verso

Listen to Craftsman, he knows what he is talking about. Heh. And let me just point out (as Craftsman basically did) - that I have never owned a SB card in my life nor have I ever seen (or in this case heard) the card in action. So for all I know it could kick some serious ***. Heh. But I do know that they haven't gotten the overwhelming number of reviews that the Turtle Beach card has - and the Turtle Beach card has gotten excellent reviews at that! As for a 'good vendor' - go with NewEgg, really you can't go wrong. Not in my entire life have I ever heard a bad thing about NewEgg. NewEgg is kind of where everyone shops for their computers (if they want good service). Their customer service is the best. - Steven

Chris, Not bad! BFG NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT! That's a beast! Haha. Not too shabby! - Steven

From what I have heard, the SB Live card isn't too great. I actually asked a friend of mine who knows computers (he actually built mine) - and he said that the SB Live card isn't as good as the Turtle Beach 'Santa Cruz' sound card. "I have read what seems to be the pros and cons of the SB and the Turtle Beach cards on here, but I read on the Turtle beach site that their sound card is XP SP2 ready. Since I am kind of computer stupid at times, this information makes me think that other cards are either not XP SP 2 compatible or that XP would automatically have to go get additonal drivers to run the card." Interesting. I'm not sure whether or not some cards are incompatible with SP2. I don't think it really matters as SP2 is a nightmare in itself. Heh. I do know that the Turtle Beach 'Santa Cruz' sound card will work with SP1 and SP2 as I have used the sound card running both. The drivers are a snap to install (just run the CD - VERY easy). "That said, maybe that is all there is too it. I would be ok getting either brand of card. Then if that is the case, what is the best card I could get to run these speakers to their fullest capacity." I wouldn't get a SB Live. That's all I'm going to say. Heh. My friend, the one who built my computer for me - he knows computers in and out. And when he says something isn't of good quality I believe him. Also, look at NewEgg.com The Turtle Beach 'Santa Cruz' got a five-star rating out of 256 votes. Heh. And has 200 reviews. So, if I were you I'd get the Turtle Beach 'Santa Cruz' but you might want to take a look at some other sound cards as well. - Steven

Chris, Ah! Ok now this makes sense. I remember when I was looking at RAM I asked my friend what the difference was between PC2700 and PC3200. He told me that PC2700 would be fine and purchasing PC3200 would be a waste. I now know why! My motherboard only supports up to 333MHz, right? Thanks for clearing that up for me! Well, I love my computer! Heh. It may not be the best but it's pretty sweet. Specs: ANTEC Performance Plus Metallic Gray File Server Case with the side window (I know, everyone has these. Heh.) AMD Athlon XP 2700+ (2.17GHz) 1GB RAM (two sticks of Crucial 512MB) ASUS A7V8X-X motherboard NVIDIA GeForce FX5900XT video card Turtle Beach/Voyetra 'Santa Cruz' sound card Western Digital 80GB 72000RPM HD Samsung CDRW/DVD combo drive Mitsumi 3 1/2 Floppy I replaced the fans that came with the case though, and bought some quieter ones. Cooler Master ones that light up. Heh. Really I was only looking for fans that could generate enough air flow as the original fans and be a little quieter - but they light up orange too, so what the hell? Heh. My monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 172X LCD, not bad either. And now with my new Klipsch ProMedia 2.1's ! I wish I never had to leave my computer, lol! What are the specs of your computer? - Steven

Illthreat, Thanks for the reply! My processor is the same as yours I believe? It has a FSB of 333MHz (AMD Athlon XP 2700+) Not sure what the FSB of my RAM is though? It's Crucial 512MB - two sticks of it - when I purchased the components for this computer they were about $80 a stick. I have the ASUS "A7V8X-X" which has a FSB of (according to NewEgg) 333/266/200MHz. So does that mean it supports a processor and RAM with no more than 333MHz? So a processor with a FSB of 400MHz would not work with that motherboard? I'm still a little confused, so what determines the FSB? Is it set in the BIOS settings or something? Ah, I should do some Googling! - Steven

Ah, exactly Peter! But if you can afford it, and if you want it - then go ahead! Heh. - Steven

I booted up about an hour and a half ago. I'm running Windows XP. Physical Memory (K) Total: 1,048,096 Available: 780,288 System Cahce: 287,448 Works for me. Heh. When you talk about 'too much RAM', you're talking about more than you need. But with RAM it's different. It's like, being at a restaurant. You are hungry, you need food. Now, if you only have one plate of spaghetti in front of you - that's ok if you aren't THAT hungry. But if you are STARVING that might not be enough. Now if you have 20 plates of spaghetti in front of you - that is way too much - you'll never eat all of it. But does it matter? You eat as much as you need. This is like a computer, it eats as much as it needs - if there is more than it needs, so what? No big deal. It's only going to take what it needs.

