Need help from the computer guru's

[Pyro81]

Okay, i like to watch anime on my computer. But lately it's been getting harder and harder to do so. The problem i'm having is the sound and video won't stay in sync. The video will actually start to lag. Sometimes it's only a little bit, sometimes it's by a lot. At first i thought it was just doing it when there was a lot going on on the screen. But it's doing it when there's not much going on. Since the majority of the anime i'm watching is subbed i've noticed that it's very prominent when the subtitles are on the screen and the picture will actually speed up to catch up with the sound when the subtitles disappear. And when the subtitles come back on it slows back down again.

I've done everything i can think of. I've opened the case and cleaned out a lot of the dust that had built up on the heat sinks and other areas. I perform spy ware scans and a defrag every weekend. And my computer does a virus scan every night. I did a disc clean scan as well as an error scan on my main hard drive. And none of it helped.

I have two external hard drives. One 80 gig drive that's about 3% full, and one 500 gig drive that's about 77% full. I keep all my anime on my 500 gig drive. I thought maybe it was just getting too full so i moved one of the files over to the 80 gig drive. I still got the same result.

My vid card is an NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS and as some of you may remember it's not that old. In fact, i just checked and found out i literally just installed it about a year ago.

I'm not sure what to do next so anybody got any suggestions?

[Charcoal]

It could be something as simple as the player you are using..try another player and see if it reacts the same way. Check to see how many processes you have running, there could be some programs running sucking your processor juice, close the ones that aren't necessary to run windows. Also, make sure you have the latest video driver for your card. Just a few ideas to check out :)

[Pyro81]

I updated the driver with no success and forgot to say that i did try on different players and got the same problems. And as far as process go, well, there's quite a few running, but i have no idea which ones are necessary and which aren't. I'll take a screen shot of them and post them up.

[Pyro81]

Okay, here's a screen shot of all the running processes.
http://pyro81.brinkster.net/neco/Processes%20screen%20shot.jpg

[Tygerr]

It doesn't seem like you got too much going on. Is TeaTimer part of spybot? I never liked running that, but I'm not sure that's it.

I always just look at the tasks under my user name. Which would be Brian in your case. Looks pretty normal to me.

[shoult]

Lots of text, but not much info.

Windows XP? Vista? Linux? CPU? Memory? You mention AV, AS and AM software running, but not which ones. Some are worse then others for being process hogs. Norton's is ESPECIALLY resource intensive while Symantec AV is not bad at all (both made by same company). Some Windows Anti Malware are actually malware masquerading as AS or AM.

If you're running Windows XP with that load you'll need at least 1GB RAM and a 2.0 Ghz CPU. With Vista you should have 2GB (without Aero) or 2.5GB (with Aero) and a 3Ghz CPU.

BTW, the 7600GS is not a real hot video card. It should be good enough to run video though. Make sure you're running the lastest WHLQ Drivers (not the Beta ones!).

No matter what OS you run, the BEST drive to run videos from is an internal drive. You don't say how you're external drives are attached. USB 2.0 may be rated at 400Mb/sec that's the total of ALL USB devices including all USB drives, mice, keyboard etc. USB is not a great drive to run video off of. Firewire is 400Mb/sec per drive. It's better then USB and many indpendent video editors use it. eSata is almost like having an internal drive.

If you're running Windows then there are LOTS of reasons for slow downs. Windows doesn't do a great job of cleaning up after it self. It leaves lots of crap behind. One great little program to get rid of the crap is call CCleaner (CCleaner - Home (http://www.ccleaner.com/)). It can emtpy out the deleted bin, Temp files, History files, and lost of crap. It's also freeware.

If you install and un-install lots of programs then you'll get registry bloat. CCLeaner can help wit that to, but you have to be careful with the registry no matter what program you use. The rule of thumb is if you're uncomfortable with messing with the registry, then DON'T. You can make your system unstable or worse, unbootable.

Another thing to look for is not the players, but the codecs used. Some shiftless people now create formats that require new codecs that are nothing but virus/trojans in disguise. If you have downloaded a anime that demanded a new codec to run lately, then this is the likely culprit.

That should be enough to chew on for awhile.

[LinkMan]

Try closing TeaTimer. I don't know if that's the problem, but I'm like Chris in that I don't like to run it. It's been awhile, but it seemed to give me some performance problems when I used it in the past. What version of Windows?

[shoult]

You seem to have modem software running so unless you are actually using a 56K phone line modem you should go into hardware and disable it.

I see you are using AVG anti-virus. It's fairly benign as far as resources go except when actually scanning.

If the Firefox you are using is v2.x then it is KNOWN to leak memory until all memory is used up on some systems. They think they have this licked in v3, but that's months away most likely.

Do yourself a favor and go to www.sysinternals.com and grab Process Explorer (a MUCH better task manager that can easily be made to replace the standard Task manager). Also grab AutoRuns which lets you see what is actually being started up when you boot Windows.

[nadthomas]

Reboot your computer to flush your system memory, as shoult said Firefox 2.0 has a memory leak issue that could be causing this problem. Try closing all apps such as Antivirus, Spyware scanners, etc. If neither of those things work try copying one of the videos that was giving you a problem to your C:\. It might just be the throughput/bandwidth of your USB hard drive. Also, if you don't have atleast 1GB of memory, go ahead and slap a little more in there to get you to 1+GB.

