Bogbas

Yes that's actually a better idea. I didn't remember that floppies still exists as I have not had a floppy drive in my pc for 4 years.

There's an open source(free) editing program also available. http://www.jahshaka.org And it works on windows, linux and osx. I can't say much about it though as I haven't used it actually. But it's free so you might want to try it.

Bootloader is something you shouldn't remove. It wouldn't be able to boot anything without one. But maybe you would be able to boot to windows with grub? This might help: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html

1. yes (you might need to change some settings in the router though) 2. yes 3. Depends, I had a linksys router a while back and it was total shite. It was an old model though so they could have improved. Now I have an SMC router which works pretty well (but not perfect...) At home the wii and ds is connected to the internet through this: http://www.a-link.com/WL54AP2.html (didn't buy it from that site though)

You don't need to uninstall everything (just the recently installed avg that doesn't work maybe), just shutdown the apps that aren't needed for the installation. Basically you'd just right-click on all the icons that are next to the clock and choose exit/quit. And I have a vague memory that the pc needs to be rebooted to complete the installation for avg.

I'm having a duke3d flashback here...

Have you rebooted? (probably a stupid question, but lets start from the basics ) You have uninstalled any other antivirus software you had? Some offer removal tools from their sites. If you want to try re-installing avg, unplug your pc from the internet, uninstall the avg you have now, reboot, shut down every program you don't need when windows loads(messenger, xfire, firewall etc.), install avg. Then reboot and plug your computer back to the internet. Be sure that the firewall starts before you do that,

Most routers ship with an ethernet cable in the box. You should first at least configure it with that. And never try to upgrade firmware through a wireless connection. And if possible, I wouldn't even allow access to the router's settings from a wireless client.

Yes especially when the internet has backed up those already But seriously though hijackthis could have saved you a format. Or at least make it easier to do the backups.

if you don't like earphones you could try koss portapro's. The sound quality is great and probably better than you can get with any earphones. But it sounds like the ipod is broken as none of the headphones you tried works properly. Personally I'd tear the thing apart to see where the problem is, but getting a replacement sounds like a better idea

If you know your computer inside out you could try HijackThis http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php but be sure to read all the instructions for it. It generates a list of everything that starts when the pc starts. And then you can choose which ones you don't want to start at startup. This includes programs/services that are needed for normal operation. So be careful.

I'd suggest you use 192.168.1.1 on one pc and 192.168.1.2 on the other. And use subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 0's and 255's have special meanings in ip addresses so I don't recommend using them on a computer's ip address.

It used to mean the whole computer but now it means the processor. Some "old school" people might still refer to the actual computer as a cpu.

At the moment it's not a big issue because HD content isn't really mainstream yet. I just plan on using a pc as a heart of a home theater system. So not being able to use digital sound outputs for hd movies and the need to get HDCP equipped hardware puts me down. As for games, microsoft has stated that it expects 10-15% decrease in game performance compared to xp (it was because of the new windows driver model I think). I don't think that the graphics drivers for vista are fully optimised yet. But the performance will get better when amd and nvidia get their drivers working better.

Yes that's exactly what you should do. Well this depends, new motherboards can probably sense that the pci-e slot is in use and disable the onboard graphics chip when a pci-e card is used. Some have the option of "default display adapter" or similar. You should check (there's always the option of not saving the changes) the bios if there's an option to disable the onboard chip. Otherwise it might just be reserving a part of the system memory to itself. AGP has pretty much died in motherboards. When I returned my ~2 year old asus motherboard last autumn I received a pci- express motherboard in return. Nice, but I then had to buy a new graphics card.

But their power supplies tend to be bad. I think some of them used to blow up. Even when the power supply was off. But I have to agree that the cases are nice.

This is from the official website:

What do you mean the wireless network interface doesn't get the right IP- address? If it has a static address it shouldn't complain about limited connectivity. Has the wireless access point any security features enabled (i.e mac filtering)? If you have a wireless router set the default gateway and DNS address (on the pc) as the router's IP address when you set the static IP address.

SLI/Crossfire is the decision that you have to make. The card's won't be an issue as AGP did last for a pretty long time. Just make sure that there's PCIexpress x16. The support for SLI or Crossfire support depends on the motherboard. Currently CPU's bottleneck the 8800GTX so I wouldn't be so worried about motherboards. And dx10 has most to do with the graphics card. It doesn't affect the rest of the hardware as much.

There are some that you can get from microsoft's website. Those only change the colors though. But they don't require any software to be installed either. I'm using the zune theme. http://s2.supload.com/free/zune_theme.jpg/view/ That's not my desktop, mine is cleaner I don't know if there's one that is pure white though.

This man is right. Although get core 2 duo as core duo is something that was before c2d The E6300 and E6400 can get nice overclocks with just air cooling. But those models are soon to be upgraded to versions with 2Mb more cache. Which might not overclock as well as the original ones. And a motherboard with nvidia 680i chipset would be good. If you're serious about overclocking, you might want to look at the cheap E4300 which is a budget processor. At stock speed this chip doesn't do much, but it can be overclocked to compete with stock x6800. I haven't had any experience with water cooling though. And I wouldn't compare dx9 -> dx10 with dx8.1-> dx9 because back then that was just an update to directx and that worked with winxp and win98. Now microsoft is trying to shove vista down every pc gamers throat (or at least that's the feeling I get from them...)

I'd wait a couple of months for the E6320 and E6420. They have 2Mb more cache and the same price as E6300 and E6400 have now.

This reminds me of headlines that newspapers have every autumn after the first snow. "Drivers surprised by the snow, pile up on(insert road here)" etc. Those pile ups only happen in the southern Finland though. They get surprised by the snow every single year.

Just wondering, have you actually done that? Jumping to a pile of snow after sauna = fun Not so good on one's heart though...

I joined C-E pretty much right after the change from n64europe. Didn't really post much, and back then I had an avatar (Where's the garfield!?). I remember some odd things like some link and falco members becoming a mod or something. Then again I mixed up svt4him and ford prefect. So my memory can be a bit inaccurate...