MaximumPC 2008 07

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First,

grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has

come to a halt, email the doctor at [email protected] for advice on how to

solve your technological woes.

http://www.maximumpc.com | JUL 08 | MAXIMUMPC |xx

a Thermaltake 800W unit
that’s about a year old, and
it has swappable plug con-
nectors.)
Most times a reboot
shows the disk in the BIOS
as “BzBzBzBz...” What’s
going on?
—Frank Buttell

There shouldn’t be a problem
with running three drives in
Windows. That leads the Doc
to believe that your problem is
caused by a bad data or power
cable, bad power (swappable
PSUs are more prone to bad
connections than hard-wired
units), or a bad drive. Try
the inexpensive route first:
Switch your drive’s SATA
cable with one that has con-
sistently worked well with a
different drive. If that doesn’t
fix the problem, try a different
SATA connector on your
motherboard. Again, swap it
with a connector you’re using
with one of your other drives.
If that still doesn’t fix
the issue, borrow a friend’s
power supply and rewire
your system. If your old PSU
isn’t the culprit, then it’s the
drive itself. Copy your data,
write a fond farewell to your
little storage friend, and buy
a new hard drive.

Powerful Protection

How much antivirus and

firewall protection do I

need? I just purchased a lap-

top that comes with Norton

Security 2007. I had also

planned on using Webroot

AntiVirus, which includes a

firewall and anti-spyware

protection. I also thought

about using ThreatFire after

I read about it in Maximum

PC (February 2008), as well

as Spybot Search & Destroy.

Is all this overkill? What do

you recommend?

—Evan Jr. Valdez

The Doctor applauds your

concern for safety, but your Fort

Knox approach is a bit of over-

kill. Your Norton Security suite

should have everything you

need for antivirus, anti-spyware,

and firewall protection. While

it might seem like you’re being

extra safe by doubling up on

programs, you could actually

be doing more harm than good.

By running multiple programs

for similar chores you invite the

potential for conflicts among

the apps as well as a hit to your

system’s performance.

Spybot Search & Destroy comes with a bevy of additional

confi guration options designed to automate the program’s

spyware destruction.

I just wanted to add something to your answer in April’s column about the per-

son’s 5Mb/s download problems. He should also ask his ISP to do a line check. Up

here in Canada, a TV program found out that people were paying for 5Mb/s ADSL

but were experiencing slower speeds; after requesting a line check, they found

that the lines could get only half a megabit, not the 5Mb they were paying for.

Whoops! –JOHN BARAZZUOL

SECOND OPINION

Check Your Line!