[Pyro81]

Okay, some info people asked for:
WinXP SP2
AMD Athalon Processor 995MHz
512 MB RAM
Anti virus is AVG
Spybot for spyware
AS and AM??
Both external drives run through USB 2.0 My computer has no firewire hook ups. Though i wonder if i could get a card with firewire hookups on it?
I have not had to download any special codecs. The ones i've had for a while now have worked fine.
Dial up modem has now been disabled.
Teatimer has also been closed.

I've been thinking about upgrading my memory since the bare minimum has risen in the few years since i was last told to upgrade it. And speaking of which, when i was cleaning out the dust i noticed there are two different sets of slots for memory. Looking in the manual for the motherboard i see they are labeled DIMM1, DIMM2, SDR1, and SDR2. Further on it tells me they are SDRAM and DDRSDRAM. And based on what i read the DDRSDRAM is better. However, i have no idea if that is what i'm using at the moment. I know i'm using the slots labeled SDR but have no idea which RAM type they are. And if i am using the lesser of the two should i get memory for the superior type?

I have restarted my computer several times in the past few days. Not for problems or anything like that. Mostly for updates.

I did move one of the files over to my main hard drive. The problem was still there but it wasn't as bad as when viewing from my other drives.

[shoult]

Okay, some info people asked for:
WinXP SP2
AMD Athalon Processor 995MHz
512 MB RAM

The last two above are your biggest problems. A 1Ghz (probably somewhere in the 1.6-1.8Ghz equivilancy ratings) processor isn't gonna get it in todays world. ESPECIALY with only 512Mb of RAM.

Anti virus is AVG
Spybot for spyware
AS and AM??

Like I said earlier, AVG is pretty benign as far as processes, but in my testing SpyBot 1.4 is a HOG (1.3 wasn't bad and I haven't tried 1.5). I use several things that use less resources combined then SpyBot does alone.

AS=AntiSpyWare
AM=AntiMalWare

1. Windows Defender. People will laugh, but it does work. Cost: Free
2. SpyWare Blaster 3.51. Does a great job. Run all the time, but needs to be manually updated. Cost: Free
3. a-Squared Free Anti Trojan. This program needs to be manually updated and run. It does allow you to script it functions so I have a little script that downloads and applies the updates, runs the program and the reboots the computer. I then use Windows Scheduler to run this once a week. Cost: Free

Both external drives run through USB 2.0 My computer has no firewire hook ups. Though i wonder if i could get a card with firewire hookups on it?

While Firewire would help your external drives, the fact that you copied a file to your internal drive and it still didn't solve the problem completely means that you have bigger issues then drive bandwidth.

I have not had to download any special codecs. The ones i've had for a while now have worked fine.

If the any of the files you are playing are based on .wmv files and you're using Windows Media Player then you may have downloaded codecs/licenses/trojans automatically. If you're using WiMP then go into Proeferences and disabled "Download License Automatically".

Dial up modem has now been disabled.
Teatimer has also been closed.

If you disable TeaTimer you may as well uninstall SpyBot S&D since this is the scheduler for SpyBot.

I've been thinking about upgrading my memory since the bare minimum has risen in the few years since i was last told to upgrade it. And speaking of which, when i was cleaning out the dust i noticed there are two different sets of slots for memory. Looking in the manual for the motherboard i see they are labeled DIMM1, DIMM2, SDR1, and SDR2. Further on it tells me they are SDRAM and DDRSDRAM. And based on what i read the DDRSDRAM is better. However, i have no idea if that is what i'm using at the moment. I know i'm using the slots labeled SDR but have no idea which RAM type they are. And if i am using the lesser of the two should i get memory for the superior type?

Your processor/motherboard was on of the last to use SD-RAM (Probably PC-100 or PC-133). The motherboard you have was designed to allow easy transition from the then much cheaper but slower SD-RAM to the newer, faster DDR RAM when it became cheaper. Many of these era MBs were designed so that you could use EITHER SD or DDR, but not both. Also, you may find that the MAX RAM you can add maybe 512 (2x256) or 1GB (2x512). So now you need to do some research. Look in your manual and find your max mem and whether you can use both kinds of memory at the same time.

My advice is that if you plan to spend ANY money upgrading your rig then get a new motherboard/CPU/RAM rather then trying to bring you're current rig. You can find an AMD Athlon 64 dual core and AM2 motherboard for under $100 and 2Gb of DDR2 RAM for about $60. You'll have a fresh rig that'll play anything you throw at it and a whole lot less frustration.

If you do decide to upgrade your computer (don't be afraid!) put your largest, fastest drive INSIDE the case rather then hanging outside on the USB bus.

Good luck

[Pyro81]

Wow, that's a lot of info to chew on. I'll have to think about what i want in the future and weigh my options and see if my funds will allow.

If i remember correctly i can have a max of 1 gig ram and can only use one or the other style, i cannot use both.

Manually updating is fine, i used to do it weekly for certain spyware programs i've had in the past. I also used to do it for my norton's programs when i had those years ago. I no longer use them, though.

Thanks for all the help. Very much appreciated.

EDIT: Oh yeah, i used to use Windows media player, and media player classic. But now i use a player called Zoom player for all my main media playbacks. Sometimes WMP will pop up on certain files i'll click on while browsing the forums or whatnot. So i'll be sure to disable that option you mentioned in them.

[LinkMan]

If you disable TeaTimer you may as well uninstall SpyBot S&D since this is the scheduler for SpyBot.
No, it's not the scheduler. It's the real time monitor that checks all processes started or called, as well as monitoring portions of the registry. SpyBot is still worthwhile as a manually run check on spyware.

