Posts by Catweazle

The one's balancing out the other to give a chip that performs at an equivalent level. The number in the product name, after all, is a "Performance Rating".

Similar things happened with Athlon XP processors. Some models had minor changes to architecture and clockspeed involved. There were a couple of versions of most performance rating chips, and there were 3 distinct versions of some of them ;)

Sounds like a dud motherboard to me. The only NVRAM (non-volatile) it should be finding is your CMOS, and it sounds like it's not finding any. BIOS must be faulty I'd think.

Either that or the CMOS battery is either dead, sitting upside down or got a protective plastic strip stopping it from making contact.

If they're both 3400+ chips they'll both have equivalent performance.

ikenfixit, have you had opportunity to use it on systems where devices weren't yet nstalled in Windows, or were incorrectly installed, and if so what sort of accuracy did it have?

I find FeedDemon to be the pick of the bunch.

If you intend to make a backup of the registry (and you should!) it's a good idea to create a 'Backups' folder in the Root directory of your main drive. Save the registry backup to there and give it a distinctive filename of no more than 8 characters.

That way, even if things go horribly wrong, it's quite easy to locate and restore from a command console should your system be rendered unable to boot into Windows.

And you lot really have me puzzled about those games. What the hell sort of games are you installing?

You need to uninstall then reinstall.

I'm quite surprised to hear of games that don't prompt for confirmation of the installation directory. Perhaps the installation is being rushed by clicking on 'Next' and the selection is being missed. I really am serious here, and not trying to suggest you're wrong. But in my role as a hardware and games related journalist I come across a LOT of software, and the only games I've seen recently which actually install the way you describe are ones intended for the use of very young children, which actually only install a small loader to the hard drive, and run the game itself from the CD.

By the way, here's a good article about editing the registry, written by a colleague of mine:

http://www.geekgirls.com/windows_registry02.htm#using

aaronN42, you never answered the questions I asked about the procedures you followed after you formatted and installed Windows XP again. I really suspect you've not installed the necessary device drivers for your system.

Have a read through the pair of articles linked here:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread6632.html

and see if that sounds like the way you approached reinstalling Windows and your system's necessary software drivers. If not, your computer hardware is most likely not working correctly, and that would lead to all sorts of problems!

Hi all,

One of the problems we face when trying to assist people with their hardware problems is the matter of identifying what hardware they actually have in their systems. I've just come across yet another reporting tool, and it seems to me to be rather a good one. I've tried it on several systems here and found it to report accurate, detailed and very useful information about them.

Could others here who have a good degree of knowledge about the components in their systems try it also, please, and report on their impressions of the tool?

It's called Everest, and it's a free download for personal use from:

http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=1

Feel free to mention other good quality reporting utilities as well, if you like!

That description certainly sounds like a rather nasty trojan or spyware intrusion. I'd suggest you download the latest versions of the tools recommended earlier in this topic and in the "Helping Yourself....." topic you'll find near the top of page in this Forum section.

Install, update and use them. Then rebbot into 'Safe Mode' and use them again. You access 'Safe Mode' by pressing the <F8> key during boot-up, just before the Windows Logo screen displays, and then selecting 'Safe Mode' from the menu presented.

Reboot again, and if the problem hasn't disappeared, run HijackThis and post your full log in here as suggested earlier.

I honestly haven't seen a game manufactured in the last 5 years that didn't prompt for an install directory!

No, there's not.

Sorry to have to say so, but that's the strightforward situation.

http://www.paragon-gmbh.com/f_ntfs.htm

The demo will allow you to read NTFS partition files from Win 98. The paid-for version will give you write access as well.

No. Sorry, but you'll need to recreate them. The files have been overwritten during the in-place upgrade.

To do what you want, the settings would've needed to be exported prior to the job being carried out.

I don't bother with editing the registry for that. The process is too easy to start with.

Begin installing the game as usual. When you are asked which directory to install to, simply click on the address to highlight it, use the cursor key to scroll to the beginning of the address, and change the drive letter. The game will be installed to a 'Program files' directory structure on the drive of your choice.

Simple ;)

Here's the trick!

Could be a dirty CD. Clean it thouroughly
Could be a wonky drive. Try another

Take the new drive out, put the old one back in as master.

Boot up, remove the password, then swap the drives back to the way you want them now.

