Hardware - August 2007

And is dell inspiron 531 a good pc to get. Do they provide both vga and dvi ports with integrated graphics card? They should because most people prefer to add a dedicated graphics in future as currently dell sell it for too much price and it only gets to basic gaming needs even with the dedicated graphics card which is a shame because you are paying them £94 for nothing.

thanks.

2007-08-26 01:33:07 · 3 answers · asked by (A.a.K) 4 in Add-ons

2007-08-26 01:20:26 · 3 answers · asked by balpreet s 1 in Laptops & Notebooks

2007-08-26 01:13:48 · 6 answers · asked by SCOTT 58 1 in Printers

the motherboard needs to support either core 2 duo or Athlon 64 X2

2007-08-26 01:10:34 · 2 answers · asked by Simon J 1 in Other - Hardware

The latest PCW TV advert says they will set you PC up in your home for £49.99. What a laugh!

They also charge 30 quid to install a hard disk, which involves opening the PC case, plugging one power cable and one ribbon cable into the HDD, doing up 4 retaining screws and closing the PC case.

2007-08-26 01:06:08 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Hardware

Thank you.

2007-08-26 00:41:56 · 4 answers · asked by I need answers 1 in Monitors

2007-08-26 00:21:28 · 1 answers · asked by veeru 1 in Add-ons

Iam in Los Angeles for the next two days. I'd like to buy 1 ram card for my Acer aspire 4220 notebook. I need your help.

1.Where are the notebook hardware stores that are close to the Airport that will have this ram card? I really need this card asap. My Vista Home Basic OS is too slow with only one 512 MB in it.

2.Will the 220-240 volts that run my notebook here in Fiji drastically affect the 512MB Ram card I buy from the USA considering their 110-120 volts. Please let me know as soon as you can. All help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

2007-08-25 23:40:58 · 3 answers · asked by frederick s 1 in Laptops & Notebooks

I'm not a tech-y person.

I have a new ASUS laptop. Do i need to accept the ASUS LIVE UPDATES that would allow me to update my BIOS?
and if i updated it, what's going to happen and how to proceed from there?

Thanks a lot.

2007-08-25 23:37:49 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Laptops & Notebooks

2007-08-25 22:18:20 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Add-ons

and what does a vaccum for a PC looks like answering by means of picture and reasonable reason/s will be chosen as best answer

2007-08-25 22:12:23 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Laptops & Notebooks

Hi-i just bought a new Lite-on DVD ROM drive for my PC and there is no stereo audio output cable supplied to connect to my M/B--can anyone please let me know if the drive will give audio output just by connecting only the data cable +power supply cable?Thanks---best wishes to all

2007-08-25 22:10:46 · 7 answers · asked by Jamal 6 in Other - Hardware

Hello, I want to preform a reformat on my computer but I tested my computer first and found that the hard-drive has an 'HD521-2W' error. I looked it up and found that the hard drive is failing basicly... a few questions

1) Is what i looked up true? That the hard-drive is failing?
1a) Can i possibly fix it on my own without opening the computer up.

2) How would I go about replacing the hard drive and installing it again with the OS and everything I'd need to have a functional computer?

2007-08-25 21:57:48 · 4 answers · asked by rich11399 2 in Other - Hardware

I have a HP Pavillion a1310n with a 200 gb hard drive that has Xp Media Edition on it and running the hard drive from two wires that I have no clue of to turn on the hard drive. Ok I have a 20 gb hard drive that has Vista ultimate on it and when I hook it up to the IDE cables and unplug the unknown cables to the 200 gb hard drive, the 20 gb hard drive works. Basically what im tryin to say is how do I hook the 2 up without getting the blue error screen.

2007-08-25 21:24:34 · 3 answers · asked by mustangridah314 2 in Other - Hardware

Ok so basically my laptop was working fine yesterday and i was using the internet etc & Ive never had any problems with it before. I shut it down properly and everything. This morning i went on it and it said _Operating system not found. So i rebooted it this time with the windows xp disk in, and that all loaded fine. I went to re-install windows XP and it said i had no hard disk /no hard disk installed!! Now when i turn it on i cant even load the xp disk on it, it just says TOSHIBA, then goes on to saying- "_ no operating system found"! This has never happened before and it always works smoothly! Please tell me if there is an easy way of fixing this! This laptop is a Toshiba S1000-Z2 ! PLEASE help! (and only if you KNOW what you are talking about) (Btw this laptop has always run on xp and is fairly new)

2007-08-25 21:06:50 · 7 answers · asked by Em 2 in Laptops & Notebooks

does nvidia mx4000 support pixel shader 1.1?

