Cardinal

Hi guys. The title of this thread might seem foolish and it may even lead you to believe the 'postee' is a newbie but I assure you this is a genuine concern. I do not have a firewall installed. I do not have any anti-virus programs installed. I have not added any port specification and/or blocking (under my internet connection settings) In fact I have not really tweaked my network settings at all. That is to say, the settings have been put back to default since this problem began. The problem is, using ICQ, MSN messanger, MIRC or any other messanging program I am unable to send or receive files from other users. I don't get any unusual error message, other then 'A connection could not be established' Has anyone else suffered from this problem? I can not send any files at all, only text. And text goes through fine. I have not changed the settings in any of these programs. Everything is default. I am sure there is either something to do with my ISP (cable ISP) or a network setting. I just can't seem to figure this one out. It's damn annoying. Any ideas? Regards, - Card.

Well someone said Office from version 95 onwards is all the same. Aesthetically it might be similar, but underneath it is not at all. Word 2002 (XP) makes even writing essays a pleasure, (almost). I can't comment on stability issues yet. I have not used PowerPoint, FrontPage seems more of the same but Excel has also seen a lot of changes. As much as I hate promoting a Microsoft product this is miles ahead of any other 'Office' alternative. There is one problem that bothers me. I basically have to leave the Office cd in my cd rom drive as it asks to read from it almost every damn time I load an Office program! This is not for legality reasons but rather to install some new, unnamed component of Word, Excel or Outlook. Why is this? It's bullsh1t. It does not tell me what it is installing, or if I want to or not. The only option is to cancel. Is this Microsoft’s pathetic attempt to save hard disk space? It's crap. I should be able to install the program then bury the cd. Or at least put it away. This is almost like leasing the Office program, but not from the net, from the phucking cd! Pathetic Microsoft, absolutely pathetic. Addenum: Other things that suck; 1) Word considers 'cd' a spelling error. 2) Spell check takes 30 seconds to actually begin working. (Forget about a quick email anymore) - card

I can only hope that fixes the problem. Software problems in some ways are more frustrating for me then a hardware problem. I have been building systems for over 11 years now and have committed every stupid mistake in the book. I've burnt motherboards, killed power supplies, destroyed video cards etc. It's all a learning process for me and is often depressing. Especially when you kill a mobo and you just lose your job. Anyway the point of this rant is that during my many hardware forays’ the most common problem I have received is the one you mention. Complete lock ups. Now 80% of the time this can be a relationship between a program and a hardware item. How many times does a computer freeze while sitting at a true DOS prompt? Rarely. It's so frustrating to see this happen again and again. I remember one ABIT VIA chipset mobo I owned, this thing just loved to freeze. It turns out the chipset had a compatibility problem with the Riva card I was using. Things like these can not be corrected by a software adjustment. No one truly knows the level of compatibility between a motherboard and a peripheral. We can only learn by trial and error. I am merely stating this as I won't be surprised if your 'freezing' problem continues. By the way, a power supply can suffer from spikes or electrical inconsistencies, these can cause system crashes but more often then not your pc will reset, rather then freeze.

You should get a program called Ad-aware. It was originally called Optout but has been taken over by a German company called Lavasoft. It is still freeware and works well. The program scans your registry, files and more importantly, your cookies for spyware/adware. These entries are what is causing the popups. get it here - Card

LOL why would you want to? lol. "incoming message, I smell lot of bastards"

Interesting point Brian. I have heard many people say the Norton system check is a botched program and does more damage then it repairs. But I dunno, I have always used it in win98 and found it to be useful. I use in all, 3 other registry programs to clean up things along with Norton. I use Norton last. The Speed disk in Norton 2001 works quite well with W2k. What version of Norton have you used Brian? If I know you it would be the latest. Hmm.. An interesting point, I used the system check feature in Win2k and liked it for a while. Lets face it, Windows Whatever, had registry problems. A clean install with no programs doesn't. But add any program, ANY program and an error, or at least some inconsistencies appear in the registry. So to maintain optimal OS stability the registry does need to be repaired at some stage. The question is, which program does the job. Addenum: It's worth noting that while I did like Norton in w2k, one day when I turned my computer on expecting to see the usual Windows 2000 is starting up screen, I instead heard a clunk sound from my hdd and the pc reset. This happened constantly. I assumed I had a wrecked Hdd, so after formatting I installed 98 just to see. The install went fine and a surface scan showed no errors on my drive. So who, or what was to blame. Windows 2000? maybe. Norton? who knows.

