The Computer Hardware and Software Thread

[FlyingPoppy]

Hi,



I've just put a new hard drive in my imac and I'm having problems When I try to boot up, I just get a pic of a folder with a flashing queston mark on it. I know I need to get the disk utility up but it won't get that far. I've tried holding C and booting from my OS install cd but it just doesn't do anything. I've tried doing a PRAM zap, it still does nothing. I thought maybe the battery was buggered, but I put my old hard drive back in and it's booted up straight away. If anyone has any ideas I would be most grateful



eta: I forgot to say I've made sure it's set to master too, so I know it's not that.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog...He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world...When all other friends desert, he remains. - George G. Vest

Edited by: FlyingPoppy at: 9/25/03 4:58 am

[Warduke]

I was watching The Screen Savers and they talked about yet another IE hole...

Quote:

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Internet Explorer flaw could send your phone bill soaring



Innocent Web users are being landed with huge phone bills, as hackers exploit a security hole in Internet Explorer and connect their computers to expensive $5-per-minute porn lines.



The attack works by sending computer users to sites that change a computer's dial-up settings, connecting it to expensive long distance telephone numbers instead of the user's ISP.



Hackers are also exploiting the security hole to hijack AOL Instant Messenger accounts, changing passwords and sending a user's 'buddies' to malicious Web pages.



Yet another type of attack sends users to pay-per-click sites, where spammers receive money for every click they receive.



The original hole in Internet Explorer was discovered in August, and Microsoft issued a patch at the time.



But there appear to be variations on the hole, which the existing patch can't fix.

http://www.microsoft.com/security

---

edited to add the fun never ends for IE users...

Quote:

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Internet Explorer Vulnerability Exploited Again



Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News



Vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser have been exploited again, security experts said on Thursday, this time by a Trojan horse that redirected traffic from more than 100 popular Web sites to an IP address designated by the attacker.



The Trojan, dubbed Qhosts and Delude.B by various anti-virus vendors, redirected traffic on compromised machines from a large number of legitimate sites--primarily search engines, among them those found at AltaVista, Google, Lycos, MSN, and Yahoo. According to Computer Associates, requests to surf to those search sites were shunted instead to a Web site that was taken offline within 24 hours of the Trojan's appearance.



"This is another attempt by an attacker, probably the same attacker who wrote the original Delude Trojan earlier this month, to hijack Web sites and potentially profit from that redirection," said Ken Dunham, the director of malicious code for iDefense, a 5-year-old company that specializes in security intelligence and provides information to clients through partners such as British Telecom and Japan's Itochu Corp. "It's definitely another exploit of the vulnerabilities that still exist within Internet Explorer."



Qhosts is only the most recent exploit of Internet Explorer vulnerabilities. Starting last week, and continuing over the weekend, others commandeered AOL Instant Messenger accounts and downloaded code that forced users' computers to dial 900 numbers.



The flaw in Internet Explorer stems from a problem the browser has in correctly determining Object Types, and was thought to be patched by a fix that Microsoft released on Aug. 20. But that patch hasn't put a stop to attacks.



"Just by surfing the Web with Internet Explorer, attackers can install anything, at will, on your system and you won't even know it," said Dunham. By exploiting the vulnerabilities, "attackers can use any kind of HTML content to install a Trojan."



As of Thursday, Microsoft hasn't released an updated patch to close Internet Explorer's security holes. A Microsoft spokesman said the company "is investigating an exploit of a variation on a vulnerability originally patched in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-032. We will release a fix for this variation shortly."



Microsoft also recommended that users protect themselves against the newer exploits by changing Internet Explorer's security zone settings to prompt before running ActiveX controls, and although the original patch doesn't cover all the bases, install that fix nonetheless.



Most anti-virus vendors have released updated signature files that will trap Qhosts, and rated the vulnerability as moderate. Symantec Corp. ranked Qhosts as '2' in its 1-through-5 scale, while Network Associates labeled it as "low-profile."



Though Qhosts doesn't seem to be a particularly disruptive or damaging Trojan, and the destination site for its redirection was quickly shuttered--that could easily change, said Dunham.



"The possibilities are very large that a worm could come out of this exploit," he said, due to the tempting target that Internet Explorer makes and how easy it would be to wrap the exploit code into, say, a worm delivered by mass E-mail.