File access back without any more password problems ;)

I'd agree. If your system is in a mess, installing a Service pack won't 'fix' it. Clean the system up first, or format and start over. The Service pack is designed to strengthen Security measures, so you need to give it a chance to do so.

Software which gives problems afterwards may simply be 'badly behaved'. For some programs you need to set 'exceptions' to the security measures put in place.

Hi mate,

Sorry, but a thread about this was already made before you posted. I'll close this one off so we don't have discussion of the matter split in two.

Cheers.

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread12474.html

Intel have announced that plans to offer a 4GHz Pentium 4 processor have been scrapped. Future development for Intel desktop processors will move toward the PentiumM processor technology, which runs at much lower clockspeeds and uses less power consumption.

This move leaves Intel in a position where they will not be competitive with AMD in the desktop market for quite some time to come.

These two articles from the Inquirer provide a quite comprehensive outline of the situation:

http://theinquirer.net/?article=19105

http://theinquirer.net/?article=19110

You'll only have a light on the motherboard if you have onboard LAN, for most motherboards.

I'll check the motherboard manual later, mate. It's 2 am here ;)

When I mentioned a barebones system, by the way, I mean removing that display card and connecting the monitor to the onboard video. Just the RAM installed and nothing else. Case connectors and power supply attached. You should get POST information screens with that, and if you can't then a component may be faulty.

I sure hope you're switching off AND disconnecting the power before changing internal components. The motherboard will have power running through it even when the system is shut down, so the power cord must be removed. Changing components with power to the motherboard can damage it.

Got component specifications for that system?

Do you hear the hard drive spin at all?

I suspect you may have the front panel connectors wrongly attached. Consult your motherboard manual and check. Try reversing the direction of connectors (still attached to the same pins of course) if they appear to be connected correctly. All should be facing the same direction.

Make sure you strip the system back to barebones as I've suggested, for troubleshooting. Other components can be connected one by one after you get the motherboard completing POST successfully.

Canon are about the most inexpensive for ink replacement. Do NOT go for the ultra cheap models though.

When you do report back next, please describe what you mean by "boot up". Booting up is more than just a led light working and a fan spinning.

There should be a small single speaker inside your case, and it should be connected to the cluster of pins the front panel connectors plug onto.

Does it work? Or does it just beep and fail to boot?

Do you get any image at all on screen during the boot process?
Have you got the system speaker connected and is there a BIOS beep code being issued?
Have you tried disconnecting everything except the processor, one stick of RAM and the front panel connectors, with the monitor connected to the onboard video socket? You should be able to boot and complete POST with just that.

This card will struggle with new generation games such as HL2 and most of the newer games coming out later on this fall and throughout next year, I would say probably 6 months, I have one and it will run doom3 good, but If you dont care about the way games look quality wise then its ok.

No it won't. It will struggle to play the most recent and upcoming games at the highest screen resolutions and image quality settings, for sure, but it'll be quite a while yet before games won't actually run on it!

* Monitor is dead?
* Monitor cable is dead?
* Monitor cable is not firmly connected?
* Monitor and cable are both OK but monitor is not powered up?
* Display cards have not been firmly inserted into slots?
* Display cards are dead?
* Eveything is actually OK but the monitor brightness is adjusted too dark to actually see the screen image?

Most monitors manufactured in recent years will display a "No Signal" meesage in bright lettering on a black screen if they are powered up with no PC connected to them. Check that you are getting one ;)

From a contribution I made to another forum:

My vote goes to shedding the 'brand affiliation' from the outset. there's not much point to it anymore, because with so much production being outsourced nowadays, almost every Brand Name laptop is simply a rebadged OEM unit, and all are of a similar quality. All of the Centrino laptops available, for example, are produced by one of only three manufacturers [img]http://forums.pcpowerplay.com.au/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

It's better to determine what you want to do with it, what configuration it needs to have, and what software/support bundle you need, then look at what's on the market that fits. Brand name is the LAST step in making the decision.

It's not a good idea to get your information from Sales people or personal contacts. Sales people are simply trying to sell you what they want to get rid of, and personal contacts often provide information which is personal opinion or outdated information.

Yes, it's true that some types of laptop are more conservative with power usage than others, but the P4/P3 comparison is a useless one. You simply don't find Pentium 3 laptops available for sale nowadays, unless you're buying a secondhand unit. All laptops use 'Mobile' processors. To date, they have been simply versions of their desktop processor equivalents which can run at lower voltage levels.