I found the performance hit from TeaTimer not worth the potential benefit, I do continue to manually scan via SpyBot on a semi-regular basis.

So Brian, did any of your changes make an appreciable difference? Is it any better?

I'm not sure your 512MB is your immediate problem since you say "But lately it's been getting harder and harder to do so." Does that mean that you used to watch your anime without video & audio synch problems? If so, I'd be curious to know if you could remember when your first started noticing it get bad, and if anything changed around that time - new versions of your existing software by update, or a Windows update, or if you installed something new around that time?

[Pyro81]

It used to be fine with no noticeable problems. I believe it started sometime around november. But i couldn't tell you of anything that changed at about that time. I did perform a system restore about a week or so ago that helped out a bit. But it wouldn't let me go any further back than November. So if i did change something to cause this i can't restore it to a point before it.

It has gotten better after all this but not by much.

[shoult]

If you want to use a-Squared Anti-Trojan then here is the script I use. Just copy and paste everything between the lines into notepad and save it. You can either click on it to run it, or schedule it with Windows Scheduler. BTW, it does it all in DOS mode.

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

echo off

REM Setup to Autoscan for Trojans using a-squared Free 3.1 Anti Trojan Scanner

REM Point the thing in the right place

c:
cd\
cd "program files\a-squared Free"

REM Update Definitions

a2cmd.exe /u

REM Scans c:\windows. Memory, Traces and Cookie scan enabled.
REM Uses heuristics, displays Riskware and scans in Archives and ADS. Puts found Malware in
REM C:\Program Files\a-squared Free\Quarantine

a2cmd /f="c:\" /m /t /c /h /r /a /n /q

REM Reboot the machine

shutdown -f -r

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

A couple last items to consider. Your current MB uses DDR memory. Most current MBs are using DDR2 and moving to DDR3 soon. So if you buy a GB of DDR it'll be obsolete before you get it. Also the cost of 1Gb of DDR is almost the same as 2Gb of DDR2 right now.

REALLY go to Windows Sysinternals: Documentation, downloads and additional resources (http://www.sysinternals.com) and download and use at LEAST Process Explorer and AutoRuns. Both are free and do WAY more then the WinXP equivilants, and as a bonus they're easier to understand!

32437 This is Process Explorer (Task Manager replacement)

32438 This is AutoRuns. It shows you what is starting up when you boot up Windows.

Notice how both show you not just the program name, but who they are from. Also, where Task Manager shows you only the non-descript SVCHOST, Process Explorer shows you exactly what SVCHOST is actually hosting. neither program needs to be installed. Just copy them over. Both are under 1Mb each also.

Okay, that's enough for now.

[Pyro81]

Okay, some more info to chew on for everybody. Down in the right hand corner where all the minimized programs are running (the name of it escapes me at the moment) i had AVG, Trillian, and a bittorrent program running. Normally the bittorrent program isn't running and i usually pause all downloads when i'm using the net. Otherwise it will run if i'm downloading something. Anyways, i exited and closed all those programs and the media file runs almost smooth. It was in sync enough to the point where it wouldn't bother me to watch it. Figured this info might help out a bit.

[Pyro81]

The problem with downloading those programs is i wouldn't know what to do with the info they provide. It would be like giving an algebraic formula to a monkey.

[nadthomas]

I thought your system was newer then that Brian, it's time to upgrade. I would also recommend that you take a closer look at your motherboard to see how close it is to dying. I only know of 2 manufactorer that made an AMD motherboard that supported both SD and DDR type RAM and both of those manufactures produce total crap. Furthermore just about all motherboards from this era suffered from bad caps. Take a look at your motherboard and you should see lots of things that look like small batteries. The tops of them should all look a concaved inward, but if any of them look like they are bulging outward and/or if they have a light tan foam leaking out of them the caps are bad. This is going significantly impact the stability of your system, and eventually your system will just stop working altogether. See pic below for reference(If they look like this they are failing).

http://static.flickr.com/42/120329818_0e20370795_m.jpg

If/When you upgrade your system you are going to need a little more then what shoult said. You are also going to need a new video card since almost all motherboards have changed to a new slot type (pci express) for the video card. I forget if you said you play video games on your computer, but if you don't, you don't need to spend much on the video card at all (ie $50). From the crap hard drive your computer shop sold you, along with the crappy motherboard you have as well I can only assume that you have a crappy power supply as well. Not only because newer CPU/motherboards/video cards are more power hungry, but also because they have new power connectors on them as well. Expect to spent $75-100 for a decent power supply, there are a select few decent power supplies in the sub-$50 range, but most of them are crap.

Its not going to be worth it to spend any money upgrading the memory in your computer at this point. I do suspect that if you removed the 512 SDRAM and upgraded to 1GB or DDRRAM that it would give you just enough performance gain for your video and audio to sync properly, but you system is getting old, and the the likely hood of the motherboard/CPU/etc to fail is getting higher and higher. So spending the money on DDR ram which costs twice as much as DDR2 Ram, and which won't be able to be used in your next system is just a waste.

But if your motherboard is actually not showing signs of failure, and you are really tight for cash I can see if I still have any faster AMD processors lying around, and if you still have any open SDRAM memory slots I can give you what I have, or I have a couple of systems lying around here that I could sell you for pretty cheap.