"An E-mail worm that takes advantage of this vulnerability could be devastating," Dunham said. While he doesn't have any direct evidence that a worm is imminent, Dunham did say that he's spotted code on hacker sites, including one based in Russia, indicating that attackers are working on such a worm.



Symantec, which released its six-month evaluation of vulnerabilities and threats on Wednesday, pointed to Internet Explorer as software that IT managers should monitor closely.



Users can protect Internet Explorer against attack, or at least mitigate those attacks, said Dunham, by following Microsoft's advice to disable ActiveX controls or prompt the user before running them. "But another idea is to use a non-vulnerable browser," such as Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, or Opera. The Internet Explorer vulnerability "will be a constant avenue of attack, so it's a good idea, and common sense, to have a multiple-browser setup, just in case," he said. "Enterprises could continue to use IE for trusted sites or internally, and another browser to reach external or questionable sites. It would be the best of both worlds."



Machines already infected with the Qhosts Trojan can be cleaned using a variety of anti-virus packages, or cleansed manually by editing the Windows Registry. Instructions for the latter can be found on several security sites.

---

edited one more time to say that Microsoft has issued a patch...get it now!

---

Firebird: One Browser To Rule Them All.

Edited by: Warduke at: 10/3/03 8:43 pm

[BytrSuite]

Thanks for the heads up, Brian. Stupid thing didn't alert me to an update. I guess they were waiting for something really important or something.

________
"Oh, good! I was hoping to add theft, endangerment and insanity to my list of things I did today."
"Ah! You, too?"
(Stitch laughs delightedly)

[jixer]

Hello Kittens-



All of you of the Mac persuasion-DON'T GET 10.2.8!! My Mac guru wife is using the Unix line commands to get the issues fixed. I swear it looked like the Windows blue screen of death. Skip this one and wait for 10.3



Jixer

[JustNicks]

Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't do a damn thing with this modem (ADSL) I've just received. I am currently paying for use of the internet but my Modem isn't installing properly. I have Windows Me and 2 USB ports. When I load the software for the modem all is ok. The next step is to then connect the modem to the USB port. When I do this what is supposed to happen is this:

The Windows Installer will pop up saying it's found new hardware. Allow Windows to complete the installation.



What actually happens is this:

The Windows Installer pops up and Windows freezes until I unplug the modem from the USB port.



Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated. *smacks head on desk* I am getting very tired...very tired....*losing the will to live*

just Nicks

[Jennpurr]

Super duper smart kittens, I need someone's help. Please?



I have a technical question about Quicktime and I'm hoping someone will know how to fix this problem.



Um, well... it had been playing fine, until today. I tried to a view a file I had DL'ed a while back and forgot about and when I clicked on it, it said I had to DL additional components to view it. Well, I did. I'm wishing I hadn't now.



When I play a QT file now, the sound is horrible. It sounds like someone playing music through a messed up speaker. Does anyone know what I mean?



It's just... yucky.



Does anyone know how I can fix this? Please say someone does. I'll do anything.



Damn QT.



Jen

||My Fan Fiction and More!|| ||My Yahoo Group|| ||September 11th 2001 - An on-line Memorial||
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"One thing I don't understand," Willow went on, laying herself down on top of Tara's legs, with her head resting on her stomach, "is how you don't just lock yourself in your room and play with yourself all day."
Tara laughed, which caused her chest to shudder quite expressively, and Willow to, "Mmmm," again. "Hellebore," Chapter 20 by Chris Cook

[Warduke]

It's a good day for Mozilla users



The other day, Mozilla 1.4.1 came out and today, we get three new products...



Mozilla 1.5

Firebird 0.7

Thunderbird 0.3

---

Firebird: One Browser To Rule Them All.

Edited by: Warduke at: 10/15/03 10:13 am

[Grimlock72]

Quote:

---

JustNicks wrote:

What actually happens is this:

The Windows Installer pops up and Windows freezes until I unplug the modem from the USB port.

---

All I can think at the moment is a problem between the cpu and USB. Do you know if your pc has a pentium (i.e. intel) or athlon/duron (amd) processor ? Unless your modem is a "Efficient Networks Speedstream 4060 Universal Serial Bus (USB) Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) modem", which is known to have problems with ME, at least Microsoft says so



You might want to read the General USB troubleshooting guide, although it's a bit technical, it's here



Good luck!

Quote:

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Jenn wrote:



When I play a QT file now, the sound is horrible. It sounds like someone playing music through a messed up speaker. Does anyone know what I mean?

