Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 December 18

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December 18

Video Card

What it the best gaming video card on the market? This would be for a desktop computer running windows XP Service pack3. I am going to build a computer and the type of video card will help with selection the motherboard. Money is no issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.172.159.131 (talk) 00:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Why just one card? You get a bunch of high-end nVidias with SLI and plug them into each other. Sure, it is expensive and overkill, but you said "best" and "money is no issue". -- kainaw™ 01:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the best video card on the market at the moment, pretty much unanimously is the Radeon HD4870X2. If you can afford 2 of them you can go for intel chipset board with crossfire support. Vespine (talk) 02:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If it were just about the hardware and benchmarks then maybe the Radeon would take the prize - but if you consider device driver issues - then get the latest thing nVidia are selling because ATI's drivers are really crap. The badge of "fastest" is a tricky thing to assess because there are so many aspects to performance and some cards do better at some things and worse at others. In any case, whoever is in the lead this week is unlikely to be in the lead when the next card comes out. If you're using XP and it's a DirectX game - then you aren't using half the stuff on the card because you're stuck on DX9 which doesn't provide support for a bunch of stuff that's in the very latest hardware. So get a motherboard with dual PCI-Express interfaces - both with a decent number of lanes. A pair of SLI'ed 9000-series nVidia cards will do just fine if you have quad-core CPU's driving them. SteveBaker (talk) 05:10, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Why the 9000 series when you can SLI the GTX 280? This is what I would buy if money were no issue. You might as well investigate a modern PCI 2.0 motherboard for this if you're spending that much on a card. Oh, and lots of gaming RAM. And a monstrous LCD won't hurt. Ohhh it hurts, stop now! Sandman30s (talk) 09:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If money is no object for buying video cards I'd buy a nVidia Tesla. I don't think there's many games written for it yet though so it may not be so good for your purposes ;-) Dmcq (talk) 13:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

domain register-ing

When I "register" a domain name through a domain name registrar (like GoDaddy), what am I actually doing? Am I "buying" it? Or am I just renting it for a while? Or am I "borrowing" it? Or shibbledy-goobauschenheimer with coffee and popsicles in a meadow on a warm summer day? I'm confused. When I do one of Godaddy's search thingies, it says "For sale! $14.99 per year/month! Buy now!" But that contradicts itself - how can I buy something and then pay for it monthly/yearly (excluding credit cards)? flaminglawyer^c 06:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You would be renting it. The 'Buy now" thing is a marketing ploy, its much more attractive than 'Rent now!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.229.127.26 (talk) 06:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; the "x dollars/year" thing suggests that you are actually renting a domain, instead of buying one outright. This rental thing makes sense especially if you only made a site for, let's say a political campaign that's only going to last for a year or two. You rent a domain like "leonidasforpresident.com", and after you won the elections (or otherwise), you may have your domain cancelled and call it quits. Blake Gripling (talk) 10:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Companies that are a bit more honest (like Network Solutions) clearly state that it is a lease, not an outright purchase. At worst, Network Solutions will say "annual purchase". -- kainaw™ 18:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

So... that discourages me. Is there any way to actually own (pay once, keep forever) a domain name, apart from making a country and making its own TLD? flaminglawyer^c 22:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not quite "renting" - you do own the name - to the point where you can sell it to someone else if you want to. But you have to pay to have the name stored on the name server...and that's kinda like paying rent. When you let the payment lapse, the name is no longer registered to you on the world's server - so you lose it and someone else can register it. It's actually just like a phone number is in the USA. You have the right to take your phone number with you when you change providers or move to a new home - but if you stop service on your phone, they'll give the number to someone else. SteveBaker (talk) 00:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Followup

OK, so I've decided to register a domain name. But I ran into another thingy - the price for a 1-year registration is $.99, so a 2-year should be $1.98 or less, right? It's not. It's $5.49 (link). Why such a price jump? I'm guessing it's something about re-registering when your domain expires, but I can't find anything to prove/disprove my theory on the Godaddy website (or anywhere else). flaminglawyer^c 02:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

First, no - you cannot permanently purchase a domain name for one price. But, you can get extremely long leases, such as a 10-year lease. Even if you start your own country and form your own TLD, you can still lose your TLD in the future. As for the price jump, my experience with GoDaddy for any remotely professional work has been terrible. They want your domain name. That's all. They will do whatever it takes to get you to sign up. I could fill the next three screens of text with nightmare stories that I've experienced with them, but others will come in and say GoDaddy is the greatest thing since pirated mp3 downloads. -- kainaw™ 13:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

They're not the greatest, but I don't think they're the worst at all. They're fine if you are just buying a domain name or two for private use. As with all things related to IT there are good experiences and bad ones, but I've used them for years and years with nary a complaint.

