Computer hardware and software

[Ehsan]

Would the slower HDD slow down my game play?

Khaled is correct, it won't matter much for gaming because most data is in RAM after the level loads initially. It effects boot times and application launch times and generally makes windows feel snappier.

Speaking of which, can i buy Windows Vista online 64 bit ultimate as a download? IS there something like that available or will i have to buy a hard copy and wait for it to ship? Much easier for me if i download and get the license online...

I highly recommend Windows 7 RC x64 which you can download now for free. I've been using it for a month and everything runs perfectly, most games faster than Vista.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

It will expire by March 2010 so you have a long time to order it when it's released.

If you still want Vista you can download it from store.microsoft.com

 

[K.I.]

Actually Ehsan i am downloading it right now but i was a bit sceptical because its still an RC Version but since you think its good i will install it. Does Norton Antivirus run on it? If it doesnt what Anti virus does because i have to install one.

Speaking on my rig, i essembled it yesterday and everything looks good, only thing left is the windows and i will put W7 after its finished, there were 2 issues though, the dedicated video meomory is 869 where it should be 1792 but i heard its something windows just reads wrong while in reality its 1792 if i look in the nividia control pannel. The other is when i installed windows, i created 2 partitions, one for windows and the other as an emty partition to put all my stuff in it since i wont touch the windows parition. After i did that that the second partition has 12GB taken from it even though the partition is totally empty, no hidden files or nothing. Dose vista ultimate do that? Does it mount files that i cant see to that partition?

 

[Ehsan]

Norton works fine on 7. But I use ESET Nod32 because it's lighter and uses less resources.

I'm not sure about your hard disk without looking at it. Windows does not create hidden files like that, and especially not to another partition.

Just guessing, but did you specify the size as "500,000 MB" and now you have "488 GB"? That would actually be correct. If you want 500 GB you should specify 512,000 MB.

 

[VLE]

I also recommand Nod32. They sometimes come up at newegg as OEM.

 

[Besnik]

I prefer more Kaspersky, is a bit hard with those licenses but isn't problem, licenses are here: CLICK HERE. Anyone know where to find Bit Defender's key's?

 

[Stefan]

A little, the differance isnt much between 320 and 500 GB... you can get an external as Ehsan said.

Speaking of which, can i buy Windows Vista online 64 bit ultimate as a download? IS there something like that available or will i have to buy a hard copy and wait for it to ship? Much easier for me if i download and get the license online...

I would wait for win 7 x64. Its so close it really isn't worth it to buy vista right now.

You can use win 7 rc till its released. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

I also recommand Nod32. They sometimes come up at newegg as OEM.

Norton works fine on 7. But I use ESET Nod32 because it's lighter and uses less resources.

I'm not sure about your hard disk without looking at it. Windows does not create hidden files like that, and especially not to another partition.

Just guessing, but did you specify the size as "500,000 MB" and now you have "488 GB"? That would actually be correct. If you want 500 GB you should specify 512,000 MB.

I also prefer nod32, really excellent use it on my own system. If you want to use a free one avast is also good, I use it on my dad's system .

 

[K.I.]

Norton works fine on 7. But I use ESET Nod32 because it's lighter and uses less resources.

I'm not sure about your hard disk without looking at it. Windows does not create hidden files like that, and especially not to another partition.

Just guessing, but did you specify the size as "500,000 MB" and now you have "488 GB"? That would actually be correct. If you want 500 GB you should specify 512,000 MB.

Well we will see,Windows 7 is downloaded and i will burn it to a CD and and i will reformat the drives and see what happens.

 

[Suneet]

Noob here. What is windows 7

 

[K.I.]

New Windows man, thats what its called.

Does the RAID 0 bosts performance that much? I heard it does but i dont like the Idea of the the Harddrives being in RAID since if one of them even fails you are screwed, also SD drives, anyone tried them? they soom to cost to much but i want to know for the future if i should stick to the 7200 or go with something else if its worth it.

 

[Stefan]

New Windows man, thats what its called.

Does the RAID 0 bosts performance that much? I heard it does but i dont like the Idea of the the Harddrives being in RAID since if one of them even fails you are screwed, also SD drives, anyone tried them? they soom to cost to much but i want to know for the future if i should stick to the 7200 or go with something else if its worth it.

Raid made since in the older days when we were using ide drives now with all drives being sata it isn't really worth it imho. SD drives are faster but they have rather limited capacity, if you have the cash you can get one sd drive for the operating system and another big sata drive for storage. But I would wait for the price to fall.

 

[K.I.]

GTX 295 runs freaking hot, 50 C at idle. I will probably get a GPU fan for it or something. I am sure it will hit 90 while i am playing games. Any suggestions for that would be appreciated. I am trying to find a program that will let me control the GPU fan so i can make it 100% while i am playing but i cant find a program. Also any overclockers here?

 

[Stefan]

GTX 295 runs freaking hot, 50 C at idle. I will probably get a GPU fan for it or something. I am sure it will hit 90 while i am playing games. Any suggestions for that would be appreciated. I am trying to find a program that will let me control the GPU fan so i can make it 100% while i am playing but i cant find a program. Also any overclockers here?

If its an evga try their precision program, else riva tuner or ati tool.

 

[Nyall]

New question: Have any of you guys ever heard of External GFx Cards or something called ViDock2?

http://www.villagetronic.com/vidock2/index.html

Is it any good and does that mean that t should get a laptop with everything but a good GFX and get ViDock 2 plus something like a 9800 GTX? Does anyone recommend I do this?

 

[Ilkinio]

İnteresting. Any experts? I would buy one if it's really working.

 

[Stefan]

Never heard of it before now. It seems to be able to do a good job but I would wait some reviews to judge its real world performance.

 

[Ehsan]

There is a review on Tom's Hardware for the older version. The conclusion is if you have an old laptop and need to give it some graphics capabilities, then it's good for that. The problem is the bandwidth was very low as it uses a PCI Express 1x connection, as opposed to today's 16x standard.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vidock-expresscard-graphics,1933.html


The new version uses ExpressCard 2.0 which should resolve the bandwidth problem. However you need to have a laptop which supports it. My question is, if you're buying a newer laptop, why not get integrated 3D graphics in the first place?

Another disadvantage is that it only works with ATI cards, because nVidia doesn't support ExpressCard yet.

And finally, look at the size of the thing. If the point of getting a laptop is portability, chugging that along won't help.

But, I can see many cases where this would work. It would be perfect for me because my work laptop is my personal laptop, and I carry it to work every day. I want to come back home, dock it to my LCD TV and play games. When I travel, I just take the lightweight laptop.

Here's a 24 page thread to go through if you consider buying it, with opposing opinions from both sides. In the end, it depends on your specific needs and requirements.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=390634

 

[Ilkinio]

That's kinda my deal. I have lightweight notebook with pretty decent settings. I will research further and maybe buy this thing.

 

[Nyall]

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5056933#post5056933

According to this link from the same forum a guy reviewed it and says it works fine!

 

[Handoyo]

My laptop is fucked.

It kept freezing for months so I reformatted it about a month ago and it has been fine since. But since yesterday, the problem is back again.

Do you think this is a hardware or a software problem? I'm using a Dell Inspiron 1520 btw, I bought it in Nov 07.

Do you think I should change the HD or just buy a new one?

Dammit!

 

[Ilkinio]

Han, are you using your computer in the same network since first freezes?