Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent and reboot.
Order shall return


New computer help thread. 

Originally posted by me
We're upgrading the network manager server at work. I'm trying to get it as similar to the last one as possible; so naturally i tried HdCopy for a start, but, as expected, Windows 2000 looks up MAC addresses. So it bitched about an "inaccessable boot volume" or something in the new PC.

People? Mic?   

Originally posted by aslate
I came home to find my (previously locked) PC stuck with a blue BG and no mouse response (NOT a blue-screen!). I restarted, and it just gets stuck loading (In all modes i tried, it just got stuck, or kept scrolling the load bar, without HDD access for either. Now i went through Msconfig, turning off a couple of things that i know shouldn't have been running at startup, however i may have accidentally turned off something. Anyone know what i can do to try to turn them on?

Press F8 at start-up, and try step-by-step configutation, or last known good config.
Although, usually if it gets to the point where it doesn't start anymore, it's formatting time.

Dell are pretty cool, reasonably cheap, powerful systems for people who can't build them themselves.

now I have just the right machine to challenge you nerds in some online video games.

That depends, just how nerdy are you willing to be?
Go spend $700 on a video card and come back. 

haha! I'm new at being nerdy. I'm going to need some more time. Isn't there some Wal-Mart version that's like five dollars?

maybe someone can enlighten me.

everyone is like, "Dell sucks!"

Now I'm not the kind of geek who actually knows stuff, but I've had my Dell for about 6 years (gasp!) and it works great and I haven't had many problems with it. The monitor broke in the beginning, but I got a new one for free. Dell customer service was good when I still had the phone support (ie: you can call and not have to wait 5 hours to speak to someone).

Now I know a lot of you nerds like to build your own computer, but a lot of that stuff is like, "I got neon lights and a spaceship decal !" which to me is beside the point. And I know a lot of dorks like alienware, which is about 5 million dollars for stuff that looks "cool"...

So what's a semi average girl like me to do? Buying a Dell for like $900 sounds like a good deal to me, but I'd like someone to explain why it's not, and suggest viable alternatives.

Have at it

Of course it all depends on what you want it for. If you want it for doing work, browsing the internet, sending e-mail, maybe playing a couple of games, etc. and you don't want to spend a chunk of your time sorting out problems with the machine, then
<Corporate PR-type person>Dell is for you! *thumbs up*</CPRTP>.

If, on the other hand, your computer is your life hobby, then you'll more than likely want to be choosing the best bits to complement each other to maximise performance (Bulk manufacturers in general use generic parts and stick with onboard sound and graphics).

I think what irks some of the latter computer users is when 12-year-old kids start running their mouth off in the vein of "OMfg u L4mer! I r t3h l33test b3cause I got da Dell! Lolololol!", when, in reality, they don't have a frickin' clue. 

I don't claim to know everything about computers, and anyone who does actually know anything about them would say the same. I'm not au fait with Linux because to be honest it doesn't hold that much of an allure to me, for example. I use my computer to play games and do some work (occasionally  ).

I'd love to get to grips and learn more about Linux but I just don't have the time to tinker (and I don't want to put my main machine out of commission for a while). Ideally I need a comparitively fast second machine to tinker around with (I tried using Linux to power a media center but it doesn't seem to be particularly suited to that purpose).

We have Dells at work (as they're a client, we get a decent deal), and they're fine, perfectly functional.

In addition to what I said above...

Reading University uses Dells throughout the School of Systems Engineering, and they seem to work pretty well. That to me is what they're designed for; functional machines which can be easily maintained and conform to a basic standard so a bulk user can simply re-image a corrupt harddisk or swap in a standard component for a busted one. They're solid machines, and I'd be perfectly happy to own one as a non-gaming machine for internet browsing and work, etc.

My Dell is coming up on being 6 years old and I've only had to reformat the thing once.  I'd say that's pretty good.  They're certainly going to be tops on my list to look at when I decide to get a new computer.  She was top of the line when I bought her, but now she's old and senile. 

 

Originally posted by bankrupt:
My Dell is coming up on being 6 years old and I've only had to reformat the thing once.  I'd say that's pretty good.  They're certainly going to be tops on my list to look at when I decide to get a new computer.  She was top of the line when I bought her, but now she's old and senile.   

Dello, fellow Peelers. My Dell is three days old, and has been absolutely wonderful. I haven't had any problems with it.

