Lord Diddy

The question you have to ask yourself first is do you really need upgrades right now? I know benchmarks are really nice to look at but you have to ask yourself is it really worth it performance/pricewise and are there any games you are struggling with? If I had to recommend anything I would say purchase an SSD (link for a 128GB M4) which will give noticeably better performance everywhere. Also at the least you can do a bit of overclocking on your 6770 if you haven't already.

If you're planning on gaming only then go for the i5 3570k, if you plan to use programs for video edditing and such then I would go for a 2600k. The motherboard you chose is good for the i5, supports SLI/Xfire, usb 3.0, and has a 3 year warranty. As for the GPU I would recommend going for the 570, it is more powerful compared to the 560 Ti. Don't forget to add an aftermarket CPU heatsink, if you plan on overclocking that is.

Judging from this quote it seems that a certain setting was "flipped" on or off and is causing this problem. First I would say to completely uninstall your video driver and install the latest (I read that you updated them but try to uninstall them if you haven't already). Seems like there a problem where you're computer is reading your games in 4:3 aspect ratio instead of 16:9. Sounds annoying but hopefully uninstalling the drivers will forget your old settings and you can hopefully have your problem resolved when everything is back to default. Are you using a DVI -> HDMI cable or any adapters? or any desktop sharing software like TeamViewer?

If you have another computer you can download it onto a usb drive and install it on the infected computer. Also a reason chrome might not be working is because the date/time/year might not be correct, so see if your calendar changed at all. To get out of safemode simply follow the same steps above and deselect safemode, it should boot normally. IMO just remove that fingerprint scan password whatever until this is resolved, it seems like a nuisance at this point.

Is there any chance you could perform a system restore? I believe that would solve quite a few of your problems. If a system restore isn't possible then follow Sbrideau's instructions. Also I don't understand how you can't get into safemode, if you can get into the account normally you should be able to in safemode. Start Button -> Run -> MSconfig -> Boot (tab) -> select safemode Also if you need to do a system restore head into the Tools (tab) and select System Restore

I've changed my post because I made a silly typo, I mean "plug in power into your tower". When you have your power cord connected to the computer there should be an LED light on the motherboard that tells you that your motherboard is receiving power as shown in the picture below (color of LED varies). Try plugging the computer in directly into the outlet and see if you can POST, maybe even using another outlet just for testing purposes. This is a good link to take a look at. http://www.tomshardw...-video-problems

There's only a few possibilities on why your computer isn't turning on. Before spending money on a professional there are things you can do to try and fix it yourself. You will have to be familiar with your computer as you'll probably be unplugging a few things. When you have your power cord plugged into the tower, on the motherboard is there an LED light that turns on? (I recall you said there is one on your PSU but is there on the mobo?) Have you recently added any new hardware to the computer, more fans? a new optical drive? a new graphics card? If your outlet plugged into a extension cord or directly into a wall? I would suggest unplugging the components connected to your motherboard (take out all ram sticks, unplug HDDS, optical drives, usb ports, graphics cards) and see if you can POST, if you successfully POST then try adding components one at a time.

Install/dualboot an Ubuntu distro on it, such as Xunbuntu. Tiger is not supported anymore by newer updates. Also post the specs of this Powerbook, especially the amount of memory and CPU speed

Simply put its not possible to have iPhoto v9.0+ (from the iLife '11 suite) on SL 10.6.8. It forces you to upgrade to the latest version of iPhoto through software updates before using the program, but here's the kicker, you are required to upgrade to Lion for it to install (version 9.2.3 iirc). The remedy was simply installing iPhoto from iLife 09' version 8.x.x and it works properly.

Thanks to everyone who replied, it made this process much easier. I installed 10.6 on the Macbook and used migration assistant to transfer back the files from the Time Machine backup, should have done the transfer manually but can't complain. Also iPhoto is a real pain in the *** to get working properly.

I just currently backed up the entire drive using time machine, but I do have some more questions. Time machine backs up the entire hard drive, after doing a clean install the time machine backup seems counter-productive as it wont be a true clean install. Should I simply do a clean install, then install all the programs over and then manually drag the data (pictures, music, etc.) to the clean install? Or delete my current time machine backup and exclude everything except for my data files? Would Migration Assistant be of some assistance in this case? I'm mainly looking for the best way to do a clean install while keeping only music pictures and documents. Also thinking that an upgrade from 10.5 (Leopard) to 10.6 (SL) would be beneficial, jumping to 10.7(lion) sounds like a bad idea from Stevepole's experience. Lastly, is there any real use for an Airport Express? Macbooks come in with Wi-fi built in like any other computer, so it seems like a 99$ brick to me

Hello everyone, I am reformatting a Macbook (system specs will be posted below) and I have some questions. I've re-installed windows and Linux distros more times can i can remember but this would be my second time reformatting a Mac machine and I would like some advice. I am copying data to an external drive manually, but I see that there is a "time machine" application (along with Time Capsule), should I be using it as an easier way to backup or continue manually? does this backup work if you upgrade to a later OSX version? The mac is currently running 10.5.8, would an upgrade to 10.7 Lion be worth it or do a re install of Leopard? Is there anything significant between an install of window/linux as compared to a Mac re install? Also how do drivers work in OSX, are they automatically configured and updated after the install of OSX? Any advice greatly appreciated, and excuse my awkwardly phrased questions [hide= MacBook Specs][/hide]

I would heavily recommend using a Ziploc bag over a plastic bag, you really don't want to get any moisture inside of the drive. you should also plug in the drive without putting it inside the case, the heat from other components inside will heat up your drive faster which means less time to copy data. Also, if you have any incredibly important data on the drive you may want to take it to a professional. .02¢

Also if you could, tell us your antivirus program along with any other realtime protection you are using.

