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4376

Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 28, 2007, 05:11 AM »

Dan it sounds as though something is Royally screwed up somewhere !!

Let's see if I have this straight:

DLink Router to the network and internet
Wireless card in your PC to connect to the router

When you connect you can get to the internet but not the network ??? That is weird ???

How about other people using the network? Can you narrow it down to your own computer only or do others suffer from the same problem?

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Living Room / Re: Where'd my video memory go?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 27, 2007, 05:16 PM »

Have you checked video properties (Control Panel > Display) to see if there are any settings you can tweak. Failing that have you looked to see if there is an updated motherboard driver?

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Living Room / Re: Does my future pc suck ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 27, 2007, 02:51 PM »

The UK enforces Distance Selling Rules which allow someone to send any product back for a refund with a few days if not satisfied (I think it is within either 8 or 10 days of receipt). The only exceptions are perishable goods (like food), unsealed CDs and DVDs which can be copied (or watched like a loan film) and a few other exceptions. You have to give notice that you intend to return the item and pay the return postage (unless it is faulty in which case the supplier has to pay).

See http://www.dti.gov.u...e-selling/index.html for government info. I think similar rules apply throughout the EU but you need to check individual countries for variations.

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Living Room / Re: Does my future pc suck ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 27, 2007, 12:28 PM »

Congrats - looks like a good line up now.

nVidia 7600 is fine (IMHO) if you aren't a big gamer.

Why did you go for a 160Gb drive? It seems to me that a lot of the larger drives are much better value these days. You may not need the space today but the way things go things fill up rapidly! The way MS is going the next version of Windows will probably need 80Gb just to install!

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Living Room / Re: What's the most complicated wristwatch?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 27, 2007, 05:05 AM »

Yep - I fancy the Sunto altimeter/GPS version! Trouble is you need a mortgage and an armed guard to buy it and wear it!

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 27, 2007, 04:07 AM »

I never understood how the placement method of PD worked in conjunction with the free space consolidation idea. Does it move the frequently modified files to the beginning of the drive and the rarely modified files to the end of the drive, leaving a large block of free space in the middle? Or does it bunch up all the files towards the beginning of the drive, but the order in which they are arranged is such that the most frequently modified are at the very beginning to provide the performance boost from faster access times?

No the opposite - all files are pushed to the start of the drive so that a large contiguous block is left at the end of the drive. Static files are placed first where they sit and don't need to be defragmented again in the future. Rarely modified files are placed next and at the end of the block (usually surrounding the MFT and pagefile if present which are placed in the middle of the partition) so that they can grow and it minimizes fragmentation. Finally folders are placed - and this seems to make sense to me as they change frequently and defragment very quickly when required.

Here is a display of a defragged partition on my system - as you can see it is rather full - and would probably cause DK headaches!

Re. DK "Set it and forget it" - yes I know they have that but I found it really frustrating as you could never predict when the system would start chuntering away. If you deal with large files (DVD images and video spring to mind) you can find your self filling up discs rapidly with fragmented files and then halfway through a time critical process DK suddenly decides it is time to defrag. The best automatic defrag to my mind is screen saver mode which is supported in both DK and PD.

Re. MFT expansion ... actually DKs method sounds good but there are two problems: firstly, if you expand the MFT you end up with a block of wasted space on your disc permanently; secondly, that isn't a problem if the disc has loads of free space but as the disc fills Windows automatically uses empty MFT space to write files - so you just end up fragmenting the MFT and the enlarged MFT you chose is lost.

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 26, 2007, 12:47 PM »

The main problem with DK is that it doesn't fully defrag everything (to save time apparently) and it doesn't intelligently place files on the disc so fragmentation occurs more quickly after the defrag process. I found that DK always left gaps in the files on my disk (it didn't move everything up to remove small gaps). The net effect is that the file allocation system places files in these gaps and they are automatically fragmented all over the disc surface. I wrote and complained about this to DK (and the lack of control over file placement) and their response was "we know best". Not impressed.

