such as yourself, it is wiser to
buy a modern motherboard
and CPU, as it gets you far more
performance without paying
through the nose for ancient
hardware. Socket 478 boards
are difficult, but not impossible,
to find. If you’re willing to use
a VIA chipset, you can get one
online for $50.
The good news is that if
you wait long enough, the
prices will get more reason-
able—probably not what
you’d hope, but at least cheap-
er than they are today. A really
ancient Socket 423-based Intel
D850GB board, for example,
goes for about $65 to $85.
15 – 37 = 42
I purchased a 37-inch
Westinghouse LVM-37W3SE
LCD 1080p HDTV monitor in
June 2007. A few months later,
I found out that this particular
model has faulty firmware
that prevents it from working
properly with many devices.
For example, the Nvidia driver
recognizes it as a different
model Westinghouse 1080i
monitor and refuses to set it in
1080p mode. I contacted cus-
tomer support and received
permission to return it. The
monitor was returned in
November, and it was received
by Westinghouse two days
later. I hadn’t heard anything
from them until about a month
ago, when I finally made a
call to find out about the RMA
status. (I’ve been out of the
country on a business trip.)
I was promised a follow-
up by several people, but no
one would commit to when
the monitor would be sent.
They basically asked me
to wait until I received my
product. It has now been
more than seven months,
and I believe I have waited
long enough! Thank God my
trusty 15-inch LCD is still
working fine.
—Jeong LeeThe Dog contacted a
Westinghouse spokesperson
who said the delay is due
to the limited availability of
parts for the 37-inch panel.
“Westinghouse Digital
apologizes for the delay and is
working to update any delays
in its process,” the spokesman
said. To compensate Jeong for
the lengthy wait, Westinghouse
Digital said it would provide
him with a new 42-inch 1080p
LVM-42W2.
Decoding Creative’s
Drivers
I used to be able to connect
my Xbox 360 to my Audigy
Platinum and have it decode
the 5.1 signal. However,
in my new X-Fi Platinum
Fatal1ty Champion sound-
card, it looks like Creative
disabled this feature in the
drivers. Is there any way
around this to get my com-
puter to decode 5.1? This fea-
ture was supposed to be one
of the card’s selling points.
—Curtis LeongCreative Labs said the loss of the
feature was not intentional at
all. A spokesperson explained,
“It has come to our attention
that, in the process of upgrading
from Windows XP to Vista and
installing driver updates for
certain Creative soundcards,
Dolby Digital and DTS decoding
functionality may have been
impacted for some customers.
Creative has now created sepa-
rate drivers that are specifically
designed to re-establish these
functionalities. There are two
revised versions of the drivers,
one for Audigy and one for X-Fi
products. For Audigy products,
the new driver addresses DVD
audio functionality for prod-
ucts in which it existed before
the Windows Vista upgrade
(on Vista 32-bit versions only).
The new Audigy driver also
addresses compatibility issues
for 64-bit systems that have 4GB
or greater amounts of memory.
Both new drivers require
Windows Vista SP1. The beta
version of these drivers was
made available during the week
of May 12. The final release
version of these drivers will be
made available in late July or
early August.”EMAIL THE WATCHDOG If you feel you’ve gotten a raw deal and need assistance
setting a vendor straight, email the Dog at [email protected]. Please
include a detailed explanation of your problem as well as any correspondence you
have sent concerning the issue.Opal Offi ce is just OpenOffi ce with a slightly different name.