Brian Frank

Try resetting your BIOS to the original configuration. There should be some option like that in the exit menu if its a Phoenix-style bios, or on the main menu if its an Award-style bios. If possible, test the cd rom on another computer to see if the drive went bad. Check the IDE cable used with the cd rom drive, as if somethings wrong with it or its not fully plugged in, problems could arise. Besides swapping the drive into another computer, see if you can borrow the same drive from someone else and test it, to see if Windows doesnt like that drive in general, or you just have one bad drive. If its a Memorex drive, though, its probably going on its way out. Im also wondering if you couldve gotten a virus too. Make sure your antivirus is upto date and scan everything, especially the registry.

Your friend is incorrect. The only problem you may run into is if the BX board cant use anymore than 384MB, but that was on an Intel 440BX board I used to have, so things could be different. Increasing the ram should make a difference immeadiately, unless its a didly squat amount like 32 megs. I agree with what the other guys said about this, except for clutch and tylau comments, but thats because I dont know anything about that. 95 is way back, man. CUViper's answer is very logical.

Tyan has had a history of making server boards, and a very good one at that. While I dont have a dual board from them, I do have the Trinity 400, and it is very stable. Definitely wise to skip anything with RDRAM, just because the info I got from tomshardware seemed to point to the fact that Rambus is weasling in their way to the market in any way they can. The Via Apollo Pro 133A is, IMO, a stable chipset. But why are you ditching the ol BX? Keep it if you can, as those can still hold it against current chipsets. If you dont get the Tyan board, the Abit VP6 seems to be pretty popular too. Id almost recommend waiting for the AMD760MP chipset, but considering AMD doesnt have very good performance... STAY AWAY FROM ANYTHING REQUIRING RDRAM, RAMBUS MEMORY IS WORTHLESS FOR ANY PENTIUM III PROCESSOR. I think that SiS and ALi come to mind when the subject of crappy performance boards come to mind. You could also look for i815 chipset dual boards too.

Well, I dont exactly have a Hercules card, I do have a Guillemot card (who own Hercules). The Maxi Sound Fortissimo, if you can find it is cheap, works great, and has no problems with Win2k. You dont even need drivers for it, although you can download them. The only bad thing I noticed was if you use a splitter cable so you can have outputs to two things, the sound only plays on one side of the output really loud. But if your using headphones, you cant tell. And, unlike Creative cards, it will share an IRQ with other devices. If you can still find one, Id recommend getting that. I got mine at regular price for $50. Not bad for something with S/PDIF, rear speaker output, A3d, and EAX. Makes me glad I didnt get a creative card. BTW, Guillemot makes a $30 Maxi Sound Muse card, but I dont know how good it is. Looks just like the Fortissimo w/o S/PDIF. Unless you really want that remote control, the Game Theater looks really good.

I think the main thing that hurts the mac more than anything is, unlike Linux for the most part, cant be run on a pc system. If I was doing a bunch of video editing or photography stuff, Id much rather have the mac. Plus, I havent heard of any blue screen of plaguing the mac unlike some other OS. Im really excited about the new Mac OS X, it looks like the mac could have something to really compete with. Overall, I belive the mac is a trendsetter. Take the iMac: after it was released, eMachines had their bulkier --the eOne, as the pc version. While things like dual processors have finally gotten to the mac, some things like ease of use are just getting to Windows. Dont get me wrong, for me the Mac is just too simplistic, but if I had been introduced to it first, things might be different. Not everyone wants to have the hassles of the Windows environment, and just want to turn the machine on and go. Apple's biggest mistake was being too proprietary, and had imposed fees on software for the Mac, so when mr gates came out with Windows...well, we know what happened. If it wasnt for the mac, I dont know how far the pc industry may have gotten.

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Okay. Im gonna test out a Radeon DDR 32MB card that my friend cant run yet. Ive seen the difference between the GF2 MX, GTS and the Radeon card in benchmarks. Im looking more between the MX and the Radeon, just because I really cant afford the GTS cards, and my dads MX was pretty speedy and I'll see how the Radeon performs. Thanks for letting me know about the 3dfx thing. Im glad Im wrong on that.

