Brian Frank

I like that too. I'm gonna dream up a dual Xeon rig here and go all out, but I don't think I'll be doing that till at least next year.

I sometimes get a little caught up in the MS is gonna spy on all our computing habits thing, but when I think about it, I have yet to see any reliable site give a straight yes or no answer about this going on. If anyone can do this, please post it.

When? I didn't see it yet. Anyway, I like the style.

If you want a solid alternative to Via, I suggest the nForce boards. The nForce 415 does not have the integrated video and is a very stable chipset. The nForce 2 boards should be out within a month or so, and offer support for DDR 333 and 400 and is supposedly 20% faster than the Via KT400. It also doesn't have the issues people are having with Via chipsets. For Intel, the price of RDRAM is nowhere nearly as bad as it used to be, and for the best performance you can get, this would be very ideal. Regardless of which way you go, there is always the potential for problems. Certain companies tend to have more problems than others, but that doesn't mean they necessarily will affect you. I haven't had problems with Via boards. The only company that's been complained about and I've had problems with is IBM and their sorry hard drives. However, other people still have their 75 and 60GXP hard drives pumping away w/o issue. For Via boards, it's probably best to look at sound cards NOT made by creative---though people with Intel chipsets have even had trouble here. With Via boards, you'll just need to be a little more careful on what you pair up with them. I'm familiar with both sides here and consider myself unbiased to either side. It's true: clock for clock AMD is faster, but Intel still has the fastest CPU available---at a very high premium. However, if you're one to overclock, Intel has had some smashingly good overclockers with the P4. I like the 845 chipset. No problems with my Iwill P4D i845D board. If you want tweaks or some sort of overclocking, Intel made motherboards are not the way to go, so look at a 3rd party vendor, like Asus, MSI, Iwill, etc. Here, the only warning I can give is about Abit's P4 boards: they seem to be having some issues with them here and there with some memory configurations in their BD7II boards and the BD7 series in general. If this is the first time you're building and don't have a preference, I would suggest going for an Intel solution, simply because some things are a little easier to deal with (i.e. heatsink installation, less chance of conflicts). I'll be glad to help you put together a system whether it be AMD or Intel. Both sides have been kind to me. So long as you're careful, either way will be good.q

Might try Windows Update and see if there's a driver for the DVD drive there...I've had to resort to that a few times.

Asus also has a P4T533 (no extra letters) that comes with some PC4200 32-bit RDRAM (as it's not widely available yet). Looks pretty sweet if ya ask me. the 32-bit stuff means that you don't need to have matching pairs of RDRAM anymore. You still need to terminate it, however, but the terminator should be included with the board. Can't go wrong with Asus.

Good job, Philipp

The best thing to do is have separate partitions for each OS. Like Alec said, install 95/98 first (after partitioning and formatting the drive;)) and then installing 2k/XP.

I've had good luck with the old 10.80's and the 21.81's, but I've been using GeForce 2 and 3's here. You're results may vary. I've found out that you'll need to test a few different drivers to find out what works best for you. Of course, if you're not having problems right now, it's usually best to leave things be.

LOL! Yes, your humbleness just radiates from you, Dos.

Try checking www.viaarena.com for your audio drivers.

I love people saying something sux without giving any reason. ;(

I'm not sure of the board as I'm currently unable to access MSI's site, but M4 is right about the Slot A limitation.

The only CPU acceleration I know of is called overclocking, but that's probably not what you're gunning for right now.

I noticed. Congrats, DosFreak.

I'd much rather use Winamp, but I hit a snag with Enhanced music CD's that have extra data on them, and end up having to use Media Player---which isn't terrible, but it never remembers my settings (at least when it comes to video). Anyone got some advice here?

In a way this is kinda cool: my college is making it mandatory in certain classes to take a specific exam, and my upcoming Novell Network class is one of those. The bad news is that, 1.) Save logging on with a Novell login screen in a Win98 environment, I have no experience with anything Novell; 2.)The test costs $125 ontop of the class and books...obviously something I really do not want to bomb. I'm comfortable with Win2k and WinXP in the networking sector. Not a master, but I'm decent enough to get a small network going. I know some of you folks have run into Novell before, and I'm wondering what to expect coming from an WindowsNT/9x background.

Does that have trouble playing Enhanced Audio CD's? Winamp seems to have a problem doing so, leaving me to resort to WMP.

Call me suspicious, but why has this company waited so long to let people know they own the rights to this format? Something doesn't feel right about that...

I haven't had any reason to use AD yet, but I'm sure I will eventually. There's some stuff at home I just don't have any reason to use. Here's hoping for a lot of labs in the class

Don't worry. I remember MS pulling the PIII driver sometime back, and they've never had an update for an Athlon CPU.

Back to visit your thread, eh, pimpin? Glad to see ya around again.

LOL! Good one, clutch!

Quote: It is quite a nice burner isn't it? Also a great step up from my old one 8rx4rw Haven't tried it yet. The circuit the machine I put it in decided to start crapping out the breaker. The circuit breaker problem has been fixed, so I should be enjoying some speed-demon burning shortly.

Look, I have the highest post count on this board, but that's because I had something to reply to or something otherwise worthwhile (generally). It blows my mind to see people with 10,000 or most posts in under a year. Then again, the other sites tend to be a little more loose (see [H]ard|Forums or Tweak Town's board), where people tend to participate in more off topic stuff than actual hardware---not that it doesn't happen here ever. I agree with Felix, as this site has an excellent reputation. Very few sites are as nice as this one. We don't see many spammers or trolls, and we don't have a large amount of buttheads that creep in either. This is a very professional board, which I can say of very few forums I participate in. Several good sites have gotten some more internet riff raff, and that's hurt them a bit, but not this one. NTC has stood up to the few rough spots it's had, and is still a well maintained forum. I haven't seen a list of sticky's and announcements on how to act in the forum since I joined at the beginning of 2001, and the way things have been, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.