint is that it uses a temporary folder for all downloads. This means that after you download a 600MB file, it still has to COPY the file to your destination folder. I'd also like an option to automatically sort downloads by file type or name. LeechGet. LeechGet is kind of like GetRight lite. Unlike Star Downloader, LeechGet doesn't save the download to a temporary file before copying to your download directory. It also lets you save to different folders based on file type. It has an FTP browser and website parser built in too. The interface is nice although somewhat confusing and there are still a few random bugs. I've tried a lot of different freeware managers such as Star Downloader and FlashGet but I think LeechGet is the best. NOTE: FlashGet contains spyware too. BFG10K also suggests using NetVampire. Website copier: HTTrack - An easy-to-use offline browser utility. I've used this utility before and it works great for grabbing tons of files off a website or just copying the website on a superficial level. Graphics Image editing: Gimp. Gimp 2.2 is supposed to be really good. Paint.net. This one looks PERFECT for people who want a decent, free, easy to use photo editor. It's like MS paint on steroids and it supports layers! If you can spent a little money, I suggest Photoshop Elements. I decided to give Photoshop Elements a try and it worked fine for me. Here's a list of some of the stuff that it doesn't support compared to Photoshop CS: masks, channels, action scripts, complex batch operations, multiple anti-aliasing styles for the text tool, and complex layer effects like drop shadow and buttonizing. PSE has a single anti-aliasing option for text. It supports batch operations but only for resizing and renaming. It also only supports a couple pre-done layer effects like drap shadows, so you can't specify angles and shadow depth, etc. A few people in this thread have suggested Paint Shop Pro as an alternative to Photoshop. I used to use Paint Shop Pro and it's a great piece of software. I now prefer PSE because Photoshop is more of an industry standard and it's easier for me to just stick with the same interface. I'm a Computing and the Arts student, btw. Vector graphics: SodiPodi is a freeware vector-based drawing program. DrawPlus - Seems to be a semi-popular freeware vector drawing program. Inkscape - Another freeware/open source vector graphics application. It looks pretty good. Layout: PagePlus - Seems to be a semi-popular freeware layout program. Image viewer: Irfanview. I've been using Irfanview for a couple years now. It's very powerful and supports a lot of basic image editing functions. Through plug-ins, you can view just about any media file. I used to also suggest a program called Slowview, but it has become a commercial program now with only a downloadable trial. Icon editor - @icon sushi - I've been looking for a good FREEWARE icon editor for the longest time now. Mk4 suggested this in another thread. IDE's and editors Microsoft released an entire suite of Express software for free. Suggested by kmmatney HTML editor: HTML-Kit. I use HTML-Kit for HTML and PHP editing. It has a built in FTP browser so I can edit files straight from my FTP server. HTML-Kit has tons of features and support for plug-ins to add more features. WYSIWYG HTML editor: NVU. Finally someone made a standalone version of Mozilla Composer! NVU is excellent for a free WYSIWYG editor. DHE Editor is another editor that I've found. It uses style sheets to position everything so it doesn't work like regular WYSIWYG editors. It seems to support a lot of optimization and general effects for images too. The interface is really easy to use because you basically "paint" the webpage. CSS editor: Topstyle Lite. Topstyle Lite is a great CSS editor. It pretty much lets you select CSS properties from lists. I tried the Topstyle Pro HTML editor trial and it's possibly the best HTML/CSS editor I've ever used. Java IDE: Eclipse. Possibly the coolest IDE I've ever used. Sometimes it has some weird quirks, but it works well for me. Also, Borland's JBuilder 9.0 Personal Edition is free for noncommercial use. There are several other free ones out there. Google for them. NetBeans. "its freeware and can be bundled with jdk and tomcat if your running JSP. so far its not bad. knows the whole language and does type ahead etc. " C++ IDE: Dev-C++. It's great and it's free. Microsoft also released Visual C++ 2005 Express for free. Basic (VB) IDE: SharpDevelop. I haven't used this IDE much, but it supports VB.NET. The interface seems pretty similar to that of VB6. It uses the VB.NET SDK which Microsoft provides for free. Microsoft also released Visual Basic 2005 Express for free. xBasic - Never tried it since I have VB6. I heard that it's pretty good. C# IDE: SharpDevelop. I haven't used it much but it seems to be really cool. It's very similar to Visual Basic 6.0 in the layout. Microsoft also released Visual C# 2005 Express for free. PHP Editor: phpEDIT - A good PHP editor that not only functions as a text editor but as a relatively loaded IDE. There are a lot of PHP editors but most of them are lacking one thing or another, or aren't being actively updated. phpEDIT seems to be the best all-around editor, too. They also offer a CodeBeauitifer that helps you clean up your code. Some third party reviews that support the assertion. Text editor: When it comes to text editors, you're going to get lots of suggestions. Some will suggest the power of Vim or xemacs, others will prefer the simplicity of Notepad+ or Editpad Lite. Personally, I strive for something in between the two. Some discussions on the pros/cons of vim. Some good alternatives Crimson Editor - a generally polished product that is designed for programmers, with syntax highlighting for all sorts of languages. It's very similar to UltraEdit without the nagware or $35 cost. Scintilla features collapse functions, i.e you can + and - your code, but it isn't a very active project, although it has some nifty features. JEdit very nice all-round editor, has lots of nifty features, as well as a whole bunch of plugins that can be automatically downloaded and installed using the built in plugin manager. Audio/Mp3/CD Audio editor: Audacity. It's a free and simple audio mixer/editor that supports mp3s. ID3 Tag Editor: The Godfather. It supports freedb search so not only can you search for entire albums, you can also search for individual songs. Another ID3 Tag Editor: MusicBrainz. This program REALLY helps in organizing thousands of mp3s. You can look up ID3 tags for individual mp3s. CD/mp3 ripper: CDex or EAC. Search the software forum for mp3 ripping. These two programs seem to be the favorites. (CDex suggested by Elemental007) Burning software: ISO's - nsafreak suggests burnatonce. I used to have this program in this post, but it didn't seem to work very well at the time so I removed it. nsafreak reports that it works well for him so give it a try if you need a free ISO burning program! General burning - cKGunslinger suggests CD Burner XP. Audio - Winchester suggests Mp3 Doctor for burning audio CDs. iTunes, recently came out for Windows and, I believe, it supports CD burning and ripping. Audio conversion - dbPowerAmp - Suggested by xgi. System tools Partition manager: Ranish Partition Manager Boot loader: XOSL Video/Rendering mpeg2 encoder: D.I.K.O. suggested by FrustratedUser - "I've been using it for a couple of DVDs now and it works great.". Capturing/editing: Virtualdub. I can't believe I forgot about this one. VideoLAN: VideoLAN - A free opensource DVD decoder! DVDShrink: DVDShrink - DVD Shrink is software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc. 3D everything: Blender3D - Description taken from their website: "open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback." Modeling and animation: Anim80r - Free 3D modeler and animator written by a guy who works at nVidia. Morphing software: WinMorph (suggested by hasu) 3D polygon mesh modeler: Wings 3D - "Wings 3D is a polygon mesh modeler inspired by Nendo and Mirai from Izware." Winchester suggested the following video/3D rendering software: Maya Personal edition : Nice, but leaves a massive watermark on rendered images. It still has lots of functionality of the full version though! Gmax: gmax is a free 3D modeling and animation tool based on Discreet's award-winning 3ds max. Avid FreeDV: Perfect for students, DV camera owners, video enthusiasts or anyone exploring video editing - Avid Free DV software is an easy, free way to join the Avid family and test-drive the industry-standard editing interface used by more professionals than any other video editing solution. This version is a Vietnam POW camp diet version compared to the full version, but hey it works. DopeFiend's review of Avid FreeDV - "Yes, it's free and that's great. However, I tried to import some large (~16Gb) DV files into it that I'm working on, and it told me that it only supports .jpg and .mov imports. Plus, the interface goes to pot on a dual-screen setup; the program maximises itself to the width of both screens (grr) and all the palettes become corrupted." Good Luck!!!Kservice

