Brian Frank

Last check 4038 Of course I havent installed Zone Alarm and Norton AntiVirus, so I probably wont hit this high again. Lets hear it for overclocking!

Okay, I have PowerDVD 2.5 upgraded to version 2.55, which is said to run under Win2k. Well, Im sure it would, but I get this error code: 80070032 Network request is not supported. WTF!!!!!!!! I'll list my specs below, but it has done this when I wasnt overclocking too. My vid card is on the latest drivers... Would upgrading to DX 8 cause any problems? I still have WinDVD for 95/98/NT4 which does work, but I like PowerDVD much better.

Well the dumb thing still dont work. Even though the GF2 MX isnt listed a supported on my version of WinDVD 1.2 something, it runs just fine. I give up. Ive also done a clean install, no go. Oh well...

The voltage should be higher than what your default is: 1.65 or 1.60 volts normal. The highest the board can supply w/o modification is 1.85 volts. Set it a least to 1.75 V, but the higher you have it the less problems you should encounter and the better overclock you should get. I wasnt successful this way, so there's still the FSB overclock option. If its the KT133 chipset you cant push it stable past 113MHz FSB, plus your components run out of spec, but I havent had problems. It also depends on the motherboard you have too.

And heres the specs now. (Shoulda posted those with the last post!) ------------------ Whaazzzupppppppppp! Asus A7V Duron 800@904MHz 384 MB SDRAM PC133 Samsung 48x CD-ROM Toshiba 12x DVD-ROM Zip CD650 USB 4/4/6 Zip 100 USB Maxtor 20.4 GB ATA100 Hercules Prophet II MX Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo SIIG 3 port 1394 PCI Adapter D-Link DFE-530 10/100 NIC Creative Cambridge Soundworks FPS1000 MS Intellimouse Optical Kleer 17-inch @ 85Hz 1152x864x32 desktop Kiwi Orb Fan with additional CoolerMaster strapped onto one side HDD cooler pulling air in Dual slot fan to suck air out Case fan to suck air out Dual 80mm fans to blow on cards.

Update! Update! Now heres my computer with a little more muscle. And I get better 3dmark scores to boot!

NO, YOU WILL NOT LET THIS THREAD DIE OR YOU WILL DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [This message has been edited by Brian Frank (edited 16 March 2001).]

Im wondering if it will be worth my while to upgrade to a GeForce2 MX or possibly a GeForce2 GTS if the price is right. I'd like to spend under $200, $150 would be even better. Ive got a Voodoo 4 4500 in my main system, running Win2k, I score in the 2900's in 3dMark 2000. Im also wondering if just going to DirectX 8 will improve anything, so I wouldnt have to upgrade right now. Ive got the latest 1.04 drivers which support DX8,and I like the card, but my scores are kinda low. However, UT runs much smoother since I upgraded to the new drivers. I just want to see if I can suck more performance out of the V4 with DX8, so I can postpone getting a new graphics card. Or would it be worth my money to go to a Duron 850 or 800 instead and be pretty good. Im hesistating to upgrade my video card just because 3dfx cards may cause some problems when upgraded to or from any graphics card including another 3dfx card. Heres my specs. ------------------ Whaazzzupppppppppp! Asus A7V Duron 600@680 384 MB SDRAM PC133@113MHz Samsung 48x CD-ROM Toshiba 12x DVD-ROM Zip CD650 USB 4/4/6 Zip 100 USB Maxtor 20.4 GB ATA100 Voodoo 4 4500 AGP Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo SIIG 3 port 1394 PCI Adapter D-Link DFE-530 10/100 NIC Creative Cambridge Soundworks FPS1000 MS Intellimouse Optical Kleer 17-inch @ 85Hz 1152x864x32 desktop

Well, I ended up getting the Hercules card. Best Buy had em for $100, so I went with that one. Now what about that refresh rate thing for games under 2k? And about powerstrip? All detonator drivers work regardless of the manufacturer, right?

Get a surge protector, then. You're really setting yourself up for trouble w/o one.

Go with the Fortissimo. I have one, no problems with it. Works right out of the box without drivers in Win2k.

