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• Key Settings

  The following BIOS tricks will show you how to change the boot priority order on your computer, start a desktop PC with a keypress or a mouse click, activate support for USB 2.0, and handle problems with fans or hardware changes. 5. Establish Boot Priority Order Skip the floppy during startup: Pick the hard disk as the boot drive (as shown in Screenshot C). Most PCs attempt to boot from the floppy disk during startup. This consumes valuable time and introduces the possibility of infection from boot sector viruses. And let's face it: there's rarely any need to boot from the floppy these days anyhow. Telling the BIOS to not bother with checking the floppy drive and turning off drive checks for floppies helps shorten boot time. The BIOS has a mechanism to let you control the devices from which your PC can boot, and the order in which those devices should be checked. The following configuration lets your PC skip the floppy drive during startup, thereby speeding the boot process and beefing up system security. Here's how you do it: First select "Advanced BIOS Features, Boot Sequence" then switch the "1st Boot Device" from "Floppy" to "Hard Disk", as shown in Screenshot C; this may be called "HDD-0". This instructs the BIOS to go straight to the boot sector on the hard drive without taking any unnecessary detours. With this change made the computer no longer tried to boot from the floppy drive, but it still checks to see if a floppy drive is installed on your PC, which wastes time. To avoid this check, be sure to set the "Boot Up Floppy Seek" option to "Disabled" as well. 6. Speed PC Boot Up The bottom line on this change is that your PC won't go off looking for new hard disks and other drives each time it boots. Skipping this check helps speed boot up. Here's how you do it: Unless you change drives in your system regularly, set the drive search time to zero. From the "Main" menu, set the "Timeout" value to "0". 7. Activate USB 2.0 Support USB: Those who've installed Windows XP with Service Pack 2 should enable the "USB 2.0 Controller", shown in Screenshot E. On many motherboards, the "USB Controllers" Option is installed so that only USB 1.1 is active. The root cause of this issue is that Windows XP itself, prior to the addition of any Service Packs, does not support USB 2.0. The following BIOS manipulation lets you activate support for USB 2.0 after the fact. To do it, simply change the value for this option to "Enabled" (as shown in Screenshot E) or to "V1.1+V2.0", as may sometimes be the case. The prerequisite for using the faster USB 2.0 interface is that Service Pack 1, at a minimum, must be installed for Windows XP.

• Avoiding Detection

  TG Daily: One of the things I've see with bot programs is that they try to appear more human (to lessen the chance of being banned). What are some of the technical measures that Glider tries to do? Mercury: Avoiding detection is rather exciting, to be sure. Since Blizzard does not want bots running at all, it's a violation to use them. Detection is cleanly divided into two methods: software and human. Avoiding human detection is fairly difficult because, let's face it, if another player gives Glider a Turing test in the game, it's not human. Rather than attack that problem at its strength (I'm a big Art of War fan), Glider tries to attack it at its weakness by not causing a player to become curious at all. We try to add little mannerisms here and there, like jumps and random strafing and bits of randomness to combat. For instance, if you tell Glider to use the Bloodrage skill with your warrior, it will sometimes use it before shooting the gun, sometimes after. If it's charging, it'll sometimes use it after the charge - and sometimes not at all. We try our best to make it not set off that first curious look from another player, but it's very difficult. Of course, a good part of avoiding player detection is, ironically, detecting players. Just like if it was your 10-year old nephew, Glider will alert you if there is another player following around for too long. So you can configure to play a sound clip at high volume so you can come and investigate - or simply log off. When it comes to suspensions or bans, discretion is more than just the better part of valor. TG Daily: How difficult is it to stay one step ahead of Blizzard? Also, can you empathize with the GMs who try to catch botters? Mercury: Staying one step ahead of Blizzard is just about impossible because you never know what they're going to do next. The technical nature of the game is that the Warden, which is where Blizzard's hack-detection code lives, is dynamically updated. The code itself doesn't even exist in the game client, but is sent down when you connect, just like your spellbook is. Given that agility and the fact that the game can update any time on a regular or hotfix patch, it's tricky. With all of the focus on the Warden lately, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Blizzard decided to bury a few simple checks in the game code itself. Some clever engineering would make that virtually impossible to find, as nobody can disassemble the entire enormous game client. XOR a few values together to make disassemblers miss the pointer reference and you've got some very stealthy flag-setting happening in the guts of, say, an item trade. So we have to make sure that Glider won't get picked up by anything that simple, which means we can't do a lot of things, like putting code into the game directly or altering its data structures. For us, staying ahead is really about the business decisions for Blizzard. What we do is figure out what's easy for them to detect, such as by changing a simple parameter in the Warden or adding a small bit of code. Then we make sure Glider is not detected as passively as possible, such as using regular Windows security to limit the game's access or randomizing process names. The trick here is that Blizzard has a finite amount of development and test resources, so we want to make it bad business to spend that much time altering their detection code to find Glider, since Glider's negative effect on the game is debatable. A number of people, including myself, are still playing WoW and have even activated second accounts solely because of the opportunity to use Glider to create a level 60 character of another class. When the Blizzard project managers sit down with the issues list, we want Glider to slip down the list behind other work. The bottom line is that Blizzard can detect anything that's available to the public with enough effort, since they control the client. So rather than attack that strength, we attack the weakness and try to make it a bad idea or make their changes very risky, since they don't want to risk banning or crashing innocent customers. As for GM's, it must be an interesting part of their jobs. Being a WoW GM seems like it would be one of the toughest jobs in the world, since they're effectively a level 1 help desk for gamers - and playing a game that they probably love. I imagine a GM has a little more fun when shadowing a suspected botter than simply helping someone get their lost Arcanite Bars back. I know I would. We don't see them as "the cops" or "the enemy" or anything like that. They're just guys doing their jobs.

