ClareJonsson

He could try looking for an old UTP PCMCIA network card on ebay. But if I remember, Win 3.1 wasn't very net workable, didn't you need Windows for workgroups 3.11 with the TCP/IP network stack? I bet you I still have the TCP/IP files for 3.11 somewhere.

Yep, that's all down to a thing called a shadow mask, that's a sheet of metal that has all the dots cut into it, 3 dots per segment for the RGB guns. The shadow mask is also the thing that causes impurities in the screen when it gets magnetised as it forces the guns to stray off point, this is why CRT systems need degaussing. There's also another point, televisions are interlaced so you will never get a sharp screen with a PC. Even my mega super duper TV that can handle 100Mhz is a little fuzzy. Also you will be converting RGB, vertical sync and horizontal sync into S-Video, which is not much better than composite. It's ok for watching movies on, or possibly Media Center, but forget surfing the web or playing high res games on it.

DeLi Linux would run well, it's designed for very low end systems. Also if you keep windows, keep an eye out for all them really old DOS based games, and have yourself a retro party :lol: Addition: Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, Doom, Jazzy Jackrabbit, Goblins and Cool Spot spring to mind :)

Is it running windows XP? If so there was a problem with the automatic updates, you will see the problem if you open up Task Manager, click the processes tab and sort by CPU usage. if you see svchost taking up like 80 to 90% of the CPU time, it is most likely this very problem. To further check if this is indeed part of your problem, turn off automatic updates and see if your machine improves. I work in a very large university and we have had this problem for well over a year now. MS refused to accept that there was a problem with the auto update but recently have released a patch to cure it, but previous to this release I wrote a batch file which clears previous update temporary files. I think the main problem happens because of a corrupt or incorrect downloaded update, and auto update (which uses SVCHOST) goes into a loop when it scans the bad file. This accounts for it taking masses of CPU cycles which kicks in about 1 minute after boot time, and for the fact that it affects random machines. If turning off automatic update doesn't cure the problem, then as stated in a previous post you have probably got spyware or a virus. Get Defender, Ad-Aware SE and Avast. Then deep scan your PC. Another point, how much RAM is installed in the PC? Even though the min RAM stated for XP was I think 128mb, with all the latest updates etc 512mb of RAM is now the minimum to get XP running smoothly. Good luck, Clare.

Take a look here, there's some good ones there.

Guild Wars seems to run perfectly fine on Vista, and so should City of Heroes. There are the odd glitches here and there but they are usually easily remedied. Check the various forums for the games themselves.

One of the easiest ways to create a PDF is to use CutePDF, it's free and acts like a printer. You simply print to CutePDF and it creates the PDF file for you! This means you can use ANY software you like to create the PDF file!

Just an addition to the above, I have found Avast to be one of the best Free Anti virus programs around.

If you change a lot of hardware then XP will refuse to boot, as stated in the previous post. The reason is that the XP operating system itself is the same on all PCs, what is different is a layer between windows and the hardware called the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). The HAL is built when you install windows, but you can rebuild in on a current system by doing a windows repair using the following method: 1. Boot off your original XP Install CD. 2. When it asks Press F6 to use the Recovery console, don't press F6, just continue with the installation. 3. The installer will search for previous operating systems, when it finds your current installed XP, there will be an option to Repair that by Pressing F6, this time press F6. 4. Follow the repair through to the end, this should rebuild the HAL binding it to your current hardware, keeping all your settings etc. One thing to note about the above, you will have to re-apply the Microsoft updates for things to work correctly, especially if the install CD you have is pre SP2. One of the problems you may find is when you try to view the properties for My Computer, you get a DLL error. Applying all the service patches will solve this. Phew, I hope that was helpful. Clare. Addition: One thing you may find after doing all this is that windows detects a major hardware change and you will need to activate it again. If the online activation method fails, call them using the toll free number on the activation screen, tell them you have just upgraded your system and they will give you the correct activation code.

Okay I'm going to say something here that will probably annoy the Linux folk, but I do have a valid point, so bare with me.... If you're thinking of going down the Linux road, you want to consider one huge point: Will the applications and games you presently use, run on Linux, or is there equivalent software available? If not then I bet you will eventually be going back to Windows. Please don't think I am a MS fangirl here, my laptop runs Kubuntu and I love it, but I will never run a Linux distro on my main PC because at least 60% of the software I use won't run on Linux. Also running Windows in emulation is not going to cut the mustard, especially for games. I find you need every scrap of GPU/CPU to get the game running with all the bells and whistles turned on. Not only that, a lot of the Newer games will be DirectX 10 only, and that means not even XP will be able to run them as there are no plans releasing an XP DX10.. Mainly because DX 10 is designed for the new Vista graphics and audio model, which will require a major re-write of DX 10 for an XP version and I don't think MS will be doing that. So, looks like you may even settle for Vista (Ducks to avoid the obscenities thrown this way :-s ). But ignoring all that, if you are able to use all your favourite software natively on Linux, or you can find alternate solutions, then absolutely go for it. It's more solid and by far more secure than Windows, and it has support that is second to none. And I think you will find the learning curve of Linux a lot of fun. Good luck in whatever you decide. Clare.

