Donald

I am thinking about buying a 2002-2003 Buick Rendevous used alternator. I am NOT putting the alternator in any vehicle. I am using it for hobby type purposes. I was wondering if anyone knows if this alternator has the regulator (rectifier diodes, etc), inside of the alternator? Or in this year and make of vehicle, is the regulator an external box, or computer controlled? I am hoping it is internal to the alternator, so I can buy the alternator and forget about it.

Thank you to everyone who answers.

I was wondering if anybody knows if they make multibit D-Type Latches (such as 4-bit or 8-bit), where each latch has its own 'enable', and NOT just one 'enable' line for the whole latch. I am designing something where there will be >100 D-Type Latches, so it would be handy to use chips that contained 2 or 4 or 8 bits, but I need to individually control the 'enable' lines of each latch.

Does anybody know of any chips that allow this feature? If so please specify part number and manufacturer or provide a website link.

Thanks in advance.

Ok. I have two related questions. First of all, I am dual booting Windows 7 and some version of Ubuntu. I have GRUB as my bootloader. I use Windows 99% of the time but it's at the bottom of the list, so I have to use the down arrow every time I restart to get to windows. I would like Windows to be the default (i.e. at the top of the list). So that it will automatically go to windows if I don't press anything after the 10 second time-out.

Second and most important question. In the very near future I am going to remove Ubuntu and I would like to remove GRUB as well. I want my computer to boot straight into Windows after I power it on. Like it originally did when I first got the computer. I know I can just delete the partition through windows disk manager, but is that the safest way to get rid of Ubuntu. And I don't think that will remove GRUB will it? I would very much like to not have to reformat the whole drive (Windows 7 and everything), if I could help it. Just for your information GRUB was put on my computer automatically when I installed Ubuntu with the CD I have.

Hi. I have a Dell Studio 17" and a Dell Inspiron 15". I am planning to take a trip soon and I only plan to bring one laptop, but I want maximum battery run time, and I was wondering if I could take the battery from the Studio 17" out of the laptop and take the battery with me and just swap it into the Inspiron when it's battery gets low. I know I would have to hibernate the computer or have it plugged in when I switch the batteries. But what I want to know is, will it work? Without harming the laptop or either battery? Thank you.

Hi. I am looking for a free or inexpensive place to go camping within a 4 hour drive of Dayton, OH. I am looking for somewhere kinda of isolated with out RVs or tons of people near by. Somewhere where each camp site is hundreds of feet at least from the next camp site, not right on top of each other. An outhouse and shower would be preferable.

Hi everybody. Today I was playing Call of Duty World at War and I decided to look at the graphics settings. The Anti-Aliasing was turned off. I decided to turn it on. The options were x2 and x4. I went straight to x4 and hit apply. Then a confirmation window appeared in the game and I hit Yes. Then it just froze and I have to end the process via Task Manager. I also tried setting it to x2 but same thing happens. I have had this game on my computer for about a year and I have had the Anti-Aliasing turned on x4 before, but I turned it off at some point to give me more fps. I have not touched this setting in quite a while but today I wanted to see the difference it made to have it turned on. Can someone please give me possible suggestions as to why it is no longer working. Is there some other setting in COD or somewhere else in my PC that may have caused Anti-Aliasing to stop working or something. I am pretty tech savvy, so please feel free to give me ANY suggestions. Also, I can change any other graphics settings in COD, possibly because none of the other setting require the confirmation dialog. Thank you everyone.

I would very much like to take a camping trip soon to take a break from college. As a poor college student, I would place inexpensiveness towards the top of my priorities. I would be camping in a tent, not an RV or anything like that. I do NOT need power receptacles, nor will I be fishing or hunting at all. Walking/hiking trails would be a plus, and so would a lake or anyplace to swim. And I would like to be able to have my own campfire. Also, I would prefer to be in the middle of no where. I don't want to have another person camping in a little camp area like 5 feet from me. I want to be spread 100s of feet away from other campers if there are any. I know this is a really picky list, but I would settle for just inexpensive. Thank you to everyone who reads this. And an additional thank you to everyone who gives input. Links to websites would be nice, as would personal past experiences of places in this area that you have camped at.