As for the price jump—GoDaddy charges more to renew a domain name (like $9) than it does to register them. It wants to lure you with short-term leases so that over time you'll pay more per domain name over time. It's a business model decision, not a technical one. Keep in mind that it is trivial to transfer control your domain name to a different registrar later, if you decide you don't like GoDaddy. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Aw shizzle! Is it cheaper to transfer to a different registrar than to renew with Godaddy? flaminglawyer^c 01:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Windows Explorer needs to close

Hi

About once a day my PC displays the message "windows explorer has encountered a problem and will now close" {approx} and then I get the pop-up about sending the data to MS blah blah. It's more of an irritation than anything else as explorer always starts again straight away. I was wondering what might be the likeliest cause. OS = XP Home Pentium D 4GB RAM Thanks for your time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.211.45.43 (talk) 10:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity - are you using Roxio media/burning software? I was having much the same trouble and that trouble went away when I removed my install of Roxio Media Creator Suite 9 (or whatever the heck it was called). Just a SWAG, there. Matt Deres (talk) 14:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I get this sometimes too on my desktop. Yeah, it's annoyance. But my point of view is: "It's Windows, what do you expect?!" ("Windows" can also be replaced with "English", "Vista", etc) :P.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 03:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

do new hard drives fit old cases (a Dell Dimension 4100 = Pentiun III 900 mhz)

Hi guys,

So I don't have much money right now and I'm using a Pentium III computer, but I bought a graphics card for it for 50 euros a couple of years back, it's a Radeon 9250 with 128 MB Ram, so actually the computer is really very good for everything I do, which is mostly on the web, nicely accelerated (solid scrolling etc). It has 512 MB or RAM and I don't have complaints. But the hard-drive is dying.

If I buy a new hard-drive, do I have to worry about what kind, or will all new hard drives be able to replace my current one?

Thanks! -Jenny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.214.30 (talk) 14:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The most common types of Hard-drive 'types' are SATA and IDE. The PC you describe will almost definitely be IDE so go with that. Even if it can take the SATA ones (which are a faster connection as I understand it) it'll probably be able to handle an IDE drive. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)All desktop hard drives are a standard size which is 3.5" width. In terms of physically fitting into the PC case it should not be an issue. Your motherboard and old hard drive are almost certain to have PATA connectors (also known simply as IDE connectors, it is the flat grey "ribbon" cable connecting your HD to your motherboard). Most modern hard drives and motherboards use SATA connectors (which uses a much narrower cable and smaller plug/socket). Look at the articles for pictures. If you're buying a new hard drive make sure to buy an IDE/PATA type. Or else buy a SATA hard drive and a SATA/PATA converter which shouldn't cost more than a few dollars. Zunaid 14:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Make sure too that your motherboard has IDE channels for the older hard drive and doesnt have only SATA channels. Even if the hard drive physically fits, it won't work if it can't connect to your motherboard. Livewireo (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, older motherboards won't allow for very large drives (ie more than 120 gb) limiting it so it only utilizes the first 120 gb of space on the drive... you might be able to upgrade your bios or something and get it to work... I don't know much about it, just that it might be a problem. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 21:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Mez screensaver?

Hi. Many years back (6-8) I had a screensaver application called Mez, Mev, or something like that. Three letters anyway. It had a really great road construction screensaver where lines of yellow machines would travel across your desktop laying down sand, gravel, tarmac, etc until your screen was a road, and then another machine would come and tear it all up again. Does anyone know if I can still get this today, or what it was even called? Thanks. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I had something similar, also called Mez (or certainly 3 letters ending in z), but I had it a lot longer than 6-8 years ago - more like 13 years ago on Windows 95. If I remember rightly, it was an application which had lots of different screen savers. I'm at work now, so I can't do it but am sure it still exists and that google will help out. -- WORMMЯOW  14:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps part of After Dark (software)? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Changing directory on XP command line

