Well you wouldn't be able to play Black Ops on an iPad either, don't worry ;). My PC's are 'old' dual cores too, I'm not into upgrading every year or so. I haven't had a game I couldn't play so far, but I should add that my video cards are Geforces 8600 and up. So yeah. It's worth upgrading your videocard, but then your power supply won't manage and then you'll have to upgrade that too. Whichever way you put it, I'll cost you at least $100 to play black ops :).

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my eVGA 8800GTS 512 (overclocked, which is really easy to do).

9600GT here. No overclocking so far.

ho my nice i am embarrassed! but that will soon be obsolete. i can't wait to get my new one! :)

These things grow old so fast.
My PC is almost 4 years old already.
Well I'm satisfied :)

my 9800GT has been strong for a couple years...and let me say that Crysis looks SO sexy

The 9-series is pretty brilliant. I considered buying a 9800 but it was just a bit too expensive.

well the thing i don't like with this one is i get system web page lock ups
video freezes from time to time. sometimes it takes up to 7 minuets to boot up from a cold start does anyone know of a new PC that can boot up from a cold start? i am looking for a new one i am mostly into the more PC memory you have the better.

Sounds like you just need to reinstall your old PC mate ;).

Solid State drives are meant to be exponentially faster at loading, though they're not quite up to the capacity that disk drives currently have. That said, if you had your OS on an SSD and an external hard disk (you can get large capacity externals the size of a passport these days if you want it to be portable) you'd have all the space you need really.

Windows XP & SSD's don't always enjoy eachother's company

i did upgrade tho on it a few months ago i bought a 22 inch flat screen led
1080i monitor real sharp too.

my sister suggested I get one of those service subscriptions for 24/7 computer assistance since I have been spending money left and right on my crappy old PC. I was doing some research and found an article in PC MAG about this one called LiveTech. It's not the cheapest subscription but it sounds like I would still end up saving money on a yearly basis since they "give your computer an initial diagnostic and fix any problems found. Then any time you need tech help, day or night, you can call on them. They'll get your printer installed, clean up pesky malware problems, optimize your PC's performance, and more…"

Anyone have a service like this and if so, did it actually save you money and headaches or not?

Buy a Mac. And I'm not kidding. And no I don't like macs.
But there's not much you can do wrong with a Mac.

or you could just use google.

If you aren't very capable with computers but are capable of following instructions, you can do like Eric said and use the internet to find solutions to your issues without having to pay someone to do what you're physically capable of doing with very little effort, provided you're given good information.
Since it seems obvious that money is a factor here, if I were you, I'd start using the resources freely available to you before defaulting to a paid service. If you have specific questions, they can be asked at any of the many computer forums on the web, and even here, in this thread, where our technically-minded members have been helping solve problems since this thread's inception.

The point is, you have more options than the ones you pay for. The trade-off is that you have to work a little harder for them. It's up to you, but I would suggest the free version. Nothing wrong with a little functional education anyway.

i heerd mac's were very good like the ones that have everything bilt right into the flat screen monitor hard drive and all.

The main problem with Macs is that they are completely ridiculously over-priced. They are very nice-looking and very well constructed machines but i still wouldn't pay over €1000 for one (can't afford one anyway). The only other thing that bugs me about them is the OS, it's probably because i was basically raised with Windows but i've never been able to get used to Apple's OS.

The problem with macs is that everything that's not for newbie's is hidden away ;). So there's nothing you can do wrong really.
I prefer PC's. I really tried macs but they're unpractical for me. Still, they're great for people who have problems keeping their PC running :)

I really really really tried, but I couldn't get used to it.
It works brilliantly. Very smooth and stable. But I prefer a system that I can alter so it works like I want it to. Mac OS is very intuitive, but I'm not :D.

Sooo... I pay for Netflix but can't watch them now that I'm relocated to here in Luxembourg. Could anybody explain to me how I could alter my IP address with a proxy server so that I can watch my Netflix instant movies?

print screen
 

Well i was being off topic in another thread on this mater.
but i was having a problem and geting an screen image and does not
seem to work i tried to press ctrl v print screen, i have tried to
press just the print screen but nothing i even did it both at the same time
nothing could it be perhaps its because i do not have my printer set up?.