I'd have to agree with this, Firefox is not as lightweight as it once was. I personally have moved completely to chrome, I was surprised to see Firefox release so many new versions quickly after each other. Some would say its good that Mozilla is keeping with the updates, but all that means is reduced addon compatibility, which is was really the main advantage of Firefox.

Are you using the latest version of Firefox, Java, and Flash Player? Try going to the Firefox menu button and click Help -> Restart Firefox with Add-ons disabled. If you are able to see your pages correctly then one of your addons may be causing a conflict in the browser. If the problem still persists then try an uninstall then reinstall of Firefox.

Managed to dig this up on why your gpu may be running warmer http://alexsleat.co.uk/tag/fedora/

Anything that relates to a virus is generally pretty bad news. The most basic way to say it is that a worm is similar to a virus (in the way it reproduces and spreads) but instead of needing a program/file to spread like a virus does, it can freely replicate itself from your system through your network and possibly to anything within range of attack. In comparison worms are a lot more dangerous because it's able to spread through your entire network instead of just in your PC. I'm sure there are other users who could explain this better. What are you currently using for your antivirus? is it protecting you from the worm or just displaying that one is detected?

That's great to hear, and just for reference what Java version worked for you? For the packet loss you might want to give a Power Cycle a try, its a quick process that only takes about 5 minutes.

I cringed at the image of how dusty that heat sink and fan must have been to drop down the CPU temp 52°C

I'm a fan of Avast and Microsoft SE. I've really never seen the point of buying antivirus, the free ones perform well enough.

Its very likely that the problem is because of your internet connection. For Pingtest anything less that an A as a score is a cause for concern. No matter how fast your download and upload speeds are, online games will suffer severely if your packets aren't being sent/received properly (For more info check here http://pingtest.net/learn.php) Do your friends use Wi-Fi or a wired connection? are both their computers Macs also? It could be possible that the cable you are using for your wired connection may be faulty, try using another cable and also plug it into a different port on your router. Since your friends have no problems playing RS it basically comes down to what is different about your setup compared to theirs. Ask your friends to run a Pingtest :thumbup:

Firstly please post the specs of both your computer and laptop, its not really a good idea to rule out hardware so quickly. If you'd like to do this easily, just download Speccy and copy and paste the summary here. Do these laggspikes happen every minute rhythmically or is it sometimes no lagg for 1 hour but then the next hour laggspikes? Have you tried changing the cable or use a different port to connect to the PC? Also copy post up the results from the following websites: http://www.speedtest.net/ http://www.pingtest.net/

Saw this a while ago, thought it would give some people a laugh or two. I'm pretty sure we can relate to this

Memory Lets start first with memory, because using windows 7/vista 2GB is not going to cut it - especially for gaming. I would highly recommend that you upgrade to 4 GB of memory, but unfortunately since your motherboard only has 2 DDR2 DIMM slots you will need to buy a 2x2gb kit to replace your current 2x1gb (and you wouldn't be able to use your current 2gb). Now to buy this you have two options, DDR2 is expensive because it is now obsolete because of DDR3 (and no you cannot use DDR3) so you could buy the memory used which would be cheaper or you can buy it new but at least you'd have warranty if anything goes wrong. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122 Lifetime warranty from G Skill Video Card I'm sure anything you buy now would be a major improvement over what you have now lol. Considering that you have a 300 Watt power supply, we are going to have to look at mid range cards that hopefully won't take up too much power. If we were to buy a higher tier card then we would probably have to upgrade that PSU, which at this point would kind of be wasting money unless you bought a completely new system. These cards are generally low power consumption, I'd appreciate a second opinion on this part if 300 W would be enough for this. I would recommend the following cards http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-162-067&SortField=0&SummaryType=2&Pagesize=100&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1#scrollFullInfo GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Galaxy-Technology-GeForce-GT240-1GB-GDDR3-PCIe-2-0-Video-Graphics-Card-/220939117951?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3370ff657f GeForce GT240 Important: after seeing your Speccy report i'm worried about the temperature inside your case. Without running any programs, run Speccy again and post your results again, your CPU is shown running at 75C which is pretty hot (this would be even more alarming if that was the temperature idle). Necessary action should be taken like cleaning out your computer and making sure there isn't any dust, adding more fans, and possibly replacing the thermal paste on your CPU.