Brian Frank

Yeah, Serious Sam is a good price for what you get. It's not a real thinking game by a long run, but it's one of the best games for the money--ever. I want my $50 back for RtCW, tho...grrr. It barely makes the "downloading it for 'testing' " purposes ;(

I use Windows XP: it works, and it works well. I use IE6 (part of XP): it works, and it works well. I use Office 2000: it works, and it works well. I've been lucky enough to be able to get a legal copy of Office and Win XP at college for extremely cheap. MS has a connection with them and offers their software at an insanely low price ($5 per CD of any software) so I'm gonna make good with this while I still can. I've looked into Linux and other supposed 'alternatives' and honestly, there is none. There's a saying that goes "Linux is free only if your time is worthless". Sure Linux is fun for some people, but I like the fact that I do not have to search long and hard to find software over at Best Buy that will work with some form of Windows. Even when I jumped to Win2k, I didn't have that much of a loss, save some DOS based games that wouldn't work. Even then, I could've gotten this stuff working had I played with it a little. I have tried to find software from MS, but the time I spent searching (maybe because I just suck) was just too much of a waste anyway, especially since I currently can get their software for next to nothing anyway. I'm not saying I like everything MS does, but I have yet to find a software alternative to Windows that I would rather have. Office is working for the times that I need it. Would I like Windows to be cheaper in retail? Yeah, but then I look at stuff like Photoshop and stuff and see that Windows prices aren't so bad.

It would be nice to be at work, but I'm not schedualed for today.

I was listening to Nonpoint--Statement while mowing the lawn bout 1/2 hour ago.

Also, some motherboards have the temp sensor overcompensated in BIOS. If this is the case, check if your motherboard manufacturer has a BIOS update that addresses this.

Oops. DP.

Lets see here: PC's have more trouble. Why: more users, more hardware, more programs. Any computer will have problems, whether it's a Mac or PC.

nForce 1 is a brand new thing from nVidia, so not many companies have jumped onboard. A bit more are gunning for nForce 2. As for availability, I have no clue, other than it'll be out when it's out--if it actually exists. Sampson also brings up a good point about the Athlon's and a small space: them things is hot! The idea of these PC's is not for a powerhouse, but for a small system for fileserving or something that doesn't need a powerhouse CPU to do the tasks. I like AMD and all, but that small of case is a little scary.

Quote: you go p4 in the end? Yeah. I figured this would be nice to play with as I already know the AMD side of things. I needed to keep up with the desktop portion of Intel. I've heard a lot of good things about Iwill--which is good considering they're trying to make headway in the dual-processor/server board end of things.

I like my PS/2 ports.

I find a driver that is fast and stable for me and then go from there. Might take a little bit of time to find out which ones best suit ya, but it's worth it. However, I'd also recommend that you get the reference drivers unless there is some utility the particular company dropped in the drivers that you must have.

Well, I ordered the CPU, mobo, and video card this morning. I'll buy the RAM locally ($59 for a 256MB stick of Samsung PC2700--better than online prices!) This should be fun...Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha:D

What will not see the CPU? The motherboard or the OS? Is this the only problem you are having?

I'm not sure. You're looking at Shuttle's products there with some really dinky mobo formfactor (Flex ITX? not sure). I'd check to see if you can get one with an AGP slot. Otherwise just get a smallish case (micro ATX maybe) and an appropriate board. Right now the smallest yer gonna get is a mATX board. For your nForce craze, I can understand, I got the Abit NV7-133R (you've seen me over an NforcersHQ as Big and I think this is the best chipset for the AMD platform to date.

I don't have anything slower than 800MHz here--in fact that's the slowest any PC has in CPU speed (all default speeds) so I don't think the bloat issue is a big of a deal as it was with 133MHz CPU's. That's my opinion anyway...

The only thing I will use from Norton/Symantec is their AntiVirus (which isn't as bloated as it used to be) and their Firewall (comes with Norton Internet Security package). I refuse to buy or even test anything else. Crashguard? More like Crashmaker, IMO. The AV is great and I really don't see the need to get something else.

Well, I think I may be building a LAN box in the future, and I kinda want to try the P4 this time around. Hopefully, I will build this system in a few months time. Iwill P4D (i845-D) P4 1.6GHz retail 256MB PC2100 Corsair value-select ATI Radeon 8500LE 64MB Panasonic 32x CD-ROM Maxtor 20GB 5400RPM ATA100 Some 10/100 NIC I have lying around ATX midtower case 300W ATX 2.03 Macron Power I have lying around MS Intellimouse Optical Logitech Keyboard 15" monitor (maybe 17"---I wanna keep this whole build under $700) This will take my total # of PC's I own up to 4.

Quote: Why not P4? saves you a lot of trouble and "heat", and gives you stability!!! They are cheap too. (not as much as athlon) And you definetyely do not need a 2.4GHz. get a 1.4, 1.8 or something I have 3 computers already ;(, 2 with an AMD chip inside, 1 of which uses the sweet nForce 415:D The other one is powered by a SuperMicro P3TDDE and a pair of 800EB PIII's. I'm waiting for the 1.4 Pentium III-S chips to drop a bit from their 300 bucks a crack price. That and I seriously need to look at a different car! I've half debated getting a P4 box so I can have another SETI crucher:D. I want to build a LAN box, so I may get a P4 1.6 or whatever's the slowest I can get when I build it. I want to have a P4 system to play with, but it all comes down to money. So much hardware, so little cash:(

If it's Micron memory, I've heard they occasionally use Samsung if it's cheap enough for them to use or something like that. Samsung is very good, make no mistake. My thinking is that one stick might not be rated for the same speed as the other--even though it may have been marked as a certain speeed, it might have been accidentally mis marked as the higher speed. It happens. Try the Samsung stick by itself in the same slot as the Micron and see if it causes problems. If that checks out try the Micron in the slot you originally had that Samsung and see if everything checks out. Process of elimination.

So Asus probe is the only thing not working? Might wanna check and see if they have a new version of it available. If that's the only thing that's not working, I wouldn't worry too much. A couple of sites you might wanna check out: AMDMB in the Asus section of the forums, and NForcersHQ

Depends on the controller. I haven't tested this, but the HighPoint controllers apparently don't like anything but hard drives. I'm not sure about the Promise, but if you can set them to ATA100 controllers (depending on the motherboard) you may be able to use them. As a matter of practice, I put the Optical drives on the motherboard chipset IDE controllers and the hard drive(s) on the add-on ATA controller.

If I was going P4, that'd be one of the first boards I'd be looking at.

Very nice. I can't quite bear the thought of ditching my PS/2 ports just yet, but that IT7 is very sweet in concept.

The upgrade I want is a faster video card, however, what I need to get is a CD burner as my current one locks up my PC randomly and has done it on another rig.

This can be anything. It doesn't have to be an actual spec or even be in the works. It doesn't have to conform to an ATX standard... It's your imagination. Me: I'd like a dual Athlon MP board with an nForce chipset, 3 32-bit PCI slots, 2 64-bit/33MHz PCI slots, 3 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots, 1 100MHz PCI-X slot, 1 AGP Pro 8x slot, dual-channel memory with 8 banks per channel, 7.1 channel sound, 1 Gigabit NIC...