flyinghaggis

FYI HP have just contacted us to advise that a new firmware update is available for the P2055s dated 8th March this year (20100308). Hard to get too excited, given it's the 3rd we'll applied to fix the issue!, but will post our findings. Anyone else who wants to try it can download it from HP's website at the link below :- HP LaserJet P2050 Printer series

If you're running Windows Vista/7 the built-in Resource Monitor looks pretty cool when left on full screen (in addition to being quite useful to keep track on CPU/Disk/network activity). edit: Just to add I've never seen CSI so aplogies is this isnt what you're after!

How do they perform if you want to playback quick updading content like animations/videos/movies/etc on the screen connectecd to the adapter? Are there any other 'gotchas' when using USB>VGA adapters like the one above? I've recently just purchased a new video card so I'm hoping, given I have 2 pcie graphics slots on my mobo, I should be able to plug my old one into the secondary slot and run 3 monitors off 2 cards (given they both had dual DVI outputs on them). Will let you know how it goes once I've had a chance to try it! Edit: Just tried it and it's working fine extending the desktop across 3 displays.

+1 Best Free DVD/CD Burning suite out there IMO

I wouldn't touch one personally. One my mates had the head gasket fail on their car (was a '99 1.6 IIRC ). Shame as it was quite a tidy motor (and much better than the Ford KA he bought to replace it!). Was probably worth a couple of grand at the time but he ended up selling it as a result of the failure so I'm guessing you could be looking at a pretty severe repair bill if it does go.

+1 Backup Exec is too expensive as a realistic option for schools IMO. Especially when you have to shell out for an upgraded Backup Exec lic everytime MS bring out a new version of exchange/SQL/HyperV/etc. Buy DPM on a volume licence (which will be a fraction of the cost of Backup Exec ) and then you can rest assured you'll be covered whatever MS bring out in future. At least then you'll never again be in the position you're in now where you need to stump up £1000's for upgraded licences all at once.

Is there an option on the monitor to say do not stretch to fit screen? Realistically your best bet is to buy 4:3 monitors IMO as any other option will end up looking pretty bad. Either that or possibly look into getting dual output graphics cards that can display different resoutions on each display?

Multi Monitor - Dual Monitor - KVM switch Never tried it myself (kept meaning to but never got round to it) but it's got some good review and looks really cool!

Cheers for the update. I've noticed this post on the other thread but I'm not 100% sure where to alter this setting on our primarily 3com 4400 based network. I'll have a hunt and see if it's possible. Biggest issue is that so many people seem to have such a variety of problems with these printers that it's tricky to get a handle on one specific problem. We've actually taken delivery of another much newer P2055 so it doesn't look as though it's a problem with a specific batch as it affects newer P2055's asweel as our original batch. Because of this I'm doubtlful as to whether replacing the formatter board would resolve the issue.

We have what appears to be an intermittent and seemingly random problem whereby our HP P2055 (about 10 of them) series printers will eventually stop responding to any kind of network traffic (ping,web interface) after being connected to our network for a day or two. I've tried plugging the printers into a standalone switch and they're fine so I can only assume the problem is caused by another PC/device connected to our network sending out packets which causes the NIC/Jetdirect card on this particular model to fall over? I've tried connecting them to several different models/makes of network switches and nothing resolves the issue. Even just having them sitting on the network (be it either static or dynamic IP) with no associated print queue still results in the same issue so I can only assume that it's some kind of broadcast packet? The issue doesn't seem to affect any other network printers or devices as far as I can see. The only fix is to power the printer off and back on again (IT Crowd style!). I've got a call logged with HP but so far they haven't been able to suggest anything. I've tried firmware updates, enabling the local firewall on the printer and disabling unused protocols on it but no joy so far. I'm absolutely at a loose end as to how to deal with the above problem? Has anyone any suggestions of a way to try and track down what's causing these printers to randomly die every couple of days when on our LAN?

So has anyone on Edugeek sold a kidney and bought a new GTX 470/480? What's the verdict?

Just phoned and HP have agreed to replace our faulty (2 year old and out of warranty) P3005 with a refurb unit. Apparantly there's a notice on their helpdesk to replace any printers with this particular fault even if they're out of warranty? Don't know how long this situation will last or if it covers every single P3005 but at least it looks like some may be replaced if they have the formatter board fault and are out of warranty?

Another (2 year old and out of warranty) HP P3005N Printer in our organisation is having what appear to be similar formatter board / memory issues to the above. Freezes and wont respond to anything either over the network or by pressing the buttons on the printer . Often takes 2-3 reboots to get it going and this is happening several times a day. That's nearly approaching a 50% failure rate in our school on this model of printer in only 2 years

I keep getting flashbacks of Snatch whenever I read about exchange DAGS :- "Mickey: Good DAGs. D'ya like DAGs? Tommy: DAGs? Mickey: What? Mrs. O'Neil: Yeah, DAGs. Tommy: Oh, dogs. Sure, I like DAGs. I like caravan's more. "

Is there a way to carry out the Exchange Active Directory schema update without using the Exchange Installation utility. We run our DC's on Hyper-V so it would be useful if we could isolate one of them and run the schema update off network to make sure it's works OK? I've had a hunt but so far the only way I've seen to apply the update is from the installation routine when setting up Exchange 2010?