---

Could be several things, did you test with a file you KNOW has good sound ? I.e. a file you've viewed before ? If that now sounds horrible I would guess an incorrect or corrupt audio-driver got installed with that update.



Easiest to try is uninstalling QuickTime (Control Panel -> Software -> find Quicktime and doubleclick to remove), reboot the computer (power off, power on) and then install quicktime again. This is assuming you have a windows system btw. no clue what to do with Mac .



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

Edited by: Warduke at: 10/21/03 4:32 pm

[Jennpurr]

Ooooh, Grimmy you're an angel. Thank you, sweetie.



It seems to be working fine now, so all is good.



Thanks again.



Jen

||My Fan Fiction and More!|| ||My Yahoo Group||
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Well, I've been puzzling out magic babble," he began.
"Babble can be magic?" Willow grinned. "I must look into that more."
"We did come across a phrase Rupert donned, 'the Willow passage.'" Sandra smiled at her. ~ "Shades of Gray," Chapter 19 by the Rainbow Writers

[justin]

I just got an Email allegedly from the Halifax Bank (who I don't bank with) saying that they need to verify my email address and that in order to do this I need to click on a link then enter my username and password.



To verify my address all I should have to do is reply to the email or click on a link. So if any of you receive an email like this it is almost certainly a scam trying to trick you into revealing your username and password.



so watch out for that

Anya in a wimple...I'd pay full admission for that. Gods Served And Abandoned - by Antigone Unbound


You know the worst thing about people in a relationship? The fact that they're in a relationship. - Hilda Spellman

[Grimlock72]

Quote:

---

To verify my address all I should have to do is reply to the email or click on a link. So if any of you receive an email like this it is almost certainly a scam trying to trick you into revealing your username and password.

---

Such mails are send as being from 'paypal' or 'ebay' as well. Trouble is that outlook only shows you the part of the link that the spammer wants (i.e. the part between [ link=xxxx ] and [ /link ] on ezboard) but NOT the actual link (the xxxx part).



Also be aware that a link like http://www.ebay.com@spamheaven.com:/verifyaccount.html is NOT going to the ebay site at all!! (for those interested, it goes to the spamheaven site using http://www.ebay.com as user).



In general be wary of any url link with an @ in it.



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[tiredsoul]

Quote:

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In general be wary of any url link with an @ in it

---

I'd go one step further on that... be wary of anything that links from an e-mail, especially if it's asking for your username and password. I've gotten "e-mails" from my ISP asking for just that. It's best to just go to the log-in page of said company and check there.



The scammers are just getting more and more creative, aren't they?

---------------------------------

When innocence is shattered
... madness is inevitable
www.gotlicky.com

[Washi]

Hey all! I'm not sure this goes here, but I think so, maybe.



Ok, I have website problems, with an S at the end.



-Does anyone use Arles Image Web Page Creator? If so, how can I put the template I want in there, like I wanna change this gallery, to make it in Arles. So, In a way, I wanna either embed Arles there or use a template or CSS. What do you think?



-Does anyone know how to make an email form from direct html? I got a code, which works fine for a friend of mine, but it won't work for me. It just opens up an email client. Here's the form.



-Last but not least, does anyone know how to install the smilies hack in a b2 blog. I've tried, and tried and after trying a hundred of times, I gave up. My blog's url is in my sig.



Thanks everyone. And if no one can help, it's cool too.

-------------------



"See? I've mastered this tact crap." Anya in Tears Of The Goddess by Lisa



The course of love doesn’t always run smooth, especially for the neurotic and accident-prone. ~ LadyB



.:Dark-bliss.net :..:My blog:..:Blood and Ink:.

[Grimlock72]

Internet Explorer



There... all better now... damned program crashed when I tried to reply to your questions. Using Opera now, much better :-)



Washi,



Anyway, I can't help you with Arles since I've never used it.



Question 2; you need to tell your webserver what it is supposed to do with the data on the form after the 'submit' button is pressed. That is what the 'action' parameter of a form is for. That parameter needs to point to a script or program the webserver can find and run, it will then feed said program/script the data that was entered on the form. You don't want the user to send the mail, you want the web form to send the mail, based on input of the form, right ?