Download a torrent client such as Azureus, then load the torrent file into that. But as Mercifull said, be careful about copyrighted material.

2 things can usually cause this: 1. You accidentally sent the output to an external monitor. Hold down the Function button (Usually bottom left of the KB) and press the function key across the top that has a little monitor symbol on it. If nothing happens then repeat the process. Remember to hold down the Fn key on the bottom left. 2. Take a very close look at the screen, is there a really faint image on the screen. If so this means that your laptop has probably developed a fault. Either the back light or the inverter has failed, and you will need to get it repaired. Good Luck, Clare.

Halflife II runs perfectly :)

This is a common problem with these type of button control devices. I have seen so many go nuts. The little button mouse is built into the centre of the keyboard, and means you have a few options: 1. if the laptop is under warranty, take it back to the supplier. 2. Take it to a PC repair centre. Alot though won't touch laptops as they are quite fiddly. Shame you were not near me, I could have sorted it for you. 3. Remove the keyboard and flex it slightly, this sometimes resolves the problem. The keyboard usually pops off the top, sometimes you have to remove a long plastic plate just above the keyboard first to gain access to the keyboard screws. Advice here is NOT to force anything. 4. Contact Dell and find out how much a replacement keyboard costs. and replace it yourself. 5. It maybe possible to disable the little button mouse device and just use the touch pad. If there isn't a utility to do this, then try looking in device manager and disable the device there. Good luck, Clare.

The sys vol folder can be accessed yes, even thought it is hidden and has the system attribute set. Another alternative would be to connect the hard drive to another PC and then take ownership of the sys vol folder. Either way you can perform the same file copies. Yet another alternative would be to use Windows PE or Bart PE. Both those would also allow you to manually restore registry restore points. Bart PE may be for those who are not too happy with the CLI as Bart PE has a WIMP front end.

A few obvious things you can do here, obviously before you do anything power the machine off and remove the power lead. Take the lid off the machine and hoover out all vents and fans. Be careful not to damage anything and be aware that you don't suck up any jumpers on the motherboard. Usually cleaning the fans with a small brush and hoover is enough, as the fins on the fan gathers dust making them lop sided and then they rattle while spinning. The two most common fans to make a noise are the CPU fan and the one on the graphics card (If your GPU has one that is). If cleaning them doesn't solve the problem then replace them. They aren't expensive. The reason it gets louder when doing something intensive on the machine is because your BIOS is set to spin the fans faster when temperatures increase. This is perfectly normal and your machine has always done this, only the fans were quieter before and you never heard it.

If running the chkdsk from the recovery console doesn't work, then it's possible you have a corruption in your registry. You can manually restore an earlier registry by doing the following: Boot the system off an XP CD and start the recovery console. You need to restore the registry files from one of the recent restore points, first lets backup the old files by creating a backup folder and copying the old reg files there by doing the following: CD C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG MD BACKUP COPY SYSTEM BACKUP COPY DEFAULT BACKUP COPY SAM BACKUP COPY SECURITY BACKUP COPY SOFTWARE BACKUP Now lets copy the reg files from a one of the recent restore points. First we need to select a restore point: Change the directory to the System Volume Information folder by running the following command (Include the double quotes): CD "C:\SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION" List this folders contents in order of date by running the command: DIR /A /O You're looking for a folder that starts with _restore, if there is more than one then select the 2nd newest and NOT the newest folder. You will now need to change directory to that folder by typing CD and then the folder name. Here's an example: CD _restore{C734E4CB-0141-429A-9AA0-AC0ED4F3C31E} You need to type it exactly as it appears on your listing. It's not possible for me to tell you exactly what the folders name is as it is generated by XP and is different on all systems. List this folders contents in order of date by running the command: DIR /A /O You're looking for a folder starting with RP and is the 2nd newest one. i.e. NOT the newest folder. Change directory to the snapshot folder within RP folder by running the following command (This example uses a folder called RP281): CD RP281\snapshot You can now copy the registry files required by executing the following commands: COPY _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SAM COPY _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SECURITY COPY _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE COPY _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM COPY _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\DEFAULT If this doesn't work, then repeat the above and select an older restore point. One thing I must say is that you need to make sure you take note of the spaces in the all of the above commands. Good luck. Clare.