I meant the only fix is to reinstall the OS. Also, before that see if youve got some bad ram. Bad ram can really screw up stuff too. Defragged your hard drive lately? Definitely check out the ram though, I had a bad stick once, did really screwy stuff and crashed programs.

DiskKeeper is really good. Fast defragmenting, boot time defrag, Frag guard--keeps files from getting fragmented in the first place. The only OS that still doesnt have any defragmenter is Linux. While there are ones out there, even the programmer says you really shouldnt use it. Not that that really does anything, but at least its consistant. Do get disk Keeper, though. If not that one, dont get perfect disk--its really slow. Norton speed disk is also a very good defrag utility.

In the post reply box, theres a thing that says Smilies Legend on the left toward the bottom. That'll pop up a box that gives you the smilies and what you type to display them.

It appears weve created some monster. Oh well. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! More worthless nonsense........ My pointless contribution of the day.

Yes, you can remove the paste off the cpu and HSF. If and when you replace the cpu and not the HSF, make sure to scrape all the compound off it, and put a thin layer of compound on the new cpu core. I couldnt tell you how hard the retail HSF is to get off, maily cuz I never used it and I got the unboxed version both times. If its anything like my Intel stock HSF on my PIII system, its probably gonna be kinda tricky to get off. What your getting with the stock HSF is really good considering its probably not that great to begin with. If you end up going to a T-Bird, definitely get something high end. Just be careful, and you shouldnt have any problems. BTW, the orb cooler that I have is the Kiwi orb cooler made by the Manhattan company--they make a lot of PC cables. Checkout Toms Hardware and Anandtech's web sites for info on HSFs.

It should, but I havent tested it yet. See if you can borrow a copy of 98 from someone. If I were you and your unsure, just wait till you have to reinstall and then try Win2k. If using the full version of ME doesnt work, you just install ME then instead. You could also try this, although it might be even more problematic: install ME, then before you do anything else, stick in the Win2k CD and upgrade it. Can anyone else confirm using the ME cd as proof of the authentication? You could consider buying the full version of Win2k too. Its $300 for the full version as opposed to $200 for the upgrade. If you havent bought Win2k already.

Consoles will play faster, cause they're made only for one thing at a time and dont have to access as many different things at the same time. However, with a PC, gaming is not the only thing its designed for. Of course theres really not a whole lot it the area of upgrades. Oh sure, youve got the memory packs for saving stuff or expanding the paltry memory selection, but thats it. You dont like the graphics--the best you can do it buy a TV. Plus, IMO PCs have better resolution than TVs. If the sole thing you do is gaming on your PC, you should just have a console. I like PC games, because I dont have to press eight differnt buttons to do one thing, meanwhile I get killed in the process. PCs rock-mainly because you dont void your warrenty just by cracking open the case.

Well, if youve got a mix of NTFS and FAT32 parititions, that could be part of the problem. Id heard that XP could be used with NTFS or FAT32, just like Win2k. You could do a dual-,or triple-boot with XP. That might work if you do a clean install on a separate partition-if possible. Thats the way to go. Upgrades, even in full OS arent as good as a full, clean install-even on multi-boot configurations. Multi-boot is the best option.

Unfortunately, Jdulmage, I think your sentiments may not be enough. Your past seems to come back to haunt you, therefore, some people probably wont take you seriously. I figure, everyone screws up, but you cant control everyones reactions. But hey, this is at least a start.

