Computer Tech Question: If I have Norton Anti-virus, do I also need SpySweeper?

Self | November 23, 2007 | PJ-Comix

[darkwing104]

darkwing—Red Hat Fedora Core 8. X64 is better than UBUNTU in that ???

I am just more familiar with Red Hat than UBUNTU. Personal Preference.

Sadly about a year ago, I had the Geeks at Best Buy check everything out, wipe everything and reinstall everything. Sigh. $500 down the drain.

Here's a news flash for you. The Geeks here know a lot more about computers then Best Buy...Just the customer service here is free, not very customer friendly, and you get what you pay for. Good Luck in getting a replacement.

[Quix]

I agree about FR geeks.

I just didn’t feel quite up to bothering them given as much as I rotinely have anyway.

But this thread caught me at an opportune time.

Thankfully, I don’t . . . yet anyway . . . have to rush out and do something overnight.

But now am really chewing on the . . . is it worth it to replace so many components vs buy a ready made Dell or HP.

My concern is that the Dell or HP would not have a lot of slots etc. to add more HD’s etc. And I really want that. So maybe that settles it.

[Quix]

There’s an older issue collecting dust. The tower I had before this one I carted home across the Pacific, too.

A friend loaded it with whatever version of Linux 2002. I’ve pondered using it as a hard drive box with umpteen gigabytes of HD storage as it’s function, period.

Sensible or too much trouble?

[Squantos]

Just a comment from me as ya already have a plan yet I like the free defense in depth plan that includes but is not limited too:

AVG
Ad Aware
Zone Alarm
Spybot
Spywareblaster
CCleaner

All available with free daily or weekly updates.

All that run along with windows defender and windows malicious spy-ware removal tool from M$ has kept my little systems free and clean from malware.

Free is good.......I feel that companies that make ya pay for your security tend to present false positives per se to make you ....continue to pay !

Stay safe ......:o)

[Squantos]

LOL.......good points !

[ThePythonicCow]

But I like being able to swap things in and out myself without as much trouble as an HP or DELL would entail.

Yes - getting a good case that is big and easy to work with is much more fun. I'm partial to Coolermaster cases myself.

Some upgrades, such as adding memory and more storage are easy.

But once you go for the CPU, it takes out the motherboard, RAM and power supply with it.

the largest/ heftiest/ most durable power supply available in Taiwan 5 years ago.

Power supplies are sold rather like "peak power stereo" was sold in the sixties. Most of them simply won't hold anywhere near the rated power except under wildly unrealistic conditions. They are a major cause of system instability.

How many amps does your power supply provide on the 12 volt rails? Most modern "big" rigs will need 20 or 30 amps, depending on what you do for graphics.

My current favorite power supplies are PC Power & Cooling Silverstone, and Seasonic. I choose between these vendors based on which ones have the particular specs and features I need for a particular build.

One other thing ... I don't upgrade much. I build new ones. I always keep one (well, for me, several ;) PC's running while building the next one. It's a whole lot easier to research stuff on the web and order more parts and take ones time and not feel like one just jumped out of an airplane and forgot to bring along the parachute when one has a working PC along side the one being built. One can trouble shoot easier too, by trying different combinations to isolate what's not working.

[PJ-Comix]

So can I replace my SpySweeper with SpyBot?

[Quix]

Sounds like a lot of wisdom to me.

Will run the CPU/MOTHERBOARD/POWER SUPPLY COMBO by you when I settle on what I think I can afford.

Am guessing something in the neighborhood of $300-500 for motherboard/cpu combo.

What would you recommend? I want hefty enough to handle TV videos on the machine. But mostly I word process and do some Photoshopping.

Let me see if I can answer the amps question . . . No, I can’t read anything off the power supply in it’s position.

HD ribbons are the older kind, though.

Power supply connectors are most all about an inch wide.

I used to prefer AMD just to give Intel some competition. And, at the time, the DUAL CPU was among the heftier setups.

Now, I’m happy for speed and reliability—whichever though might have a slight preference for AMD. What do you suggest?

My ATI and sound cards are all new—less than 4 months old. Shouldn’t they fit a new system?

I suppose it’s hard to say about the RAID CARD?

I ASSUME it’s still cheaper to build one’s own in terms of bang for buck?

Would likely still go that way but curious.

THANKS BIG.

[Quix]

VOT U TINK

about

this combo from this page?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.2GHz Socket AM2 Processor
Model #: ADX6400CZWOF
3.2GHz
90 nm Windsor
2 x 1MB L2 Cache

Price: $179.00

with:

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe ATX AM2 Motherboard
Model #: M2N-SLI Deluxe
1000MHz Hyper Transport (2000 MT/s)
NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP
4×240pin DDR2 800, Max 8GB

Price: $124.99

And is ASUS’ antipathy for Linux really a problem in running Linux on such motherboards?

THANKS TONS FOR ALL YOUR KIND BOTHER.

Do either of you like handmade stoneware mugs?

[Quix]

OOOPS, from this page:

http://promotions.newegg.com/AMD/112007/index.html

[Squantos]

Yes Sir.... . Mozilla Firefox vs Explorer that has a script and ad blocker aka pop up blocker such as the google or yahoo tool bars have is only additional add ons I have vs what I listed above. My zone alarm firewalls are set on high.

You can purchase enhanced versions of these programs yet I haven’t seen the need due the quality and service the free versions provide.

