[Flesh Tunnel]

Quick question, I am running XP in a virtual box on my Windows 7 machine. I dont have Anti Virus software for the XP guest OS, but I do have on the Windows 7 main OS. If somehow I get infected on the XP guest OS, it cannot jump to my primary OS correct?

[Claire Lynham]

Does anyone know if the Dell 0X501H motherboard is compatible with the OCZ Revo ssd? It's somewhat unlikely but I can always hope. The reason it needs to be the Revo is I don't even look at Sata 3Gb/s drives and I don't have a 6Gb/s compatible motherboard and I'm very literally buying an ssd for boot performance. I need around 15GB of space including drivers for vista. Furthermore if it is compatible, is it possible to have 2 revos in Raid 0? because it already has internal RAID 0 and I don't know whether you can have multiples levels of Raid...

Much appreciated.

[nath]

Thinking of buying hard drives from amazon will they survive their packaging?

[XPidgex Jefferson]

im getting a 40GB SSD drive and either a 500 GB or 1TB raptor drive (if they make them that large). is there any noticable difference in longevity between the 500 and the 1TB. also, is there any significant read/write time difference between those sizes.

[Add Meeh]

im getting a 40GB SSD drive and either a 500 GB or 1TB raptor drive (if they make them that large). is there any noticable difference in longevity between the 500 and the 1TB. also, is there any significant read/write time difference between those sizes.

It would be a waste of money as a storage hdd

[Nicola]

It would be a waste of money as a storage hdd

i probably should have specified that the 40GB is just for my windows/linux. and the virtual ram which i hope fits on there if not ill go one size up and get a 50 or 60. SSD is still really expensive so im getting the smallest i can get away with. my games and movies and stuff will be on the 10000 rpm raptor drive. i was just wondering if there was a singificant speed difference because of the huge size difference and also how long 1TB lasts compared to smaller sizes. im assuming that its either more layers or more compact layers which leads to the possiblity of more issues down the road. my current drives are my old seagate 7200 that ive had for 7 or 8 years and a 300 GB western digital raptor that i bought when i built this current rig.

[SUck MYdIck]

i probably should have specified that the 40GB is just for my windows/linux. and the virtual ram which i hope fits on there if not ill go one size up and get a 50 or 60. SSD is still really expensive so im getting the smallest i can get away with. my games and movies and stuff will be on the 10000 rpm raptor drive. i was just wondering if there was a singificant speed difference because of the huge size difference and also how long 1TB lasts compared to smaller sizes. im assuming that its either more layers or more compact layers which leads to the possiblity of more issues down the road. my current drives are my old seagate 7200 that ive had for 7 or 8 years and a 300 GB western digital raptor that i bought when i built this current rig.

For the price of a 600GB Raptor I can get 3 1 Terabyte Caviar Black drives.

I have used a 74GB raptor on my old machine now using a 640GB Caviar Black I don't really see much difference in speed.

[oliver klosoff]

i probably should have specified that the 40GB is just for my windows/linux. and the virtual ram which i hope fits on there if not ill go one size up and get a 50 or 60. SSD is still really expensive so im getting the smallest i can get away with. my games and movies and stuff will be on the 10000 rpm raptor drive. i was just wondering if there was a singificant speed difference because of the huge size difference and also how long 1TB lasts compared to smaller sizes. im assuming that its either more layers or more compact layers which leads to the possiblity of more issues down the road. my current drives are my old seagate 7200 that ive had for 7 or 8 years and a 300 GB western digital raptor that i bought when i built this current rig.

Unless you want to make your computer louder, hotter and needlessly more expensive don't get raptors. Caviar blacks as Terash said are fine or a larger or higher capacity SSD which are cheap for the massive performance gain.

[john palmer]

have to check them out. i have this thing for either seagate drives or western digital since i have never had any issues with them on any computers i have built. same thing goes with always using corsair memory. but if people seem to like them i guess i can break the mold.

the reason i dont want to use SSD drives for my games and such is cause i mod most of them and that means lots of rewriting on the drive and last time i checked SSD have far fewer times blocks can be written over.

[Beulah Bell]

have to check them out. i have this thing for either seagate drives or western digital since i have never had any issues with them on any computers i have built. same thing goes with always using corsair memory. but if people seem to like them i guess i can break the mold.

the reason i dont want to use SSD drives for my games and such is cause i mod most of them and that means lots of rewriting on the drive and last time i checked SSD have far fewer times blocks can be written over.

Western digital makes the caviar drives. I really like Samsung spinpoint drives for storage right now. They're cheap and perform well, but mine makes a little too much noise for my liking. My 500 GB western digital drive is quiet as a mouse though.

[Killer McCracken]

Western digital makes the caviar drives. I really like Samsung spinpoint drives for storage right now. They're cheap and perform well, but mine makes a little too much noise for my liking. My 500 GB western digital drive is quiet as a mouse though.

even better........now i dont have to break my good luck chain.

[Krista Belle Davis]

even better........now i dont have to break my good luck chain.

