shadow1100mfp

i know there are other posts like this, but i cant seem to find them anymore. can everyone post good sites for modding, hacking, pc repair and maintenance and basic up-keep, anti-spyware etc., tutorials on doing things such as building a computer, replacing parts, setting up various things (like network printers and such), you know, just a collection of all links that could help someone looking to do their own thing with a computer, and make it easy for them http://www.fonerbooks.com/r_power.htm this guy put on a few tutorials on replacing various parts of a pc, and he included pictures http://www.buildeasypc.com/ this site offers pictures of all parts of a pc, and defines them and what they do, and even gives trouble shooting and os help like installing windows

Let me start by saying 'No', but that isn't necessarily so. They put a fan in your PS to make sure there's some airflow going through the thing. If you can make some of the existing airflow in the case go through your PS you should still be okay. If you've got a decent quality PS (Antec, Enermax...) it will perform reliably even when hot, and my guess is that if you take the cover off (assuming your case will allow this without zapping you) it will hold on to the existing temperature better. My personal suggestion would be to attach one of the case fans (you do have one of those, yeah?) to the outside of the PS case until you can get a decent replacement. I'm sure you want to keep your harddisks cool and whatever, but remember that any airflow going through your case will reach the harddisks first. The PSU needs to make due with the air that's already in the case, and thus has already been heated by the stuff that's in there. Okay, so I'm guessing that no, you don't even have a case fan lying around. What I would suggest is that you go out and find a new case. Specifically, the Sharkoon Revenger or alternatively their Rebel 9 Value. These things are DIRT CHEAP (46 and 42 euros respectively) and come with a 25 cm fan on the side and a smaller (12 or 14 cm respectively) fan at the front pre-installed. The main thing about running a computer in a hot environment is to have a lot of airflow to prevent the heated air from actually building up. That's why even in a 50 degree room you *still* need to have at least one fan in there to keep things going (and no, a fanned heatsink doesn't count). If at most one of the OSes is Windows then yeah, this is quite trivial to accomplish. If both are Windows it's probably harder since each expected during install to find their stuff in C:. On *NIX you'd just update the /etc/fstab file so that it knows what the new filesystem devices are in the system (hdb instead of hda, etc) and you should be good to go. Added benefit is that you can mount the Windows drive from *NIX (though the other way around will be trickier). The biggest drain on the machine is at bootup as EVERYTHING is pulling at the PS at once. The harddisk needs to spin up, the CPU is blasting full tilt because it hasn't been told yet not to, all devices are initializing... I'd say just try it, but then I do have a friend who had 4 harddisks die on him before they uncovered it was because of an underpowered PS. On the other hand, I did run a Mini-ITX and 2 Western Digital harddisks off of a 90 Watt PicoPSU that fed off of a 60 Watt power brick... Maybe try it first without the harddisk attached (just boot a live-cd or something), and if that works, add the harddisk and see how she fares. Then that better be a 100 meter cable, otherwise he's been giving you a rectal taste of his OTHER cable in the process. i think its a 100 foot cable, and he gave me the nic for free because it was an older model. running it without the case side on isn't really an option though because i h ave 6 computers sitting side by side with cables running everywhere and im afraid that the cables would get inside the case (and thatd be no good) i was planning on getting a new case too, as the one i have isn't very customizable, but id still need a fan and a p/s. the current case does have 2 front mounts and one rear mount for 80 mm (i think) case fans, and then it has markins for 2 side fans, one 80 or 90 mm (not sure) and one 250 mm (prettty sure), and ive been meaning to pick up some fans but i havn't had the time the p/s is a generic p/s, as are all the p/s i have in all my computers. oddly enough, all my computers didnt come with fans in them, the only one that did was my brand new $2000 dell, and i don't want to take that apart and take parts from that lol oh; and yes, the guy has ripped me off several times, but hes the closest guy to me that can fix it without charging me a $100 base fee. just to prove hes ripping me off, i asked him once to put in 1gb of ram,1 case fan, a 20 gb hard drive and another dvd drive, he said im better off buying a new computer cause he didnt want to waste his parts. i was like "wtf@?!?!" ill try a live cd, but as i said it is a very basic machine, he only put in a p/s he had laying around. the computers (the one i dont use and the one with the burned out p/s) arent that different, the broken one actually has an older m/b, only twice the ram, one burner instead of 3 and thats about it. everything else is the same. so it actually has less parts then the one i don't use.

