Brian Frank

Too bad the caches that were supposed to come out got dropped. Glad to see that someone is willing to help provide a balance, clutch, as I know I do present a biased side sometimes. I don't think the chip as far as stability or compatibility is bad, but the speed should be killing the Athlon at all the benchmarks. However, yes, somethings the P4 does much better on. The worst part about the P4 Willy, is that the socket is getting changed, and I've heard it likened to what Intel did with the PPro and socket 8 then jumping to the PII. Of course, I still remember when AMD was laughable for any power pc. The one thing AMD is starting to do now is not follow in Intel's footsteps. It seemed that the original Slot A Athlon came out to compete with the PIII and was beating it until the Coppermines came out, and then whatever happens, both companies keep trying to 1-up each other and slash prices--all to our benefit:D I heard some talk about the i845+DDR as being the next BX, but I can't remember where. If that does happen, the P4 will be sweet.

I'd have to agree. Asus or Tyan boards kick arse, and Abit ain't too bad, but their Intel cpu boards are better than their AMD ones. If you want to overclock, you'll have to pass on Tyan though, but other than that, I'd pick Tyan first hand. Also, take a look at MSI, as they've got some DDR+SDR boards so you can just upgrade to a new CPU and board and then get the DDR a little later. Asus also has some boards like this too.

I didn't as I've changed the mb twice since Beta 2 and just got the VP6 less than a week ago. It's nice to not have install jack on your config:D

I can sympathize, dude. I had to take off the heatsinks on my P3's plenty of times to confirm that I had a bad CPU! I really hate the 2 piece clips on the GlobalWIN's because I've taken off the small piece accidently several times. The best clips I've worked with are the ThermalTake Orb's, which I've seen don't perform quite as bad as ppl make them out to be. Apparently the P4 heatsinks aren't that bad to put on, not that that does you a whole lotta good...

Ahhhhh! Just when I thought I was going duallie, one of my 800EB's doesn't work! :(What have I done to anger the tech gods?! So frickin' close to duallie under XP! You guys don't have to reply, I just needed some place to pour out my sorrow. I'll be okay when I get the replacement tommorrow--er later this morning. ;(

Yeah, originally I was getting just a P3 667 (666-Intel won't sell it as that tho), but I have yet to see that come in. Sold my 667 toward a couple of 800EB's, and swapped out my defunct MSI694D for the VP6. At the store where I was supposed to get the 667, I told them I got the 2 800's and saw how cheap the Pro's were and told them to use all the credit I had there and the GF2MX200 I'd bring back to get that card. I'm ending up with a bit more machine than I originally thought possible. However, in the end I'm getting one hell of a machine. I never imagined getting something like a GF2Pro, but they are pretty cheap now--$150, sometimes including shipping. I saw an MSI StarForce 831 at Newegg for $141+ shipping--depending on how fast you want that card to come in. I ought to see it at the store by Friday. I'm holding the GF2MX200 ransom until I see that Pro:D Kyro II HA! Eat my shorts, I've got TV-out here baby!

I'm with ya on that bios thing. That is one thing I don't want to mess with--putting in a buggy bios. If you've got a bad bios, things could be in the crapper before 2 long--a matter of seconds. I ain't that desperate for getting around PA, the kamakazie nerds can do that.

I wasn't aware you needed that fix. Could be wrong tho...

Maybe because it's not meant for XP and might not understand NTFS 5.1.

Actually, the P4 would be pretty sweet if it had stuck to the origninal specs at least. It's capable of actually utitizing some of the bandwith that RDRAM has. However, it's still a crappy chip right now. However, haven't we seen this scenario before where the newer Intel chip isn't faster than the previous generation? I question a company that tries to tell the consumer that this product is the best, and an older product--that is ususally cheaper is able to perform closely to it, or beat it. By all means, the P4 should be stomping all over the 1.4GHz Athlon, but it's not. I've already stated this (I think), but the original specs for the P4 called for a much bigger L1 cache than is currently implemented---only a fraction of the original specs. There was also an optional L3 cache--which wouldn't have hurt anything--but was left out. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Intel, but the P4 in its current state is a poor piece of work from Intel. I have running the only AMD rig I've had and have been running it fine for quite some time. Other than my very first rig feature the Cyrix II chip *shudder*, I've been running all Intel rigs. No matter what people say, right now, I'd still look at Intel-SMP systems because of the heat AMD's chips put out and the fact that Intel has had working SMP platforms longer than AMD. Yeah, I know AMD has had SMP-enabled chips since the K-6 line, but we've never seen a working implementation until now. Things look smooth, but the fact is that we're obviously going to see a blunder from AMD in the SMP arena.

Now I'm running the 800EB's under XP and Win2k. Wait til my GF2 Pro gets here, and this baby will be screamin'!

If it can be done with SCSI, surely it can be done with IDE, as you don't hear of a massive amount of SCSI hard drives frying all of a sudden. Spindle speed is really going to give you the bang for your buck here not so much the pipeline it's getting pumped through. And yeah, the PCI bus needs to be upped, and I've heard of the so called PCI-X, which is faster, but not much else.