1. Unsubscribe from Netflix.
2. Use the internet to watch MORE stuff than will EVER be available on Netflix, for free.

Currently, my personal 2 best portal sites to do this are:

SERIES/TV DRAMAS:
- Watch tv series online for free, full episodes - Watch Series.com

MOVIES:
- Watch Movies Online Free - Just Added



The only adaptation that needs to be made is figuring out which hosts available at either site are the fastest and most reliable for any given episode or movie. What I've learned:

(the following hosts are usually found in either of the above sites, and are absolutely free)
LOOMBO links are king. They're super fast, and are always decent quality. This is mostly true for series shows.
SOCKSHARE, and PUTLOCKER are newer hosts that are getting popular. These guys host a lot of movies at good qualities and speeds.
ZSHARE is fast, but the quality may or may not be excellent.
NOVAMOV is always slow, no matter how fast your internet connection is. They're reliable, but if you're planning on watching something at that moment and not waiting forever for it to buffer, then you should go with a different link.
Same goes for MOVSHARE.
Any host with the word "DIVX" or "VIDX" or some combination of those letters in it is guaranteed to be the best visual/audio quality, but their bandwidth is going to be more limited because of it. Generally, you're going to wait a longer time for DivX movies to buffer than any other, but they're far more worth it. DivX links should be used when you have other stuff to do and just want to get the movie buffering ahead of time while you attend to other things. With a DivX link, if you can buffer to about one third of the entire length, you're golden. But that may take anywhere between 10 minutes to a half hour. The quality is always worth it though. DivX vids are usually straight up DVD quality. Streaming. Provided you're not trying to watch a movie that hasn't been released to DVD yet. In which case even the theater cam versions are higher quality than any others.
KARAMBAVIDS is a newer one, but I haven't checked it out. Seems to get good hits and reviews though.

There are a bunch more other hosts, but the ones above are consistently reliable, virus free, and get the most nods from other folks watching movies or shows hosted on them. And user reviews or "stars", as you'll often see them, are a good thing to take note of. Generally people will only rate a link highly if it's worth rating highly. So keep the ratings in mind.

Is it legal to watch stuff that way? I dunno. But I'm sure it's not explicitly illegal. Otherwise I would have gotten locked up years ago. I don't even have cable TV because anything I want to watch is available online for free. Without paying for Netflix, nor having to wait until Netflix decides to release something.

If you find more availability at Netflix than you can find elsewhere on the web, for free, then I'll eat my fucking hat.


Edit:
I don't know of any proxy servers are going to let you stream video through them. The bandwidth required costs too much. Especially when like 900 MB videos are being streamed through their server, TIMES THOUSANDS OF OTHER PEOPLE DOING THE SAME THING, CONSTANTLY. Bandwidth is an actual commodity. You pay for it. Dearly.

You're doing it wrong. So very wrong...


When you want to copy everything that is on your screen, as an image, simply find the button on your keyboard that says PRTSCN. (Stands for "print screen", just in case you're wondering...)
Press it.
What just happened is the entire image on your monitor was copied into memory. Now you just open up a photo editor program.. you can even use MS Paint, and paste the image into it. Either by using Edit > Paste, or CTRL + V.

Then you can resize the image, crop it, etc... or save it as it is.

That's what I said...
Press printscreen, then go to paint, choose edit --> paste (or CTRL&V indeed).
It works, it always works :)

Apparently she didn't find your instructions clear enough.............

We might need to introduce wooden alphabet blocks.

You have those? Neat :D.

I make sure I have a set of those just in case one of you folks need a visual aid.

Might come in handy for me sometime, too.
Not when it's about printing screens, obviously.

Wow, thanks a bundle. I'm going to have to check this movie site out!

Well just filed my tax returns will be getting over 2 grand! back
and i will be shopping around for a new PC finilly.
my priority will be high memory hard drive space and sound systems!.

Why do you want a lot of memory?
And what do you want to use the sound card for?