I did order 2 1TB Caviar Blacks from Amazon today I'll find out if they are broken due to shipping tomorrow. One dollar cheaper that Newegg and at least cheaper Fedex shipping fees.


Looks like they ship them in individual boxes in a larger box

[Latisha Fry]

I heard the ATI Radeon HD 6000 series are out, they any good?

[hannaH]

I heard the ATI Radeon HD 6000 series are out, they any good?

The mid range cards are out. Despite what the naming convention implies, the 6870 is weaker then the 5870. The high end cards come out next month with the 6950 (should be more powerful then a Nvidia GTX 470) and the 6970 (should be slightly more powerful then the Nvidia GTX 480).

[Nichola Haynes]

yeah.........hopefully a price war will occur. have they die shrunk the fermi cards yet like they did for th 200 cards?

[chloe hampson]

The mid range cards are out. Despite what the naming convention implies, the 6870 is weaker then the 5870. The high end cards come out next month with the 6950 (should be more powerful then a Nvidia GTX 470) and the 6970 (should be slightly more powerful then the Nvidia GTX 480).

They are good cards though. The 6850 is as good as it gets right now for price/performance. It's equal to Nvidia's GTX 460 and is a good bit cheaper. They also use less power and run cooler.

[Kaylee Campbell]

I have a quick question. I had a few posts/topics in the past about an error on my computer saying when it booted up:

Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0
Copywrite ? 2000, Award Software, Inc

BIOS ROM Checksum error

DETECTING IDE ATAPI Device ...

DETECTING FLOPPY DRIVE A media ...
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

Now, I need to know if this could be caused by a virus? I'm transferring my hard drive to another computer, and I don't want this to happen to the new one.

[Romy Welsch]

I have a quick question. I had a few posts/topics in the past about an error on my computer saying when it booted up:


Now, I need to know if this could be caused by a virus? I'm transferring my hard drive to another computer, and I don't want this to happen to the new one.

No, its not a virus. Since it hasnt entered the OS yet, and its still in CMOS. That is not on the Hard Drive since its on the chip on the actual motherboard.

[BaNK.RoLL]

No, its not a virus. Since it hasnt entered the OS yet, and its still in CMOS. That is not on the Hard Drive since its on the chip on the actual motherboard.

Alright. Thanks a ton! I was so worried I would lose all my stuff on my HD.

[Fiori Pra]

Alright. Thanks a ton! I was so worried I would lose all my stuff on my HD.

A BIOS Checksum error is a problem with the BIOS EEPROM (sometimes called CMOS). A Checksum is a way to verify the integrity of a file, so a BIOS checksum error means that something has changed on the BIOS EEPROM that wasn't planned.

This error is caused by multiple issues, it could be any of the following:

• Bad CMOS battery, causing bios to reset to factory defaults or lose/corrupt settings.
  
• Defective BIOS EEPROM
  
• Defective integrated chipset on motherboard (ie Sound, graphics, USB, RAID, IDE, etc...)
  
• A bad BIOS EEPROM Flash
  
• A low level virus affecting the BIOS and/or CPU
  
• Indirectly caused by a failed overclock

Usually its a Bad CMOS battery or a bad BIOS Flash. Either replace the CMOS battery or reflash the BIOS if a known compatible/functional BIOS revision.

[Miss Hayley]

Could someone recommend me a good gaming graphics card? Price isn't really that important. Preferably SLI compatible. Oh and fits in a PCI Express slot.

[Harry-James Payne]

If you're dead set on nVidia, the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130568 is a good card right now. However, you get nearly identical performance from the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908 for a good bit less.

Both good cards, you could obviously get better but I think those are the best in terms of price/performance. If price really doesn't matter, then you may as well go for the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130552. Just make sure your power supply is up to it.

[Dean]

If you're dead set on nVidia, the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130568 is a good card right now. However, you get nearly identical performance from the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908 for a good bit less.

Both good cards, you could obviously get better but I think those are the best in terms of price/performance. If price really doesn't matter, then you may as well go for the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130552. Just make sure your power supply is up to it.

Isn't a GTX 460 SLI better in terms of performance and price than the 480? I dunno thats just what I've heard, haven't seen hard stats for it...

Any word on my previous SSD motherboard compatiblity question?

[sophie]

Isn't a GTX 460 SLI better in terms of performance and price than the 480? I dunno thats just what I've heard, haven't seen hard stats for it...

Any word on my previous SSD motherboard compatiblity question?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-sli-geforce-gtx-480,2694.html. But you better be packing a serious power supply. apparently dual GTX 460s give off less heat than a single GTX 480 too. o_O

Of course, if you really really wanted the best performance and you don't care how much you spend, go ahead and throw two 480s in SLI!

[Fluffer]

I ordered a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166004 because my computer's internet was being slow at times (and I did extensive testing to rule out the modem, ISP, and router).

But the new card doesn't seem to be working, no matter what I try...

I tried pinging my router and this is what I got:
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1379/networkd.jpg

Any ideas?