Double post! But, my computer went into testing today and so should be here very very soon; I asked that they deliver on Friday's as it's the only guaranteed day when some will be in...so it could be here by the end of the week :D

Exciting LOL I'm sure the hold up was the holiday stuff.. I ordered something from Newegg back in Dec and they have yet to ship yet :\ And that's a good company.

My computer has arrived and is sitting in my room waiting for me to set it up when I get home from work :D

Are you home yet? *pokes* Curious to see how this works :D

I've installed all software and updates, runs great - just got to install The Sims. The hard-drive is a monster; it took me at least half and hour to figure out where to put the bloody thing!

I'll get images up if you want to see it (the hard-drive front panel glows blue :D) and will let you guys know asap how it runs the game :D

yay! Glad you're having a good experience so far :D

Sure i'd love to see what it looks like!

The game is brilliant; I actually have water, and the special events pops up as well The only issue I have with the computer overall is my internet connection; personally I don't think it's anything to do with the computer but infact the router; my brother had issues with his brand new iMac getting an internet connection when he came home over christmas. He says it's because the router is a shitty little cheap one that doesn't expand too well.

My external drive, as I found trying to transfer some files over, is well and truly gone. I'm going to keep my old laptop and just remove everything bar the anti-virus and anti-spyware programmes and use that as an external drive, and just transfer bits over via an USB pen. A lengthy process, but at least I know it'll work

Can you not get connected? or.. is it dropping? Is the range just not good? You could try updating the drivers for the onboard wireless if you haven't. It might be the router.. I dunno just from what you've said and tried. Glad it's working well though otherwise! :D

Have you tried reformatting your external? I had a hdd which the computer wouldn't even recognize when I plugged it but I got it back up and running. Just had to do some things to get it detected and then reformat. But your other way would work too LOL

I can get connected, then it drops and refuses to acknowledge a wireless connection is even there. I'll have a look at getting the drivers updated and see how it goes.

I can't even get it to reformat; it starts then stops saying it can't continue. The port inwhich the USB cable goes in the HDD is a little wobbily which must be due to be tripping over the wire and it crashing to the ground. I'll try deleting a few things and doing it again, otherwise it's just the long way round

Hmm.. that's not good.. do you have that problem with other computers trying to connnect wireless to that router, or only the new one? I can help you find the drivers and maybe even do a little research into the wireless pci card (assuming you have a wireless pci card..) if you tell me what's installed.

Eeeek.. well at least you still have a way of transfering, even if it is a pain lol.

I have a Belkin Wireless G Desktop card, which when I looked for drivers it was like looking for a needle in a haystack

edit: Basically it disconnects about every 5 minutes, which is a pain in the arse as I have to keep watching my connection and re-connecting all the time. I hope to God it's the router and not the wireless card. I found what looked like updated drivers for the card on the Belkin site, but when I install it I couldn't connect - I re-checked and the dates for way back in 2003/2004 I uninstalled it and now I have more issues then before. I have re-installed the card following the instructions that came with the computer but I doubt they have helped much

I have had problems with wireless in the past. With all the security enabled, I would get very poor connections and even dropped connection. Without security enabled the connection was much better and I do not recalled it every dropped.

In the end what I discovered was if I disabled the broadcast of the name of my wireless connection, I would have problem but enabled was fine with all the security options enabled.

Just my experience.

The internet connection as a whole (on this computer and my old laptop) has got bad only in the last few months; beforehand it ran smoothly so I'm beginning to wonder if the router my dad got is loosing it's last legs. He never seems to complain about problems and always put's them down to something wrong with our desktops/laptops (my brother and I).

If it's an overall problem on all machines, the first thing I'd look at would be the router. It could be your computer's settings, but if it used to work fine and then has been having increasing troubles on all machines without you changing anything.. then yeah prob router. Haha sounds like my dad.. least he listens to me now. My current router does that too.. sometimes it just needs to be reset and then have a computer access its configs with a pointless unchanged anything save. Sounds stupid but it works. I have a linksys.. all 6 Linksys routers started out great and eventually ended up acting like this.

We reset it all the time, but it never does it any good. Well, at least not on this computer. I don't have a clue what to do, or to say to him. I guess nothing will get done till the internet is finally gone for good.

And it took me connecting three times just to post this

ps: I've sent pcspecialist.co.uk an email asking them about the problem to see what they say. I really do hope its not the computer; I don't want to have to send it back after only 5 days

Well if every computer you try to get connected has the same problem then I doubt it's the computer.. otherwise every computer you have just coincidentally has the same problem. Much more likely to be a single source. Good luck!

Another thing.. like with my linksys the default network name is linksys.
We had to change this to make it its own unique name, because there are several people in the neighborhood with linksys as their names. The computer counted them all as one and got it all mixed up.. wouldn't connect. It could be just settings problems with your router.