Dragon-Lord

remote desktop has to be seen to be believed updated, approved drivers for all devices, so easy installs speed/system responsiveness auto sharing of printers, very nice in small office environments windows update improvements 64 bit versions for my Itaniums ..and the simplest argument for me is that there is no reason to run 2000 after moving to XP. I won't run anything but XP now. Now, is XP worth a full upgrade price from Windows 2000? No bloody way! From 9x, yes. But $200 to upgrade from NT 5.0 to NT 5.1 is freaking ludicrous. WinXPPro (XP home is a waste of bytes) should be a $99 upgrade from Windows 2000. But that is a different thread entirely... So, get it for free when you buy that new computer, cause the pricing model is just BS IMHO. :}

starting in 1980 with the Apple II, that would make it 22 years. oiy

I downloaded it (blessed be my cable modem), installed it without a hitch (SB Live Platinum with the digital out card), and it has worked flawlessly. It even stopped a weird hanging upon boot-up problem I was seeing occasionally. So, for what it is worth, it seems safe and friendly enough for now. Will advise if anything changes. So, if your SBLive is still problematic under XP, download away! :}

I solved my problems by dumping my VP6. Either is was just going bad or inherently flawed, but the new Intel 815EEA2 motherboard has taken everything I have put into it, every driver I have installed, and every IRQ I can force it to share without a single solitary blessed BSOD...not a one. Yeah, I miss running a dual, but there is no substitute for stability. For $150, I highly recommend this motherboard to anyone. :}

New Toshiba Satellite 5005-v507 is what I have been using for the past two weeks, and it is dyn-o-mite. GF4MX graphics, 1.1ghz p3, 15" UXGA 1600x1200 display, and the best damn sound system and speaker setup you have ever heard from a laptop (Harmon Kardon, with a subwoofer). Dumped my Dell Inspiron 8100 for this one and won't be looking back. And it was only about $2,300 or so... :}

yes, he's right. My stability mentioned above was short lived. It turns out that culprit appears to be the VIA USB driver native to the VP6...it doesn't like to share an IRQ (it was sharing with my ehternet card). All my cards share with each other fine, but the system still froze regularly (like every 20 minutes). I put a card I had pulled out back in and suddenly the USB had its own IRQ...whoilla, no crashes since yesterday...even with 1gb ram and under heavy load. This may be why many people recommend turning ACPI off so you can guarantee unique IRQs for your devices. I still don't use the latency patch, since the YT bios lets you set the PCI latency to 0 manually. Hope this helps... :}

If Windows XP detects 6 write errors with DMA access to a device (most notably CDRWs) then it will demote the device once step, i.e. UDMA2 to UDMA1, UDMA1 to PIO. You can fix this, assuming there was some other reason why DMA access was failing, but just uninstalling both the device itself and the IDE chain it is attached to. This will force a reinstall of these devices at the next reboot and you will be back to where you started. :}

Yes, I have to say I have been very disappointed with the VP6 overall. Even though it *seems* to be running fine again, I still wouldn't mine trading this board out for a different dual P3 (socket 370) motherboard. Any one have any suggestions? Intel chipset preferred, hehe. :} PS Yes, when I have the cash I will just go to a P4 rig, but I can only spring for a replacement mobo currently.

I was one of those people who had to revert back to the HPT370 1.03b drivers (instead of the Windows XP native) in order to keep from stuttering sound and system performance with my Via Apollo Pro chipset machine (Abit VP6). Well, with the hacked YT bios including HPT370 v2.3 bios and the Highpoint 370 v2.3 drivers from their site, my system is now working as it should. Just thought I would point this option out for any of you still working with the ancient 1.03b's. Hope it helps, :}

Note that tracert and other apps fail with this firmware. It is only so-so as an upgrade and UPnP isn't fully realized yet. A good site for info on this router is http://www.dslreports.com/forum/equip,16 :}

My VP6 returned to stability by removing the PCI latency patch. Just FYI. :}

I am also running a VP6 and it has been a real pain in the arse the last few weeks. However, after trying everything under the sun, it looks like unintalling the latency patch did the trick for me. I am running 27.20 detonators on a GF3, latest Via 4-in-1's, and using HPT370 v2.3 enabled bios and drivers and today it has been a happy camper. :}

Windows XP reduces your IDE speed after 6 errors, so if it was originally UDMA2, it becomes UDMA1, UDMA1 becomes PIO (ACK!!!). I was able to trace by CDRW problems (16X burner only burning at 8x) to that issue. The only way to force it back to UDMA was to go to the device manager and remove not just the offending device but the IDE chain it was connected to. Upon a reboot everything was reinstalled back to the factory default settings and now it is all good as gold. So, you might just want to make sure Windows XP hasn't downgraded you to PIO after those errors... Hope that helps, :}

You need to tell us what your system is...motherboard, CPU, chipset, installed PCI cards, and where...etc. We can help then. :}

the Nvidia 27.xx series drivers include DualHead style software and functionality. :}

No longer on the MS site. It is the article that describes how to install Windows XP on a machine with less than 64mb of RAM (don't ask). Thanks in advance for either the article or the tip :}

You are the man :}

yes and no. The chip, mobo, case, etc., comes from Intel, since they build these early reference designs. The WinXP-64 used to come from MS via Intel, but you can now download the 64-bit versions direct from MS via MSDN. :}

No, I was serious. I am beta testing Itaniums for Intel. I have three on hand and they are very nice indeed. Can't say too much more, of course...at least not yet. :}

you want to disable it on the drive you are having problems with only. You are trading data intergrity for a small (I believe) performance boost. :}

thanks for the info. I will give them a try on my Itaniums. :}

On my secondary system, my old IBM drive crashes occasionally when Write Cache Enabled is enabled under Windows XP. This can be disabled in the device manager properties for the drive. Once I disabled this option, the drive thrash based crashes went away. This problem does not exist on any other system I have used, so it might be drive rev dependant. Hope it helps, :}

the 21.xx series seems to try and utilized AGP Fast Writes if your motherboard supports it (and it is enabled in the bios). In my case, disabling AGP Fast Writes (inconsequential to performance) in the Bios has ended all my problems. Let us know if it works for you, :}

Never going to buy another product from Creative again, nope, never again. :}

I have tried the 21.85's and I am still seeing the occasional full freeze up. The only time I have seen that happen is when I would use something like PowerStrip to force AGP Fast Writes mode (I am running a GeForece 3 on my VP6 by the way). So, I disabled Fast Writes at the Bios level and so far, so good. Perhaps these drivers and finally trying to enable a few of those advanced AGP features no one has even seen work before, hehe. Just FYI, hope it helps someone, :}