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  1. K

    Something happened to my laptop that I didn't believe possible...

    Took my laptop (HP probook 6550b) to the airport - few minutes before it went through the security scanner/xray it was working fine, almost fully charged. Few minutes after? Won't turn on without the AC adapter plugged in, battery will not charge. Was not dropped and no one physically touched it...
  2. K

    Trying to find the best heatsink solution (4u case, limited clearance)

    Looking for heatsinks suggestions for the following setup: Norco RPC-450B 4U case Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 motherboard AMD Phenom II X6 1045T 95W processor I have the stock heatsink and fan, but I'd like something a little more effective and quiet. My usual go-to solution is a 212/212+...
  3. K

    Need help deciding on cpu/mobo/ram for home server

    I need to build a beast of a home server. I will be doing several processor intensive tasks at once (big uploads and downloads, transcoding HD video, streaming to multiple devices, doing full PC backups, etc). I have lots of supplemental hardware (drives, case, decent psu, etc). Budget is...
  4. K

    OEM vista/7 license keys... can I legally just *give* them away?

    Long story short, I come across a lot of used computers with these OEM stickers/license things and I usually just throw them away. Can I just give them away? I'll never use them.
  5. K

    Dead card... any ideas? (Pic)

    First off, it's an XFX 8800GS 384mb. No warranty (I don't think they did lifetime back then, and I don't have the original heatsink); got it used over a year ago. So I had this card in my main rig for quite some time (I try to stay a couple years behind on hardware; keeps things insanely cheap)...
  6. K

    I bought some stuff at a garage sale... help me understand my haul

    So I know what most of this is, and I figured I'd post it all because I'm exited, but I don't quite know what to make of some of this. I paid $60 cash for the lot: Questions: * Should I just throw the rambus in the trash? The terminators? * Is it worth keeping DDR1 (it's all 256 and 512mb) *...
  7. K

    Horrible SSD write speeds... not sure how to fix this :(

    The drive is a SV100S264G that I've had for less than a year. It's been run under Win 7 64 bit the whole time, and it's always been a bit slow, but about a month ago it started to get REALLY bad; stuttering and freezing all the time. I've seen a lot of people complaining about "bad" write speeds...
  8. K

    Question about the market for Core2Quads

    I am currently on an P35-D3SL w/E4500 + 6gb DDR2. I do a lot of virtualization, and I think I could use an upgrade from dual to quad core. Only problem is that I am cheap and I really don't want to spend the money switching platforms to accomplish this, especially since I don't do any real...
  9. K

    (Server board) Trying to understand this riser slot... Can I use it without a riser?

    I have an Intel s5000pal (dual 771 board). it has a couple of risers slots, one of which is for a "passive pci express backplane", which is available in both 1u and 2u varieties, but neither of which fit my case. Upon closer inspection, the slot looks just like a PCI-E 8x slot, and it is listed...
  10. K

    Need help picking out ECC memory (older server)... completely lost

    So I have this low power server box: * Supermicro P4SCE (details: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/P4/E7210/P4SCE.cfm) * P4-M 1.4 (solely because it's low power) * 512mb + 256mb DDR266 (non-ecc, unregistered, unbuffered, etc - normal) * 2GB flash module * Old 300w power supply. I...
  11. K

    Need advice on a dedicated firewall for my setup...

    After a recent bout of DOS attacks (flooding mainly) and other issues, I've decided it's time to step up my home security. Currently, here is my setup: Cable modem (serving ~25mbps) Linksys router w/DD-WRT 24 port gigabit switch ~16 devices (12 wired, 4 wireless) and more on the way I...
  12. K

    Really poor RAID10 performance under WHS/Server 2K3... What to check?

    This is my home server (windows home server original). Basics are: P4 3.06 512mb ddr2 (more is on the way!) 4x750 seagate (one is a slightly newer model than the others) Silicon Image 3114 based PCI raid card One 20gb partition for the OS, one ~1.4TB partition for storage. All on the same...
  13. K

    Small amplifier for a single speaker? (bathroom ceiling lol)

    I'm planning on putting a small LCD screen on the wall of my bathroom to use as a television, and I want to pair it with a speaker or two in the ceiling. The only problem is that I really don't want to run a full home theater type amplifier just to drive a speaker or two. Does anyone know of a...
  14. K

    Server questions (just picked one up at a garage sale)

    Grabbed me a PowerEdge 2500SC at a garage sale for $100. I feel it was a good buy looking at what these things go for, but honestly I don't know if I have any use for it. The thing is a single processor (although I can go dual via ebay for around $15-20) 933mhz P3 with four hot swap SCSI 18gb...
  15. K

    27" HDTV at walmart for $251-296 (depending on stock)

    I am rather surpised that there has been no disucssion of this, google turns up very little for such a hot deal. Anyway, i'll get down to business - Walmart has a HDTV for $296, and most stores that still carry it have marked it down to $270 or less on clearance. Time for the basic specs, a bit...
  16. K

    Windows NT anyone? (pics, definately an OT thread)

    So I stumbled upon some OEM software... NT Workstatoion 4.0 IBM OEM discs and COA's. Obviously it's possible to sell some of this with hardware (per microsoft general oem rules), but wtf should I do with this mess? I don't think its really worth much of anything, but I didn't want it to head to...
  17. K

    Target Electronics Clearances - Nationwide but still YMMV

    Target stores across the country are going through an electronics transition where most of the department is being re-planogramed (restocked with new items and moved around), meaning that many of the old items are being clearanced. This transition began on 4/24 and will take most stores at least...
  18. K

    ATTN: Biostar M7NCG 400 owners

    I would like to know the following: 1. Motherboard Version (1.0, 7.0, or 7.2) 2. Does it sleep in S3 (suspend to ram, all the fan shut off and it boots back up in seconds when called) 3. Does it sleep in S1 (same as above except fans and many other things stay on) To test S3 (for those...
  19. K

    Hot for some: Cheap FlexATX motherboard (great for tiny cases or custom work) ~$25 shipped w/coupon

    Someone posted a link to this place in a discussion over in the fs/ft section, and I gave them a shot. I have been searching for a FlexATX motherboard to build a tiny server system for quite some time (using a netvista case) and all I had found are horrid prices on ebay for decent boards, and...
  20. K

    A couple clearance items I saw at OD

    Nothing spectacular, but these are presumably first clearances, and will drop more sometime soon. So just a heads up to watch for these when the next round of clearance drops comes by. No SKU's simply because I didn't have anything to write with. ATI Radeon AIW 8500dv - 196.01 Belkin USB2.0...
  21. K

    New 8RDA+ BIOS! 3/3/03

    A new bios is out for the 8RDA+. Dated 3/3/03, you can find it at two download locations on my bios page at www.8rdafaq.com. I was too lazy to dig up a direct link. Here is the change list: 1/29/03 (8RDA3303) Update BPL 2.89 Change CPU frequency update method Updates ROMSIP & BPL to version...