[Pyro81]

I thought your system was newer then that Brian, it's time to upgrade. I would also recommend that you take a closer look at your motherboard to see how close it is to dying. I only know of 2 manufactorer that made an AMD motherboard that supported both SD and DDR type RAM and both of those manufactures produce total crap. Furthermore just about all motherboards from this era suffered from bad caps. Take a look at your motherboard and you should see lots of things that look like small batteries. The tops of them should all look a concaved inward, but if any of them look like they are bulging outward and/or if they have a light tan foam leaking out of them the caps are bad. This is going significantly impact the stability of your system, and eventually your system will just stop working altogether. See pic below for reference(If they look like this they are failing).

http://static.flickr.com/42/120329818_0e20370795_m.jpg

If/When you upgrade your system you are going to need a little more then what shoult said. You are also going to need a new video card since almost all motherboards have changed to a new slot type (pci express) for the video card. I forget if you said you play video games on your computer, but if you don't, you don't need to spend much on the video card at all (ie $50). From the crap hard drive your computer shop sold you, along with the crappy motherboard you have as well I can only assume that you have a crappy power supply as well. Not only because newer CPU/motherboards/video cards are more power hungry, but also because they have new power connectors on them as well. Expect to spent $75-100 for a decent power supply, there are a select few decent power supplies in the sub-$50 range, but most of them are crap.

Its not going to be worth it to spend any money upgrading the memory in your computer at this point. I do suspect that if you removed the 512 SDRAM and upgraded to 1GB or DDRRAM that it would give you just enough performance gain for your video and audio to sync properly, but you system is getting old, and the the likely hood of the motherboard/CPU/etc to fail is getting higher and higher. So spending the money on DDR ram which costs twice as much as DDR2 Ram, and which won't be able to be used in your next system is just a waste.

But if your motherboard is actually not showing signs of failure, and you are really tight for cash I can see if I still have any faster AMD processors lying around, and if you still have any open SDRAM memory slots I can give you what I have, or I have a couple of systems lying around here that I could sell you for pretty cheap.

:facepalm:

Looks like i better start shopping around then...i remember when i had the case open and blowing out the dust i saw a capacitor with that brown foam on top of it. There may have been more, but i don't remember. The manufacture is Elitegroup.

My power supply is actually newer. My old one shorted and fizzed out about 6 months ago. I can't recall the specs on it, though, and i can't find the paperwork on it either. I do remember that it doesn't have a traditional hardwired pigtail of power cords coming out of it. Instead, it has several plugs that you can plug in different types of pigtails...does that even make sense...i still have about 4 sets of wires left sitting in my box of random computer stuff.

I don't play video games a whole lot. On occasion i'll get an itch to play something, though.

Christ, the further we dive into this problem the more money i'm going to wind up spending, lol. Oh well, i've known for a long time that my computer is outdated and it was only a matter of time before i had to upgrade.

Thanks for the offer of the cheap systems you've got laying around. But i think if i'm going to go forth with this i'm just going to go into it all the way. I doubt i'll get something extremely high end, though.

[Tygerr]

You can build a new machine for relatively cheap. Especially since the system doesn't need to be all that demanding.

The power supply you have is called a modular power supply, it allows you to plug in only what you need like you said. Which is extremely nice.

Newegg offers some mb/processor combos for relatively cheap. You'll probalbly want to go pci-e (as it's probalbly getting hard to find old pci boards for the price). I also found that pci-e video cards seem to be cheaper then the older agp cards.

Also, I wouldn't recommend getting rid of spybot. Like Mark said as well, it's a very nice program and it's worth the manual checking/updating. It's just teatimer then I don't like to have run in the background.

[shoult]

This might be more then you want to spend, but it's good stuff. Gigabyte mainboard w/ATI 1250 graphics on board. PCIe 16x slot for future video cards. It can hold up to 8 GB ram, has 4 Sata and 1 IDE connector (two drives). VGA, DVI and HDMI video out, lots of goodies like firewire and GigE on board. CPU is 4Ghz X2. RAM is 2Gb (2x1Gb) Transcend memory.

The ATI 1250 graphics should be good enough for anything except the higher frame rates for some of the newer games. Or put another way, you'd have to spend $100+ for a standalone grahics card that's as good.

https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=5741625&WishListTitle=Doink

Doink

[nadthomas]

Your power supply should be fine then, and what shoult recommended should work just fine for you except I would stick to Crucial, Corsair, Geil, Mushkin, or maybe Kingston Hyper X brand memory. Although I haven't kept up with AMD processors I'm sure the one he recommended is fine as well. Its not a top end processor, but it will be a ton faster then your current system, and the motherboard as potential for upgrading of the CPU later on. The only other potential issue I see is if you have more then one internal hard drive and cd-rom you will be out of IDE connections. Hard drives, and a number of CD-rom drives have switched to a SATA interface, hence the reason why there is 4 SATA ports on that motherboard and only 1 IDE port.

[Tygerr]

The amd am2 is a nice processor.

I'd go with the memory dan listed.

[Pyro81]

I only have one cd-rom drive, but i do have a dvd-rw drive. Will that cause a problem?

Is the audio integrated on that board? If so, that means i won't be able to upgrade that down the line, right? I would like to get a better sound setup sometime in the future.

Also, what about an ethernet card? I'm not sure if one of those ports is the ethernet port. And, if none of them are, are those slots just below the I/O panel where i would be putting things like an ethernet card?

I honestly wish i knew what all those friggin terms meant...

[shoult]

I only have one cd-rom drive, but i do have a dvd-rw drive. Will that cause a problem?

