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[Blog] Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Keyboard 1 Comment By Krab on June 1, 2010 The Sidewinder X6 is one of Microsoft’s first gaming keyboards. Compared to a regular, basic, Dell one, it’s quite the fancy spectacle, with back-lit keys and a detachable keypad! Now, let’s take a look at the packaging. The keyboard is in a standard cardboard box. I don’t know how I can further describe cardboard boxes, maybe I can say it’s a rectangle? The design is pretty nice looking, but how much time do you honestly spend looking at cardboard boxes? A minute...
[Blog] An Introduction to Microsoft Customer Support 0 Comments By Addies on March 13, 2010 Many of you have heard of the issue which has plagued Xbox 360‘s for the past five years, it goes by many names: the Red Lights of Death, Red Rings of Death or the infamous E74 error. I had purchased my Xbox 360 console at launch and, though many of my friends may attest to the opposite, I was highly satisfied with the quality of my console; though I had a launch console I had never seen those dreaded red lights. A five year streak which ended last Wednesday. After about an hour long session o...
[Blog] Anti-Virus for Your PC at No Cost 6 Comments By cralor on March 5, 2010 Hello. This is my first Blog post! I hope to continue to write once in a while. NOTE: This is just Anti-Virus software. If you are looking for Anti-Spyware and Anti-Malware, two free solutions I recommend are SUPERAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes. Check them out! Today I will be looking at ways to help protect your computer without spending money for all different types of software. Currently, there are many free alternative software choices that do almost as good (in some cases as good) as ones t...
E8400 and Qx9650 Battle Windows 7, Windows XP, and Eachother : Who or What Will Reign Supreme? Part 2 2 Comments By The Duke on December 31, 2009 What will we cover in this installment of our adventure into figuring out all this ‘he said, she said’ mumbo jumbo? I will be exploring the STOCK e8400 and how it handles windows XP and windows 7. Do you lose a lot of performance by upgrading? We will find out later on. Is there a huge difference in anything the 2 operating systems do or is everything negligible? Hopefully we will find out later on. This segment could prove very informative for the average computer user who does no...
E8400 and Qx9650 Battle Windows 7, Windows XP, and Eachother : Who or What Will Reign Supreme? Part 1 3 Comments By The Duke on December 25, 2009 My goal with this multi allotment bloodbath of tests, benches, overclocks, and all out mayhem is to explore an assortment of questions and myths and all around shenanigans accompanied with all the above. Now you may be sitting there thinking, “Well Duke no one cares about old 775 socket CPUs and for sure don’t care about reviews they have seen on other sites.” For you I say people do care, my fan club cares, and I care. This review will cover many questions and one being is it ...
Piecemeal Upgrades Pt 4 Data Protection 0 Comments By Neuromancer on December 21, 2009 The Piecemeal Upgrade pt4 Data Protection: Redundancy, backups, offline and online storage. With limited funds in a single PC household it is important to have a PC that is never down for too long. One of the key problems associated with piecemeal upgrades however is the need to occasionally reinstall the operating system. This can be a nightmare trying to back up documents, photos, settings, applications as well as operating system tweaks one may prefer. Learning how to properly maintain y...
Piece Meal Upgrades pt 3 0 Comments By Neuromancer on October 4, 2009 Piece Meal Upgrades pt 3 As already discussed, a piece meal upgrade is performed when a jump to an entirely new platform is not financially possible. A ground up all new part design is best and will give the best price performance ratio if properly setup. For those that cannot afford a complete rebuild though, designing a system with affordable parts that also support upgrading over an extended period of time is the only option. While more money will be spent over the life of the upgrade, re...
Piecemeal Upgrades Pt 2.2 – Components 0 Comments By Neuromancer on September 21, 2009 Components The longevity of your computer components varies wildly, with the most expensive pieces often being a top performer for the shortest period of time. In order from longest lasting to shortest Hard Disk Drive/ Optical Disk Drive, Power Supply Unit, Video card, Memory, Motherboard, CPU. This breakdown is purely subjective, and while easily could instigate discussion on what pieces do have the longest longevity citing specific models of components, for brevity’s sake we will continu...
Piecemeal upgrades pt2.1 – Peripherals 0 Comments By Neuromancer on September 21, 2009 The Peripherals Monitors, come in 2 distinct flavors, CRT (not manufactured anymore) and LCD. The difference between CRT and LCD is dramatic, with vivid colors and crisp geometries on LCD, higher resolution and better contrast on CRT. LCD’s can be upgraded very cheaply now, CRT has no upgrade path, it is only mentioned if the upgrade inventory currently has a high resolution or widescreen CRT monitor, it may be reused rather effectively until the size and power requirements effect the end ...
Piecemeal upgrades pt2 0 Comments By Neuromancer on September 21, 2009 Identifying your needs, wants and haves. The first step of upgrading a PC is identifying the specific functions that a PC is going to need to handle at the final build. This may change depending on your build upgrade timeline, as newer architecture is being released, and unanticipated price drops occur. Spending a few minutes a day reading about upcoming hardware releases helps to predict price drops on components as well as identifying features that you may want to add. OEM PCs make their...
Piecemeal upgrades pt1 2 Comments By Neuromancer on September 19, 2009 The Piecemeal Upgrade part 1 One cannot help be impressed with the gaming power of a new socket AM3 system from AMD, or the sheer computational power of an Intel i7 and even i5 system. Comparing them to an OEM system build from just a couple of years ago can be embarrassing. Running software designed today, may not even be possible on an older system, and if it does run, could experience all sorts of performance problems: Stuttering video on HD playback, freezing, crashing or overheating o...

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