Well, more fans wont hurt, but if youve got a crappy HSF or havent gotten rid of the normal tacky stuff on the bottom with some heatsink compound (use a razor blade to scrape it off), you may want to do either of those things. The orb coolers look better than they perform. Before you get some mondo HSF, make sure it will fit on your board. The only board that I havent heard having HSF problems is the Asus A7V (lucky me ) Id personally advise against modifying your case. If you dont have a lot, you may want to consider getting a smaller case, just because yours may be too big for the amount of fans you can easily put in it,w/o modifications. Definitely get some heatsink compound on your cpu--just enough to cover the core, nothing else, a thin coat is all you need, just make sure you put enough on too. You can get some stuff up at Radio Shack, and that works fine. The power supply fan blows air out, so having another fan right below it might help, but there is a certain point where too many fans just wont help much. Id really concentrate on keeping the cpu cool. So look at getting a good HSF cooler, the CoolerMasters do a pretty good job, although they are kinda tough to put on. Try CPUcool out first before you go blowing $$ on any new fans. I dont know how much having a cooler cpu would cool down your case temp, but I dont think it will hurt anything. Your sitting pretty good. Like I said, try the program--make sure you hit Save Settings under the File menu. It works pretty good. See how it does before you buy more stuff.

3dfx still exists, but just barely. Nvidia bought out their "core assets" so in otherwords, 3dfx is there but all its patents, trademarks, etc. are nVidia's property.

CPUcool is the program. But it wont monitor your system if theres nothing it can monitor as far as temps. It will monitor other stuff like the amount of available ram and cpu speed, but it wont measure the temps.

Hey, hey, hey! Super sweet utility-CPUcool at www.tweakfiles.com cools the cpu plus a bucha other stuff too. You can select the exact motherboard (ie Asus A7V) you have and it will tell you how hot it is in either C or F, whatever your choice! The highest Ive seen it since I installed was 103F with my room heater on. I now see mid-80s F. The only annoyances are everytime you boot into windows, theres an annoying box that you have to click OK to get it away. Just make sure to hit save settings from the file menu or youll have to reset everything on reboot.

Now heres something you might be interested in-CPUcool. Simply awesome, get it at www.tweakfiles.com, its a good cooling utility that allows you to setup the exact make and model of your mobo (ie Asus, A7V in my case). It lists Abit boards, but I havent really looked at the whole thing. Right now my temp is at 84F and the highest its gone is 103F. Im also overclocking too! This makes Motherboard Monitor wilt in comparison--not that I really liked it to begin with. Just figured youd be interested in it.

Well, there are two separate menus for boot items: the normal one for the regular set of ide controllers-the ones right in front of the dimm slots, and an option to control the booting of the ata100 controller. Only when your installing the OS does it need to be set to be enabled and then in the boot menu where it says "Load onboard ata bios" (or something like that) that must be enabled. On the same menu there should be an option to boot off the ATA100 first, which should be set to no or disabled until you get Win2k finished loading. You need to have it not boot off the harddrive on the promise controllers until you finished installing so you can boot off the cd and let the install run its course. And trust me: the only drivers that have worked are the ones off Asus CD;I have the board, this works as long as you have the drivers and another file-all under the promise stuff. And you have to hit F6 during the intitial setup or you will not at anytime be able to install the drivers. Im not bashing on you, cause I know its a difficult board to get going under Win2k, but you really seemed lost. You could also have a bad board too.

Oh yeah, make sure youve got the latest drivers for your promise controller.

If all your problems are with games, you should know theres a patch on AMD's site that allows you to run games under Win2k without a problem. Theres something with the Athlon/Duron chip that wont let it play games under Win2k. Try this patch, its only a few hundred k. I have the same mobo and similar specs in general. Id say that its probably just a matter of getting a patch. Offhand, check your ide cables at both ends so theyre fully plugged in. Also, you could have a bad stick of memory. If you have 2 sticks take one out at a time and test the other for problems. If not, see if you can borrow a stick of 128, no less, and run that. But please try the AMD patch first. I dobut Via is the cause of the problems here. Here's my system for comparison. ------------------ 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.

Something must be wrong with whatever is measuring your cpu because either in F or C 255 would be too hot for it to operate because thats past the boiling point of water (100C/212F). Are you sure its not 25.5F or C? Try getting CPUcool at tweakfiles.com. Marvelous utility. It not only measures your mobo and cpu temp, it actively lowers them. And you can choose the exact maker and model of your motherboard (ie Gigabyte GA-6vxe7+ (Im not sure its on there specifically, but it is very extensive on the list)). Id say if all your sensors are reading 255 degrees, something is screwy with them. Theres no way your system would run at that temp.