Brian Frank

Some BIOS's had problems with Win2k when it came out, namely with not being fully ACPI-compliant. I don't think it's an issue, but AS could become conductive under high pressure--which I'm not sure is happening here. Make sure you don't have it anywhere else than on the CPU die. If ya haven't tried it, reset your BIOS to the defaults and manually select the voltage on the Asus Slocket, then play with the BIOS settings little by little. My dad is running a P3 800 coppermine with the Asus Slocket on a BE6, and just had to update his BIOS, which you've already done. I'm not sure what else to say. I've got a couple boxed P3 800EB's, and the stock heatsinks do move a little, but only when you're putting them on or taking them off.

XP seems to have problems with the HPT370 in a RAID array. I've installed XP on my VP6 and it works fine without using any RAID configuration. I would at the very least take out the SBLive! if you haven't tried it. Wouldn't hurt to have the latest BIOS either. Reset your BIOS back to the defaults, and don't do any overclocking either.

The IRQ sharing is normal. People tend to blame the IRQ sharing in ACPI mode for problems, and it is very rare this is the problem. I'd scrape off the thermal pad on the Intel heatsink and use some thermal paste--don't use the Radio Shack stuff, it's terrible.

ISA is kinda dead with XP. D-Link DFE 530TX cards are pretty cheap, less than $20, and Best Buy has 'em on sale with mail-in rebates that knock the cost down to $5. They're solid cards, nothing fancy, but they get the job done.

3DMark 2000: that's probably not good, unless you're running the tests in 32-bit. 3DMark 2001: that's a pretty good, for 16-bit color. If it's in 32-bit color, you don't have any variant of the MX.

I agree with clutch on the multiple postings. Great info, but you really don't have to post it everywhere, I get disoriented with multiple posts and forget which one(s) I replied to. I hope you didn't type each post out...

It's not like you have to drive to town; you can ride a bicycle:p Kidding of course. Isn't there some big project that your parents would pay you for, like painting the house? I'm sure most parents would rather pay their kids to do something like that, than do it themselves or pay some company--my dad is paying my youngest bro (16) to scrape and paint the garage. A few times I've gotten some money or hardware for doing some big jobs around the house. I'm sure there's money to be had there. I can't say what would be available, but I'm working as a custodian at a K-12 school, and I make enough to manage. It's not the greatest job, but it doesn't require any sort of skills except some muscle. So long as you don't have to have HVAC or advanced plumbing skills, it's not too bad if you're just doing grunt work. Look for anything that can get you some money. Somebody has to need help for stuff around you, and would be willing to pay you. Good luck!

Actually, this isn't the one you are thinking of. This is the original Fortissimo soundcard with a Yamaha DSP. The one you are thinking of is the Hercules Game Surround Fortissimo II which has a completely different DSP, and it's not from Yamaha. I have heard the Fortissimo II is supposed to be pretty good, like the Game Theater XP without the breakout box. The one I have, the Fortissimo, is pretty good, but Yamaha didn't include support for the rear speaker output in the Win2k drivers, so that's the only bummer there, but it is still a good card. I has an optical digital out, which wasn't seen on a $50 when it came out. The Fortissimo II has fully functional rear speakers. I figure you got them mixed up. Guillemot=Maxi Sound Fortissimo; Hercules=Game Surround Fortissimo II. Guillemot owns Hercules and uses that brand on it's products now. I highly doubt you'd find the Fortissimo anywhere, as it's been discontinued for around a year. The Fortissimo II is in that $50-60.

I don't own any of these cards, but I would wait awhile if you're interested in the Audigy since the Live! cards caused problems. A lot of people seem to be happy with their Santa Cruz card, and that card also doesn't seem to have problems very often. I'd lean toward that. I'd certainly look around at different sites to see about each card. I know Sharky Extreme had a review on the Acoustic Edge and the Santa Cruz, but I don't remember what OS they were tested under. One of the guys around hear has the same mobo you have and the Santa Cruz running trouble free.

SHS was saying something about the V5 XP drivers basically being a crock. I'll second M4's suggestion with the GF2 Pro. $150 or less online, and it's a step below the GF2 Ultra and GF3 levels in most cases--DX8 is a major exception.

Yes. It might not be good for gaming, but it will work for normal use. BTW, (not saying you are doing it) piracy is illegal and if you are, I wouldn't be letting people know it.

I agree, get a job. Not to come down on you, but my parents made me get a job--I forget what they said would happen if I didn't--because you will need one. Again, I agree with ThC: TNT2 Ultra for 75 bucks? Dude, you can get a GeForce 2 MX for around that online, maybe around town. (BTW, I am talking about $$ in the US Dollar) Yeah, it's still supported, but you could've saved that money for something better. You have the GF2 MX and MX400 (the MX200 is just too slow for the money), the Radeon line, and the Kyro II. All of these can be had for cheap and will perform better than the TNT2. If you want to go up a few notches, you can get a GF2 Pro for under $150. I have gotten some hardware through gifts from my parents or did a trade off with my dad sometimes, but I didn't get all my parts for free. I go to college full time and work part time and still have some free time--though that varies as to how much. I don't know about you, but having some money is a good thing.