That's an understatement. Better speed and of course reliability. + security. Wireless traffic can all be sniffed, encrypted or not. Also, log onto your Wireless Router setup and see if there are any settings to increase your speed, like having only G networking, vs B and G together or what security settings are in place, like filtering mac id's so only your pc is connecting to the WAP, ensuring your the only one using the bandwidth. as far as packet sniffing and people using my internet and stealing my stuff or w/e, i live in a town of about 500 people, most of which can barely sign on to the internet lol, and my closest neighbor is way out of range for my wireless but, i would love the extra speed and reliability, seeing as i have so many computers that i use almost daily. i tried to log onto it a couple days ago and i couldn't get onto it for some reason? the way i set it up was to have user name = my name and password = brand of tire on my car (original right? lol), but it didn't let me log on. all in all though, it is still a pretty fast internet connection, especially since im only paying for dsl which is half if not 1/4 the speed im getting

i pay for verizon dsl, and according to the mcafee site i get t1/t3 speed (it maxes out their speed test lol) but from dsl reports i get <a href="http://speedtest.dslreports.com"><img border=0 src="http://www.dslreports.com/im/35568071/4232.png"></a> (im not sure how to post the graph, but it says 718k download, 133k upload 52 ms latency, and on the comparison graph my results are about 1/3 higher then others using verizon) thats on a wireless adapter, linksys, and 54.0 mbps, very good strength according to the linksys program. would i be able to get a faster speed if i hooked directly to the router instead of using wireless? or would it atleast be more reliable? sometimes the wireless cuts out and dissconnects from the network, and all i do is reconnect but thats kind of inconvienent when im downloading movies or music or researching or something.

just for reference, all degrees here are obviously f, not c*, and im sorry this is another long post but i don't know anyother way to ask the question really. a couple months ago, the fan on the power supply of one of my computers (windows xp) burned out and now the case has no cooling at all, and has been out of commission ever since, and fixing it hasn't been a big priority on my list since i have a new dell that ran itunes just fine, but that stopped working (itunes not the computer), so now fixing this computer is #1 in my book. it is usually run on the 3rd level of a 3 story house (3 including the basement), which is about 80 degrees in the summer (on about a 75degree day) and about 70-80 in the winter (here in the winter it can be anywhere from 40degrees to -20 or even lower), so the opperating temp. enviorment for the computer is pretty static. the basement however is always at 50 degrees, no matter the temp outside (even in the summer, and theres no a/c in it lol). im building a workshop in the basement, which is going to have all 6 of my "sort of outdated but still in good condition" computers set up, for various tasks. would it be ok to run the computer in 50degrees without cooling untill i can get a replacment powesupply? its a very basic computer, older models of everything (m/b from years and years ago, 256 rd ram, one dvd burner, one floppy drive that i don't use which will be taken out eventually, nic card, very low end graphics card, sound card, a card that im not sure what it is but has a bunch of lights on it so i figured id leave it in there just for looks lol) as i said its a very basic computer, the hard drive is brand new from only a couple years ago, the only reason that everything else is old is because i bought the computer new and i ran it in about 110 degree weather (i needed my hak.5 fix because i couldn't go swimming that day!) and the spacer on the m/b melted and shorted out, and the only things i could save were the hard drive and the dvd burner. if it cannot run in these conditions, the other computer i have (mentioned below) has a slave/master harddrive cable in it (ide), could i safely switch hard drives without screwwing up the settings on the other computer? it has a different o/s (windows me), so if i hooked up both hard drives would i be able to choose which o/s i boot up? that would prolly be the best option if i couldn't run the computer as is. any other information you would need ask, im not certain on the exact models of everything inside it, but if i can run it safely even for a short time in those conditions i can run cpuz and get you all the specs from it. also, the power supply is an atx switching powersupply, 450 watts. i have another computerthat i don't use anymore, with an atx powersupply, but its only 145 watts. would this be sufficient to use in this computer? i don't see why not, its not like this computer is used for heavy gaming or anything, the most stress it has is running a combination of limewire itunes and firefox, but usually only one of the three programs at a time. anyhelp i will love, because i have been unable to update my ipod since this computer "saw the magic smoke" (just to add to this whole thing, its nice to have a place i can go for support on my computers and stuff for free, instead of paying a guy 50 bucks an hour to tell me what i already knew, i have already taken this computer to the techguy and he told me "yup its the p/s, but i dont have one on me. thatll be 75 dollars" *he also gave me a cat5 cable, which is the extra 25 bucks*

i know, its not like im playing games with it or anything, its just to make video look as good as possible without spending 90349 bucks on a card

