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RAM opinions

As in all things related to computer speed, RAM speed, etc., what you need depends on how you use the machine. For word processing, spreadsheets, email, browsing the web, etc. I find 1GB of RAM is adequate. In the next year or so - whenever Vista comes out most likely - I'm going to go with 2GB...
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Aug 9, 2006
- Forum: Computer Building
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ASUS M2N-E IS A HORRIBLE BOARD

Sorry to hear you had problems with your M2N-E. I just built one with an AMD 3800+ AM2 (Retail), 2x1GB Patriot Dual Channel DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) at 4-4-4-12 (PDC22G6400LLK) and an eVGA 256-P2-N554-AX Geforce 7600GT graphics card. The first thing I did was flash to the latest BIOS from Asus, which...
- capricorn
- Post #7
- Aug 9, 2006
- Forum: Computer Building
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PSU blown or what?

You can also get that behavior if you've tried to overclock your motherboard and went too far. If that's the case, you might have to either manually jumper the motherboard until you get it working again or remove the CMOS battery and clear it (usually a jumper or set of contact points on the...
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Feb 10, 2005
- Forum: Computer Building
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Why such a large difference in temps b/w XP 1700+ and XP 1600+

I would guess that the 1600 is a Palomino and the 1700 is a Thunderbird core. My XP2000 Palamino ran at 48C idling with Artic Silver III and a Cooler Master HC-001 heat sink and 8000 RPM fan. My son's XP2200 is a Thunderbird core and idles at 31 C using the stock retail fan.
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Jan 27, 2005
- Forum: Computer Building
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What is the best way to back up a 160gig hard drive?

I gave up on backups and just use my motherboard's hardware RAID 1 mirroring setup.
- capricorn
- Post #9
- Jan 27, 2005
- Forum: Computer Building
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RE: To those who own a K8V SE Deluxe, which value ram will work?

Yeah, it's an old thread, but I'll jump on it anyway. I bought the PDP SYSTEMS Dual Channel Kit 1GB (512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 from newegg. It's running at 2-3-2-5 as advertised. It was $155 for the pair when I bought them. ($187, now). I quite happy with them.
- capricorn
- Post #9
- Nov 7, 2004
- Forum: Motherboards
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Do retail A64 cpu's come w/ the backplate and retention mech?

If you go to eBay and go to the Computers & Networking > Desktop PC Components > Motherboards for Desktop PC > Other Motherboard area and do a search on "retention 754," you'll find a couple. One says "Retention CPU holder is not on the mainboard. You can call AMD at 1-408-749-3060 and...
- capricorn
- Post #7
- Sep 29, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Do retail A64 cpu's come w/ the backplate and retention mech?

One of the eBay auctions I was looking at mentioned that the motherboard they were selling didn't have the retention clip and back plate. They said you could call AMD and give your CPU's serial number and they would send you one. Sounds like some attempt to control gray market sales of AMD CPUs...
- capricorn
- Post #6
- Sep 29, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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audio for two drives ?

Hmm. If that's so, I've been wasting a whole $4 on my last couple systems. I knew that was true for things like MP3, since they are really just read as data. I still thought CD and DVD audio was over the wires though. I'm getting ready to build a new system myself, so I'll have to try that.
- capricorn
- Post #6
- Sep 29, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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audio for two drives ?

For playing regular DVDs and audio CDs you'll use a 4 pin audio cable (unless you are using digital audio) to connect the drives to the motherboard. I don't have any specifics about your motherboard, but on most, there will be at least one 4 pin connector on the other end. Something like this...
- capricorn
- Post #4
- Sep 29, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Anybody else having problems with Newegg's site?

OK. Even more weirdness. When I try to bring up Newegg.com, my (Firefox) status bar says waiting on www.zipzoomfly.com. I thought maybe my bookmarks were hosed, so I typed www.newegg.com into the address bar and got the same thing. Don't see that in Internet Explorer though. (Still don't get the...
- capricorn
- Post #19
- Sep 29, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Anybody else having problems with Newegg's site?

I was about to post the same off topic thread myself. I was having problems getting some parts of Newegg's site yesterday, but today I can't even bring up the home page. The networking people on my end occasionally try "interesting experiments" that last a few days or longer, so I can never tell...
- capricorn
- Post #18
- Sep 29, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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HELP! Did flashing kill my rig?

