I had a problem with the speed on my Intel motherboard so I went into the BIOS and reset the RAM speed to 800MHz. On restart, I got three beeps, which signals a RAM failure or RAM not recognized on my board. Is there a way to reload the BIOS? I have tried resetting the CMOS by pulling out the battery but I still get three beeps with no POST. I even used the ISO method to create a BIOS disk image for a boot-from-disk, but the board still does the same thing.

I get nothing. No HDD light, no monitor. I even pulled the RAM and replaced it, and still nothing. The system is only six weeks old and it’s built on an Intel DQ963FX, Pentium E2200, Nvidia 9400 GT, 4GB of Kingston 1GB DIMMs, and a 650 watt power supply.

I have an Acer Aspire 5100 with a Phoenix BIOS. It came with an AMD Turion 64 single-core processor; I decided to upgrade to an AMD Turion 64X2 TL-64 dual-core processor. The computer recognizes everything but the processor model: In Device Manager it says “AMD processor model unknown.” The computer recognizes both cores of the CPU and gives the correct clock speed. How do I get my computer to recognize the processor model?

See our answer to Kevin's question after the jump.

I just got a new computer (64-bit Vista) with a 1TB hard drive. It has only one partition, the factory image. Is there any way to add another partition to this drive without installing Windows again?

Read our answer to Kevin's question after the jump.

I built a home theater PC from scratch a while back. It has an Intel D945GCZLR motherboard with a Pentium D 925, a passively cooled GeForce 6600, and an Avermedia PCI-e Combo TV Tuner, all inside an Evercase ECE1341 case. I went with the best BTX CPU cooler I could find: the Thermaltake CL-P0191. This thing sounds like a lawn mower.

Even with plenty of airflow into the case and plenty of room in every direction on my entertainment system, the cooler is far louder than the 14-28dBA its marketing materials claim. I have already replaced the cooler’s fan once, but the new one was just as loud.

What can I do to quiet this thing down? Would upgrading to a cooler Core 2 Duo or Quad make a difference? What about upgrading to an actively cooled GPU? Even stock ATX coolers are cooler than this thing—can I just use one of those?

Read our advice for Frank after the jump.