Posted 09/22/09 at 04:00:00 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I tried to install a Philips webcam made for XP on my Dell Inspiron 640m running Vista Home Premium. It corrupted one of my boot files. I had to get a replacement Vista disc sent from Microsoft after I discovered that using a friend’s Vista disc gave me only 30 days of use (Microsoft customer service was awesome—no joke!). Anyway, I thought all my programs and files had been wiped, but a month or so later I noticed that the hard drive was almost full. I checked the C: drive and, low and behold, all my old files and programs were in a folder called “Old Windows.” How do I get those reinstalled to their rightful place?

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Posted 09/21/09 at 02:15:56 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I’m building a new rig using Windows Vista. I thought I’d try the 64-bit version since all the bugs and such should be gone by now. Everything went fine until I attempted to install a wireless adapter in the PCI slot. Much to my surprise, I can’t find an adapter that’s compatible with the 64-bit version. I’ve found many sites that claim to sell 64-bit wireless adapters, but when I check the details of the specs they all say 32-bit compatible. Am I missing something or do they not exist? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Posted 09/18/09 at 01:05:28 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

What determines whether the RAM on an i7 mother-board runs as dual- or tri-channel memory? Is there a difference between RAM sticks, or is the only difference in how they are placed in the motherboard slots?

The Dell XPS desktops that have Core i7 can run as dual-channel when they have DIMMs in four slots, with 4GB or 8GB RAM. The same machine can run as tri-channel with DIMMs in three slots for a total of 3GB, or in six slots for a total of 6GB or 12GB (though I don’t know who needs 12GB of RAM.)

Could the same 2GB sticks be used in dual- or tri-channel machines depending only on how they are placed in the slots?

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Posted 09/17/09 at 04:00:36 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I feel silly asking such a simple question—I can build a computer blindfolded, but from time to time I shock myself at the little things I haven’t learned: If I buy a USB-powered headset and install a Sound Blaster card on my motherboard, will my headset take advantage of the soundcard even though it’s plugged into a USB port (and not directly into the card)?

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Posted 09/16/09 at 04:30:34 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

Over the last four months, I have noticed a drastic drop in my computer’s ability to run games. I have Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: World at War, both of which ran perfectly at 1400x900 with all settings at max or medium. But when I go to play them now, I experience momentary freezes, which I can “fix” with Ctrl-Alt-Del and then hitting Cancel (32-bit Vista Ultimate). But eventually, while playing the game, there will come a point where it just freezes the entire computer and blue screens. There are also many artifacts within the game, as well as other rendering problems. Now I have to play the games on the absolute lowest settings to delay the inevitable crash, which helps a little. Once rebooted, Vista will report either a fault from my graphics card—an Nvidia 7900 GT—or an unknown error. I have updated all my drivers, defragmented my hard drives, and re-installed the game. What’s going on here?

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Posted 09/14/09 at 02:10:46 PM by Dan Stapleton

By now, when people think of The Sims franchise, they think of a virtual dollhouse in which you guide little idiot people through the mundane details of their lives rather than living your own.

That reputation is both well-deserved and unjust. Now in its third iteration, you still have to worry about getting your Sims to a bathroom before they wet themselves. On the other hand, it can be so addictive that it often feels like there’s someone watching you on his PC monitor, selecting you, then clicking on your computer and choosing “Keep playing The Sims 3” from your radial menu. If you’re lucky, he’ll let you go to the bathroom.

Fundamentally, The Sims 3 is a very similar game to its predecessors: You juggle the needs and wants of a family of Sims to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise. What has changed is the revolutionary increase in scale. Previous Sims games locked you into a single lot, and if you wanted to take your Sims elsewhere you’d have to sit through an epic-length loading screen. The Sims 3 loads an entire town, which both frees your Sims to stroll down the street or drive across town, and expands the number of characters living in the world at once from a handful to dozens, simulating an entire community. The ability to quickly zoom out and view the whole area alone puts this version head and shoulders above The Sims 1 and 2.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 09/09/09 at 08:00:14 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I have 32-bit Vista installed on my system and have had it since it was released back in ’07. Each day when I start up, I sit and watch the cursor spin and watch the task bar fill. Every time I think it’s ready to go, it loads more programs. Is there some sort of graphical bar or gauge that can be loaded onto the desktop at logon that will show all of my background services loading, so I can tell at a glance whether my computer is actually ready to go? Windows 7 beta still offers NO progress bar/gauge to indicate when all background services are finished loading. I have used Sabayon Linux in the past and it did have a progress bar before the desktop had even appeared. This has really been a pain in my “mouse click,” so if you can help with this I would really appreciate it.

Read on to see the answer to Ray's question.

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Posted 09/09/09 at 12:45:27 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Most people’s first experience with the Japanese spice called wasabi teaches them to never approach it again. It would be a shame if folks were similarly averse to Dell’s Wasabi PZ310 printer, which offers fun, spontaneous, albeit tiny, prints.

For the most part, the Wasabi is a kissing cousin of the Polaroid PoGo printer that we reviewed in the July 2008 issue. Both printers use Zink’s zero-ink technology. A thermal head heats up crystals embedded in the paper itself. Send a photo to the Wasabi, and a minute later, a 2x3-inch print pops out. A light adhesive on the back of each print lets you then plaster the image of your family, friends, or pet to any object that deserves to be cute-ified.

The Wasabi uses a slightly smaller power brick than the PoGo and adds a button to reprint the last pic. We found image quality to be similar to that of the Polaroid PoGo. We can say that, as with the PoGo, output from the Wasabi is not particularly sharp or colorful, and is occasionally splotchy. These aren’t exactly the words you look for in association with a photo printer, but the primary draw of the Wasabi and its ilk is the fun factor.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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