Could you please explain the many ways DDR3 speed ratings are stated?

If there were such a thing as post-traumatic stress disorder for weary veterans of OS wars, I’d have it. Frightening flashbacks of MS-DOS vs. CP/M... Windows 3.0 vs. Apple System 6... OS/2 vs. Windows NT... Windows vs. Mac again... then Linux vs. Windows vs. Mac. And that’s not counting the smaller conflicts that engaged OS-9, CP/M-86, AmigaDOS, and others too numerous to mention.

Now Google’s Chrome OS is challenging Windows? Please.

Look, I’ve railed at Microsoft as much as anyone, sometimes in these very pages. And my other computer is an iMac. But one thing I’ve learned is that a new OS needs a strategic advantage before it can defeat a deeply entrenched OS.

Continue reading after the jump!

Ninety percent of the time, when I attempt to turn on my PC it powers up for a second then immediately shuts down. The other 10 percent of the time, it boots but I get no video signal. I’ve had it looked at by a local shop, which tested each component individually (except the mobo) and found them working properly. I’ve done some troubleshooting myself and I’ve gone through the wire diagrams and everything seems to be plugged in right. However, it doesn’t sound like my hard drive is turning on. I was hoping you had some ideas before I try a new hard drive. I’ve already put in a new power supply but that didn’t change anything. Any ideas?

I have a Gateway P-7811FX gaming laptop. I was looking at getting a 37-inch 1080p LCD TV to hook up through the HDMI port to extend the monitor/play games/watch movies on. I found an external Blu-ray disc drive that hooks up through the USB port on the laptop. Will this setup give me good quality video to watch on the large TV? If not, any other suggestions?

It’s clear, though, after Nvidia’s recent GPU Technology Conference, that the company’s aspirations lie well beyond building graphics chips. That’s not a revelation – Nvidia’s been saying this for several years now. For an industry observer, though, the GPU Tech Conference lays out Nvidia’s model for moving beyond just graphics.

That model, ironically, is Intel.

Although many graphics professionals turn to Windows or Mac OS to execute their designs, Linux is far from helpless in this area. While it helps that Adobe Photoshop, the undisputed gold-standard program that most professionals use for raster graphics, runs on Linux through Wine, there are several native Linux programs that offer some of the same functionality. Furthermore, there are many free vector graphics programs that can produce infinitely scalable graphics much like what Adobe Illustrator can do. Aside from the software situation, there is no reason why Linux could not be just as effective with graphics applications as OS X and Windows, since Linux supports many peripherals like tablets out of the box with full plug-and-play support.

Are the Linux programs drop-in replacements for Photoshop and Illustrator? The answer could be either yes and no, depending on the way you look at it and what your needs are. If you compare the Linux alternatives to Photoshop/Illustrator feature-by-feature, the free open source tools will come up short by a significant margin and there is simply no way to get around that fact. If you actually need those features on a day-to-day basis, then you should get your wallet out and purchase Photoshop and/or Illustrator. However, if you can get by with less, the free open source software tools may be enough to get the job done and save you considerable money in the process.

I have an Acer L310 that runs Vista Home. Recently, I have only been able to start in Safe Mode. When I try to start in normal mode my monitor won’t work, but when I go with Safe Mode with Networking the monitor works. How can I get around this?

Read the answer to Terrence's question after the jump.

These days, netbooks have become a very popular alternative to conventional notebooks for mobile computing. Netbooks are lightweight, have great battery life, and are relatively inexpensive compared to full-sized notebooks. This makes them ideal for students or people on a budget. Of course, the lower cost and extended battery life does not come without a trade-off—many netbooks have lower system specs as well, which means that they are not designed for heavy-computing applications.

Although many netbooks now run Windows XP because of Microsoft's hurried entry into that market, many earlier models were built to run Linux. (For instance, the Asus Eee 700 Series ran Xandros, and the current models are offered with either Linux or Windows) And although most current netbooks are x86-based (running the Intel Atom CPU), the usage of ARM-based CPU chips is likely to increase in the future since ARM offers far superior energy efficiency over x86 and battery life has always been a major factor in mobile computing. ARM chips have been used successfully for some time in smartphones and music players, including the newest Zune HD. Since ARM is a different CPU architecture than x86, Windows will not work on ARM. Earlier this year, Microsoft's Steve Guggenheim said that the company currently has no plans to port Windows 7 to the ARM architecture. Therefore, any new wave of ARM-based netbooks will run Linux once again. Unlike Windows, most Linux distros can be compiled for ARM if you have the requisite skills for doing so.

