GoRedwings19's Computer Help Hotline

I think I've lost the driver CD for my M-Audio Transit USB The M-Audio website only allows you to download driver updates and not the driver suite itself. Would anyone that has the driver CD mind making a CD image for me and uploading it? Nero, CloneCD, Alcohol 120%, etc should all be able to do that.

Here's my situation. I am using my iMac as my transport, feeding either my DAC1 or (more frequently) my HR Balanced Desktop w/DAC. I use iTunes to manage my collection. Most of my collection is 256 AAC due to the fact that I used to do a lot of portable listening and I like to have my whole collection on my iPod. But recent meets have finally hammered into my head that it all starts with the source. So, I think I need to start reripping lossless. But here's the rub, I also want to keep the lossy rips for my iPod. So here are my questions: 1) Is there a way to split up the iTunes db such that I could easily flip between my lossy and lossless collections, or do I need to…

Right now I use E6420 2.13GHZ OC'd to 3.4GHZ XFX GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 4x1GB Corsair C4 (comb-styled heatsink) ram. Chasis: Antec P182SE Stock cooling for everything I guess.. Windows XP 32-bit My main concern is that my videocard is very hot, so I always have to keep the 2 fans on my case on HIGH mode, which makes it very loud. Is there any way I can fix this? I don't care about the cost as long as it isn't outrageous.. so I'm willing to change to watercooling, heat-sinks, etc if it makes a significant difference. Thank you for your time I hope I will be able to quietly listen to music on my desktop one day.. Nenso

Okay, so I need some computer help. I've got a Drobo, formatted HFS+, that I was using to store a lot of my goodies (2.8TB worth). The Drobo was usually connected to my HTPC running Windows XP - I used MacDrive to access the Drobo. Occasionally I would swtich the Drobo to my Mac to transfer files directly. I recently noticed that some of my files weren't working on the PC - I would play videos in VLC and nothing would happen, etc. When I connected the Drobo to my Mac, they would play. Now, I've discovered that some files "work" when Drobo is connected to the PC but not the Mac, others work when connected to the Mac but not to the PC, and some files don't work in ei…

Guys -- I could use some help putting together a new living room computer. This started out as thinking a mac mini running win32 would be OK, then thinking that new Dell thing would work, and as always happens, has devolved into building a system myself. I am basically looking for small and silent -- totally fanless if possible. Probably a solid state drive, though the dvr already makes enough noise that this might be an unnecessary luxury. This will get used for watching Netflix and other downloadable TV, playing music, and RMAA testing. It will also be used as a headless workstation via remote desktop -- in order to avoid digging through and updating 100K lines…

Alright, I'm trying to install Linux (Ubuntu 6.06) on my admittedly ancient (by Borg standards) computer (Sony Vaio PCV-RX550/-7732). After the install (I let it wipe the disk [200G Seagate Barracuda]), Grub comes up and says "Error 18". So I think what's going on is that the Bios can't handle the large disk drive, but if I'm reading this page correctly, they want me to shrink my root partition down to 512M? That don't seem right -- the installer won't let me even shrink it down that small...

I have this kick-ass excel macro that is basically capable of cutting down a multi-hour job into a couple of minutes. However, I'm at a loss in the end. The last stage of the macro runs a mail merge through excel as it calls the next client, changes address, adds other personal info, prints the job, and saves it as an individual file. My problem is that I can get the individual files to save under, say, date and client's name as an excel spreadsheet, but I'd really like to save as a pdf file. I am aware of various programs that act as a printer and basically let you save through the print dialog. The issue is, they always prompt for a name and location. Anyone…

Well, I got this wonderful virus that offers me free shit! The PITA, is that it launches iexplorer and when it does, my computer just freezes because it takes too long to process the request from the adware virus. If I am listening to music, the music stops and resumes 7 - 15 minutes later. Bringing up task manager to shut the damn thing down takes 5 minutes by itself. Any suggestions on how to get rid of this annoying adware?

so i am trying to build my computer but I cant get the one thing to fit in the other thing like people are telling me. I got the one thing to sit nicely in the other thing after I stuck the one thing on it and jiggled it a bit. but I cant get this thing to fit in the other thing for the life of me. PLEASE HELP MIKEY!!! What do I do? I tired your 900 number but I got some scary sounding woman who was talking about other noncomputer things.

I've been using Max quite happily for all my codec switching needs for a while, but have recently found it's crashing when asked to chew 24-bit FLAC files and spit out MPEG4. Have been working around by using AIFF instead, which works fine, but just wondering if anyone knows if this is a limitation of the converter or the output format? Thanks.

So I'm seeing this, and I'm thinking to myself -- you know, I've been meaning to (ahem) laserdrop my laserdisks. Talk me down? Talk me up (I.E. should I go all the way to 1080p)? Do whut now? This coming from someone who has immediately fallen in love with blu-ray -- I may not know shit about this stuff, but I know what I like.

For those old enough to remember, want a fun read, or like to see the progress of "social"/simplified interfaces (ex. iPad) ... The Bob Chronicles

I sent my laptop to get the charging pin replaced about a month ago. They did a fine job, but sent me a replacement charging cable/brick since the connector on my old one was a bit worn down. The replacement didn't exactly exude confidence in build quality It was working fine for a month, but just now I saw a spark in the middle of the cable which then caught into a small flame and burned a hole through the rubber covering. Fortunately it went out by itself and my computer wasn't damaged. If I had my camera I'd post pictures of the cable; it's not a pretty sight.

