Alien

You shoulda added an option that said "Morrowind? what's that, something you wake up with after having an indian takeaway the night before?"

Thanks, but it didn't work. I added the necessary lines to that file & saved it & even made it Read Only again, but it still wouldn't let me delete it. I don't mean it deleted it then put it back, I mean it wouldn't even let me delete it in the 1st place. It just gave me an error message saying that it couldn't delete it as it was in use by another program!?! I tried rebooting to see if that was required for the contents of that .XML file to take effect, but it made no difference, so I tried deleting it in Safe Mode & that time it deleted without any bother....until I got back into normal Windows & there it was again!

Quote: But as IRQ 10 isnt use for any of the system board stuff like system timer, hard drive controllers, USB ports then there is a very good chance that this can be done... I hope so. I've had another idea as well - I could try removing the card, turning on the PC long enough for it to POST, tell it to reset the errrmmm..oh bugger, forgotten the name of it off the top of my head - that thingy under PCI/PNP in the BIOS, then turning off & putting the card back in. I'll have to record this on my VCR to find out what IRQ it's on as it flashes by too quickly to read. If doing that doesn't work then I'll have to see if doing without ACPI solves the problem. The thing that makes it worse is that it's not predictable - it doesn't seem to be caused by any noticeable event. Someitmes I can watch a couple of hours of recorded video files [i sometimes use my PC as a VCR, as my actual VCR no longer records in stereo] without probs, but then other times it doesn't last more than about 10 seconds before the sound goes, & then I have to reboot to get it back. Funnily enough when I 1st [re]installed XP after getting new mobo & CPU it was on 10, even in Device Manager, but so was my network card. I tried uninstalling & reinstalling the network card [physically as well as in Device Manager], but when I reinstalled it it kept going back to 10 [@ least that's what it showed up as in Windows - that blasted virtual IRQ thing certainly confuses the issue when you're trying to troubleshoot].

Srory

Quote: 1. Aureal cards and 2K/XP are not the best combination...even without throwing ACPI into the mix. Oh bugger. Quote: 2. Your board is old. Yes it is old. I kinda knew that, but didn't think it was that old. Quote: 3. You can have hibernation without ACPI. I've done it. You can? cool....how? Quote: 5. Go to the store. Stick an Audigy in. If it fixes your problems then keep it. If it doesn't then return it. It's really that simple. Well if you can return it. <sigh> I would if I had the money, only just bought new mobo & CPU & that kinda cleaned me out financially.

No it is not that hard to understand - I understand it perfectly well, the point I was trying to make is that my soundcard doesn't seem to understand this. Whilst other devices in my system don't seem to mind all pretending they're on the same IRQ [or allowinbg Windows to do so] it seems that my soundcard needs to genuinely be on the IRQ that it wants [10], either that or it doesn't like sharing an IRQ - which it may or may not be doing as I can't see what IRQ's their really using cos of the whole ACPI/virtual IRQ thing. A. Greetings to the Society for Unnecessarily Patronising People

Just to clear things up - 128MB of RAM is not the prob as I buiit a cheap system for a m8 that had only 128MB RAM & a Duron 800 & it certainly didn't take 10mins to start up. He even plays Counterstrike on it - or @ least he did until he moved to somewhere that doesn't have cable yet [he hasn't got a dial-up modem either]. Edit: although it's always good to have as much RAM as you can get your hands on, I was just trying to point out that having only 128MB RAM wouldn't by itself cause XP to take 10 mins to start up.

So to sum up what's been said in this thread - I can have ACPI & the ability to use hibernation & have my soundcard cease to function @ random, often within a couple of mins [sometimes it's less than 30 seconds] of starting to watch a video file or play a game - OR I can do without ACPI & hibernation & hopefully be able to get my soundcard [Videologic Sonic Vortex 2] on IRQ10, on it's own, as opposed to being on 12 with a bunch of other stuff as it is now. Is this right?

Or there's SpeedFan. Aside from the usual fan speed monitoring & CPU & system temps, it can also monitor the temp of some HDDs, & on some motherboards can vary the speed of the fans [like a fanbus] & change the FSB.

