OS reinstall help needed

binary visions · Nov 12, 2005

Doesn't matter, but I would - just to make sure everything works together.

binary visions · Nov 13, 2005

narlus said:
but goddamn is setting up a wireless network a pain in the azz....i spent at least 60 min talking to some filipino woman on tech support. does ANYONE get these things working out of the box?

Hmm, wireless networks for me have always been a snap, just plug and go. What was wrong with it?

Glad to hear you got everything working!

H8R · Nov 13, 2005

Hmm.

D-Link?

binary visions · Nov 13, 2005

Bizarre. I've had three Linksys wireless routers, 2 Linksys wireless PC cards, 1 Linksys wired router, and 2 Linksys switches, and they've been completely bulletproof and easy to set up.

Ah well, at least it's working now, right?

binary visions · Nov 13, 2005

http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/microsoft/ie/6.0sp1/

:thumb:

H8R · Nov 13, 2005

narlus said:
yep, it's going fine. next step is to try to get the old IBM Thinkpad running...to install the G notebook card, it tells me i need IE 5.5 or later. i've got IE 5 on there now. i can't find a straight .exe download from MS; all the installs seem to have to happen while you are connected to the internet (which is obviously a problem, unless i go straight from the modem or try a router port, which may or may not work). any ideas?

Did you try Firefox?

Pau11y · Nov 14, 2005

Now Narlus, after all your efforts, make your machine REALLY stable by cleaning up the services. Look at tweakXP.com for editing msconfig (Start/run/type: msconfig). Here's a few for starters you won't need to start on system startup (no particular order): Indexing Service, Messenger, QoS, Themes, Fast User Switching, IMAPI CD-Burning (if you use something else like Nero), TCP NetBIOS Helper, NetMeeting Remote Desktop, Remote Registry, Remote Desktop Help, System Restore (I've never found SysRestore to work well so I just turn mine off), Smart Card, Uninterruptible Power Supply, Wireless Zero Config (I don't have a wireless network - but for you, you might want to leave this one). When you're done here (you'll need to reboot) rt-click on MyComp and goto properties/System Restore tab and check turn off SysRestore, then Advanced tab/Performance/settings/Visual Effects tab and dot Adjust for Best performance. It'll uncheck everything. But I personally like a little bit of prettiness - check the 2nd to last one: Use drop shadows, and 6th from bottom: Smooth Edges of screen fonts. Click apply but don't leave here yet. Goto Advanced tab/Change button. Find out how much ram you have. The first field should be set to the same amout of ram you have, and the 2nd field should be exactly 3 times that number (ie - 256 & 768, or 512 & 1536). This was an old 95/98/ME trick used to stablize those OSs. Still applies to XP. Next, go all the way back to System Properties (rt clck on MyComp) and goto the Remote tab and uncheck everything in here. This will shut down services for good on remote desktop.
Lastly, goto control panel and Add/Remove programs and Add/Remove Windows Components and uncheck Messenger, and MSN crap. Also, I personally use Outlook so I uncheck Outlook Express as well. For those of you who prefer Firefox, this is a good place to uncheck IE which will allow you to delete the IE folder.
Everyone of my machines gets this treatment and they tend to stay up a lot longer and happier after. I did this in the hotel I worked at and was able to "tweak" a PII333 w/ only 128mb of ram (WAY below min specs for XP) to run w/ descent speed. You should notice a HUGE improvement in speed after these steps. And, for msconfig, you may want to experiment w/ other services. DO NOT take out:
Server, Workstation, Plug n Play, Comp Browser, DCOM Server, Windows Installer, Net Logon, Net Connex, Net Location, NT LM Security, Remote Access anything, Remote Procedure anything, Security Accounts Manager, Task Scheduler, Windows Firewall, Windows Time, Universal Plug n Play Device Host, Auto Updates, Security Center, WMI Performance, Windows Management Instrumentation, and anyting related to your anti-virus.

Edit: Sorry for the huge post, but it's worth the time... Trust me.

binary visions · Nov 14, 2005

narlus said:
nice one! where'd/how'd you find it?

I'm a bit of a Google freak, I seem to be able to locate sites that nobody else can find. I'm also a link whore and keep links to sites that I find even remotely interesting. So, between those two things, I've got a lot of good sites at my fingertips

Pau11y has good tips there, if you can sort through his awful post that should be cut up into paragraphs and bullited lists

- all of my machines get the treatment of disabling unused services

binary visions · Nov 14, 2005

BTW, narlus, Google searches will yield a TON of websites that will give you information on the remaining services. All depends on how much time you're willing to put into it, of course, but if you really want to pull a little more speed out of your machine, you can spend an hour or so reading up on services and shutting off the ones you don't need.