VF: I'm not sure if Dells waste a lot of heat and power consumption (I know some have LCD's which use less power, but I'm not sure of their motherboard/HD/gfx card/power unit consumption etc.), which you can avoid if you pick energy efficient/quiet components yourself.

Hell even the high level gaming Dell isn't tops for games.
It's called benchmarking people, it clearly states that Dell = bad for serious gaming.

*gets shot by a fanboy-sniper*

Anyway!
A serious gamer wouldn't have shortcuts to games on his desktop, he'd have shortcuts to little Windows batch files that kill all unnecessary processes, runs the game, then when the game closes, restart all the programs that were killed, virus scanners and firewalls and whatnot.   

Mmmmmmm, taskkill /f /im *stupid processes*   

VF: of the applications you’ve listed, Photoshop/Illustrator is likely to be your biggest problem (assuming you work with large files/lots of layers). What to look for in a system optimised for Photoshop:
1) Maximum memory installed.
2) A second physical hard drive with a partition dedicated as a Photoshop scratch disc.
3) Accelerated graphics card to reduce the load on the main processor.

If you don’t have a separate scratch disc, it’s more important to keep your hard drive defragmented, and empty your Temporary Internet Files folder regularly. If you have a lot of USB devices connected, removing any not in use may help your tablet speed up.

Linux related cock-up :/
Right, I have 2 hard disks, an 60gb which I use for Windows and an 80gb which I use for files and wanted to use for Linux. So I partioned 60gb of the 80gb hard disk for Windows and left 20gb unformatted for Linux. I decided to use Mandrake 10.0, I put in the disk etc and selected 'partition free space', it said 'partitioning free space on hard disk2' etc then I moved onto the next part of the installation which was a load of tick boxes where you can select what you want installing eg 'Gamestation'. During this my computer crashed and I had to reboot. Windows booted fine but when I went on Partition Magic the whole of disk2 was classified as 'BAD' and supposedly 0% of it was used!

Very worried I went on My Computer and yet my 'F:' and 'G:' partitions were still there (which were on the now 'BAD' 80gb hard disk), I looked around on them and everything seemed fine, I can play the games which I installed on those partitions fine and on properties they still remain the size they origionally were. Do you think there is any way I can get back the 20gb of the disk I'm not using (without having to reformat the disk) and if not do you think I can keep using that disk as it is?

 

Originally posted by Rage Dump:
Windows classifies anything it doesn't recognise as "Bad". And Linux uses a filesystem that windows doesn't understand.

I know that, but this was in Partition Magic and Partition Magic recognises Linux ext2 and 3 and Linux swap, I previously had Knoppix on that hard disk and Partition Magic saw the 2 Windows partitions and the Linux ones. :/

 

Originally posted by VelourFog:
so you're saying you can hook me up with a sweet job? Thanks!

I could let you know the next time we're looking for people.
If I get somebody hired at my job and they last more that six months, I get $500.

 

Originally posted by Margarita:
"I decided to use Mandrake 10.0"

that's your mistake.

I'm new to Linux and thats what most people reccomended for beginners, what would you suggest?

Ok, so whenever I try to load Adobe Acrobat on my profile it freezes up at the title screen.  Same if i load it through a webpage, but it also freezes the browser.  So I downloaded Acrobat reader & it does the same thing.  However if I go on the other profile on this computer, everything works fine & dandy.  So whats the deal?

Uninstall it and re-install it in the administrator profile.

Also, see this: http://www.tnk-bootblock.co.uk/prods/misc/index.php
top link. Speeds up acrobat reader.

AAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'm ready to toss my comp out the window. I keep getting damned pop-ups from internet explorer. I don't even use internet explorer why the hell am i getting pop-ups??? I use AOL. I never see a single pop-up from aol, it's only internet explorer. I'd delete the bitch completely, but my comp won't let me! HELP!

 

I keep getting damned pop-ups from internet explorer. I don't even use internet explorer why the hell am i getting pop-ups??? I use AOL. I never see a single pop-up from aol, it's only internet explorer. I'd delete the bitch completely, but my comp won't let me!

IE is extremely intergrated into Windows, you can't uninstall it.
Sounds like a standard spyware job; Run Spybot and Adaware
Make sure they're up to date first.

 

Since no one answered my question in the last thread, I'll ask again. Does anyone know of a way to make Opera (internet browser) Display flash?

I thought it displayed it by default...
But i'm not really sure, i haven't used it in ages; you might just need a plugin of some description.
Go to the Flash site, and download the latest version, it should pick up all of your browsers and install support for flash in each.