Not really a problem. For $5 in my paypal account I'll send you a plug-n-play extra IDE port so you can put your CD and DVD drives on it and the main drives on the internal IDE. Or for about $25 you can replace your old CD-ROM drive with a brand new SATA based DVD DL burner. DVD burners also play CDs. The world is turning SATA so DO NOT buy any more PATA (IDE) drives of any sort again.

Is the audio integrated on that board? If so, that means i won't be able to upgrade that down the line, right? I would like to get a better sound setup sometime in the future.

Yes the sound is integrated, but it is easily turned off in the BIOS if you want to install a real sound card. But the integrated unit is one of the better intergrated ones I've used.

Also, what about an ethernet card? I'm not sure if one of those ports is the ethernet port. And, if none of them are, are those slots just below the I/O panel where i would be putting things like an ethernet card?

It comes with one integrated GigE (10/100/1000 Mb/s the fastest AFFORDABLE standard available) internet connection on the motherboard. It's a VERY complete board. But if you want to upgrade any component you can disable the integrated part from the BIOS easily.

Yes, those slots are where you would install cards if you want to add or upgrade things.

BTW, besides the connectors you see on the back panel there are also headers on the MB for 6 more USB ports (total 10), 2 more firewire ports (total 3) and front panel audio connectors. So as you can see, it comes full featured but it's also quite expandable. My personal workstation is built on it and I've assembled other units for other people using it.

I honestly wish i knew what all those friggin terms meant...

It'll come. Keep futzing with computers and you'll learn whether you want to or not.

[soldier989]

I bet you have more than 995mhz. When I had WinXP, I would have to right click on my computer then go to properties twice for my processor to display the correct speed. Athlon chips have energy saver, which means it downclocks itself at idle to save power and lower cpu heat. So when you right click on "My computer" then properties the first time, your prolly catching your computer off guard when it is idling. Try doing it twice in a row. If it still shows 995mhz, then I guess you really have less then a GHz.

Powercycle your computer, meaning, shut it down and unplug the power cord. The only true way to clear cache from your RAM.

Roll it back to an earlier date when you knew it was working properly. The system restore calendar also shows programs that were installed in specific dates, you might be able to determine which program (if any) is causing this problem.

You could go to start/run/services.msc and read through this article to see how to set startup services to be on/off/manual. WinXP only needs 12 of its processes to run efficiently. Keep in mind that with a fresh install of XP you only have 18 processes. Anything over 30 I call trouble.

Get rid of BitTorrent, files may contain NEWER viruses than your anti-virus can detect.

Click on start/run/type in cmd hit ok, then type in "netstat" (which tells you what is currently utilizing your internet connection from your PC) with only your PC and AIM on. See how many connections are ESTABLISHED. Any more than the amount of programs you know are running could be a problem and could be chowing down on system resources (spyware/adware/viruses)

Uninstall/reinstall the video player used to watch these movies.

[Pyro81]

Another question. With all this talk of hardware changing formats as far as the physical hook ups i wonder if my internal hard drive will still be okay to use?

[shoult]

Another question. With all this talk of hardware changing formats as far as the physical hook ups i wonder if my internal hard drive will still be okay to use?

It depends on how big, how fast it is and how old it is. If I remember right I think I remember you saying you had a 500GB external. I'm pretty sure that would be a 7200rpm 8 or 16mb cache IDE drive. External SATA drive enclosures are fairly new. You could use the 500Gb drive as you main internal drive. That's what I would do.

At the very least you SHOULD do a clean install with all the hardware changes. Windows can sometimes figure out what hardware is gone and should be deleted and what new hardware is in it's place. But about 50% of the time you'll find just swapping the old HD into new hardware will give you a non-booting machine. Worse yet is the machine that gives you intermittant problems. So a fresh install is always best.

Whoops... gotta go actually work for a few minutes now....

[Tygerr]

It depends on how big, how fast it is and how old it is. If I remember right I think I remember you saying you had a 500GB external. I'm pretty sure that would be a 7200rpm 8 or 16mb cache IDE drive. External SATA drive enclosures are fairly new. You could use the 500Gb drive as you main internal drive. That's what I would do.

At the very least you SHOULD do a clean install with all the hardware changes. Windows can sometimes figure out what hardware is gone and should be deleted and what new hardware is in it's place. But about 50% of the time you'll find just swapping the old HD into new hardware will give you a non-booting machine. Worse yet is the machine that gives you intermittant problems. So a fresh install is always best.

Whoops... gotta go actually work for a few minutes now....

Agreed on the fresh installation of Windows. Back up all yer ****. :biggrin:

[nadthomas]

Ummm.... you don't have an option, you must reload Windows. Changing out that much hardware I will bet $100 that the system will just BSOD on start up without reloading Windows. Sure, with much tricker this could be pulled off in Win98, but not WinXP.

[Tygerr]

Ummm.... you don't have an option, you must reload Windows. Changing out that much hardware I will bet $100 that the system will just BSOD on start up without reloading Windows. Sure, with much tricker this could be pulled off in Win98, but not WinXP.

Never tried it any other way... lol. So I guess I wouldn't know. I did replace a motherboard/processor at once, but I just had to reactivate XP.

[nadthomas]

I bet it was a similar model processor, and similar or identical motherboard chipset too.

[Tygerr]

I bet it was a similar model processor, and similar or identical motherboard chipset too.

Same brand processor, different brand motherboard. A lot faster.

[shoult]

Never tried it any other way... lol. So I guess I wouldn't know. I did replace a motherboard/processor at once, but I just had to reactivate XP.

