Hardware

Refurbished HD for laptop?
I bought my laptop in August 2004. It's been running fine but I'd like to have a mirrored HD. The harddrive for this machine is $180 - $210. However, I can get a refurbished for $135. The brand new HDs are probably three years old since I have to buy the same model. Will a refurbished HD last as long as a new ... 21 Feb 2007 15:23

Both CPU cores working?
Hey guys, I was just curious how to test if both cores work. I have a AMD 4200X2 and in Everest home edition under Motherboard - CPU it shows CPU Utilization and both cores. Core #2 is always the one that handles the loads. How if the software wrong or my CPU running inefficiently? Check out the 2 images I up... 18 Feb 2007 10:51

Does pentium d have heat issues?
I am looking to build a new machine on a low tight budget and so cannot consider either of the new cpu's from intel & amd i.e the core 2 and the x2 respectively. Using the cpu charts on toms hardware guide I can see that the pentium d 820 is by far the best choice in terms of the type of performance I want, far bet... 8 Mar 2007 16:12

Fan stop spinning...
I'm new you guys to this forum and i really need help! My computer comes up to the desktop but after a minute or 2 it shuts off completely and when i look at the back of my computer the fan at the top is not spininng at all. When i stay on the login screen it doesn't shut off it stays on and when i go into safe mod... 19 Feb 2007 00:55

Mainboard Purchase
I'm considering buying a new mainboard, processor and memory. Your recommendations would be appreciated. Here's my thinking so far: 1) I want a board with at least one PATA controller so that I can easily use a PATA as a boot drive. I have a promise PATA dual controller card. (SATA would be a bonus but I ... 18 Feb 2007 13:28

Crystal PCI Card driver for Win98
I recently did a clean-install of Win98 on a Compaq Pentium II. It has a PCI sound card on one of the expansion slots. The onboard chip has "Crystal" written on it, so I figured the card must be Crystal. Windows, however, failed to locate its drivers. When I picked a Crystal driver from the list, the hardware wizar... 17 Feb 2007 08:38

New Power Supply question
Hi, I recently bought a new Power Supply Unit for my PC, and i was wondering if the SATA connecter can connect to EIDE hard drives... it says the Power Supply supports ALL Serial ATA hard drives, Serial ATA optical drives and other Serial ATA drives.. so will it support EIDE drives? ... 20 Feb 2007 08:33

hot swaping drives
My motherboard has SATA connections I have a number of old IDE disks and a PATA removable caddy I would like to know if I purchased a SATA to IDE adapter to connect a SATA port on the motherboard to the caddy could I then safely hot swap IDE disks in the caddy ? Regards & TIA ... 14 Feb 2007 16:31

Question about smell from old computer
Hey, this is probably a kind of unusual question, but bear with me. I have a 6ish year-old Athlon Thunderbird desktop which seems to be in the process of dying(?). When I turn it on, it makes a low-ish pitched grinding/grumbling noise until maybe 5 or so minutes after it was powered up (it used to be even ... 15 Feb 2007 18:17

More than two harddrives
Well i having a problem with my BIOS that dont detect more than two harddrives how can i get a third in my system? ... 9 Feb 2007 21:55