moray

Has anyone tried reallocating hardware to different IRQs under win2K to avoid sharing on IRQ9? I have been having problems with CFS2 and the only thing left to me that I haven't done from the list of suggestions is to manually move my graphics and sound cards to different interrupts. This is a major hassle as it seems to involve reinstalling windows due to the (ultra-smart) Microsoft ACPI and HAL automatic assigning of P&P hardware to interrupts. Anyone got any smarter ideas? Cheers Mozzer

Has anyone successfully installed this drive under win2k and if so has anyone encountered any problems? I am still wrestling with the installation and will post my experiences soon, but wanted to hear about everyone else's thoughts first. Cheers Moray

Has anyone else encoutered problems using Netmeeting under Win2kPro? I am Ok when it starts up and conncecting to another user is also fine. It is when I disconnect, the program hangs and I can't shift it even with Ctr Alt Del and task manager. It sits there completely lifeless for about 5 minutes then crashes me out of windows altogether. I don't think it is conflicting with anythin g else as I can open the program and close it normally as long as I have not connected to another user. AS soon as the connection is established it is inevitable that it will crash at some point. Also video performance on NM is pretty poor. I am using Creative Webcam Go Plus Thanks in advance Moray

Hi again I thought you might be interested to look at this page. It shows good pictures of a P2 to P3 upgrade in progress. http://mav.net/phil/dell.shtml

Thanks for all the comments on this thread however I must disagree with Igor about the possibility of upgrading a P2 machine with a P3 chip. This site, lays it all out complete with testimonies from user who have successfully done it. http://roberthancock.netfirms.com/dell/index.htm The key point is that there is the newer P3 chips run on LOWER voltages than the old P2 chips (until you get towards 1GHz) so there is no problem with the power supply. The P3 has its own heatsink and fan and the motherboard (a variant of the Intel SE440BX) has a socket to plug the fan straight in so there shouldn't be a cooling problem. The bios will not recognise the chip as a P3 because the board and Bios were both created before the advent of P3 chips, however although wrongly labelling the chip it still runs and everything zips along a hell of a lot faster than it did before. Or so I am told....I'll be trying it out soon and will let you know if I run into problems - i am prepared to eat my words if it all goes pear-shaped!! Moray

This is turning into an interesting thread. I have since discovered that the mobo was based on the Intel SE440BX Slot 1 board. BIOS is flashed as far as it will go. There is an excellent online resource for any other Dell owners wanting to upgrade here http://roberthancock.netfirms.com/dell/index.htm There are a few issues regarding processor voltage and potential thermal overloading, but all things considered, it looks like I can just swap processors and not worry about new power supply or mobo. Different processor architecture is a consideration (SECC or SECC2 vs PCA or FC-PCA) and may necessitate a slocket (socket adaptor). See also the Delltalk upgrade forum for info http://webtalk.us.dell.com

Thanks for the suggestion Kingtrey What does everyone else think about this? Will the motherboard be happy if I just replace the PII 350MHz chip with a PIII x00 chip? Do I need a new power supply or fan or anything else? Regarding the case issue - I have replaced the graphics card, hard drive and internal modem and added RAM. None of this has any implication for the space within the case. Moray

Anyone know anything about upgrading the processor on a Dell Desktop machine? The Dell website says "don't do it" and come up with some lame excuse about their moBos being carefully balanced to support the components supplied. I have a Dell Dimension PII 350MHz and have upgraded or replaced about every other compnent except for the board and processor. Does anyone have any experience of ripping bits of Dell circuitry out and replacing it with something more up to date? Thanks Moray

Unreal Tournament runs with no problems in NT4 Did you think of using the extensive listings on this site to check for game compatibility? It is called "NTCompatible" after all.... To that list you can add Diablo, Starcraft, Age of Empires 2, Links LS and many more.....

OK - here's the story. I was running NT4 and upgraded to win2k with no problems. Half life ran under NT and ran under 2000. Fine. Then I had to reformat my disk and reinstall Win2k. Since then I have taken the opportunity to load the most recent video drivers for my Matrox G400 Max(5.51) and reinstall HL with the most recent patch (1.1.0.4). The result? Menu screen opens up but the game doesn't run. Under OpenGL it says something like unable to run current version of OpenGL and under D3D it almost runs but the screen has lots of glitches and runs at about 1fps.... I have also installed DX8.0a. Any idea whether it is my video driver, HL patch or DX8 that is causing the screw up??

Thanks Wolf This sounds like the sort of thing that I want. When I uninstalled the Intellipoint software, the msi8042 port seems to stay activated and conflicts with other hardware resources but to no obvious ill efect. I just hate having yellow exclamation points!! To clarify, it is a PS/2 mouse - not USB. I just wasn't sure when the correct driver wsa being loaded as it always reports a basic PS/2 device and the wheel didn't seem to work. Moray

Sorry to bore you good folks with a dull post like this but..... I have a MS Intellimouse which I have always just used as a non-wheel mouse. Now that I'm happily running Win2K I thought I'd resurrect its wheel capabilities, but I've had no joy so far. Windows detects it and loads PS/2 drivers. I installed the Intellipoint software but that didn't seem to affect the device manager listing as basic PS/2 mouse. Also I now notice that the keyboard and mouse are listed as conflicting hardware although both are functioning fine. msi8042 is listed as loaded on IRQ1 and 12 and the mouse also shares IRQ12. Any suggestiobns for getting the correct mouse driver loaded? After uninstalling the PS/2 driver should I also unplug the mouse so that windows doesn't detect it and reload basic PS/2 driver on startup???? Thanks

Yeah - except my "method" wasn't exactly sophisticated - I just reformatted my disk and reinstalled everything....!

test

I had already thought of that and tried to change the IRQ before without any success. It was on IRQ9 before (when it didn't work) and it is again installed on IRQ9 so there doesn't seem to be an issue there.