Audiovox A-DUO-101-AVW User Manual download pdf (Page 65)

MAY 9, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 117

ASK LOYD

You can use a SATA drive alongside an existing

parallel ATA (PATA, often referred to as IDE)

drive. This is a good option if the PATA drive is

still worth using. If it’s an older drive with a small capac-

ity (by today’s standards), it may be best to remove it,

but I’ve successfully run large PATA and SATA drives

simultaneously. One system was configured to boot

from a single PATA drive, and it had two SATA drives

conﬁ gured as a RAID 1 array for the secondary drive.

Microsoft Windows booted from the PATA drive, but

critical data was stored on the SATA RAID 1 array.

You can set up the system to boot off either drive. If

you add a PATA drive to a system with an existing SATA

boot drive, you may need to go into the system BIOS

and reconfigure the SATA drive as the primary boot

drive. Many PCs will assume that a new PATA master

drive on the primary IDE controller is the boot drive,

even if you’ve been booting from a SATA drive.

A DISCONNECTING

WIRELESS NETWORK

I have a combination

wireless/wired network

at home. One PC is

connected to a Linksys Wire-

less 802.11b router’s built-in

Ethernet switch. The other PC

is connected wirelessly via a

Linksys WMP11 card. When the

wireless PC goes to sleep, or

even just goes to the screen

saver, the wireless network dis-

connects. I lose e-mail and Web

connectivity, though when I

wake up the PC, the tray icon

tells me I have an excellent con-

nection. I’ve tried updating the

router ﬁ rmware, and I’ve disabled the hardwired

Ethernet port on the Asus P4P800 motherboard,

but that doesn’t help. I always have to perform a

“repair” on the wireless card.—Andy Craig

Despite all the work on ACPI and other power-

management technologies, power manage-

ment for desktop systems still tends to trail the

abilities of laptop computers in this area.

In standard home router setups, the PC automati-

cally picks up an IP address from the router through a

mechanism called DHCP (dynamic host conﬁ guration

protocol). The router maintains a pool of IP addresses.

When a system disconnects, it needs to issue a DHCP

request to obtain a new IP address. When you use the

“repair” function, the system re-establishes a connec-

tion to the router and requests a new IP address.

What you might try to do is to allocate the IP ad-

dress permanently from the PC. You need to do this in

the Internet Protocol control panel, which is reachable

from the Network control panel.

INTEL VS. AMD

After reading the article on building a PC

(go.pcmag.com/buildyourownpc; M a r c h 7 ,

page 97), I was curious as to why one

would choose one processor over another. It

would appear that AMD has faster, more ad-

vanced, and less expensive chips than Intel does.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of

one chip over another? —Mark

You ask a question that’s been argued for years

on Internet chat rooms and Web sites. Each

processor has different strengths and weak-

nesses. For example, an Intel Pentium 4 will often per-

form software rendering on 3ds Max much faster than

an AMD Athlon 64 will. On the other hand, the AMD

CPUs generally beat Intel’s at PC games.

Recently, since dual-core processors became com-

mon, AMD dual-core processors have tended to out-

pace their Intel equivalents, and the Intel CPUs also

run very hot. It looks as if this will probably change as

soon as Intel shifts to its new architecture later this

year. But for now, AMD’s dual-core CPUs tend to be

a bit faster and put out less heat than Intel’s, and they

cost about the same.

It’s not just the CPU that comes into play. For ex-

ample, you may require a ﬂ exible, high-performance

disk subsystem. In that case, Intel chipsets often

outperform the chipsets used on AMD-compatible

motherboards. But if you want to run dual graphics

cards for gaming, an AMD is better.

In the end, the average ofﬁ ce computer user may

not be faced with these issues. The raw performance

of the CPU isn’t as important as the overall respon-

siveness of the system, which often depends on the

memory, hard drive, and other factors.

SATA AND PATA HARD DRIVES

I am adding a SATA hard drive to a

computer with an existing parallel

ATA hard drive. Do I leave the PATA

hard drive on IDE 0, or should I ac-

tually remove the PATA drive and

use the SATA drive exclusively?

—Robert Cammack

NEED ANSWERS?

ExtremeTech.com’s

editor, Loyd Case, tackles

your toughest hardware

problems each issue.

Send him yours at

askloy[email protected]om.

Disables DHCP

Typically the same

Specify your PC’s

IP address

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