Dutch’s Workshop

Our latest project, which we’ll call ReMachine, involved the complete rebuilding of an eMachine. This computer already had a motherboard replacement about two years ago, as the original motherboard was stock junk. The owners were looking for more computing power, and more power they shall have!

Parts List:

-Gigabyte GA-M61SME-S2 Motherboard

-AMD Athlon X2+ 5200 processor

-Crucial 2Gb DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM

-Western Digital 250Gb SATA II Hard Drive

-MSI Turbostream 500w PSU

-LG 20x SuperAllWright Dual Layer DVD Burner

-Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

Starting Photo:

In this project, I’m replacing everything. So everything comes out!

I install the processor and heatsink while the motherboard is on the workbench. This makes it much easier. Then, the front panel wires are connected before mounting the board in the case.

After the motherboard is secured safely in the case, we can install the RAM, the hard drive, and the DVD burner. Then, it’s time to connect all the power, IDE, and SATA cables.

With everything connected and bolted down, we can fire it up and install Windows.

Success!! This system is really quiet and super fast. There are lots and lots of easy upgrade options for this machine, most notably the 16x PCI-e slot for a high end graphics card.

After installing all the device drivers and Windows updates, this puppy is ready for use!

A special “Thank You” is in order for Ed & Teresa Rizo, for continually trusting me with their computer needs! Thanks guys!! I hope you enjoy your new ReMachine!

FIREFOX 3 IS HERE!!!!!

The award-winning Firefox Web browser has security, speed and new features that will change the way you use the Web. Don’t settle for anything less.

Official Download Link:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html

Whether it’s ripping through DirectX 10 games at blazing fast frame rates, experiencing a new world of realistic physical motion and massively destructible environments, transcoding HD videos to a portable video player, or helping discover a cure for cancer via Folding@home, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 GPUs enable truly endless computing possibilities.

• Experience Truly Immersive and Dynamic 3D Realism with the power of the GeForce GTX 200 GPUs’ second generation unified architecture and NVIDIA’s new GPU PhysX™ technologyⁱ
• Go Beyond HD with 50% more performance than prior generation GPUs, GeForce GTX 200 GPUs tear through complex DirectX 10 environments and cinematic effects at blazing frame rates in beyond HD resolutions.
• Take the GPU Beyond Gaming with the power of CUDA™ technology and the new CUDA runtime for Windows Vista, programmers can now offload the most intensive processing tasks from the CPU to the GPUⁱⁱ. Your customers can dive into the latest Blu-ray movie, run the Folding@home protein-folding application to help cure diseases, browse photos and videos on the web in 3D with PicLens, or transcode video to a personal video player up to 7X faster than on the CPU.

Learn more by visiting the GTX 280 and GTX 260 product pages, or visit the PartnerForce Portal to download the GTX 200 sales and marketing tools.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 GPUs are available now from NVIDIA Authorized Board Partners and NVIDIA Authorized Distributors.

ⁱGeForce GTX 280/260 GPUs ship with hardware support for NVIDIA PhysX technology. NVIDIA PhysX drivers are required to experience in-game GPU PhysX acceleration. Refer to www.nvidia.com/PhysX for more information.
ⁱⁱRequires application support for CUDA technology.

Fed up with bloated commercial antivirus programs? Sick of being nickel-and-dimed for yearly renewals for the likes of Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus and McAfee’s VirusScan Plus? Yank these behemoths out by their roots and replace them with a super-duper freebie.

The Hassle: I want to switch over to a free antivirus program, but I seem to need a blowtorch to remove Norton AntiVirus. (Ditto for the McAfee product on my wife’s PC.) Help!

The Fix: Blowtorch? Some people have tried using C4 plastic explosives to remove Norton products–and the Live Update still survives. If ‘Add or Remove Programs’ in Windows doesn’t do the job, Norton provides a removal method that’s terrific–but at the same time, a royal pain in the tuchas. It’s the Norton Removal Tool (also called the AutoFix Tool. It extracts every Norton product on your system (versions 2003 through 2007). That’s right, it’s dopey, and you’re stuck reinstalling the tools you want to keep. (Dig up your original CDs before you start this fun exercise.) And yes, you will likely lose the personal settings when you reinstall the Norton products.

McAfee has a manual, albeit cumbersome, method to remove its VirusScan product (go here).

For a replacement program, I have two favorite antivirus freebies: Grisoft’s AVG, which is the application that I use, and Alwil’s Avast.

Quick tip: And talking about uninstalling, you have to try MyUninstaller, Nir Sofer’s nifty, free utility. The app also lists each program’s location on your drive, when it was installed, and the product’s Web site.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127861-page,1-c,antivirus/article.html

As the big fish among computer manufacturers, Dell probably loomed large in the sights of New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, as he prepared to file suit against the company for misrepresenting its technical-support services, among other things.

One focus of the suit is the poor response consumers allegedly get from Dell, particularly when they contact the company by phone. We took a look at the AG’s complaint to see how the allegations line up with our own recent survey results. Here are a few examples:

From the complaint: “Dell repeatedly places consumers who call Dell’s automated call center on hold for unreasonable lengths of time, or in some cases, simply abandons them altogether.”

From our survey: 32% of the 6,300+ respondents to our survey who’d called Dell for tech support said they were on hold for an unreasonable amount of time.

From the complaint: “After consumers have endured long wait times for a representative to come to the phone, [Dell representatives] repeatedly tell them that they have reached the wrong department … [and] repeatedly transfer consumers from one representative to the next.”

From our survey: 30% said they were transferred to several different support staff.

From the complaint: “Although Dell’s automated telephone system often allows consumers to leave a message, [representatives] repeatedly fail to return consumers’ calls.”

From our survey: 21% struggled as they wove through the automated phone system.

From the complaint: “Many consumers who attempt to contact the technical support department by e-mail similarly find their pleas for assistance ignored.”

From our survey: Although only 9% of our survey respondents who e-mailed Dell said the company never got back to them, close to half (47%) said the reply they did receive was not helpful.

Of course, Dell is not the only company whose tech-support drives consumers crazy. While these statistics represent Dell tech support, our survey found Dell’s support was similar to that of most other PC companies. In fact, Compaq desktops, and Compaq and HP laptops, had significantly lower satisfaction scores than Dell in our ratings.

The AG’s complaint concludes that “exasperated consumers, fed up with the endless runaround and ineffective technical support, resort to paying a third party to fix their equipment . . . even though it is covered by a Dell warranty or service contract.”

We could have told them that. Only 64% of survey respondents said Dell fixed their computers, while 90% said third-party tech support successfully solved problems with their Dell computers.

— Donna Tapellini, From Consumer Reports