Brian Frank

I did have the original BE6, and my dad still uses it without problems. If I'm not mistaken, you're not supposed to install the chipset busmaster drivers along with the Highpoint drivers.

I've heard of problems with the ORB drives. You don't necessarily need to make the 4 boot disks, but they are helpful in the case that you can't boot off a CD-ROM.

Maxtor makes some nice drives, even the 5400 rpm drives work great.

I've had that happen too, but I've got a GF2 MX. Try reinstalling UT over itself, and then patch it up to v436. If that doesn't work, uninstall UT, reboot, reinstall, then patch to v436. UT seems to be picky about ram and the page file. As long as it's not crashing in the game, I guess it's not that big of a deal...but it is sure annoying as hell.

As far as I can tell, that black screen in HL using D3D is irritating, an leaves me wondering why Sierra hasn't fixed it. Games will work best with the vid card drivers installed. Unless you like running in software mode...

8) DON'T USE ANY DOS BASED SYSTEM SCANNER ON WIN2K!!!!!!!!! 8) Have you tried running the repair option or booting into safe mode? FYI: the Win2k repair option: boot off the Win2k CD, select repair instead of install. Use the options that don't need you to find the Win2k install or use a repair disk. Also, does the BSOD name any files in it, like a .dll or .sys file?

Well, if you use an always-on connection (DSL, cable) it's something you really should get. If you have dial-up, it's not something that's really necessary. Zone Alarm is my recommendation.

Yeah, I heard Matrox stepping away from gaming indefinitely, but do plan to return in the future. I just hope that there is some good competition for Nvidia, and if ATI could put out drivers that would make their cards shine, that would be excellent. Too bad they're killing the Radeon with their drivers. The Kyro 3 is supposed to add hardware T&L to the Kyro II as the main thing. That could be a major improvement, even if it can't stomp the GF3, adding that, and being cheaper, should help it gain some ground. From what I've seen, the Kyro-based cards are the best bet against the GF's, unless ATI learns how to write drivers to maximize their chips/cards.

Right on with clutch. What is he wrong about exactly? I like 3dfx, and it does suck that they really don't exist any longer, but does that mean someone is wrong for stating the harsh reality. I do think it would be great for nVidia to at least support the voodoo's through XP at least, as those who have a V4/5 are gonna get screwed over fast if they go to XP, as Maxtor still provides support for Quantum hard drives, even though they bought them out. Of course, since 3dfx is dead, I'll go with nVidia, because they have great drivers, unlike ATI--who can't write drivers to save there sorry @ss, much less there cards. I would like to see the Kyro 3 come out and give nVidia a run for it's money, because I don't want graphzilla owning any market. Look at what competition has done in the CPU arena and tell me were not all better off than before. I don't like the fact that 3dfx cards are being dropped from XP, but there's nothing, other than plead or grovel to Nvidia to make drivers, that can be done about it. Life sucks sometimes, get used to it.

Do you know exactly who made it? Also, you might want to run Windows Update to check for a new driver. I know this ones kinda dumb, but check to see if the card's properly seated in the slot.

Off of the remains of 3dfx website or Voodoo Files CA

If you've got the Promise ATA100 controller, make sure you have the latest drivers for it. You may also want to check to see if there is a new offical BIOS too for the board. Just to make sure you got the patch here: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon-duron/amd_win2k_patch.html You may also want to check out the hard drives. I heard IBM had a bad batch a little while ago too. Another thing I can think of is about running the repair option off the Win2k CD. FYI: Boot off the CD and choose the repair option instead of the install. Follow the directions which don't need a repair disk or you to find the install. If you are using Hercules drivers, just use the Nvidia reference drivers instead. For some reason, I've had problems with Hercules drivers. If you could get that error message for 3dmark2000, that would be great! Try to get more info on this, as it's a little vauge, and with more info, I'm sure one of the bright minds here can figure it out.

XP is designed off of the NT core with NTFS capabilities, so yes, it can be installed on NTFS.

Uhh...if I'm not mistaken, the XP in beta is of XP Pro. It only upgrades NT and 2000, so you can't upgrade it from ME. Plus, it is always better to do a clean install.

If those don't work, you could try running the repair option off the Win2k cd. Also, I agree with installing service packs with only after a fresh install, that way, if something does go wrong, you haven't lost that much time.

Damn! I thought this post would die off eventually. Of course, if I get one more jackass flamin' me for my OPINION, I'm gonna get this one closed off.

I've searched here and can't quite find the answer to my problem. This is a fresh format and clean install of Win2k. I have a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP with the 1.03 drivers (1.04 on 3dfx site) and HL with patch 1.0.0.6 and HL: OpFor and BS installed. The patch is off the BS CD. Every time I go to play HL it drops back out to the desktop. No errors or anything. I also have DirectX 8.0 installed, if that's any help. This is the first time I've had any problems at all with HL.

Nevermind. It fixed itself.

I...uh...obtained a copy of Power DVD 3.0 and it works great under Win2k. All other versions before it didn't work, or work well, under Win2k. Power DVD and WinDVD are about the best you can get. The other alternative, is to not uninstall the DVD player, and use the Win2k DVD player. You need to have an actual decoder card or software, or it won't play. If I remember correctly, the app is DVDPlay in the System 32 folder. My destop res is 1152x864x32 bit on a GF2 MX, and it works with PowerDVD 3 just fine.

AMD chipsets aren't ready for server use--yet. Not with the patching as mentioned above. Intel is more expensive, but I still have more faith in an Intel server than an AMD server. To date right now, the only dual board for AMD is the Tyan Thunder K7. Even though Tyan has a track record of reliable server boards, this doesn't get around the fact that it is the very first dual AMD board, whereas there are quite a few dual Intel boards around. Intel has been doing this longer, and therefore should have a better track record than AMD will for awhile. I like both AMD and Intel, but I have to say, I've had far more Intel-based machines than AMD, and I always have this inkling of a greater reliability with Intel. Again, very good points here. The best choice for anything mission critcal is whatever is the most reliable.

True about the AMD cpu/chipset combo's. If in doubt, get Intel. Even though AMD has the speed claims, Intel still has a greater sense of reliability. If someone was looking at the Via Cyrix, even for a cheap system, I'd say they were nuts.

Which drivers? There's a zillion Detonator drivers out there, but the older ones 5.xx and 7.5x are the best for the TNT2's--so I've been told by the TNT2 users... When you say messed up, how are they messed up? Are the model's bad looking, are the textures screwed up?

Okay, I've got an MSI 694 D Pro-A with the original BIOS for the mobo and the Promise PCD 20265 ATA100 controller with the FastTrak "Lite" BIOS. Here's my problem: I was trying to add an older 4.3 GB hdd to what I already had, and it wasn't going well. So I thought by deleting the array with my 17.2GB drive, it would reboot, and then I could reconfigure it no problem. Wrongo! I have no arrays, and I am not sure how to get this to work again. I know I just did something stupid, but I have no clue how to fix it. All the hardware is fully operational to the extent of my knowledge. The board has a Lite BIOS with a very, very limited RAID capability--Striping and that's it. However, I'll just be happy to be able to boot off my 17.2 gigger. Thanx for any help!

Silly me! Y'know what the problem was? I didn't hit Ctrl-Y in the BIOS to define the array. Now I hate myself.

Okay, NOW I learn that all I had to do to define the array is hit Ctrl-Y in the RAID BIOS. That reinstall was for nothing!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!