jmmijo

Thanks Philip

Well most likely you need to adjust the system BIOS settings from AUTO to Enhanced mode for the IDE/SATA controller ports. I can't remember what keyboard option at the POST screen is to get into a Dell, but try some of these and see if they work or not: F2, F4, F10, F12 or even the DEL keys. You may or may not find this option in the Advanced Chipset section, sometimes under the Integrated Peripherals section. Once you have changed this option, then Save & Exit and you should be able to see up to (6)Six devices.

Originally posted by dosfreak: Quote: Is it possible to get rid of the 1-300+ page numbers. Most sites do the standard 1-10, and then have the "Next Page", "Last Page" options. I doubt anyone actually clicks through each and every page...unless they are really really bored. I second this, as long as Philip does not add a "∞" button EDIT: OK, I'm perplexed now, how do you display extended ASCII characters in posts ? I wanted to display the symbol for google but ASCII 236 doesn't appear, noe even inside quotes

To the best of my knowledge, the S.M.A.R.T. option is something to do with newer HD's that have this active feature built into them. It's a way to tell the user upon reboots or power on's that there are now one or more media defects on the HD plater(s) and that attention to this is important before you lose any data However, why does this behave badly with some drives, I'm not really sure. Hopefully somebody with more knowledge about this could chime in here.

OK first off, is this an onboard sound card ?!? If so then double check that all the options for the sound are enabled in the system BIOS, this means both the AC97 onboard sound being enabled along with the MIDI port too. If this is a secondary or expansion card, then do you have the onboard sound disabled ?!? This can cause all kinds of conflicts if you don't. Another possibility is that you need to update your motherboard chipset drivers, what kind of motherboard do you have ?!? Make/Model that is. You can find the latest drivers from the chipset manufacturers website, be it an Intel, VIA, SiS, ULI/ALI chipset. Sometimes the default Windows drivers may not be good enough so these have to be installed too.

@poopster, have you checked in the system BIOS and noted if the S.M.A.R.T. HD option is enabled or disabled ?!? I've found that sometimes this causes problems when it's Enabled, I'm not sure why but it occasionaly does Also note that a possible HD issue could be occuring however, you would need to have a spare HD for testing purposes of course.

I personally own an X700 Pro along with an X800 Pro for my gaming rig. The X700 model is very good for the price, well at least here in the states you can get the X700 Pro with 256MB of frame buffer for about $200. When I was pricing the 6600 GT, I found some for about $250. What you need to look at is some of the basic specs for each GPU and of course look at some sites like Toms Hardware Guide and the like that performance rate the different GPU's. You may find that a few frames differnce will not really be apparent on your machine except for the pricing of each card of course I've heard good things about both the current gpu's from ATi and nVidia so you mainly are going to vote with your pocket book. If you can get a 9800 Pro for dirt cheap, this is still a very good card, just doesn't have the extra GPU features that both the GeForce 6 series and the X6/7/8 series have.

You could try reinstalling the latest nForce chipset drivers, the graphics card drivers, DX9.0c, audio drivers and anything else you have in your system, just to be sure. I would first however, d/l them anew and burn them onto a new CD-R just in case

You're welcome, of course you'll know for sure when you've been running the machine for an extended period of time

OK, well there can be issues when overclocking as this means you are pushing the speed faster then what the manufacturer has tested that part at. So this could be an issue for sure, be sure to clock at the specified speed/rating and see what happens. Also note that overclocking produces more heat, which is power, this translates into using more power or current draw from the PS and other parts in the computer

Yes, at this point you need to try out another PS. Do you have anybody you know that has a spare lying around ?!? I personally always have a couple of spare PS's lying about for testing and the like. Of course since I build these things for a living I have access to any make/model I want to get

I'm afraid you have an AGP only motherboard there, check out HP's website for more info on the specs for this machine. Also note, you should be able to find nVidia 6200/6600/6800 graphics cards for AGP, don't look at just eVGA branded cards Also note that a 6200 AGP costing the same as a 6600 PCIe is rediculous, however, I think some vendors may have short supplies on hand and are basically gouging the customers I would also recommend looking at the ATi X600/X700 series graphics cards. If you live in the states then check out any CompUSA store as they have the X700 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory for $200, in both AGP and PCIe formats

Also note that some Athlon motherboards has a FSB(Front Side Bus) jumper block to set instead of a BIOS setting so check this out as well. It would help to review the motherboard manual, either the printed one or if it's an online PDF doc on your drivers CD.

