the 2.1's were nowhere near the quality of the 5.1's, especially sound wise. On that note, my 5.1 non Ultras have lasted me for going on 9 years now, and the only issue was what i posted a few posts back, very recently. I couldn't be happier with them.... except if they had more inputs ;-)
lucky for me, none of my components were dead. I simply wiggled the relays, made sure the fuse was snapped in correctly, and moved many capacitors and resistors that were touching other components so they would cool better, and amazingly the sound came back in full.
@raptor, would you be...
did you check for bent pins on the cpu? If you find any, VERY carefully use a tiny screwdriver or something to straighten it out a bit, and see if you can get it into the socket.
seems like a good deal for exclusive items, but I find that much of the more common items are cheaper elsewhere... why do the manufacturers always try to screw us :-p
I love guinness, cheers and thanks for the heads up!
If you're looking for cheap, a Buffalo WHR-125 or WHR-G54 are great with DD-WRT firmware...
But, if you really want an upgrade, Get the Linksys WRT-350N. Its wireless N (good range), runs DD-WRT, and is a gigabit switch, so all around you have a nice upgrade.
certainly with a bit of overclocking, but probably not at stock. heres a review comparing the 2.0ghz Conroe-L to the Celeron D 365 (3.6ghz) among others. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/conroe-l-preview.html
Thats a pretty sweet deal.
for buyers: keep in mind we don't know if these are Newcastle or Venice core. Newcastle is 89w, has the old memory controller which locks RAM at pc2700 if all 4 dimm's are used. Venice is 67w, has the improved memory controller, and overclocks better. :)
you want FAR soap? :p
go to kmart, get a 4 pack of duracell batteries, head over to the beauty department, grab any 2 proctor and gamble products (many variety of soap ;-) ), make sure to get the coupon form on of the on shelf promotion displays, and when you ring up with the coupon, you...
bang for the buck is definetly not one of Apple's strong suits. They're pretty, but they're pretty overpriced :-p
Get a vostro or any other laptop that you can find with good specs for your price range. If you fancy OSX, try dual booting Windows with Linux. Its got the eye candy and speed...