Back_Blast

Basically you need a system that can do virtualization. So it has to be fairly new and ideally have plenty of horsepower. The only versions that support XP mode are Pro, Ultimate and Enterprise. There may be ways to hack it into other Win 7 versions but those won't be supported obviously. In a nutshell it lets you run XP inside Win 7 in it's own VM. The XP gets virtualized access to your hardware, which presents a few limitations but otherwise runs fine. How well it will do with what you want to do I have no idea though.

The link I referenced includes a link to an apparent sale of the item on Ebay. Current bid is at $5600. (That's no typo). Someone with some seriously deep pockets wants it pretty badly.

Ad campaign it seems.

http://geeksmack.net/hardware/1304-x...on-ad-campaign

As I read it, the case (line 1) comes with one and is then removed in line 2 to be subbed by the better one in line 3.

Looks all right to me. It should do fine I think.

Sounds like more testing is in order. Ideally, an identical card would be best for the test to eliminate as many variables (like different drivers) from the equation. If you do get a failure with the new card then the mobo is the next likely suspect.

Sure looks like HW to me. You say you had a temp card for testing before. Was it the same sort as your card? I guess it's also a little unclear to me if you had the issue with it or not vs. your normal card.

Odd X, when I ran it, the 5770 was more expensive than the 5830. Go figure.

Case
iBUYPOWER CX-5B59 Mid Tower Standard Case Black/Silver
Processor
Intel® Core™ i3 530 Processor (2x 2.93GHz/4MB L3 Cache)
Processor Cooling
[Free Upgrade] Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ 120mm Radiator [SOCKET-1156]
Memory
4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand
Video Card
ATI Radeon HD 5830 - 1GB - Single Card
Video Card Brand
Major Brand Powered by ATI or NVIDIA
Motherboard
MSI H55M-P31 -- Intel H55 Express Chipset Supported w/8-ch HD Audio, Dual Channel DDR3, Gb LAN, S-ATA, USB 2.0, 1 PCI-E 2.0 x16 MB
Power Supply
700 Watt -- Power Supply SLI Ready
Primary Hard Drive
320 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive
Data Hard Drive
None
Optical Drive
24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black
Sound Card
3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card
Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + [Free 60-Day !!!] Microsoft Office 2007(Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access ....) 64-Bit
Warranty
Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support
Rush Service
Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days

$933

I also cut out the keyboard and mouse for some small savings. Unless your current ones are lousy, no need to buy those. One small upgrade I might actually suggest is to step the motherboard up a notch to the Gigabyte board. It's a small boost (I see $18) but it's got more expandability for the future. Two PCI vs one on the MSI and the ability to do Crossfire. The data transfer you can do yourself. You just need the drive back. Just add it into your system and you should be golden. Or they do sell external enclosures for drives and you can thus hook it up via USB if you prefer. I'm fairly certain you can DIY for well less than the tech charge.

Well my first suspects based on what you say would be the HD and memory. If it keeps having to fix the piggs that makes me think they are getting corrupted or damaged somehow.

Interesting stuff. I might just have to take Bill Z's challenge and see if it does make a difference. Suggestions for a good test run?

Ah, low-profile. Didn't spot that earlier. Now that is a problem. The Intel graphics it comes with are well, pathetic. I'd have to doublecheck for sure but I'd say that the Intel chip is somewhere close to the minimum spec for the game. The 'good' news is at least you have a PCIE slot in that machine. The bad is I don't know if a low profile version of any upper end video cards even exists. In fact, I rather doubt it. And low-profile cards tend towards being more pricey than their normal bretheren if I'm not mistaken. So while that machine might be fine for work, it won't do your CoH experience any favors.

If this database is the sticking point for work, perhaps you can get it copied to the system you're using in the interim. Thus buying some time for a proper system to be delivered that will better meet your needs. Just a thought.

Well since it sounds like she's paying for it all herself, I'm not sure how much the IT and bean-counter folks have to say about it. But I'll leave that to her to work out. I merely mention it as an option.

My advice? Do your own shopping. If you like Acer, go hit their site and see what you can quote for yourself. Hit up that Cybertron site. Try other major makers you like. I've heard ibuypower.com is good. Newegg.com has barebones you can add to though theirs are usually DIY kits. But building your own system isn't that hard really. Basically you want a decent processor, about 4GB ram, and a Radeon 5770 or better at a price you can afford. It doesn't sound like this tech guy is doing you all that many favors. Once you have a system, it's pretty easy to take your old HDD and hook it into the new box. Assuming it's working ok, you can copy off your important stuff yourself then format it and use it for extra storage.

Do you operate with a modified HOSTS file? The DNS client service is responsible for local caching of IP mappings. Having a big HOSTS file loaded into the cache can cause it to have slowdowns when searching the cache from what I read. Generally speaking though, you don't need it if you're operating a home machine with no fancy home network setups.

Well it is an Nvidia chipset so I'm not that amazed there's a problem with ATI cards. Some Googling on that chipset indeed suggests it has issues with 5xxx cards. The only fix I ran across was that at least one manufacturer had put out a BIOS update to fix it. However the manufacturer mentioned was not yours. I'd suggest contacting yours and see if there is a BIOS update for your board that will fix this problem. Otherwise, you're probably out of luck.

By all means post it up. I'll offer a few possible edits. If you're ok with spending the $699 over the $499, see if you can invest the overage into a better video card instead of extra storage and memory. And if you have concerns about the case, change that too. On the surface of it, the $499 system sounds quite adequate to the task and an even better vid card will get you solid performance in UM assuming you're keen on that. A 9800 should do UM but you can do better. I'd suggest looking at the Radeon 5xxx line instead of Nvidia. ATI right now gives better bang for the buck and supports DX11 and the new OGL standards. Only the latest GTX 4xx cards from Nvidia do that. Radeon 5770 cards are quite affordable and give good performance. Or you could step up to the 5830 or 5850. Let us know what you get quoted.