Recent Posts

5151

Living Room / Mobo dying .... suggestions please on upgrading my system ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 01, 2006, 05:25 PM »

When I switch my computer on it takes a while to get to the BIOS screen - there are LEDs to diagnose probs and it looks like my IDE controller is on the way out.

I haven't built a new system for some time and it would be useful to get some advice.

I haven't got much money to go out and buy loads of gear so ideally I would like to recycle as much as possible whist retaining the possibility of upgrading to faster and better components as and when I can afford to.

Anyone any suggestions on mobos that are available now that will take all of (or most of) my components (listed below). So far I have used MSI boards but I am happy to consider using an alternative manufacturers - ideally I need to have an AGP slot and preferably 5 or 6 PCI slots and preferably lots of USB2 ports.

CPU - an original Athlon XP 1600+
DDR memory - 2 sticks of 1Gb 164 pin unbuffered PC2700

AGP ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder (ancient but still works and I like the TV facility built into it)
Creative Audigy 2ZS Pro sound card and breakout box
etc.

2 x WD Caviar IDE ATA-133 drives in a RAID 0 array (using an onboard Promise interface)
2 x WD Caviar IDE ATA-133 drives as standard IDE ATA drives
2 x  DVD-RW/CD-RW type drives

I don't have any SATA drives - can you plug ATA type devices into SATA interfaces, ie. are SATA interfaces backwards compatible?


Alternatively am I wasting time and money so that it would be more cost effective in the long run to buy a package of mobo, faster CPU and faster memory? Ideally I don't want to have to replace all my disc drives.

Edit ...

Another thought - if I upgrade to a 64bit CPU can I still install a 32 bit version of Windows or do I have to use a 64 bit version of Windows?

5152

Living Room / Re: Windows XP Pro and SP2

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 31, 2006, 09:50 AM »

Heck, some of them you have to call microsoft and they will provide you a link for because they dont want the general public obtaining it since it can cause issues on platforms its not designed to be installed on.

-Josh (October 31, 2006, 09:10 AM)

That can be true but usually they aren't available because they aren't fully tested for general release - at least that is what an MS tech told me when I phoned in for one such 'hotfix'. The same hotfix was updated and later included in a service pack.

5153

General Software Discussion / Re: Repairing Windows XP (to restore AutoPlay)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 31, 2006, 08:23 AM »

Try installed DVDidle (there is a trial version). That has an option to disable and re-enable Autoplay so you may be able to 'disable' it and then re-enable it!

http://www.dvdidle.com/

It is a useful util in its own right if you need to unlock region encoding on DVDs or remove Sony 'rootkit' possibilities and also allows caching of DVD and CD playback to cutdown on CD/DVD reading 'drive' wear. The Pro version also provides decryption of DVDs.

See the version comparisons:

http://www.dvdidle.com/compare.htm

5154

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: View full file system at once (all folders)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 28, 2006, 06:02 PM »

what's the party about?

-tmpusr (October 28, 2006, 04:11 PM)

skrommel posted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5155

General Software Discussion / Re: New Winzip will open rar archives

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 28, 2006, 05:04 AM »

Ah right - it all gets very confusing with everyone buying each other 

5156

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 27, 2006, 05:45 PM »

Carol Haynes:
Type about:config in the address box and press return
Scroll down to extensions.checkCompatability and double click the value (True) it should change to False. Then restart Firefox.

That doesn't work for me.
I didn't have that value, so I entered it in the file.  The item now appears, and toggles true/false without any problem, but FF still checks and then disables some of my favourite plug-ins.

Among others, 2.0 rejects both the latest AI Roboform and Surfulater.
Is it mandatory to uninstall 1.5.x when using the final 2.0?

Has anyone another idea?

-cranioscopical (October 27, 2006, 04:49 PM)

Strange? I would suggest you uninstall Firefox and delete its program folder and then reinstall 'cos it sounds like something got screwed up during the update to version 2.

The latest build of RoboForm has to be downloaded for version 2 and it installed for me without problem.

