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Newcomers DBPro Corner / Q about XP

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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 03:40
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Ok I need some help really bad I just got DBPro,Cshop and a Xtasy GeForce4 MX 420 vid card cause I didn't have the I neede GL suport to run Cshop 4.0. Well it got here and I installed everything but I can't select my new card in system options. Can someone help me PLZ.
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indi
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 03:41
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did you install the latest drivers for your video card?


fall down seven times, stand up eight
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 05:10
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I installed everything on the cd that came with it,but I just found a readme that says gforce 4s aren't supported by XP does anyone know where I could get a patch or something?
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Trowbee
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 05:54 Edited at: 7th Apr 2004 05:55
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GeForce 4's are supported by XP. Albeit, not very well using Microsofts basic drivers, but are supported.
Pop on over to nvidia's site (http://www.nvidia.com) and get the latest GeForce drivers.

EDIT: Aren't I kind: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_56.72 are the latest drivers
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 06:25 Edited at: 7th Apr 2004 08:55
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It didn't work, that driver I downloaded was the same one that came on the CD. I'll try to explain what my prob is. in the device manager under display adapters it won't list my card all it has is my built in card.I've reinstalling it and installing it after disableing my built in card but nothing works. Has anyone else got an Xtasy geforce 4 card on a winXP machine?

here are my system specs : AMD Athlon XP proccesor 2400+ ,CD-RW 48x ,DVD 16x ,256 MB DDR, 80 GB hard drive , 3D s3 prosavage8 ,winXP

Help PLZ?
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Maelstrom
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 13:49
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When u say you've disabled your onboard Graphics card did u do this in your bios. If not, this is probably the cause of your problem.
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Mentor
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 22:31
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ditto to Maelstroms comment, if it`s eneabled in bios then XP will just re-install it on boot, go into the bios on boot (often either f8 or alt/del) and look through all the options for a section that looks like

onboard sound >> enable
onboard gfx chipset >> enable
onboard modem >> enable
etc

this isn`t exactly what you will see, but it will be something like that, and change the gfx to disable, then reboot the machine and it should find the 4mx card and the drivers most likley (or just follow the instructions on installing the card again), then that should be the card used by default since it`s the only card visible to xp on the machine, (note...I didn`t know xp had a problem with the 4mx, since I had been running one fine on my other pc under xp until a few months agao when I swapped to a FX card), cheers.

Mentor.

PC1: P4 hyperthreading 3ghz, 1gig mem, 2x160gig hd`s, ATI radeon 9800 pro gfx, 6 way surround sound, PC2: AMD 1.2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra gfx, stereo 16 bit soundblaster, ups.
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 02:55 Edited at: 8th Apr 2004 03:37
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Quote: "go into the bios on boot (often either f8 or alt/del)"


Um I tried it but can't get into the bios f8 just asked me if i wanted to start in safe mode or enable vga mode and boot logging.

alt delet didn't do any thing. it may not matter but I have xp home.
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Scouseknight
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 05:23
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BIOS access key is usually displayed on the screen for a brief moment while your PC boots.

Usually, it is the DEL key but some older BIOS' used F1 sometimes too.

Access to the BIOS has nothing to do with the version of Windows so don't worry about using XP Home - the BIOS is the first thing the PC will do when it starts before it even thinks about loading the operating system.

Try holding down the DEL (or Delete) key when you first switch it on.



http://www.scouseknight.com
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 07:26 Edited at: 8th Apr 2004 07:28
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I finally got into the bios but I am not sure what the wording means would an on bored card be onbored serial port 1 or onbored parallel port(and if its parallel would I need to change the parallel port mode?) I'm thinking that its the parallel port cause my card is an AGP not a PCI but I'm not sure could someone help me?

Thanks alot to everyone else who's helped me already.
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Maelstrom
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 14:01
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Darth. The parallel port settings have nothing to do with the graphics card so changing these won't have any affect other than potentially stopping any devices attached to your parallel port from working. It's difficult to say exactly what it will be called or what menu it's under as different motherboard manufactures use different terminology. If you carefully look under each menu try to find something that refers to graphics or video. Remember if you make any changes that your not certain of you can always exit without saving.

