freddy

Thanks, I'll check everything out

I thought this would be a simple one, but I can't find exactly what I'm looking for. I'm just looking for a cable or small device that converts the VGA out on my video card to composite or S-Video in on my TV. I just want my computer to run on my TV screen. Incase your wondering, I'm not trying to do my word processing on a huge 42 inch TV screen I value my eyesight! I'm thinking of buying one of these - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/MSI_barebones.html and rather then standing a monitor next to my TV in my living room I want to be able to do it on my TV. Anyone know where I could get such a cable? Or what exists that could do this? I could get a Video card with TV out couldn't I? Thanks, FREDDY

Thanks. I think I would rather wait until I can afford a top of the range AGP card with TV-out. A cheap one would work, but I'd rather get the USB device I put in my last post, that can be used on any computer and I'm sure it would come in handy for use with a laptop too. FREDDY

It's funny, I often end up replying to my own threads with my own answer Must be the time difference, if I post in the morning here in the UK the view count slowly pushes up...maybe to 10 views by the afternoon...then once it hits 3:00pm...when you lot are just getting to work or just logging on...the views shoot right up. By which time I've done a little more research and found something for myself. I guess it reveals a lazy trait in me! 8) By the way here’s the product I found http://maplin.co.uk/products/module.asp?moduleno=35258&modulecode= FREDDY

I'm thinking about getting a network laser printer, just a reasonably priced Mono laser with 10/100 Ethernet built in. Am I right in thinking I don't need to connect this type of printer to a computer, I can just plug it into a hub/router, and then the other computers on the network will be able to print to it? I know how network printers work etc., but I have only ever used them on a server based network. In this case there is no server, just a peer to peer hub based network. Does this type of printer still work the same - just configure the printer with an IP, or assign it with the DHCP router - then connect to it through the normal way in XP/2000? Would I connect to it through a TCP/IP port? FREDDY

Ok this may seem a little complicated but I'll try to explain. I've just installed an email server on my machine with 10 different mailboxes. I've got another piece of software that collects the POP email from the ISP and delivers it to the correct mailbox on the email server. At the moment I've got it set up to collect the email from 10 different email accounts on the ISP, and then deliver them to the correct 10 mailboxes on the email server. This works fine, but... I should be able to just pick up all the email from ONE POP account on the ISP, then let the email server split different addresses into different mailboxes...this way I could create my own mailboxes internally here, without having to buy extra POP accounts from the ISP. How do I do this? Do I need to speak to my ISP and get them to change anything? The software (POPcon) that picks up the email from the ISP can forward it to a specific address on the mail server, that's what its doing at the moment. Is it possible to just collect all the email at e.g. anything@domain.com then get the mail server to split it into serperate mailboxes. The mail server I'm using is MailEnable. FREDDY

Hi all, I connect to my work computer from home using Remote Desktop. At work I have a Router that redirects port 3389 to my work computer's IP. It all works fine. But now someone else at work wants to do Remote Desktop to his work machine from his home. Is there anyway to do this? FREDDY

Thanks for your help, I like the simplicity of your solution Franz I will give it a try! FREDDY

Is there anything thats reliable, and does the job, for half that price?? May be asking a bit much!

Also a very good site http://www.afterdawn.com Specifically DVD to VCD ripping - http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/archive/dvd2vcd_with_smart_dvd2avi_tmpgenc.cfm FREDDY

Thanks, just the info I was looking for...I will take a look at the printer you recommend FREDDY

This is a real annoyance I've been struggling with for ages. I have a router at home, and the same router at work. From home I use a Windows XP network connection to dial up to my work LAN through VPN - just a standard VPN connection. It all works fine but the problem is - when im connected all my local internet traffic on my home computer switches over to using the remote router. Obviously it slows the internet down a lot, and uses excess bandwidth on the internet connection at work. I've tried changing the TCP/IP settings on the VPN connection at home - manually assigning an IP address and DNS for the VPN connection, but all internet traffic still goes through the remote connection. Does anyone know how I can stop it sending all local internet traffic to the remote router? Thanks, FREDDY

Thanks for your replies, both are valid points. That's cleared things up for me. FREDDY

A problem thats been bugging me for weeks now. On an XP machine here, everytime you enter a word in the address bar of internet explorer it doesnt just open the search page etc... it just opens a windows installer. No idea what it's trying to install and no idea how to stop it. Have to end the task. Any ideas?

