Noorman,

If you go to the bottom of the page, under "Thread Display Options", click "show thread from..." and pick "beginning", it will show you threads all the way back to 2001.

I've had no issues to speak of with Netgear WNDR3700 routers.

If the connection is via cable, it's almost certainly not PPPoE. You need a router connected to the modem. Preferably a wireless one.

Welcome to the forums. :)

That would save you about $270... So, at that point it should definitely be doable. I recommend G.Skill memory - go with 8 GB sticks. Asus, MSI, Foxconn or Biostar motherboard. No opinion on SSD...

You do realize that processor uses $570 out of your $950 budget?

On the processes tab, click the button that say "show processes from all users".

Download MicrosoftFixit50202 and the System Update Readiness tool. Run the Fixit tool, choose aggressive. Reboot and run the Readiness tool. Try Windows Update again.

Should work without issue. I've done it for much less similar hardware. Do wait to activate.

Should work well! :)

Avast works well.

I'm not sure what else the above quoted line could mean. :)

But, this is not required with Vista and later...

To be more accurate, the COA sticker on the machine is very likely OEM. Which is fine. You can install the OS that is defined on the sticker without issue.

Should work just fine.

Whether you would notice any difference between the two processors would be dependent upon the type of programs you run. For games, I doubt you would notice any difference,...

Next, I would download the hard drive diagnostic utilities from Western Digital and Seagate and run the comprehensive (long) tests on all drives.

I recommend looking for bad/failing capacitors on the motherboard and video card.

I second combofix, but felt you would already have it as part of your cleanup routine.

The other registry keys that will/can prevent you from running programs like regedit would be the Policy...

It seems like I had to edit the registry: HKLM->Software->Microsoft->Windows NT and delete the Image File Execution key. It's been a couple of weeks, so I don't remember for sure. You can do this...

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/ or http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Make a bootable CD and unlock the admin account.

Although I just cleaned up the system, the recovery partition appeared to be okay.

Attempts at imaging the drive, etc., failed (TI would quit responding) until I removed the offending partition. I used Partition Manager 8.5, but really, any partition tool besides the one in Disk...

I've encountered this virus. It's a variation on the TDSS rootkit. TDSSKiller.exe will see it and try to remove it, but when it's done the rootkit is still there. It is in the 8 MB partition. ...

What Meridian said. Fail-safe defaults is as good a place to start as any.

I still suspect the issue as being CMOS related. Since you've cleared CMOS, you might try loading either BIOS defaults or performance defaults and see what happens.

The behavior you describe as to the apparent shutting down, restarting is common on Intel based boards when the BIOS is searching for a set of parameters that allows the board to boot.

It doesn't...

1. What you describe as to shipping charges being your responsibility is standard practice. Since they paid the shipping to send you the product, they did not pocket the $$, they spent it. Try...