The only way to keep this post going is to completely irritate people so they will write in. Examples: Your mother wears combat boots. Mimes can smack you down in WWF. Two words: You suck! So, anyone watched Survivor? I personally wish they'd all get attacked by any leathal animal so they'd all die and the show would be over. [This message has been edited by Brian Frank (edited 15 March 2001).]

Well, there is a patch for gaming under Win2k with AMD cpu's on AMD's website. I dont remember exactly where it is, but hunt around, you should find it. Its a small registry patch. When you get it, just double-click on it. It will ask you if you want to add it to the registry, click yes. That should fix it.

Well, this might seem obvious but, do you have a surge protector. If you dont get an APC one. If thats not it, its probably your power supply. You may not have enough juice going to your system. On the Asus Probe, I just left the fan, cpu temp, mobo temp and core voltages checked. The others, especially the voltages other than the core voltage, are whacky. Also, did you do a clean install with the mobo?

I tested out a Radeon 32MB DDR AGP card, and Im not really too impressed...especially considering all my games are screwed up now. I guess I'll wait till I get an Elsa Gladiac MX or the Hercules 3d Prophet MX and just do a clean install. The 3dfx cards seem to leave some mysterious force that curses your system if you put in another card. I like 3dfx cards, but Id also like to have a card with continued support. I will not give up an arm and a leg for any pc component above $300, and I have yet to spend that much on a single piece of equipment. I have been very impressed with the MX, a $100-$150 card that is cheap. Ive pretty much decided that 32-bit color is nice, but I dont see the need for it, nor have anything yet that requires 32-bit color to run well. If I was doing CAD, that would be a different story, but Im not, so spend $600 for one PCB is really hard to justify here. nVidia seems to have the best of what I want, and Ive used the Riva 128 8MB AGP and that worked really good. Somehow, nothing against ATI, nVidia seems to be the best choice now, concerning the numerous options for their cards. ATI does have one thing down though: the best damn graphics including smooth DVD playback.

Well, as I understand it, having a faster memory speed will have a little bit better path for the memory than the T-bird 1.2GHz (12x100). On the other hand, they will probably perform about the same. The unlocked T-Birds would be helpful if you plan to overclock. Id go with the cheaper T-Bird, whichever one it is. Just get PC133 ram whichever processor you get. Also, depending on what HSF you get, the Abit board may have a problem with space around the socket, so make sure whatever one you get will work on it. The Asus A7V and A7V133 have plenty of space around the cpu socket, so you can put any hsf on it you want. If you want to overclock, go with the 100MHz FSB T-bird, if not go with whatever suits your budget. Also, as far as sound cards go, there seem to be some problems with SB Live cards in particular. I have had no problems with the Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo sound card. Its got front and rear speaker outputs, mic, line in, S/PDIF out, and supports A3D and EAX. If you can still find it, Id highly recommend this one. You wont even have to get drivers to get it to run, although it wouldnt hurt to. The Asus A7V board does have one problem that can be fixed with a bios update: the conflict between PCI slot 2 and the Promise ATA100 controller causes that PCI slot to be unusable, except for a slot fan. I dont know if the A7V133 has this problem though. The only other board comparable to this is the Abit KT7 series boards. These are some very popular s, so either one should be fine. Tip: with these boards having an additional pair of IDE controllers, just install Windows under the regular IDE controllers, then after the install, put in the drivers for the controller, then plug in the hard drive into the extra controllers. Its a little less problematic this way.

Just figured I put up something thats free (well kinda, register just to get some annoying thing from poping up-aint worth $13) cause we all like free stuff. Plus, its a pretty cool thing, almost convinced me to send the money...almost. I just like a less than toasty cpu. Ah, what troubles we overclockers face.

Okay, how much of a performance gain are we talking between a 7200rpm and a 5400 rpm ata100 hard drive. I play Half-life and UT as the main things that really tax my system at all. Is a 7200rpm really gonna be a major contributor to this stuff like video editing or what?

