Dalo Harkin

Right this could be a number of things from:- * faulty power lead * faulty socket on the MOBO (very common in lappys, not too hard to do if you are handy with a soldering iron) * dead battery (battery is needed to complete the circuit, some lappys work without this so remove the battery and then try with just the power lead) * Fried MOBO Hope the above helps, it can sometimes be a simple fix other times you will spend more on parts trying to diagnose than the lappy is worth :D

They all suit different purposes so its not really the OS, its the purpose of the equipment. for example server 2003 is very old by todays standards of OS's, but you cant use W7 to run a business :D Linux is free which is the main reason its now used more widely than 10 years ago well that and the fact that it now works with most hardware, and isnt bloated like Windows ;)

well you need to insert disk 1 of the recovery disks and then boot from that and when asked insert disk 2, THIS WILL WIPE ANY INFO ON YOUR SYSTEM THOUGH and restore to factory

This will work yes BUT, you are then relying on your laptops internet connection which is not ideal as they are often not very good. your using 2 devices power, this method of connection is flaky at best as while you can use it, you will not receive all the packets you need and cannot set port forwarding I have all my games consoles connected via Gigabit Ethernet, and if you can I recommend you do the same

You should have some drivers/utilities disks or visit the alienware website, in device manager you will have some yellow exclamation marks under USB host controller - try and update, they may be lurking on the system somewhere/windows update may find them, if not then its off to Alienware site for them. If you need anymore help just shout

Why do you think that you have a virus? Where did you get SP3 from - microsoft update? or another source?

If you have the disks that came with the ACER (depending on how old it is disks were used as a method to be able to revert the PC back to factory settings, there should also be a drivers and utilities disk) this is now been taken over by a seperate partition on the HDD which now has all this information on. So you have disks, one will say 'recovery disk' this is the one that you need to put into CD/DVD drive and when the POST screen has displayed information it should say 'press any key to boot from CD/DVD' and then run through the process of installing windows to factory :)

Its exactly the same process as what you had with your old setup. Just make sure that the ports on the back of the router are in the right ones, there will be one labelled or coloured http://dailyzazz.com/mages/WNR2000-100NAR-soft.jpg If you have this which I do with Virgin then the Yellow is what you want the cable from the Modem going into and the orange are the built in switch. If you have it set up like this already then check all the network sharing settings

Depending on which version of the 9800GT you have they draw either 70Watt or 105Watt depending on the die of the chip. That being said if its an Unbranded PSU then it may struggle, turning the fan is one thing powering the card is something else entirely. If it has the 6Pin PCIE connector and you are using 2x Molex into a 6pin PCIE make sure that the 2x Molex dont have anything else on the same chain such as splitters, fan passthroughs etc. Have you installed the latest drivers for the card and not using the old ones? Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers Yours is a 9 series not 9M, then select your OS and download the driver. MAKE sure that you remove the old driver and restart the PC BEFORE installing the new one :)

It doesnt sound like a hardware issue as its fine in safe mode If it runs fine in Safe Mode (safe mode is a basic startup form where minimal drivers are loaded) then I would suspect that something you have recently installed to be causing you an issue, have you installed and new programs or updated any recently?

Have you tried resetting the BIOS to factory defaults? If you have the XP CD, you can put it in the drive and then run through the repair steps (if there are no repair steps DONT go any further as it will format the drive and you will lose the data)

Where you get blurred images/colours on the screen its normally the GPU itself and in particular the RAM on the GPU. Some things to check:- Do the PCIE 6/8 pin connectors come directly from the PSU or are you using 2x molex converted into one 6/8 pin PCIE connector (if this is the case make sure nothing is on the same path from the PSU eg dont use fan pass throughs or molex splitters) Is the GPU seated correctly? BIOS reset? Resolution of monitor set to native?

do you have any disks that came with the laptop?

AHCI is just a programming interface for SATA full description here Advanced Host Controller Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia So answer to your question, you can use anything to back it up from software to hardware

Hi and welcome to FPCH :)

Still in memory, have you tried rebooting the machine...

Unfortunately we cannot help on this issue as the PC could have (I am not saying it was) been obtained illegally. That being said Google is a wonderful resource.........and if you typed in something like windows password and then watch whats in the drop down you may get lucky ;)

Right so you have a modem > router > PCs you need to connect any of the PCs/Laptops to the PC via the Ethernet cable and then the other end into one of the ports on the back of the router. There will be one wire coming from the back of the modem that plugs into a port on the router (DO NOT MOVE THIS CABLE, it will be in a specific port on the router) Use any of the other (should be 5) slots

Download MSE from here http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ Remove AVAST and use the above if I were you

and just to cement your choice, W7 is what Vista should have been....

Youve not said how much it is, but 2TB drives in the UK are aroudn £90 1.5TB around £70

Hi and welcome to FPCH :)

Sorry, I was being sarcastic about the AAA :o Any cable should do it as looking at this one:- USB cable/charger for Sony NWZ-A815 NWZ-A816 NWZ-A818 :) thats a very odd type of cable to use in a sat nav if im honest they tend to use http://celexpo.com/images/usb.jpg If this is one of the multi chargers, then its possible that its slightly different (although may fit) hope this helps

But thats true of any home edition:- If its connected via LAN then all pcs regardless of their OS version should be able to see and connect to it.. is it connected directly to your router with CAT5 or USB or into a networked PC?

SMART is just something the BIOS/other programs can use to display information relating to the HDD Wiki explanation here S.M.A.R.T. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It wont stop the HDD being recognised by the OS, but I am surprised that its not SMART capable as pretty much all HDDs now are. As said in the above it helps early detection of HDD failure (as you are using it as external, often used for backup purposes you ideally want SMART) why are you going down the external route? are you planning on using this between multiple locations with multiple PCs?