Brian Frank

I'm not sure what chipset it is, but if it is a V2, then yes, you can use the Voodoo 2 drivers with it.

I've only really had a long term experience with Compaq, and my dad's laptop is very good. If I bought a laptop, I'd go for compaq most likely.

I have mixed information about Soyo. Many people online really like Soyo, but everyone I talk to locally, especially the shops, say that soyo is essentially crap mainly because of an apparently high failure rate. They are very cool boards, it's just that there seem to be a lot of duds. MSI is a good company, in my experience. I'd recommend Asus too, but they might be a bit much for you in price.

Yeah, I just slapped a couple of coolers on my 60GXP's. I'd rather not have to RMA them.

Klark: 4&20 might be assuming about dual processors as this section of the forums is about Windows NT4/2K. Dual CPU's are fun to have, but it's not something I'd be recommending if you want as least complex setup as possible. You might also want to check out the NForce boards from Asus and MSI.

Three: my AOpen AK77 Pro does the same thing with the voltage warning. I ignore it as I know that I've upped the voltage. Some mobo's may not be very good at overclocking too. It sounds like it's the board there. You might wanna try upping the FSB if you're RAM is good enough.

Hmmm...well it looks like they're not making the 80gig anymore, but they do have 100 &120GB special editions with 8meg caches. Link: http://www.westerndigital.com/products/Products.asp?DriveID=27

It's a special edition one, so I'll have to look.

Yeah, the 1.6A Northwoods are supposed to be the new Celeron 300, or something like that.

Right. SCSI RPMs: 7200, 10000, 15000. IDE RPMs: 5400, 7200. Economically, it's cheaper to go RAID 0 with the two IDE drives. If you're more into speed than space, a SCSI 10k or 15k RPM drive would be sweet. ATA133 is pointless, so don't expect anything spectacular from them. Also, Maxtor drives don't do that well in RAID 0. I've also been reading about an 80GB IDE drive from Western Digital with a huge 8meg cache! 8) You might wanna consider that too, as it's supposedly as fast as other drives with 2MB cache in RAID 0. Just my $0.02

For the Athlon XP: Asus A7V266-E, MSI K7T266 Pro2 RU, AOpen AK77Pro(A)/Plus(A). For the P4: Asus P4T-E, Asus P4B266. Don't discount RDRAM. Right now it's not as pricey as it used to be. Just make sure you get a P4 board with Socket 478.

I've done some benching, and 3dMark 2001SE gives me 7530 @ 1024x768x32. Specs: AOpen AK77 Pro, T-Bird 1.4GHz @ 1.58GHz (151x10.5), Gainward GF3 @ 250/571 stock cooling, 512MB PC2100

4-way and 8-way AMD should hit with the *Hammer lineup.

Abit's okay, but they have pretty shaky reliablility in my experience. Some work, some don't. I love Asus, but MSI and AOpen are good too. Tyan makes some pretty solid single CPU boards too, so long as you aren't looking to overclock. My recommendations: -For AMD: Asus A7V266-E, MSI K7T266 Pro2 (RU for RAID and USB 2.0), or the AOpen AK77 Pro/Plus(A). -For the P4: Asus P4B266. Asus 0wn3rz j00!, Tyan Trinity 510. I've had good luck with Via and would recommend them to you. I hear that EPoX and Iwill are pretty good, but I can't speak from experience right now. The one company I would steer clear of is FIC. I've never seen a solid board from them. Samsung, Kingston, Crucial or Infineon memories: All good to me. I've had some trouble with PNY before. I haven't had them personally, but every user that's used OCZ memory, or other products in general, has been mightily pissed-off at the company.

A virtual date would be nice, since I wouldn't have to buy her anything. Just have it on a disc and hand it to "her". Plus, I have no woman. Almost 2 years since my last date... *sigh*

Well, I fixed my VP6 problem. Used the drivers off Windows Update, and the system is happy. No problems now. I also picked up the Inspire 4400 4.1 speaker set. Great speakers when paired with the Audigy.

I'm trying to get a straight answer here, and I'm asking anyone that has the answer to speak up. I'm looking at the SuperMicro Super P3TDDE motherboard, and I need to know some info about the CPU voltages. Does it support independent voltages or does it use the higher voltage if two CPU's with different voltages are used? The main reason I'm asking is because I haven't been able to get any straight answer off SuperMicro's site or manual and I don't want to have to buy a new CPU to match the voltages on one. I've got a CC0@1.7 volts and a CD0@ 1.75 Volts, both the 800EB P3.

To be fair, the SBLive! wasn't all just with Via. Intel chipsets have been butting heads with the BSLive! too. The big reason is because Creative didn't follow the PCI specs, and Via got hit with more blame than they really should've on this one.

Well, I'm trying to decide between the Iwill DVD266u-RN and the SuperMicro Super P3TDDE. They both run the Via Apollo Pro 266T chipset, but the supermicro runs SDR SDRAM and Iwill uses DDR. Neither one's a problem, but I'm trying to find out about the Vcore setting for the P3TDDE, as I've got different steppings and voltages with my CPU's. So long as they'll do 1.75V to both CPU's I'll be fine.

For home/enthusiast users, AMD is a better bet. Nothing wrong with Intel at home, but AMD gives a bigger bang for the buck. For business use, it's primarily the chipsets that need work. Not just Via, but AMD's own as well. Add to that the heat output and more likelyhood to fry than the P4 (not sure about the Xeon), and rackmount servers are a big no even with the Palimino. For SMP, I personally feel that Intel is better here. AMD is the noob here. My gaming rig runs a 1.4GHz T-bird, and my file server runs a Duron. My duallie runs a couple of 800EB P3's. As cool as dual Athlon's are, I think they're much more of a hassle than I want to deal with.

Well, haven't you tried killing the zombies?

I could be wrong (heaven forbid), but I think Maxtor is the only one that has 'em out.

And if history is correct, the OS will be more expensive than XP Pro or Home. A big waste of money unless you are actually gonna use the features. I sure wouldn't. $400 for an OS to game on, no thanks!

I know there are kits for Firewire, and I'd assume we should see some for USB 2.0. I haven't looked hard, but I'd check Newegg for that stuff.

Additionally I suspect that since the PCI bus is shared with a lot of devices, the video cards are going to be getting far to crippled by it. However, money's definitely a bigger thing for them than a crippled card.