Recent content by imported_dakota81

You still have to follow the specs of the disc. If you take like a 52x rated cd-r and burn it at 2x or 4x, it will be very difficult for that cd to be read in most cdroms. Likewise, if you have 16x rated dvd-r's you don't want to burn them at 1x either.

It's always best to have a C: drive be a harddrive even if you put your OS on another partition. If you ever do reinstall XP and have troubles getting the harddrive to pick up the C: partition, a workaround is to format it as FAT32, reboot, install XP, then convert FAT32 to NTFS once XP is...

The last e-machines I looked at, it was pushing just 11v on the 12v line. They are very cheap units indeed. And of course I've had my hands on a PSU once that wasn't pushing out the typical 5v & 12v, rather a welcoming 10v & 24v. Obviously everything in the case was instantly friend.

For some reason I've been seeing a ton of Athlon 64 motherboards autodetecting to DDR333 speeds. Since it's widespread, not just one manufacturer (nVidia, VIA, and ULi boards), I'm guessing it's the Athlon's onboard memory controller misidentifying the ram?

It might not be a bad idea to get a replacement KT333 board, then you've got a mobo cpu ram set to sell or give to a relative - and you can boot your current installation to remove all the device drivers so you can move it over to an nForce board. Actually just today I was working with a...

Dang, that's a great deal. I've purchased Patriot sig ram a couple times for people and haven't had any problems at all. I've got the better timings Patriot ram in my own computer. Only bit of advice, grab that rebate form immediately, their rebate forms change frequently and you cannot get...

Most motherboard manufacturers have cpu support charts on their website, that's your best resource.

I've got both a PVR-250 and a PVR-150 in different computers here. Their software is decent, but takes some getting used to, figuring out how to adjust like the recording quality settings and such. But for me, I get that stuff set up once then never really adjust them again. The software has...

You've also most likely got a fully patched operating system. All it takes is a simple click on a google search result, to a bad website, and the computer is loaded with a half-dozen malware apps.

256mb ram with probably a decent amount of apps, versus 512mb ram with very few apps running - makes a huge difference. With enough ram and minimal app usage, XP can run smoothly on even 400MHz machines. But obviously no 400MHz machine can be an HTPC like you'd want...

Your best chance to reuse the old WinXP installation is to buy a new board with the same chipset manufacturer as the GA7VRXP. I think that has a via chipset, so you would look at A64 boards with a via chipset. If you've got your heart set on an nForce board, be prepared to go through some...

There were only a few select motherboards that aren't server class boards that used a hardware raid controller. All other boards that use via, nVidia, intel, highpoint, there's some other raid chips too, they're all software raid. The raid functionality is hidden in the software drivers. It...

If you're installing it as a second drive, then no hassles at all. Might have to install sata drivers if they've previously been disabled in bios. If you're installing a fresh copy of WinXP, you will have to have a floppy disk with drivers, which are usually provided by the motherboard...

I agree with all the statements listed in the first post, newegg & monarch are my top two sites. An addition I'd make is www.justdeals.com - all their products are refurbs, though they're great if I need an older motherboard, like s370, or socket A with PC133 ram. I've had to rma one of the...

It's done so that when the computer is turned on, but you are not really doing any data processing or what-not, the cpu underclocks itself to reduce power consumption and heat output. It's a good thing. intel has a somewhat similar technology too, but they only reduce clock speed when the...