I was having this problem with one of my P3's in my VP6. Turned out the CPU wasn't fully inserted, and when it was the system refused to boot up--no beeps, nada. I'd check the CPU and make sure that's all set nice and stuff and check all the cables. I know it's one of those "duh" things, but we all do stupid stuff. It's either the CPU, motherboard or PSU, and I'm assuming this stuff is new, so you can exchange them for a new one hopefully. I think it's either the motherboard or the CPU. Also, I don't know if this applies to all of Asus boards, but my A7V would throw fits if I fiddle with certain settings in the BIOS and then would start acting funny, like not detect my DVD and CD-ROM's and such. Try resetting the BIOS and changing very few things if any.

Well, not saying I agree with the product activation at all--I hate that crap--but when I upgrade my motherboard, I do a clean install anyway. I do like the suggestion about having XP compare the configuration over the last boot up rather than when it was activated last. Absolutely right! MS shouldn't be limiting you to how many things you upgrade. That's the thing that not everybody may know about XP, since the whole world isn't full of geeks like us;) XP is great, but the activation is it's achilles tendon if you will. Granted, the average joe schmoe doesn't usually upgrade a zillion parts per day, however, I would like to know how long the period of time is before you run into the upgrade limit. I'd also like to know why the hell a cpu counts as 2. My biggest complaint about XP is the activation: It's hitting the majority of users who are legitimate customers who have bought their OS. It's also saying that MS doesn't trust it's customers to do anything right and that we're all crooked. I for one do like XP, and you can be damn sure I'll use cracks around it, on my store-bought copy of XP Pro.

Have you tried upping your resolution?

Well, the Zip650 CDRW USB works fine under Win2k...but that's not going to do you much good I guess...

When hell freezes over.

Never upgrade! Always do a clean install, even if you have the upgrade disk, all you should have to do is have the older OS disk handy for proof of prior ownership.

RC1 runs fine. Don't really need to get any drivers downloaded, as XP has HTP370 drivers in it. Hot diggity!

I've also heard about the 7.52's (I think that's right) being pretty good for the TNT2's.

I do realize that you have those who are AMD- or Intel-only people. That's fine, until you lie about the product to justify it's cost, even though a cheaper product is better. And I know that just doesn't happen in computers either--used car salesmen anybody? Also, I don't know if your neighbor did much research, but doing some of that--doesn't have to be an exhaustive one, and having it be thorough is good. It's unfortunate that people don't do research on stuff before they buy them if it's such a big leap. I've built both my computers and picked out my parts after I did the research. If your neighbor had researched the P4 on sites other than Intel, he would've at least know that the current socket is being phased out, plus he's stuck with the awful RDRAM. Part of this is his fault, even if he doesn't know it. You should listen to the guys who work on computers on a daily basis, but not salesmen certainly. You'll still have those who prefer AMD or Intel, but they will (hopefully) be more inclined to tell you a fair story, or at least their bias, even if it is true. Still part of it is knowing the facts not the ads.

Quote: The performance problems you're seeing relate to drivers. As of now, Nvidia is the ONLY manufacturer that has properly optimized drivers for Windows XP (and 2k for that matter). Like most hardware manufacturers, they've spent their optimization resources on garbage like Win9x, and haven't learned how to write proper WDM drivers (See Creative Labs for another good example). Also note that Nvidia's drivers are multithreaded, thus have improved performance on SMP machines. No..I don't work for Nvidia, I just don't see anyone else writing proper drivers for WinXP/2k. ATI REALLY needs to get their act together. I can't agree more, in fact that's pretty much what I'd say, except not as short. Nvidia has been the best thing as far as driver support. ATI's Radeon is supposed to be sooooo great, yet I couldn't tell you the difference between it and my Voodoo 4 4500 AGP--which is proof of the crappy drivers ATI puts out. I'm not getting another ATI card again--the company can't write good drivers for Win9x, much less Win2k/XP. I think Intel has made some bad moves regarding the P4, and the RDRAM thing in general, but I would not ever consider them unable to bounce back. I would much rather, and do, have an SMP system with featuring Intel chips than I would AMD. I don't see anything wrong with Intel or AMD. Both have problems to address, and if they're trying to constantly one-up each other with price cuts and faster chips, we the consumers should benefit from it, unless the product is unanimously declared to be crap by both sides of supporters--not the companies.

That's if it tries to install them off the driver disk. It didn't on my VP6, even though I told the installer I had them. Apparently, it didn't need them--not complaining here!

Well, sometimes you can't make people happy no matter what you do. Life sux, Sun, get used to it.

The only reason I've had more Intel than AMD problems is because I've only had one AMD rig--and that's the one I'm running right now. Looooove my VP6, and where I was supposed to get the 2nd P3 667 they're getting me a GF2 Pro 64MB of DDR goodness as the sheer amount of credit I have at that store. I did what I should've done in the first place and got 2 new cpu's. 2 800EB's. Pimpin', look at Asus, Abit, Tyan, or MSI for a new board. If you're going to overclock, skip Tyan tho, but otherwise look at the Tyan Trinity 400. Yes it uses a Via chipset, however it was a very stable motherboard and has 1 AGP, 6 PCI, and 1 optional ISA--ISA is on the model without on-board sound.