I have two methods that will allow you to boot from pretty much any hardware change. The reason I don't use it is that it doesn't garauntee a stable base platform. Basically you delete all the hardware references in the registry before you pull the plug. Change the hardware and then reboot. As Windows comes back up it will reload all the drivers as needed. It works sort of. I've tested it on about 40 computers with no BSODs. However 38 of them ended up getting a fresh re-load of WinXP within 30 days due to random issues.

Another method that has about the same results is to boot the Windows install disk and use the second (R)estore option.

But a fresh install is the only method I would choose at this point.

[nadthomas]

True, there are ways, none of them are stable though.

[Pyro81]

Well, i don't have to use the dvd drive. It hasn't been used in a while so it won't hurt anything if i just leave it out.

Soldier, at this point the rating of my processor speed is a moot point.
I've rolled it back as far as it'll let me.
Torrent may be risky, but so are a lot of other downloading methods. Besides, torrents are about the only method i've found to get the anime i download.
Reinstalling the vid player is also a moot point by now...plus i've done it already, lol.

Shoult, i'd rather not place my 500 gig drive in my computer. I bought it strictly for video storage. It's already filled to about 80% of it's capacity with vid files. My 80 external drive is also strictly for storage but i keep other stuff there. My main drive doesn't have anything on it that i can't re download from the net and is there for all other computer functions.

At this point i think i would agree with a fresh install of windows. I'd hate to have to put all that together only to not be able to do anything. Only problem is i don't have a copy of windows. Never did get one. Hope i can still get winxp software...**** vista, i'm fine with xp and don't see a reason to need to upgrade (or downgrade, depending on your view point...)

So that motherboard you have linked up there. I think you said it already has at least one firewire hookup with room to add more. Since none of the hookups are simply labeled "firewire" in the pics, which one is it? And which one is the ethernet hookup too?

[nadthomas]

Pssst.

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/13-128-056-03.jpg

PM me about your Windows software/cd situation. Also, if you need any help putting this all together, just let me know. I don't think I can do it in under 15 minutes like I used to, but I'm sure I can manage.

[Pyro81]

Umm...yeah, i saw that, but like i said, nothing is labeled simply...people have this strange fascination to label things in the most complicated manner possible...

Okay, so based on nothing, and just taking a shot in the dark, i'm guessing the IEEE is the firewire port, and the RJ-45 is the ethernet port? And what the hell is the HDMI?

As far as physically putting it together i don't have any doubts i can do it. It's not really that complicated as far as i know. It's everything that has to be done when the computer is turned on that i'm sweating about.

[Tygerr]

Firewire is IEEE1394a. RJ45 is your ethernet. HDMI is a high def video out for a tv or monitor I suppose, i think...

It's not very obvious. No worries.

[LinkMan]

HDMI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI) is High-Definition Multimedia Interface, it's a digital video standard that features Digital Restrictions Management, so it's the future of HD play back.

[nadthomas]

Sorry, sometimes I forget that things that are obvious to me are not obvious to everyone. Once you get everything put together, its really pretty simple. While I like to make a lot of adjustments to the bios settings, the bios settings out of the box are pretty good now days. Just set your time, make sure the bios is properly recognizing the memory, cpu and all of your drives. Set up the boot order to boot from CD-Rom first, then hard drive. Pop your Windows CD into the drive and select save and exit from the bios screen. Your system will reboot, it will boot from the CD, hit any key when prompted to enter Windows setup. After about 1-2 minutes you will get to the point when you have to make several selections to go any further. Your keyboard commands should be has follows for the next several prompts. Enter, F8, D, Enter, L, Enter, Up, Enter. After a few more minutes your system will restart and automatically continue with Windows set up. The rest of setup it doesn't really matter what you do or select, if you don't know just leave the defaults and click next. Once you are back into Windows take the CD that came with the motherboard and load all of the drivers, and only the drivers. Next, go to Windows Update and spend the next 2 hours downloading and installing all of the latest updates. After that proceed as you wish. See its simple. I believe those keyboard commands are about right off the top of my head.

[Pyro81]

Sorry, sometimes I forget that things that are obvious to me are not obvious to everyone. Once you get everything put together, its really pretty simple. While I like to make a lot of adjustments to the bios settings, the bios settings out of the box are pretty good now days. Just set your time, make sure the bios is properly recognizing the memory, cpu and all of your drives. Set up the boot order to boot from CD-Rom first, then hard drive. Pop your Windows CD into the drive and select save and exit from the bios screen. Your system will reboot, it will boot from the CD, hit any key when prompted to enter Windows setup. After about 1-2 minutes you will get to the point when you have to make several selections to go any further. Your keyboard commands should be has follows for the next several prompts. Enter, F8, D, Enter, L, Enter, Up, Enter. After a few more minutes your system will restart and automatically continue with Windows set up. The rest of setup it doesn't really matter what you do or select, if you don't know just leave the defaults and click next. Once you are back into Windows take the CD that came with the motherboard and load all of the drivers, and only the drivers. Next, go to Windows Update and spend the next 2 hours downloading and installing all of the latest updates. After that proceed as you wish. See its simple. I believe those keyboard commands are about right off the top of my head.

*copy*
*paste*
*print*

Hate to have to try and remember all that...lol.

Explain to me a little more what the bios is and how do i get to it. Or does it go there automatically?

EDIT: Okay, so i need to hurry up and drop some dough so i can get back to my anime watching. Those 3 things that shoult linked to (memory, motherboard, & CPU) are the only things i need to purchase (besides a copy of WinXP)?