Need for speed 4 won't work with W2k. I tried everything and it just refused to load up. Half life does, and it runs smooth as hell. Windows 2000 is a dream compared to any 9x version. But the change will no doubt bring problems. Relying solely on W2k for a gamer is sometimes a frustrating thing. The people will tell you in here that a gamer should not be using it. That argument is water, especially if you have tried Win ME (total sh1te) The problem is, you have this game, you install it and no matter what you do it does not work. In my opinion I'd rather dump the game then dump the OS. But it can mean a whole day of formatting and cd throwing just because of one game. Just be weary when taking that single OS leap.

At one stage I thought Hate and Damn were banned. (H8te & D@mn) ..... --------------- Edit: Guess not.

Hey All. I have ME running on one of the computers at home and ever since installing IE6 2465.0003 I have had a problem. Firstly I get a prompt saying Ie62456thecad.zip is not found. I have checked all the shortcunts, the registry and all the start up programs and have found nothing that could cause this error. And secondly, When I try to load Help and the html page opens I receive an error message 'This page can not be displayed' .... 'the page you are looking for is currently unavailable etc' So, somehow I think these problems are connected. Has anyone experienced this? - Card.

lol woops. I won't edit it, but It was a typo. Sorry to offend. As for the problem, don't tell me that no one else has had a problem with the help in windows ME?

Fair enough. I think on the whole the new forum software is much better. Jmd, sorry I didn't mean to sound like an arrogant wanker Chears - Card

Mary As far the resource problem is concerned there are many, many tweaks that will help. It will help if you actually specified what resources you mean. Memory I can only assume, or most like with winblows, 'Virtual memory'. Rather then list the tweaks here, I will post a few links to some great guides. Also, it would help to know your system specifications when you make a post as it helps people when trying to diagnose the problem 3dspotlight Tweak 3d Tweaktown Windows 98/ME annoyances These will be a good place to start. Have fun. Regards, Cardinal

It's cheers dude, not chears. Eddie, man you don't seem to like opposition do you? He is not saying Nt compatible is fuked, he just is merely commenting on the search function in the new forum software. Some people in here should just step back a touch, and not be so eager to jump at someone. Phillip, What happened to the 'rating a member' function?

I know this is way off as far as normal posts in this forum go, but it's interesting. I watched an online documentary on the decoding of DNA at Nova Online And thought that it raised a few interesting issues. I was more interested in the almost insane belief that America has, where everything has to have a Patent. And, that particular DNA sequences are patented or are in the process of being patented. This is completely rediculous. The United States has long been considered a surreal country, but this borders on psychotic. The drug companies will be the end of all of us. Anyway, if you're on a broadband, check it out. My two cents in the matter is that the DNA decoding should be stopped. We don't need to prolong the life span of humans any more. Overpopulation is already the worlds biggest problem. And we know, that in a capitalist society it will be only the elitest classes who will have access to this technology. - Card.

Felix, Went and saw the march in Melbourne. Wasn't bad. Spent the day in the pub, that was sweet

I agree, building your own system is the only way to go. And yes, it is still cheaper. What's more, the most important thing is, you get to choose what mobo is being used, since in my opinion a sh1t mobo and great peripherals still means a sh1t computer. 1) Gigabyte boards are the 'john doe' of boards, stay well away. 2) On-board sound and/or video is the worst thing since falafel. 3) The ALI chipset should be burned.

Four and twenty, why don't you overclock mate? and 512 megs of ram is not needed. No microsh1t OS utilises that much ram. People rave about the memory management in W2k, yeah its better, but still far too ****. With 512mb you should not need a Fuking pagefile. Fuk Microsoft, I agree with the two baggies; 'Every OS sucks' Damn right.