Well I'm running 1GB of RAM on Windows XP and believe me it's efficient. Heh. I've never heard of 'too much RAM' - my friend has 2GB of RAM in his computer (granted he does artwork, makes movies, etc.) but I remember when he just built the computer and was playing around with it. He was like, "This is fast!" just opening folders, and every day programs. You can't have too much RAM, maybe in the respect that you have more than you need. But hey if you ever need to fire up a huge application - it'll be there! Heh.

William, You're right. You can speed up your computer greatly by disabling some unneccesary programs from starting up. But make sure you know what you are doing. This can be done in Windows XP and other Windows operating systems (I believe) by... Going to Start > Run > "msconfig" (without the quotes and hit enter) > Startup Simply uncheck the boxes of the programs you do not want to start up and hit apply. However this is more of a startup time thing, if you do not have enough RAM and your computer is slow than that is all there is to it really. But still a good tip, William! It does help to speed up the computer a bit if you have a lot of programs running at start up. Illthreat, You're right too. But more RAM is never really a bad idea. They put more RAM slots onto a motherboard for a reason. Heh. How do you determine the FSB? I think mine is 333MHz - I checked my motherboard's specs and it gave me this: "400/333/266/200MHz" - this is from the NewEgg websites under "FSB" of my motherboard. Hmmm. But still I'm not a fan of overclocking. To each his own, however! - Steven

LOTR is supposed to be a really good movie, but it's probably not my type. I've never seen it. The Shawshank Redemption, now that is a good movie! (My favorite!) Heh.

Greg, Actually, from what I am told even if you set the integer higher than 8 it will still only use 8. So good idea. I also created the new integer, 'nglayout.initialpaint.delay' and I didn't see a speed increase really but it didn't hurt either - so (shrugs). Heh. - Steven

Haha, that was a funny movie! "The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and..." "Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?" "Exactly." "Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?" "Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not 10. You see, most blokes are going to be playing at 10 - you're on 10 on your guitar, where can you go from there? Where?" "I don't know." "Nowhere! Exactly! What we do, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?" "You put it up to 11." "Eleven. Exactly. One louder." "Why don't you just make 10 louder, and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little louder?" (pause) "These go to 11..." Ahaha. That part cracked me up.

For $400, the EMU 1820 better kick some serious ***. Heh.

Not a problem, an excellent post - I would probably never have heard about this tweak had it not been posted on these forums. Thanks a lot! It really is a dramatic difference in speed. After some research, apparently the 'maxrequests' can only go up to 8. You can set a higher value but it will still only use 8. Whether this is true or not, I'm not sure but I've seen it posted on a few forums (after some Googling). My guess is that it is probably true. So feel free to set the value higher but if you want to play it safe 8 will do just fine. Trust me it will do just fine...Weeeeeee! Heh. - Steven

Thank you for the tip! But those instructions were not very clear so I revised them... ---- 1. Type about:config in the address bar and hit enter. 2. Scroll down to 'network.http.pipelining' and double click to change the value from 'false' to 'true'. 3. Change the value of 'network.http.pipelining.maxrequests' to an integer of (supposedly 100) but I'm not sure if I would go that high or not. I changed the integer from 4 to 8 and there was a drastic difference (a lot faster!) 4. Change the value of 'network.http.proxy.pipelining' from 'false' to 'true'. ---- Then the rest of the instructions were fine. I didn't create that new integer though, 'nglayout.initialpaint.delay' and it is still much faster. (shrugs) Excellent post though, thanks a lot! - Steven EDIT: I created the integer, I don't notice much of a difference without it - but hey it doesn't hurt. Tweaking the pipelining settings though works like a charm. Lightning fast!

Sorry, off topic again, I spoke with my father and we're going to follow the tutorial, with all of the materials used in the tutorial. My father says 16 gauge is fine - after all we only need about 10 feet per speaker. Thanks for the help guys! I'll let you know how our little project turns out! - Steven

Oops! I'm sorry! Yeah, getting back on topic...

