Not in a hurry for a new computer

[Bacchus]

I managed to get AsRock to send me a new BIOS chip in the end. Very responsive but the first one they sent got smashed up in the post, but they actually packaged the second one.

[NobleHelium]

An actual BIOS chip? Aren't those soldered on? How did you get it on the board?

[Bacchus]

I guess it depends on the board, mine uses socketed ones, so you can pull them out quite easily with a pair of pincers, or even fingers at the risk of a bent contact.

[Hail]

970 gtx is a sweet card for new builds. the power of 780 gtx (or r9 280x) for 50 watts less!

[sunrise089]

Agreed, but watch AMD prices too. If the 290 falls enough it can be a great option for people who don't quite want to spend what the 970 requires if power draw isn't an issue for you.

[Hail]

apart from increased power draw, the r9 290 has thermal throttling issues. besides all this heat spreads in the case heating other components. hard drives are most susceptible to heat imo

I shall let r9 290 go and wait for r9 3xx in February. however the r9/r7 do not support win xp/w2k3

[Ruff_Hi]

I have a question about my home network and how to disable internet access for a PC that is inside my network with a wired connection to my router. Is this the right thread to ask that sort of question? Or should I start another one? Or should there be a (sub) forum for PC related questions?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Do you just want that computer to not be able to access anything outside your local network? You could clear the configuration for its default gateway. That way the computer wouldn't know what network address to send any packets to that weren't on the local network segment. It would still be able to communicate with other computers on the LAN.

[Ruff_Hi]

I'm putting in a HTPC and I want it to share recorded (and ripped) content with others inside the network. I don't want it to be able to see out ... or others to see it inside of my network.

It sounds like we are talking about the same thing. Can you be more specific regarding 'clear the configuration for its default gateway'? I was planning on researching some router control that would block its mac address ... is that on the right (or wrong) path?

[spacetyrantxenu]

If you're using Windows on the HTPC the instructions should go similar to what's listed here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...p-settings

Basically the process is to open your control panel, find the network connections, find your network adapter, go to properties, choose the version of TCP/IP you want to change configuration for (most likely will be Internet Protocol Version 4 - TCP/IPv4), click properties, click the radio button for Use the following IP address, and enter in the appropriate information there.

If you're not familiar with what some viable values are for IP address and subnet mask you can find out what your current values are before going in to change anything. Open a command window (Start | Run | type cmd and then press enter). Run the following command:

ipconfig /all

Find the adapter name you're looking for (probably something like Ethernet Adapter). See what the current IP address is and the subnet mask. You'll want to enter the same subnet mask above. You may or may not want to reuse the same IP address -- if your machine was previously picking up the address automatically using DHCP there's a chance you could get an IP address conflict in the future some time if you manually assign an IP address to your new computer instead of letting your DHCP server (probably your router) assign it. You'd probably be fine using a random number in the last part of the address (like if the address was 192.168.1.100 you could use something like 192.168.1.155 and probably not have a conflict), so long as you don't have a lot of devices on your subnet.

Back to the original part of the question, when you're entering in valid network information in the IPv4 Properties box, just don't enter anything for the Default Gateway setting. That will keep your network packets from knowing where the next router is, and it won't be able to send your traffic outside the local network segment. If you have any trouble with this let me know, I can chat through some details tomorrow if you need to.

Edit: Just saw the second question you had about doing the traffic blocking at the router instead of on the device. You could do it that way if your router has an option to do it, would depend on the device. Most typical consumer routers don't have those kinds of outbound access control features to my knowledge, that's more typical of enterprise network equipment (like access control lists, etc). The ACLs would be configured by IP address anyway, most likely, so you'd still end up having to assign a static address to the HTPC device, may as well just remove the default gateway from there instead of fiddling with the router.