I'm not one to go straight to the manual but I think maybe in your case it would be safer to dig out the motherboard manual and have a look for the settings in there. If you don’t have that and it's a branded PC i.e. tiny, Dell, Compaq etc then you could lookup your model on their website and download the manual from there.
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 22:12
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Oh boy! I have a crappy emachine and thir web site sucks, well here I go off to the worst site on the whole darn internet.

hey look at ths I fond an E-mote that fits my problemo
don't ask if I've gone crazy I'm still trying to find out.

well thanks again everyone if I ever get this to work and use Cshop for any game I'll put you guys in the credits.
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Mentor
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 22:37
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emachine is prolly some weird (as in specs not listed on Via`s website) Via MOBO with a custom bios, you may need to flash the BIOS in order to open up options that allow you to disable the onboard chipset (not for the unwary), you could try listing on this forum everything under the integrated peripherals section (if your bios has one), since thats where the onboard stuff normaly lives, they may have given it some tricky name, they normaly have realy minimal settings on emachines though AFAIK, that force you to get serious/technical if you want to perform modifications, with the concurrent risk that you may end up having to go out and buy yourself a new MOBO if something goes badly wrong.

Mentor.

PC1: P4 hyperthreading 3ghz, 1gig mem, 2x160gig hd`s, ATI radeon 9800 pro gfx, 6 way surround sound, PC2: AMD 1.2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra gfx, stereo 16 bit soundblaster, ups.
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 22:51 Edited at: 8th Apr 2004 23:05
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this just gets more and more fun as time goes on

btw how would i flash the bios and what does that mean exactly?



Quote: "I finally got into the bios but I am not sure what the wording means would an on bored card be onbored serial port 1 or onbored parallel port(and if its parallel would I need to change the parallel port mode?) I'm thinking that its the parallel port cause my card is an AGP not a PCI but I'm not sure could someone help me?
"


just to try to clear this up the reason I asked if this was it is because in the same section it has listed my on bored 56k modem .

don't ask why I posted this cause I don't know I had alot of coffee awhile ago and nw its got me totally screwd up yum yum ccccccccccoooooooooofffffffffffffffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 23:32 Edited at: 8th Apr 2004 23:34
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when your computer starts from power off it follows instructions written into a prom on the motherboard, these instructions also display and run the bios settings program, when you flash a bios you get a program called a flash utility or burner that often comes on a floppy, and a file of new instructions that will be copied to the prom by the burner program, so the next time you reboot (and every time after that), the new set of instructions will be followed.
Most flashes are to fix problems with the bios or in this case to add extra options to the setup pages so that you can alter something that it wasn`t possible to do before since you didn`t have the option, in this case it would add the option to disable the onboard video so that the new card could be used with no problems, IF something went wrong (like you flashed the bios prom with the wrong file by accident) then the computer would be unusable since the instructions in the bios prom would maybe crash or be looking for a boot drive called ae2q71 or something because it would be gibberish to the MOBO you had, for example calling devices that where not there etc.
So your options then would be to buy a new MOBO and plug the cpu/mem/drives etc into that or order a replacement bios and have some sad idiot from PC world lecturing you on how you invalidated the warranty and would have to pay £50 for some retard to fit the bios prom (a 5 second job), wipe half the files off your HD, lose a stick of your DDR then tell you it was a virus that wiped the HD and the case was scratched when they got it and this version always only had 64mb of ram (not that I have a low opinion of PC world employees or anything), flashing a bios can leave your hardware useless, only do so if you are sure you want to take the risk and know exactly what you are doing (and have the money in the bank to replace your MOBO in a hurry and know how to do that as well)

Mentor.

PC1: P4 hyperthreading 3ghz, 1gig mem, 2x160gig hd`s, ATI radeon 9800 pro gfx, 6 way surround sound, PC2: AMD 1.2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra gfx, stereo 16 bit soundblaster, ups.
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 00:24 Edited at: 9th Apr 2004 01:43
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That does not sound like a good Idea I've got a frind whos mom had an Emachine and sent it in to be fixed and all they did was greese the hard drive thry didn't fix crap I wont be doing that.

