[bobgpsr]

I had a 6 year old motherboard die, so that gave me a chance to to a processor & OS upgrade. Using a Intel E6600 core 2 duo processor, MSI mb with a Q965 Intel chipset, 2 GB (2 sticks) of dual channel Mushkin DDR2 800 RAM, and a new Seagate 500GB SATA hd. Got Vista 64bit Home Premium from Newegg.

The install (new) went smoothly but I am not entirely happy with the controls Realtek currently provides for the ALC883 audio codec chip (7.1 channel HD analog). Missing control of the subwoofer crossover frequency which is supposed to be selectable under Vista.

The on-board Intel GMA 3000 VGA video is not rated as acceptable for hidef video disc playback by the Cyberlink PowerDVD HD advisor. PowerDVD 7.3 does do a decent job of SD DVD playback.

Overall the pc is very fast and reliable -- but I will need to get a Nvidia 8600 video card with HDCP for playing HD DVD's mounted on a XBOX 360 HD DVD addon drive that is connected via USB 2.0.