Three unrelated questions

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Okeydokey, just as the title of my post says ...

1.) Since yesterday my PC says I got *two* dvd-roms f: and g: Usually I have only f:
Does anyone have a clue how this can be resolved ?
Everything works just fine when I use my drive f. But it's sort of annoying that another drive is displayed as well.

2.) Has anyone heard of a notepad-like text-editor with an advanced search-menu ? What I'm looking for is an editor that stores previous search entries.

3.) I'm looking for a new pc. I found one that just seems to be what I'd like : AMD64 3500+, 2x512 quality RAM, nVidia 6600GT PCIe, double-layer dvd burning rom, 160GB s-ata hdd, asrock 939S56-M mobo, modded case + 400w power supply. goes for 610€ or about 760$. What do you think - do I get my money's worth ?

Edit : typos

 

For the first question, it may be that you have a virtual DVD drive. Do you have a prog like Daemontools installed?

For the third, I'd say that's rather good. I haven't heard of the mobo make, but I'm sure it's fine.

 

Had daemon-tools a couple of months ago. As far as I can see there's no remains of it on my pc right now.

Funny, just got rid of my second dvd-rom. Device manager said I got a scsi-dvd-rom (does anything like this exist ?). I deactivated it and there it went into the great silicon void ...

 

1) in cwindows\system32\drivers .. do you see a347bus.sys or a347scsi.sys? or in device manager, do you see "Plug and Play BIOS Extension" under System devices?

2) I'm not sure what you want to do with a text editor, but I like vim, although that's a terminal only editor and isn't like notepad in that it's not something you can just sit down and use you have to learn how to use it, so I don't think it's what you're looking for. Might try PSPad.

linkage:
http://www.vim.org/
http://www.pspad.com/

3) yea that's a good deal, Asrock doesn't make the best mobos, although I haven't heard anything bad about them, but for the price. On the other hand as far as computers go you usually get what you pay for. But I'm thinking you should replace the PSU right off the bat as it's probably generic.

 

Funny thing first. After I got rid of my second dvd I know have a second cd-rom. *wth??*

There are no a347*.sys files on my pc. "Plug and Play BIOS Extension" is there. Property-> Details show "Root\System\0003" -- "Root\d347bus".
So my next file search returned that I've got a d347bus.sys and a d347prt.sys file. Does this say anything to you ?

And to the text-editor. I'm working in tech-support for an ISP. Once in a month I get the regular e-mail shift. I have a large pool of standard text-blocks stored in a simple .txt-file. I usually find the text-block I need by searching for keywords, e.g. I search for "384" when I want to tell a customer he shouldn't bark at our "lame servers" as long as he's got a low-level broadband connection [my text-block begins with "Unfortunately we have to inform you that you will not be able to use the full bandwith of our service with a 384 kbit/s connection .... blablabla".
What annoys me is that I always have to type the keywords anew completely and that I don't get any search-suggestion when I type the first one or two letters.

 

As for the third question, it doesn't look overpaid, so long as all parts are from quality manufacturers. GF 6800GT is a great choice but make sure you are getting what you're paying for. It should have 500 MHz on the graphics processor and 1000 Mhz on the RAM. If it has less, you're getting shorthanged with a crappy excuse of a GF card from some crappy manufacturer or a crappy card line. Sometimes even big renowned manufacturers make such underachieving cards (like half the frequencies nVidia says the card should have). So, 500/1000 for you and 15.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth.

 

"So my next file search returned that I've got a d347bus.sys and a d347prt.sys file. Does this say anything to you ?"

No, plug and play bios extention is something leftover from daemons tools and is probably the cause of your mysterious cd drive. I would suggest heading over to daemon tools' forum and search for a thread(sticky?) that explains how to remove daemons tools manually, as I'm quite certain that this issue has been discussed to death over there. Oh, and d347bus is daemons tools drivers, a347bus is alcohols what I use, they both use similar methods. And I've had to uninstall alcohol manually many many times, lol.

Vim and pspad are more for config file editing and programming so I don't know if they'd do you much good. Although vim does have some good search features, you may not like the interface. Plus you have to sit down for an hour learning before you can even start to use it. I must admit I haven't quite got the hang of it, but it's far superior to notepad. You might do a search at snapfiles.com or majorgeeks.com they might have what you're looking.

