Sorrento

Actually not that much. I know what you mean, but the torque converter of this thing even with the lock/up system can handle nearly 2,500 rpm before launch... I doubt there is any benefit from using a manual gearbox, however I agree the car would weight less and perform better at medium to higher speeds with it. The CX-7 is near perfect with Automatic, like this it handles near perfection at launch (AWD, no need for traction control) and very good at high speeds.......... if the driver requires a manual gearbox then he/she will require a Mazda Speed6 instead :tooth: Btw, I tested mine vs. a Nissan Murano (AWD too) and the diference in 1/8 mile was awful in favor of my CX-7. Tried several times to avoid any driver issues and it was pretty much the same. The only one I want to see is the Grand Cherokee with the 6.1 L engine... with all the gadgets and that much power it probably will leave me standing; what would be faster, a Grand Cherokee or the Porche Kayene??? I wonder

My little CX-7 (AWD version of course)... This pick is from the day I got it, at the car dealer, back in early March; its inside the garage where they finished up installing the extra equipment. The thing handles pretty well, tire spinning is almost impossible even with out the traction control. The sound system rocks, and I got the connection for my 80gb iPod... can't ask for anything more. Even with just the 4 cyl 244 hp engine and the AWD all the time (not like others ) I can reach 180 kph really fast and I don't feel any unstability at those speeds. The Turbo engine is really cool, don't know how but you can reach 2,500 rpm pushing the brake pedal for the quick launch... and yet the transmission has LockUp, and if you guys know remember it limits the rpm at the start to something around 1,500 rpm or less; releasing the brake and pushing the gas gives you an amazing start, specially because of the AWD and the no tire spinning :tooth: The only "negative" thing about it is the Turbo itself... you need to be a good driver to handle it, literally: with out the brake it takes some time to charge enough pressure to increase the torque accordingly, same for a freeway pass at high gears... but that is easily avoided. One cool thing is the keyless thing... and still I haven't adjusted to it

Hehe, nice Is it normal for DFI Street members to have more than one computer???? I have three... and thinking about making a fourth, one that will bend time and space... :eek2:

You could try http://housecall.trendmicro.com , both the online scanner or the anti-spyware one. Once a system is infected by a trojan, it will never be the same; it disables half the services and reactivating them again once the trojan is gone might not be enough. Remember to be in safe mode, and to delete all restore points.

If the game installs right, but the troubles start when ever you try to start playing then applying the latest patch for the game might solve some of the issues... hopefully you haven't done this yet. You could also try to start the game from the main game.exe instead of the launcher... again hopefully this can be done, not sure it can since I only played EF2 and it works well. EF1 might not be compatible with Windows XP... I know ST Armada (1) isn't, which is a shame because the game was great.

My 7950GX2 was really hot and it went to low 80's before I watercooled it... I think the safest bet is to remain at a maximum around 70's, even high 70's but never 80. I think its normal specially if your case temperature is warm: how hot does the motherboard and chipset get? If its warm inside then no wonder why your video card is getting high temperatures... increasing case ventilation in these conditions will lower the gpu temperature a lot.

Are you using any MS drivers to install the Joystick, or is it the "plug-n-play" ones from Windows itself? I have the exact same combination, well instead of the Sidewinder Precision Pro 2 I am using the FF one, not sure if its the same. I don't have any problems but sometimes when I plugged the Joystick another USB stopped working; the hardware that stopped working was my Creative web cam. This happened only sometimes, and it went away when I installed my LCD screen; aparently the USB hub in it changed something somewhere. When the camera stopped working all I had to do was disconnect it and reconnect it, and all was good then... if the LCD froze it might have been the USB disconnecting or something, yet from what you explained the keyboard keeps working, right? My only recomendation is to change the USB connectors for both the G15 and the MS Joystick to any other USB available. Check out the IRQ's, maybe the problem starts there with it being shared by too many devices. I don't recomend leaving the Media Player applet, or actually any of the default Logitech ones... only the CPU usage is useful and there are better ones at the G15 Forums. I installed a ton of new ones and haven't had any problems so far: both BF2 and BF2142 applets, MBM5, netspeed, Fraps, task manager, and another one I keep forgetting its name.

