lorddraxar

You're starting from Windows 98 SE? No wonder you got crashing problems... For that Linux thing however... Keep in mind that while most of Linux distributions like Mandrake, Fedora Core or SUSE are simple to use, Linux is still more complicated than Windows so you may want to read a little about linux before starting, otherwise you could get stuck. As for the hardware... Linux is not exactly power hungry and should run on any Pentium (or 386 in some distros) with about 128Mb of RAM. The specs you got will require you to use hardware based encoders unless you want frame skips when recording in DVD quality. The program you are looking for is MythTV. I do not use it however because I got an Adaptec VideOh card, and SageTV does a much better job, however it only runs on Windows... but since it's JAVA based, maybe they will make it available to Linux (cross fingers). MythTV can use either software encoding or hardware encoding. But in your case, unless VideoCDs are your only targets, you must use a hardware encoder. I sugget Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 or PVR-350 for they are supported under Linux. They also produce DVD quality MPEG2 streams. For the game thing, WineX is the program you need. It's now called Cedega and made by Transgaming. For the DOS based games, try DOSBox, but that one requires a fast CPU, since you got 1Ghz, you might be able to run old games but it will probably require some tweaking. For running Age of Empires, Cedega should do more than it's job. You only need dual boot if you actually want to KEEP Windows. If you choose to do so, Windows will be selectable from GRUB (a menu that will appear before starting your operating system). A Linux switch is viable only if you know what you're doing. Most of the time, little configuration will be required, but since you want to do PVR, I suggest you read documentation before trying. If you are a computer newbie, maybe you should resort to WinXP. That one doesn't hang too often (I'm suprised you still use Win98 with such machine!).

Well, to make them work you actually need two things. First, the emulators, but you already got these right? Since your computer most likely does not have a compatible interface to read the cartridge containing the game, you will have to "dump" it into a binary file. These are commonly called roms. There are two way of getting these. First you can get a special piece of hardware that can read the cartridge. But these are becoming difficult to get. ... or you may try to seek these images on the net. However nobody can help you with this. With a bit of imagination you will most likely get some. The CD based consoles aren't that hard however since your CD (or DVD) drive can read the original CDs. Try not to use copies these usually don't work that well anyway. Hope that does help!

You can go for an advanced PVR card with built in MPEG chips. The problem with most of these card are the use of proprietary software. Since the card itself cost a lot, the softwares are buggy and in almost every case, you are stuck with it. I personnaly got a ADS Instant DVD... these make very good looking movies in realtime but you got only two or three capture programs... And drivers aren't that good. But I manage to always get it working... These might actually be too much trouble for you. In fact since you only want to make very good transfert of your home movies, get any TV card which support high resolution and use a program that makes MPEG afterward like TMPEGEnc. Realtime encoding can never be better than slow two pass software encoding. Realtime encoding cards are better with VERY casual use... like me I use it as a VCR and fill books of CD each year. The Ati TV Wonder looks an attractive choice but better stay away from it... I got one and the drivers aren't especially spectacular, and it only does 240 line vertical maximum. It can be unlocked with an open source drivers but it adds a lot of garbage. Not very good. The Canopus ADVC-100 is a wonderful card that would give you standard DV feed but it's over your budget (250$)... Next are ASUS TV Tuner cards... only 50$ if you look well.. These got good reviews and are cheap... You can even make realime capture if you choose a good software (but these does not include MPEG chip inside) but they do full DVD resolution (752 * 480) Oh my! I'm writing a new Lord of the Rings there... Time to shut up! Hehe Hope it give some you some clues

Blue leds, laser and such looks much better if the center of the case is free from wires. So I just bought a box of plastic ties, and ran all the wires along the case sides, I had to install a few hooks for it to be perfect, but if you have long enough cable, no cable should be able to obstruct the window. I have an Enermax myself and the cables are long enough to be run along the side below the powersupply and horizontally out of the window, but you need to install your drive in the upper part of the case. I did on a ChenMing full tower case, so should be feasible on any case I guess hehe (except for giant server cases hehe)

Basically, you're trying to boot a partition that is on a different disk than your first... Unfortunately, Windows Bootloader has some inherent limitations. Altough you can do the boot sector trick to boot another partition in the same disk, going to another disk probably require a better bootloader. You could try xOSL, available freely at www.xosl.org, it uses an entirely graphical interface and should prove very useful. It has almost the full power of LILO but you don't have to edit any config.

Well I had this problem very long ago... Didn't use Win98 for years but this was caused by a bad motherboard driver... Update all of your drivers. You might also check your ACPI settings in the BIOS setup. This issue can be resolved with better drivers I already had it. And you only need to turn off your CPU for about 10 seconds really. The hardware is long dead by then... If it's not the case, you should check the temperature inside the case too...

