Thanks Kayak. You have described exactly what is happening. Another variant of Hutber's law I fear: Better is worse.

Just before going on hols I ran Registry Booster and in particular its registry defrag facility.

I'd been getting somewhat annoyed at the speed of my laptop and was putting it down to a mix of AVG and Diskeeper.

I was astounded at how much faster the machine ran after using Registry Booster.

Uniblue are now trying to get me to buy http://driveragent.com/

As Uniblue have impressed me with Registry Booster I am tempted. Has anyone ever tried Driveragent?

TP

HI people :>)
OK -wireless.....and routers.
3 specific questions if anyone can help.
Firstly as routers are a whole new ball game for me can someone confirm for me that the firewalls on them are purely to stop others gaining access to your wireless service and wont conflict or interfer with the firewall etc I have on individual computers?

Secondly following on from that can someone confirm that it (firewall on router) wont block stuff coming down the broadband line, thinking of s/b platform etc where its a 2 way flow, info in and info out?

Thirdly I have read some horrific stories of set up nightmares, I've been recommended to get the following router Netgear DG834PN Rangemax MIMO -G ADSL 2/2 + modem router - I want to hard wire a couple of computers as well as use the wireless side, want a firewall etc BUT the comments I have read make it sound incredibly techie to set up - so has anyone used this one and how complex is the set-up for someone not totally IT illiteral but hardly very technical!

Thanks!

Stockbunny

The firewall on the router is in addition to that on the individual computers. And will not interact with them.

Normally a firewall only stops incomming traffic, but they can be configurd to stop all (not very usefull) or selected outgoing traffic. If you have created any special rules on the computer firewalls, you may have to duplicate them on the router but this is not often required as the router will not stop anything at program level as some Software systems attempt to.

If any software needs any special access then it is easy to create a rule to allow it. But in most cases you will not have to.

I've not used the router that you mention, but in my experience the Netgear ones are normally amongst the best (bear in mind that all home kit is built down to a price) and easiest to setup.

Start by getting your wired network going, then your ADSL and then your wireless. Make sure you change the deffault passwords and use WPA-PSK encryption for the WiFi.

Edit

If you have used internet conection sharing on any computer that you willuse on the network, you must first make sure that the DHCP server is dissabled.

Thanks Optimist, very helpful and thanks for using 'layperson' and not techie-babble makes it easier for me to understand - cheers :>)))

Got an Acer Aspire T135, AMD Sempron 1.5gb memory with Radeon 9600 128mb AGPx8 and PCI Radeon 9250 128mb 200gb HD, and 3 monitors, plus the rest

Basically I am looking at buying a new PC Base unit, but it needs to be fast enough to play games and still allow me to trade online, between 300-500

At the moment when I try to playing games etc, all my monitors crash so think it must be the to slow as everything is upto date,

or if I can get a graphics card which can handle 2 monitors with DVI with one?

i take it the graphics is AGP,my boy has THIS ONE
i think these old AGP are hard to get nowdays,we play on STEAM CCS everyday and this card does the trick,
for a good gaming unit i think a little more money is need,
this is a top spec gamer unit from overclockers
so maybe a new graphics could be better

Scussy thanks ;-)

Got 1 agpx8 and 1 pci grahics card which should allow 4 monitors but 3 is enough at the moment

how do I find out if the AGP DDR2 memory on the grahics card, will work, with my system as it only uses DDR memory

yes it will work as the graphics mem is seperate from main,DDR3 is the better one,
just a quick look and found this better for money card
that other card was b grade,maybe not best to get that one,

you cab readf the reviews HERE
to run this sort of graphics you need a good 500w power supply min

Scussy ;-)

The Pci card is a Sappire ati radeon 9250 128mb, did wonder if this could be the reason games crash etc, does it really matter what the brand is so long as its ATI/Nvida chip set?

does not matter what brand you go for,i just look for value for money at the time,

have a look HERE and TOM will tell all much better then me,
the bigger and better graphics need a good power supply,as TOM will say,
this is the joy (er NOT) with up grading,i have done this a couple of times and then
said i should have just got a new all singing and dancing one to last the next 5 years,
if you need a new graphics card,then a power supply to run it,thats 180 for them,
then will the cpu be ok or do i need a faster one,
i think the answer could be keep the PC for the basics,and get a gaming pc,

scussy, thanks

Got a machine in the other room which plays games great but it gets lonely in there ;-)

The one I am using now is only a year old, thought if I uograded this one then I wouldnt feel I was been sent to coventry ;-)

Can someone please advise, I use BT's yahoo browser with tabs, when I have several tabs open and say i refresh one tab then move to another it keeps taking me back to the tab which is refreshing, until it has updated. This only happens on some sites and others will refresh in the background allowing me to continue viewing the page/tab i have since moved to. My question is can this be altered with a setting in the browser or is it down to the writers of the website which keep their page to the forefront while refreshing?

rich, saverstore have a sale by the looks of it,

http://www.saverstore.com/products/computers/computers/
some for 500 look sim spec to what i got and i paid 1500 to get it biult 2 years ago,
THIS ONE LOOKS GOOD for the money,i dont think it comes with a screen,

I'm sticking with my abacus.
My (very expensive) experience is that an upgrade merely means getting rid of all the old bugs I've learned to live with and replacing them with new updated superbugs.

Run-time error. Please bang any key with your forehead to continue.

scussy, nice thanks ;-)

Ok update - the bunny's gone wireless - managed to set it up, 2 hardwired and 1 laptop, get it working and secure - only took 5 1/2 hours, mainly due to son's laptop being new and MSVista!
Vista as far as I can see is a pain, existing discs - ISP etc - wont work, had to go to ISP site and get Vista versions and that took time. So in short if I can manage a Netgear anyone can LOL but I will say it was a case of following instincts more then instructions as frankly they are 'woolly' and not as expected having installed DSL external modems etc. So the instructions could do with being revamped to stop people being put off that its harder then it really is.

Stockbunny

I'm glad that you've got it sorted. However, you have probably gone the long way round. One of the many advantages of using an ADSL router is that your computers only have to connect to the network which all versions of windows do (almost) automatically. You should not have to install anything from your ISP unless they are one of the very few that insist that everything goes through their proxy server. If that is the case, change your ISP.

In my experience, you are better off uninstalling any software that your ISP provides. In most cases, it's main function is to get you to look at their adverts.

Govnor

It's an Internet Explorer bug as far as I can see. The content on certain webpages triggers the tab to steal focus. Try Firefox, or even better Opera which pioneered tabbed browsing.

How can i put a photo of myself which is on my AOL profile, as my buddy icon which shows up when i IM or use a AOL message board.