Does pulling the power off of the LiteOn drive let it boot w/o restarting? (Next best thing to pulling it out completely.) If it does, go into the device manager and make sure all remnants of it are gone. Put the power connector back on and let Windows discover it as new hardware. This works...
- capricorn
- Post #6
- Sep 1, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Poll: Antec Sonata or Performance Plus?

Built a system in one of these for my daughter to take to college. Wanted it to be really quiet since she has to sleep near it. (It is. You can't tell it's on just by listening.) I drilled a hole in one of the spare metal floppy covers and put a switch in to turn them off and on. My daughter...
- capricorn
- Post #11
- Sep 1, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Normal Temperature?

That sounds very low for both. 18 degress Celsius is only like 64 degrees Fahrenheit. You running water cooling (or have the machine in the refrigerator, maybe)? On one of my coolest systems, case temps are at 29-30 degrees C, and the CPU runs around 39-40 at idle and maybe 44-45 at load. The...
- capricorn
- Post #5
- Aug 30, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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New 160GB drive won't completely format

Is is possible that your motherboard BIOS doesn't support drives that big? If not, it might be reaching the BIOS limit and going stupid on you. (Check for a updated BIOS maybe?)
- capricorn
- Post #9
- Aug 30, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Partition/HD Layout

I always have at least three partitions, and often four or more, but typically it's a physical C partition for the OS, a logical (extended) D partiion for the everyday applications, another logical E drive for user data. With Windows XP, I like that C partition to be about 10-12 GB. The OS...
- capricorn
- Post #4
- Aug 30, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Forums going slow for Firefox 0.9.3?

Actually, it's been working quite well for me in Firefox 0.9.3 today. Quite fast, actually.
- capricorn
- Post #15
- Aug 29, 2004
- Forum: Forum Issues and Feedback
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Help a Noob in buying RAMS

512 MB should be find alongside your 256 MB although some motherboards would like the larger RAM in the first slot. Most don't care. I'd recommend Crucial Memory for a first time buyer. Their memory configurator/recommender/thingy works well at listing what will work for your system and/or...
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Aug 28, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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PC suddenly stopped working.....first steps to diagnose?

I take it you never see anything at all, so trying to boot into Windows safe mode isn't the answer. (I've needed to do that on the odd occasion where I set the scan rate too high for the monitor I've just attached to the box, and my normal monitor is still back home. Safe mode can get you out of...
- capricorn
- Post #4
- Aug 28, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Should I switch this monitor for the one I have currently?

If you'll actually send in the rebate, maybe switch. You don't get any more pixels, just bigger ones. Depends on your eyesight if that helps. The 17" claims to have a 16ms response time over 25 ms for the 19" which can be important in games and watching video. I hope those prices are in Canadian...
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Aug 28, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Oh god someone please help me!!

Drive's probably dying, but you can either use an XP boot CD and try to go into the repair console. (Look at http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm) You'll see a FIXMBR command. If you have an old Windows 98 recovery boot floppy, boot into that and use FDISK /MBR.
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Aug 27, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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DVD and CD-RW

Since they're under $100, why not get a DVD+/-RW drive? Or even a pair of them. Picked up the 8X dual-layer NEC 2510A and it's pretty decent at both CD-R and DVD-R writing.
- capricorn
- Post #4
- Aug 27, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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HDD making a noise

I agree with the back up your data advice. I had one drive that used the voice coil to make a beep when it had an error. It died not too long thereafter. Can't say if that's what you're hearing, but I'd be leary of that drive. If that drive is SMART capable, do you have SMART turned on in your...
- capricorn
- Post #8
- Aug 27, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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My Horrible Luck!

Is it possible just to unscrew and remove/replace the fan with a like one? I've got a few HSF's that I just keep spare fans (40mm and 60mm) around for just that reason. They die a lot. (Granted, not quite as fast as the one you have.) If you can do that, you wouldn't need to remove the heatsink...
- capricorn
- Post #4
- Aug 27, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Computer Acts funny

That's called "percussive maintenance."
- capricorn
- Post #8
- Aug 27, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Forums going slow for Firefox 0.9.3?

I'm still having this issue with Firefox 0.9.3, but I think it has to do with loading the icons and other images. Often, the text of the page loads (almost immediately), but the images can take much longer -- up to several minutes if they ever load at all. It does seem to come and go. Sometimes...
- capricorn
- Post #10
- Aug 27, 2004
- Forum: Forum Issues and Feedback
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Newbe Question

I'd probably go with 1 GB of RAM at this point (2x512MB DDR PC-3200 in dual channel mode). Other than that, it looks pretty reasonable. Are you thinking of just having a pair of 160 GB drives or having RAID 0 or what? Just thought of one more thing. Is that a retail CPU with a heatsink &amp...
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Aug 25, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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bought a used video card off the forums

I've got that same Gainward Ti4200 card running in a 4X max Gigabyte (7VRXP) motherboard. It works fine at 4X, but I do recall that earlier revs if that motherboard wouldn't support the GF4 series. The box had a extra sticker slapped on it that said that it supported the GF4.
- capricorn
- Post #7
- Aug 25, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Voodoo2 SLI - did you own it?

I got a pair of them (generic Voodoo 1000 ones) at the tail end of their usefullnes so I could play Glide-enabled games. But also I got them with a brand spanking new fangled video cards called a "GeForce" from NVidia. (The original model - didn't even have a number; later called the GeForce...
- capricorn
- Post #10
- Aug 25, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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How to open a Compaq Laptop?

Just FYI, you might be able to browse to ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/supportinformation/techpubs/ and find a maintenance guide for your laptop (or other Compaq products). You need to know the Compaq part number (not just the model number like 723RSH) in order to find anything. (Or the part number...
- capricorn
- Post #15
- Aug 25, 2004
- Forum: Laptops
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Monitor HELP PEASE

Had a friend who was going nuts trying to figure out why his monitor was occasionally jumping all over the place. Worked fine until he moved it, and even then, much of the time, it was fine. Turns out the refrigerator was on the other side of the wall. When it kicked on, it caused interference...
- capricorn
- Post #3
- Aug 23, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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40$ to buy tuner for PC, any suggestions

If you can stretch that to $44 (shipped), I'd look at this Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe. I put one in my daughter's machine for college. Cut down on having to have a separate TV, VCR & DVD player. (Downside was I had to buy her a DVD-RW drive so she'd get some of the stuff she just...
- capricorn
- Post #2
- Aug 21, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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help on how to setup two hdds in RAID 0

Hmm. You've never built one before, but you're going to start with a RAID 0 config on the maiden voyage, eh? Gutsy. At any rate, should you carry on down that path and you plan on having Windows 2000 or XP as your OS, make sure you have the drivers for the RAID readily available before you...
- capricorn
- Post #4
- Aug 21, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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final check list for new build.

What are you using for an optical drive? Or is it just late and I'm missing it? Coming from your old machine, perhaps? I personally prefer to have a pair of optical drives anymore. At least a DVD-ROM drive and a CD/RW. Otherwise, I don't see anything to pick at. Why are all the forum entries...
- capricorn
- Post #8
- Aug 21, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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is this too hot?

I'd think that's nothing to worry about. I've got an older (Palamino core) Athlon XP 2000+ that idles at 51 C and gets up to 59 C under some loads.
- capricorn
- Post #3
- Aug 20, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Which MOnitor

As I sit here looking at this forum on my 5 year old Mitsubishi DP900U, I'm inclined to nod towards the DP930SB. This is still one of the nicest monitors I've owned. I've gone through three desktops in that time, but one monitor. Works with whatever I hook it up to. They seem to last a long...
- capricorn
- Post #11
- Aug 15, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Maxtor or Seagate?

Ditto that. I've got 7 Maxtor drives running right now and I never had one fail ... until a 3 month old Maxtor failed in my RAID 1 setup about a month ago. There was also a magazine article recently where the author was asking what's up with Maxtor drives as he had the same experience (except he...
- capricorn
- Post #19
- Aug 15, 2004
- Forum: Computer Building
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Opening a Compaq laptop...

You might not be completely out of luck. The service guide I had has online pointers back to a Compaq FTP site that is still there. Try poking around in this maintenance guide section of the web site. Also, look up a directory or two. The techpubs/qrg section has Quick Reference Guides and one...
- capricorn
- Post #7
- Aug 14, 2004
- Forum: Laptops
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Opening a Compaq laptop...

I noticed that myself. They had those Compaq service guides on there until about 6 months ago. I have a copy of the HTML-bases (not PDF) for the Compaq 1270-1670-1675, if that would help. I don't think those were close to the 1510T.
- capricorn
- Post #5
- Aug 14, 2004
- Forum: Laptops

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