Fixed It was Norton AV causing problems again! I do like NAV, been using it for a long time with no problems but recently I've discovered it's not a good idea to let other people uninstall it. Unless they follow the uninstall properly it can leave behind a lot of problems. FREDDY

I got home from work yesterday to suddenly find my primary slave (120GB IBM drive), wasnt working. Windows XP on my 40GB Seagate master drive said the 120GB wasnt formatted and was empty. I checked it with partition magic and it shows 60GB of data still there but the error check says "too many errors". Upon a reboot XP still doesnt recognize it as formatted (FAT32 formatted). I've never trusted IBM drives and not this one...it makes the odd strange noise...like the motor jams and then frees again. Anyway here is the weird thing...my other removable drive is running windows 98. Booting up on this drive it reads the 120GB no problem at all. A scan disk found a prob but fixed it. So, how do I get XP to see the data, how do I fix the partition? I've got a replacement drive anyway because it's clearly got a fault, even if I fix it, it will likely happen again. What I don't understand is why windows 98 can see the drive and work with the data on it without any errors, yet windows XP (the superior operating system??) can't see any data or fix it, and neither can partition magic!

As it happens I was put off WD too because I got 3 bad drives in a row a couple of years ago...from that batch that was going around. Put me off WD. Everyone seems to throw out a bad batch now and then so I think your right, it's just luck of the draw. I don't have an installation CD for the IBM drive but I will take a look on their site for any repair utilities, that's a good suggestion. FREDDY

Oh by the way, I'm replacing the 120GB,7,200rpm,ATA100 IBM drive with the equivalent Maxtor drive. Do Maxtor have a good reputation and good reliability?

CHKDSK from the Recovery Console said soemthing like "the drive has unrecoverable errors". But the Windows 98 still reads it fine, so that's the way I'll proceed. Excellent to know you can make the recovery console a boot option, I will do that. FREDDY

Well thats cleared that up, thanks It was definately worth turning it off. FREDDY

It has to be PAC-MAN! I remember the long nights on my Commodore64 in the dark running from the mean ghosts chasing pac-man only to eat him!

Can you open Task Manager when this happens...or have it open ready...to see what process is using CPU time during this 30 seconds? As it's a regular occurance that happens for 30 seconds or so you should be able to narrow it down if there is some background process causing excessive CPU usage. Quote: Are you running System Restore there &/or indexing service actively? Alec, what exactly does the indexing service do? I think I've turned it off anyway. Am I right in thinking it just speeds up searching the harddisk, by caching locations of files etc. or something like that?

Thanks for your help, I will try a native chkdsk from XP CD. Fortunately it IS my backup drive (not that fortunate if my other drives should fail though!) so its not catastrophic. I would like to retrieve the 30GB of DivX movies I have accumilated on there though Might just have to boot up with windows 98 and get them off from there. But would be nice, and be easier to back up, if I can get XP reading it. Thanks for your replies. FREDDY

No problem. It's always best to err on the side of more rather than less when it comes to power, good not to be using 100% of the power supply too. For a high performance system 400W should be the minimum. You cant go wrong with 500 though FREDDY

Actually I think this is a better guide http://www.pcpowercooling.com/maxpc/index_cases.htm Just use the max wattage that they give for everything, or the middle if you have several of something (i.e. pci cards). That way you should come up with an estimated PSU value that would adequately do you.