Linux is an ideal choice for netbooks for multiple reasons in addition to CPU architecture. Netbooks generally have lower specs than most full-size notebooks (not to mention desktops) so they are ideal for lightweight applications like web browsing, document preparation, etc. Linux does these tasks very well without the bloat that Windows systems have to deal with from anti-malware utilities. This primer will help you set up and optimize Linux for your netbook.

In this week's episode, Will gives a recap of the keynote from Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference, where CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced their new Fermi GPU. The gang discusses the latest Google Wave beta, Nathan chimes in to talk about his hands-on with Thermaltake's wild Level 10 PC case, and we also tackle a bunch of listener questions. Gordon finishes off the podcast with another furious rant of the week. 

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

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What would be the best way (time efficient) to capture video from my DirecTV DVR to my PC? I don’t want to capture Hollywood movies—I can buy those. My interest is in capturing the near 100 hours of Brazilian Carnival on my DVR, then editing it down to a “best of” DVD or two. My PC has plenty of USB ports and free PCI-E and PCI expansion slots available.

Read the answer to Jeff's question after the jump.

Not many games let you turn your arm into a long steel blade and cut people in half—top half going this-a-way, bottom half going that-a-way. Even fewer let you turn your hands into giant claws to cut off your victims’ legs, too. And as far as we know, not one has ever let you run diagonally up the side of building, skitter over a collapsing fire escape, and take a leaping vault off the roof as your hand—now a 50-yard whip—tags a hovering ’copter and reels you toward the cockpit to the horror of the doomed pilots. Such is the awesome power you’ll wield in Prototype, Activision’s apocalyptic and wildly entertaining third-person action-adventure.

Events begin grimly, as Alex Mercer wakes up in a morgue. He quickly discovers that he’s become a nearly indestructible shape-shifter capable of creating weapons out of his flesh and disguising himself as anyone he consumes, among other interesting abilities—such as making giant spikes pop out of the ground to skewer his enemies. So, when the amnesiac Mercer wanders topside into a plague-ridden Manhattan and finds himself pursued by crazed pedestrians, the military, and genetic mutants, he doesn’t hesitate to break out the cutlery.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

How do I, at a reasonable cost, back up all of my data? Long ago, when hard drives were 40GB, 4.7GB DVDs were a reasonable means of backup. But now with multi-terabyte hard drives there doesn’t seem to be any reasonable backup method. Right now I’m using RAID 5 rather than backing up my data. I have a RAID with five 1TB drives in it and I’m relying on the redundancy as the backup. I looked into tape backup drives and found that the cheapest 800GB LTO-4 drive was $1,800 and the tapes run $50 each. As it turns out, I could build another system, put together a duplicate array and back up one to the other for less than the cost of the tape drive. Is there any such thing as affordable backup anymore? I can’t find anything. Blu-ray isn’t even affordable yet, and it’s already too small for backups.

Long ago, I came to the conclusion that The Sims was designed for Someone Else. I don’t know who. Hottentots, perhaps.

I played through The Sims 3 with awe, respect…and profound boredom. It’s a brilliant piece of work, and if God is kind I’ll never have to play it again this side of Purgatory.

Meanwhile, I’ve been returning to Prototype. I like Prototype. I also liked it when it was called Spider-Man 2 and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. If a game is worth playing once, it’s worth playing two more times with different character models.

Games are all about wish-fulfillment and power fantasies. Some people are content to wield their mighty power to get three gems in a row. Others would prefer to jump 10 stories in the air and punch a helicopter out of the sky. If you have the opportunity to do the latter, I have no idea why you’d choose to do the former, but people are strange.

Continue reading after the jump. 

It’s getting almost impossible to be a fully equipped techie. There’s always another new gadget threatening to leave you behind, even if you’ve already got a desktop PC, laptop, netbook, home WLAN, game console, e-book reader, smart phone, iPod, GPS, portable DVD, digicam, DSLR, HDTV, HD camcorder, Blu-ray, DVR, dish, and surround-sound home theater.

What’s next? Media phones.