• Unsupported SLI: Epox EP-9U1697 GLI (ULi M1697)

  The reasonably priced 9U1697 GLI from Epox doesn't necessarily mean having to sacrifice "SLI like" performance, even though BIOS upgrades and finding the latest drivers can be painful. Nvidia has been quite forthcoming in its support for SLI, giving title publishers consent to release software specific game profiles. Each version release incorporates syntax that is specific to the software with newer versions leading to increased compatibility with a larger list of titles. The Epox board is not SLI approved (Epox refers to its incarnation as GLI) and currently, using hacked drivers for the board, only takes you so far. The ULi Power Express Engine Driver 1006 allows activation of SLI according to the Forceware driver version 81.98 (released February 7, 2006). As of the date of our testing, newer revisions of the drivers did not work, which can create potential compatibility headache and loss of dual GPU support with newer games. It's important to note that our tests were carried out using the latest GLI hack. You will have to look for newer releases to find support for your applications. To set up the Epox EP-9U1697 GLI for x16 PCI Express mode to take advantage of the GeForce 7800 GT cards used for the testbed, we had to change jumpers between eight blocks on the motherboard in order to switch between single x16 and dual x8 PCI Express modes. The chipset is Uli's M1697, which has some nifty features for Serial ATA II / RAID support (with Native Command Queuing), Azalia high definition audio support with channel surround, and it continues in the tradition of motherboard overclockability. There were certain compatibility issues with Doom 3 and Quake 4 while running old BIOS versions. Any buyers who want to take a chance with this board should ensure they're flashing the most recent version for problem-free operation. Older versions typically hang at the "initialization menus" and require a restart with a different BIOS flash. One cool feature on the EP1308 is GhostBIOS, which, according to Epox, will allow the system to boot without your main BIOS - should it become corrupted. The BIOS isn't "mounted" in a traditional manner, which restricts local access to its system area. This increases the difficulty for malicious software to find the BIOS, helping to secure the board against external hack attempts. Epox has also added a feature called "Magic Screen", which allows users to change the screen displayed at system boot. Although this can hardly be called proprietary, it gives the product a nice touch. A "frightening" Ghost BIOS flash presentation, which probably contains more information than you're interested in, can be found here. The bundled Windows application MagicFlash allows for easy BIOS updating through an Internet connection and automatically checks for new updates much like anti-virus programs updates. Gone are the days of writing to a floppy and painstakingly flashing BIOS information through a cryptic boot sequence; upgrades can be done through the application's download process and a quick reboot. Epox states that any shutdown or power interruption during the flash will not corrupt your BIOS to the point it is unrecoverable by its software due to the backup or "Ghost" BIOS stored on the motherboard. A great cause for concern when choosing this system model is what upgrade and performance factors will be affected by having to find/resort to BIOS hacks. The chipset is not recognized as an SLI standardization with future support. One should bear in mind that GLI/SLI drivers reference specific game profiles. Ensuring proper driver support is crucial to determining compatibility with newer and older software, especially if users opt for the GLI route, as demonstrated by the EP-9U1697. slide show: Epox EP-9U1697 GLI