Search results

  1. K

    LCD vs. CRT

    I agree 100%. I only have a Dell 2001FP, but it is still much better than any CRT I have ever seen, including arguably the best CRTs ever made by NEC/Mitsubishi.
  2. K

    Friend's GeForce and DVI problems

    OK, here is a synopsis of my friend's problem. He has a Dell XPS (it's fairly old now) with a 128 MB GeForce FX 5200 and a brand new Dell 2005FPW LCD. Unfortunately, he cannot get the graphics card to output a DVI signal to the LCD. I went over to his place last night to help solve this...
  3. K

    Need advice on components please...

    OK, that sounds good then. San Diego 3700+ and the DFI SLI board. Still hung up on the vid card though. Either way, I can't afford a 2nd card now, but for a single card solution, I believe ATi has the advantage, no? Oh, and with the improved memory controller of the Venice/San Diego...
  4. K

    Need advice on components please...

    Well, I think you guys have convinced me to do more than I had originally hoped LOL. I've got to get an A64. It looks like the EVGA 6800 GT can be had for under $300. Is this a decent price and what do you guys think about EVGA? Or is there something else that you would recommend. I like...
  5. K

    Need advice on components please...

    First off, thanks for the replies everyone! Yeah, I pretty much figured that A64 would be a better route. I just want to hold out on that until the X2 comes out, and I want to see how SLI matures next quarter. I have a lot of spare stuff laying around, and I figured I can build a new P4...
  6. K

    Need advice on components please...

    Well, I am looking at building a "new" machine for myself (this is a temporary box until I get an X2 at the end of the year) and interchanging some parts with some of my other boxes to create another rig for my GF. A little background: if you look at my sig, you can see my current specs...
  7. K

    36G Raptor+200 SATA or 2 200 SATA raided?

    2 WD 74 GB Raptors in RAID0.
  8. K

    2x36GB raptors in raid0 or 1x74GB raptor?

    I must respectfully disagree that RAID0 makes no difference, performance-wise. Although a RAID0 does statistically double your MTBF rates, I believe in some situations on a single user PC, it can make a significant difference (I've reduced I/O operation time by 50-75% in many instances). When...
  9. K

    SATA HD Questions

    Sure thing! Definitely sounds to me like it's just one controller, which is awesome. Plug your HD in #1 and you should be ready! Dang, I need money for that board LOL.
  10. K

    SATA HD Questions

    Well, look to see if all of the connectors are located close together, or if there are 2 groups of 2 spread out on the board. It sounds to me like maybe they're all right next to eachother, is that correct? Look at the motherboard. There should be printed markings that describe the connector...
  11. K

    SATA HD Questions

    I don't know much about the DFI board you have. My board has 2 SATA controllers with 2 connectors each. I use the native (e.g., southbridge) controller, as it is usually faster and doesn't add overhead to CPU time. I guess you need to check the manual for your board. Are all the connectors...
  12. K

    All loading times have slowed - Help!

    I definitely agree with this. Double-check to make sure that the HD isn't in PIO mode. If you're running in UDMA, then you've got some nasty spyware/trojans. I also agree with the reformat idea. It seems to be the only way to get rid of some spyware components. Good luck and let us know how...
  13. K

    Harddrive performance for gaming PC

    Sure it will. The levels load faster on my machine, hence I am the first person in the game. I can get set up and pick ppl off as they enter LOL. That only works for certain FPS games, of course. Once a level is loaded, almost everything the game is using is in memory, so of course RAID...
  14. K

    Kingston HyperX vs. Corsair XMS

    I have 2x512 sticks of that particular Corsair RAM. Funny thing, it seems to like Athlon boards but not Intel systems. I ended up letting a friend borrow the RAM for their Athlon 3200+ Barton, and it performs great. In an Asus P4P800 board, it couldn't run at stock with PAT enabled. Very...
  15. K

    Harddrive performance for gaming PC

    I have to disagree with the earlier statements that said RAID0 offers no performance increase. I have an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe with ICH5R and two Maxtor 120 GB SATA w/ 8 MB cache hard-drives. As an experiment, I tried non-RAID first, installing the OS on one drive and apps on the other. Then I...
  16. K

    "Kill Disk" killed my disk! :)

    If you have another machine you can use, I'd move the disk to that machine. Then you can figure out for sure if the drive is bad. I'd also connect a working drive to your IDE connector to see if it is OK. Best of luck!
  17. K

    Baby steps needed to hook up 2 computers

    As others have previously mentioned, a router would be the best and easiest choice. Plus, it would offer more security than having a PC directly connected to the modem. Or, for the host, get a second NIC card use a crossover cable to connect the 2 machines. IMO, this is not a recommended...
  18. K

    Internet speeds

    Very true. Around these parts, cable seems to have both slightly lower latency and a lot higher throughput than DSL, at least through SBC. But it is relative.
  19. K