I have a laptop that does not have a "pause" key or a "break" key or any combination thereof. I have a game that I like to play that becomes "paused" if I minimize it to do something else in Windows. And I cannot figure out how to unpause it without the "pause" key. I have an external USB keyboard that I can plug it to just use that one key, then unplug the keyboard once I resume the game, but that is unacceptable. I was wondering if anybody knew of a default key or key combination that laptop keyboards frequently use to substitute for the "pause/break" key. The game in question does not support changing the "pause" function to a different key. Also, I do not want to install any third party software, nor do I want to remap the keys at all. I am simply hoping that there is some key combo like "Ctrl+Alt+P" that would perform the same thing as the "pause/break" key in ANY application not just one single game.

I have media control buttons on my keyboard and I have tried the "play/pause" key during the game, but it does nothing. My laptop is a full sized desktop-replacement style laptop and has a large full keyboard, complete with the number pad and everything, but wouldn't you know it, the "pause/break" is the only key that the keyboard doesn't have as far as I can tell.

Thank you for reading and hopefully answering.

Hi. I have Windows 7 Home Premium. I noticed the other day that if I am playing a movie in Windows Media Player and pause that movie, the %CPU the Windows Media Player is using stays around 25% indefinitely while it is paused, no matter if the windows is full screen or small sized. This is not really a problem so much as a curiosity. I have an Intel Core i5 so I can still boogie right along even with WMP consuming 25% of my CPU. I could understand using 25% when I was actually playing the movie but why when it is paused. I notice it mainly because my fan staying at a slightly elevated, and slightly noisy, state. If I switch back to the library view. I notice that at the bottom it says "Updating Media library: C:\Users\......" What exactly does this mean and could this be the cause of the 25% CPU usage while paused. Is this the WMP getting information and such from the internet? If so, I find that curious. I have made no additions to my library is quite some time, probably a year, and I have media player open all the time and a fairly fast DSL connection so I would have thought that any media information that needed to be updated would have been done so already.

I am not really looking for an 'answer' but more so suggestions, thoughts, comments, etc.

Hi. I need to integrate this following expression, (x*dx)/(a*x+b). I know the answer is supposed to be [x/a-(b/(a^2))*ln(a*x+b). I can differentiate to get from the answer back to the integrand, but I would just like someone to explain what logic or tricks or methods are used to get to the solution in the first place. And before you say anything, this is NOT homework. It is part of a practice exercise I am working on for my Dynamics test tomorrow.

Hey everybody. I have a question. I have a Dell Studio 1749. It has an Intel Core i5 M520, 2.40 GHz, and I have 2 X 2.00 GB DDR3-SDRAM.

I was wondering if I can upgrade my processor to an upper grade of the i7? Do any of the i7's take the same socket as the i5? If so, would the i7's that are compatible be a worth while upgrade?

Also, can I upgrade my RAM to 2 X 4.00 GB DDR3, and would my computer support DDR5 if I got it?

I know this information is readily available on the internet. I am just looking for another opinion to what I already know (or think I know), which is:

1. Some of the middle grade i7's will fit.

2. It would be a slight performance upgrade, noticeable, but not huge.

3. Probably not worth the money since I already have a decent i5.

4. My motherboard should support 2 X 4 GB but I don't know about the DDR5

Thank you for reading and thank you again for answering.

Hi everybody. I have an APC "back UPS ES 650" uninterruptible power supply. It has a cable that came with it. One end looks exactly like an Ethernet cable and the other end looks like a USB cable. You plug the Ethernet end into the back of the UPS and the USB end into the computer and it works fine and everything. But I have to make things more complicated. lol. I was wondering if I could take a regular Ethernet cord with male Ethernet ends at both ends of the cord and use it to connect the UPS to my router and access it that way? I know that an Ethernet cord would definitely fit into the UPS because that cable it uses now looks just like Ethernet on the one end, but would it transfer battery information over the network to my computer through the router and network or not? Would it damage the router or UPS to try? And also, why the heck do they make UPS's to use this kind of cord that is half Ethernet and half USB? Why don't they just use a regular USB cord like the kind used to connect a printer to a computer? (assuming the UPS is not meant to be connected to a router)

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this.

Thanks again, to everyone who takes the time to comment or answer.

Hi. Does anyway know where I can find the max temperature of the AMD Sempron Dual Core 2200 2.00 GHz processor. I cannot seem to find this temperature anywhere. Thank you.

