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Thanks for the suggestions as to why Windows XP SP2 won't install on my
father's PC. From further investigation it appears an outdated BIOS is the
problem. Microsoft recommend downloading an updated BIOS. Problem is, the
BIOS for the Asus CUA was last updated in 2002 and my father's PC is already
flashed with the latest version (1007).

I'm trying to steer him towards buying a new PC anyway. One of those cheap
Dell boxes from the Warehouse look ideal as his current PC is struggling a
bit with his favourite software - flight sim, train sim, Office 2003,
Paintshop Pro, MS Publisher & some scanning apps.

Any idea what the graphics capabilities are in these things? Is there are
spare AGP slot so I can throw in a better card for him later on down the
track (I'm about to retire my old GF4 ti4200 for a shiny new model)? Does it
have USB 2 ports - he does a fair bit of scanning and his scanner is USB 2
so I figure, this will give him a bit of a speed boost.

Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

Whosamawotsit wrote:
> Any idea what the graphics capabilities are in these things? Is there are
> spare AGP slot so I can throw in a better card for him later on down the
> track (I'm about to retire my old GF4 ti4200 for a shiny new model)? Does it
> have USB 2 ports - he does a fair bit of scanning and his scanner is USB 2
> so I figure, this will give him a bit of a speed boost.
>
> Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

The $1000 dells have no AGP port, the $1200 ones did last time I checked.
they have 8 USB ports(USB2) when I had a look a few weeks back.

--
Dave Hall
http://www.dave.net.nz

Whosamawotsit wrote:

> Thanks for the suggestions as to why Windows XP SP2 won't install on my
> father's PC. From further investigation it appears an outdated BIOS is the
> problem. Microsoft recommend downloading an updated BIOS. Problem is, the
> BIOS for the Asus CUA was last updated in 2002 and my father's PC is
> already flashed with the latest version (1007).

Why do you insist on installing SP2?
Wouldn't just plain XP or XP-SP1 be good enough?

"Harry" <> wrote in message
news:...

> Why do you insist on installing SP2?
> Wouldn't just plain XP or XP-SP1 be good enough?

Because its my father's PC and he asked me to. He's a stickler for keeping
things up to date security-wise after the iloveyou virus wiped out about 1GB
of scanned old photographs while back. He's read about new viruses that can
lurk in Jpeg files, read about XP SP2 not being affected and has put 2 and 2
together and decided he needs to install SP2. Mine is not to reason why etc
etc

He's 78 years old and the more automated I can make things for him (e.g.
automatic XP updates, auto live update for Nortons, scheduled backups etc)
then the less I have to go around and do these chores for him.

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:17:07 +1200, Whosamawotsit wrote:

> He's a stickler for keeping
> things up to date security-wise after the iloveyou virus wiped out about 1GB
> of scanned old photographs while back.

Good job he had a hard copy backup eh?

Does your Father know about backups?

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:09:41 +1200, "Whosamawotsit" <> wrote:

>Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

Keep an eye out for the Dell flyers major newspapers (e.g. The Press), or on
their www site. They sometimes have better direct deals than The Warehouse one.

This is an entry level PC.
It has 6 USB2 ports on the rear and two on the front.
However it has NO AGP port at all.
It only has two memory slots so is limited for expandabilty & speed + coming
with 256Mb is a bit small for XP.
It doesn't have the mounting bracket for a second hard drive and has no
floppy drive or bracket to mount an fdd.

That is why I got my son a 4600 and purchased the fdd assy.
It has 4 memory slots & installing in pairs you get greater memory access
speed.
It has AGP slot so he can use a real graphics card so games like sims2 can
run properly.
It had a bracket to mount his old 'D' hard drive into it.

"Whosamawotsit" <> wrote in message
news:LLJ5d.5503$...
> Thanks for the suggestions as to why Windows XP SP2 won't install on my
> father's PC. From further investigation it appears an outdated BIOS is the
> problem. Microsoft recommend downloading an updated BIOS. Problem is, the
> BIOS for the Asus CUA was last updated in 2002 and my father's PC is
already
> flashed with the latest version (1007).
>
> I'm trying to steer him towards buying a new PC anyway. One of those cheap
> Dell boxes from the Warehouse look ideal as his current PC is struggling a
> bit with his favourite software - flight sim, train sim, Office 2003,
> Paintshop Pro, MS Publisher & some scanning apps.
>
> Any idea what the graphics capabilities are in these things? Is there are
> spare AGP slot so I can throw in a better card for him later on down the
> track (I'm about to retire my old GF4 ti4200 for a shiny new model)? Does
it
> have USB 2 ports - he does a fair bit of scanning and his scanner is USB 2
> so I figure, this will give him a bit of a speed boost.
>
> Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.
>
>