    Internet speeds

    I too have Cox, for about 4 years now and I couldn't be happier (unless I had fiber LOL). It is much faster than the 256k DSL at work. No comparison. Although, it costs me a pretty penny. On the bright-side, I get peak download speeds over 1 MB/s and sustained download speeds in excess of...
  20. K

    My monarch experience

    I don't think you're being unreasonable. Seems to me that if MC cared about you as a customer, they wouldn't keep fudging up your order. I'd complain and see what else you can get out of them.
  21. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    QUOTE: "As is often the case when I discuss the topic, the Mac proponent either dazzles us with ignorance or fights reality so hard its almost painful." I just read that and burst out laughing it was so funny...and true. shortylickens, you're f***ing hilarious.
  22. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Wow. I've been gone for 6 hours and this pointless debate rages on. For some people, Mac works very well. However, Apple's marketshare reveals that they missed the boat by not using the same standards that "competitors" use, namely following the x86 architecture. My P4 is faster than the...
  23. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    That hit the last nail on the head...into the Mac's coffin that is.
  24. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    OK, so you're telling me that you have as many hw options as x86? You are so full of it. Go back to drawing in Photoshop. Oh, and I looked at your link. The only benches it did good in are optimized for Macs. You'll have to do better. How about something else?
  25. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    No, I don't have any Firewire 800 devices because hardly anyone uses that for digital cameras, or other peripheral devices, at least not yet. Yeah, you can upgrade to a slightly faster proc, but it's lightyears better. On my first build, I went from 2.4b to a 3.4e with HT, using the same MB...
  26. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    But the point is, with a Mac, you have far fewer options for hardware than with x86 machines. You can't argue that, so quit trying. Tell me this...I noticed the G5 isn't on any list for winning rendering tests and benchmarks. So...again, if you're not into software that's limited to OSx...
  27. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    How many devices use Firewire 800? I sure don't have any. And at least if you go x86, you a choice in processors beforehand. If you buy a Mac, it's not like you can buy a competitors chipset and proc.
  28. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    LoL. How about upgrading to newer hw standards, which most PC makers already support? So, go buy a PCIe card or HD with NCQ and let me know how it goes. LoL
  29. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Apple still doesn't offer x86 compatability, hence you're stuck with a processor. Apple doesn't support native PCIe graphics solutions. Apple doesn't support other new technologies either. Apple doesn't provide as much flexability as taking an x86 route. So yes, once you go Mac, you're stuck...
  30. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Because I work with them (Mac fanboys) LoL. I'm a developer. I'm also an e&c engineer. Hence, I get fed up with "Mac this and Mac that" in a hurry. Those that say their PC is great, generally speaking, are closer to the truth than Mac users.
  31. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    You took that out of context. What I meant is, you spend maybe $2-3 or 4k on a Mac. Now what is your upgrade path? Not much there. What about switching to a non-prop OS that isn't so tightly conforming to Apple hw. Not gonna happen. In that sense, you are stuck. Much like how Intel makes...
  32. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    As a matter of fact, I have. Like I have mentioned before, I have graphics artists here at work, and of course, they can't use anything other than Macs, and I have to be their admin because they can't figure out anything. But Terminal is not the same as, say using BASH on Linux. Try setting...
  33. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Thank you! I am tired of Mac fanboys claiming that their machines are so great. I work with graphics people, so I all day I hear...but your AMD/Linux box can't this. Uh, yeah, it can actually. And it can do it either better and/or faster too. LoL Ever notice how Apple picked certain...
  34. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Then you go kick yourself in the nuts...j/k. Why do you hate Linux? I'd rather have control over what my system is doing than rely on some piece of junk widget in OSx do it for me. It's like blending a Unix shell with Windows ME -> which gives you OSx. That's a slight exageration of course...
  35. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Amen. LoL. Or, possibly Linux. ;) I am able to play quite of few of my OpenGL based games on Linux with no problems. And then do a little programming later, of course.
  36. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Actually, SPARCs are wonderful for massive multithreaded simulations, they offer far better performance than other similar machines. Nearly all complex engineering and physics simulations are run on SPARCs. Of course, try running a single threaded app on a SPARC, and it would be slower than...
  37. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    True, but serious scientific simulations are not done on Macs, that's for sure. And a high-end Mac is roughly $4,000. If I were doing simulations all day, I'd put that money toward an Opteron system instead.
  38. K

    MB ram suggestions help

    I agree 100%. It has been shown that A64s prefer low-latency over high frequency w/ looser timings. Makes me wish I had money for the DFI or MSI SLI boards, OCZ RAM, and a Venice. :(
  39. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Very true. If you're into gaming, the A64 is for you. For encoding, possibly a G5 or P4. But I think that most scientific number crunching is left to 4-way+ Opteron systems or SPARCS.
  40. K

    Mac Vs. PC

    Seriously though, x86 machines have native support now for much more advanced technology, not to mention that there are better processors out there than the G5. Macs don't support the latest features for SATAii and PCIe graphics solutions, the processor has a smaller cache than Intel or AMD top...