Haha! Yeah I just figured while I was at it, purchasing the new 2.1's I'd get the better cable (Monster Cable) - but after some research about their lawsuits they filed - I don't think I'd like to buy their cables. But you're right I should have the set sitting in front of me first before I consider making my own speaker wire! lol. I know it will be a good system, so long as it works. Haven't you seen the reviews? Psh. Everyone loves them (once again, so long as they work lol). But everyone swears that the speaker wire included is not very good. Oh well. And yes, it was like 3am. lol. What can I say? Heh. I was busy watching The Grateful Dead - The Closing of Winterland DVD that my mother bought for me for Christmas. Ever see it? What an amazing show! They were definitely on that night, I have heard about 5 different versions of each of those songs and I swear the ones from the Closing of Winterland show are some of the best. Bah, well Merry Christmas everyone! I'm going to go take a shower and eat until I can eat no longer. Muahaha. - Steven

Interesting, Ah! Thanks everyone! ChoppedBroccoli, Rdmarsiii! Stupid question: The smaller the number gauge, the larger the wire? Or is it the other way around? 12g is larger than 16g - or is 16g larger than 12g ? I think I'll use the Radio Shack speaker wire I guess, I don't know what the difference would be between the Radio Shack speaker wire and the lamp wire... So basically you followed the tutorial, Chopped Broccolli? And made your own speaker cables that way? Did they work well for you? I'm sure they'll be better than the ones included in the package, and that is all that matters to me. - Steven

ChoppedBroccoli, You've done it! That is the tutorial I was looking for! Ah, I Googled just about everything and couldn't find it! (puts it in favorites). Thank you sooooo much! I think I'll have my father solder everything together for me, I'll watch to see how he does it for future reference. I've seen him solder before but I think I'd mess up. Heh. Do you think that these speaker wires will be reliable? I mean, making your own speaker wire seems a little - uhm - dear I say it? "Ghetto" - lol. Eh, on secound look at the tutorial it looks like the speaker wire will be cheaper making it yourself and just as reliable so long as you do not screw up. Should I use the Radio Shack speaker wire or maybe the 12g lamp wire? The 12g lamp wire is supposed to be cheap and from what Rdmarsiii tells me, PWK preferred it? And if it's good enough for him, well damn it's good enough for me! Heh. - Steven EDIT: I think I'll try to use the 12g lamp wire instead and see if the 1/8" plug from Radio Shack used in the tutorial will fit. Great tutorial. Thanks for the help, guys! Merry Christmas!

Well, he says that Radio Shack has dual RCA to 1/8" which is probably what I would need, or isn't it? I'm not sure I think I'll go with the lamp wire idea. 12g right? Is that too big/small for the PM 2.1 system? - Steven

Hey, I was talking to one of my friends who says that Radio Shack probably has exactly what I need. Something about 'dual to RCA' - any idea? I was thinking, maybe I could put one of these onto the back of each satellite? http://img.musiciansfriend.com/dbase/pics/products/33/335205.jpg And then get two of these cables... http://www.hosatech.com/hosa/images/CRA-400G.gif Then cut the heads off the last two heads and strip it to be able to connect them to the back of the subwoofer? Just an idea, probably a bit more expensive than making them myself - but it could take the guesswork out of it - you know? Heh. But according to him Radio Shack should have exactly what I need already premade. (shrugs) What do you guys think? - Steven

I certainly will! Thanks for all of your help, once again! I just Googled and I cannot find that tutorial. It was a perfect tutorial too. If anyone finds this tutorial, please link me - it was perfect. It involved some soldering I believe but it was an excellent tutorial. Stupid Monster Cable, now I need to go fishing for this tutorial again because of their stupid lawsuits. Heh. - Steven

Actually, he can solder! I wonder why I didn't think of that before. He does HVAC. When he's installing outdoor condesning units (I've seen him install one before), he has to solder the pipes that go from the house to the unit. Hm, guh I wish I could find that tutorial again, it showed how to make an awesome cable kit for the PR 2.1's but instead of the speaker wire they used I can probably use the lamp wire (it's better, right?) Will the solder reduce sound quality at all? I'd like for soldering to be avoided though, maybe the guys at Radio Shack will know which ones do not need to be soldered although I'm not quite sure how that'd work. I'll use the cables that come stock with the PM 2.1's for a while until I find that tutorial and get the materials together. I'm so excited, I'll probably pick up the speakers this week! - Steven

Hm, what would make a plug solderless? Would the person at radio shack know which ones are solderless and which ones are not? This sounds pretty simple so long as no soldering is required. But I'd also have to figure out which is positive and which is negative, right? Or the sound will sound a little off? And the wire going into the positive output on the back of the subwoofer would have to go to the positive part of the plug, right? And wire going from negative output on the back of the subwoofer would have to go to the negative part of the plug, right? How would I go about figuring which part of the plug is positive and which part is negative? Will they be marked? I bet not. Not if I have to take the casing off of it. You know my father would probably be able to help me with all of this, he's a smart guy and good at this kind of stuff. - Steven