PD has all the scheduling functions of DK (including screensaver mode which I like best) but it also allows you to run an extra intensive defrag whicjh removes all gaps on the disk. You can also set number of days for each drive to determine files that don't change, files that change occasionally and files that change regularly. This allows the files to be moved during defrag so that the files that don't change much can be in an area where they are blocked together and left undisturbed (similarly for the other file groups). This minimises the need for future defragamentation and makes them faster too.

Windows defrag is based on an old version of DK in pure brute force mode. Basically it just shoves everything up to the start of the disc in any old order. It also doesn't support boot time defrag which means that system files and the MFT get badly fragmented and lots of disk space is lost in excess fragments which it can't reclaim.

I find the biggest speed difference occurs after you do a boot time defrag followed by a full defrag. Without the boot time defrag all the system files are left in a fragmented mess which especially forces Windows to startup slowly.

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Living Room / Re: PC Upgrade - still possible to reuse old components?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 26, 2007, 12:11 PM »

this board does have 2 IDE slots and looks quite good, as it checks most of the boxes for me but i'm confused by AGP/PCI-E slots. does the mainboard have both, or there are two different models?

• http://uk.asus.com/p...1126&modelmenu=1

-lanux128 (August 26, 2007, 08:30 AM)

If you look at the enlarged image you can see that the link you point to here has AGP / PCIe slots next to each other. Look at the enlorgement of the image and you can see 3 x PCI slots (white), the next black slot looks like a PCIe slot (see the small curved clip at the bottom of the slot) and the final slot looks like an AGP slot with a typical AGP clip.



If you are going to buy a new mobo why not buy one that is a little more future proofed - like the AMD board I quoted?

This AM2 board appears to have 2 IDE connectors (the red and blue sockets on the bottom edge - the black socket is for floppy):

http://uk.asus.com/p...1207&modelmenu=2



and as it is AM2 socket / DDR 2 memory should remain expandable for the foreseeable future. It is also PCIe compatable and you can add two PCIe cards in full speed SLi mode if you want or potentially run two monitors. Not sure about the PCI-X slots though - I haven't come across those before ??? See PCI-X Wiki for details - it suggests that most newer PCI cards are compatible with PCI-X but not PCI cards that require 5V.

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 26, 2007, 06:54 AM »

I dropped Diskeeper some time ago and went back to Perfect Disk. I found DK just didn't do the job properly - and recent reviews of it haven't been that complimentary.

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Living Room / Re: PC Upgrade - still possible to reuse old components?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 26, 2007, 06:52 AM »

How about this one - it has a single IDE connector for two optical drives.

http://uk.asus.com/p...1160&modelmenu=2

Hard disc drives have come down in price remarkably so it might be worth buying a big SATA drive and using your existing drives in a USB housing or as network storage.

Actually the board you list looks potentially interesting - it does appear to have two IDE interfaces it is just that they are different specs. Just use the ATA66/100 version for the optical drives (which don't use ATA133 anyway) and the other one for your hard drives. Having said that I would personally avoid anything with a Promise Controller onboard (I was seriously unimpressed with the Promise RAID interface on my last board which seemed to suffer from constant disc writing errors but didn't notify the user). I am also dubious about any manufacturer that bundles Symantec crapware too (personal gripe I suppose).

The PCIe slots look a bit strange on this board too - why would anyone want 3  PCIe x 1 slots and only one PCIe x 16 slot? You also only have 2 PCI slots which is very limiting if you want to add any extra cards in the future.

4386

Living Room / Re: What's the most complicated wristwatch?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 26, 2007, 06:45 AM »

I should do something like that - rather than have it hidden in a jewel box.