Including that it's an all but dead interface? Why would you want two OS's on this computer? For what you want it for you would only ever boot on of them all the time. because i don't know anything for windows that records video really well, and i thought id try out what they were doing on the epp of hak.5 when they did a pvr/mediacenter and no, my friend plays highend games and he said agp is really good as long as you get new cards and not older models. however im not set on this anymore because im going to buy the xfx geforce 7300 gt video card and the evga nforce 680i se mother board, so i wouldn't have an agp anyway

oh; and the video card im not so concerned about, i have an agp slot that i've never used on it, and ive heard some good things about agp video cards.

Not to mention there is probably clock timing difference between the two, likely significantly transfer speeds and the BIOS expecting FDD, ZIP/JAZZ or tape drives on the connection. So no, get a SATA PCI card. ill look into that, but for now, i have 3 other computers i am working on (one being setup as a file server, one as a media center computer, and one basic computer that im hoping to sell), i was just interested in how i would go about that.

thats what i thought! on my other posts some guys were telling me that hard drives only connect to eachother, and i was like no, they connect best one hd to a line, one burner to a line. and i don't want the floppy anymore, i want to get rid of it, so i was thinking i could put one hd and one burner on one ide, one hd and one burner on the second ide, and then 2 hard drives on the fdd (if i could get a converter or something)

As already suggested, you're talking about 2 RAID1s. The second drive becomes a live mirror of the first drive. Works really nice, and one of the drives could die at any moment without you suffering any data loss. The thing to keep in mind here is that this works best when both harddrives in the RAID1 are of equal size. If one is, say, 10 gigs bigger, those 10 gigs cannot be used by the RAID (but you can of course partition it and use it for other stuff, like swap space or whatever). If all drives are of equal size, it's more efficient to run a RAID5 because any 1 of the 4 disks can die without you suffering any data loss, and the total capacity of the RAID will be the capacity of 3 disks, rather than 2 disks wshich you get with 2 RAID1s (though with the 2 RAID1s, 1 disk can die in each RAID simultaneously and you'd still be in the clear). You could do this, but does it need it? Does the machine really get that hot? Keep in mind that doing this makes the machine rather noisy. And you can't do this with the first burner because...? Making the second burner even more of an enigma. .. Why? Up until this point I figured this would become some sort of server that you'd hide in a basement and only access via the network. Remember, this thing will become noisy as hell. You don't want it anywhere near you, and most certainly not in the living room. The dock should be near where your laptop is, and you upload files to your ipod from the server via the network. The plexi I sort-of understand, but again, does it need it? If you fill up all the fan positions, that thing is already going to become a hoover. Why bother with even more ventilation holes, that will probably leak airflow rather than guide it. Myeah, I guess that's why you'd want the plexi then. I'm under the distinct impression that a wireless antenna inside a metal box doesn't work as well as it might outside the metal box. Note though that I'm not very experienced with all this wireless crap. What OS will this puppy run? Hauppaugge (or whatever the spelling) seems to be the top dog when it comes to capturing tv. Vid card I donno, but I'm assuming you'd want HD so you'll need a pretty recent one. If you've gotten a mobo with rdram, find your repair guy and scream at him. Nobody used it when intel was plugging it 5 years ago because it was horrendously expensive, and the owner of the technology behind the memory, the hated RAMBUS inc., turned out to be litigating bastards to boot. You don't want to support them in any way shape or form, plus this would generally mean that your current mobo is old as fuck, so no PCIe, rather limiting your vid card options. Good luck. You'd be hard-pressed to get more than 50 bucks out of it. haha, thanks for all the help, you've certainly offered the most of it! the harddrives would all be 500gb hard drives except the spare one, which is 250 (im pretty sure anyway) it needs it, it got hot enough to catch the power supply cords on fire, or just melt them, either way it got hot. i wasn't aware i could use the same dvd burner for more then one os =] as far as placement and noise, the fans i have for the case are only 20 db, and between the other computer (business computer) next to it and the 6 video/audio systems stacked under my tv, this thing wouldn't even be heard ill be sure to yell at him lol, what he did was take parts form 10 old computers he had to repair mine, and he said they were expensive btu they were good, and i could tell the first time i started it that the parts he replaced the originals with were shitty, as it took 10 minutes to start when it originally took 1-2. additionaly, i had planned on replacing the m/b anyway, so i wanted to kind of get universal parts that i could just switch over to the new one when i get it but as far as video quality goes, i actually want standard def. i don't really understand h/d, it just takes up alot more room for something that i can get down to less then 1gb for an entire 3 hour movie, does it make sense to you? the plexiglass, i wanted just the holes in there for now untill i can get more fans to blow air directly onto the processor and video cards, instead of just through the case. and as far as air flow, i don't think this will be a problem, i have plenty of length on the cables i have, and i can route them out of the way and keep them hidden with zip ties, so air flow will be as best it can be with all that stuff in the computer the os will be 2 different ones: hd 1: windows xp (later to be vista) hd2: mirror of first hd3: something free, such as linux, with programs such as instant message, internet, media player/recorder, etc hd4: either a mirror of the 3rd (all these mirrors because i download alot of music and get viruses alot), or extra room for the windows drives im pretty sure that answers everything you've brought up, if not let me know :)