If you want to buy a refurbished laptop (for my a great idea), pay attention in two things: 1. The Screen , is very important that the LCD is ok, because is the more expensive part of the notebook. 2. The battery, there are a lot of people that bought a very cheap laptop, but they din´t know that the Battery Recharging system don´t work ok, (Like IBM TP 600 series), so then you couldn't have the laptop more than 15minutes without the AC connected. Today a new battery is around U$S130, but the problem is when the laptop do not recharge it..... About the Spec, for photoshop and Dreamweaver, the Intel Celeron 1.3 M350(1mb cache) is not expensive, is the same as the Pentium M (Laptops with it are called Centrino), with lower FSB (400), and without a Technology called SpeedStep that optimize the power consumption, With this processor you can have a 90 minutes of autonomy. kservice

Yes i think that the video board is not the suitable, for the games that i play, also 200GB of HD is a lot because with 120 or 80gb is OK to me. But I like the idea of buy a notebook, obviously with U$S650 /750 i couldn't buy a extreme poweful laptop, but there are some alternatives, for example, Intel Launched a new IGP called Intel Extreme 900, that support DX9 with PS2.0, for a low cost notebook is a better alternative thanthe previous version (Intel Extreme 2), you can play DOOM3 with this one, but you could play games like C&C Generals, etc, Also there are some inexpensive IGP for ati. but in the U$S700 market, i only saw the Intel IGP, So, help me with this decision, and tell me 2 alternatives Intel vs AMD notebook, that give me the possibilities, that i need. kservice

