I have discovered that newer doesn't always mean better. I have an old set of Altec Lansing speakers that have great sound. My brother has normal car speakers hooked up to his computer. I learned in college that with non pc speakers that there is a certain lenghth that regular speakers should be away from monitors or otherwise the magnets will mess up your video but can't can't remember how far away they should be. A I am while I at it has anyone found a good website for getting motherboard specs for doing the wiring for motherboards; i.e. the reset, power on, led and the like.

http://motherboards.mbarron.net/specs.htm

I found this site with some good info.

I usually find it best to go to the manufacturers website, if possible. If all else fails trial and error works pretty well, at least for power, reset, and leds.

I think I will try that, Thomas. At one point while trying to install two 3.5 floppy drives the floppy drive ribbon started to smoke. So I took the newer floppy drive out but then later while trying install the cdrom the power cable to that one setup sparked. I was thinking I should have unplugged the power at that point. I was half asleep while I was working on it. So I unhooked everything but the cpu fan and it still spinned. At one point I thought I had short-circuited the power supply. On one of the PDS boxes the leds, power and reset is labled but on the other one it is not; PDS being the make of the two computer cases. One motherboard has an AGP slot; Three PCI slots and two ISA slots. On the other motherboard it has four PCI slots and four ISA slots. Both motherboards are 1997 circa. Both power supplies are working with one being 230 watts and one being 200 watts. The four ISA board has an Award bios rom and the AGP board has an American Megatrends bios. Both have the larger plugins with the PS/2 ports for the keyboards.

Don't try to hook up drives while the PC is on, unless they are USB.

I hear that. I have smoked CPUS and memory sticks that way. I am trying not to learn everything the hard way these days. Bought two Kingston 1gb RAM sticks at Walmart for $59.00 a piece. I had to do some carving with my kitchen knife but got the universal adjustable power supply to work with the parellel port Iomega 250 MB Zip drive. The computer guy just gave me the unit just because he felt sorry for me; Couldn't find the power cord and because I bought the 250 MB floppies for $7.00 a piece. He told me to bring back the ValueSelect memory sticks and he would either give me my money back or switch it for something of equal value. Just brought him a power supply and he said he would order me a new one for this other computer I am working on. I downloaded the device driver for the Zip Drive.

i use some jbl powered speaker (200 watt each) within a couple feet of my laptop and it works just fine

if your video does scramble a bit it should not be perm. if it is not prolonged

i have also used my laptop within 4 ft of some major speakers

(2 500 watt 12" and 1 - 600 watt 18" eminences and 175 watt 2" titanium horns) on each side of the laptop with no problems

used two 1400I amps to push the speakers

Hi ya, Robin.

I was real lucky with the one computer I thought I had toasted. Even got ME on it and later XP. 128 megs of RAM and a 166 MHZ processor but it is doing it. Wow, you are really putting out some sound. Thats is almost like a linear on a C. B. radio.

if i set up the entirety of the sound equip (and i have in the past) it will deliver over 7000 watts rms

and calls come in from miles away and it was not even turned up past half way

that stuff needs to go

Working on another computer now. It is an old SIS board with an IBM processor, 150 MHZ and PC-100 memory slots. I put two 128 sticks of memory in it which are DDRAM and so far the power supply is working and the fan on the processor is whizzing. I know the 150 works because it was socket 7 and worked on the other computer I just fixed. the only thing I am not sure of at this point is the memory sticks. I am going to try these 2 32 megs SDRAM I know that work and see if it will bring up BIOS on the monitor. This one I am working on now has 4 ISA slots and 4 PCI slots. Fun stuff.

Sounds like a candidate for Puppy Linux http://puppylinux.org/main/index.php?file=Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm

Thanks, Thomas. I was looking for a smaller Linux. I found a complete Windows 3.1 that boots from a single floppy; 1.3 MB. It says China DOS. It is from Vetusware.

http://vetusware.com/download/windows%20mini%203.11%203.11/?id=5544

pwr ,reset,led etc all connects to the Fpanel on ur mobo. most new boards have each connection labelled. otherwise its in the handbook that came with ur board. or download it from the manufacturers website.
yeh always switch off and unplugg pwr cable from ur psu before connecting anything on ur board. even if u switch it off theres residual pwr left so unplugg as well.
best sound i found is via a good sound card prelude , xonar etc to amp or reciever to quality loud speakers. i use richters with a 7.1 setup via analog connection. havnt looked back .and either did my neigbours as they moved out lol