Scott

Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared out
about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it again and it
cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow when working on
any program.

So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for $849.00.
PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this computer
and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play Lost Coast
because the processor is too weak.)

The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.

Too good to be true? Should we get it?

And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and its
great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of me and
Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me from using
the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?

I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I have
to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of Nightmarfe House
from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!


Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.

Rene Lamontagne

"Scott" wrote in message news:Q203p.111772$Vd1.87870@newsfe19.iad...

Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared out
about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it again and it
cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow when working on
any program.

So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for $849.00.
PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this computer
and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play Lost Coast
because the processor is too weak.)

The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.

Too good to be true? Should we get it?

And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and its
great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of me and
Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me from using
the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?

I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I have
to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of Nightmarfe House
from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!


Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.

Hi Scott, Regards the game Episode 2, Yes the segment that you are in is
solvable BUT it took me about 3 weeks and 17 thousand try's to get past it
the Hunters kept shooting the bombs when I picked one up preventing me from
nailing the striders. I believe I finally got through it by killing the
hunters first then getting the Magnuson bombs to destroy the striders. (or
was that Strider Mountain?)

As for your proposed Dell purchase it looks good as you are getting the
newest line of motherboard and CPU. I just upgraded a couple months ago and
went for an i7 950 cpu and Asus X58 Sabertooth MB, 6 gigs of DDR3 Ram, 1.5
gigs harddrive and ATI radeon 5850 graphics card. Man am I happy, it seems
to run 10 times faster than my Pentium 4 which was getting pretty outdated.

Regards Rene

Sloth

"Rene Lamontagne" <rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:AW33p.14563$qj7.9917@newsfe02.iad...
>
>
> "Scott" wrote in message news:Q203p.111772$Vd1.87870@newsfe19.iad...
>
> Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
> internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared
> out
> about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it again and
> it
> cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow when working
> on
> any program.
>
> So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for
> $849.00.
> PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
> games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this
> computer
> and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play Lost Coast
> because the processor is too weak.)
>
> The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
> 8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
> 1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
> half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
> 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.
>
> Too good to be true? Should we get it?
>
> And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and its
> great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of me and
> Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me from using
> the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?
>
> I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I
> have
> to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of Nightmarfe House
> from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!
>
>
> Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.
>
> Hi Scott, Regards the game Episode 2, Yes the segment that you are in is
> solvable BUT it took me about 3 weeks and 17 thousand try's to get past it
> the Hunters kept shooting the bombs when I picked one up preventing me
> from nailing the striders. I believe I finally got through it by killing
> the hunters first then getting the Magnuson bombs to destroy the striders.
> (or was that Strider Mountain?)
>
> As for your proposed Dell purchase it looks good as you are getting the
> newest line of motherboard and CPU. I just upgraded a couple months ago
> and went for an i7 950 cpu and Asus X58 Sabertooth MB, 6 gigs of DDR3 Ram,
> 1.5 gigs harddrive and ATI radeon 5850 graphics card. Man am I happy, it
> seems to run 10 times faster than my Pentium 4 which was getting pretty
> outdated.
>
> Regards Rene
>

That sounds a bargain, I would ditch the ATI Card asap but I am an Nvidia
fan.

Drop the radeon, and get a 460GTX

Rene Lamontagne

"Sloth" wrote in message news:4d4f2650$0$2518$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk...


"Rene Lamontagne" <rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:AW33p.14563$qj7.9917@newsfe02.iad...
>
>
> "Scott" wrote in message news:Q203p.111772$Vd1.87870@newsfe19.iad...
>
> Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
> internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared
> out
> about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it again and
> it
> cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow when working
> on
> any program.
>
> So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for
> $849.00.
> PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
> games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this
> computer
> and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play Lost Coast
> because the processor is too weak.)
>
> The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
> 8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
> 1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
> half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
> 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.
>
> Too good to be true? Should we get it?
>
> And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and its
> great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of me and
> Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me from using
> the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?
>
> I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I
> have
> to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of Nightmarfe House
> from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!
>
>
> Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.
>
> Hi Scott, Regards the game Episode 2, Yes the segment that you are in is
> solvable BUT it took me about 3 weeks and 17 thousand try's to get past it
> the Hunters kept shooting the bombs when I picked one up preventing me
> from nailing the striders. I believe I finally got through it by killing
> the hunters first then getting the Magnuson bombs to destroy the striders.
> (or was that Strider Mountain?)
>
> As for your proposed Dell purchase it looks good as you are getting the
> newest line of motherboard and CPU. I just upgraded a couple months ago
> and went for an i7 950 cpu and Asus X58 Sabertooth MB, 6 gigs of DDR3 Ram,
> 1.5 gigs harddrive and ATI radeon 5850 graphics card. Man am I happy, it
> seems to run 10 times faster than my Pentium 4 which was getting pretty
> outdated.
>
> Regards Rene
>

That sounds a bargain, I would ditch the ATI Card asap but I am an Nvidia
fan.

