Swimmer

I am interested in what you thing about the networking aspect. My buddies have had nothing but trouble when it comes to VPNs and otheradvanced features. Glad you like it… I think you might be one of the few.

Alright another update on this little saga.. So after my little call to order the parts I called back and dealt with the tech support people once again. This time it was to make sure that the same tech doesn't show up again. I for a fact know that I never want him near my computer again. After another hour on the phone trying to get things sorted through, it was finally determined that there was a way to request a different tech and to have them come out. Here is the kicker. Since the service call had already been assigned to the original tech, the guy who visited me the first time, there was no way of changing it from Dell's side. I was not going to take that as an answer and said that they needed to do what ever they could to get me a different tech. After about 5 minutes on hold the represenative came back on the line and told me that they could cancel the request, keep the parts in Chicago, and reassign me to a new tech. The only kicker was that it would be 3-5 business days before anyone could come out and install anything. Well that wasn't going to fly and I reminded them that this is their fault that my computer was broken and that I have a next day warranty. Another 5 minutes and now the manager is coming to visit my house to install the parts. So the manager show up about an hour later and has a new hinge assembly and the heat sink. 30 minutes later and we are back to the step where everything is suppose to fit back together. Again, it doesn't. So now I have 2 more parts, the entire palm assembly and power control unit, the piece of plastic that hold the power button and volume controls, coming in tomorrow. So at the end of my 3 year warranty I will, for the most part, have a computer assembled of warranty parts. The only things that have yet to fail are the hard drive, video card, and processor. I don't know whether this reflects on Dell's build quality, choice of parts/manufactures, or support system. But I am 100% sure that I am never buying a Dell. Dude I am not getting a Dell.

well.. keep listing them.. Alright 79.99 for a Sata II 320GB Western digital.. comes out to $.249 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136074

Lets alright so that is $125.73 which makes it $.251 per gig.. Now find the cheapest RETAIL drive.. not OEM

That would be an interesting little question.. I have no idea.. My guess is that it is going to be a 160 or 200 GB drive..

right.. but you can't walk into your local newegg and walk out with a hard drive.

I have always used TCP Optimizer on my wireless stuff.. It seems, for me, to work pretty good with decent results.. http://www.majorgeeks.com/TCP_Optimizer_d2104.html BTW welcome to the forum!

It isn't an issue of fixing it.. well I guess it is. But the point is that I paid extra for this warranty, pretty much because I expected stuff to break, so things like this wouldn't be an issue. All that I expect is that my computer is in the same condition as when I asked for it to be serviced. The screen fits fine in the case.. the issue is all of the plastic... I wouldn't want to waste my time... I figure I will be replacing this once I am done in a year and a half. Plus the model that replaced the 8600 really lacks a graphic card.

Well.. for the 4 time in this laptops, Inspiron 8600, lifetime I have had to have something replaced. So far it has been 2 CD-ROM drives, motherboard and now my LCD panel. No biggie right.. With a 3 year next day on-site warranty it really shouldn't be an issue. After all I have already been though this once with my motherboard. How hard could be replacing the LCD panel be? Well it turns out a hell of a lot hard then it should have been. Since the motherboard has been replaced, if I leave the computer on for extended periods of time, say 3 or more days, when i reboot the PC it displays a nice little thermal warning that a thermal event has occurred. Hmm.. wonder why that is! Maybe because the tech that installed my new motherboard didn't add any additional thermal paste to the processor? So enough past history.. Friday, the 4th, I call Dell to have them correct the issue with my LCD panel, which for no reason doesn't work. So we run though the on-board tests and what do you know.. The LCD panel fails.. Shocker there huh? At the same time I put a request for the CPU to be checked and thermal grease to be reapplied to, hopefully, correct the thermal issue. So today the tech arrives.. To my amazement he shows up 5 minutes prior to the two hour window expiration, go figure right, and has the "new" LCD in tow. So we sit down and begin the replacement process. He whips out his sweet, well not really, Belkin tool kit, which was missing about half of the tools, and starts disassembling the computer. That take about 10 minutes and the old LCD panel is out and the new is in. Reassembly begins and goes over with out too much trouble. Then it is time to reinstall the plastic that covers the hinges and the gap between the keyboard and the back of the laptop. Well it turns out that he is unable to get it back on correctly. After struggling with it for 15 minutes he decides to just call it a day and press it hard one time so it sticks, but doesn't latch, and walk smoothly out the door like it was not an issue. On top of the he refused to check the CPU because it wasn't on the "work order." Well isn't that just dandy.. So after 30 minutes of work I have a working LCD, a plus, a cover that doesn't fit correctly, a minus, and still have a thermal issue, a HUGE minus. Which bring me to tonight. My lovely 1 hour conversation, 35 minutes to just figure out what part of the case I was talking about, with a Dell represenative. Again requesting them to return my computer to the condition it was in prior to their tech pretty much just getting up and leaving. Then the shot heard around the world. "It is not our tech responsibility to trouble shoot the computer on-site." OK I could agree with that.. but this was the response to the comment that NO thermal grease was applied during the installation of the new motherboard. I pretty much said that it is Intel's recommendation that NEW thermal compound be applied once the heat sink has been removed from the processor. The was a moment of silence then.... "I will have to check with my manager." After a great 3-5 minute wait the rep said that the tech would be sent with a new heat sink, I guess they don't train them to apply stuff on their own, and the rest of my part to try and fix the situation. I am to get my parts Thursday or Friday, I don't know why it is going to take so long, after all I have next day on-site service. So the Dell saga continues..

