Posted 11/14/2008 at 12:30:11pm

In contrast to the broad scope of past Civilization games, this beautiful remake of 1994’s Sid Meier’s Colonization focuses on a specific period of time in a specific part of the globe—namely the Colonial era (1492-1796) in the New World. As the leader of a European nation’s colonization effort, you must battle other European countries and Native Americans for control of the continent’s resources, build a trade empire, and eventually wage a war of independence against your home country to found a new nation.

More after the jump!

Posted 11/11/2008 at 02:00:53pm

I built my computer about a month ago—it’s nothing special. I’m running an Intel Pentium D 820 on an Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard. For a videocard, I’m rocking a BFG 9800 GTX.

I stumbled upon the System Information at the bottom-left corner of the Nvidia Control Panel recently. When I clicked it, I took note of the plethora of information on the 9800 GTX. What caught my eye was the very last line: BUS: PCI Express x4. That seems off, given that my card uses an x16 interface. What gives?

—Juan Campos

Check out Juan's answer, after the jump!

Posted 11/10/2008 at 06:45:44pm

How far can I safely overclock a CPU if I’m using a stock cooler? I was building a budget rig and when I had money left over, I decided to upgrade from a high-end Athlon 64 to a really low-end 2.2GHz Phenom. I want to up the performance, even by a tiny bit, but I’m hesitant to do it with a stock cooler. Please help!

Posted 11/10/2008 at 01:40:11pm

My Tagan TG900-U96 Turbojet 900-watt PSU recently burned out. I returned it, but it was no longer being supported through the third-party vendor I got it from. The vendor sent me an Apevia Warlock 900-watt PSU to replace my Tagan. I swapped it out, but now when I turn on the computer it won’t boot all the way. I get power lights, and the keyboard and mouse light up, but the monitor never kicks on, nor do the other connected peripherals (external Zip drive, printer, and scanner).
What could be going wrong with my computer? I never had this happen with the Tagan. Could something have been corrupted when the original PSU died?

Posted 11/10/2008 at 11:00:00am

A couple weeks ago I received a Dell Inspiron 6400 from a friend of mine. I was told that he used Windex directly on the screen, which dripped into the bottom of the LCD (between the screen and the housing). It now has a small, permanent “white fire” pattern on the bottom-center of the LCD screen. It appears not to be a physical effect, as I cannot see it when the laptop is off, but I can see it even when the backlight is turned off.
What should I do to fix my display?

Posted 11/07/2008 at 03:45:04pm

I finally took the plunge and built my own rig. Everything worked fine until I plugged my Boston Acoustic Digital BA735 speakers into my EVGA 680i motherboard’s onboard outputs: Nothing happened. I received no sound at all. I tried the same speakers with a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer card and got the same result: zilch. Am I missing something here?

The answer to Rich's question, after the jump!