I dont know if anyone else has had this problem but my harddrive is losing space fast when i’m not even saving anything to it…it started happening originally when i first bought the computer and i talked to computer company’s customer service, they told me to reformat, which i did. now its happening again, first off it says that i only have 366gb as the entire harddrive which is wrong its actually 400gb, 6.25 was dedicated to the recovery drive…so it should come as 393.75. I lose anywhere between 1-5gb a day even when I just turning it on and off to check my email. I dont know if its a miscalculation on the part of vista or if it is actually saving weird stuff to my harddrive.

My husband and I were cleaning our computer today…my husband took off the CPU fan to clean out the dust and when he reconnected it to the motherboard I believe he may have cracked or injured the motherboard in some way. When I turn the computer on the fans run and the cd-rom drive will eject but there is nothing on the monitor and I hear no other sounds.
I need some help/guidance in purchasing a new motherboard. I am not sure of the brand of the existing MOBO the word SOYO SY-P4VSA is written as well as VIA P4X266-8233. I run XP, have a Pentium 4 (478 Socket), GeForce 7600GS (AGP) video card. I’m not sure what other info you would need to guide me. Basically I’m hoping someone could recommend a MOBO to me or help me understand what parameters I need to be looking at. Any help is appreciated.

Melissa

Welcome to my first ever tutorial.
This tutorial will be about RAM or random access memory, if you want the long hand version, along with Graphics Cards.

Now RAM is one of the most crucial parts of the computer, being the short term memory for the computer. The RAM holds all of the data that is being used at present, so the more of it the better. When you turn off your computer, any data left on the RAM is gone.

Graphics Cards, or GFX cards as they are known by, are another crucial part of the modern computer system. They help with what is displayed on your monitor, to make it crystal clear.

I have made this tutorial to help with many problems that occur with RAM and GFX cards.

Section 1: RAM

RAM is a very delicate and pricey part of the computer. It is delicate because they are quite fragile, but they are very susceptible to static shock, so when finding your RAM always wear an anti-static wrist band, to prevent damaging your RAM. This is a ‘stick’ of RAM: here
The black rectangles are the microchips that temporarily store the data, while the contacts at the bottom allow a good contact between the bay that the RAM sits in and the RAM itself. Do not touch the contacts; otherwise you way impede the current which transfers the data between the computer and the RAM.
A trick I have learned through Daniweb, is that if you have a troubled connection, just use an eraser on the contacts to clean them, this doesn’t damage the RAM, but it cleans it quite well.

When handling RAM always wear anti-static wristbands, and lay the RAM on anti-static mats.

Section 2: Graphics Cards

Graphics Cards (GFX cards as I will call them for shorthand) are an important part of the computer, as they give you better graphics on screen for games, media and normal browsing, than standard motherboard graphics. The GFX card in your computer (if it came with one) is located in a special slot. This will wither be a PCI (Express) port or an AGP port. Most modern computers have a PCI Express ×16 port. This is the standard port found on most motherboards. There are 2 main producers of GFX cards, ATI, sometimes named as Sapphire, and Nvidia. It is down to personal choice which brand you go for, but both are highly rated. Most problems regarding GFX cards are linked to RAM is some ways, often when gaming is involved. As the two components work together, problems regarding both will be detailed in section 3.

Section 3: Problems That Occur

Often when people are on their computers or are gaming, the computer suddenly goes into a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death). This is where the computer shuts itself into a mode where no harm can come to the computer. On BSOD’s, many different numbers are shown regarding the error/s that have just occurred. To get out of a BSOD, hold down the power button for 10 seconds, for a manual shut down. From here you can then reboot, it is advised to wait for 30 seconds before rebooting the computer. It is not advised to use a manual shutdown for turning off the computer, as it gradually damages components over time.

Normally BSOD’s relate to RAM or GFX card issues, I say normally because some just happen out of the blue (sorry for the pun :P) while the system is idle. When a BSOD occurs, when using a program which requires either a lot of RAM or a high level of graphics, associated with full screen programs such as games, the BSOD often relates to the RAM of GFX card being the culprit. Always check the back the case that the software came in, and compare it to your own system specs, if they do not match the specs on the back, your system is unlikely to be able to run the software. If your system matches or is better then the specifications on the back, your system will have no trouble running the software.

You can test if your games can run on your computer by selecting the desired game from a list on this site: http://prod2.srtest.com/referrer/srtest , the little program will then run and show you if you can or cannot run the game. This then saves unnecessary expense in buying the game, getting it home and finding out that it doesn’t work.

For whatever reason the Creative 64-bit X-Fi drivers don’t work if you meet either or both of the following requirments:

>3GB RAM or
nForce 680i motherboard.