Well the reviews are out. Article and links to most reviews at the bottom of the page :- NVIDIA unleashes GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 'tessellation monsters' -- Engadget In a nutshell :- In it's favour --------------- The GTX480 is marginally faster than the RADEON 5870 GTX470 is roughly on par with RADEON 5850 SLI scaling now appears to work really well and is up to 90% efficient in some games (so very nearly double the frame rate) Has the potential to be quite a lot faster in some games using tesselation/physX CUDA processing performance looks like it could be awesome for video encoding/etc Against --------- Needs roughly ~50 watts more than the equivalent ATI cards No triple monitor support without an SLI configuration Priced at ~£100 more than the 'equivalent' Radeon 5800. (GTX470 ~£325 vs RADEON 5850 = £225 GTX480 ~£450 vs RADEON 5870 = £325) So there you have it! I guess the general feeling is one of mild disapppointment as they've not really pulled anything special out of the bag. Once you factor in the pricing it's got fail written over it as card-for-card NVIDIA are roughly £100 more. They're genally faster than ATI at the top end in terms of benchmarks but pretty much on a par which isn't a good thing when you launch 6 months later. From a personal point of view it's pretty much put me off as the card I was planning on buying (GTX470) now has an 'on-the-street' price of around £325 which is about £100 more than I expected it to be! That factored with the lack of triple monitor support without an SLI configuration is a bit of a show stopper at the moment aswell. Unless I win the lottery and buy 2 x GTX480s in SLI in which case it'll work out just fine! On a positive note I'm currenly playing the Starcraft2 beta (which is running OK on my Geforce 8800GT incidentally!)

Initial (unconfirmed) reports seem to state that the tdp's of the cards are:- GTX480 - ~250w GTX470 - ~225w Slightly higher than the equivalent ATI cards :- Radeon 5870 - 190w Radeon 5850 - 170w Around 50w per card higher when running at full tilt. Be interesting to see whether how they compare when sitting at the standard windows desktop idling and not in game.

Yeah, my friend had one of those in an Alienware PC he bought when they were first released. Certianly lived up to it's nick-name the 'Dust-Buster' Mind you IIRC Nvidia was outclassed by ATI's equivalent card (Radeon 9700) at the time, which was regarded as one of the best it's ever released, and struggled to match it which was the reason the FX5800 was so half-baked. That was back in 2002/2003. Is history going to repeat itself.....

LOL, well they're certianly dividing opinion. That's for sure! Most of the pre-release articles have painted a fairly negative picture (overpriced,power-hungry,underpowered,). Having said that most sources seem to suggest that it's going to be on par in terms of performance/pricing to the ATI 5800 series. I still have faith that Nvidia might just yet pull something pretty special out of the bag though. We'll find out soon enough at any rate! I thought the cooling system on them looked pretty awesome to be honest http://media.bestofmicro.com/V/O/242196/original/14607_13.jpg http://media.bestofmicro.com/V/N/242195/original/14607_12.jpg

With the launch of Nvidia's long-awaited/ badly delayed Fermi cards literally just hours away I thought I'd fuel the pre-release hype a bit and start a thread about it. Some of the features sound quite tasty! Nvidia 3D Surround Vision NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround eyes-on, triple the fun -- Engadget According to benckmarks the top tier GTX480 is set to become the fastest singe GPU card on the market when it's released. The NDA's lifted tomorrow so likely all the usual hardware sites will have reviews/articles on it then. Personally I'm probably gonna get myself a GTX470 assuming it matches the alledged performance/specs/price. Anyone else planning on grabbing one on the above cards when they're released?

One of my friends is looking for a new laptop for around £400-500. Portability/battery life isn't an issue as it's his main PC so a desktop replacement style model would probably be the preferred type. Ideally needs to fall into the following criteria :- £400-500 Windows 7 15-17" Screen Any recommendations would be appreciated TIA

Hi, We're looking for a HP Laserjet 8550 Drum Kit (HP Part#C4153A). The printer itself is EOL and HP no longer make parts for it but wanted to check if anyone had one in stock or could source it for us. Cheers, TIA

Would load Windows 3.11 damn quick though Yeah, might be worth going for the 256 GB option instead

Can't help but feel that if you're gonna blow £400-500 on 2 x 300Gb SAS Harddrives you'd be better off just buying a 256MB SSD drive for the same amount of cash?