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

I've just seen some AM3's with speeds that make mine look stupid. You can get X3 black for £125 and it is 2.8Ghz with over 6Mb of memory.

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=8118&cat=1089&page=1

I just built a machine ("Hackintosh 2.0" ) that has quad cores running at 3GHz and 4GB of RAM in the form of a matched pair of 1333MHz DDR.

Can't get much faster, but look at the economy. Boards are 5200MT unless they cost a lot, temperature might be a problem since it is 1.4v but at the price and electricity bills, I reckon it isn't going to be that much different to the X4 in overall speed.

It is easy to get it too 3Ghz and running at 4400MT and the memory is always going to slow it down so not much point too the faster version.

What is the fastest memory and how much, I think not much change out of £400.

Mine is pretty slow since my security update, but even without that can only achieve 239 on a NovaBench 2 test, maybe it will be a little faster if I shut down cool and quiet, and the 34 applications running but that starts at 50, I just don't know what I can shut down.

My 4GB of PC1333 cost me something like £67.

Wow.

Does that mean you have got more than one Hackingtosh, or whatever it's called.

Downloads downloads updates updates, I've installed all but bios, because I think bios is risky business, got a new chipset driver new cool & quiet driver, new realtech audio driver, new regcure, new ccleaner, new skype, new firefox, new firbug, new fireftp, new opera, new safari, new IE8, new notepad, new paint, new gimp, new inkscape, new epson drivers, new probe, new a1nap, new adobe......... and I didn't ask for most of them.

If you do this for a job, do you actually get any time to do any work. I can remember in the eighties most of the time spent waiting for the Honeywell or Decsystem to come online.

Seems to be working ok, famous last words.

I've got a dust problem, took the pc to pieces last night to remove and clean filters clogged with dust. But it still gets inside, do those air cans work? are they dangerous?

"Does that mean you have got more than one Hackingtosh, or whatever it's called."

It'sa the second one I've built. I intended to spend a lot of time with the first one learning OSX, and told a friend I'd sell it to him "when I'd finished with it". He misinterpreted this as "when I'd finished it" and made my life a living hell with daily 'phone calls and twice-weekly visits in person all just to ask "is it done yet?", so I sold it and when the memory had faded I built this new one.

"I've got a dust problem, took the pc to pieces last night to remove and clean filters clogged with dust. But it still gets inside,"

There's a way to fix this, but it can be hazardous. Basically, you need to take every external fan, including the one in the power supply, and turn it round to face the other way so it is blowing inwards rather than outwards. Then, stretch a bit of stocking/tights over each fan inlet to act as a filter. Just brush them off occasionally and your machine will stay clean inside.

It's been a hobby-horse of mine for a long time that back in 1982 IBM put the fan in the original PC's powr supply the wrong way round and everybody has copied them ever since.

I'm trying to work out why my pc has slowed down. The speed doesn't even register on cpuTest where previously it was 9.04 and I can't get a higher score than 230 on NovaBench 2.

Somat is slowing it down, and I got it tested with only 20 applications running.

IE8 actually works, and comes with a script debugger.

I found out IE8 understands display:table where IE7 doesn't. Maybe all that work converting CSS to javascript was a waste of time.

I've just had one of my updates updated. It's driving me mad. Kasperski had a critical fix only 44MB and yet another restart.

Conficker has got everybody worried, it is apparently extremely sophisticated using an algorithm only known to those researching cryptography.

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001636.html

Although I prefer Firefox; IE8 is a fantastic improvement on what was before.

It has a debugger so I can for the first time see why my code doesn't work and a very useful ability to block specific cookies; so that I can accept cookies from here and block spy's. I found one.

My webpage even works properly although the validation buttons don't; don't know why.

http://arsmetique.co.uk

My security is telling me Opera and adobe acrobat 9 are highly dangerous.

Is this something to worry about.

"Is this something to worry about."

Yes. Either you have a moderately virulent virus or you should be suspicious of your "security". (There are fake security applications out there that will give lots of false positives when you use their "free detection" mode, then charge you money to "remove" the non-existent viruses. If you refuse to pay or try to download a different package they will then randomly screw with your data.)

Kasperski 2009

It wasn't a virus; you know when you have a lot of browsers they are always being updated at the most inconvenient times. You been working on your web page for 12 hrs non stop, get it going and start Opera to check appearance and to validate before uploading and...! it wants to update.

So that is what that was. So now adobe reader is updated.

I've quarantined adobe air; updated all others bar one msxml 4.0 which actually has already got the recomended update.

But it is never ending: FX now

http://www.viruslist.com/en/advisories/34471

What is %systemroot%\system32

I can find a system32 under windows but no msxml4.dll file in dos, it appears in the windows folder in XP but not in dos.

How would you delete msxml4.dll given the above address, what is %

Wondered why when updated files the security still said dangerous still exist. Found them in firefox.

I think firefox should pull it's socks up, because when it is more popular hackers will start to target it. Like Morpheus ****** Scanner attacks Linux. It gets into php.

External HDD, which is better, enclosure with internal or readymade. Then how dou you set about copying an image to be restored. Don't like the idea of different sized partitions because everywhere I look it says DANGEROUS, and it will take a week to get this pc back until I get the image.

The problem; you can't have an op system in C: driving a recovery from H: to C: or can you. Maybe you could run it from D: then that would make sense.

Is this any good to you:

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=2427&cat=137&page=1

"What is %systemroot%\system32"

Any script you run will replace %systemroot% with the contents of your "systemroot" variable - in your case it would probably be "C:\Windows". You can change it with the "Set" command, e.g. "Set systemroot=C:\MyOtherWindowsDirectory".