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but... I don't get lag anyway, so; you're right. I shouldn't post stuff that I don't care about.

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Im impressed, treasure it, its one in a few trillion, and prolly worth a bundle

To be fair though, DELL machines are very good, its just the proprietory stuff they stick inside, like "the motherboard" or "the bios" ... if anything dies it costs a fortune to put right because its stuff you just cant buy in shops or get a local comp tech to fix. As an example, you may discover one morning you need a new power supply, go out to buy one, then get home to discover it doesnt fit in the twisty-outy carriage thing (assuming its the same design caddy as the old P2 Optiplex GX1 case); if you buy one from DELL, itll fit - but maybe perhaps 3x more expensive. HP do that too, drives me nuts.

If on the other hand you never get any crashes because you dont install anything, other than maybe TM, then id say thats a waste of a good pc.

But to have NO PROBLEMS at ALL - is close to unheard of... however stable is it is / or may be.

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Spyware / trojans is usually to blame for registry problems, they change the MTU setting invisibly.. your compy seems to get slower, they may even hijack your bandwidth to send out spam from your pc, never hurts to tweek your MTU m8, because its forever changing, and not always for the better...

MS's default settings on 98 (assuming youre on a 56k modem) do not allow a full 56k connection (thats a theoretical maximum) - in your registry, theres a channel for each 10k (roughly), giving you 5 or 6 channels, MS's default setting is to dedicate 3 to downloading, the other 1 or 2 (depending on OS version and driver) are for upload only... what registry hacks do, isnt increase your bandwidth, they mark those extra 2 channels for up AND down use rather than exclusively UP. Thats is why ppl apply them, it seemingly gives them a boost, its not, what its really doing is allowing more data to flow better through the available channels. The reason you notice it more on 98 than XP, is because 98 sucked, plus it was full of memory holes, for XP, the whole TCP protocol was rewritten, and the data handling is more efficient, much more, but it can still be tweeked for better performance without compromising stability.

Compression tools like GZIP are cool too and can add a BOOST to your transfer, then theres the method of transmission, have a look at the ONSPEED program which was developed by the government, and the reason forums with GZIP move at lightning speed.... look at progs like DOWNLOAD ACCELLERATOR, which utilize all the available channels for downloads and bypass the default MS settings. Try Dr Solomons, you even have one click options for optimum settings based on the kind of connection you have, cable, dsl, 56k, t3 etc etc .... (thas win 98 btw but works under xp too, and its one of the tools i use)

You can go even further... With the right set of tweeks and tools, you can have a lightning fast system, whatever the os youre running; of course, spyware sweepers and virus killers all help... as does a good firewall.

Hope that helps

ps: ya may want to close port 139 m8 bad one that, spyware and trojans LOVE IT ! mainly because even the XP service pack 2 doesnt touch it, it hosts things like file and printer sharring and even XP's built in firewall wont close it be default (do we feel like we have a stable system yet ?)...

Net result, MS is all about looks and functionality - it may LOOK great and ACT great, but is it, and is it really as safe and stable as you think....

Food for thought...... i keep coming back and adding so id better stop b4 i overload you with data lol .... still, just because your system is running smooth and "100% stable" dont assume everything is ok.

As far as security goes, I sit behind a home router which takes care of some of it. I run GRC's free little proggys which may fill in some gaps. AND... perhaps the most important measure of all is I avoid "alternative sources of free entertainment" if you know what I mean. Certain relatives I know have gotten a plague's worth of viruses from their illicit habits. They say sharing is caring, but it isn't always so.

"I shall happily waste away"
- *snicker* gotta love the irony there lol ....