Drop the radeon, and get a 460GTX


That’s OK if the supplied card doesn't do what he needs at present.
Personally I use both ATI and Nvidia cards , And find them both good, I am
happy with both if in nearly the same price range.


Regards, Rene

Phat_Jethro

On 2/4/2011 6:35 PM, Scott wrote:
> Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
> internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared
> out about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it
> again and it cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow
> when working on any program.
>
> So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for $849.00.
> PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
> games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this
> computer and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play
> Lost Coast because the processor is too weak.)
>
> The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
> 8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
> 1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
> half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
> 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.
>
> Too good to be true? Should we get it?
>
> And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and
> its great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of
> me and Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me
> from using the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?
>
> I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I
> have to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of
> Nightmarfe House from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!
>
>
> Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.
Sounds like it needs a Format \Re-install of Windows first of all. Then
probably more RAM if it's still Win XP.
Possibly a video card upgrade would fix up the gaming issue.

As for new stuff, with Intel releasing the new Sandy Bridge line of
CPU's making all old 1156 and 1366 sockets obsolete. The new 1155 socket
(Sandy Bridge) is the latest and greatest and pricing is supposed to be
very competitive.


--
Jethro[AGHL] aka Phat_Jethro
Reply Email: jethro86 (at) gmail (dot) com

Scott

Thanks for the help. I got through the struggle with the Striders. I think
its the toughest predicament I have encountered in the Half Life games.
Rewarding to get through it.

The Dell computer I asked about isn't for sale. Turns out it has "Sandy
Bridge" in it which is recalled from Itel as defective.

Thanks for the help. Scott in Austin MN
"Rene Lamontagne" <rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:7BK3p.30865$Ga6.4020@newsfe04.iad...
>
>
> "Sloth" wrote in message news:4d4f2650$0$2518$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk...
>
>
> "Rene Lamontagne" <rlamont@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:AW33p.14563$qj7.9917@newsfe02.iad...
>>
>>
>> "Scott" wrote in message news:Q203p.111772$Vd1.87870@newsfe19.iad...
>>
>> Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
>> internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared
>> out
>> about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it again and
>> it
>> cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow when working
>> on
>> any program.
>>
>> So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for
>> $849.00.
>> PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
>> games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this
>> computer
>> and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play Lost
>> Coast
>> because the processor is too weak.)
>>
>> The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
>> 8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
>> 1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
>> half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
>> 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.
>>
>> Too good to be true? Should we get it?
>>
>> And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and
>> its
>> great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of me and
>> Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me from using
>> the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?
>>
>> I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I
>> have
>> to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of Nightmarfe
>> House
>> from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!
>>
>>
>> Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.
>>
>> Hi Scott, Regards the game Episode 2, Yes the segment that you are in is
>> solvable BUT it took me about 3 weeks and 17 thousand try's to get past
>> it the Hunters kept shooting the bombs when I picked one up preventing me
>> from nailing the striders. I believe I finally got through it by killing
>> the hunters first then getting the Magnuson bombs to destroy the
>> striders. (or was that Strider Mountain?)
>>
>> As for your proposed Dell purchase it looks good as you are getting the
>> newest line of motherboard and CPU. I just upgraded a couple months ago
>> and went for an i7 950 cpu and Asus X58 Sabertooth MB, 6 gigs of DDR3
>> Ram, 1.5 gigs harddrive and ATI radeon 5850 graphics card. Man am I
>> happy, it seems to run 10 times faster than my Pentium 4 which was
>> getting pretty outdated.
>>
>> Regards Rene
>>
>
> That sounds a bargain, I would ditch the ATI Card asap but I am an Nvidia
> fan.
>
> Drop the radeon, and get a 460GTX
>
>
> That’s OK if the supplied card doesn't do what he needs at present.
> Personally I use both ATI and Nvidia cards , And find them both good, I am
> happy with both if in nearly the same price range.
>
>
> Regards, Rene
>
>
>
>
>

Civilian Target

Wow, I'm getting really sick of all these socket changes!
Bring back the good old days when you could pop out your Socket A Athlon
700 and replace it with a shiny new Socket A 2200XP for an instant powerup.

