MaximumPC 2005 12

RAM FOLLIES

I recently added more memory to my

Dell Dimension 4600, which has a

2.8GHz Pentium 4, by replacing its two

sticks of 128MB, 333MHz DDR RAM

with two sticks of 256MB, 400MHz DDR

RAM. When my PC boots, it recognizes

the new RAM and tells me it now has

512MB of memory; but Sims 2 crashes

every time I play, and Windows itself

often goes down with a blue screen.

Is this a sign of bad RAM, or is there

something wrong with my computer?

—Theodore Powell

The problem is likely the result of

your memory upgrade. Try reseating

the memory modules. A bit of debris

might have gotten in the slots, or

the contacts might be dirty. You

should also test your RAM. You can

download a free tester from http://www.

memtest.org, thanks to the guys and

gals on the X86-secret team.

Download the prebuilt ISO, burn

it to CD, and you’ll have a self-con-

tained memory tester. You might

discover that the memory chips are

OK, but that the module’s SPD (serial

presence detect) chip, which tells

the computer how to configure the

RAM, doesn’t work well with your

Dimension 4600. If that’s the case,

return the RAM and buy some that

will work with your machine.

THIS IS A RAID!

I’m having trouble figuring out the

SATA, hard drive, and optical configura-

tions on my Asus P4C800-E Deluxe

motherboard. I have a Western Digital

36GB Raptor and a Western Digital

320GB SATA hard drive connected to

the motherboard’s SATA 1 and SATA 2

ports, respectively. Windows boots from

the Raptor, and I use the 320GB drive

for media and general storage. I’d like

to add more storage, possibly in the

form of an additional 320- or 500GB

Ask the Doctor

Diagnosing and curing

your PC problems

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

66 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2005

Select Your Content

Our DVD of The Year Without A Santa Claus

includes two additional movies, which we

don’t want to compress. The scene index

from the box indicates that The Year Without

A Santa Claus is the fi rst movie on the disc,

and by looking at the content list reported by

DVD Copy 4, this is obviously

Title 01. After checking Title

01 as the movie we want to

compress, we now have the

option to click the plus sign

next to the title and get a

chapter listing. We want all

the chapters from Title 01, so

we’re not going to uncheck

anything here.

8

If there are specific

chapters you want to

delete—such as the end

credits—you can dese-

lect them here.

Examine Property Sheets for Content

In this step, we’re going to strip out any

content within our movie that we don’t need.

This might include subtitles, alternate audio

tracks, and even alternate video tracks.

Luckily, The Year Without A Santa Claus

doesn’t have a lot of this kind of thing.

By clicking Title 01 and then clicking the

Property sheet button on the same line,

we see that there’s only one Dolby Digital

audio track (which we want to keep), and no

subtitles or funny business.

If you’re not sure what a

video title or chapter contains,

just click that title or chapter to

highlight it and then click the

Preview button at the bottom

left of the screen.

9

Explore Your Options

There’s one more item to check off before

you begin transcoding and burning your

content. Click the tiny hammer icon next to

the Fit to One Disc checkbox to access the

Optional Settings tab. Under Output Video

System, select NTSC (unless you have a

good reason to believe you’ll be fl eeing to

Europe anytime soon). You can give your

disc a descriptive label under Disc Label/

File Name. And fi nally, check the “Preview

while transcoding” box if you want to

monitor the process, which is unlikely

considering it will take several hours.

Click OK to close this tab, and then click

the burn icon at the bottom right. DVD Copy

4 does the rest for you!

10

You can audition any

title or chapter by sim-

ply highlighting it and

checking it out in the

Preview box.

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