If you run a web site as I think you do that will require a little more security as I don’t run a web site so that may be an issue someone here can address for ya.

Hope it helps !

Stay safe !

FREE is a good thing sometimes IMO.

[ThePythonicCow]

If you get either the 6000+ or 6400+ Athlon, be sure to get a good power supply, a quality CPU cooler (heatsink/fan), and a higher speed (noisier ;) case fan, as those two chips dissipate up to 125 watts. My personal preference is to build stuff that is rock solid, so I pick lower power parts, and still include the top of the line coolers and power. This would be a "AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Black Edition Processor", from the Newegg specials you're looking at. It's a 65 nm process, instead of a 90 nm process, which is a big part of why it is lower power. Then spend the $50 you saved on power and cooling. This will lead to a longer lifetime, and fewer causes for system instability. Just take a look back at how much time your current instability problems have cost you.

But I've had fun building (and troubleshooting) systems the other way as well.

I used to buy mostly AMD as well -- good bang for the buck and I enjoyed helping the underdog. This last year, all my builds have been Intel. The Intel Core 2 Duo is the clear winner these days for this class of rig. AMD's HyperTransport may still hold an edge in memory bandwidth on four core systems, but that's not what we talking about here ... neither bandwidth limited applications nor four cores.

I have had good luck with the Nvidia chip sets, as in the motherboard you're looking at.

Even though you're looking at 64 bit processors, I'd suggest running 32 bit, rather than 64 bit Windows or Linux. Unless you're running large memory applications needing over 4 GBytes of addressable main memory, the 64 bit versions of these operating environments provide no advantage and some minor disadvantages (some software incompatibilities and a slight performance hit from the larger memory footprint of the fat pointers.)

[ThePythonicCow]

HD ribbons are the older kind, though.

Look at the specifications for that new motherboard ASUS M2N-SLI SPECIFICATIONS:

Expansion Slots

PCI Express x16	2
PCI Express x1	2
PCI Slots	3

Storage Devices

PATA	1 x ATA100 2 Dev. Max
SATA 3Gb/s	7
SATA RAID	0/1/0+1/5

This motherboard only supports one PATA bus allowing for two IDE devices, the master and slave on that bus. Your old motherboard almost certainly has support for two PATA buses, allowing for four IDE drives. If you have 3 or more PATA devices, they won't all fit. However old PATA disks are of very little value. I would not waste much effort or money trying to get them to fit.

Power supply connectors are most all about an inch wide.

This tells me little. Looking at the picture of the motherboard on newegg, I see two Molex (white chunky plastic) connectors. There is a 2x2, and a 12x2, which Asus describes on their site Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe Specification as the 24-pin ATX Power connector, and the 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector.

I used to prefer AMD just to give Intel some competition. And, at the time, the DUAL CPU was among the heftier setups.

Now, I’m happy for speed and reliability—whichever though might have a slight preference for AMD. What do you suggest?

As I stated in a previous post above, I've been using Intel Core 2 Duo this last year. Previously, I mostly used AMD.

My ATI and sound cards are all new—less than 4 months old. Shouldn’t they fit a new system?

What kind of bus is the sound card -- PCI, ...? If it is PCI or PCI Express (see above table), it has a home.

I don't know what an ATI card is -- no comment on that one.

I suppose it’s hard to say about the RAID CARD?

You won't need a RAID CARD - it's built in to this motherboard. See above table.

Ah - on second thought, you might continue to use the raid card (is it PCI or PCI Express, not the old ISA bus?) and continue to connect to additional old PATA IDE drives that way.

I ASSUME it’s still cheaper to build one’s own in terms of bang for buck?

It's more fun, more flexible and one can get higher quality parts. But if one accounts for the fair market value of ones labor, it's impossible to compete with a room full of under paid Chinese laborers.

[PJ-Comix]

I still haven’t found out if I can replace my SpySweeper with the free SpyBot. Is that okay? If so, I won’t renew my SpySweeper subscription which comes due in a few days.

[Petronski]

If by “the free Spybot” you mean this:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

The answer is yes. But also get the free Microsoft Defender (name change?).

[goldstategop]

Now Windows Defender. Its still free. It comes with Windows Vista but can be downloaded for Windows XP from Microsoft.

Two nifty must have utilities for Windows Vista is TweakUAC that allows you to toggle the User Access Control so you can install software without having to turn it off completely. Then there's Unlocker, that allows you to remove folders that Windows insists on denying you permission to remove it even if you have given yourself full administrative rights to do just that. Both cool and free too.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Petronski]

Both of those tools are new to me. Thanks!

[PJ-Comix]

What’s the advantage of MicroSoft Defender?

[Petronski]

It's slick and effective. I'm "the guy" people call to fix their computers. I measure anti-spybot performance by its ability to find stuff others miss. In my earlier bench tests, I'd run Spybot, then adaware, then Defender. All three found crap and removed it.

I had never before known a program that would find things missed by Spybot AND Adaware.

[goldstategop]

Its a good idea to run more than one anti-spyware program to make sure one of the others hasn't missed something. A good HIPS should accompany your anti-spyware such as Threatfire. A virtual surfer like Zone Alarm's Force Field should keep all the nasties at bay. There's little damage spyware and adware can do these days since in Windows Vista, you must grant permission before software can install. That puts the era of silent downloads and unwanted installs at an end. Today, the purveyors of malware have to trick you into getting their crap on to your computer.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus