Recent content by jldash

  1. J

    DEAD:Seagate 500gb SATA/PATA Retail Hard Drive

    I got 1 China HD 7200.10 Also AAK Firmware. It's loud in my HTPC with two HD streams writing to it simultaneously (but it is an almost silent rig). But sure doesn't feel slow... maybe I'll throw it in my file server instead, SPCR is saying the latest WD 500s are the way to go for noise at this...
  2. J

    2400XT, 2600XT vs 7 Series and 85/600's

    Great question, I do not know that for a fact... I guess the same Vista-only limitation could be true of the ATI parts. Anyone with an ATI 24xx or 26xx card and XP care to chime in? As an addendum: folks over at AVS forum have shared a link to some "leaked" beta Nvidia drivers that allegedly...
  3. J

    2400XT, 2600XT vs 7 Series and 85/600's

    Glad to help. I picked up a heat-piped 8600 from newegg but can't play anything over 720p due to my slow 3500+ A64... If PureVideo HD for XP doesn't happen soon, I'll have to go with ATi
  4. J

    2400XT, 2600XT vs 7 Series and 85/600's

    Just wanted to reiterate an important detail that "got" me. The 8500 and 8600 nvidia boards do not yet have PureVideo HD support in Windows XP. That means you will not get HD-DVD or Blu-Ray (VC1) acceleration until Nvidia releases new drivers. They were supposed to be out by July. I found...
  5. J

    AMD AM2 X2 4000+ OEM $275

    arghhh preorder am2 or wait for conroe pricing in three days? arghhh!!
  6. J

    Samsung 250g SATAII for $80

    about to jump on a couple... arghhh can't decide. New HD's or new tires!
  7. J

    Western Digital 250GB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive NO REBATES

    I'll bump this, since I found it very convenient to find a very competitive price with no rebate hassle and just a short drive away. -- I was going to buy 2, but I figured I would get instant satisfaction for one, and then order it for slightly cheaper online later this month.
  8. J

    radeon 9500 pro replacement fan

    if you really just want the fan, then I'd throw a WTB on the For Sale/Trade Fourum
  9. J

    ATI (Sapphire) x800 3pin Fan header / connector ?

    I ended up finding a very *similar* 4 pin connector from some odd audio cable in my drawer. I careful use of an exacto knife and a standard 3 pin header coupler and now I have my Zalman running directly off of the video card. Works beatifully and I managed to avoid making any permanent changes...
  10. J

    Help: High CPU Load Playing Movies

    Did you try to unregister using GSpot or the command shell? What codec is being reported as the actual rendering codec? If you are having trouble with an MPEG4 codec (xvid, divx, x.264) then I would suggest that you look at the settings for each codec and decide which one you want to decode...
  11. J

    convince me not to buy a 30" apple cinema...

    DO IT! I have used Apple and Dell displays extensively (at work and home). The Apple displays are of better build quality than the Dells... (do a google search for whining, squealing, 2405fpw and you'll see what I mean). However, the Dells have goodies that the Apple units do not: extensive...
  12. J

    Help: High CPU Load Playing Movies

    try downloading GSpot to figure out what codec is actually being used to display (render) the movies. You might have a mis behaving codec installed that is doing a crap job at decoding a regular MPEG4 variant. Codecs can also interfere with one another, which is why I avoid codec packs. Edit...
  13. J

    So i fired up Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 this evening...and i was blown away, it's amazing fun without the whole...

    man, I LOVE the older NFS games. I am very stoked to get the latest = Most Wanted. Especially now that I have decent hardware so I can crank all the settings. It is fun to go back and put in some games that are a couple of years old and set *everything to the absolute MAX*. This is...
  14. J

    Video capture settings? Codec?

    My opinion exactly. To be able to get a small file size and great quality *and* not worry about dropped frames, you need to go the extra step and re-encode from a losless codec. For example, just record to AVI or MPEG2. Then, use third party software to convert to an MPEG4 codec. I would...