A few questions about my new system.......

[DMBMoose]

I just bought a new system today:
Abit AG8 SATA Raid LGA775
p4 3.4
1gb kingston hyper x ram (512x2) (ddr400, pc3200)
2 200gb WD SATA hds
PCI- Express MSI Ati Radeon x800 xt
420W Powersupply
Windows XP Media Center 2005
This is the first time ive really customized a computer, and now im thinking i would be better off had I got 2gb of ram and since i have 4 slots for ram i could either buy 2 more 512s of the Kingston for 304 or 1 Samsung 1gb ddr400 pc3200 for 224 and also leave one more slot open for future expansion. Will using a different kind of memory in a differnet size be a bad idea? I could also just add 1 kingston for the time being. How much of a noticable difference is there from 1.5 to 2 at this time? (mainly for games and photo editing and designing)

Also,
At the moment i am unfortunatley using a school issued top of the line Powerbook g4 laptop, and at first i figured i wouldnt need a windows computer since this was a really nice , but its been 2-1/2 months now and im fed up not being able to play games. So now to my question is....I have an external 200 firewire and 160 usb hard drive which is formatted with a mac file system...i want to change these back to windows now.......what would be my easiest way to do this without losing any of the files one either?

thanks alot for your help
(and sorry if this is in the wrong section of the forums)
darren b

 

[mechBgon]

Don't try to use three modules on an Intel-chipset dual-channel board like that. It'll force it into single-channel mode. You might as well add a pair of 512's.

Since I was wondering something about WinXP MCE 2005, could you answer these for me?

1) go to My Computer and right-click a hard drive, choose Properties, go to Tools, and does it have Backup along with Defrag and Scandisk?

2) go to Start > Run and type gpedit.msc and hit OK. Does Group Policy Editor come up?


Basically, I'm wondering if WinXP MCE2005 is built off of WinXP Professional (which would have GP Editor and Backup) or off of WinXP Home, which does not have those. TIA for any info and I'm sorry but I don't have an insight on the Mac question.

 

[DMBMoose]

I actually dont have my new system yet, but i read earlier on cnet that unfortunatley its built off of XP Home.

 

[mechBgon]

Thanks for that info. I guess that rules it out for my work system then.