Hi. My brother's desktop has developed a problem recently. His computer will just shut down randomly and instantly without any forewarning, or apparent reason. There is no blue screen of death, it just shuts completely down. It is not sleep or hibernating, it is just plain off. I would just like everyone to toss ideas at me, unless someone has a really good idea of what it might be. I have thought about hard drive starting to go bad, or RAM starting to go bad, and CPU overheating. Are there any other possibilities. Could it be software or a virus. I am pretty tech savvy. I just don't have direct access to the computer for troubleshooting at the moment. Thank you to everyone who reads this, And THANK YOU VERY MUCH to everybody that contributes an answer.

Hi. I have been noticing something unusual lately. My fan will speed up like I am doing something intensive (when I'm not), and then it will not go back down. If I put it to sleep, just for a few seconds, then wake it back up, the fan will be really slow like it should be and it may stay slow for hours if I don't do anything intensive. I have 3 different CPU temperature monitoring programs. And they all say around 30 Celsius when this happens. Usually my CPU temp stays around 40 - 45 when I'm not doing anything, and the fan runs really slow. But then, as I said, the fan will rev way up and the temp will drop to 30 Celsius but the fan will not lower back down as it should. Also, when this random rev up happens, I have let it stay that way for over an hour just sitting there, and the speed will not drop. I check task manager and I am only using 5-10% of CPU at the time. When this happens, the only thing I can do to fix it is to put it to sleep and then wake it back up. OR I can play CoD WaW or something that is actually intensive, then the fan speed will go even higher, and then when I stop the game, the fan will drop back down to normal. I thought about updating the BIOS, but I tried that several months ago simply because there was an update, and I ruined my motherboard. I downloaded the BIOS and the BIOS flasher right from DELL's website and it froze midway and basically my motherboard had to be replaced after that. The tech said never do that again. There should be no reason to ever update your BIOS. (Of course the tech guy looked like he was 103 years old). If you have made it this far, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for reading. And I hope you can help. I appreciate ALL comments, answers, thoughts, suggestions, ideas, criticizisms, etc. Thank you again.

Hi. My girlfriend just got the newest iPod Touch for Christmas. She is trying to connect it to the wireless internet in her house, but the thing is, her internet is a little abnormal. There is a mobile internet modem plugged into a desktop, and the desktop is connected to a wireless router. Then if you want to connect a laptop to the wifi network, you have to change the IP settings to manually configure them for the network. For example, you have to change the DNS and the Gateway settings to the IP address of the desktop computer since all other devices will connect to the internet through the desktop. So she has changed the IP settings on her iPod Touch, but she is only able to access the router. She does not seem to be able to access the internet. (i.e. Safari will not let any websites open up). Does anybody have any thoughts or comments or suggestions.

Hi. My MP3 player appears to support videos, but how would I go about getting a .avi movie file onto my computer. Right now it says it cannot sync the file. Is there some way I can convert the file into another video format or something? Thanks

I am pretty tech savvy, but what does cas latency mean exactly? Also what do each of the numbers me if something has latency like 4-4-4-12? Like what does the first 4 mean?, the second 4?, the third 4?, and what does the 12 mean? I noticed that the 12 is the sum of 4, 4, and 4. Is that all that means? Because I have seen instances when the numbers are like 3-3-3-8, and 3+3+3 is not equal to 8? I would appreciate as much detail as possible. This question is just out of curiosity. Thanks

Hi. I have a Dell Studio 1749. My current graphics card is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with 1024 MB of dedicated Video Memory. I was wondering if it is possible to upgrade my graphics card to a better one. I understand, that usually you cannot upgrade the graphics cards in laptops, but I thought maybe since this laptop was special ordered with the ATI 5650 graphics card instead of a chipset, that maybe it is upgradeable. If it is upgradeable, could you please tell me what sort of options I would have to upgrade to. I would prefer an ATI over Nvidia. I don't know which models are for laptops or for my motherboard specifically. I also know that with laptops in particular, heat and power consumption are issues. Currently my graphic card is around 50 C when idle and goes up to about 65 C max, when I am taxing it greatly. Please give me all the information and personal opinions, preferences, past experiences, etc. Thank you.

Does anyone know of FREE software for monitoring a APC brand Uninterruptible Power Supply. I have the PowerChute that came with it, but I don't really care for that software. Thank you.