EDIT2: I know there's supposed to be a dab of thermal grease on the back of the cpu. I was wondering if some came with the cpu or would i have to purchase separately?

[Tygerr]

That looks to be everything you need. Plug everything together and you'll be ready to rock and roll. You can always add a video card or sound card later on in the future. Though I would go with better memory then what is in that link. It costs a little more (like 20 bucks), but I've always been a believer of you get what you pay for.

Such as this Kingston memory (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134012)

or this Corsair (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145590)

You do need to purchase some thermal grease. I've never found it included unless I bought a mb/cpu combo. It was already assembled, even then, I'd check to make sure it was on there.

PM me on the xp thing.

[Pyro81]

I had a different memory picked out but i like that corsair you linked to better...$25 rebate ftw!

It doesn't list thermal grease as being included. I might be able to get some from work, though...mmmmm...freeeeeee...

[Tygerr]

Lol. I didn't even see the rebate...even better.

[nadthomas]

The bios is the most basic configurable interface on the computer. To get into the bios you normal need to press the delete key on your keyboard shortly after you turn on the system. You will be able to enable and disable every integrate component on your motherboard. You can change the way almost everything works on your motherboard, so be careful as you can actually screw things up, and potentially can even damage your processor, and memory if you change the voltage settings. So, just make sure its recognizing the processor, memory, and drives properly(just to so you know you hooked everything up right). Then find the section for "boot order/sequence". Set the order to boot from Cd, then HDD, then whatever else, or as close to the sequence that you can get. Some motherboards are kind of goofy in they way they handle this.

That is a retail box processor, so AMD with include a "thermal pad" on the bottom of the heatsink, no thermal paste is needed. Although removing the thermal pad and applying a high quality thermal paste will get you slightly low temps, but unless you are trying to overclock it the thermal pad is just fine.

[Pyro81]

Cool. Okay, everything is ordered and now i just need to wait...

Thanks for all the help everybody!

[Pyro81]

Shoult, Chris, & Dan: Would you guys mind sending my your phone numbers? Just in case i run into a problem and don't have a way to get back online.

[Pyro81]

Sweet, everything arrived a today! Which is cool cause UPS said estimated delivery was tomorrow. Now i'm just waiting on a copy of win xp from chris and i'll be set. I did notice one thing that i never noticed before, and it's such a basic thing i can't believe i missed it. Anyways, there's no port for the printer cable. Am i supposed to get a separate card to put in so i can hook up my printer? Oh, i even got a free shirt. It's got a cool looking robotic spider across the back.

http://pyro81.brinkster.net/neco/AMD%20shirt.jpg

[Tygerr]

You're printer doesn't use usb?

Does it use a parallel port? I guess you'd need an extra pci card to adapt it. I did realize my new motherboard doesn't have one, but they're not used really anymore so I didn't care.

[Pyro81]

After writing that and just before heading to bed i looked on the back on my printer and i did find a usb port. So, never mind.

[nadthomas]

Cool shirt. I love taking shirts out packaging like that, they are so wrinkled it shrinks them, and it looks like its only big enough to fit a 2 year old. Then you wash it and bam you have an XL shirt.

[Pyro81]

I think it's funny the shape of the shirt after they shrink wrapped it. It doesn't even come close to the being an outline of the spider, so i wonder why it's shaped like that. Stupid windows disc didn't show up today. Better arrive tomorrow. I'm getting anxious... I bought some paint because i think i'm going to paint my computer case while i've got it apart. Debating on whether or not i want to try to removed the face plates from the cd-rom and 3" floppy drives so i can paint them, too. Just don't know how hard it's going to be...

[nadthomas]

I have painted a couple of cases, and for the most part I'm not a fan of the results. Mainly because you have to be really careful not to scratch the case. I'm not sure what type of paint is used from the factory to paint the cases or if if its powder coated, but it is very durable. You wouldn't believe how much abuse you case takes until you paint it and scratch the crap out of it. Pulling the faces off of the drives is not the difficult, but you will probably break a tab or two in the process if you have never done it before. If you break all of the tabs or if its loose from a broken tab normally a few drops of super glue in a few key places fixes that, but don't plan to pull the face off again. If you do paint the drive faces I highly recommend using vinyl dye as it actually absorbs into the plastic a little. Also be sure sand down the outside edge of any CD-Rom tray covers just a little bit, because as you paint the two surfaces the paint builds up on the edge a little bit and reduces the gap that is normally there. If the gap is too small it will actually cause the door to stick.

Also, don't plan for a smooth glossy finish, but less you are skilled and plan to do a fair amount of sanding and buffing. Computer cases are fairly large flat surfaces, so its difficult to get a good finish.

I'll have to take some pics and post the last case I painted a couple of years ago. It turned out pretty cool, but has many flaws. Also if you just want a black case I have 3 different cases laying around.

[Tygerr]

I never painted the entire case, but I've painted parts and it turned out decent. The cd rom face plates aren't very hard to get off. Just be careful, or like Dan said you can break the plastic tabs.

Sorry about the delay on that disc. I meant to ship it out on Friday, but my friends arrived earlier then planned at my house and the rest of the weekend was a blur...

[Pyro81]

I don't care if the paint isn't perfect, i just want it to be all the same color.

Don't worry about it Chris. I'll bet the weather had something to do with the amount of time it's taken to get here.

I forgot i had another computer with the same exact case. I'll tear that one apart and start painting it. That way it'll be ready to put together by the time the cd gets here.

[Pyro81]

Let the build commence...