If so, you need to ask the provider of your webspace if they provide a script to handle form input to mail (CGI script, possibly called formmail.pl which is very common). You then specify that script in the 'action' parameter of the form, be sure to specifiy it exactly as said by your provider, case-sensitive and including any dots and slashes. You will then need specify the destanation email adress somewhere in the form. How that is done depends on the mailing script used. Either you give the email-adress in the 'action' parameter itself as extra or you put it in a hidden field on your form. Again, your webspace provider should be able to tell you, if not come back here once you know which script they have.



If they do NOT provide a script but just allow you to place your own CGI scripts, come back here and I or another poster can talk you through that as well. It's not THAT complicated really. (do note that even IF they allow you to place your OWN CGI scripts they usually provide mail2form script which you can easily use then)



On to the last question, the smiley hack. Judging by your mail question (no offense intended) I guess you didn't install that b2 log yourself . So I guess your provider did that for you. If you have control over the b2 files (which is something different from the text of the messages and the configuration/templates) you can place the smiley hack yourself, again it's not THAT hard if you want to do it. You could also the nice service desk of your provider if they pretty please will do it for you :-) If the b2log is provided centrally you will HAVE to ask them.. but since it's a nice feature they might just do it for you.



Smiley Hack thread can be found at b2 forum, here.



Like your site design and the pretty VampWillow picture For some reason that makes me remember normal Willow in DoppelgangerLand saying "try not to kill people"... so naive and cute .



Well, I sure hope the above helps a bit and possibly explains some things to. Have fun with it!



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

Edited by: Grimlock72 at: 11/6/03 2:46 pm

[cattwoman98111]

would anyone happen to know anything about sound systems? im looking for something under $100 that sounds pretty good. i just dont want it to sound tinny, have an echo or anything like that. my problem is that i dont have any idea how to buy speakers for a computer, give me a vehicle and im all over it, i guess its the same principal but where do i start? would i have to by a new sound card, i have a SB/16 Wave? when i ask the sales people they really seem to just want to sell me the big systems , which of course i dont need (unless i get a new computer) or look at me blankly.

anyway any advise would be helpfull and very much appreciated.

I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7-Year Bitch

[Grimlock72]

Hya cattwoman,



Do you currently have speakers you're not satiesfied with or do you just want some sound from your pc? (and not from the tiny build-in speaker )



If so, what do plan to use those speakers for ? More specficly, do you want them to play new games or music ? That helps to determine if you need a more-then-2 speaker set at all. Gamers usually want a 4 speaker set so they can hear in-game sound from 4 positions, like in real life. Thats called a 4.1 set usually, and they get bigger up to 7.1 of which the usefullness eludes me.



Anyway, for just listening to stereo music you only need two good speakers. Creative has those on there website for $30, your card IS old but if it works for you there's no reason to upgrade it. For two speakers it should work nicely, the newer expensive (audigy) cards have connectors for those 5.1,6.1 and 7.1 sets



Really any creative card will do fine on two speakers. The cheapest one is $29.95 if you need to buy a new one for whatever reason.



You could also connect your soundcard to your stereo-set if those are in the same room. Even cheaper solution



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[cattwoman98111]

Grimmy, thanks for the response I have gone to the website you set up a link for and it explains it better than any salesperson has so far. All I want new speakers for is music, just a little richer sound than the cheap set I have. As $ is always an issue I think the Inspire T2900 set will do nicely (And they will work with my ancient sound card) but of course like the good Taurus I am, I must shop around more and find the best value for my $.



Anyway, thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

Catt

I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7-Year Bitch

[AmbeRocks]

i don't know if it has been brought up before. I've got a PC at home, and a laptop. With my laptop, my problem is that when i try to get in the chat room of this board, i'll get a blank page instead, with you, a little red cross like when the link is broken or something. With my PC, i don't have this problem. I've tried to get my security level lower, but it didn't work. Any idea, someone, please?



by the way, i'm with Explorer 6.0 if that can change something. And the same thing happens with the yahoo chat.

tanks to anyone who'll help me!

There is such a variety of well-invented things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman: useful as well as pleasing - Nietzsche

Edited by: AmbeRocks at: 11/8/03 5:48 pm

[kbk3022]

Hmm.. have you tried installing Java on your laptop?



Seems like that might be the problem. You can download it here.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - -
"Take heed 'cause I'm a lyrical poet, Miami's on the scene just in case you didn't know it. My town, that created all the bass sound, enough to shake and kick holes in the ground. 'Cause my style's like a chemical spill..."

[AmbeRocks]

tanks kbk!!!

it occures that it was really just java the problem!



owe you one!

tanks again!

