Palos

Also try to unbind and uninstall the QoS service from your Network properties. This baby reserves quite a bit of bandwidth for itself; on a DSL/cable pipe it won't hurt that much, but on 56k/ISDN you DON'T want that

Microsoft should be sued for claiming that the WMP included in XP can play DVD content. It is NOT true, you still need a 3rd party decoder. IS THERE A LIMIT TO LYING AND DISINFORMING YOUR CUSTOMER BASE ???????????

Does it matter what she watches? Fact is, XP doesn't boot anymore, lol

Make sure you leave free the first PCI slot down from the AGP, because they share an IRQ. Other than that, I think you should find more useful things to do if you got so much time on your hands

Are you talking about x86 architectures here? If not, pick any SUN mainboard, including the hot-swappable babies with 4 UltraSPARC III CPUs support on the E10000

Welcome to the wonderful world of Sysadmins... http://www.plig.net/things/adminspotting.html

Maybe you're using an old ATA33 cable, with 40 pins instead of 80.

Reboot and try again...I had problems like this with XP Pro and small .avi files I was making. They wouldn't go away, even if I refreshed the folders.

I use XP Home OEM, and I have no problems with .zip files. It also runs very nice, the only problem I get is sometimes when I exit Counter-Strike (OGL mode), the desktop freezes (with 21.83 dets). I have no VIA 4in1s installed, no patches except whatever Windows Update recommended me. Did any of you tried and tested the built-in firewalling? I use Norton Personal FW 2002, but you know how it is: if the feature is already built-in, I hate to use something extra. How does the built-in FW compare to other products (port stealthing & scanning, ping sweeps or SYN floods/attacks). I use mIRC quite a lot, plus the usual ICQ/MSN messengers...having a DSL flatrate puts me at risk much more than the occasional "dial-up". I keep my IP for 24 hours at a time, so that's plenty of time for sniffing me around

To round up things, I would say that the Athlon is a very good and fast CPU, but it's a pity that there are no stable chipsets out there. The Intel CPUs are maybe a bit slower than the Athlons, but the platforms are solid. Of course there is a price tag difference, but isn't it always that you get what you pay for? If I would buy something now, I'd go for the EpoX i845 DDR chipset, coupled with a P1.5 or such (they got it to 1.98 GHz without stability problems). I think the new P4s are more overclock-friendly due to the .13 micron process, therefore less heat and stress on the components. I saw a P4 2.2 GHz lifted to 3.1 GHz already...ain't that a kick

You don't really need the 4-in-1s...I didn't install them at all, and I have minimal problems (sometimes desktop freezes when I exit an OpenGL game). I use the 21.81 Dets, and got all the possible updates from the Windows Update site. That's it really

Hmm, so it's doable. I've got an EpoX 8KHA, a good board, but I seem to have to stability problems at 1T as well. As far as the DDR chips go, the RAM chips themselves are Samsung, but I'm not sure if the RAM PCB is Samsung as well....I bought them listed as "Major 3rd" RAM. I use now the "normal" memory timings, and it's very stable. The only lock-ups I experience nowadays (XP Home OEM) are graphics related, desktop freeezes (but not every time) when I exit an OpenGL game...GF2MX-400 with Dets 21.81.

Do yours take it well at CAS 2? Mine aren't too stable, so I leave it @ CAS 2.5

Lol @ Brian...dude if you find such a patch, please let me know. I'm running 2x256 MB Samsung DDR myself

The contact list of MSN Messenger is saved on the server side (i.e MSN). You can try to delete contacts, i guess...

Be aware that XP Pro has a built-in user account, named Microsoft Support Delete that crap immediately...

I have a VIA/AMD combo right now, but for my next PC I think I'll go for P4 and DDR. Intel chipset, too... I'm tired of patching and re-patching my VIA system every other weekend

As far as OS design goes, I would pick MacOS X over any *nix OS out there. That is if Darwin gets ported to x86, which is unlikey (there is actually a port on the Apple Developer site, but *very* limited to Intel hardware). Cocoa (i think) looks just amazing compared to lame a$$ KDE or Gnome, so it's already a step in window managers on *nixes. With Microsoft porting Office to MacOS, we can only expect more MS "flagship" products to be ported in the future. Why didn't they do the same for Linux? Because there is no Linux, Inc. to be bought

VIA posted a patch for the onboard audio controller a while back. Did you try that yet? www.viaarena.com

"or sudden reboots, for those of you who have BSODs turned off" MUHAHAHHAHAHHA...BSODs turned OFF!!! That would be the checkbox of the millenium, hrhrhrhr.

Im sorry to say, but the Apple cases have "coolness" written all over them...don't you think they look better and fancier than any other dumb PC casing? The Cube looked wicked at least...

Have you tried it with BattleCom ? Does the sound echo, pops and cracks like it did before?

If you simply want Internet access on the other PCs, as well as SOCKS and FTP support, check: http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/proxy.htm SImple and quick, that's what I used with 2 PCs over a DSL connection.

OpenGL is way faster for me too. For some reason, in Direc3D I get dismal performance, around 30 FPS, while in OGL the sky's the limit (actually I limit it to 85) I use the 21.81s and I noticed that when I change the bitdepth OGL uses, along with the Vsync (on/off), the game locks up on exit. No BSOD, just freezes...I haven't narrowed it down to one or the other, but I'll test it more tonight.

Depends on what you use your PC for. It's cool to have the latest & greatest, but also your wallet can take a big hit I chose XP Home, because I don't really need any of the extra features Pro offers.