"6800GT is a great choice"

was that a typo? the 6600gt has 500/1000mhz 6800gt has ~350/1000mhz.

 

You could try Emacs, although you should know this is NOT a simple text editor - it's a complex application, and takes a while to master.

Windows version here: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/windows/emacs/emacs-21.3-fullbin-i386.tar.gz

 

@hedron: Here's the trick: 6800GT has 350/1000 but 6600GT has 500/1000. 6800GT is faster and better, but it has lower processor frequency than 6600GT.

 

hehe looks like i'm getting on

my double-drive problem has indeed been caused by some leftover file from daemon-tools. thanx a lot hedron for the hint.

also i found a notepad with the functionality i was looking for. it's called notepad++ and was designed to be a tool for programmers with syntax highlighting and all that stuff.

...

graphics card is a "real" 6600gt. 500/1000

hedron, why did you suggest replacing the power supply ? what's wrong about a generic one ? [absolutely no offense, i'm far from being a pro with power supplies]

 

Generally speaking the "default" PSU with cheap computers isn't very good. There's always the chance it'll blow up on you after a couple years' use, and if that happens it will probably fry everything in the system (CPU, motherboard, graphic card, HD, etc. Especially HD)

Then again, speaking from personal experience, I always got the cheap PSUs and never had any problem with them after 7+ years of use.

 

"it will probably fry everything in the system"

yea, shelling out an additional 30-50$ bucks for a fortron FSP series(IMO these are a very good deal, cheap and top rated by tomshardware, my slackbox is powered by one) or antec or enermax(although these are more expensive) can save you 700$ if the thing fries your system. But yea, it is a matter of luck. Even a brand name PSU could fry your system, although that is alot less likely as they're made of quality parts.

 

I must admit I never cared much about PSUs. I always took them sort of for granted " uhu .. yeah, I know that it's got a power supply, but don't ask me questions about it" and I never had any problems with my cheap PSUs. Also I've never been into overclocking. Spending extra on a PSU seems like wasting money to me. [Could just as well invest 50 bucks into an electric distribution box with safety against lghtning strike.]

 

Ah, and if we're at power system, do yourself a favour and get the most omniresistant power contact you can. I did after my last crash and I don't regret. And yeah, a good power supply is also a nice idea if you aren't too short on money. Those things have one year warranty for a reason: they overheat and die at any moment after said year. It's not the same good old craft that still makes my old 286 run.

 

Reading Chev's post made me realize something... Is it me, or has the longevity of just about any computer component gone down in the past few years? PSU, HD, boards, everything used to last much longer before failing. No wonder warranties keep getting shorter.

 

Quote:
[Could just as well invest 50 bucks into an electric distribution box with safety against lghtning strike.]

Be Careful!!!
My power company 'forgot' to reattach the grounding for the phone line while I was out of town:
2PCs - fried
Dsl box exploded (honest)
3 phones - trash
17" LCD monitor - dead
TV box fried

And all that with 3 APC-power protectors - I just did not have the phone go through it..... as I thought it was save after living here for 7 years and nothing ever happening.
Now I'm checking once a month all my 'hook-ups' to the real world ....

 

3) You could go for the same PC as I did: LINKY. (It takes you to page page where I have listed the components and done other work too). Yea; that's what I bought a week ago. That case is superb, although big.

Also remember to take some rounded cables and this extra Zalman CPU cooler (really, it's helluva big and, as such, helluva efficient). 256 megs of vid.card RAM is soon not only nice, but necessary.

 

@wirhe ... nice one you got yourself. looks like it's quite the same one as my object of desire (bought or better ordered it yesterday). and i think we'll both be quite happy. your 6600 is agp, right ? and i'd say the 350w of your machine could be a bit of 'not enough' if you ever put yours really to the strain.

i decided to just buy my fave one and to maybe start optimizing later. i've appreciated all your recommendations but

a new PSU + a new cooler + maybe two case-fans + a better mobo + a lil bit o' this + a lil bit o' that == 200 bucks away. and i promised myself to spend my money reasonable ( uhu ... ) i know i won't have time to play more than a max of eight to ten hours a week, i know i don't have to play every game with max details an max AA/AF,i know i won't go overclocking anything and so this will be just enough silicone-working-power for me.

 

Actually, it's PCIe and the PSU is 480 W (that got a kick-ass award from one magazine or another).

 

shame on me .. i only read the first post on your site ...