On Friday, 7/24, MS switched my Hotmail account, where I send anything that may generate spam, over to Outlook Mail (Preview). Since then no email, spam or otherwise, has soon in the browser, nor mobile app. Web search for others problems shows nothing specific about Friday, but some down today, which is possibly par from most days. Anyone else have problems? EDIT: It could be a lower max mailbox size limitation implemented on the automatic user switch. That would be very MS.

Hey all, I'm thinking about buying my Wife a Mac Mini since she has been wanting one for some time now. I've been thinking this might be a good time to sell off my old computer and start building a new one since I will be able to use her Mac in a pinch. Should I part it out or try to sell it as a whole? Where should I sell it? [Hardforum?] What is this stuff worth now a days? case: coolermaster centurion 5 enermax liberty 500w psu dfi lanparty ut nf4-d w/ athlon a64 3000+ 2x 1024mb geil pc4000 2x 7200rpm seagate 200GB sata drives nec dvd burner with black coolermaster aluminum front bezel sapphire radeon x1900gt zalman 120mm fan/sink on the cpu, coolermast…

I used to use Delicious, until without announcement they switched to a new system and I lost around 20% of my bookmarks. I've now mostly moved everything over to Google Bookmarks. The tagging isn't as seamless as it was on the old Delicious.

I have a 13.3" MB404LL/A (early 2008) MacBook. It's got a 2.4GHz C2D, 2GB of RAM and a 250GB drive. I'm ordering a 4GB upgrade for it today from MemoryX. I like that company because they guarantee what they sell will work with the machines they list. I notice that they have a 500GB drive listed on the page for my machine. I asked a friend of mine who is an alpha geek on the subject, and he said he suspected that I could "probably" get a 1TB drive to work with my laptop. Where would I begin to look to find that out and more imporantly what HDD models work well? So far googling has given me mountains of irrelevant and useless info. I have in the past considered …

This is what I have in mind: I sit in my office, open iTunes, which then plays songs that are stored on a hard drive that sits at home. But without using a desktop machine that actually streams the music. Now, I'm not very literate in these things. What I thought might work, while staying affordable, is to get a Western Digital Mybook World Edition (WD's consumer NAS device), which has Ethernet connection and a so-called WD Anywhere Access thing. Then connect and mount this disk (maybe via smb?) from the internet and then let itunes reference all the tracks in my library to that mounted disk. Would that work? Alternatively, is there a solution that might work wit…

Yo- I'm a bit of a hardware amateur. I'm looking to upgrade my video card (from a 7950GT to an 8800GT, either a BFG or eVGA) and am wondering if I should upgrade my computer's power supply at the same time. I do not know how to check to see what kind of PSU my computer uses, outside of opening it up. Can anyone tell me how? Thanks.

My parents are trying their best to embrace the computer and the internets, but it's slow going. For certain things, I need to walk them through the most basic steps (e.g, where's the power button) and other more difficult steps (e.g., how to make a playlist in iTunes). What I'm looking for is some sort of program(s) that will allow me to easily post both screenshots and actual photos to produce a sort of tutorial. I've used Skitch a bit, but it doesn't have the greatest organizational qualities. I suppose I could create a Word document, but I'd like something a bit simpler than that if it exists. As always, your collective genius is appreciated.

My computer got hit by malware yesterday, which took all day to eliminate. Since there wasn't a lot of specific info online, I thought I'd post this in case it hits anyone else. Most of the web results point to 2012 recommendations that are out of date. This particular redirect hijacks your address bar and search results (for all your browsers) to SearchMagnified or SearchingMagnified, obvious bogus domains that will no doubt take you to further exploit sites. It also redirected direct links and bookmarks to these sites. I looked through the list of browser settings and add-ons (I don't run any), running processes, installed software, and even the hosts file and…

I'm looking to hook up an HTPC for streaming from the NAS and watching youtube/streams. It must be able to decode 1080p and DTS/Dolby. Ideally, it would run something like XBMC or another linux based system to speed up boot time. Budget is $200. Maybe an Acer Revo? Apple TV 1?

Anyone here doing a Microsoft-based HTPC? Just curious what software you choose and why? Choices seem to be (from Engadget poll): ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater Corel WinDVD 9 PowerDVD 8 Ultra SlySoft AnyDVD HD Blu-Ray is a must, and HD-DVD would be nice, though I don't expect to use it (I have the capability, don't intend to track down the software, but if I see some for cheap and have the ability, why not?). Yes, I can google, and have, and will some more, but wouldn't mind hearing from the peanut gallery.

I am trying to simlify my life, and it is proving to be really complicated. Here's the story -- I would like to run a bunch of different software all on one computer. Most of it is not cross platform, or for one reason or another, I want to use various OSes for various tasks. Also, most of it is not goig to be in use all the time, but it would be nice if it was running when I needed it without a lot of configuration, and it would be nice to run much of it at the same time. Ideally, making this feel like a bunch of computers conected to a KVM would be perfect. So, for instance, I would like an automated cd ripper, a squeezebox server, and a music player. VortexBox will …