MaximumPC 2007 04

Continued from page 51

Ask the Doctor

52 MAXIMUMPC APRIL 2007

how 2 IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE, ONE STEP AT A TIME

having to reinstall Windows.

I was thinking of buying a Neo3 board with a

Core 2 Duo processor and replacing my existing

motherboard and processor, using all the same

memory, peripherals, etc. The only difference in

the new system would be that it would have the

Neo3 board with the Core 2 Duo processor.

My question: What are the chances that the

Neo3/Core 2 Duo system would need a reinstalla-

tion of Windows, and is there a way of making the

change without getting the BSOD?

—Pete Mac

You actually stand a very good chance of

transferring your system over without having

to reinstall Windows. Although this method is

not recommended, it works for many people

nonetheless. The Doc doubts that the BIOS

issue would impact a reinstall and knows

people who have successfully migrated from

one CPU/chipset platform to another without

any complaints.

You may have an issue with XP activation.

If you are running a full retail version of the OS,

transferring the activation will not be an issue. If

you are running an OEM version, there is a small

chance that Microsoft will deny the activation.

If that happens, all isn’t lost. OEM copies of

the OS are tied to the motherboard. When the

motherboard dies, the OS is supposed to die as

well. Just tell the guy on the phone that you’re

replacing faulty hardware, not upgrading.

JUST GOTTA GAME

I am a poor college student, and I thrive on playing

old PC games. In particular, I like to play Deus Ex.

The problem I have is the game spontaneously

changes the speed at which it runs. I played it on

an older computer and it ran fine; the problem

occurs when I run it on my laptop. The video usu-

ally runs faster, but it sometimes runs at normal

speed. For instance, sometimes the text on the

screen scrolls faster, but the audio plays at the

normal speed. The characters also run faster and

perform actions faster, but the most annoying part

is the spontaneous changes and the audio cutting

out early. I’m trying to run it on a Dell Inspiron

5150 with Windows XP Pro.

—Ross Sermersheim

It sounds like your problem might be related

to Intel’s SpeedStep technology, which auto-

matically shifts your CPU speed up or down to

conserve power. To disable SpeedStep, open your

Power control panel and switch the power pro-

file to Home/Office Desk or Always On. That will

disable SpeedStep.

WHICH WINDOWS?

I recently put together a new computer with

Windows XP. When I moved my old hard drive over

to the new case, I somehow got two versions of

Windows installed. When my computer boots, I

have to pick which one to start. How do I get rid of

the second Windows option?

—Brian Matthews

Ahh, an irritating problem indeed. Thankfully,

there’s an easy solution. Hop on over to your

Windows control panel and fire up System

Properties. Click the Advanced tab, which should

give you three additional options and three

corresponding settings buttons to pick from:

Performance, User Profiles, and Startup and

Recovery. Click the Settings box under Startup

and Recovery, and on the following window, hit

the Edit button that corresponds with the prompt

to manually edit your startup options.

Just in case something goes wrong, copy

everything from the file that pops up (your

boot.ini file) and paste it into a new text docu-

ment. Now, look for the “[operating systems]”

subhead in the file. The name of each XP

option rests in quotes, so replace “Microsoft XP

Professional in each entry with “XP One” and

“XP Two.” Restart

your computer

and boot from

each—you want

to figure out

which option

to keep. After

you’ve done that,

go back to the

boot.ini window you were at

earlier. To delete one of the

boot options, just delete the

entire chunk of text that cor-

responds with the nonworking

option—the line starts with

the phrase “multi.” As long as

you delete everything, you’ll

be fine.

AN UNSURE UPGRADE

I’m thinking of upgrading my

eMachines T2865, so my son

can play PC games like Rise &

Fall. I’ve been looking at all the

different videocards out there,

and I’m totally lost on what type of card to buy. Is

there a site like Crucial.com that I can use to find

out what types of cards my machine can handle?

—Rick Musgrave

Short answer: no. Long answer: no—because

figuring out your path to a videocard upgrade

is a lot easier than you think. In your case, the

motherboard in your eMachines comes with

only an AGP slot, rather than the PCI Express

interface of modern-day motherboards.

Consequently, you’ll want to be on the lookout

for videocards that are AGP based. While these

cards won’t perform as well as the best of

the PCI Express models, they are more than

adequate for your Rise & Fall needs.

With that said, we recommend you

upgrade your entire system rather than spend

money on a dead spec. If you insist on stick-

ing with AGP, you should look for cards based

on Nvidia’s 7600 GS chipset.

And since you brought it up, you might want

to head on over to http://www.crucial.com and start

gathering information for a RAM upgrade—at

512MB, your eMachines system is going to chug

when it comes time for a little Rise & Fall action.

A great videocard goes a long way, but not when

its speed is being bottlenecked by other parts of

your system!

April showers bring bad clichés, but they also bring computer bugs!

And problems! And Vista! And thunderstorms! And exclamation points!

Seriously, the Doctor is way too excited about the lovely weather that’s

on the horizon—if you want to spite him, and receive helpful answers to

your computer queries in the process, send a detailed description of your

problem to [email protected]. We promise, he’ll answer your

questions instead of going outside to play kickball.

Make sure you nuke the right line in the boot.ini file—

otherwise, you will not be thrilled with the results.