I don't use windows much anymore, so forgive me if this is obvious, but how can I cd to a directory on another drive? I have tried "cd J:" and sticking different paths after that but nothing seems to help. --93.106.56.181 (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You have to "go to" the drive first; at the command prompt just type "J:" (enter). Then you can use cd to move around on that drive. --LarryMac | Talk 15:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! --93.106.56.181 (talk) 15:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I recommend Powertoys for XP. Open Command Window Here lets you right click on a folder and open the command prompt pointing at the selected folder. I use a lot of DOS utilities at work and this is very handy. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You can also use cd /d J:\somefolder, the /d part will make it change both directory and drive. --grawity 19:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If you are only an occasional (or unwilling) Windows user - you DEFINITELY need to install CygWin. The Cygwin shell is bash or tcsh (your choice) - and there is a /cygdrive/ directory with subdirectories c, d, e, f, whatever - so in Cygwin, you go to the J: drive by typing 'cd /cygdrive/j' - MUCH better than Window's own shell. Also, you can make symlinks in Cygwin so you can link your folder on the J: drive to a place that's more convenient. So under Cygwin's /home/steve - I have /home/steve/c which is the top of the C: drive...which is a symlink to /cygdrive/c...much, MUCH nicer! This has all sorts of other benefits for the commandliner - you can say things like "ls /cygdrive/*/*.doc" and do a wildcard search across multiple drives. I have no clue how you'd do that in Windows' shell because you can't wildcard the drive letter (DIR *:*\*.doc). SteveBaker (talk) 00:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

If you have any windows version of grep installed, you can get the "ls somedrive/*/*.doc" effect, without cygwin, as follows:

    cd somedrive
    dir /b /s | grep \.doc$

--NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

New laptop

I'm thinking of buying a new laptop soon, it will probably come with windows vista preinstalled. I don't like vista that much, no real reason I just don't. Will a modern laptop be able to work if I install Windows NT 2000 on it? Or is Win2k too old for new laptops? 66.63.184.3 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Old operating systems do quite well on modern computers. The only problem you're likely to have is that they may be too quick, so info will sometimes fly by too fast for you to see it. Also beware that many modern applications won't work on an old O/S, so you'd need to use older versions of those apps.StuRat (talk) 21:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You may also run into issues of newer hardware not having drivers for the older OS's. I've found this to be true especially with 64-bit stuff. My suggestion would be to check with some of the major builders to see if you can get the model you want with the "downgrade" to XP. Companies like Dell and HP do have those options on a few select models. I have found this issue more with Vista than the previous versions of Microsoft. Meaning that if it will run XP then you most likely won't have problems with W2K. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ched Davis (talk • contribs) 22:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC) oops .. sig: Ched Davis (talk) 22:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - I strongly agree. By all means dump Vista - but going all the way back to Win2k is too far. If you can get a legit copy of XP, that's what I'd do. Of all of the OS varients Microsoft has produced, XP is by far the best. SteveBaker (talk) 23:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Torrent woes

At my university I'm trying to download slackware linux via bittorent, but utorrent does not work. It starts up and everything seems fine but it doesn't find or connect to any peers or lechers. What can I do to bypass whatever restrictions have been placed on bittorent protocall connections? I can access everything else from the computer like normal web pages and nothing is blocked not even porn, but torrent does not work. 66.63.184.3 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe try BitTorrent protocol encryption? Most clients support some kind of it. --71.141.138.102 (talk) 21:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You said "At my university...." ... is it possible you are behind a firewall that is blocking the port for p2p data transfer? Ched Davis (talk) 22:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, some/most universities have firewalls/proxies/blocks in place that block the port for p2p transfers (that includes torrents, LimeWire, etc.). Or, if you're behind a wireless router, you could have that configured to block that port. Or you could have your OS blocking that port, or even something else (virus? =0 <gasp!>). flaminglawyer^c 23:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no "torrent port". There are only non-reserved ports. Any P2P program out there allows you to configure which port it uses. There is a high possibility that there is a protocol filter however. For the highest chance of success, used Forced Encryption, ensuring there's no 'allow incoming legacy/unencrypted' enabled. Additionally, either select a range in the 50000+ for your port, and/or have it auto-randomize. These together should defeat just about anything an ISP can do to stop your P2P activities. However, they can still aggressively throttle your connection, making it crawl quite slowly. Slow's better than none though. (The forced encryption will cause slower speeds regardless of your ISP, simply because of the far fewer connections you'll make, and slightly because of the packet overhead.) --EvilEdDead (talk) 14:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Your Freedom always worked while I was at uni, though you do need to pay. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)