Twice a year is fine. Do it more often if you smoke, have pets, or have the computer directly on carpet.

Yes. Nothing to worry about.

so I went and increased my security on my comp, i use gmail and messed around with the settings. i made a really hard security question, a password only for gmail, and the only way to reset (i think?) the password is via my cell phone number as i left alternative emails blank. i'm pretty much secure with my email now right and the only way to get in is gettin my password via key logger? I use malwarebytes weekly as well as online virus scan once in a while (virus protection 24/7 bogs down comp too much for my taste, clean freak like that) and windows firewall. everything seem good?

Anybody have an idea what is broken on my laptop and how much it will cost to repair? I will obv be contacting support at some point but I'm busy with finals ATM. Thanks in advance much love CTH.

Dilithium crystal?

Last time I saw a screen like that on my box it was the motherboard.

I hate firefox. Always ends up like this after 10 minutes with only a couple of tabs open. I have a new, but inexpensive laptop. Firefox lags it all up. Is this normal?

CHROME!

about:memory in Chrome gives you an good idea about the real usage.
On the other side, all browsers eat your memory pretty fast, the differences aren't that drastic between the browsers.

If I leave Chrome open for a day with about 20 tabs it does take more than 6gb of RAM and probably more if I had more than 8gb installed.

I've never seen Firefox (with 6 add-ons) go over 120MB. So you're doing it wrong.

I guess you don't have that many tabs open.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...5,2680-10.html

This is most certainly not normal. To give you an example I have had FF open with anywhere between 4-7 tabs open for about 6-7hrs now. It currently is using about 190MB including the plugin container.

I sounds to me like you have a plugin issue. Something is wrong causing it to use that much memory. The only time I have seen it up that high is when I have like 8 or so tabs of youtube open downloading videos at once.

Try disabling your addons one by one and see when there is a significant drop in memory usage.

Thanks. Turns out it was GreaseMonkey. Alls well now.

hey guys,
when im making videos on camtasia, it doesnt show my HUD when i play it back. the weird thing is when i get the finished video up, i can see my HUD. however when i click play it goes away and doesnt come back all video. i have changed my HEM settings to show HUD ontop of the table and that didnt work. i spoke to a friend who was having the same issue.
any help would be much appreciated!!!!!!!!

think i have worked this out.

how?

yea sorry should have said i guess.
i changed the captured frames per second from 15 to 30. im pretty sure it fixed the issue, made a 1min video and HUD seemed to be working for all of it.

Anyone know of another manufacturer other than Thermaltake that offers a computer case that has this "SATA docking station"?

http://www.thermaltake.com/product_i...+BlacX+Edition

I think the idea is great but I don't like how the HDD sticks upwards (also don't like the usb ports at the top). I'd think it'd be easy to break something or damage a port if you accidentally knocked the HDD while it was docked.

I swear I saw one over a month ago that has the same SATA dock on top but the HDD lies flat on the top of the case.


*EDIT*
Oops, I changed my google queries and found the case I stumbled on last month. It's the Coolermaster CM 690 II
http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6638

As you can see, this footprint seems safer.

These SATA docks are great for those of you with spare HDD's lying around. I'm definitely using it for my next workstation build.

Time to upgrade your RAM folks. Prices dropped very low and will remain very low until the end of the year.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20101018PD203.html

Can DDR3 1600 memory work with 1333 board?

the only difference between 1066 and 1333 is the clockspeed
getting good chips that can handle the overclock is one option, another would be to use a lower fsb/ram divider in the bios.

Macbuntu for 10.04. This is something I did for fun in a VM. It recreates OS X remarkably well. Some of the window management is slightly different and I think using the Apple logo on a Linux machine is a bit silly, but overall I'd give it an A-.

If only the 4gb dimms dropped to a reasonable price. I want like 2x4 but it's so damn expensive

Yeah, saw this on lifehacker. Tried it out for fun but had to use Ubuntu Tweak to get the buttons back on the right side.

Ordering a new desktop today, probably this guy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16883227234R

and I'm adding a 120g SSD hard drive. I play poker professionally, my HEM DB is about 55-60gigs. Should I be installing Windows 7, HEM, and PostgreSQL on the SSD? Anything else you would recommned?

^^^ I wouldn't recommend that machine. Unless you are an avid video gamer, you're wasting money on the graphics card. As for Win 7, HEM, and postgresql: yes, these should all go on the SSD and there are a couple of excellent drives in the 120GB range.