Voltageman

If each person who stole it had bought it, they would make more profit, therefore, IMO, it does take away from their profits.

If there is any kind of competition, being able to offer a lower price and make the same profit would be beneficial to a company. Less theft=less cost=more profit=being able to offer the item at a lower price, while keeping the same profits. If you offer the same item at a lower price than the next guy, you will sell more, and therefore make even more profit.

If less people stole, the items would cost less for the rest of us.. Stores/companies charge more to cover theft. So basically the people who buy items instead of stealing are paying for their own item and for a percentage of one that is stolen.

Do you have replacement insurance? I have the insurance that will replace the phone if it is damaged, lost, or stolen...But they won't fix it ..In other words, if it is acting funny, they will do nothing, but if you lose it/break it, they will give you a new one... The verizon guy actually told me to give my phone a bath, and then send it back for replacement So I went down to the atlantic ocean to do some surf casting and "accidentally" dropped it in the water...Ooops.. Funny part was, I dried it out, and the phone actually started working fine ..But since the moisture indicator by the battery showed it got wet, they replaced it. Had a new phone in 2 days..

Goto Run/cmd and enter " chkdsk c: /f /r " (without quotes, and 'c' being your drive letter)... Select yes, and then reboot.. It will take a while, but should fix errors and locate bad sectors..

Actually it can cause a brown out condition. As voltage drops, amp draw increases. Some items may just not work, but some may be damaged. PSU's are vulnerable to brown out conditions. Plus, many surge protectors do not protect against brown outs(which is why a UPS is a good idea). I see it happen all the time in the summer with transformers..If demand for power is very high, the power company decreases their output voltage. This is fine, until it drops too low. Then transformers become very hot, and sometimes either melt or explode.

Where did you buy your monitor? I purchased one a while back that had a dead pixel. I brought it back and exhanged it with no problem. Hopefully the place you got it from has a good exchange/return policy. Did you add the widescreen command to your BF2 shorcut? The target of the shortcut should look somewhat like this: "C:Program FilesEA GAMESBattlefield 2BF2.exe" +menu 1 +widescreen 1 +szx 1024 +szy 768

I have one program that I technically own, but lost the serial key to...So I guess I'm sort of illegally using it, but I did pay for it.. I have legal copies of x86/x64 XP Pro, and Vista Ultimate 64

As good as always...My ping is 5ms on our BF2 server People ask if I am sitting on the server. Only problem is my speed tests don't work right with x64 for some reason I download/upload to my ftp at full speeds, and other speed tests show correctly, but for some reason this test gets stuck on me...Only happens with x64 XP

Same day as mine! Happy Belated B-Day! Happy Valentines Day TMN!

Posting seems to be better the past day... Most have gone straight through now.. Edit: I jinxed myself It sat for 40 seconds or so..

If you got lucky, you may have just fried that other power supply, and the new one you put in may not be auto switching... I haven't seen any that don't have a switch, and are not auto switching, but I am sure they make them... Did you give the old power supply the sniff test...You can do the same for the motherboard. Sometimes you can either visually see the damage, or you can smell it...If you have ever smelled a roasted transformer, you have an idea of what the smell is like.... While I doubt this is the case, have you tried to short out the 2 pins for the power switch? It's most likely not the problem, but it is something that could cause it not to start at all I've only had one switch go on me, but you never know... What is the make/model of the new psu? Edit: You can also open up that old power supply, and see if there is a blown fuse in it...I'm not sure if all have visible fuses, but I know some do. Maybe you got lucky and blew the fuse before any damage was done.

RIP

Do you have a home stereo receiver? You can use a 3.5mm to RCA jack, http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=2009&sku=03180 , and use one of the RCA inputs on the receiver. I use a cheap home stereo receiver/speaker combo I got a walmart to run my pc sound. It has optical/coaxial/etc. I use the optical out from the X-Fi to the receiver, and it sounds great.. I'm not sure if they make anything super cheap that will amplify, and has an optical in....If you look around, you can find a pretty cheap home stereo receiver . Most have optical now. They may make an amplifier specifically for your needs, but I haven't been able to locate it. I'm not even sure if it would be any cheaper than just buying a home stereo receiver.

You may have simulated a brown out, which could have damaged parts within the pc... Did your original power supply have a switch on it for 110/220? And was it set to 220 when you plugged into the 120? If the power supply was autoswitching, it shouldn't have done any damage, but if it had a switch, and it was in the wrong position, I believe it's very possible you could have damaged something. You put in a new power supply, and nothing changed? Does the pc make any noises/beeps/etc? Do any fans come on? Did you try to clear the cmos? Remove any pci cards, and unplug your hard drives and any usb devices, and see if anything happens...If it comes alive with everything removed, replace one by one until the problem arises again.