Recent content by Optimist

How small are you talking? The smaller, the more expensive. I've wanted to do this sort of project for a couple of years now and I can't do it cheap AND small. At the Micr-ATX case level, the case and power supply cost $50 and that still leaves questions about the quality of the PS AND room for...

What problems are you haveing with the 8500DV? I have the same MB and the 8500DV with no problems, however, I am on Win2000SP3, not on XP. What other hardware do you have?

Keltron, you were correct. I verified with Dell. Only $100 total in rebates. I would rate this deal tepid. When compared with the free upgrade on the SCSI drive, free second matching drive (73G Ultra 320 SCSI in my case), instant $250, and $100 MIR deal back in Feb, this deal is tepid...

Keltron, thanks for info on the keyboard, mouse, and documents. I'll check into that. On the extra $100 rebate, it's always hard to tell and I should try to call to be certain. I am fairly certain that it is separate from the INSTANT $200 rebate, which given your total price, you opted not to...

Actually in just about every test I've read in the last couple years, for a single user on a single processor, the SCSI and ATA drives ran pretty darned close. In a couple of recent review (I think one was done by Anandtech, but not sure), the new WD Raptor beat most of the SCSI drives of the...

Actually in just about every test I've read in the last couple years, for a single user on a single processor, the SCSI and ATA drives ran pretty darned close. In a couple of recent review (I think one was done by Anandtech, but not sure), the new WD Raptor beat most of the SCSI drives of the...

To which deals or prices are you referring? I'm actually looking for an excuse NOT to spend this money, but I need to know what you mean by better. (Long DEAD deals are fine for your examples.) I just have to know where our point of reference is here. Thanks in advance.

No advantage per se, but with prices like the ones above--or better--you would be hard pressed to build one cheaper. A 2.8Ghz/533MHz Xeon goes for $467. Any motherboard board with integrated Ultra 320 SCSI is $400+. Even on Ebay, the 32G 10K Ultra 320 drives fetch $125. The point is that it's...

I ordered a 1600SC with the following: --533MHz FSB with 2.0 Xeon--upgraded to 2.4 for free and to 2.8GHz for $99. --single 36G 10K Ultra 320 SCSI drive (any guesses as to the brand???) --first year parts and on-site warranty, years two and three parts next day ($50 I believe) --no OS...

Manuals are for little boys! Real men don't read the manuals! ....just kidding--same thing happened to me, except on the 1600SC. It's amazing what you can learn in those little books. Actually, I had a 256M ECC nonregistered module. When I put it in with the OS install option set, it...

I'll ask a couple dumb questions and show how dense I really am.... Which devices does WIndows XP have to load to get going? Is the floppy drive one of them? When you say your floppy is broken, is it disabled in the BIOS. If not, that may be where Windows is crashing. It sees it, but can't get...

I have a Panflo brushless case fan in my hand. The label says 0.1 amp. Now the case and CPU fans do vary quite a bit, but 8 of my fans would pull less than 1 amp. What is the current load of other fans people have around. Now the optical drives can be unplugged to test that hypothesis. I...

My uneducated suggestions: 1. Pull everything off it, the video card, any other cards, drives, and even the memory. Of course, CPU with heatsink and fan are in. You may have to leave the drives plugged into the power if you have a PS that needs a minimum load. (Anyone????)...

thanks for the reply. Is memtest86 DOS or Win based? I should go look. Of course, if it's windows based, I can't get far enough to test it. -Optimist Edit: Well three minutes later, I got it and can use it in DOS. Thanks. I'll report back!

I have a Biostar M6VLR (socket 370, 82C686B, integrated everything) with a Celeron 1.0G, a single 512M 133MHz SDRAM memory module, one floppy, one CD-RW drive and one 30G WD 7200 drive. I originally installed WinXP Prof on this up about six months ago with no problems. I installed SP1 in there...