You have a point Thc. All I can say is, I don't like what I've heard. Yet, In the scheme of things I have not heard all that much.

I use Limewire. Napster is ok, the people that use it are the same people that are on the net. You can't blame the program for hosting a bunch of 13 year olds from California. Good program > Crap users. Limewire uses the excellent Gnutella network. Because all connections are direct, there is no risk of the network or 'virtual hub' being closed. Direct Connect is a wonderful program for other files. Off topic, what is the attraction of techno? Repetitive beats, monotonous sounds. What the hell is the point? I mean do you take drugs, I can only imagine enjoying such garbage while being under the influence of a drug of some kind. No lyrics, no meaning. Are you a drone? Addenum: Fuk I hate how this new forum software adds your sig and email notification by default!

Listen, You don't need to havy anything entered in the gateway field, nor the DNS, nor the WINS etc. The server has a static IP Address. Any clients should have it set to 'Use DHCP to determine Ip' That is in windows 98, 'Determine IP automatically' If the server (gateway) is a win9x box, make sure netbeui is installed for both adapters. I have done Internet connection sharing to death. There are so many misconceptions about what is right and what is wrong. A clever guide can be found HERE 1) Microsofts ICS works fine. 2) Sygate is crap. 3) the only 'tweak' that effects your cable/dsl speed is changing your RWIN. All the rest are just myths. Disagree? Go HERE

'Ipconfig' from the command prompt will give you your IP address(s)

http://www.annoyances.org/win98/features/ics.html People will suggest you use a third party program to share your connection, But I have found through trying almost all of them, that Microsofts bundled ICS works great. Follow the instructions on the above page to get it working in win9x/ME. In Windows 2000 it could not be easier. Just open up your network browser, select properties of the network card your cable uses, and select 'enable internet connection sharing on this connection' - Card.

I don't like the way the threads are not clearly devided. I prefer the other one over this. Purely for looks. The use of them are similar (even though I do like the jump to option) but aesthetically, it looks terrible.

I have the exact same board myself. Out of all the mobo's I've used, and there have been many I have enjoyed this one the most. But I have not seen any p3 above 850 that runs on a fsb lower then 133. So it appears that our options have run out. The only option I see is the good old (crap) Celeron II. There is an 850 version out apparently, not sure of the o/c capabilities of this one but hopefully, intel will throw out a few more which will give the BX a little more life yet. I know the celery's are hopeless standing next to a P3 but because of the o/c abilities they do have a use. (god I hate this new forum software) the ubb 6.0 at least looked ok) - Card

Guys. I recently tried a few firewalls out of interest rather then an actual need. And I found a few interesting things that I thought warranted a mention. Firstly, is there a real need for one on your basic personal system? For someone who uses windows 2000 for the stability, kernel difference, in built security and basic performance, is a firewall actually worth the effort? For many of you, who spend a lot of time tweaking W2k to get the maximum response out of the OS (like myself) a firewall could hardly be recommended on a purely performance scale. As far as port security goes, W2k is so far ahead then anything from the 9x line of windows. For someone on a dial up I really cannot see the necessity of a firewall. A DSL or cable connection could justify the need. But then again, how many of you have actually been hacked? I know some of you will pipe up and say, "I haven't, precisely because I use a firewall!" Ok, but is the chance really likely? For someone who intends to use a mediocre program to gain access to your system. Most of the time this process requires the user accepting some sort or remote admin file in the first place. And in this day and age no one would accept a 'CLICK-ME.exe' file or anything of dubious origins. So I ask you for your opinion on the necessity of a firewall. And I argue that in most cases it is not necessary. I would also say neither is an anti-virus program but I would be flamed. I will finish by saying, those who also use W2k for gaming and require the maximum amount of performance from their system will most likely agree, a firewall, anti-virus program or anything that remains resident can, and will hamper your gaming experience. I just raise this matter to create discussion. My opinion is my own. Regards, Cardinal.