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Several years out of the loop and just put together a new rig for some gaming, but really have no idea what I'm doing. Phenom 955 BE processor, GSkill Ripjaw 4GB DDR1333, and Asus M4A87TD mobo. I've pretty well got everything in the bios on "auto" because I really don't know the proper...

Been on the Mac side for a few years and planning a budget PC build solely for the purpose of gaming. Would prefer to just spend around $200, but if there's a substantially better option for upwards of $250, I can budge. So what's the absolute best option under the 250 mark? I have no allegiance...

I'm a current Mac user looking to build a PC solely for the purpose of gaming. I was once heavily into the building and overclocking thing, but put my non-functional rig in the closet nearly 3 years ago, bought a MBP and never looked back. I now have zero knowledge of parts, who leads the way in...

I'm currently looking for an affordable, mid-range board for a rig I built more than three years ago. Have the original LGA775 C2D E6400 in it, and went through three (one DOA) Gigabyte 965P-DS3 motherboards before sticking it in a corner and buying a Mac. Finally looking for a board to get it...

Is there any point in pairing a quality set of headphones with the sound card of a MBP, or are they mainly reserved for the superior cards of desktops? I'm looking at the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro set as they seem well-built and have a shorter coiled cord for laptop use, but would the output be any...

In the market for an external HDD for my MBP. Notice on Newegg they have the typical drives PC/Mac and then those for Mac's specifically. Is there actually any difference, are they physically the same drive? Are the Mac drives just HFS + Journaled pre-formatted ploy to get more money from...

I have the auto brightness adjustment in system preferences disabled, but the brightness jumps around quite frequently. It dims when I take the power cord loose and run on battery, but dims at random depending on the day...and then when I plug it back in it brightens at random we well, thus I'm...

Installed Vista Ultimate a couple weeks ago. Noticed during the install my screen (Dell 2007WFP S-IPS) was significantly darker than it had been just 30 minutes earlier on XP. I first tinkered with the brightness settings in ATI control panel but everything looked flat, lacked contrast....then...

I've got a VB.NET project to do and I'm looking to create something along the lines of CPU-Z, only much more basic (readouts of maybe 4-5 things). Is it a simple matter of reading a place in memory that that data is contained and displaying it in a GUI, or is there more to it? And where/how...

So I've got this Rev2 DS3 that from the beginning, took substantially more voltage to achieve the same overclock as my previous Rev1. Ran fine for several weeks and then started BSOD'ing and crashing constantly even though it was 24-hour Orthos stable and I continually backed it down before...

Just installed Vista and I see that none of the software for the Audigy 2 series (creative surround mixer, EAX console etc) is compatible. What can I do to edit the sound settings and all because it's terrible at default.

When moving from XP to Vista, will I have to reformat my storage drive, or is the file system similar enough that everything on the drive will continue to work just fine? Also, if I back up my Outlook Express e-mail from XP, will I be able to load it on Vista or is that done differently? Will...

So I haven't done any gaming in a few months nor any tinkering so this issue has me lost. At random, the screen will freeze (with the sound still going but frozen) for about 5-6 seconds, then both monitors will go blank (with the sound still going), and several seconds later the desktop will...

I posted a couple months back about an issue I was having in which I was getting BSOD's nearly every hour, on the hour. A simple CMOS reset cured the problem, but since that time it's been all I want to get within 200mhz of where I was stable before. Figured I'd try some other BIOS versions but...

I've had this Raptor connected to the Gigabyte SATA ports on this board a few months and never thought it seemed as snappy as it was on my previous DFI nForce3 board, but never really bothered with it. I ran HD Tach on it today for shits and giggles and was rather displeased. It's slower than my...

Now, I've had BSOD's in the past but they were while gaming or under some sort of load. But this morning, with only ATI CCC and AVG running in the background and one Firefox window open, I hear a couple clicks and walk in the room to a BSOD. This thing passed 25hrs of Orthos and has been rock...

How do 3x1GB sticks affect overclocking potential with C2D's? I don't really want to spend the money for another 2x1GB pair, but I would like to have a little more for Vista before the GSkill HZ sticks are discontinued and I have to mix and match brands/models.

Has anyone else tried both the Rev1 and Rev2 965P-DS3 boards? With the now-dead Rev1, I could get 3.2ghz at 1.35v, and 3.3ghz at 1.375v. The new Rev2, with the same settings, same F7 Bios...takes 1.36v to run at 3.2ghz, and anything over 3.2 (even a few mhz at 1.375v) fails Orthos within a...

In recent days, when I'd make a change in the BIOS (voltage, FSB etc), rather than do it's normal 2-3 second shutdown and restart, my DS3 would reboot and not POST. I'd have to do a hard shutdown, fire it up again once or twice to get it to POST and boot. Yesterday I installed an Ultra 120, and...