2007-08-25 20:56:17 · 2 answers · asked by Mazzer M 1 in Add-ons

i currently have a wifi thats 54 mbps or w.e
i saw this one that runs at 108 mbps...would getting this make my downloads faster? wats the difference if it doesnt?

2007-08-25 20:33:40 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Add-ons

One evening i was using my desktop and it turned itself off. When i came to turn it on it wouldn't. I tried to do a partial recovery but the system didn't like it.

As i had not backed up my files i couldn't do a full recovery. I wass advised have the data saved to disk and then do a full recovery.

When the chap came round he advised that i could do it that way but the pc would not last and i would have to buy a new one. He advised that it would take about 2 hours to do this which would mean a payment of around £100.00.

Instead he told me to get a new hard drive which would be only one call out fee of 49.50 + VAT and the hard drive of 77.00 + VAT.

He told me i could fit it and he would help over the phone or he would come. He made the decision to come and do it and then charged another visit of 49.50 + VT for something i could have done myself.
I was understood he wasn't charging for the 2nd visit as he never said and he didn't fix it the first time. Is this a rip off? Ta

2007-08-25 20:30:13 · 21 answers · asked by peachy 3 in Desktops

My set up for now:

AMD Athalon XP 1800+
1.53 GHZ and 512 MB Ram.

OS: XP 64

I'll be upgrading the processor and the ram (which is not a problem at all and fairly cheap) so I do not need anyone to say I need a new PC. But for Video Cards I'm looking at at NVIDIA GeForce 8600 card. I'm wondering if there's anything better or just as good as it but for a better and/or matching price. This is mainly for the game Bioshock and for DV editing. Thank you.

2007-08-25 19:22:21 · 5 answers · asked by Vincant Alaxzander 2 in Add-ons

The first one is:

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.08GHz)
Ram: 768MB DDR SDRAM
Harddrive: 120GB 7200RPM Western Digital
Optical drive: 48x12x48 CD-RW drive
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce FX (128MB) or GeForce 4 MX (64MB)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Service pack 2
This goes for $175

The Second one is:

Windows XP Prof/Service pack 2
Intel(R) Pentium 4
3.20 GHZ Dual core Multi Processor
1 GB SD ram (2 open slots)
Nvidia Geforce 6200 - 256mb deticated up to 512
HL-DT-ST DVD-CDR-RW-Burner/Disk Drive
This goes for $450

Which one would you recommend for me to buy? Thanks for your feedback.

2007-08-25 19:04:34 · 6 answers · asked by p_livera 1 in Desktops

I have the 6 pin PCI-E connector but the the card says 400+ watts but using a power supply calculator

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I end up with less than 375 watts even when adding some extra stuff. My current computer is a Dell Dimension 9200 (brand new) with

Core 2 Duo E6420 @ 2.13 Ghz
2 x 1 gig DDR2 @ 667 speed
80 Gig Hard-Drive
256 MB DDR3 Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT
Dell Dimension 9200 BTX Motherboard

Here are some numbers I found on my power supply:

Input 100 - 120V ~ /9A 50 - 60 Hz
200 - 240V ~ /4.5A 50 - 60 Hz

Output +5V ====/22A MAX -12V ====/1A MAX
+5V(FP) ====/2A MAX +3.3V====/17A MAX
+12VA====/18A MAX + 12VB===/18A MAX

Combined Power on 3.3V/17A rails not exceed 150 Watts.
Combined Power on 12VA/12VB rails not exceed 350 Watts.
Total Power not exceed 375 Watts.

Will a Geforce 8800 GTS work?

2007-08-25 18:34:48 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Add-ons

My guess is that the 8400 card is the best due to the higher model number (I know, it's obvious), but it can't hurt to be sure. I want to upgrade my computer from integrated graphics (completely useless!) to a decent graphics card that's not too expensive and won't overload my computer but suitable for casual gaming.