ElloAs you all know, AMD is finally suing Intel, and yes they are gooing to win this case, afterall, they win in japan, and they are no idiots, they do this together with IBM, im sure.My question is, will it be smart to buy AMD stocks now ? i think it is, but the case can take 18 months, in the meantime the quote can go down (intel tells lies and all that).In the long time, AMD and Intel will have a marketshare of 50/50, so buying stock`s is always a good thing, but maybe we can step in lower ?What do you guys investors think about the share AMD ?Buying putts from intel is not such a good idea i think, intel is to big, if they got beaten by AMD(not by cpu, this is already happening, i mean from the court) it will almost not harm them.Looks like intel spent more on bribing reviewers to cover up it aint that great than they did in R&D.

I want the computer for DVD encoding, gaming, and to have component that will work in future OS and games, (64 bit), About the H.D. is better dual HD, but is expensive than a single HD. Another option is to buy a powefull notebook (like a desktop replacement), with wi-fi, DVD-RW, and a good Video Board, 512/1G ram, 60gb HD, Because i am not playing every day, and i don´t need a perfect game machine, , Why do you thinh about these alternatives??? kservice

I don't mean to be a damper, but you are going to need to do some upgrading. The CPU is hitting the minimum's these days, and when they say minimum, they mean it. Luckily, you will be alright if you upgrade to a higher-end AthlonXP. This way you don't have to shell out for a new motherboard.Your RAM won't even hit the minimum with most modern games. 512MB is really required for most newer games, and probably FEAR as well. 1GB is reccomended anymore, and I am seeing some games creep up that ladder (BF2 eats up around 700-750MB of RAM on my computer).The video card is also going to need upgraded. It wasn't the fastest when it came out, and not only is it lacking in speed, but in features. It runs with SM2.0 (i.e. pixel shader and vertex shader levels), but doesn't even do that well thanks to nVidia not running standard programs for it. It may have 128MB onboard, but that won't speed things up much. I would reccomend looking for a 6600GT or even a standard 6800 if you can stretch that far. They hold up both in features and in speeds. With the GeForce 7 series arriving next month, you may be able to grab some older 6 series models at a lower price.So, in summation... faster CPU, but stay in the same line (if you tell us about your motherboard, we can reccomend a compatible, faster CPU), at least 512MB of RAM and 1GB if you want to run on high settings, and a new video card from the mid-lowhigh end of the GeForce 6 series (ATi has similar models, but they end up being a tad more expensive, and are running behind on SM features).EDIT: Duh, the DVD drive. Look for whatever is cheapest at a speed of 16x. You can grab them cheap anymore ($20-30). I reccomend Lite-On as the brand if you really want a brand reccomendation.kservice

Hello all, I have been researching and will soon be building a new PC. I just wanted to post the parts I am currently leaning towards and get some opinions. My budget is limited to about the value of the parts I posted, so an upgrade one place would require a downgrade another. All opinions are appreciated. Motherboard: DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Processor: Athlon 64 3200 Venice Graphics: GeForce 7800GTX RAM: OCZ 2GB GOLD Hard Drive: 200GB Seagate Barracuda ATA-150 7200 RPM Case: Lian Li PC-61 PSU: Fortron AX-500 DVD/CD: LGE GSA-4163B kservice

Dear all: First of all I want to say I have done some research about Windows OS OEM vs. Full version (in box) topics in this forum. But I still have some questions, and hoping that you guys can help me out... Story: Previous IT Manager made a wrong decision purchasing Win Home edition for all desktops, and now the whole IT system seems very unstable (a lot of glitches, here and there, daily help desk is required). Currently I am pushing my company to deploy Windows XP Pro over 2000 and Home edition for easier-managed and more reliable IT infrastructure. There will be about at least 15 desktops / notebook that need to be reinstalled (not upgrade) with Windows XP Pro. Method: My purpose is to use Symantec Ghost to create image for one deskop, and deploy over the network. I will need one XP Pro disc but definitely 15+ licenses. Problem: Because it is for company use. I have read that OEM CDs can be only purchased with Hardware. Since we did not purchase OEM CDs with original Hardware (original desktops are Dell with W2K or Win Home), would this be ok or? We do not need support from Microsoft because we have techspot and google =) Besides, Microsoft is useless... Also, there is this website called http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ who sells OEM CDs in download version over the internet. Has anyone tried it? I do not wish to wait for shipment. If I can purchase by downloading, I can get the product key within few hours and start my installation. What do you guys think? Any recommended site for OEM Win XP Pro SP2...? Thank you =) kservice