Dalo Harkin

We have said this many times but the best defence againt the above is knowledge, with the above to assist and NOT the other way round.

When you say defragged - did you just run the defrag once - can you run an analysis ONLY and post a screen shot please. I am not convinced that this is Malware related, yet

AMD's announcement yesterday about spinning off their manufacturing put a whole new perspective on the company, or so investors thought. After it was revealed that the manufacturing business was bringing in a substantial loss for AMD in trying to compete with Intel, selling part of that unit has sent a clear message to investors. Shortly after the announcement, the companies value skyrocketed, increasing almost 19% in value in just a few hours. Later on the stock would take a step back to close at a more conservative 8.5% gain. Sourced from AMD's value skyrockets after spin-off announcement - TechSpot News

Might AMD skip trying to catch up with Intel's 45nm process and go straight to 22nm? According to some recent reports, one of the manufacturing companies serving AMD, Foundry Co, is putting together a manufacturing plant that can produce 22nm wafers. The plant itself is expected to become operational in a little over three years – right around the time Intel is expected to have a 22nm process ready. Sourced from AMD to have 22nm factory in 2012 - TechSpot News

Seagate is getting ready to finally release an SSD product but not before next year. Apparently the company will initially aim at the enterprise market specifically, with the drives designed for use in servers. Seagate is a latecomer in the SSD world, falling behind numerous companies, including Intel. Part of their delay was voiced by their CEO, Bill Watkins, who outright attacked SSD's as they exist today and claimed they were a minor part of the storage market. Seagate's decision to both attack and embrace the SSD market has been an interesting one to watch. Sourced from Seagate preparing enterprise SSDs for 2009 - TechSpot News

The Atom impressed many when it was released earlier this year, quickly becoming a prime choice for anyone building low-power PCs. It was directly competing with Via's Nano because of this. Some initial performance benchmarks showed the Atom as quite more potent than the Nano, though Via claimed there were other reasons involved such as defective hardware used in some benchmarks. Via wants a second chance, and new benchmarks pitting the Atom against the Nano show some very interesting results. Specifically, when competing against the single-core Atom, the Nano actually come ahead in just about everything – it isn't until the dual-core Atom enters that the Nano has something to worry about. Coupled with the fact that Via's boards are more expandable than Intel's, the Nano certainly has plenty of room to roam. Sourced from Nano faces off against the Atom once again - TechSpot News

The official release of OpenOffice.org 3.0, which happened just earlier today, has proved to be immensely popular. So popular, in fact, that the OpenOffice.org site has been brought to it's knees. In response to the “unprecedented” demand, the site has been moved to a slimmed-down, text-only version of the page that does little more than offer links to mirrors. Whether that demand is demand for the suite itself or just an overloading of their main page proper isn't mentioned, though I'd hope the former – the more OpenOffice.org users the better. Even with the immense amount of traffic they are receiving, you can still download the suite from one of their numerous mirrors. Sourced from OpenOffice.org servers overloaded by demand for 3.0 - TechSpot News

Intel has yet to release its next-generation micro architecture next month, but apparently folks in Taiwan have already managed to obtain and overclock an engineering sample for a Nehalem-based Core i7 965 Extreme processor – with some very promising results. According to CPU-Z screenshots, the Core i7 chip made it from its 3.2GHz stock speed all the way up to 4.2GHz using a core voltage of 1.72V – which is above the danger-mark if we take Intel’s warnings into account. Sourced from Intel's forthcoming Core i7 chip overclocked to 4.20GHz - TechSpot News

67 processes is about 20-30 too many.

No, they are all fine :confused: I agree - in terms of things that can physically slow a system - GPU drivers can do it, but other than that unless you have something causing a serious lag - open task manager and then click on processes - whats the top 5 sapping the mem usage?

You say that you stopped items at start up - did you open a command window (cmd.exe) and then type msconfig then go to start up? can you please repeat that process and take a screen shot of the items on the start up tab please.

When you load safe mode - it loads up the basic services that your system needs to run - nothing else. Do you have sufficient space on the HDD?

Well done on finding a resolution :) We do normally recommend to people that are having serious sound issues - as in obscure drivers or having issues when the drivers are all ok to just buy an 'add in' sound card as they are about £5-£10 and they come with the driver that is needed and they are far superior to onboard sound.

'Clicking' is the hard drive I am afraid, get a new one, reinstall the operating system and then 'slave' the second drive to get whatever data you need off it. We can talk you through this process when you have reinstalled the operating system - again if you are unsure how to do this then say and we can talk you through it.

Yes, as Wolfey has said we are all here to help, we dont have all the answers but between us and the members I am sure one of us will :)

Right - whoever has told you that 64bit is better for gaming is right, BUT there are still major driver problems with 64bit OS, some of your games will look better BUT I doubt most of the programs that you use now will work on a 64bit OS - I use 32bit and do so because I know that all the drivers are there for the programs I use - 64bit OS still have a long way to come. It is up to you but I would seriously advise that you have a search around the web of pro's and con's for 64bit OS's.

What does this relate to?? please clarify

Yes - it all mounts up VERY quickly :(

You can also just use IE :D

If you get stuck when you are doing the build then you know where we are. Also bear in mind that while the MOBO is out of the case - this is the BEST and only time to route wires behind the MOBO where possible to maximise airflow, my sig shows some pics of this ;) Hope it all goes well - and remember to post a pic when its done!

The dual one should fit in - the cards are about 1 foot long :eek: Lol - typical - have a search amongst the likes of Dabs and Ebuyer and there may be one in stock there.

That's all fine - just make sure that the PSU cabling will reach to the top of the MOBO as most of them struggle. If you have the budget I would look for faster RAM, I do not normally recommend DDR3 RAM as its expensive but it will work much better with the 1333MHz CPU that you have selected, and as for the 4GB, you only need that if you are planning on running a 64bit Operating system? as a compromise for the RAM in terms of cost get 2GB of DDR3 Other than that when its all done - post a pic :)

As Wolfey has said - drives can die at any time, have you been noticing the hard drive 'clicking' at all as this is normally the telltale sign that its about to die - some can click for years - I know ;) As for the RAM - how many sticks of RAM do you have and how many slots in the motherboard do you have to insert them in? - if you are trying the same slot on the mothreboard all the time - it is not uncommon for one of the DIMM slots that you plug the RAM into to be the culprit, try the RAM in another DIMM and see what happens.

No problem - If you want a more accurate figure - then list everything that you are planning to have in the Case - including fans and what peripherals and optical drives you are using and I will do it for you.

Mine too - Norton is one of the most 'targeted' AV solutions out there as it is so widely used.