Originally posted by HuntTheShunt: Quote: Originally posted by jmmijo: Quote: You may have inadvertently disabled/turned off something. You could look for a factory default settings button/option in your router and see if that helps or not. I was thinking of PC software/operating system/Registry settings that control ports/ip's Novice question:- Does an exe open a port or does the operating system open ports? Depends on the app I suppose, however, with my limited coding skills, I'm going to say that the OS does this at the request of said application. Having said this it's a mute point of your hardware firewall filters these TCP/UDP packets from said port(s).

You may have inadvertently disabled/turned off something. You could look for a factory default settings button/option in your router and see if that helps or not. Since I have a seperate RCA/Thompson Cable Modem and then a Linksys Router/Gateway, I basically only have to monitor and configure my Linksys unit. Once in awhile the cable company will inform me of a speed increase and you have to power cycle your modem to get the new DOCSIS configs from them. Nice having a 4Mb downstream now

See if the tips/tricks that AZ recommended will help resolve this issue. Also be sure to update your motherboard chipset software too, I beleive that's an nVidia nForce motherboard so grab the latest drivers on their website too. Another thing to try, although a more costly option, is to get a third party sound card with a different audio chipset, I myself prefer the Sound Blaster Audigy line, but you can find so many others out there based on Cmedia, Realtek, Analog Devices, etc.... Be sure you uninstall the Realtek AC97 drivers first then enter the system BIOS to disable the onboard AC97 and Midi Interface. Just remember that a high-end game like HL2 really eats up the power on a machine, the CPU, GPU, Memory and Sound

Originally posted by HuntTheShunt: Quote: Originally posted by american zombie: Quote: I gave you the link in my other post. Click on the words Port Forward. Yes it is a good site and it is the one I used to check all my settings. But it seems that the problem is providing open ports. OK, just a thought here, you have actually tried removing your firewall/router from the network and connected directly to your broadband modem/router or is this an all in one unit including the broadband modem as well ?!? I'm just curious if indeed the problem still exists after removing something from the equation

Then goto DFI's webstite and see if the latest BIOS/Firmware is installed for that model. Then repeat the testing process out. After that you are down to the power supply to test out. So what is the make/model of the PS in your chassis ?!?

Well first off, what is the make/model of the motherboard ?!? You may want to check out the manufacturers website for any BIOS updates as these can many times fix some timing issues with different makes/models of memory modules. Also, are you using a pair of 256MB memory modules or a single 512MB stick ?!? If you're using a pair of memory sticks, then try removing one of the sticks and retest the machine for crashes. Perhaps a flaky stick of memory is causing this. Another thing you need to look at is the power supply, just because it says 300 watts does not mean it's really outputting that amount of power, is it a name brand PS unit ?!? One more possibility could be the HD itself, possibly some bad sectors/clusters or some other media defect. Of course you would want to do some destructive testing with some diags from Samsung's website, if they have any that is Most every manufacturer does have some kind of tool to do this kind of testing.

Well my Linksys router has a nice local Web interface for logging onto the router configuration settings. I'm assuming this one does too. Once you've logged onto the router you should be able to find an advanced setting that has something about the Port Forwarding. You may need to specify a range of port addresses or just a couple of them and usually you have to specify whether it's going to be used for TCP/IP and/or UDP packets. Do you have a manual for this router, perhaps an online PDF document that came on the CD with the router ?!? Also check out the manufacturers website for more info on this as well

OK, I knew somebody would come up with that type of a solution eventually

Hmm, not really sure what to suggest except perhaps reviewing some of those other forum sites for more info on this particular piece of malware. I can't say I've seen nor heard of this one but hey, there are so many now it's just plain hard to keep up with

A GOOGLE search seems to reveal quite a few possibilities on this one, not sure which, if any of these posts will help you out however as it seems that these malware producers breed like freaking rabbits Also, do you have the latest v1.4 build of Spybot Search and Destroy along with the latest spyware defs ?!? Are you using Spybot in the normal or advanced modes ?!? I always use the Advanced mode because you can then enable the hosts file protection and a bunch of other very useful options/features

You're asking for warez, this is not allowed on this forum, please read the rules, thanks P.S. I've seen many of the older Windows16/32 and even some DOS titles in bargain bin's at places like CompUSA, however, you may have to Google some of these titles to find them and most likely will only be able to find some of them on auction sites like eBay.

Have you tried upgrading to the latest Catalyst v5.6 drivers yet ?!? I would also recommend up[censored] to the latest chipset drivers for your motherboards chipset, Intel/Via/SiS etc... That seems rather low to me for HL2 anyways. As for the other games, not sure. I've not installed Doom3 yet and I don't own Far Cry