tsonta101

in your Sounds & Audio Device Properties (Control Panel), go to the Sounds tab and select Windows Default in the sound scheme list box.

some ideas here: 1. Do you have installed the latest drivers/patches/windows application updates/DX8.1 installed? If not, get them. 2. Set your page file to an adequate size, such as 300Mb. Or let Windows manage it. 2. Does DX Diagnostics show up any problems? 3. Before you kill a game in the Task Manager, what is its Priority Level (if it is too high or too low, set it to Normal)? 3. And can you list a few games of those that make your pc crawl?

thanks for the info guys.....i am halfway through there (155Mb to go!)....will i get a Nobel prize for my patience?

Kizagjo, will you post your comments as soon as you install it? And give us a detailed account of what it contains? My bet is that it should work on any machine with an SB live in it, but still.....300MB? did they park a car in there?

just tried it (with the XP style start menu, and no luck). I pinned a folder, but the subfolders didn't cascade. As an alternative (although not a pretty one), you can have shortcuts of the folders you need in the My Documents folder; and then go Start, My Documents etc. I can't think of anything else at the top of my head.:s

no, an Audigy card (Player, not the one with the breakout box) is around 90 euros (or £55)over here in Greece and a friend of mine in the UK, picked it up for £50 last month. If my currency ratios are correct that should be around 75 and 68 US dollars respectively. Keep in mind that Greece is a place that hardware doesn't come cheap, but it is still a long way from $200!

I disliked ZA for the same reasons, many things online didn't work when it was active, including the ability of people connection to my pc, when i was the host to a game. As soon as i would shut it down, everything was back to normal. I to be honest, that happened with ZA from versions 1.2.x to 2.6.x. Recently, I resorted to Norton's Personal Firewall 2002, which is not free of course , but it doesn't behave as annoyingly as ZA.

RMA it to maxtor, if it is less than 3 yrs old (and it should be). At www.maxtor.com, go to Desktop IDE Drives (in the Support Section) and fill out the form. They provide a very good service, i had two drives, one maxtor and one quantum returned within 7 days.

now i remember! zone alarm was complaining about a gain_trickler app trying to access the net....just because of the name i said no and then i read this thread. I recall that it was right after I installed the DivX Pro 5 codec, most of you saw it on the news last week. So, anyone that got the the particular codec AND despises spyware on their machine congratulate Thymios for his efforts. Thanks man!

i am definately with you inferno.... the almighty Floppy Disk Drive ... Would I care to replace it with an device that could take ZIP/LS120/SuperDrive media: YES! PS: was it win95 that refused to install if it didn't detect a floppy drive on your pc? can't remember, should have tried it myself LOL

Quote: I used to check every beta Detonators out there, at a rate of one/week i used to do that as well, until i hit the 27.42 detonators...which where the first ones to give me an infinite_loop_blue_screen. I tried the 27.51 which did the same, so i rolled back to the 27.20, which are the latest & fastest stable drivers for my system.

seriously, get a GF2 MX400 for £40, overclock it to 235/380 (with some luck and good cooling, like the p3 cooler you have now) and you will see at least 5 times higher performance (I am i putting GF2 mxs down?). From my machine, I can play all of my games (f1 2001, max payne, nba live 2002, return to castle wolfenstein, medal of honour to name a few) at 1024x768, details maxed out with no problems whatsoever.

so, it doesn't suck if you dont do anything heavy on it (like play a few games, make a DivX movie, go on the net etc) and it sucks bigtime for everything else (doing paid work, as stability & performance are not guaranteed etc), rendering it an insensible choice for corporate people. right?

back in 95, weren't all of you home users happy to see a nice gui and have your pnp? I know I was, I'd use anything over win3.11. True, some people stated that if you throw everything at it, it would become unstable, or require a reboot just to free up resources. So very true, but I did not have the money back then to buy win nt 3.51! I really liked win98se, that was fast and almost steady...but at that time, i was already dualbooting with nt4. That was the time that I favoured that production line: nt4,win2000,winxp.....not having to reboot every 3 hrs is so nice! I have over 35 apps and 30 games installed currently and not a sign of a bsod. if i did that with 98se, my pc would definately NOT like it at all (putting it politely). regards, tsonta101 PS I didn't even get winme, from what i saw it's just win98 with a lot of bells and whistles...why through away some good money?