I have both so my X-Fi was creating glorius 5.1 channel surround static at very high volume.

Since Auzentech can’t seem to ship the prelude I decided to swap my order for the Asus Xonar D2 since it cost the same and was getting decent reviews.

While it lacks the ability of the X-Fi software to translate DS3D/EAX calls to OpenAL, this isn’t much of an issue for me as I rarely play games that require positional audio these days.

Audio produced by the card is razor sharp and crystal clear, when wearing my Sennheiser HD280 Pro headphones I can make out tones, notes and instruments I didn’t know existed when using the X-Fi (which in itself is an amazing piece of audio hardware [vista hardware]mod.info/category/vistamods/>[hardware mods]).

The Logitech speakers are not quite as detailed but then I don’t have them glued to my head with environmental noise attenuation so the extra detail is probably lost in the environment.

If you are in the market for a new soundcard and positional audio is not a "must-have" feature for you then I would highly recommend this card. If you are looking to plug it into a hi-fi or home cinema amplifier the card provides 4 3.5mm mini-jack to left/right phono input cables as well as an optical cable and adapters to fit the coax/optical combo ports.

Can one combine two different processors like pentium 2 processor and pentium 3 processor of different speeds in a given motherboard as a way of upgrading it?
-Thanx

Here’s my problem.

My Vista computer is (without any prior problems) shutting down at the progress screen. Computer will post, get to the progress screen and after a few seconds the bar stops and the system shuts down. It will not boot in safe mode either. It will boot from the vista disk but when I run the system repair it also shuts down. I tried a different drive and doing a clean install but it won?t finish and shuts down again. I have not installed any new hardware [vista hardware]mod.info/category/vistamods/>[hardware mods] or software. The one thing I can do is boot from a Knoppix CD, and it runs fine. I can see the vista drive and all its contents from Knoppix. I?m pretty stumped on this one. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

This is my configuration;

Vista 64 Ultimate
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Intel DG965WH Motherboard
1GB Kingston PC2 5300
PNY Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT
Antec 500W Power Supply
LiteOn SATA DVD
Seagate 320GB SATA

Got a 3 Year subscription to LoJack with my dell M1330, I tried installing it today, it works fine, i create an account, but now its been *trying* to activate for over 3 hours! I saw in the review its done via internet explorer? mine is just an installer window!

Several minutes…cough several hours

Hi everyone,

Does anybody know how to reset the CMOS chip on a Sony Vaio VGN-T1XP? I’ve tried to download the user manual from Sony’s website but I can’t do it on a works PC and my Vaio was my only other web access, and I’m not even certain it would be in there!

I’ve read on other posts all over the web that it might not be as simple to do on a laptop as it is on a desktop by just swapping the jumpers or removing the battery.

I don’t even know where the CMOS battery is on this model though if it even has one.

Can anyone help me out? Just so you know, it’s because I don’t know the BIOS password and the PC wont get past post as it can’t find the OS, I need to re-install but can’t set it to boot from CD. I got the laptop off my mate who set the BIOS password and now he’s gone to live in Cyprus!

Hey,

Been a long time since I posted here So my 3500+ A64 system has died and rather than fiddle around trying to fix it I have decided to upgrade. I would like to have waited for a while to upgrade, but I really need a computer for uni so I need to get this done ASAP. I was wondering if you guys had any thoughts on what I have put together? Have I done anything blatantly retarded? Been out of the scene for a while

I am looking to play upcoming games like Crysis and Bioshock on my 2405FWP, which is why I am going for the quad core over an E6850. The mobo I chose because it looks like I will have a reasonable upgrade path with it in the future.

I am just using an 8600GT as an interim card until the next gen of dx10 cards come out. I am a little unsure about 2GB vs 4GB ram. Seems for now on 32bit a good 2GB pair is what you want? I’m not really prepared to run 64bit vista just now to really take advantage of the 4GB.

So here is my list! Any advice/thoughts would be great! Thanks in advance!

Intel Q6600
Asus Striker Extreme
Corsair T2X2048-64C4DHX 4-4-4-12 timings
OCZ 850w gamexstream
8600GT, asus atm -256mb but any point in the 512?
2 X 500GB seagate 7200.10
Vista Ultimate 32bit (upgrading from win2k)

I’m trying to find this mobo, and i went to Gigabyte’s website to look at the various web retailers that it says carry this and not a single one does. The only thing i can find is Tweaktown’s review back in April and the recommendation by this month’s issue of Computer Shopper. I do not want the S3H version, only the mATX which is the S2H. Thanks in advance for anyone who helps me with this find
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