The Mother Board

In order of performance, from best to worst, among DirectX9 PCI cards:

GeForce 5700LE
GeForce 5500
Radeon 9200
GeForce 5200
Radeon 9250

Try to set static IP, i.e. give it some address in the subnet of the router, configure the mask (prolly 255.255.255.0) and set the router as the default gateway.

Try to disable simple file sharing, if it's enabled (My Computer -> Tools -> Folder Options -> View (at the bottom)).

I'm thinking that the P4 2.8 might bottleneck the 7800GS, preventing it from showing its full potential. Thus it will not be much better than 6800GS. At least not to justify the price difference.

The problem with onboard audio is that you cannot have the ports on the back and on the front active at the same time. If you want to connect something to the front ports, the back ports are dead. But that's the weird thing. I have normal speakers connected to the line-out port in the back coming f...

Also, the sound card will not "override" your on-board sound until you go into the BIOS and disable on-board sound, which you want to do to avoid IRQ, or any other conflicts. 8) Actually, Windows by default will prefer the PCI card. I haven't seen any case where two audio devices created conflicts ...

Tangible Demise wrote:Or... I could always make the laptop ultra-huge and include a full fan/heatsink... just kidding!

Such laptops do exist. Some manufacturers use Mobile Pentium 4 CPUs which forces them to include heavy cooling devices.

Ok then, how about a single core P4 Prescott? Socket 478? Would THAT need to be re-programmed (in the BIOS I mean) to use? While both are Socket 478, the laptop and desktop Socket 478 are incompatible. You cannot put a desktop CPU in a laptop. There are a few boards that allow you to do the opposit...

Ok, thanks for all the advice. I still have the one question, if I buy a sound card will my microphone and headphone jacks on the front of the computer still work or not? I like having a headphone and mic jack in the front, but I don't want to put in a sound card and have it make them useless. :( T...

At a price of $1709 OY! It is a smaller model though, and probably very light weight. It weighs in at 3.1lbs, so it's very lightweight...It's an UltraPortable... Jason The IBM T-series is not an ultraportable, the X-series is (12.1"). But the 14" T-series is very portable. The problem with IBM is t...