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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 00:47
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CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It didn't work the way I wanted it to Ill take a screenie of the real one and try to get it on here

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Maelstrom
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 01:06
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Hey Darth, are u having fun yet-lol

Ok i could be wrong but from the spec you gave it sounds like you have an emachine model T2482. If not then ignore everything in my post. If you do.. I tried but couldn't find the motherboard manual but if you goto http://www.emachines.com/support/support_info.html?prodName=T2482 and scroll to the bottom of the page you will see the tech support. Email them and tell them that u cant find the option to disable the onboard graphics card from the bios and could they explain how or send you a pdf of the manual.
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 01:42
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HHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

How did you know that was my model of emachine?(thanks alot you just saved me an hours worth of typing )

yes I am having so much fun I am so totally buzzed from the coffee I cant even type right.

I'll get rid of my last post so the forum don't look as messy

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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 01:46 Edited at: 9th Apr 2004 04:34
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I'll look through my computer stuff (I'm in the middle of moving so its a big mess) and try to find my manual again.


BTW Thanks for finding that link for me Maelstorm now I know who to go whine to hahahahaha .

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Maelstrom
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 02:55
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I would stay off the coffee if i was you. You sound more like Lord Dark Helmet from SpaceBalls than Darth Vader

Anyway, look up a few post to get focused on what your looking for. It maybe 3:00pm for u but its bedtime for me. Hope u get it sorted so you can get back to some game programming. And remember, when you've finished that blockbuster title i should get a free copy.
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 04:24
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Well I'am back its amazing what a haircut and a couple of PBJ sandwiches can do to change your outlook on life.

Quote: " would stay off the coffee if i was you."


Thats a good idea coffee does strang things to me sometimes.

Quote: "And remember, when you've finished that blockbuster title i should get a free copy"


Well don't get your hopes up my only block buster title I have planned sofar is Pac-Man .

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Scouseknight
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 04:45
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Hey Pac Man sounds good to me Every home should have one



http://www.scouseknight.com
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 06:11
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Well I looked at the manual on the integrated peripherals section and got scared to death. you want to know why because it doesn't tell me jack!!! I looked in there and all it does is give you a list of what you can enable disable or the diffrent number thing that you can set it to it does'nt give any info on what the things do at all so I guess anything that I might have learned from that doesn't exist.

so back to the starting line does anyone here no a whole lot about this type of stuff? I am soooooooooooooooo happppppyyyyyyy NOT!!!!!!!

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Scouseknight
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 06:25
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If you go into Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager, and look under Display Adapters, are you saying you don't see your GForce listed in there - or are there two items listed?



http://www.scouseknight.com
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 09:03
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OK this is what happened I installed the card by sticking it into its little Agp slot clamping it in there, and then booted up my PC put in the driver cd selected the folder that said winXP drivers on it went thru the steps and the restarted my PC(Note that before installing it I Disabled my onboard card) Then I went into the device manager and looked under display adapters and all that was there was my disabled S3 Prosavage built in piece of crap! wasn't that a great story? so I came here and posted my Q and everyone has been really helpful and gone through some trouble they didn't need to but nothing has helped


Meanwhile though My dad suggested that I get new PC (he might buy it for me if I can convince my mom that I need it bad enough)
BTW I actually get OpenGL support with the S3 but textures look like crap when they are dbl like when there is a window texture in front of a rock texture the rock one comes through really jagged thats why I wanted the Geforce 4

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blaxkx
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 11:47
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Ya get a new PC, this time something well known like Dell (Which Sucks, crash's a lot and stuff) compaq (They lie about their DVD PLAYER!!! )
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Maelstrom
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 13:38 Edited at: 9th Apr 2004 13:56
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On the manual that you have got does it say AM37 MAINBOARD MANUAL.

