Hardware - October 2006

Okay....I want to REPLACE my existing old, small, outdated, hard drive. I have a Dell (bought in 2003) Dimension 4600. I haven't decided yet if I have the nerve to "do-it-myself"...but I want to go purchase a hard drive. I've found a Maxtor Ultra PATA 300GB for 89 bucks (with a special discount/rebate thing) at Staples.

1. Is that a good one?
2. Good price?

My MAIN concern is getting one that is COMPATIBLE with my pc. I get confused by all these Letters: EIDE SATA PATA Ultra-PATA...what the heck is all that noise about?

Are hard drives generally a "one size fits all" sort of thing?

HELP!

Thanks SOOOO much for any help on this.

2006-10-26 08:04:44 · 7 answers · asked by Gray Rock 3 in Desktops

When I run my toshiba laptop with electricity its brightness is perfect but when I use it with the batery the brightness is so terrible...

Is there any way I can adjust the brightness?
I press FN and F7 to increase the brightness but it doesn't work....meaning nothing happens when I do that....

Is it broken or something?

2006-10-26 08:00:48 · 4 answers · asked by Boptimistic!!! 1 in Laptops & Notebooks

I have p4 2.4Ghz proceesor and intel D845GVFN Motherboard with 64MB Built in video card.Please also consider compatibilty with this built in.

2006-10-26 08:00:04 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Desktops

I have this used laptop,which doesnt have a cdrom drive. so i would like to know what should i do. because i need a cdrom drive to install windows xp on it. when i cut my laptop on its says no operating system.. but how can i put an operating system on my laptop when i dont have a cdrom drive? but someone told me i couldnt get a cdrom drive for my laptop because its no space or room on my laptop.. i dont know what to believe. anybody please help me

2006-10-26 07:55:54 · 6 answers · asked by Malaysia 5 in Laptops & Notebooks

I just bought new Masonware speakers for my computer and when you play songs you can hear the music perfectly but the voice is very quiet. Does anyone know why it's doing this? If so, how do I fix it?

2006-10-26 07:44:16 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Hardware

I want it to have

at least a 770 socket for pentium, I dont like AMD

at least 4 high speed 2.0 ports

I prefer 2 ethernet, but one will be fine

at least 5 pci slots

2 pci-e slots

4 224 pin ram, something that will support 8 gigs

Everything else is second. Size doesnt matter, i'll build everything around it. I can't find one with this description. I looked at newegg, ebay, all the sites that I know people will suggest. Which is why I am here, I cant find something like it anywhere.

2006-10-26 07:40:53 · 3 answers · asked by Mashu 4 in Desktops

Dear Friends Online,
One of the keys in my new Computer Keyboard has the letters “Prt Scr” on the top and “SysRq” on the bottom mentioned on it. What does that mean? Does that mean two different commands or one single command? How to use it? How to “Undo” its use, once used?
Thinking it to be the good old “Print Screen” command, I recently used it to save a picture from a website on “Microsoft Paint”. It saved as a bitmap image, though the original picture is a JPEG file. Now any picture (jpegs) I save (only the picture and not the entire screen shot) on ANY PROGRAM is getting saved only as a BITMAP IMAGE and NOT AS A JPEG FILE. In fact, the only option I get when I use “Save As” is the bitmap option. Worse still, once the picture gets saved as a bitmap image, the original picture in the website DOES NOT WORK OFFLINE. I am confused and just don’t know what to do. How to use this key properly and also to correct the above problems? Does somebody know? Please help. Thank you very much.

2006-10-26 07:38:31 · 6 answers · asked by CLZ 1 in Desktops

qwerty prints ok but as mentioned some keys have become numeric.

Not all but some.

Is it something I have done?

2006-10-26 07:28:53 · 9 answers · asked by Mayomaiden 3 in Laptops & Notebooks

Dell dimension 9200
XP media centre edition.
It worked b4 i rebooted and now i cant use media centre or play "guild wars"!

2006-10-26 07:24:01 · 5 answers · asked by klipz k 1 in Other - Hardware

2006-10-26 07:14:26 · 6 answers · asked by <><><><> 2 in Laptops & Notebooks

ram only 128

2006-10-26 07:04:20 · 9 answers · asked by micksudan 2 in Laptops & Notebooks

My friend gave me an old Gateway computer so that I can fix and give to my son. Now it starts up good but it has files missing and everytime I click on an icon or try to get into the programs I get a popup that says Explorer: illegal operation or something like that.

She didn't have any Gateway recovery disks.

I have Windows 98SE full edition cd and would like to start fresh with that. I need to know how I can go about doing this. Since it's going to be for 9 year old only I really don't want to add more memory or nothing big like that. I just want to erase everything from the pc and start with a clean install of an OS cd I have.

Can someone tell me how I can do this?

Thanks in advance.

2006-10-26 07:03:21 · 6 answers · asked by TricksterM 2 in Desktops

I need to buy another PC but I only need to buy the PC part not the whole computer meaning monitor and all I was checking fry's the other day and they wanted to sell me a refurbished one I was kind of spectacle on it the salesman told me no one had owned it before it was straight from the company. But doesn't refurbished mean someone returned it and Fry's sent it back to the manufacture? If anyone knows any places either online or in Southern California please let me know, oh one more thing how much should I not go over spending wise for a 512mb?