Nope, they’re not smart phones. We’ve already got that. Media phones are next-gen landline phones tethered to broadband Internet service in a home or office. Typically, they have cordless handsets for voice calls and a fairly large (8-inch or so) touch screen. Built-in DSL or Wi-Fi provides fast, always-on Internet access. VoIP can provide cheap long-distance calling. Like conventional phones, media phones needn’t be booted or shut down.

Continue reading after the jump.

As the summer wanes, the days get shorter, and the wind starts hinting of fall, you’ll naturally ask, what’s hawt in curriculum this year? Forget sex ed and intelligent design, the latest educational brawl is copyright!

Curriculums are being shipped to thousands of schools across America to teach our children all about intellectual property—every lesson plan authored by a lobbying group or industry association. It’s even legally required now in California’s famously overfunded schools.

I’m pretty into this copyright thing, but I still try to drop by the real world on occasion, just to see how it’s going. In real life, schools are struggling with larger classes and fewer resources. Now, instead of music or art (or my favorite elective, ninjutsu), we’re going to have our overworked teachers inculcating children about one side or the other of the copyfight? Great.

Continue reading after the jump.

This week, we welcome regular Maximum PC contributor Loyd Case to the show to chat with Gordon and Will about IDF, the sassy new Radeon 5870, and Intel's first Larrabee showing. After a too-short trip to the lab, we jump straight into reader questions, before closing with another installment of Gordon's Rant of the Week. 

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

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My system keeps freezing. The cursor doesn’t move and Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn’t bring up Task Manager. The system won’t respond to anything. It either spontaneously reboots or I have to shut down manually. Checking the event log does not show any system errors. Is there another location for a system error log?

This system has a 1,600MHz bus-speed processor and memory. Intel does not have a single stick of compatible 1,600MHz RAM in its compatible memory list. I asked its tech support about this but have not received a response. How can a manufacturer claim to have a board with a 1,600MHz FSB yet not have compatible memory?

This build consists of an Intel DX48BT2 Extreme mobo, a QX9770 quad-core CPU, two XFX GeForce 9800 GPUs, two 2GB Corsair DDR2/1600 modules, and a Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W PSU, all running XP SP3. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Read our suggestions for Lucas after the jump.

To celebrate the launch of the new Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, we've partnered with Intel to give away a CyberPower gaming PC. Between 12:01AM PST on Friday, September 11th and 11:59PM on Friday, September 25th, you can enter the raffle for the prize by joining our Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/maximumpc). It's really that simple -- no essays, photos, or craft projects required. We'll draw a random entry after the contest deadline and one lucky winner will walk away with a new Lynnfield-powered PC!

Prize system specficiations and official rules after the jump! [Rules updated to include Canadians]

My 6-year-old computer is extremely slow and sometimes takes 20 minutes just to start up. The other day it caught a virus, which masqueraded as a firewall and installed itself onto my computer, changing the background to a picture that said I have spyware on my computer. I tried to open my virus-scan program (AOL) but it would not open. I have tried everything I can think of. I took out my hard drive so that it could not get to my files. Now, I have to use my son’s computer for emails. He is a big gamer so it’s really hard to get in the time to use it. Should I wait for Windows 7 to come out before getting a new computer?

Read the answer to Jim's question after the jump.

AMD’s graphics division, the former ATI Technologies, loves a good surprise. The company has been a perennial also-ran in the graphics performance arena, but every now and then, it one-ups the competition in a big way. That happened back in 2002, with the launch of the original Radeon 9700, which stole the performance lead from archrival Nvidia. It happened again last year, with the Radeon HD 4800 series. The 4850, 4870, and 4890 weren’t always faster than the competition, but they were small, efficient chips that forced Nvidia into a price war that was good for users but bad for Nvidia’s bottom line.

Now AMD’s doing it again, putting some serious hurt on the competition with the first GPU to support Microsoft’s upcoming DirectX 11 API. AMD’s also been paying close attention to the emerging market for non-gaming apps accelerated by GPUs, such as video transcoding and digital photography, fully supporting DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL standards for general purpose computing on graphics cards.

This new chip is no shrinking violet in the numbers department. Every number associated with the new Radeon 5800 series is staggering: 2.15 billion transistors, 2.7 trillion floating-point operations a second, more than 20 gigapixels per second throughput, 1,600 shader units. Other numbers impress because of their smallness. One example: The idle power is a scant 27W— lower than many entry level GPUs.

Given the sheer scale and ambition of this GPU, does it deliver in the performance realm? And will it deliver at a price normal humans can afford? Let’s find out.