There is such a variety of well-invented things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman: useful as well as pleasing - Nietzsche

[cattwoman98111]

grrr, never thought that i would be back so soon, the speakers got put on hold because i have a larger problem now. anyway my computer went boom . and i seem to have lost everything on my hard drive again!! so with that in mind i am in the market for a new system. which brings me to the real reason i'm here. I was hoping someone that new a little about processors could help me? i plan on getting a barebones system and working up from there, but im a little unsure of the differance between all the processors, ie: AMD,and Celeron. i understand the GHz and Bus stuff but i dont know which brand is better.

what im looking at is something like a AMD Athlon XP 1400 or a Intel Celeron 1.7Ghz i dont need alot 'cause all i use it for is music, surfing and a few games. nothing high tech. anyway, this is all im going to ask about now, i have lots more ?'s but i'm sure you all dont want to read a book

Thanks in advance for any help.

Catt

I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7-Year Bitch

[Grimlock72]

Welcome back catt



First, who says all the data on your hard drive is lost ?? Secondly, it sounds like that occured some time ago as well. If so, what was done to fix it then ? Do you know if windows was fully re-installed that time ?? At the very least keep that disk of which you think all data is lost around for some time.



Upgrading to a newer system will likely get you a nice and fast system without troubles. But if you're short on cash (no offense intended) you might want to ask around as to repairing your current pc or is too old to be repaired again ?



Of the processors you mention, both are good really. When you say 'games' I assume you don't mean the latest games, like _Call of Duty_/_Unreal Tournament 2003_ and such ? It's surprising you can still get a Athlon 1400XP since that model is fairly old. What is the price difference between the Athlon 1400XP and the Celeron 1.7G for you ?



I would prefer the 'book' of questions actually



Get a DVD-rom as opposed to a CD-rom, the price difference is marginal (about $20) and DVD-rom can read CD-rom, more and more stuff gets put on DVD.



Most barebones sets include LAN (=network/dsl), graphics-card and audio build-in, if you use a phone to actually dial to your provider for internet you can have your current 'modem' (which does the dialing and such) transferred from your old to new pc.



If you're going to run Windows XP (likely) you might consider getting 512Mb memory as opposed to the usual 256 in BareBones. That depends mostly on the price of memory, keep in mind that you can always add memory (i.e. an additional 256Mb block) at a later time if needed. Or have someone add it for you, that does not require re-installing or other such things (it's basicly: unplug system, plug in memory block, plug-in system, start system :-).



I wish you lots of luck with either repairing your current system or buying a new one. Feel free to ask any other questions, computers aren't that difficult really... they're sometimes described that way by expensive computer-shops.. .



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[cattwoman98111]

Hey Grimmy!



Well, where to start. When this first happened about 7months ago I thought it was the hard drive going out. As it was small and old I just replaced it. Then the other night the new HD started doing the same thing, which is while the computer is up and running it will start freezing up at little intervals, makes revving sounds and finally goes to the blue screen of DEATH. Grrr so anyway I took the HD out and threw it in an old 233, it boots up but damn thing will not run Norton Disk Doctor, whereas on the old machine it will work, anyway the long and short is I rescued all the data that I wanted and tried various things to fix the devil machine, I tried fdisk /mbr from DOS, changed the bios to boot from another HD, tried to install ME on that and that did not work, anyway I think that it is the HD controller. So as this old computer is finally dieing, I am going to get something new.



So, on to the processors, the price difference is $30 for the Celeron, and as money is always an issue lately, this is what I was thinking of getting.



Celeron 1.7g, 256MB, 40g 7200rpm HD, 52x cd-rom, 1.44floppy, 32MB Shared Onboard video (yuck, I know), 10/100 Network card, onboard 2 channel audio, 6 usb ports, 1 agp (4) /3 pci / 1 AMR and a 350w atx case.

That is around $299.00 and comes as a package.

They do offer upgrades for the processors though, but it is at $50.00 intervals.



As I don’t really want shared video or audio, I wanted to upgrade to something a little better, but I don’t know a darn thing about audio or video cards. Any suggestions will be greeted with hugs



I would LOVE a dvd-rom and may see if they offer the upgrade.



And you are correct; I just mean small games, Sims, and stuff like that.



I do plan on adding stuff to the system later on I just need something now so I can quit using other peoples computers.



Of course I am still looking around as I never impulse buy anything this large.