4 gigs minimum, Windows 7 32bit (if you want the 64 bit, you'll be able to have more RAM than 4 gigs, but I doubt your needs will require it), at least a dual-core processor, and a standard 24-bit sound card. Go with that if you're not using your computer for any specialized task, aka just browsing, listening to music, etc.
Why? Because that's pretty much what you'll be offered, and it's the current standard for your average consumer PC. That means you won't have to spend your whole tax return to get it, and it will also meet your needs.

Of course, I'm assuming you're not planning on doing graphics rendering or heavy-duty audio work. You should be fine for gaming, although for gaming, you'll probably want to have at least 512mb of RAM in your graphics card, preferably Nvidia or ATI. A lot of current games only support those cards anyway.

24 bit cards usually aren't standard. Most cards just do 44khz 16 bits.
When you plan on listening to mp3's through your computer speakers it's never worth investing in an expensive soundcard. You won't hear the difference.
More than 4 gigs of RAM is probably a waste of money unless you plan to do a lot of photo/video editing. I am running win7 with 2 gigs of ram on my office PC now and that's just fine. I will upgrade to 4 sometime, but more won't be neccesary.
I do a lot of photo (photoshop/lightroom) and video (premiere pro cs3) editing on my audio/video PC and even then I don't often run out of ram. That PC only has 4 gigs.

As for harddrive space: 1,5TB disks are pretty cheap now. I suggest you have one of those. But please buy a second one (maybe external) to backup your ****. Raid could be an option too, if your motherbord supports it (when you put two identical drives in RAID mode, you only see one drive, but all your files are on both drives. Whenever one drive crashes, all your files will be on the other one :)).

Other than that: Avoid total budget stuff with SiS chipsets and so on.
Every 'better' brand will be just fine.
You should probably be able to stay under $500, screen included, should you want to.

But I don't know what you want to do with your PC. Don't spend a lot of money if you're just surfing, watching video's and listening to music. A PC for less than 350 dollars can do that just fine.
My PC's have specs from 2007 (not all PC's are that old, I often buy old hardware new because it's dead cheap then). They run brilliantly.
Most of the time, when your PC is less than 6 years old and crappy, it's the user that fails, not the computer :D.

Ah, should you want to buy a serious sound card because you want to record audio to your PC or hook it up to a quality stereo set; I really like my ESI Juli@. Sounds better than most CD players :).

You're probably going over her head with a lot of that stuff.
Including information she'll find on a rack sticker will be sufficient.

I doubt she's going to be implementing any RAID solutions, nor will she know about chipsets, nor will it matter to her if she just wants a computer to use casually.



P.S... 16 bit sound cards are still standard? That's insane. I haven't seen a 16-bit onboard Real-Tek in quite some time. Maybe it's just me and where I shop for things.

Memory for heavy duty gaming, sound for high-definition music
playing. i have been shopping around and saw some 8 gig memory
pc's for under $800 bucks!.

You need a quick processor and a nice video card for heavy duty gaming.
You're not going to need a good soundcard and probably not even 8 gigs of ram for heavy duty gaming. But the latter may be a safe bet. Anyway, when you're planning to use your PC speakers or a headset with microphone for gaming, you won't need an expensive sound card, trust me.

so, me and my friend are going to have a bit of fun with a useless old PC we found in her basement. So, we were going to write a malicious .bat file. I've done this before but it was a rather quick delete system32 thing so it wasn't very entertaining.

how do you make a batch file timed? I want some time before it sets in.

I haven't done any scripting for a batch file in ages, but I don't remember there being a wait command that ever worked for me.
The way most people end up doing it is to simply to ping your network card using a -n switch with the indicated number of seconds.

So if you want to wait for a period of time immediately after the bat executes, the first line of code you'd put in would be, using 60 seconds as an example:

ping 127.0.0.1 -n 60

Then you'd write your other lines of code afterward.
The only thing is it's going to sit there and ping & reply in the output window, which isn't an issue in itself and doesn't affect anything, but if you're trying to be sneaky, you may want to figure out how to make it so that the bat runs in the background or something, which I'm not sure how to do. You can probably find a tutorial on the web somewhere.

thank you! now I'm able to sit there triumphantly and be proud of myself while I wait for the system files to be deleted.