MaximumPC 2007 112

142 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2007

We tackle tough reader questions on...

PWindows XP P802.11n PSlow Machines

PPixel Shader 3.0 PDream Machine

I WANT MY... I WANT MY WIN XP

Microsoft claims that as of January 2008, Windows XP

will no longer be sold and Vista will be the only version

of Windows available. Can such horrible news be true?

Vista has loads of problems, ranging from shoddy SLI

support to 3D sound that still doesn’t work properly—

and it’s slow! Is the PC supposed to run other programs

or just the OS?

—Yonasan Resnick

EDITOR IN CHIEF WILL SMITH RESPONDS:

Luckily for consumers, Microsoft has given

Windows XP a stay of execution, at least for

another six months. Microsoft has pledged to

continue selling Windows XP until June 30.

WE GOT OURSELVES A CONVOY!

I read the article “Clear Skies for 802.11n” in the

November 2007 issue, but I don’t fully understand

the concept of channel bonding. I know that B/G

routers run at 2.4GHz, but the article discusses

bonding channels at 20MHz and 40MHz. Do you

mean N routers run at 2.4GHz but will bond 20MHz

or 40MHz of bandwidth? I know I don’t want my

router to run on the 20MHz band because that’s

where ham and citizen-band radios operate.

—Ron D.

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN

RESPONDS: Breaker, breaker; you needn’t

worry about CB or ham, good buddy. The

802.11n routers we tested all operate within

the 2.4GHz frequency band. There are 11 chan-

nels within that band, and each one is 20MHz

wide—that doesn’t mean they operate in

the 20MHz spectrum. Channel 1 ranges from

2.412GHz to 2.432GHz; channel 2 ranges from

2.417GHz to 2.437GHz; channel 3 ranges from

2.422GHz to 2.442GHz; and so on. Channel

bonding combines two of those channels to

create one that’s 40MHz wide, but there are

only three channels (1, 6, and 11) within the

2.4GHz spectrum that don’t overlap (chan-

nel 6, for example, starts at 2.437GHz, which

separates it from the high end of channel 1 by

five megahertz).

Channel bonding is further complicated by

the 802.11n standard’s “good neighbor” policy.

Operating a router in channel-bonding mode

can impair the performance of other wireless

routers operating nearby, so the IEEE dictates

that channel bonding be automatically disabled

if the router detects other routers operating

within its range.

FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF SOUND

I work in the US Air Force as an egress mechanic

on fighter and bomber aircraft. As part of our job

we have to use an automated computer system to

track our work and various Office programs to do

other work. Unfortunately, our computers haven’t

been upgraded in years. They all run Windows XP

and have slow RAM, old Pentium 4s, and agoniz-

ingly slow drives. We’ve cleaned out temporary

files, erased old emails, and done everything else

we can think of, but when doing simple tasks the

computers still crawl like turtles in Jell-O.

The military has strict rules and regs on what

we can and cannot do to our computers and prohib-

its us from installing anything without express per-

mission from our IT guys. Is there anything more we

can do without messing up our computers/network?

—SrA Brandon Taronji

SENIOR EDITOR GORDON MAH UNG RESPONDS:

For what you’re doing, even an old, drag-ass

P4 should be fine—if the system is spec’d

An

Inconvenient

Truth

I loved the article on the Dream Machine

2007; however, I noticed the Dream

Machine did not include a physics

accelerator. Did you run out of PCI slots

or are physics cards just not worth it

considering you’re running that mighty

dual-videocard rig? If you didn’t have

enough PCI slots, couldn’t you have left

out the soundcard? Is sound that much

more important than physics?

—Robert

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MICHAEL BROWN

RESPONDS: We have a great deal of respect

for what Ageia has created with its PhysX

physics accelerator, but the fact is that

game developers have just not embraced the

product. If Half-Life 2, Quake Wars, World in

Conflict, or any other A-list game used the

card in such a way as to deliver an awesome

experience that was only possible with the

Ageia card, we’d recommend it in a heart-

beat. But we’ll likely see advanced physics

that require eight-core CPUs before we’ll see

PhysX become mainstream.

in outYOU WRITE, WE RESPOND

CUTCOPYPASTE

In the Holiday 2007 issue, on page 76, we inadvertently

assigned the neutron, a subatomic particle, a positive

charge. In actuality, it holds no charge.

On page 42 of the Holiday 2007 issue, we listed the speed

of USB 3.0 as 5Mb/s. In fact, it’s 5Gb/s.