hamster said: Hi everyone. I'm in the UK and just got a Touchsmart 810 and absolutely love that big screen! (Although having got used to it it doesn't seem so huge anymore). Anyway, I have a few questions which I'm hoping someone might be able to help me with. 1. I've noticed an occassional 'popping sound' coming from the unit, it doesn't happen all the time but just randomly. Anyone else have this? 2. I'm now finding that having a 64bit Vista machine has it's limitations when it comes to software as quite a few companies don't seem to have products that are compatible with 64 bit Vista. Specifically I've had trouble with Flash and also installing my old canon printer. Is there anywhere which lists all popular products which are 64 bit compatible? 3. The fan seems very loud - it's just running all the time - is this normal? 4.  The default setting on Vista when switching off is sleep mode rather than shutdown. This suggests that it may be more popular to leave it in sleep mode all the time but is it ok to leave it in sleep mode whenever I'm done with using it? It doesn't seem that good an idea to me as I prefer to shutdown completely, but interested to know other opinions. 5. Also why the big black bar all the way round the screen? What a waste of pretty much an inch all the way round.  That's it for the mo, but I'm sure there will be other questions. cheers

OK for #1, the popping sound may be the hard drive read write actuator moving.  Since the TS is so quiet, you tend to hear more hard drive noises than you do on a desktop computer.

2, Most programs should run on 64 bit vista.  Not sure about flash, but Java and silverlight work fine for me....wait, I have flash installed.

Drivers are another issue.  x86 drivers (32bit) will not work in a 64bit Operating system.

3. Hmm..not sure about that.  My IQ 816 is set to run at full power and is extremely quiet...the quietest computer I have owned.  Could be a heat related issue and may be related to the popping sound. (that may not be so good after all...)

4.  In sleep mode, my TS has insomnia. and hibernated like a bear on a bad caffeine trip.  Disableing wake on LAN in the Network adapter settings and diableing wake events for the mouse will solve most of the insomnia but not all.  If a bug lands on your screen, it will wake it up.  Also if its in a room where you are using another IR remote control, it will wake up.

5. The black bar around the screen is not counted in the diagonal screen measurement.  It is supposedly to help the laser sensors better sense your finger movemet.  Others have speculated that it is there to accomodate a future larger screen.  I pretty much forgot about it until you mentioned it.

David

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Woohoo! I won my Touchsmart!