Thanks guys - I got Kazaa Lite last night & am using that. It still causes the occasional ad window to pop-up like the old version of Morpheus used to, but @ least it works ok.

What on earth for?

Quote: PS: I should've known better about buying something from ATI, hehe Speak for yourself My Radeon 64MB DDR ViVo works nicely as a substitute for a VCR - even @ DVD resolution. Ok, so I had probs with my previous mobo, but I think that was the mobo @ fault, not the Radeon.

That yours? Cool.

IIRC the trick is to make sure that once you have your settings the way you want them to make sure you hit Refresh before you use the Apply to All Folders function. Since I started doing this back on 98SE I haven't had any probs with it.

By any chance are you using a 3rd party firewall [eg ZoneAlarm, BlackIce, or Norton] & have you given it permission to access the net in the firewall's options?

I've just completed my 1st proper mod on my system - put a 92mm fan where the manufacturer had only made holes for an 80mm, just behind the CPU, & cut out a nice big hole instead of the piddly little original ones. @ 1st I only drilled new mounting holes enlarged the existing blow holes a bit, but I decided to go the whole hog & make a nice big hole & since doing that my CPU & system temps have dropped by a few degrees. I also covered up any holes not directly in use with fans, so as to try & keep the airflow going through the case better in the way it's supposed to. Still gotta do some front fan holes & ducts.

There's also the fact that if you have your PC in the same room as your TV & your PC is upto spec for playing DVDs on your TV, with the exception of actually having a DVD drive, then it's cheaper to buy a DVD drive than it is to buy a standalone player.

No, not all the time it doesn't, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned NN.

Actually it's more to do with the websites. I don't know what causes it, but sometimes when you find 1 of these sites & IE only wants to save it as a .bmp file, if you right click on the image & select properties it still says it's a .jpg file. The only way I know around this is to try loading the page with Netscape Navigator instead of IE, then right click on the image, choose View Image, then save the image. This is the 2nd of the only 2 useful things that NN can do that IE can't - the 1st being the abiliity to enlarge all text, rather than just variable sized fonts [comes in handy when you get daft webmasters who use fixed size fonts].

I think XP appears to be afflicted with a minor dose of the same thing that ailed ME - that on some systems it solves hardware probs, but on others it creates new ones. I like the GUI, just not the default Style, so I use StyleXP & the Coughdrop Style with the Grape theme. I'll agree with you about the stupid dog though, thank goodness for TweakUI. As to the Start Menu - I think it's great - takes a little bit of getting used to, simply because it's different than it's predecessor, but once you get the hang of it I find it actually makes life much easier. You don't have to mess around with a 3rd party tweak progs to get menus on there of Control Panel, My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, etc - it's all within easy reach. In fact, AFAIK, Control Panel & I think Favorites were the only ones you could have cascading from the start menu in 9x/ME - dunno about 2k though. The Pin to Start Menu function is useful as well, as it means that you don't have to have as many things cluttering up your Quick Launch bar.

So far my 30GB 75GXP has been ok, <crosses fingers & touches wood> but it does tend to get a bit warm. It's currently @ about the coolest it gets, 35&degC, which is because my room is fairly cool @ the mo. When stressed though, such as whilst defragging, it can go upto 45&degC. & as to all the reports etc about probs with IBM - they have been enough to put me off buying another for the forseeable future. The next drive I want [if they're still available by the time I have the money for 1!] is 1 of those 8MB cache "special edition" Western Digital drives.

IBM? Big mistake! Do a bit more research dude.

Quote: Also, Alien, i have my system as FAT32 right now, and to me that seems like it would be the problem, but you should be able to set permissions without having it as NTFS, but i dont know. Ill have to look into it, or if any one out there knows, let me know. AFAIK, security options & permissions are an integral part of NTFS, but not of FAT32. I've never heard of anyone being able to do what you want with FAT32.

Quote: Yep, buy the fastest one there is / you can afford, and then overclock the heck out of it !! H. & don't forget plenty of cooling - I'd love to up my FSB, but not until I manage to get my CPU temp down a bit though.

Errr... just 1 thing....are you using FAT32 or NTFS? Reason I ask is that I'd heard that those options were only available with NTFS. I could easily be wrong though, as I don't have any need for that function.