http://www.bootdisk.com/ 006 May 2007
HouseCall
Welcome to the 6th Edition of HouseCall
INDEX
1) Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor
2) Realtec NIC Not Always Working
3) Realtec Microphone Niggle
4) Overclocking CPU And BSODs
5) Play Old Games On Vista Home?
6) Is ogg Better Than MP3?
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1) Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor
Carol M. asked - Can my computer handle Windows Vista?
*** See if this helps:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx
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2) Realtec NIC Not Always Working
Bernie called - I have a separate, eg not built onto the motherboard, Realtec PCI Ethernet Controller card and it's worked fine for years. However, every other bootup or so my computer says there is a problem with the card. I've done all the usual software stuff like removed the card in Device Manager and let Windows redetect it and install the drivers but on the next bootup the same problem often remains. Is my card bad?
*** Probably not. Realtec is a low cost card but rarely fails. Take the cover of your computer off and reseat the card. If that doesn't work try a different slot. If you are short of empty slots you may just have to switch the card around with another card in the pc.
Grin, remember way back when we had to set the IRQ and other resources for network cards with a floppy disk utility that addressed the firmware on the card? :)
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3) Realtec Microphone Niggle
Amit posted - I have bought a new Dell Inspirion with Vista installed. The first day I tried using a microphone headset and it worked fine. Spoke with friends and family on google chat. When finished shut the laptop and kept it away. The next day I connected the microphone and tried to chat on Google talk again, but this time the microphone didn't work.
Julian answered:
I had a similar problem with my Rock Xtreme CTX Pro (lovely machine) - microphone was set up and worked fine, used it on a skype call and then it wasn't working.
Seems that the input level kept resetting to zero. A download of the latest realtek audio drivers resolved the problem; whatever your audio hardware is I would suggest checking first that you have the very latest drivers before looking for other causes.
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4) Overclocking CPU And BSODs
Admiral Byrd asked - I just built a PC using a major brand motherboard. I bought top brand ram and top brand cards. But, I am experiencing BSODs. Can this be to my overclocking the CPU? My friend says no, as overclocking directions were even included in the motheboard "poster" aka "quick install" docs. Who's right?
*** Yes, even tho many of the major brand motherboard makers include instructions on how to overclock, yes, overclocking your CPU can, result in random BSOD's.
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5) Play Old Games On Vista Home?
winnie95 inquired - Any idea on how I can play my old games on vista home? I have installed BLOOD and HEXEN and set to win95 mode but when dos window opens it says cannot run in full screen mode. Any ideas?
Tiberius said:
You can try dosbox that is a very good dos emulation program for dos programs and games:
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/
winnie95 returns:
Guess who has installed dosbox and now playing hexx, hexen and old 1994 games? Meeeeeee!
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6) Is ogg Better Than MP3?
MoHaWK asked - Is ogg better quality over MP3 files?
*** Seems like an odd format.
http://www.dotwhat.net/lang_eng/files_o/extension_ogg/id_412/
Whiskers said:
Not odd at all:
http://www.metempsychosis.com/metem/music/ogg/
MP3 vs. Ogg Vorbis
So what makes Ogg Vorbis so good? Why is it better then MP3? Well, even though Ogg Vorbis and MP3 use the same principles for compressing audio, the way they do it is different, with different results. We wont go into technical details, but suffice to say, that generally the sound quality to file size ratio is much better when compared to MP3.
If we use Ogg Vobis we can get a much better sounding song, with a smaller file size. A bonus for you guys. Better sound quality is always... better.
Also, Ogg is completely free. It has been developed and released under an open source licence. This means that anyone can use it for any reason, with few restrictions. MP3 on the other hand is not free.
Official Ogg Vorbis Page:
http://www.xiph.org/
Vorbis.com:
http://www.vorbis.com/
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