you may read more about this modem in the manufacturer’s website, just google it.

some info that you may not find easily in the documentation are:

the default username / password for the Huawei Echolife BM626 is “user” “user” .

It also comes with Wifi turned on in secure mode (it does not allow unencrypted wifi) the default wlan password  for the Huawei Echolife BM626 is “12345678″

When I was working on a friends Acer laptop, trying to find almost all of it’s drivers that Windows curiously was unable to recognize any of them. Even the manufacturer was not quite sure what the hell  they put in this model.

That is when I tried a software called Device doctor, I kinda liked it for the following reasons.

1. Free

2. Was able to detect all the needed drivers.

3. Was able to provide driver updates for the installed drivers.

4. All drivers were hosted at the device doctor website.

5. No registration required !

6. There is even a portable version of the software, to be used without installing from a flash drive, if you were geeky enough for that.

I still haven’t got the chance to really check it’s capabilities, but so far, it’s looking good.

You can download Device Doctor here

Also you can get the Portable Device Doctor here

This tool allows you to repair your Patriot Memory flash disk if you are unable to format it with any other method because it appears as Read-only.

This method performs a low-level format to the disk and remove the Read-only attribute.

This tool is not available from the patriot memory website, only the support guys can directly email it to you.

Here is a copy of the email a friend got from the support team on how to use this tool.

Dear Valued Customer,

Attached I have included a software that will low level format and re-initialize the device. Please keep in mind using this software will delete all the data on the drive and restore the drive to its original manufacturer stage.

Please make sure to detach all other flash drives and only have the Patriot Memory drive plugged in to your computer when using the utility.

The file name is been set to Patriot.vin. Once you download the file, rename to Patriot.zip and use the software. Please be aware that this process can only be completed one time!

Patriot Memory Technical Support Team

I have successfully used this tool to repair a patrioit 8GB Xporter. the downside is that according to the support team this tool can only be used once for every flash disk for some reason.

Here is the download link. Patriot Memory 2.9.0.5

please report about the results of using this tool

Good luck

To get around this problem and use your front panel, go to the BIOS settings and find the front panel detection setting and change it from auto to enabled. this will make the front panel jacks appear in your realtek audio manager.

This problem has been detected by Asrock and they released new BIOS versions that change the default setting to enabled instead of auto.

I used to love asrock, but not anymore, what about you? do you like the newer asrock MBs?

BCM2045A USB Bluetooth adapter is a cheap Chinese usb bluethooth adapter, it works very well under windows XP but under windows Vista, there is no way you can install it’s driver because it is not digitally signed and there is no version on the internet that is.

To use this BCM2045A USB Bluetooth Dongle on windows Vista follow these simple steps:

1.  plug the device into your computer.

2. Cancel the automatic driver installation by windows.

3. open the device manager.

4  double click BCM2045A, then click “Reinstall driver”

5. Click “browse my computer for driver software”

6. Click  let me pick from a list of device bla bla bla

7. double click bluetooth radios

8. from the left list click “Broadcom” and choose ” BCM2033 bluetooth 2.4Ghz chip transiever” from the right list. click next

9. ignore the apocalypse warning by just clicking yes

10. let the driver take the time to install

11. enjoy

There is also another method to actually get the XP driver to work on vista. I did not test it but I assume it will work, I used that method to install the driver for the ZSMC USB PC Camera (ZS0211)  on windows Vista. you can follow the same method here, please let me know the result if you did.

If you have any question just ask.

The trick to use your HP 656c on windows Vista 32 or x64 is easy.

From the control panel open “printers ”  and hit the button “add a new printer”

Select “add a local printer”

As a port choose “USB0001″ and click next

from the manufacturers list choose HP

Dont worry because HP 656c is not in the model list. just select “HP deskjet 660c” and hit next.

print a test page now. everything should work just fine

The same methods can also work for the following HP printers, just select the alternative model when prompted

Product :                                                              Alternate driver
Deskjet 3320, 3325, 3420, and 3520  :    Deskjet 3600
Photosmart 7600 series     :                         Deskjet 5600
Deskjet 5850 :                                                    Deskjet 5600
Photosmart 130 and 230 :                          Photosmart 330
Photosmart 145 and 245 :                           Photosmart 330
Photosmart 7350 and 7550 :                    Deskjet 5550
Deskjet 6122 and 6127 :                               Deskjet 990c
Deskjet 3816 and 3820:                                Deskjet 970cse

Rosewill RHM-556 Circumaural Headset

Frequency Response 10Hz-25KHz this means that the headset is able to produce any sound with a frequency between  these two limits. Its good, since the human ear will only hear sounds ranging between 20 Hz to 20 Kz, so unless you are getting this headset for a dog you are OK.
Input Impedance 50 ohm A technicality, this is used to measure the power consumed.
Sensitivity 97dB ± 3dB This measures the smallest and the largest volume that the headset can produce. A compressor produces 120dB noise, we don’t want to reach that now do we?

