h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You know I can't see the post you wrote, I've come to the conclusion Gordon Brownshirt thinks I'm Ossama Bin Liner, and will threaten mankind with my walking stick.

Either that or there are quite a lot of incompetent people about.

*I'm getting the one you suggested, if the expert computer fixer don't break something. Expert One day I might actually meet an expert tradesman.

The new heatsink is fitted with a clip, so he won't be able to screw it so tight I can't get it off.

Tomorrow, it should be cheaper. I wish it was DVI-I though, it says you got the option

I've got two more connectors on my graphics, what are they? One is HD** I haven't got the instructions.

What's the make and model of the graphics card? You should be able to Google for the manual as a PDF...

Asustek silent 8400GS 512Mb

I already had a look and keep forgetting to bookmark the page.

Nightmare! The chap came to put on the new heatsink, he said it would only take him 10 mins, and he got the screws off easily, but then found he had to remove the entire board.

This he did, put the heatsink on, did a bit of cleaning up the wiring, started it and cpu greater than 50 centigrade. He forgot to take off the plastic protection and used an entire tube of arctic silver

After putting it on again the temps on the OCCT test are 24 centigrade idle, 38 centigrade max on 30 min mix test, with an ambient temperature of 18.2 centigrade.

Now arctic silver say if you use to much greese you must remove it and start again, but I aint got any left.

You need next to none - run a clean finger across the bit of plastic he peeled off and you'll almost certainly get enough. There's no way that anyone remotely competent would use an "entire tube" on a single heatsink - there's enough in there for about a dozen installations.

16 applications, and the plastic is in the bin. But he used his finger to spread and remove some, I'm going to leave it a bit, the temperature should actually go down after 200 hours, currently 23 centigrade on idle.

If the temperature starts to go up, I suppose I can cut the end off the syringe.

I've ordered myself the Samsung above from Amazon, £67 off

broke now

What's this internal power thing, I didn't notice until just. A power calculator on the asus site sets my minimum power requirement at 400Watts, but the monitor is 50Watts and I have got 450Watts power supply. Is that enough?

They sell these to people with off the shelf pc's, with only 250Watt power supply, so I hope it's ok.

The monitor connects directly to the mains, so it doesn't come into the calculation. The 400W is the sum of all the DC voltages times their maximum current ratings.

I've got the manual now, it's got a mains plug so I don't know what the reviewer was talking about.

It only comes with standard D-sub, I found on Wikipedia that DVI-D male fits DVI-I anyway, but you have to buy the plug separately.

I was a bit worried after seeing the review and nearly cancelled except Amazon said you can't cancel but you can return in seven days.

It looks like it will be ok though, not sent through Royal Mail because I paid the extra £2.50 for guaranteed delivery.

I can't stop thinking about that computer expert, it'll only take 10mins he said, I said no it'll take longer, you aint seen my pc, in the end he was here 2 hours, grumbling about it taking all day.

And fixing a heatsink with the plastic film on, it says in big red letters, Must be removed.

He charged me £40 and his quote was only £35

Still hasn't dropped off, what are those tube type things on the motherboard, because he bent one to get the cooler to fit.

They look like capacitors, I dont suppose it matters unless the curcuit is broken, because I can remember a reviewer saying he had to bend one, with photo and looked much worse than mine.

So if they designed the clip in an L shape, with the axle at the end of the L, it wouldn't touch anything.

Oh yes I gingerly tried my graphics program on a small photo, and the temp jumped 5 degrees, before that might have been a jump over 60 degrees. But it must be some really bad programming and I will refrain from using that feature.

The computer is the way I want it now, Why isn't there a screem emoticon. The monitor works and dvi-i is working, but nowhere in the instructions does it say anything about nVidia and its two screens, it took me ages to get digital.

The cpu temp appears to be going down to 3 degrees above ambient, as the experts say it should be, I mean 3 degrees above ambient at idle.

Now I'm pissed because my son has told me I'm a grandad.

Is that good

My XP is not the same, I can't set minimal power and so if I hover anywhere close to power settings I lose AMD Cool & Quiet.

I normally only surf the net and this only requires 1.2 Ghz, but full power cost me £17.47 plus VAT or more accurately £20 per quarter on my electric bill.

Got to be in a brain dead mood to set up a flight simulation from say East Midlands to London City, because it takes ages setting up scenary and weather, flight plans. It is the sort of thing I do to get through Xmas day.

I restored 24 hours for the C&Q, but had to reboot when just looking at screensaver, I only wanted to change power options.

This could be caused by samsung software, but more likely a M$ download.

Now I want a tv card, how much power do they use and which is best

The lowest power consumption would be one of those USB ones, but make sure it does Freeview. The aerials that come with them are useless, so you'll need to run a splitter cable from your rooftop aerial, or better still get a cheap distribution amplifier.

Got my XP fixed, it is apparently a common problem and just needs a key restored in the lovely registry.

How do you make your pc into a mac?

There are a few different ways. I used the (not entirely legal ) "Kalyway" distribution of OS/X, in conjunction with a specially-built PC that only used parts on its "compatability list".

For something like £100 you can buy a USB gizmo that will allow you to install a *genuine* Apple copy of OS/X on any machine that meets with its compatability requirements.

Apple are trying to stamp out both options, but the latter one is winning some support in the US courts since, if you buy a proper copy of OS/X, legally Apple can't tell you what you can do with it.

I can't understand, why would Apple want to stop anybody buying their lovely OS/X.