It’s very easy to fix although it does entail going into the registry and changing one or two things.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321186

I gave up on my work and just wiped it out and reinstalled Windows.  I’m hoping to start this post and get feedback from anyone who has gotten stuck on this and found an actual solution.  I know there are others out there who are probably going to come across this and if we can all put our heads together to find a solution, that’s the best part of it all.

It seems to possibly be related to removing spyware and viruses but don’t quote me on that.  It could also very well be related to registry permissions.  If that’s the case, we have to figure out which registry key or keys are being affected.

Here’s to finding a solution!

So, here’s a nice guide on how to fix this problem by telling Kaspersky to not look at the network traffic that Newsleecher is using.

http://news.metaparadigma.de/?p=497

So far, so good.  Like I said, it’s a great piece of hardware, very well built.  I’m afraid of getting the outer casing scratched.  I’m definitely going to invest in Apple Care and a nice case to go along with it.  I’m also going to pick up iWorks 08 on my next pay day.  That seems to be a better value than going with Microsoft Office 2008.  I have read the reviews and it seems Office 2008 for Mac just plain out right sucks.

I’ll keep you posted and will update this post with pictures of the new hardware.

I started to have issues when I connected external hard drives to my machine.  I noticed the drive would sound as though they were failing.  But I soon realized that they weren’t receiving enough juice.  I would plug them into my second bench and they would turn on without any problems.  The hard drives would be recognized right away.

I really thought my motherboard was going bad.  I thought to myself, what else could it be?  I went into the BIOS to check the voltages and sure enough, the 3.3 and the 5v voltages were way off.  However, checking through the BIOS is not the best way to do it but my problems were consistent with voltage/power issues.  Therefore, I figured it out that I needed a new power supply.

I went and bought another Antec.  You may be thinking, “Why did this guy buy another Antec?  His Antec TruePower 2 just died on him,” well that’s true but the Antec that I bought is made much better.

I purchased the Antec Earthwatts 500.  It’s a solidly built power supply and is supposedly a lot quieter than most although I have no problem with audible power supplies.

So far so good.  I’ve been using it with no problems.  No more power dips or issues.  Let’s cross our fingers that this is a permanent solution.

Some of the features that IE8 brings to the table are:

Accelerators From the Microsoft website, it says: accelerators let you efficiently complete your everyday browsing activities like mapping directions, translating words, emailing your friends, and more in just a few mouse clicks.

Simply put.  Amazing.  I noticed that you can now type in something into the search bar and upon hovering over the search bar, several options will appear.  This is something that I had hoped for but did not even think of.  It is a great addition and I can only say great things about IE8 Beta 2 so far.

However, there is a lot of work to do.  A LOT.  There are still many CSS bugs even though they claim to be standards compliant.  I will keep this post updated with any new news that I can find.

There are a few main series of laptops that are being affected by this extended warranty.

Dell Product Name
Dell Precision M2300	Latitude D630	Vostro Notebook 1400
Dell Precision M4300	Latitude D630c	Vostro Notebook 1510
Dell Precision M65	Latitude D820	Vostro Notebook 1710
Inspiron 1420	Latitude D830	XPS M1330
Latitude D620	Vostro Notebook 1310	XPS M1530

If you’ve any of the above listed laptops, stick around to find out more.  It appears that Dell is in its infancy stages with setting this program up.  If you need more info. feel free to check out their direct2dell blog.

It appears that nVidia’s head honcho has confirmed why the chips are failing.  Like I mentioned, there are solder points on the video card which hold it in place on the motherboard.  Apparently the unit gets so hot the solder points melt and they lift off of the motherboard.  In doing so, it no longer makes proper contact, thus, the display of the laptop no longer works properly.

Here is a picture of an nVidia 9800GTX.  The card is as long as the box is!

If you plan on buying one of these, make sure you have:

A very beefy power supply Something along the lines of 500-600W and up.  You will have to make sure there are two (possibly even four) 6-pin power adapters for your video card.  This 9800GTX pictured here takes 2×6-pin PCI-E power connectors.

An extremely beefy/full sized ATX case If your case is rather old and you had maybe an nVidia 6800GT or maybe even something older than that, then you SHOULD upgrade your case as well as power supply alongside your new video card.  Maybe perhaps an Antec P182 will do well although I hear that it barely fits all of the cards along with the SATA cables.  Do your research before you buy!

I witnessed a lot of the problems first hand with the HP notebooks that I reported about earlier.  This is a very widespread problems and is going to cost nVidia a lot of money to fix the situation.

I originally purchased the first nVidia nForce 1 chipset motherboard for my I believe it was a T-Bird AMD processor.  This thing was amazing.  It has an onboard Geforce MX video card and onboard SoundForce (I think it was called this) sound.  Every single computer that I’ve personally build has had an nVidia based chipset.  That’s how loyal I am to this company.  So it definitely saddens me to hear that they may be leaving the business of motherboard chipsets.

I don’t blame them though.  Could you imagine having to sort through hundreds of thousands of problems related to problematic chipsets?  That would definitely suck.  I can see how HP or Dell or whichever else OEM used these chipsets in their notebooks would be upset.  The blowback from the consumers is and will be harsh.

You can read more about the possible exit here.