Connector 3.5mm just the standard plug  for any computer board
Ear Coupling Circumaural : this means that this is a headset not just earphones, it should cover your ear lobe, we will discuss this later
Cord Length 9.8 feet. fair
Weight 7.05 oz. light

Microphone Impedance ~2.2K ohm good
Microphone Frequency Response 70Hz-20KHz the range of frequencies that the mic will be able to hear, good range.
Microphone Sensitivity -38dB ± 3dB the  faintest and the loudest sound you will be able to record, fair enough.

The specs are all good but now to the actual product test.

- The packaging is cheap, like way too cheap but that won’t cause a problem for me.

The plastic used in this headset looks weak, it’s not like it has fallen apart yet, but I would expect that to happen within the year.

Also size matters when it comes to headsets, this headset is too small, your ears will hurt if you keep it on for too long. Plus due to the size, this headset does not isolate you from external noises.

The mic is good, I use it to tune my guitar with a minimum of noise. Also the sound is higher than average, you will see some difference compared to your old headsets or earphones. Anyway the sound is not as amazing as in Sennheiser products

Finally, if you have tiny ears and a small head  (or if u r a gurl for short)  you will enjoy this headset. On the other hand, if you are an egg headed werewolf (or if u r a dude for short) don’t get these, just pay some more and get a better one.

If you are planning to buy these online I would recommend newegg.com

Good luck

• Company of Heroes – performance improves up to 25% with HD 4600 series products and below as well as improvements of up to 10% on HD 4800 series
• Crysis – performance improves up to 13% in multi-GPU configurations
• Crysis Warhead – performance improves up to 11% in multi-GPU configurations
• World in Conflict – performance improvements of up to 30% can be seen in settings
  that were previously CPU limited

Also, some crashes and problems with the CCC has been fixed.

This is all great, but now in a time where AMD (ATI) cards are considered better than their equivalents in nVidia, I think it is time for AMD to stand up for the challenge and fix embarrassing bugs such as:

• 3D graphics corruption in many games with Adaptive anti-aliasing enabled.
• Games crash on minimize and resolution changes.
• funny looking effects.
• Buggy deinterlacing that actually make movies interlaced (scan-line effect)
• V-sinc does not know when to turn on or off

AMD (ATI) must work more with the developers and do more “Best played on Radeon” games. Also it is time to flood the market with DirectX 10.1 games, since no nVidia cards already supports it. and I’m not talking about crappy games such as Stormrise.

Radeon card are strong but I feel that this miss a Strong software support.

what do you think

XIGMATEK Dark Knight

Here is a short review of how I liked it, may be it will help you decide if you would buy it or not

The packaging: Nothing extra cool, just regular but secure packaging. Anyway I regret that the installation manual, or should I say the installation manuscript was very short and unclear, they combined the installation instructions for core i7 and other Intel processors in the same steps and pictures although i7 has its own socket and its own metal base.

Installation: the installation of this thing is not very easy, I had to remove and reinstall it may be 3-4 times until I got it right, the installtion manual does not help at all. If you are installing it right now I have few hints for you.

- Do not install the motherboard into the case until you fix the metallic base under the CPU socket.

- Decide which way you want the fan to face before you install it. I recommend installing the fan on the right hand side of the CPU, the fan will suck air from the front of your case and hot air will exit for the back.

-The included thermal paste sucks, carful that the bag includes slightly more than enough, if you apply everything you will flood your CPU. They could have used a tube instead of the cheap paper bag.

-although the manual recommends installing the rubber bearing on the second plate of the heatsink, I found it impossible. the second plate from below and the third from up worked fine for me.

-Do not install the fan on the heat sink until you install the heatsink on the board.

Noise: at 2000 RPM, this thing is noisy the loudest thing in your case.

Temperature: without overclocking, I could keep my i7 920 at about 45-50 C idle, overclocked at 3.6Ghz the idle temp was between 55-60. anyway my board is always rotating it at level 10 2000 rpm.

Design Issues: The contact point beween and heat pipes and the CPU is painted with some glossy copper color, I think this is wrong. AlsoThe same contact point comes covered with some adhesive tape, when I removed it, some adhesive parts remained, I had a very hard time removing them.

Other than that the fan is good and in a good working condition (As an eBay seller would describe it).

You decide whether to buy it or not.

I recommend newegg.com if you decide to buy it

Causes: If the hard disk appears in the “Device manager” it is probably just not formated.  Samsung and other brands ship their HDs unformated

Solution: From the control panel go to “Administrative tools” choose “Computer management” and inside it select “Disk Management”. In the lower portion of the form you will find your HD as “unpartitioned” right click it creat partitions as you wish then format them as you wish.

You can check more Quick tips for your computer here