Pyrion

It seems to be a per-game thing. Neverwinter Nights 2 runs entirely in a single thread, so while you can run it on a multi-core or multi-processor system, you'll only be using one core. I don't understand that whole "dedicate a core to the system" notion because what the HELL is your system doing besides the foreground app that actually needs a whole core to itself? It's probably better to set processor affinity for your foreground app and let everything else share the remaining core, but honestly I'd rather let Windows handle it automatically and only set processor affinity for single processes that don't support multicore processors.

The new ZoneAlarm has a "gaming mode" that you can activate within the systray that basically puts in an "auto-allow/auto-deny" mode (you select which) to silence the popup messages that would otherwise cause the system to hang (such as with a fullscreen game). ZoneAlarm's other annoyance that becomes especially obvious is if you use a packet capture utility like Wireshark - it will constantly attempt DNS lookups of zonelabs.com. That part's solved by getting that IP address yourself and inserting such an entry into your HOSTS file. Course, if it changes, and you can no longer resolve zonelabs.com you'd have to remove the entry temporarily to get the new IP from your DNS. I second the suggestion to switch to AntiVir. A couple of my (recently departed) dad's coworkers made the switch from Norton to AntiVir and haven't looked back. And the NAT masquerading router will only typically block unsolicited external connections, it won't prevent applications from "calling home," whereas ZoneAlarm will provided you don't have gaming mode activated.

They go down in GHz but there are multiple cores in each, so in multithreaded/multitasked operations they're faster. Now granted, if what you're doing doesn't utilize them, you won't notice a difference in performance. Plus it's important to note that if you're upgrading from a single-core processor and you aren't intent on reformatting your computer, you will have to install the multi-processor kernel (so it says ACPI Multiprocessor PC instead of ACPI Uniprocessor PC in device manager) to actually take advantage of the second core.

1. This belongs in the Tech Help forum. 2. I have no experience with Intels whatsoever. AMD fanboy here so as far as I'm concerned there's probably very little difference between the two.

Why not? I do that all the time, cuz mp3 is the only format really worth using. Out of curiosity, what params are you using? -b 32 -F -V 2 --vbr-new --replaygain-accurate

Why would you need to convert back unless... you're transcoding? Ew. Transcoding ftl.

Possible that you're just intermittently losing signal to the router? I know that wzcsvc periodically suspends the active connection to scan for new access points, so that might be a contributing factor. Load a command prompt (or a run prompt) and type "net stop wzcsvc", if it's that service, then you shouldn't lose your signal (under normal circumstances), but if you do lose the signal you'll have to restart wzcsvc ("net start wzcsvc") for it to reconnect. Otherwise I have no idea.

Nope. Gonna load up my laptop in a few moments and see if the update kills it. /doesn't install updates on this comp, not the worse off from it either. EDIT: Nope. No problems here.

Oh wow. This is the kind of thing I was looking for several weeks ago when I wanted something like MS Network Monitor for XP. Awesome.

DUMeter? Not certain if you can track exact time of data transfers with DUMeter, but it will tell you how much was downloaded. The only way you're going to get a log of data transfers is with something like Microsoft Network Monitor.

If this started happening out of the blue, as opposed to a failed BIOS flashing, then perhaps the motherboard's battery is running out of juice?

Um, you don't get a second file. You're just supposed to be getting a .mp3 file and that's it.

http://www.koepi.org/xvid.shtml

Nope. Hasn't happened to me on either of my machines yet.

Well once you've installed the LAME ACM (it's usually just an .inf and an .acm, and you right click the .inf and select Install), in VirtualDub you enable full processing mode on the audio stream to select the compressor, and within that you select LAME MP3 and choose whatever bitrate you want.

If you enable the framerate counter in FRAPS and you don't see the framerate in whatever corner of the screen you set it to, then no, FRAPS won't work with it.

Download Avira AntiVir and give that a shot. Couldn't hurt.

The most-immediate problem with FRAPS is that it doesn't do you a damn bit of good for 2D apps. FRAPS only affects apps that run in hardware 3D rendering modes like Direct3D and OpenGL. /actually has FRAPS registered.

Get the xvid codec, or if the file resolution is small enough, you could also take a shot at the x264 vfw codec. http://deaththesheep.uni.cc/ Also, you can drastically cut down your video filesizes by encoding with something like LAME MP3 as opposed to leaving everything in PCM audio.

This is a simple-enough task that VirtualDub can handle just fine. Note that to keep it from reencoding everything, set both the audio and video to Direct Stream Copy before you save the cut version, if you otherwise don't want to change the codecs used.

Then the previous suggestions sound like the best. I just wouldn't clean it with anything water-based or conductive, just in case. Alcohol and compressed air ftw. And yeah, I don't bring food anywhere near my laptop. My desktop is a far different story however, but that's cuz keyboards are so cheap that I end up replacing them every couple of years anyways even if they've never had anything spilled in them.

The easiest way to clean a keyboard is to avoid getting it dirty in the first place. The easiest way of doing this: wash your hands frequently. I'm guilty as charged of not following my own advice though, btw.

May not necessarily be "fucked," I've always considered a bit of line noise at very high volumes to be "normal" for low-end (especially onboard) sound cards. It's just the computer's way of telling you to turn your fucking volume down.

Correct. 640x480 should be enough for anybody. /runs in 1600x1200

This is a forum, not a chat room, don't expect instant gratification from places like this. Heck, the way things are on IRC, don't expect instant gratification on chat either. All we do is idle.