Well, it's just a theory, but you could try to move your swap file to another partition (rebooting, of course) and then formatting that partition as FAT32, then try the repair.

Clutch is usually pretty mellow, but it was just your bad luck for timing. It's because of piracy, and giving product keys or posting info how to get around product keys or illegally obtain software could end up in a nasty lawsuit. We don't want that.

19 megs here. I don't use any program that removes anything from the registry, no matter who makes it. I do use a little program called Reg Compact, but it just shrinks your registry if there's free space.

It'll run fine, though snagging the latest BIOS wouldn't hurt. I believe the 1.4's are all running the 266 bus, so the multiplier would be 10.5. Don't forget your cooling tho...

Any illegally obtained software.w,a,r,e,z (no commas) is what that is, but putting it like this: ***** , is one of the words that's filtered. We're not saying your Win2k isn't legitimate, but passing out product keys or giving you info isn't allowed here and other forums. XP has been obtained illegally by people, and piracy is one of the things that goes along with something this big. The only solutions you have are to find your Win2k CD case, or buy a new copy. My only question is why your CD isn't in the case--which has the CD on it.

Actually, thats Unreal 2, not UT2. Unreal Warfare is supposed to be the sequel to UT.

I'm on the technology committee for my former K-12 school, and we're having some problems as far as getting a solid antivirus. They have a filtering service that has a firewall, and proxies have been setup, but that still isn't good enough obviously. Norton AV is what we'd like, but the Server package they've been looking at costs $1300, and this is a bit steep for us. We need to have coverage for 50 clients running 98 or 2000, and the server will run either Win2k Server or AS. I'm looking into other AV's, but the only other one I see as an alternative is Panda AV. If anybody has another solid choice and/or info on educational discounts, let me know.

3dfx died, and XP drivers aren't gonna show up, except through third parties--which would leave you with an "as is" policy. CPU and your motherboard are pretty crucial here, or at least the chipset on the motherboard. You have several ways of doing this: in Device Manager, you can see under Motherboard Resources who made the chipset your motherboard uses. It may not say the exact chips used, but it will give you the manufacturer: Intel, Via, SiS, ALi, or AMD. Get that and the CPU up and we can go from there. 2nd way: when you boot up your system, hit the pause key on your keyboard after a second or two--don't wait too long. You should see the chip manufacturer and the name of the chipset, which you'll want to copy down. You may see the name of the motherboard somewhere around the top of the screen; examples: Intel SE440BX-2, Abit VP6. I can't guarantee this 2nd way will work. Pre-built rigs usually come with the company's logo, and I think hitting the Escape key will get rid of it and you can get your info. 3rd way: If all else fails, you can open your case and look to see. It's best if your system is off and you keep hold of a metal part in the case. You'll notice two major chips on the motherboard, besides the CPU of course. There will be one close to the CPU, it may have a heatsink on top, and in that case just leave it alone. You'll find the 2nd major chip somewhere around the expansion slots. You should be able to tell who the manufacturer is and hopefully the letters and/or numbers on the chip--write those down. Any way will work,

You don't. 3dfx was dead a long time before any XP drivers were mentioned. You won't be doing much with the default XP drivers.

What's your specs? I don't know what it is with Creative, but they seem to have some problem with producing drivers that fix peoples problems. A number of people have ditched their SBLive! cards for other non-Creative sound cards. To be fair, there are people who haven't had a problem at all with Live! cards. However, there seems to be an unhealthy number of people still having problems.

Piracy is illegal. You don't need a boot disk to install XP, so long as you can boot off of your CD-ROM.

I know what you're talking about with the V3, and I just found it's not worth it. TV's have a limited resolution and refresh rate which you don't have control over. It's been a long time since I tried using the video under 2k, so I can't say I remember too well. Check your cables before you try anything else. It works, but it just doesn't seem to be worth all the trouble to get TV-out. I personally haven't seen the quality for other cards with TV-out, so I can't say anything really. I have heard that TV-out isn't what it's cracked up to be, and I won't argue. My advice is this: if you have to have TV-out, look at reviews of cards with TV-out. Anandtech did a comparison between Matrox, Nvidia, and ATI a while ago if you're interested. If TV-out isn't something you just have to have, just skip it.

MX200 suck! I don't care if it's got TV-out or not, it's just not a good deal. It has a 64-bit data bus, half of what the MX and MX400 have. I have one as a temp, and I can't tell a difference between and MX200 and a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP. 3dmark2000 has slightly higher marks, but that's the only way I can tell it's any faster. Your best bet for price/performance is a GeForce2 Pro 64MB DDR. Last time I checked Newegg, MSI's 8831 was running $135USD + shipping. With the shipping saver @ $10, you've got a card that is a step below an GF2 Ultra and GF3's (in certain cases). That's what I'd suggest, especially with local retailers asking more for GTS and MX400's. Not to say these 2 are bad, and I do understand why it costs more locally, but this is an excellent deal. The only Pro cards around here are PNY's Verto's @ $200 with no extra features. The MSI card has S-Video out at least.