The copy of winxp came in the mail today. So i started tearing all the old crap out of my other computer and took the case in the back room and started to paint it. I've installed everything that i can install for now. When i get home tomorrow i'll tear apart this computer and start swapping things over and what not. The anxiety is killing me!

[Tygerr]

Ha ha. Rock on man. Post pics when you're done.

[Pyro81]

Aaaaaand i'm back...

That was more of a pain in my ass then i cared for... I'll elaborate later... I also have a few pics. The paint job didn't turn out half bad either. Though i got lazy when it came to painting the cd-rom and 3" floppy drive faces. Instead i took a sharpie to them. Doesn't look too bad, but it's pretty obvious when you look at them. Now to do something about the keyboard, speakers, and mouse, and then i'll be set...

[shoult]

Aaaaaand i'm back...

That was more of a pain in my ass then i cared for... I'll elaborate later... I also have a few pics. The paint job didn't turn out half bad either. Though i got lazy when it came to painting the cd-rom and 3" floppy drive faces. Instead i took a sharpie to them. Doesn't look too bad, but it's pretty obvious when you look at them. Now to do something about the keyboard, speakers, and mouse, and then i'll be set...

But can you play Animes?

[nadthomas]

But can you play Animes?

Yes, I hope after all of that you can play you anime now. I hope I was able to point you in the right direction today Brian, sorry I wasn't able to help more I had been really busy the last two days since I am taking the rest of the week off. I can help a lot more now, if you need help with anything else.

[Pyro81]

But can you play Animes?

Lol, i suppose that would be the true test since the whole point for all of this is basically for that reason. The first file i played actually gave me the same problem except the sound was lagging behind the video. I don't really trust that file so i tried a couple more that i knew would cause a problem, and they played just fine.

Okay, now to elaborate...

I didn't get started till around 5pm on friday. I took my time and made sure i was doing everything right since this is something i've never really done before.

The first problem i ran into wasn't really a problem. I just had a question about whether the hard drive had to be set to master and the cd-rom set to slave since they were both on the same IDE cable. And i wanted to know if the sockets on the cable itself had to be plugged in a specific way. I gave Tygerr (Chris) a call and he straightened me out. After that i had to play musical drives. I had to move the hard drive and the cd-rom close together as possible since they don't give you a whole hell of a lot of wire between the two sockets on the ribbon cable. Once i finally got everything in and buttoned down i put the case cover on and hooked everything up. I also made a few changes to clean things up a bit on the desk. I turned on the computer and couldn't get a picture. I pulled the case cover back off and started poking around. Everything would appear to run but i still couldn't get a picture. Then i gave nadthomas (Dan) a call. Basically he told me i would have to remove everything from the case and set it all up outside of the case. By that time it was around 9 or 10pm and i had already been up for 24 hours. I was way too tired to continue so i went to bed.

I got back up the next day around noon. After getting some breakfast i dove back into it and started tearing things apart. While doing so i decided to take a look at the cpu. But when i removed the heat sink the cpu came out with it. Knowing that's not supposed to really happen i inspected it real quick for any damage. Having found none i popped it off of the heat sink i put it back in the socket. Only this time it snapped in place, and i don't remember it doing that the first time i put it in. After that i started it up outside the case and it ran just fine.

Next i popped in the winxp disc and got to work installing windows. But had a problem with the cd key not accepting. I called Chris again for some help. He called microsoft and got another key which also didn't work. So he gave me yet another key and to make sure we didn't misunderstand each other i had him text me it. This time it worked. And so i continued...

Later on i had to restart windows after installing a bunch of stuff. But after the windows load screen had passed my monitor would go into standby mode. Which it only does if it doesn't sense a signal. Completely frustrated after having messed with it all day i gave up and just watched some tv and then went to bed.

Sunday i didn't mess with it because i was too busy dealing with the snow in my driveway.

Monday i was just way too damn tired from sunday to do anything, let alone sit at my computer and try to figure out the problem.

Tuesday i tried to reload windows, but after doing that the first time i went to restart the computer the problem still existed. To which i gave Dan yet another call. We tried a couple things with no luck. And Dan needed to get going so he could go back to work so he gave me a few more things to try.

On my old setup my vid card had two outputs: DVI-D and VGA. For whatever reason i had both of them hooked up. My new setup also had both of those hookups. So i just hooked them both up and thought nothing of it. When i had my computer turned around so i could try to use a different monitor i thought why not disconnect the DVI-D cable and see what happens. As soon as the cable was disconnected my monitor sprang back to life. And since then i've restarted the computer several times with no problems. And i hope it stays that way.

Now all i need to do is finish setting things up the way i had them.

This is why i hate computers...they are always so damn finicky..

[Tygerr]

Sounds good. I'm surprised your old monitor worked with both vga and dvi cables connected to one monitor. Never really tried it.

If you have dvi, I'd use it instead of the vga. You'll get a better looking signal.

[Pyro81]

My old monitor didn't have both. Just VGA. I bought my current monitor when i bought the vid card a year ago.

I haven't tried it with this setup, but with my old setup some of the vid files wouldn't show up on the player when i tried using dvi.

[Tygerr]

My old monitor didn't have both. Just VGA. I bought my current monitor when i bought the vid card a year ago.

I haven't tried it with this setup, but with my old setup some of the vid files wouldn't show up on the player when i tried using dvi.

Possibly a missing codec, or old video driver?

[Pyro81]

Dunno. Maybe i'll try it with the new set up and see what happens. I wonder if maybe my old setup was so old that it just didn't have digital capabilities.