Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 April 3

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April 3

Geforce 8800, Soundcards.

Does anyone know if the Geforce 8800 needs two PCI-e cables (from the PSU), or just one? Secondly, do sound cards need a connector from the PSU, or is the power supplied by the motherboard enough? (The card in question, if it matters, is Chaintech AV710.) Froglars the frog 03:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

In general, no, the motherboard powers the soundcard. The only extra cabling is the one going from CD/DVD-ROM drives to the sound card, which is for... I forgot. Either direct analog or digital connection. And for the GeForce 8800, do you mean the SLI cable? If so, see the last question of the nVidia faq. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the OP means the extra power cables from the PSU that goes into PCI-e graphics cards, which I think the 8800GT needs 1, and the GTX needs 2. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a 8800 and I can confirm it only needs one PCI-e cable. --Kiltman67 17:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The 8800GTX requires two PCI-Express(6-pin) power cables from the power supply. The 8800GTS 640MB and 320MB versions require only one PCI-E power cable.

backing up files

does anybody know of a simple, free program that will synchronize my computer files with a backup file in an external hard drive? thanks. i've tried just copying and pasting, but this requires all the files to be rewritten. --Gujarat10 06:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

What is your operating system? I use rdiff-backup to backup my computer. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you have Windows Vista, it comes with an automatic backup called "Backup and Restore Center". --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I have windows xp 04. --Gujarat10 03:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

For Mac OS X, there's SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner. --24.249.108.133 17:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Google summaries

When you search for, say, "douglas adams" on google, you will get Wikipedia entry listed quite above. What is interesting is the information below it:

Douglas Adams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Provides information about the "Hitchhiker" author and his work.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams - 162k - Cached - Similar pages - Filter

But there is no such sentence in the whole web page! (I am talking about the HTML source). So from where does this sentence comes from? Is some one at google writing this up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scheibenzahl (talk • contribs) 09:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Google Directory/dmoz I think. Search for Douglas Adams Wikipedia on either of them (they use the same index) and you'll get the same snippet. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

to send as a mail

how to send this page as an email —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.8.139.98 (talk) 10:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

There are two options (that I can think of). Email the the URL, or save the page on your hard disk and email the file (but images won't show up). - Akamad 11:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to email THIS COPY of the page, click "Permanent link" in the "toolbox" on the left. An example of this can be found here. JoshHolloway 12:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want the contents, including all the markup, you can pick "edit this page" at the top of the page, select in the edit window, use Control A to select all, then use Control X to cut all text, then hit the back button to undo the edit. The full contents of the page are now in the text buffer and can be pasted into most word processors using Control V. Note, however, that the markup won't be interpreted correctly by most programs. StuRat 21:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Vista compatibility.

I'm building a new PC and I'm debating whether or not to use Windows Vista. Will game performance be lesser on Vista, due to the higher requirements, Aero, superfetch, etc? How much XP software is incompatible with Vista? Some of the essential apps I run are foobar2000, Nero, DVD Shrink, uTorrent, Knights of the Old Republic 1 + 2, Firefox, VLC Media Player, The Sims 2, Fallout 1 + 2, Call of Cthulhu, Desperate Housewives game, Last.fm, Half-life 2/Counter-strike Source, Battlefield 1942, and ePSXe -- do any of these have issues on Vista? I know I could have googled for some of this information, but a lot of what I found was untrustworthy (things like "works" and "fails" without giving any details, out of date, etc). I'd appreciate any response. Cheers. Pesapluvo 13:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Most programs run in Vista, and there's also a capability mode like in Windows XP, so you can run the program as if it was running in XP. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The Vista compatibility tool should find out whether these programs will run on Vista. x42bn6 Talk 16:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

VISTA SHOULD NOT BE SLOWER THAN XP. Aero barely impacts performance on systems that can run these games to any degree, and Vista's improved memory management means performance ought to be better. DirectX games run at ~100% of XP speed and OpenGL runs at ~78% of XP speed due to rubbish driver support, but that's expected to improve. 81.157.191.238 11:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Processor

Which one is better?

1. Intel® Core™2 Extreme QX6700 (8MB,3.2GHz Factory overclocked)
2. Intel® Core™2 Extreme X6800 (4MB,3.46GHz Factory overclocked) —68.193.147.179 (talk) 16:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

(http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html) May be able to help. You can compare the two against differing tasks. On Unreal Tournament it seems the X6800 is ahead. ny156uk 17:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It depends. For multitasking and in terms of operations per second, the QX6700 is better. For running one single-thread but large application such as a game, the X6800 is slightly better.

OR, you could buy the QX6800 (coming soon) which has as much on one core as the X6800 but aslso the raw power of the QX6700, although it will cost about $1200 by itself. 81.157.191.238 11:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

troubleshoot remote desktop

I am unable to connect from home to work with remote desktop....home is XP home edition; work is XP professional. I have voip phones at work. Called them to open a port.....typed in internal computer ip address:portnumber in the computer spot......typed in user name and password for work computer. Domain.....not sure what to type......old IT company had computers at work networked with an S drive and each computer had a name...(domain???) such as \\computername\shareddocs. New IT people have installed real vnc.....also am running microsoft SQl Server 2000 sp4.....when I try to connect at home error message reads; unable to connect.....too many people accessing network, network connection not established......please help mf8.9.193.154 20:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarify, clarify! Check ports? What's the exact error message? Splintercellguy 21:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

How do you check ports? the exact error message is The client cannot connect to the remote computer. remote connections might not be enabled or the computer might be too busy to accept new connectionsl It is also possible that network problems are preventing your connection. I'm a novice and not a programmer.Flippinep 22:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Make sure your router has port forward entries for the Remote Desktop ports. What router? Splintercellguy 22:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait, I misread the question. Can you check to see if the remote computer has its appropriate ports open? Can you do a port scan test on it? Splintercellguy 22:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

And check correct IP :). Splintercellguy 22:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You could also try using RealVNC Viewer to connect. Sorry for billion responses, I'm forgetting to put stuff in. Splintercellguy 22:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Page break in MS EXCEL

How to remove page breaks in MS Excel? 21:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Page breaks are only a part of the print setup. If you don't want any page breaks, you need to set the print setup to print 1 page wide by 1 page tall. Worm 22:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

That doesnt work too.....Its an automatic page break..... I dont knw how to clear it after successive futile trials..... 20:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

"File, Print Area, Clear Print Area". Anchoress 21:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)

Would a "Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)" work with a Windows-based computer (ex: Dell)? -68.193.147.179 21:41, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

In short, yes. Vespine 22:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

But the computer has to have a "dual link" DVI port to work with a screen that large.

Atlant 23:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Installation help

I need help installing The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (video game) onto my macintosh. My current issue is that when I open the program after installation, it says there was an error in opening OpenAL framework. What does that mean?

OpenAL has to do with audio. Perhaps: 1. you, or it, selected the wrong audio card or audio setting (OpenAL is for 3D audio), 2. your audio drivers need to be updated? --140.247.251.165

file.writelines() in python

How do I make file.writelines() work with a list of unicode strings? --Anakata 23:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)