Since about 2006, don't think I've seen any socket format live longer
than 18 months

Civilian_Target

On 08/02/2011 15:15, Phat_Jethro wrote:
> On 2/4/2011 6:35 PM, Scott wrote:
>> Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
>> internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared
>> out about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it
>> again and it cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow
>> when working on any program.
>>
>> So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for $849.00.
>> PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
>> games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this
>> computer and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play
>> Lost Coast because the processor is too weak.)
>>
>> The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
>> 8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
>> 1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
>> half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
>> 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.
>>
>> Too good to be true? Should we get it?
>>
>> And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and
>> its great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of
>> me and Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me
>> from using the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?
>>
>> I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I
>> have to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of
>> Nightmarfe House from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!
>>
>>
>> Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.
> Sounds like it needs a Format \Re-install of Windows first of all. Then
> probably more RAM if it's still Win XP.
> Possibly a video card upgrade would fix up the gaming issue.
>
> As for new stuff, with Intel releasing the new Sandy Bridge line of
> CPU's making all old 1156 and 1366 sockets obsolete. The new 1155 socket
> (Sandy Bridge) is the latest and greatest and pricing is supposed to be
> very competitive.
>
>

Phat_Jethro

On 2/24/2011 10:53 PM, Civilian Target wrote:
> Wow, I'm getting really sick of all these socket changes!
> Bring back the good old days when you could pop out your Socket A Athlon
> 700 and replace it with a shiny new Socket A 2200XP for an instant powerup.
>
> Since about 2006, don't think I've seen any socket format live longer
> than 18 months
>
> Civilian_Target

Ah yes AMD had it right then. But right after that they got into the
Socket 939, 940, 941 switch every 6 months while Intel held steady.
Then AMD finally held the Socket AM2+\3 line for a while and Intel
started the Socket 775\1156\1366 dance.

J

>
> On 08/02/2011 15:15, Phat_Jethro wrote:
>> On 2/4/2011 6:35 PM, Scott wrote:
>>> Help! Wife's computer doesn't work so well. It boots and surfing the
>>> internet works fine. I ran a registery repair and it supposedly cleared
>>> out about 300 errors. Ran it again and it caught 120 errors. Ran it
>>> again and it cleared out 40 errors. But it still is extraordinarily slow
>>> when working on any program.
>>>
>>> So we are looking at a new computer. Dell Inspiron 8300 XPS for $849.00.
>>> PC Magazine says its a "tricked out workhorse." (She does email and card
>>> games.) But, I am thinking I might sneak my half-life games on this
>>> computer and boot her up to the Inspiron E1705 that I use (it won't play
>>> Lost Coast because the processor is too weak.)
>>>
>>> The 8300: 2nd generation Intel Core i5-2300 Processor;
>>> 8 GB DDR3 Memory!!
>>> 1 TB hard drive! (we wouldn't use 1/5th and it would be photos and my
>>> half-life mods.)(We're exciting people.)
>>> 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card.
>>>
>>> Too good to be true? Should we get it?
>>>
>>> And while I am asking for help, I am currently playing Episode two and
>>> its great, but I am at a level where there are Striders on the left of
>>> me and Striders on the right of me and little criters that prevent me
>>> from using the Magnuson bomb. Is this a soluable level?
>>>
>>> I got turned on to Episode Two when I tried to play Nightmare House. I
>>> have to load Episode Two to play Nightmare House. I learned of
>>> Nightmarfe House from Petri's postings so thank you Petri!
>>>
>>>
>>> Scott in Austin MN Thanks for your advice.
>> Sounds like it needs a Format \Re-install of Windows first of all. Then
>> probably more RAM if it's still Win XP.
>> Possibly a video card upgrade would fix up the gaming issue.
>>
>> As for new stuff, with Intel releasing the new Sandy Bridge line of
>> CPU's making all old 1156 and 1366 sockets obsolete. The new 1155 socket
>> (Sandy Bridge) is the latest and greatest and pricing is supposed to be
>> very competitive.
>>
>>
>


--
Jethro[AGHL] aka Phat_Jethro
Reply Email: jethro86 (at) gmail (dot) com

Civilian Target

On 25/02/2011 10:06, Phat_Jethro wrote:
> On 2/24/2011 10:53 PM, Civilian Target wrote:
>> Wow, I'm getting really sick of all these socket changes!
>> Bring back the good old days when you could pop out your Socket A Athlon
>> 700 and replace it with a shiny new Socket A 2200XP for an instant
>> powerup.
>>
>> Since about 2006, don't think I've seen any socket format live longer
>> than 18 months
>>
>> Civilian_Target
>
> Ah yes AMD had it right then. But right after that they got into the
> Socket 939, 940, 941 switch every 6 months while Intel held steady.
> Then AMD finally held the Socket AM2+\3 line for a while and Intel
> started the Socket 775\1156\1366 dance.

Yeah... lets hope it sticks for a while, I have an AM3

Civilian_Target