This may have been discussed before, but a quick search didn't turn up anything, which also tells me it's not a common issue. Once I go above 400 FSB, my DS3 will only run at even-numbered FSB's. Set it to 403, it runs at 402...set it to 421, it runs at 420, and so on. It's not really that big...

I installed Nero a couple weeks ago and accidentally left all the file types to associate with Nero checked, obviously leaving me with a hard drive full of Nero files. I uninistalled Nero, then reinstalled and unchecked all the file types, which corrected all but the .dat files. Now I've got a...

I've read the reviews on the Ultra 120, but they generally just show comparisons to other 120mm heatsinks. What kind of temperature difference could reasonably be expected switching from XP90/Panaflo H1B to an Ultra 120/M1A?

In the past I've always used a copy of AsusDVD, which is basically a knockoff of PowerDVD, that came bundled with an Asus motherboard...but I no longer have the disc. Now I'm trying to watch movies, and Windows Media Player 10 won't play them, and the Lite-On bundled version of PowerDVD errors...

I've got an Antec 400w SL400 Smartpower PSU that's been sitting unused for about a year and a half now, and I want to use it in a rig that I'm putting together using old parts I've got laying around. Are these known to go bad over time and is there any way to test it before hooking it up and...

I've got an 80mm fan in the floppy bay of my LL PC-75b right now, although I may put a 92mm in there. I'm looking for suggestions on how I could cover it up and make it look at least halfway presentable. Obviously some sort of 1 peice, 3-bay cover with holes in it would be best, but I haven't...

Is anyone else using one of the K8/P4 Thermalright heatsinks on the DS3? I didn't notice it when I originally installed the backplate, but when I removed it yesterday I noticed that it doesn't mount around the CPU socket pins on the backside, but mounts directly on top of them. Will the pressure...

I'm looking for a cheap 256MB stick of DDR2 533 or any other speed DDR2 that runs at 1.8v to try and boot my rig with. Don't care what off-brand it is or what it came out of, as long as it works. email [email protected]

I got this thing all put together, everything is installed and connected properly. When I tried powering it on the first time, it fired up, then stopped for a split second and then came back on. The motherboard then made a constant beep, the video card fan sped up and slowed back down...

I'm assembling my new Conroe build and, having had issues with RAM in the past, I'd like to check to make sure it runs at spec right off the bat before installing Windows. Is this done on a C2D the same as with an A64...set to 5x400 or so and run Memtest? And which slots on the DS3, red or...

I'm pretty well set on an E6400 and Gigabyte 965P-DS3 as it seems to be the cheapest among the good-overclocking boards, however I'm open to suggestions on motherboards. As fas as memory goes, I notice looking at the OC database that Corsair and GSkill are the two most common brands, but they...

Is it safe to assume that if BH-6 chips create 165 errors in 1 pass of Memtest at 210 mhz 2-2-2-6 1T 2.9v...one or both of the sticks is just junk?

Just bought an NEC DVD burner because my Lite-on's are junk, and it comes with no software. I have 2 copies of Nero for CD-R/RW but not DVD, so I have a drive I can't use. Whats a good, inexpensive DVD burning software? Is there any place that sells the OEM Nero that comes with the Lite-on's...

Are there any S939 AGP boards out there that will overclock when using >2 SATA drives? I know DFI had one out that would and then canned it after a couple weeks.

Are there any ill effects of increasing the 3.3v rail over the long term? I'd like to pump 3.3v at the most through my RAM, so I'd need to adjust it up to 3.4-3.45. Also, does anyone have a write-up or guide for doing this on the PCP&C 510's?

For a typical warm-running, overclocked Clawhammer, would a jump from a Zalman 7000A-cu to XP-90 be worthwhile? Temp differences seem to vary quite a bit in each comparison review I've come across.

I've seen the directions for upgrading to boards on different chipsets without having to reformat, but can I swap out boards on the exact same chipset using the same OS install? I'm RMA'ing my DFI and want to stick my MSI Neo Platinum in there temporarily until the replacement DFI arrives.

Could someone kindly point me toward a guide to testing a PSU with a multimeter? Also, is there a way to check vdimm by way of the slots?

I've spent the last couple days trying to find a stable overclock with this setup to no avail. Started out at 10x235 1.58v, 2-2-2-6 1T 3.2v and got about 70 errors in Memtest within seconds and fatal errors in Prime after 52 minutes. Also tried 10x230 and 10x220 with the same result. I then...

Just picked up a 2 month old ZS, paired with Logitech z5300e's. Originally I installed everything on the application CD, but it seemed the more I tinkered, the worse it sounded. So I uninstalled everything and installed just the drivers. Games that support 3D audio aren't detecting the rear...