Okay, Im getting a GF2 MX based card, probably an Elsa or a Hercules, maybe a Leadtek. Id like to know any problems that I could have and how to fix them. I have an Asus A7V with the KT133 chipset and the BIOS revision 1004. My specs on the sig line. Also, what about any Via drivers. DirectX 8.0a? Thanx. ------------------ Whaazzzupppppppppp! Asus A7V Duron 800@904MHz 384 MB SDRAM PC133 Samsung 48x CD-ROM Toshiba 12x DVD-ROM Zip CD650 USB 4/4/6 Zip 100 USB Maxtor 20.4 GB ATA100 Voodoo 4 4500 AGP @176 MHz Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo SIIG 3 port 1394 PCI Adapter D-Link DFE-530 10/100 NIC Creative Cambridge Soundworks FPS1000 MS Intellimouse Optical Kleer 17-inch @ 85Hz 1152x864x32 desktop Kiwi Orb Fan with additional CoolerMaster strapped onto one side HDD cooler pulling air in Dual slot fan to suck air out Case fan to suck air out Dual 80mm fans to blow on cards.

Did I also mention that there are 4 computers where I live. ME has given me the worst time as far as networking. However, the Win9x line wasnt really directed at networking. One OS is good for some people, but for others its not. I have had significantly less problems with Win2k and 98 than in comparison with ME. I, and the rest of the people here, are not weak users just because we got fed up with ME. I would rather run 98 than ME, and I tell people not to upgrade to ME, and if they are I tell them to go to Windows 2000, unless they have a bunch of DOS apps, in that case I tell them to stay put. Let me make this clear: USING ONE OS OVER ANOTHER DOES NOT MAKE SOMEONE SUPERIOR TO ANOTHER USING A DIFFERENT OS, NOR DOES IT MAKE ONE PERSON A POWER USER AND THE OTHER ONE NOT. Remember: one size does not fit all. I had very big doubts about Win2k: it was a completely different thing than 98. Placement of things were different, some apps like MSConfig were nonexistant. But I eventually started liking what it was. I am not sticking up for any OS just because its the underdog. I like Linux, but to get anything to run with a lot of new stuff is a problem. Linux is a stable OS, but it has a long way to go until it can really even begin to compete with Windows on anything other than a server setting. Windows 2000 simply had a much better system for what I was doing. The right OS for you is not necessarily the right one for me. I had a bad experience with ME, so I switched. You would do well to remember that this is based on opinions, and not what you or I want to hear. This topic isnt to p*ss off people, but to let me see how many people were turned off by ME. ME is probably better for the home user in almost everything. It was designed for gaming, Win2k was not. I have found that things run just as well on it. The choice of OS is a personal choice: go with whatever suits your taste. Im not gonna force feed people an OS they dont want.

What Asus A7V do you have? Is it just the A7V or the A7V133. If its the A7V, the ATA100 has nothing to do with Via, its controlled by the extra pair of Promise ata100 controllers. You can get the drivers for this from Asus website.

Radeon just sucked. I mean great graphics and all, great score on 3dmark...but, losing the ability to see the menu in HL after a game was irritating, and it also offset my screen in HL. Im looking at an Elsa GF2 MX or a Hercules one at best buy. Which detonators should I get; I am planning on overclocking the card. And what about that refresh rate thing Ive heard about in games?

Thats what slocket adapters are for! But that would kinda defeat the whole purpose of a 370 board. The Tyan Tiger 200 is a dual ViaApolloPro133A boad with socket-370. It appears to be designed for rackmount purposes, so check that out before you get it. I havent had a whole plethora of boards to look at, but the most stable board has been from Tyan. Zero problems, unless you consider my failure to overclock a problem.

It appears that hard drive rpm isnt as big of a contributing factor as I first thought. I really wasnt sure how much it affected overall performance--which its nothing needed, unless hdd speed is crucial, and then thats what scsi is for.

It may be a good idea to point out that this site is NTcompatible, not MEcompatible. Ive found that there are problems with any OS, but Win2k has less of them in comparison with ME. The OS should do a fairly decent job of resource management right out of the box without any tweaks. I like to suck out performance from an OS, but there are some things that should already be ready to go. ME had compatability issues which hurt it more than anything else. Personally, you shouldnt have to upgrade every bit of software you own just so you can run the software. You two are obviously well knowledged in the area of the Win9x line. I wish that tech support like what is put on the help menus, would be more intelligent. You have your OS, I have mine. BTW, dont forget about Linux, cuz its MS #1 enemy right now...according to Steve Ballmer.