4387

Living Room / Re: What's the most complicated wristwatch?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 25, 2007, 08:33 PM »

I have a Casio SeaPathfinder (it calculates tide times and moon phases!) which has a Solar battery. Trouble is it works fine when I don't wear it but I think I must generate odd electrical interference because when I wear it it resets itself to factory settings (and the default - new battery time) - really useful. I have sent it back to Casio on more than one occasion and they can't find anything wrong with it despite keeping it in diffeerent environments and getting a technician to wear it for a day. Strange.

I also have a Casio Pro Trek Altimeter which is very complicated and you need a magnifying glass to read it (at least I do these days). It's a cracking altimeter though, which is why I got it, and great for mountain navigation. However, I'd really like to replace it with a GPS watch but they are too expensive. The Pro Trek costs about £20 for a new set of batteries but they last 2-3 years and getting it done by Casio means it remains waterproof to 100m so I can use it for sailing and caving (or even swimming).

Trouble with both of those watches is that they aren't very girly! Most of the time I wear a small gold Citizen Quartz watch which cost me about £30.

Being his final descendant my mother recently gave me my great grandfathers gold fob watch, which  dates back to the 19th century! Beautiful craftsmanship but it does need cleaning professionally to get it working again. Not sure what I would do with it though - I wouldn't want to sell it but I couldn't really use it.

4388

Living Room / Re: Exercies for most of us spending time in front of a computer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 25, 2007, 11:17 AM »

Ouch - bad luck. At least you have a good excuse to sit with your feet up

4389

Living Room / Re: A joyful addition..

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 25, 2007, 10:28 AM »

Congratulations - great news ...

I nearly said well done, but then realised that your part in the proceedings didn't take much effort (or sacrifice), so well done to your wife (oh go on and to you too).

Where are the photos then?

4390

Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 25, 2007, 08:26 AM »

If i could make you a pizza and offer you a beer or glass of wine to go with it...   

-dantheman (August 25, 2007, 07:05 AM)

LOL - only if you deliver!

Glad things are working out for you.

Re. SP2 - personally I would go for it - the benefits outweigh any drawbacks (not that I have experienced any).

Some things you may want to try to get you system running smoother:

1) Download "crap cleaner" and let it root out all the rubbish on your system. I wouldn't use the registry fixer in it though - just delete rubbish files. Just be careful you diable 'delete cookies' for your browsers otherwise you will have to log in to all websites again when you visit them.

2) Use a fixed pagefile size (do a search for previous discussions on pagefile size) rather than letting windows manage it - it saves the file becoming fragmented and removes the need for windows to constantly grow and shrik the file. Rule of thump is 1.5 x the size of your memory. You can change it by going the "System" in the control panel. Click Advanced > Performance settings and choose the Advanced Tab. Click on Change and select the drive you want the page file to be on (if you have one hard disc use the drive windows chose - if you have 2 hard disk drives - not partitions physical drives - put it in a partition on the second drive and then set max/min sizes to 1.5 x memory size). Here is mine - I have 2Gb of memory (ie. 2048 MMb):



If you click on each partition one at a time and select No Pagefile - except the partition where you want it - on that one click on custom size and enter the max and min values. Click OK and then reboot.

3) Get a decent defragmenter (I use Perfect Disc - it isn't free but it is very good. If you do buy it there are often discounts, and make sure you buy the full version - not the suite which is crap). There is another thread (do a search on 'defrag and you will come up with a few of them here). Defragmenting your disc and reorganising the contents into a logical order (which is what PD does) speed up you system enormously. You can also do a boot time defrag in PD to ensure system files, that can't be defragged when Windows is running, are defragmented and put in sensible places on your disc. Windows built in defragment doesn't do the job properly.

4391

General Software Discussion / Re: imaging & partitioning queries

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2007, 09:08 PM »

Cloning = 2 hard discs in your machine => one is copied to the other so you have 2 identical disks

Imaging = Save a copy of your disk partitions (or multiple partitions) into an image file (or set of files) which could be on another partition or burned to CDs/DVDs etc. The image can be restored to the hard disc to restore the condition of the disk at the time of creating the image. Some imaging software allows you to update the image with changes since the last backup - that way you can keep one large image of the partitions + 'incremental' bits of the image as separate files - you can then restore your system to any of the times at which you made a backup.