I also use TuneUp Utilities 2006 to clean up my machine:

http://www.tune-up.com/

There's a lot of utilities in there, give it a shot. It's a cheap purchase if you like it. The Start Up Manager is extremely useful in speeding up your machine - it analyzes your startup entries and provides suggestions on what ones you should leave on, and what ones you can safely turn off. Plus, it's just a check box so if you turn one off, reboot and find you want it, you just check the box again and you're back in business.

The registry cleaner and registry compacter both work well, and the disk cleaner is nice. It offers lots of good suggestions on what settings might be slowing down your computer, as well, but be careful with the settings regarding your internet connection speed. I was using 2003 for a while and fubar'd my settings. Fortunately, this program offers the option of setting a "rescue point" for all of your settings - so you can always undo.

Pau11y · Nov 14, 2005

Englais? I don't need no stinkin' Englais! I'm a friggin' CS major! I'm not talking Englais well now, and in the future, I won't need any more of it since I'll be talking computernese!
Hey BV, I was privied to a clue on bio-computing using DNA strands (aka physical computing, vs linear computing of the toys we use now). This dude hard codes DNA strands w/ problems and "grows" the answers in some sort of bio bath. He's had several successes! There's a book about this I need to get my grubby little hands on...I think it's called Biomimicry... forgot by who tho...

binary visions · Nov 14, 2005

More info, dammit. That sounds cool.

Can I program it to do my work for me?

H8R · Nov 15, 2005

narlus said:
thanks again for everyone's help...it's nice to have a stable PC again.

btw, i haven't done Pau11y's tweaks yet, but they are in the plan.

How's the system I spec'd as far as speed, etc?

I'm currently looking at a budget system right now. I'm trying to see if I can put a viable machine together that will plow through Photoshop and have decent gaming performance for about $600.

I'm actually coming in around $500 if I re-use some stuff.

binary visions · Nov 15, 2005

The system I spec'd is somewhat similar to the one you spec'd in terms of the level of components (comperable video cards, RAM, etc.) and is really great for those two purposes: Photoshop CS2, and rounds of Unreal Tournament 2004 & Doom 3.

I've got it overclocked about 400mhz, and the video card overclocked as well, and even at that the whole system runs almost no warmer than stock.

Pau11y · Nov 15, 2005

Dude, w/ that much music, you should hook us all up w/ a FTP account to leech off of you. I've got roughly 37K tracks, and a lot of them can be deleted. How about it maing?

binary visions · Nov 15, 2005

narlus said:
i may spring for another 1GB of RAM because some of the apps i run on a frequent basis (slimserver, iTunes) take a lot of memory because of the big database (~80,000 songs).

Just FYI, your RAM is going to be noticably slower if you simply throw two more sticks in there and fill up your 4 slots. You'll get a pretty large performance increase if you pull the two 512s you have now, sell 'em on eBay, and pick up two dual channel 1gbs.

H8R · Nov 15, 2005

binary visions said:
The system I spec'd is somewhat similar to the one you spec'd in terms of the level of components (comperable video cards, RAM, etc.) and is really great for those two purposes: Photoshop CS2, and rounds of Unreal Tournament 2004 & Doom 3.

I've got it overclocked about 400mhz, and the video card overclocked as well, and even at that the whole system runs almost no warmer than stock.

Here's what I'm looking at right now:

Asus A8N-VM CSM socket 939 6150/430 mobo (decent onboard video to hold me over till I get a PCIe card later)

Athlon 64 3200+

Corsair Value Ram 2 X 512mb

Hitachi Deskstar 80gb SATAII drive.

My old 60gb drive as secondary

NEC dvd writer

My Antec SLK1650B case, maybe a new PSU added.

All in so far: approx $450

H8R · Nov 15, 2005

narlus said:
so which ones should i look at?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=Browse&Manufactory=1687

Dis won:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145575

Oar dis won:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227210

Oar four da cheepy:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145579

binary visions · Nov 15, 2005

narlus said:
really? why would that be?

I guess I should have said, it could be a problem, and in theory will be slower. The actual performance hit will vary.

Motherboards run 2 sticks of dual channel memory at the fastest speed the motherboard can support (let's say, for example, 400mhz). When you install a third or a fourth stick, many motherboards drop the speed a little bit since they're accessing more channels - so, you may be getting 333mhz, or slower.