BTW, Carol, shouldn't that be Pancakes for England?

LOL

5157

Living Room / Re: Windows XP Pro and SP2

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 27, 2006, 02:51 PM »

Click Start  and then right click on My Computer > Properties (or Control Panel > System > Properties) and the General Tab tells you which services pack is installed.

5158

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 27, 2006, 01:36 PM »

Another about:config variable to alter is browser.tabs.tabMinWidth

I have set this to 10 which allows me to have a lot of tabs open with Firefox resorting to a scrolling tabs bar. By default it is set to 100.

5159

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 04:34 PM »

Just one tip that interested me. Firefox 2.0 default putting the close icons on every tab. I prefer instead just one single red X icon, on the right.
Just set browser.tabs.closeButtons = 3 to have it this way.

-Mark0 (October 26, 2006, 04:07 PM)

Thanks - Brilliant!! The new X on every tab was driving me nuts!

5160

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 01:45 PM »

Type about:config in the address box and press return

Scroll down to extensions.checkCompatability and double click the value (True) it should change to False. Then restart Firefox.

(Click the thumbnail if you aren't sure and look for the yellow high lights)

5161

General Software Discussion / Re: Two New Internet Explorer 7 Reviews

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 05:28 AM »

I'll check fan speeds and CPU temp in the BIOS next time I reboot. (I don't bother with mobo monitors any more running constantly)

5162

General Software Discussion / Re: Two New Internet Explorer 7 Reviews

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 04:25 AM »

I ran chkdsk c: /v /r /x from a separate windows installation.

5163

General Software Discussion / Re: Two New Internet Explorer 7 Reviews

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 03:18 AM »

Yes, run Memtest86. Will probably fail fast if memory is faulty. XP can be forgiving about memory errors, not all programs are.

Could be dying power supply, motherboard - guessing. Remember to run sfc /scannow. Is there a repair IE component hidden somewhere? 

-dk70 (October 25, 2006, 12:32 PM)

I have run memtest.

I think it might be related to hard disk filesystem errors - I have done a full chkdsk of drive C (including checking data areas and free space). There were no problems with hard disk faults but there were a few errors in the file system. CHKDSK seems to have fixed them so we shall see.

Of course it may be that the errors were caused by dirty restarts !

5164

General Software Discussion / Re: Two New Internet Explorer 7 Reviews

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 03:16 AM »

@carol

One thing would be to go in control panel / system and disable the automatic reboot, so you see the blue screen.

Freezes are pretty nasty. They're usually hardware related. Get the Ultimate Boot CD and use it to check your memory / hard disk(s).

-wr975 (October 25, 2006, 11:49 AM)

The problem is there is no BSOD - it is true freezing (rock solid) or spontaneous reboot. I have automatic reboot disabled.

5165

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 03:14 AM »

Yeah, reading and writing American English does tend to colour one's thinking. I hadn't realised that there were so many different perspectives on how words should be spelled. If I can ever get organised enough, perhaps I'll try to find an on-line dictionary that outlines the differences between American (and Canadian and Australian and New Zealand and South African) spellings and utilisation and British spellings and utilisation...

-Darwin (October 25, 2006, 05:28 PM)

Canadians generally follow British English spellings (though they tolerate US spellings). Not sure about NZ or Oz.

Who was it that said "American and England are two countries divided by a common language" (or something like that) ?

5166

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 03:11 AM »

About half of my extensions died when I installed 2.0, so my tip is - wait a little while before you upgrade (I had to revert to 1.5.0.7).

-mrainey (October 25, 2006, 04:29 PM)

Override version checking and you can reenable them - I didn't find any that wouldn't work (except for RoboForm and they have now released a version 2 extension).

5167

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 26, 2006, 03:10 AM »

Ever closed a TAB only to realise you wish you hadn't? Try Ctrl + Shift + T and you can step back through closed tabs and they will be reopened in new tabs. Really useful.

-Carol Haynes (October 25, 2006, 06:01 AM)

realise = real eyes realize real lies.

