aristide1, you mix everything, including known, possible and unlikely factors. And you feel obsessed that many people find some "audiophile dogmas" laughable. Question first, you can always dismiss later. First question - Those ceramic insulators they sell don't raise cables 8 inches off the ground...

aristide1, you mix everything, including known, possible and unlikely factors. And you feel obsessed that many people find some "audiophile dogmas" laughable. Hi-end stuff itself is in no way laughable, but there often pop up some claims or opinions, which are. Maybe it would better to analyze, what...

Well, sorry for a bit incorrect wording. My english is mostly learnt on internet and unfortunately on the net the word "audiophile" is widely used in sense on "technophile". In estonian word "muusika" means music and is almost native for language; foreign word "audio" is used either, but it usually ...

There're more interesting devices: http://www.musicdirect.com/product/73105 (slow link warning). Featuring four beams, nearly twice the rotation speed and improved timing processing, the Quadri-Beam is an ultra cool disc treatment. This patented process reduces the noise floor allowing far more info...

Additionally, ClearType is VITAL. No, it is not :) All font "softening" or "beautfying" technologies make fonts look blurry - this is not always good. There are some monitors which really look bad using ClearType, but the blame for that rests with the particular monitor, not the software or the mon...

I'm using Mirra for last two years. Worth every penny, what company throw at it

I'm another person, who cannot look at LCD screen more than 10-15 minutes without getting a headache or similar. Same time I can look at almost any CRT display 10 hours a day, no problems. Reading various forums, this is common problem for people, used CRT for 10-20 years (like me - I started everyd...

Many thanks for hint - Brennestuhl BS-PM230 does measure V/A/cos phi/frequenzy and real wattage (V x A x cos phi) and seems to be available even here (for 26.40 €)

But I can trust it for 200+ W readings? That's what's really important for me right now. Yes, IMHO you can, with some error margin of course. If for example your PSU has power factor of 96%, then 200W corresponds to 208VAR (I mean device will show 208) - not so big difference. With PF=99% there's o...

This little chinese(?) device (I'm using one myself, this time it is named "E-Tech Energy Meter PM300") most probably cannot handle reactive loads properly. I just bought FSP/Fortron Epsilon 80Plus 500W, power meter shows about 22W(!) while PSU is turned off by its switch and 24W while turned on (PC...

About CPU - I'd recommend E8200 or better E8400 (if the latest is available).

This is idiotic.

Normal children talk like that (beware of some ads):
http://www.overheardeverywhere.com/archives/001900.html

Stopping at welcome screen may indicate that some component (winlogon and dependant dlls probably) is searching for wrong drive or partition. Well, windows boot and startup sequences are the most mystical parts on windows at all, thereby I have no more suggestions for registry editing :( Interesting...

Averagely one pending request in disk queue is not critical, but may indicate that you have too little RAM for Vista. There are mostly two concurrent users of hard disk - running applications and OS page file. If you increase RAM size, page file access will decrease. If you don't use disk-intensive ...

You even don't have to move boot.ini and other files - linked registry hack just swaps drive/partition letters. Windows (NT family) kernel doesn't internally use drive letters, unfortunately many (most) apps do. Drive letter mapping is contained in one registry key. I think I've seen some utility on...

You cannot change boot/system drive letter in Disk Management. You can change it easily in registry, but this renders all lettered paths (like C:\...) in registry invalid. Before SP2 tehere were about 10 "hardcoded" paths after fresh install (no problem to change them manually, I've done that myself...

Do not format or remove any partitions during install. Remove boot.ini, ntdetect.com, ntldr and windows folder before installation (you have to use some 3rd party utility like linux boot CD to do that). Probably you should remove profile folders either - or if they are located on data disk, then it ...

Sometimes cold boot problems are caused by failing capacitories on motherboard (they look bulged or are just leaking). Because your motherboard is many years old, this seems not unlikely.

I was using Comodo with Defense+, and Defense+ was bringing up most of the warnings. Have you used that feature? Even not heard of. Maybe this is something new (my Comodo installation is over year old and does not need updating :)), maybe this is some optional component. Looking at Comodo site, it ...

This tool is reliable as long as it can detect all monitoring hardware and properly assign sensor readings. And can understand core temperature readings too - not so easy for newest Intel CPUs. For newer and/or exotic motherboards this (esp interpreting sensors) is not always possible. You should co...

I've used ZoneAlarm, Sygate, Kerio - Comodo is the best. It can be somewhat intrusive initially, but you can teach it; after week or so it doesn't pop up anymore. What else do you expect? Good firewall needs your permission for every [new] software network action; you should not trust preinstalled f...

It's been quite obvious for a long time that electronic devices last longer if run cooler. Not so obvious. Why should CPU@30C last longer than CPU@60C? And even if it does (microscopic changes in its structure may occur), it will become obsolete many-many years before it physically gives up. Well, ...

Look at Device Manager, does HDD pop up there? Have you connected it both in SATA1 (jumpered) and SATA2 mode? In what mode is SATA set in BIOS - native or legacy? Have you checked it with Samsung HUTIL utility, what does that say? It is IMHO very rare occasion that drive is visible in BIOS, but not ...

klankymen wrote:it just doesn't appear in my computer

Does it appear in MyComputer - (rightclick) - Manage - DiskManagement? If yes, what kind of volume it is - Dynamic or similar? If dynamic, you should be able to "import" it into system (in rightclick menu).

Cold-boot issues have mostly caused by motherboard - capacitories are dying (leaking or just bulged). Take a through look at it.

Another possibility could be RAM or cabling problems. PSU is possible too (like any other cause), but I don't think that this is problem on your case.

7900GS measured power consumption according to http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce8600gts_7.html is maximum 45,1W. Codegen 300W means usually not 300W continous power at 50C (what good PSUs are able to deliver), rather peak power at 25C. I can't say anything about your particular ...

Oh, my favourite drive - we (in our tiny company) have used these Seagates too - no problems so far. Actually all HDDs, bought last year, are Seagate slim 160GB drives.

6 of those drives look nice and can be cooled efficiently, when stacked and RAIDed into some Chieftec case for example

You don't need bottom intake - you just have to install PSU bottom up. (Same for Nexus Caterpillar, BTW.) This way it even cools front side devices (HDDs).

I've assisted in building not very noisy PCs, based on next cases (no links, sorry): NEXUS BREEZE NEXUS CATERPILLAR COMPUCASE MIDI SERVER CASE 6920BS-UG COOLERMASTER CAVALIER 3 CAV-T03 All these cases need hard drive suspending (esp Nexus ones) and fan control. Compucase and Coolermaster ones need a...

Such problems are often caused by crappy codecs or buggy 3rd party shell extensions (these little things, appearing in right-click menus, like "ATI Catalyst Control Center" or "Send To Bluetooth Exchange Folder" or how the latest may be named). Both of these run in Explorer memory space and if crash...