2007-08-25 18:33:49 · 7 answers · asked by Booger 2 in Add-ons

my comp. needs more memory and i know nothing about computers and need to know step by step if you could help me figure out how to go about getting this.i have an xp and it said after a test on a site i have 1,536 maximum memory capacity
and currently installed memory is 384 mb & avail memory slot is 1.My son wants to play guild wars and i need to get a graphix card and stuff and it really lags

2007-08-25 18:12:35 · 3 answers · asked by mypips33 1 in Add-ons

i have about a 6 month year dell inspiron E1505
well i at first was having trouble with vista so i was gunna go restore with the original disk then, i coundt acces my cd drive from anywhere or from my computer...so i went to chck dsk and repair and blah blah

and while i was done the battery charger stopped charging and would light up green for maybe a few minutes and go out and my laptop would die...

any ideas if this is a problem with the laptop or the charger?

thank you

and i will gladly provide more info

2007-08-25 18:11:07 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Laptops & Notebooks

I have a ASUS p5k deluxe mobo with a intel Q6600 quad, a Philips IDE dvd drive, and one 750gb seagate SATA (no floppy drive). When BIOS tries to boot, it won't boot from the windows vista 64 disc (works on other computers) in my dvd drive but displays "reboot and select proper boot media or insert boot media in select boot device and press a key" and "invalid system disk" and "Primary slave drive ATAPI incompatible. I've tried everything (boot device order, DVD drive jumpers, switching memory, booting from winXP, ubuntu, and a used hard drive, using different dvd drive, resetting CMOS, upgrading BIOS, booting with nothing except the dvd drive connected) the computer shows no sign of recognizing anything within the DVD drive but i'm thinking of copying windows setup into 4gb flash drive. Is this possible? Also, the HDD cable connection for the dvd drive (labeled host interface) has the #s 39,40 on the left and 1,2 on the right. i've an 80-pin cable; do i need a 40-pin? Please help!!!!

2007-08-25 18:00:01 · 5 answers · asked by chrismas05 1 in Desktops

I am not really sure what to do. The guy that worked on my computer says that the power supply can't be fixed (it is too old). The replacement one is better he says. Right now the replacement one is working and not giving me any problems. He has had the other computer for almost two weeks now. I have tried repeatedly to get mine back, but he won't answer the phone, return my calls or anything. I am going to save for a new one, but can't afford one right now. I don't have a model number for mine so I can't check it out to see if he is lying or not about the power supply and if it is too old. Should I just keep this one or get mine back? My boyfriend is planning on going to his house about my computer. He has a bad temper and I am afraid something might happen.

My computer- Dell 888 MHz pentium 3 processor, 256 MB ram, 10G

Replacement-Etower 466 intel celeron processor, 32MB, 128 KB, 4.3 GB

Just wondering-are both the computers old and about the same anyway.

2007-08-25 17:46:52 · 17 answers · asked by sherry c 2 in Desktops

3D Fuzion GeForce FX 5500 256MB PCI

What games will it be able to support?
I want a card that can support some good games, but I don't want to spend a lot.

2007-08-25 17:22:35 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Add-ons

Yo- alright theres this new game coming out sept. 18 called World in Conflict and right now i have the demo. the game is pretty sweet with awsome explosions and all that. but i have to put my graphics on low to enjoy the game with good fps but with it on high its super clear but with very low fps. i have an ATI RADEON 9550 256 MB AGP video card and its served me well since last november but now its time that i moved on. i want to now whats a good graphics card that can play this game and most of the new games with high detail and no lags or low fps? if its Ati then that would be awsome but im open to any card with the best graphic clearity.

2007-08-25 17:21:44 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Add-ons

I have a Geforce FX5200 and it doesnt seem to play any games even though my system meets requirements (example Battlefield 2) it wont even run on lowest settings.
I have 512mb ram running no Vista and all drivers (i think) and DirectX installed.

Are my settings wrong or what should i do?

2007-08-25 15:49:58 · 4 answers · asked by blinkingtrees 2 in Add-ons

what are some things i can do to make my games perform better?? i have regular PCI and ive got the like one of the best graphics card i can get for PCI (radeon 9250) what things can i do for the games to run better?

2007-08-25 15:35:35 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Add-ons