Recently, however, Intel has introduced a completely different processor series, and a form of laptop technology with it which uses power in a quite …

That's spyware by the sound of it. An instance which has loaded a trojan onto your system which causes advertising pop-ups to display under certain circumstances.

It'd help if you described the pop-up a bit more fully. You've mentioned nothing about the form and content of the pop-up.

Please describe it for us.

Well done, that's a good improvement.

One thing I'd suggest you consider with AS5 thermal compound. I believe, and a fair few fellow enthusiasts believe also, that the stuff loses some of its effectiveness over time. It'd be a good idea to adopt the practice of once every year removing the heatsink, cleaning it and the processor, replacing the compound and refitting it.

The job is not really a 'biggie' to adopt as a routine maintenance task, and it'll keep things running well for longer ;)

Bring up the Forum section which relates to your topic or question, then click on the 'New Thread' button above the list of existing topics.

Give your thread a descriptive name, and type in your post. If it's a question, try to give as much information about your PC, software and what you've done as you can, so long as it seems relevent.

When you're done, click on the 'Submit New Thread' button beneath the editing box.

The other consideration to take into account is the increased potential for file corruption and pssible data loss that accompanies a RAID 0 configuration. Research thoroughly and learn the procedures for setting up / configuring and maintaining a RAID setup before implementing one.

Default configurations are not necessarily the best structure to adopt for all purposes.

Well, the time frame is somewhat more drawn out than that, but yess, I'd have to agree. Tchnology changes rather rapidly. For the current generation of processor technology, some processors are better than others at particular tasks. In the next generation of processor technology, a different competitor might gain the advantage.

RAID 0 doesn't give a performance improvement for games. Games load into memory, and run from there. The only improvement to be gained is a slightly quicker level loading time.

If you're purchasing an Intel system now, by the time you need the next upgrade AMD may no longer have the 'lead' ;)

Young Teck, could you post detailed specifications of your current system, so we have a means of comparison?

Edit: Preferably in your original 'upgrade' topic ;)

No. Waste of money for a games system ;)

[img]http://www.fiserartstudio.com/f_work/Dani%202C.jpg[/img]

Google brought up many wondrous possibilities for 'Dani'. I decided to be nice! :)

Next: Impossible dream

My own 'rule of thumb' is that anything costing less than $AUD100 is suspicious! ;)

I don't think that utility handles NTFS partitions, does it? I certainly would not use it on a Windows XP system.

Any of the display cards which have been mentioned in your various 'upgrade' topics in the 'Hardware' section have T&L capabilities. In fact, anything more recent than an NVidia TNT card should have the feature. Your card must be very old indeed not to have it. The feature was introduced with the first GeForce cards.

bill786, repost your questions in a topic of their own, please. we ask people not to 'piggyback' other questions onto a topic, because it diverts the discussion and also makes it less likely that you'll get answers to your question.

Use the "New Thread" button and give your topic a descriptive name, relating to a Refresh Install ;)

Any decent partition management program will do the job. Only problem is, any decent partition management program is a commercial one. There's no decent 'freebie' that I've ever heard of!

It's actually a bit more than a 'new type of front side bus'. It's actually a complete new standard of system interface, only part of which is implemented in the Athlon64/FX processors and motherboards. If fully implemented it's a replacement standard for system interaction which is designed to even outperform the PCIE standard.

I've described the implementation a little more fully in this article.

Pop it in someone else's 'pooter, young fella, and see if it gets detected as a program disk there. If not, take it back. If it gets detected correctly, then you know it's your CD drive or your Windows installation, just as I said quite a while back ;)

Like I said, you're looking in the wrong place for bargains!

$US600 is grossly overpriced!

Phaelax, I think you might be referring to this article, or perhaps this one.

It's not really the configuration of these workstation processors in the system which creates comparitive performance fluctuations, it's the purpose for which they are used. When you match up competitively rated Xeons and Opterons, the Xeon will come out slightly ahead in some aspects of #D video rendering, but not in much else. The Opterons are streets ahead as a server processor, and slightly ahead in some other forms of content creation as well. But that's all a bit off-topic in a discussion of processors for a Gaming system, as neither are really a suitably realistic option for that purpose.

Could you please press the edit button on your previous post when you want to add another comment straight afterwards, instead of making mutliple consecutive posts? Forums do not operate in the same way as irc or other messaging services.