Usually if the machine is well configured, you will see a USB 2.0 Hub under the Universal Serial Bus tree in the Device Manager. The name may vary especially if you got a ViA based motherboard.

I've tried buth card and for the price, I'd say you're better off with a Radeon 9000... This card is cheap, is DirectX 8 compliant, yes the pixel shaders work with the new Catalyst drivers... The GeForce 4MX seems to be slower, most of the time you can't tell the difference. However the Geforce4 is DIrectX7 so you'll lose quite a bunch of very nice effects! And no, you don't need to plug it to the supply and it doesn't seem to be power hungry. I even ran it with a 250W PSU... BUT you might check the Magic FX... of the GeForce FX5200. It performs much better and it's not much more costy.

Well I finally got it... Worked far better than expected. The popping issue is gone. Buffer are okay even got some new environnemental presets wow... at least got to have some fun with them about 2 minutes... Not so many games use this extensively hehe. Just hope the Instant DVD works okay again but I guess it will... Will know tomorrow when I record this week's Robotwars Long live to Mr. Psycho!!!

Well I assume you are running Windows XP... Most of the time, the black screens are due to video drivers problems or sometimes old functions no longer supported. What video card have you got? You should check you have the latest drivers. A little visit on Windows Update shouldn't hurt too. In the setup of Diablo II, disable Direct 3D acceleration. Anyway you will see VERY little improvement. You could also try to lower the acceleration level of your video card. For that right-click on an empty location of your desktop and chose properties. Then go to settings and chose advanced. Go to Troubleshooting and lower the acceleration level. See if it solves your problem!

About a week ago my Sound Blaster Live! Value (hey the 1st model) burnt so now I get to work with the integrated CMedia audio card. Problem is noise ratio, with crackling during volume changes (winamp, games)... and even worse very very bad buffers so sound breaks in Morrowind and such. To add to the burden, the ADS Instant DVD stopped working like a charm because the clock of the integrated card is *very* bad. So, I decided I need a card. It's my sound system after all! I got access to a local store that sells Audigy 2 OEM cards for an affordable price (very), but I'm wondering... I got an ASUS A7V333... amazing board but I had problems with VIA chipsets and it got a VIA KT333 chipset. Question is: Does the Audigy 2 card produce the same crackling, distortion and even sound difformation found on the Live Value serie on VIA chipsets? And is the NT kernel support better than the Live serie? Would be glad to hear from your experiences!! By the way here's my system summarized: ASUS K7V333 ASUS GeForce FX 5200 128Mb RAM 512 Mb RAM DDR Macronix Ethernet Network Adapter 10/100 ATi TV Wonder VE ADS Instant DVD Back-UPS CS 350 Chenming Black Tower Enermax 350W Power Supply (two fans) the other devices are irrelevant

IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL is typically an hardware failure, or a driver failure. I would be surprised if a simple program would do that. FIrst I would update the network card drivers to the latest as they might handle some strange behavior rather badly. Some program also uses drivers to extend their possibilities. While these drivers don't point to any hardware, a programming error may trigger this. Are you using some anti-virus to filter your sent mail? You may also want to update Pegasus Mail and/or opera. Altough they are different products, they may share a common "driver"

Eh well in Tools / Internet Options / Security Check the Security Level of Internet If you are running a firewall try disabling it to see if it works better.

Well if you don't have a UPS I strongly recommend you do get one, the base models are inexpensives. Unlike what most people think turning off the hard drive on a workstation is a bad idea. Most drives die because the motor starter breaks, the bearing at the center of the disk inside the drive isn't supposed to pose any problems before minimum of 5 years... 50 years in the more expensive disks... I personally never seen a drive die because the bearing was too much used. I did however see many drives with starters broken. I just have 4 stacked in drawers, the data surface is perfect but they won't start anymore. (well they do if I try a lot of times, not very usable) Your motherboard is also made of several circuits panel glued together. The current PCBs got 4 or 5 stages of circuitry. Big variations of temperature will tend to wear off the board. But turning it on 24/24 also have some dangers which can be resolved. First make sure your motherboard will shut down if your CPU temperature gets too high. Life expectancy of your fans are the lowest. Unless you are on a very tight budget, it's a good idea to replace the fans every year. Also watch your temperature sometimes, a good rise of temperature usually predict trouble with your components.

I guess you won't see any improvement. It's like asking if you would get a better image output on your TV if you plugged it with a S-Video to RCA connector. The converter just keep the needed signal to your VGA monitor and throw away the unneeded info.