If it does then the problem is your bios has a few issues. I found this quote in some forum.
Quote: "
My mobo is a via chipset on a FIC AM37. Found the newest bios and some of the help i needed at the "Unofficial Emachines Help Site"

Flashed the bios which opened alot of options that had been crippled in bios by emachines... including enabling AGP as the initial display driver.
"


So you are going to need to flash your BIOS.

This link explains how to:
http://www.fica.com/site/html/services/displayfaq.asp?C_ID=240000607

This link will get u the new BIOS. (VLB43)
http://www.fica.com/site/html/services/faq_detail.asp?c_id=240000908

Make sure both you and your dad read the faq on how to update the bios carefully.

Now all should work ok but i'm just going on the small fragments of info you've given me, so you do this at your own RISK. Besides if it all goes to crap then your mom will have to agree to a new PC.

Quote: "blaxkx - Ya get a new PC, this time something well known like Dell"


Personally i would disagree with blaxkx. My advice would be to go to a good local PC store and get them to build you a system with no intergrated features. Or better still, build your own PC. It's not that hard.
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Mentor
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 14:47
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ya, I go with that, get one built by a local guy with a brain and some interest, PC world employees interests extend as far as payday, I was in there this morning checking out wirelesss networking cards and this guy was looking at notebooks (top of the range...not cheapo ones like mine) and when he mentioned games the salesman said laptops where no good for games and suggested an E-machine with an integrated INTEL chipset, the laptop the guy was looking at had an Nvidia fx-to-go gfx chipset, the customer saw me looking at the salesguy in disbelief and rolled his eyes, so he was wise to the salesguy too, most funny, I cracked up , couldn`t help myself.
Maelstrom seems to have done all the hard work for you, I spend a little time sorting my mates PC`s out for them, I will make note of the "unofficial Emachine help site" for future reference, bound to see more of those now that PC world has a store localy.

Mentor

PC1: P4 hyperthreading 3ghz, 1gig mem, 2x160gig hd`s, ATI radeon 9800 pro gfx, 6 way surround sound, PC2: AMD 1.2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra gfx, stereo 16 bit soundblaster, ups.
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Maelstrom
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 15:29
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LOL - What a coincidence. I've never heard of them before either, although i have been out of the home pc support scene for a while.

Just to let u know Mentor that the link for the unofficial Emachine help site didn't work. Those links were to the mobo manufacturer (First International Computer).

Last tip for Darth. Learn the word proprietry(thinks thats one) and stay away from any pc that has these components. Otherwise it can get expensive if they go wrong.
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 16:22
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Emachine are PC worlds own brand (like the PC Line peripherals), mostly rebadged low cost machines with integrated everything and "free" printer/scanner/camera/tft display bundles, the basic spec looks tempting but they are realy just newbie fodder to tempt old couples wondering if they need one of these new fangled interweb thingys and kids with their first real paycheck into thinking they have a bargain, basicaly, unless your idea of excitement is spreadsheets/word and printing pictures of the cat for aunt Mildred (or even the odd frenzied game of minesweeper/patience)...avoid with extreme predjudice, at least they don`t do like some manufacturers and have the PCI slots modified so that they only fit their own brand peripheral cards (with suitable price ticket attached)

Mentor.

PC1: P4 hyperthreading 3ghz, 1gig mem, 2x160gig hd`s, ATI radeon 9800 pro gfx, 6 way surround sound, PC2: AMD 1.2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra gfx, stereo 16 bit soundblaster, ups.
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Maelstrom
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 16:47
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I don't think there is any excuse for home/workstation pc's to have proprietry components. Where i work they used to have a few pc's which the manufacture had customised so that a standard floppy drive wouldn't fit.
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Spaceman Spiff
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 23:55
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I was thinking about getting an HP actually my dad has one of the laptops made by them and it seems pretty solid. if anyone has any advice on this matter I'd apriciate(spelling) it a lot.

And thank you everyone who tried to help me out I'll still put you in my creds.

Oh and BTW maelstorm if you really wan't a free copy of my block buster it won't be you exclusively who's getting it free I dont think I'll be selling any of my games.(like anyone would buy them )

PS Blaxkx I don't really like compaqs either becuse you can't install other campanies ardware on em

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