If you have a suggestions or know of any better barebones systems, by all means give me a shout.



thanks for all your help i really appreciate it.



Catt

I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7-Year Bitch

[Grimlock72]

Catt,



Do you have a link to the barebones case you're getting and/or a model and type number ??



A few things come to mind;



0. Processor should be fine as is, even for Sims 2



1. The harddisk; check if you can add a 2nd HD later on if you want. If you can't add one (which is likely since barebones==small case) you might want to carefully check the price-difference between the HD's they offer.



2. Videocard; your onboard card will likely run The Sims just fine. That game needs a fast HD more then it does a videocard. However, Sims 2 is due out next year.. which more then likely will want a fast card. If you can get a Gforce 4200 (any in the 4000-4800 range will do, no MX please) get that one, Gforce 5 series is way too expensive and NOISY (as in VERY noisy) to get. Stick to Gforce 4, it's easiest (ATI always gives me driver troubles except with the expensive newer ones).



If at all possible I would get the video-card you want installed by whomever is selling you the system. You CAN install a newer card later but that leaves old drivers behind in your OS, not something you want. Speaking of OS, I have bad experiences with ME so I would recommend XP (Home should do nicely), don't get windows2000 thats for business systems and doesn't like games much . Don't forget to get/install a firewall and virus-scanner as well.



3. Audio; on board audio can be quite good actually. There's no harm in checking what you get on-board anyway, installing an audio-card later is easy. (don't forget to disable on-board audio if you do install one)



I'm not very demanding as far as audio goes so I myself have the cheapest 4.1 card I could get. Browse around on creative's site, lots of info there. The cheapest 'Soundblaster Live!' is usually what I recommend, that does 2 speakers nice enough. Then again you already get 2-channel on-board so that might do nicely anyway.



4. What stuff do you plan to add later ?? I ask because a barebones system doesn't have much room to spare.



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

Edited by: Grimlock72 at: 11/14/03 5:02 am

[cattwoman98111]

hey grimmy, why dont we take this off the board for now, drop me an email, and we will take it from there.

Catt_Woman@hotmail.com



thx

Catt

[TaraBaby77]

I just wanted to throw out there that, well, if anyone needs help with so computer questions or problems.... I love to help. Kinda wanna us my nerdy-ness for something good, heehee. So, anyhoo, I just wanted to let you all know. =)

Aaron

'TaraBaby77'

"It's about two people, regardless of sex, who love each other and treat each other with compassion and respect."

[Warduke]

I'm having a problem, when I disconnect from my ISP, my cpu usage jumps to 100% and stays there. The only way to stop it is to reconnect or reboot.



Does anyone have any idea what is causing this?



Btw, I'm on dial-up and using Windows 98SE.

---

Firebird: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[LokiPromise]

Hmm, if its only happening after you disconnect, it could possibly be spyware of some sort, get Ad-aware or Spybot and search your hard drive. Other than that, has anything suspicious been installed onto your computer recently?

BB:Hello Xander...and Anya, how is your money?!

A:Fine!Thank you for asking!

[Grimlock72]

Do you know which program is using that much CPU ? I assume that since you know it's 100% you have a listing of the programs/processes running ?



If not get TaskInfo from www.iarsn.com/download.html, sort on CPU usage and check which process is being all selfish with your cpu.



It could indeed also be spyware, virus or something icky like that. Got a properly updated virus-scanner installed ? Free one can be found at www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php. You might want to look into installing a firewall as well, Sygate has a free one at: smb.sygate.com/support/documents/spf/default.htm. A firewall will tell you and ask you when a program wants to connect to the internet. The first time you run it, it will obviously ask a lot of questions but once you're done with those you shouldn't get any unexpected questions. (unless you've update one or more internet using programs).



A spyware cleaner like Sypbot Search&Destroy can be found at: security.kolla.de/news.php?lang=en. Don't worry to much about any 'tracing cooky' stuff it might report, those are fairly harmless (at least don't cause this problem)



P.S. Microsoft has announced they are preparing a security-update cd for win98se, since most of the users of that OS are on dial-up. No idea how distribution is going to be done though.



Grimmy

--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine

[TaraBaby77]

Another idea that you may want to try is, closing your antivirus program (completely) before you disconnect and see if that is what is causing it. So AV's keep a direct line open to there virus definition server to make sure that it always up to date. Like I said, that is another idea... if not, let us know. =)

Edited by: Warduke at: 12/5/03 8:24 am