i saw that after i posted it, im just waiting to go buy some paint now =)

i know that hard drives don't connnect to displays, but there are settings that change the way it displays, and the settings (im pretty sure anyway) are stored on the harddrive, with the os, correct? and as far as connecting to the burners, i remember watching a video once where they used a slave/master cable to hook together a harddrive and a burner using only the one cable

on one computer i own, everything but the harddrive was replaced due to the spacer on the m/b melting and shorting the whole system. the guy that did the work though, did it in a weird way. first, there are 3 ata (i think thats what theya re called) ports on the new m/b itself. right now, one is going to the hard drive, one is going to a floppy drive, one is going to a dvd burner, single drive. the one going to the dvd drive has a master/slave set up to it, and since i was wanting to add a second hard drive (well, 4, but for now 2) to the computer, i was wondering how i would set it up; as of now, i think i would put the master part onto the main hard drive and the slave on to a second hard drive, and then use the cable that was originally connecting the hard drive to the m/b to connect the dvd drive. or would this be wrong? another way i thought of hooking them up was to take the original hd and put the master on that, and the slave on the dvd drive, while using the single cable to hook up a second hard drive. i'd love any help at all, so thanks. and just a side question that i thought of while typing this up: is it possible to use a flash memory card as ram? i have several cards of various capacities, and it would make for a good project if i could somehow do it

im not really sure where this post should go so i just put it in here. there is alot of stuff in this post, but i know its all possible, though im not sure how to go about this, especially with a limited knowledge of how the insides of a computer works, and with a somewhat limited cashfund what i want to do, is take my computer (it has been replaced by a laptop so i really have no use for the computer as a regular computer anymore, and it seems like a waste to blow it up, though it has crossed my mind :)) and make a media center/all in one type of deal. so what i want to do is: add 3 harddrives (ontop of the one that is already in it): hd1: the one thats already in it:basic computer, internet, music, etc. , mainly configured to connect to the 24inch lcd tv im buying next week hd2: backup of hd 1 hd3: pvr type setup, but something that can handle both music and video, as well as have the ability to connect to the internet, run programs, etc. , mainly configured to connect to my plasma tv hd4: maybe a back up of hd3, or maybe just an extra hard drive where i can store my music instead of keeping it on hd1. fill up all the fan ports (it has 4, 2 front 2 rear, but i want to cut a hole in the top and put one there so that heat can get out more effectivly, because heat rises, right?) paint the entire case (even the inside, just the case though, not the cages or anything, if this is advisable) with a simple gloss or flat black add another dvd burner for the 3rd hd, to burn the recorded shows to disk/to play regular dvds make it as fast as possible without spending a lot add a dock to the top of the case to hold an ipod cut a window in the side cover of the case and mount a piece of plexiglass in place of the metal, with holes drilled in a pattern for ventilation 1 internal usb port, so i can mount my wireless adapter inside out of the way and not have to worry about it also, suggestions on some freeware would be nice, and reviews of specific video cards and capture cards are welcome. m/bs too, as i need to replace the one in it currently (it has been replaced once due to failure, and the guy who replaced it put in one that uses rd ram, and it can only take up to 1 gb, i want to put anywhere from 2-8 in my media center computer) anythign i take out of this case (which will pretty much be everything BUT the dvd drive and hard drive) i want to put into another pc that i have and sell that to help offset the cost of this project, so ill be back for more help if i get the help im after on this first project.