nickmart

@darthvader - The Adblock Plus author does not recommend running Adblock Filterset.G Updater with Adblock Plus, due to incompatibilies. (http://adblockplus.org/en/faq_project#filterset.g). The Adblock Filterset.G site states the extension is obsolete.

Thanks everyone for your help. I am sorry I didn't get a chance to reply yesterday since I was helping my brother figure this thing out. Updating all his drivers seems to have done the trick. He also said he was going to defrag the hard drive last night. There was one thing that confused me as we were working on this. In the Task Manager, his CPU usage would constantly be above 30% when idle, but the CPU usage in his process list didn't add up to 30%. Is that normal? Thanks again.

Hello everyone, My brother's computer has been running really slowly for 3 months. This is his current setup: AMD Athlon X2 4200+ Toledo MSI K8N Neo4-F 2 Gb of DDR400 Ram (Mix of Patriot and Corsair Value Select) eVGA Geforce 6200TC Antec SmartPower 450W 80 GB Hard Drive DVD Drive CD-RW Drive Running Windows XP Professional SP2 He is experiencing the following problems: - slower start up and shutdown - all sounds and video are choppy - mouse skips across screen - programs open up slower He has recently upgraded his CPU and RAM, about 3 months ago. He replaced his Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 939,

Thanks for the advice shanenin. I am curious though about the reason you recommended the dual core chip. Would my brother see a much better performance gains with the X2 4200 over the 4000? Price is not too much of a concern, but I would like to spend it wisely. I would also appreciate it if someone could recommend a good heatsink and fan, something on the easier side to install. Thanks again.

Hi, I am thinking about upgrading the processor on my brother's computer since socket 939 cpus are becoming hard to find. This is his current setup: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ San Diego (1.8GHz) MSI K8N Neo4-F 1 Gb of Corsair ValueSelect DDR400 Ram eVGA Geforce 6200TC I am considering getting either the Athlon 64 4000+ or the Athlon 64 X2 4200+. He mainly uses the computer for web browsing, word processing, iTunes and schoolwork (he is in his second year in engineering). He may have to use some more intensive programs later, like MATLAB or MATHMATICA. Do you guys have any recommendations? Thanks in

All those .bin files are in his Temp folder, so he should be able to delete them, right?

Hi Mike, Don't worry about being late. I just read the Release Notes for the driver, and it seems it won't help me in any particular way. Oh well.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I noticed that playing videos became buggy after installing the drivers, so I decided to reformat. I probably should have tried to install the old version first to see if that helped. I tried to install the Catalyst Control Center under safe mode, but it needs the Windows Installer Service (I think that was what it was called) to be running, which can't be run in safe mode. Although it was a bit of overkill, I like my running programs with that "New Computer" smell. Thanks again for your help.

Thank you Lefty for your response. Apparently an 0x000000F4 means a crucial thread or process was stopped, therefore the computer crashed. It says there are many specific causes, and it best resolved with a thorough history of the problem. I only get the Stop message when I try to install the Catalyst Control center after an error occurred while trying to uninstall an older version. The drivers were successfully updated.

I have heard that SUPER is a good video converter. You can find it at http://www.erightsoft.net/SUPER.html To transfer your files, there is Anapod Explorer. I think it should do what you want, but I have never used it before because I don't have an iPod. I hope it works for you. You can find it at http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/

Hi, I tried to uninstall the version of ATI video card drivers I had installed and the Catalyst Control Center (I believe it was version 6-8) so I could install the newest update (6-11). I used the cat-uninstaller.exe that ATI used to provide on their site. However, there was a problem when it tried to uninstall the Catalyst Control Center. It gave the following error: ERROR 1905: Module C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\atiamaxx.dll failed to unregister. HRESULT -2147220472 I checked my Add or Remove Programs list and noted that the Control Center was no longer there. I proceeded to

I am not sure if this works with Windows ME, but you can select the entire image if you go to the menu bar and go to Edit >> Select All. You can also press Ctrl - A. I think this would only help if you want to copy the entire image.

Thank you all for the reassurance. I am currently not behind a router because I didn't think the added security benefits was worth spending the money for router when I only have one computer. I never knew that some people actually scan entire IP ranges for vunerabilities.

Okay. Thanks Bearskin.

Hi, For the last week or so, someone has been scanning my UDP ports at least once a day. Sygate Firewall says that all scans have come from the same remote MAC address (but different IP addresses). Should I be concerned or worried? I am running Windows XP Pro. with Service Pack 2 (all updates), McAfee Virus Scan ver. 8.0 (all updates), and Sygate Firewall ver. 5.6, with cable internet access. Thanks for your help.

If you do not have a sticky SHIFT key, look for a setting in AIM's option settings or preferences. While I do not have AIM, GAIM has an option to make ENTER go to the next line. There may be something similar in AIM.

I am assuming you have a CRT monitor. If that is the case, these 2 articles from TwistedMods.com should help you. Remember, there is the risk of shocking yourself badly on the insides of a monitor. Procede with caution. http://www.twistedmods.com/article.php?artid=192 http://www.twistedmods.com/article.php?artid=213

You can buy Christmas lights and take out the LEDs, although its not really Christmas season right now. http://digg.com/mods/Inexpensive_and_Abundant_LEDs

You want to use the yellow and black wire for the fan, not the red wire. The yellow wire is +12V while the red wire is +5V. And don't think connecting the left over wires together is a good idea. I think that would create a bad short.

There should be a speaker test with your sound card utilities. I seen them with my onboard sound drivers and with my Sound Blaster drivers. If you don't have it, you might be able to test them by playing a DVD that is able to play in 5.1 sound.

While I run Sygate on my first system, I stupidly decided to only run the Windows Firewall for this computer. That will definitely change when I reformat. However, when I did click on the link, it sent me to site that tried to install something. A Windows box came up asking if I was sure I wanted to install something. I blocked it, closed the site, and went to sleep. I awoke in the morning to find I didn't have internet access. The reason I know someone was port scanning with my computer is because my school sent me an email saying exactly that (they tracked it back to my IP and MAC addresses)

Thanks again BestTechie for your response. I thought my computer was infected since this all started after clicking on that strange link someone IM'ed me through AIM. I am not sure how else someone could invade my computer and start port scanning computers on the network. In any case, I think I will probably have to format the computer. It shouldn't take me long, but I usually like to learn as much as possible from my computer problems.

Thanks Besttechie for your response. I ran AIMFix in normal mode and safe mode, and it found nothing. However I do know why I have no internet connection. My school cut off my internet connection after noticing "this system was sending TCP SYN packets on port 445 to the IP addresses of thousands of computers." My first thought was that there was a trojan on my computer, but none of the scans caught anything. My school said they will reopen my internet connection when I have reformatted my computer, but I would rather try to clean and solve the problem. I am not sure how my school can even tel

I recevied a strange message from a friend with a link that was supposedly to a picture file. I clicked the link and it turns out to be a suspcious .exe. I requested that Windows Firewall continue blocking the program, but soon after, my internet connection was no longer receiving packets. The connection is still connected and firewalled, but there is no data transferring. I can no longer browse the internet, nor log onto AIM. I am running Windows XP Pro-SP2. I've tried using Ewido, McAfee Virus Scan Enterprise 8.0i, AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and the only that only things that turn