Mike V

Allegory, For Win2k to have similar performance in a machine that was running Windows 98, you need almost double the RAM. So a system with 64meg may be fine in 98, but in Win2k, needs 128. My PC was running 98 with 128meg, when I upgrade to Win2k, it was a little sluggish in some things. Upgrading to 256, made it faster than 98, even in games. Windows NT and 2000 need more RAM than their Windows 9x counterparts. BTW, these drivers seem to enable AGP in Quake 3 (openGL). Quake 3 always said Geforce/SSE/PCI, now it says Geforce/SSE/AGP. These drivers are definitely a big improvement, and I think starting with 3.79, video out should work. You have to plug in your video cable first before booting. Mike

Sometimes when I first go into Quake 3, the keyboard is dead, but the mouse isn't. After I move the move, the keyboard then works. This happens only once in a while. After repeatedly hitting some keys, the stickyfingers popup came up, I disabled it, and it doesn't come up anymore, no matter how many times I hit the keys. =) Mike

Guillemot had a press release on their site saying final drivers on Monday, March 13th. That never happened. Now, they look like liars. Mike

I have two IBM 20gig ATA66 drives. I have used them in Win2k with two different ATA66 controllers, the HotRod 66 (HPT366) from Abit, and the Promise Ultra66. The Promise does seem more forgiving and has been around longer, but that isn't the problem. After four hours of "up" time, I start to get a Warning message in my Event Log. Here is a link to the Microsoft KnowledgeBase article with the error: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q168/4/83.ASP?LNG=ENG&SA=ALLKB&FR=0 It's telling me that the firmware (I'm thinking the drive firmware) is old or out of date, this may degrade performance. After I initally get the error, I get it every hour on the hour. I have an APC Smartups UPS, and I leave my machine on, so after a while, my Event Log gets pretty full. Needless to say, this is annoying, although it doesn't seem to degrade performance or cause instability. I have written Highpoint/Abit, they said they have heard about it. I wrote IBM, they said it was Microsoft's problem that the drives Firmware have to be "Signed" just like drivers do know. Promise never responded to my e-mails. I have posted this problem on every newsgroup I can think of, only to get responses like "I get that too" or "Flash the bios in your controller". I switched to the Promise, because I thought it was the HPT366. I tried various Highpoint drivers and BIOS versions. Nothing. I have no idea how to fix this problem, other than getting new drives. I don't want to, they're fast, 7200rpm, and 2meg cache. The drives are listed in my system as: IBM DPTA - 372050 It's also known as the Deskstar 34GXP (don't know where they got the 34 from). If anyone has any info that can help me, I would really appreciate it, I can't post another message about this! =) Regards, Mike [This message has been edited by Mike V (edited 12 March 2000).]

I fixed it! Thank god! I noticed that the error was on device 1, meaning my second drive. After finding out the second drive had the same firmware revision (eliminating that theory), I downloaded IBM's diagnostic program, that makes a bootable disk for checking out your drives. It works only with IBM SCSI or IDE drives. I found out that these drives support S.M.A.R.T, a self monitoring standard, and it was turned off on the second drive. The program allows you to enable it, so I did, and the error has gone away. Mike [This message has been edited by Mike V (edited 13 March 2000).]

Does it support Standby and Hibernation? I know the HPT66 doesnt. Mike

I wasn't sure what the hell you were talking about until I went to Guillemot's site. I would have say Yes, that they SHOULD include a control panel of sorts, and TV and DVI out. The original Guillemot driver release was nothing more than the Nvidia reference drivers with a different .inf file. I'm guessing they will still be 3.78 or maybe 3.79 with full control panel. I guess we'll have to wait and see! Mike

The leaked 5.08 drivers are for Windows 95, 98, 98se only. They will not work with Windows 2000. There are official drivers for Windows 2000 on Nvidia's site: www.nvidia.com They are version 3.78 and any earlier version are leaked. Many people use the 3.66's, saying they're the best, but I'm using the 3.78's with no problems. Hopefully we'll see 5.0x's for Win2k soon. Mike

I am sick of this HotRod ATA66 controller. I keep getting errors in my event log, nobody knows how to resolve it. Not even Abit or Highpoint has gotten back to me. I have tried every combination of drivers and bios for the thing, and I still get these errors. Now, performance is good, but these errors are unacceptable. My friend is selling his brand new Promise ATA66 card, and I just wanted to hookup my drives to it and go. Is this possible? Do I have to reformat them with the Promise? They are IBM DPTA 20gig drives, and have been rock solid since I got them 1 month ago. Any ideas? Mike

There is a controller setup screen for the Promise, like a BIOS type setup screen? How did you set the block size? If there is, how do I access it? Thanks, Mike

Does standby work?

I booted up with the Promise, Windows 2000 installed the driver for it, and then I removed the old card, moved the Promise to that slot, hooked up the drives, and it works great! Thanks! Mike

Thanks guys, but I really want to know, can I just pull out my HR66, put in the Promise, connect my drives and bootup? What is the procedure? I know that 2000 has built in Promise drivers, but will my system even boot? Mike

I know I should have put this in the "Other" forum, but I don't think anyone would look there. Whenever I do a search off of the Start menu or any similar action (like Winzip extract), Windows 2000 pauses to spinup the CD and bring it into the path. This is very annoying, if you have a CD inserted. Any way around this? Mike

That's weird. My account was Administrator from the start, and I installed the SOF demo and the patch. It always ran fine, and it's damn fast. It even played online and it was pretty good. I am using the 3.78 Nvidia drivers with a Geforce. Mike

I'm not sure about your problem, but I recently installed HL and Op For, and then I installed the LATEST patch, 1016. I played HL Teamplay for well over an hour last night and it was perfect. You might want to try the 1016 patch. Mike

Here are the types based on system (device manager listing): For ACPI compliant motherboards and BIOS there are: Single Processor: "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" Single Processor in a Dual+ Motherboard: "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" Multi Processors in a Dual+ Motherboard: "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" For non-ACPI motherboards there are: Single Processor: "Standard PC" Single Processor in a Dual+ Processor MB: "MPS Uniprocessor PC" Multi Processor in a Dual+ Processor MB: "MPS Multiprocessor PC" My wording means Dual+ = 2 or more CPU's. Mike

I am running the 1.21 BIOS and the 1.22 drivers for Win2k on my HotRod HPT66. I am getting this annoying Warning/Error in my event log: The driver has detected that device \Device\Scsi\HPT3661 has old or out-of-date firmware. Reduced performance may result. It's in the event log, WARNING, Event 26, from HPT66. It enters the system Event Log 4 hours after Windows 2000 is started, then every hour on the hour undefinitely, or you reboot. I have written HPT, they said they had reports of it. I have tried other drivers. No dice. Anyone know of a fix? Regards, Mike

Nope. HotRod 66 controller bios 1.22, Win2k Driver 1.22. Supposedly a *match*. I still get the error. This is really pissing me off. At least it seems to work fine. Mike

Thanks. OK. I just flashed the HPT66 to 1.22 and I'm using the 1.22 driver. It doesn't happen right away, so I'll post an update. Mike