It could be the turbo for the diesel engine of one of those HUGE excavation machines... the ones that we see in The Discovery Channel Submarine would have a diesel engine and I don't think they had so big engines. It could be a tugboat's engine turbo... but the ones I have see are way smaller, but there are some huge tugboats out there (again, shown in The Discovery Channel :tooth: ) with engines that probably require something that big.

Actually I read the ATI chipset has a limit for cpu compatibility, while the latest Intel chipset doesn't... can you correct me if I am wrong? I am looking for the best motherboard for a two possible ATI cards... I like the Abit AW9D, but thats mainly because everybody is choosing the Asus and also because the Abit is newer and showed a lot of improvement. The CPU I am going to use is either the E6600 or the X6800 (maybe not).

But the 975X chipset seems to be better in every aspect than the ATI one... :confused:

You sound as if you didn't try other brands while you had your DFI... I did, and believe me there was a huge diference, from RAM not being as fast (Latencies) to not being compatible at all... to some overclocking settings for cpu, chipset and SLI. I see you have a good motherboard from reading your signature, Gigabyte... I like that brand, its one of those which deliver more than what you pay for and has never let me down. I am not sure its as good overclocker as other brands, probably it is not but it will never fail compared to much weak brands like MSI and maybe Asus and your cpu is at a nice 3.6 ghz. But I want the best overclock I can get, thats the diference between having to upgrade next month and needing to upgrade 6 months later... and maybe the Abit 975X mobo is the answer; I also want Crossfire... Like I said in my previous post its all about getting the right motherboard for the job... something I am sure the ASUS is NOT! I had my fair deal of problems with a couple and only if you don't push it with clocks and hardware attached to it the thing will do a good job. This is why I say a DFI motherboard with those features would be better... shame it doesn't exist.

Remember the scores were made with stock system settings... and from what I remember they were at higher than the default 1280 x 1024 resolutions, so the results HAD to be lower. Lets wait for Anandtech or Guru3D or any other respectable site to review the card (not mentioning good old Tom btw, LOL). But if memory doesn't fail the 8800 cards were reviewed by the SAME site 4+ months ago and they showed identical HYPEISH results... and they were correct in the end. It wouldn't suprise me if the card beat the 8800 ones as bad as it showed in that "biased" site... its the circle of life guys

Yeah, the irony on that is this: you need Intel chipset for AMD to work There is a new chipset from nVidia for Intel, the 680i or something, and it is a great chip as far as I know... minus some sata problems hehe. Problem about it is how it only supports SLI. To run two of these "future" "AMD" cards you will need the Intel chipset... because the 975X supports Crossfire. All would be bad because the 975X is now old if it wasn't for ABIT and their new motherboard: it performs a lot faster than the ASUS (grr, I hate Asus hehe) and probably overclocks as good as the new nVidia 680... so perhaps if someone like this crazy person I know wants to run Crossfire with these R600 GPU's, then the motherboard to use would be the ABIT... :tooth: I really don't like the idea of trying anything other than DFI for gaming or overclocking... but I know Abit and its a good brand more or less, their support forum exists!, something Asus can't claim... might be a step back, but indeed would be a step back in the "right" direction.

Hehe, well I have some time for myself lately and I am spending it on BF2142... all I have to say about the game is: Its EASY! I always end up killing something like 18 people and only getting 3 deaths... unless its 15 of them vs. 7 of us and then I get equal numbers. I guess its all about hardware with that game, being very demanding on gaming systems if people don't get the latest of the latest hardware they are easy to beat. Its a shame, but its the way of the world I guess: at least professional racing is exactly the same Its been ages since I saw a decent bowling game... and I think it was from Brunswick, something something; I lend it to a bowling friend and the SOB never returned it, and that was ages ago back in 2000 I think :mad:

Years ago I thought about using a HDD case to enclose several ram modules, and with some kind of chip control this "ram drive" and use it for system operation.......... however I never implemented the idea, and now it has been made... sort of. HDD's are like cars... why haven't cars evolved as fast as computers? If they did we would have cars that would travel at 500,000 km/h, and that with just 2L of fuel... unless they were like Intel then they would use 4L of fuel, until the C2D engine was available... lol, joke.