That may be in your motherboard manual, actually, so check it out.

Of course, the theoretical part of it is that accessing 2 channels should always be faster than accessing 4 channels. The actual performance hit might not be that great, I've never done back-to-back testing of it, but anecdotes seem to indicate that it is in fact slower for most setups - there are exceptions, though.

Anything that's 2gb of the same RAM, and stating it supports dual channels, will work fine. If you want to stick with Geil, you can go this route, but Geil is neither an outstanding nor a bad brand so there's no reason you couldn't look elsewhere to save money or spend a little more to gain performance.

H8R · Nov 15, 2005

binary visions said:
I guess I should have said, it could be a problem, and in theory will be slower. The actual performance hit will vary.

Motherboards run 2 sticks of dual channel memory at the fastest speed the motherboard can support (let's say, for example, 400mhz). When you install a third or a fourth stick, many motherboards drop the speed a little bit since they're accessing more channels - so, you may be getting 333mhz, or slower.

That may be in your motherboard manual, actually, so check it out.

Of course, the theoretical part of it is that accessing 2 channels should always be faster than accessing 4 channels. The actual performance hit might not be that great, I've never done back-to-back testing of it, but anecdotes seem to indicate that it is in fact slower for most setups - there are exceptions, though.

Anything that's 2gb of the same RAM, and stating it supports dual channels, will work fine. If you want to stick with Geil, you can go this route, but Geil is neither an outstanding nor a bad brand so there's no reason you couldn't look elsewhere to save money or spend a little more to gain performance.

Look for lower CAS latency RAM also if you want a slight nudge in speed when running apps that address the memory frequently. (games, repetitive P-Shop batches, etc.)

H8R · Nov 15, 2005

H8R said:
Look for lower CAS latency RAM also if you want a slight nudge in speed when running apps that address the memory frequently. (games, repetitive P-Shop batches, etc.)

What is CAS latency you ask??

http://www.dewassoc.com/performance/memory/cas_latency.htm

Not a big deal if you don't care about the few extra frames per second in Doom 3.

Pau11y · Nov 15, 2005

Hehehe.. I got my dirty little hands on some 2-2-2-5s from Coarsair. When I load all 4 slots, the system changes from T1 to T2, and it does "feel" slower.
Oh BTW H8R, I found a guy on Anandtech selling an Opteron 165 full retail for $335.00. They're going for $299.00 OEM on the Egg so I think the extra $35.00 will be worth the HS/fan and the 3 year warranty. It's from a batch number where ppl are hitting 3ghz (that's like 160% above stock speeds! FACK!)

Edit: oh btw H8R, you might want to go up juuuuust a hair from the 3000+ to a 3700+ and get the full mb of L2 vs 512k.

H8R · Nov 15, 2005

Pau11y said:
Hehehe.. I got my dirty little hands on some 2-2-2-5s from Coarsair. When I load all 4 slots, the system changes from T1 to T2, and it does "feel" slower.
Oh BTW H8R, I found a guy on Anandtech selling an Opteron 165 full retail for $335.00. They're going for $299.00 OEM on the Egg so I think the extra $35.00 will be worth the HS/fan and the 3 year warranty. It's from a batch number where ppl are hitting 3ghz (that's like 160% above stock speeds! FACK!)

Edit: oh btw H8R, you might want to go up juuuuust a hair from the 3000+ to a 3700+ and get the full mb of L2 vs 512k.

I'm working on less-than-shoestring budgeting right now.

But yeah, considering 939 will be old news in a year I should get a proc that will die with the mobo, as upgrades will be had in the M2 platform when they kick 939 and 754 to the curb.

Pau11y · Nov 15, 2005

From my reading the 939 was going to hang for a bit (no pun...), but it was 6 months ago tho... They're killing off the 940s and 754s.

OS reinstall help needed

Eastcoast Softcore

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

Eastcoast Softcore

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

Cranky Pants

Eastcoast Softcore

Eastcoast Softcore

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

Cranky Pants

Eastcoast Softcore

Turbo Monkey

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

The voice of reason

Turbo Monkey

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

Cranky Pants

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

Turbo Monkey

The voice of reason

Eastcoast Softcore

Eastcoast Softcore

Eastcoast Softcore

Cranky Pants

Cranky Pants

The voice of reason

Cranky Pants

Cranky Pants

Turbo Monkey

Cranky Pants

Turbo Monkey