Yes it is a .NET problem for sure. You could try upgrading to 2.0 and seeing if that made any difference. I don't know if calling quickbooks is going to make a difference. My guess would be.. that they are just going to point the finger at Microsoft and say that it isnt their problem.

As it has been pointed out.. You can install it, but it would be a license violation. As far as Vista on a laptop.. I have seen it on an IBM T42 and a few of the newer HPs. All I can say is that unless you are able to use the SD card or thumbdrive for the ReadyBoost app the computer was noticeably laggy. Also some of the networking is out right crazy. One of the HPs could not VPN into our lab and the other could. As far as calling Vista = ME... I wouldn't good that far.. Yet. I don't think that Vista has enough time on the market and not enough current XP users are making the switch. However, that being said Dell has begun to offer XP on some of its products to satisfy demand. On the contrary Business Week is saying that Vista is paying off for Microsoft. I don't know who to believe yet.. I am just going to have to wait until I can get my hands on a copy. Here is the BW article: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070427_478095.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories

Yeah there we some really good deals this weekend on hard drives.

My guess is that you have a pin crossed.. The only other time I have seen something like this is when I snapped off the little plastic divider... Then tried to hook my external hard drive up.. It complained of a grounding issue.. One other thing any ? marks in the device manager?

yes the same one..

yeah.. it was on sale for $48.. the total after tax was $51.20

I was at Walmart, my new favorite store, and found an IDE 7200rpm 80gig hard drive for $48. I don't know it is available nation wide.. but that is pretty cheap for a retailer. So if you are looking for an additional hard drive that is an option..

You are not going to be able to get the exact same speed.. you might be able to get 80-90% of the wired speed.. but it is just not possible to get wired speed on a wireless network, too much overhead. Adjust the slider on the top of the program to 5500kbps. That is most likely the best that you are going to be able to do.

alright... what is your package advertised speed? What ever it is try 500 to 1000kbps higher.

The difference is that Microsoft sets the default TCP windows for wireless so low that it actually hurts performance. I use TCPoptimizer for my wireless stuff, for me it just works better. Might want to check that out and see if it helps. BTW welcome to the forum!

This topic has been moved to Make it Faster.... [iurl]http://www.testmy.net/forum/index.php?topic=19410.0[/iurl]

You are going to need to adjust the TCP windows... Microsoft makes them so small for wireless when they really could be much larger.. Check this out for starters. http://www.testmy.net/t-1013

Alright... This is actually a pretty popular question.. There are a few things that you can try... QoS as pointed out in the last post may help. It works for outgoing traffic only! So if you are trying to download something there will be no effect. So then how do you control bandwidth. Well there is a transparent process and there is the software solution. In the transparent solution you pretty much run all of the WAN requests through one server. This server acts as a gateway and control the bandwidth allotment for that individual computer. This can be done both on a Windows machine with special software and on Linux using Squid. For the software control you are looking at having to install a client machine that regulates the speed. This is going to be a lot harder to sell to the chronic downloader.. Here is a Windows based solution: http://www.softperfect.com/products/bandwidth/

The board could be bad.. but that would be a pretty hard hit to do something like that. Do you have a spare NIC card laying around? I would throw that in and see if, at boot time, you get any lights on it. It is possible to kill the AGP and not the PCI slots..

Well.. some more research.. and the tune has changed a little bit.. There are two ways that MS does its licensing.. per installation and per processor aka per socket. Basically all of the XP software is per installation based. So the processor really doesn't have anything to do with it. I have not been able to find anyone that has tried to install XP on a quad socket platform.. But from the reading I did, it looks like XP Pro is limited to 2 physical sockets. Now for the per processor deal.. It is physical processors not cores, like I thought it was . So you could have dual quad cores, logically that would be an 8 core system, but only count as two processors in terms of licensing as far as MS is concerned. So you could run an 8 core system on XP pro and a 4 core system on XP home. Assuming that you were using quad core processors. Here is some more info: http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1490

All I can say is unreal game tonight.. The ending was crazy... I thought that the Rangers had it in the bag.. Then they ice it.. Goal.. So off into overtime.. Penalty, which I really didn't see.., and what do you know another goal.. All I can say is that the games are at least close and worth watching.. I have followed the Rangers more this post season, due to the NY connection for both teams, than the Red Wings...