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2007, 12:57 PM »

Out of curiosity - what form is the Broadcom adapter in? Is it on the motherboard or is it on a PCMIA card that you can eject? If you can eject it I would guess that there will be a model number printed on it. If not I don't know much about accessing the bowels of a laptop (though I gather it is not as trivial as a desktop machine).

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2007, 12:01 PM »

If that doesn't work try SiSoft Sandra Lite (free)

[Update: OOPS the Lite version doesn't include network cards - sorry!]

WOW  - SIW is really useful.

4394

Living Room / Re: Anywhere.FM: Upload your entire music collection - play it anywhere

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2007, 09:18 AM »

How can this be anything other than illegal?

If nothing else you are sharing your music files (which some people say are illegal to start with if they are ripped from CDs) with the owners of the website. Allowing others to listen to your music via 'Friends Radio' is also sharing your files with other people (even though they can't download them).

Most legal download sites for MP3 files specify in licenses that files must not be uploaded to websites, servers or P2P systems - so by using this you are probably breaking the purchase contract you agreed.

Strikes me this is the ideal way for 'someone' to 'collect' a huge amount of music to drop into the P2P file sharing community! Just make sure you don't upload anything with personal information (a lot of legal MP3 downloads include the name of the person it is licensed to in the headers).

I would think this is precisely the sort of thing that will make some companies, who have started to loosen up on selling unprotected files, think again.

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2007, 08:37 AM »

I don't know how Broadcom drivers work but with Netgear when you install the drivers you are given the option of using Netgear's applet or Windows Connection Manager - you also get this option if you update drivers.

Dan, have you checked Broadcom's website for new drivers for your WiFi interface? Most companies update these regularly and they may have fixed dropping connections issues.

Failing that borrow a USB interace from someone and try that for a while or try a cheap USB WiFi 'thumb' adapter or a PCMIA card adapter to find out if it is the Broadcom hardware causing the problems. You can configure a new adapter without upsetting the settings for the Broadcom adapter (you will just get two alternate WiFi connections in Windows Conncetion Manager page when you install a new adapter).

4396

General Software Discussion / Re: Computer "virus"...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2007, 07:38 PM »

How about a program that at random times tells you which key you pressed - but gets it WRONG by saying you hit the key next to it? Most of the time it would be silent - it could also send you (but not other people) random annoying emails to tell you your typing is crap!

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General Software Discussion / Re: RSS Reader?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2007, 07:35 PM »

I like Newsgator - not that I use it a huge amount.

You can also use Newsgator to collect podcasts and automatically install them in a music player library (well you can with WMP, I haven't tried any others).

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2007, 07:12 PM »

Sorry - jumping in to answer for Carol. Yes, Netgear makes routers and wireless cards. If you buy one of their products and install their drivers from CD, you'll wind up with a bunch of software installed on your computer, one of which will likely be a utility to manage your wireless network connections.

-Darwin (August 23, 2007, 05:30 PM)

Thanks for responding for me.

Actually I quite like Netgear's software - the only things installed by the driver CD are the drivers and the connection wizard. The connection wizard is really useful (IMHO) and is much easier to use than Windows crapola system - especially if you want to use WPA encryption. The only downside is that I haven't worked out how to get it to start minimised so every time my system starts up I have to close the Netgear window.

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2007, 02:27 PM »

I sometimes find the simple solution to WiFi woes is to delete the connection altogether and set it up from scratch again. Windows seems to have a way of breaking itself with remarkable regularity. I now use a Netgear utility to connect and I have far fewer problems.

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Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2007, 10:16 AM »

Read the notes on CPUIdle on the site and you will see that is normal - CPUIdle uses all CPU time possible to provide 'Idle' time to the system. They explain why it is necessary but just think of it as replacing windows cpu idle process.