2006-10-26 07:02:16 · 5 answers · asked by truthfully777 2 in Other - Hardware

i'm planning to buy ALIENWARE area 51 series desktop, (frankly speaking i'm only interested in the cool desktop outer-skin) but i was wondering after a few years, i would want to upgrade all the core component (of course i'll keep the skin), i'm afraid they're using their own component with their only designated parts that i'm not able to replace it with other brands' component. is it possible to do so?

or there are any similar desktop out there with cool skin design that is cooler??
(i'm only interested in a cool desktop skin, and with upgradable component)
please help~

2006-10-26 07:01:35 · 4 answers · asked by HBKidBen 2 in Desktops

i have power on the monitor, at start-up the screen shows the video card details then it shows a blank screen with a cursor and 1 short beep but sometimes with a long continuous beep

2006-10-26 06:49:01 · 7 answers · asked by son1 1 in Desktops

2006-10-26 06:13:49 · 6 answers · asked by john f 1 in Other - Hardware

Hey, Ive just bought a new usb flashdrive, at first it went in fine and was recognised by my comp, now it isnt, and the computer doesnt even recognise that the USB is being used. Ive tried it on my friends laptop and it works fine. Ive got Windows XP and I really dont know what to do, but I need to get it to work on my laptop properly. every other USB flash drive seems to work fine except this one! Can anyone please help me? I'm at uni and am desperate to get this sorted, so if anyone could, please help! :)

2006-10-26 06:12:48 · 12 answers · asked by Lauren 1 in Add-ons

2006-10-26 06:11:42 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Hardware

I keep pressing the button on the computer to turn it on but it just keeps blinking orange. I am desperately trying to find a solution.

2006-10-26 06:04:11 · 4 answers · asked by Karen H 1 in Desktops

model. toshiba satellite a20

2006-10-26 05:44:32 · 11 answers · asked by curt f 1 in Laptops & Notebooks

Can I do this without changing the motherboard? I think it is an ASUS motherboard. And can I do it myself or is it too complicated. Age of Empires 3 does not run well on my machine and I want to play this game in its full glory. I have a GeForce FX5200 graphics card. I have 512 MB of RAM.

2006-10-26 05:30:00 · 3 answers · asked by chatting_za 2 in Desktops

also do u reccommend a first mac to get>

2006-10-26 05:20:17 · 8 answers · asked by Fran B 1 in Desktops

I want to buy the best value for money all rounder laptop for aspiring student

2006-10-26 05:05:15 · 11 answers · asked by Bob W 1 in Laptops & Notebooks

There is an awkward noise that occurs intermittently from within my computer's tower. It sounds somewhat like a gurggling noise. Well, a better comparison may be the noise the old-school remote control racecars made...you know, the reving noise those 1980s remote control cars made. That's the best way I can describe it.
I know it's not coming from my fans...but I'm not sure where to start looking. Could it be from one of the electrical components within the tower? How can this be remedied? Spraying the inside of my tower with a can of pressurized air? Should I take this in to a place that offers computer repair/diagnostic services?
Any ideas and recommendations will be appreciated.

2006-10-26 04:58:40 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Desktops

As I could not get it working, I have removed my DVD, put My CD R/W in the system, with the jumber placed on Master. It is a burner ( on the drive it says "LITON CD R/W". The drive appears under the window explorer. Under the control panel, it also apperars and indicates that the drive is working properly.
I can play music CD on it, and read data. But I can not write to it.
My system does not even recognize it as a burner. When I open the media player and select burn, it tells me that it can not find a burner. When I right click on a file and select send, it does not even bring up the drive as a selection. Neither can I drag-drop a file into it. I appreciate any help.

2006-10-26 04:57:42 · 3 answers · asked by demaissoneuve 2 in Desktops

2006-10-26 04:53:37 · 7 answers · asked by LJRJJ 2 in Other - Hardware

How safe and reliable are generic AC adapters for notebooks?

2006-10-26 04:46:49 · 3 answers · asked by e k 1 in Laptops & Notebooks

Besides that is doesn't print. I just purchased 2 cartridges, (black and color) and it only printed 3 times and then no more! Was I jyped?

2006-10-26 04:10:33 · 3 answers · asked by Jelly 2 in Printers

Using Window 2000 NT / ASUS NVIDIA GeForce4 MX A7N8X motherboard - the CD unit that went bad is Samsung S350B DVD/CD R/W.

Samsung is listed in BIOS as not detected and does not shown in C-Drive.

Device Manager states code 31 needs driver and installed updated driver no change in Device Manager.

Replace with new unit ASUS S520B CD ROM same messages in BIOS and Device Manager.
In BIOS listed as not detected in Device Manager states code 31.

To add to the dilemma, mouse was bad and causing problems like disabling port LPT1 and maybe the causing the Samsung unit to be not detected.

2006-10-26 04:04:44 · 5 answers · asked by sftrotta 1 in Desktops

Recently when I turn my computer on, the fan in the power supply starts up normally, but then suuddenly sounds like it's hitting something, or is about to explode. I shined a light into it to see if it was hitting any wires, but there was nothing it could touch. Could it be that the fan has been 'popped out' of it's base?

The only thing that seems to keep it from making noise is turning the computer back off, and shacking the entire computer tower hard enough until it stops.... and that can't be good for the rest of the computer. :(

2006-10-26 03:57:05 · 15 answers · asked by magadragon95 2 in Desktops