WOW!
i heard all about the spell-checker that's built in, and when i quoted you, it did that little underline thing to show it's misspelled. thats awesome!

-jammo (October 25, 2006, 12:17 PM)

Please excuse my ignorance - unfortunately I speak and spell real English 

5168

General Software Discussion / Re: Two New Internet Explorer 7 Reviews

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 25, 2006, 10:25 AM »

I think I spoke too soon ....

Must be a conflict or corruption of some sort!

Anyone any idea how to troubleshoot freezes and random reboots that give no log entries in the Event Viewer ?

5169

General Software Discussion / Re: Two New Internet Explorer 7 Reviews

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 25, 2006, 08:14 AM »

I have reverted to IE 6 SP2 - since I installed IE 7 I have been experiencing random reboots and system freezes (necessitating the use of the reset button). Anyone else experienced anything like this?

It may be a coincidence - time will tell, but at least as far as I can tell the roll back to IE 6 seems to have worked OK.

-Carol Haynes (October 23, 2006, 05:40 PM)

Follow up - I haven't had a single freeze or random reboot since removing IE 7 ....

5170

General Software Discussion / Firefox 2 hints and tips

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 25, 2006, 06:01 AM »

Thought it might be nice to get people to post hints and tips about using Firefox 2 ...

Here is one I discovered that is a new feature ...

Ever closed a TAB only to realise you wish you hadn't? Try Ctrl + Shift + T and you can step back through closed tabs and they will be reopened in new tabs. Really useful.

5171

General Software Discussion / Re: Toying with TheBat! - any plugin suggestions?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 24, 2006, 06:41 AM »

Can you import them backing into OE? Most email clients can import from OE. Not sure if you can avoid duplicates though easily.

If you have MS Office you can import emails from OE into Outlook and I think there is an option to avoid duplicates (can't remember as it has been a long time since I did it). In which case you could imposrt from OE, delete everything in OE and then transfer all your stuff from Thunderbird to OE and then finally import to Outlook without duplicates. You could the delete everything in OE again and then export everything back to OE from Outlook which would leave you with a complete set of emails with no duplicates!

On the other hand it may be just quicker to have duplicates and see if you can find a duplicate remover for OE.

5172

General Software Discussion / Re: folder marker - easily colour your folders

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 23, 2006, 07:41 PM »

Nice finds 

5173

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Photoshop tutorials I wrote

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 23, 2006, 07:34 PM »

Welcome to the site rjmiz and thanks for a great contribution. 

I have had a look at a couple of tutorials and I will definitely be looking at the rest. They look great.

Just one comment how about stating at the start of each tutorial which version of PhotoShop you used to create the tutorial and any known issues with other versions?

5174

General Software Discussion / Re: Two New Internet Explorer 7 Reviews

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 23, 2006, 07:24 PM »

For comparison I opened FF2 and IE7 with the same set of 5 webpages in tabs.

FF2 took 81Mb of memory (and worked fine)

IE7 was up to 65Mb (and hadn't finished opening pages when it froze my machine).

I don't think that FF2 looks too bad alongside IE given that there is probably at least 15Mb of IE in memory before you click on the IE icon. FF2 also feels quicker to load to me too than FF1 - but still slower than IE.

5175

Living Room / Re: Vista licensing - will it kill enthusiasts interest ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 23, 2006, 07:17 PM »

The other "mandatory" that I was talking about is what happens if the WGA check fails to reach the activation server, due to limited or no internet access (a fairly common occurrence in offices). If MS makes the reaching of the server mandatory as well, then WGA is going to break for a lot of people. I find it hard to imagine MS wanting to go this far, but maybe I just need a more fertile imagination.

-NeilS (October 17, 2006, 05:30 AM)

Hopefully they will have the sense to have a server check in WGA checking so that if the server is unreachable they don't do anything at all. Maybe they could insist that a check has to be completed within 3 days (as for reactivation now) but then the responsibility is with them to make sure their servers are never down often enough to cause problems.