my loyal epson 740 decided to give me grief last november. Upon power up, the head block would move halfway on the left, make a jamming noise and then it would return to its position on the right. The head block return with force enough to slowly move the printer about 2 cm every time this happened. Needless to say, I thought, ok rest in piece baby, let's get a new one. The printer served me during all 4 years of my studies, during which i had printed off aroung 6,500 pages (honest!). I guees that's enough for a printer. Upon calling epson support, i was told to return the printer blah blah blah, and that would cost me aroung £75 (i was in the uk at the time), plus shipping. They did advise me to do a master reset (press both paper and ink clean buttons and then press power), which did revive the printer for another week, until it started misbehaving again...the time for a replacement printer was high. I decided to call them again just to report that the master reset did help a little and lucky for me, this support person tells me to get some machine oil and rub the metal axle that the head block moves on. I thought 'yeah right', but i gave it a go. I bought some crappy, no-name machine oil for £2, which was expensive enough to revive the printer. My 740 still reigns on my desk up to the present time. In my opinion, it was a matter of luck. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but what if i didn't call them a second time? I'd buy another printer......being ignorant of the magic powers of no-name machine oil!! kudos to the guy i talked to last time at epson support uk - if you read this, thanx man!

MOHAA plays ok even with my humple GF2 MX (though clocked at core 235MHz/memory 380MHz, vsynch off), even during all 'snowy' levels. I have all details maxed (FSAA off ), res is at 1024x768, the game is 'fluid' in motion (that's around the 30fps mark, i should think). Finally, I do not think that my rig will take anything more (like 1280x1024, FSAA on, etc) than that...this game showed me that i am running out of juice...

My case used to host a GlobalWin FOP38 (7K rmp), a blue Orb on my GF2 and another 3 low speed intake and exhaust fans. All of them managed to keep my o/ced Athlon at 38C idle (49C under load - heavy gamer here!)...i didn't mind about the noise, since my speakers were cranked up during gameplay. A decibel meter device showed values of 62 to 67 decibels, while moving it around the case. After about a year, i couldn't take it anymore, the noise was simply too much. SO, i bought a less noiser cooler, removed intake and exhaust fans (just left the blue Orb on the GPU)...noise levels are down to 43 to 45 decibels and temps are up from 45 to 58 (idle and load respectively). The winner: my ears (and neighbours) are still thanking me! PS. When i find the time and money, sound proofing material is the next step.

Do you have another machine to test the card on? Or could you make another, clean WinXP installation, on another partition and test the card there? if you send the card back and the people that test it manage to get it working you would have just lost lost your time and money. Rest assured that they are not going to test it with a zillion games, as no one manufacturer is legally obliged to make their products working under a zillion hardware and software combinations

...and which program gave you all that trouble? Can you post its title and version? thanx

hmm...this is a strange case....well, the 27.42 where the first ones that managed to give me an infinite_loop_blue_screen...go figure this is more of a suggestion, try the Microsoft certified 23.11's and see what happens.

i didn't notice that...yes a 64MB card should yield more points in benchmarks....i was about to start wondering... ...hehe... PS my score of 3150 is with 3D Mark2001's default settings

my machine (see below) does a 3D Mark 2001 score of 3150 (Detonator v27.30, Vsync off, Direct3D Mipmap Detail Level: Best Performance, GF2 MX clocked to 235/380, CPU clocked to 1.45GHz) PS, Marktait, how did you get your GF2 MX200 to give you that impressive (considering) score of 3475. What setting and drivers do you have? Regards, tsonta101

if you really want to be bad to your board, you can always short-circuit on of the jumpers that are used to power additional fans.....this will definately blow at least a few capacitors up, guaranteed!!! lol Regards, tsonta101

You can use Adobe Premiere to export media files to streaming format - it offers export to both Real and Windows Media format

this has happened to me several times....my secondary IDE channel goes from DMA 2 (master: Pioneer 105s DVD, slave: Yamaha CDR2100) to PIO mode 4. This usually happens to my system after I install Nero (any 5.x version), or after I install any VIA 4in1 driver pack. however the fix is easy, although time consuming...insert your XP CD-rom and repair the installation...you will find that tranfer modes will have been restored to DMA... ...try this and see if it works for you. Regards, tsonta101