Brian Frank

Im not sure having a faster cpu will fix your problems. In bios, try setting the CAS timings/SDRAM timings to 2 instead of 3, and see if that runs stable. That should give you a nice boost. Also, what video card are you using? Thats a bigger factor than the cpu...trust me. Glad to see you back. As far as the fan, get a Global Win FOP 38. Im pretty sure that should fit on that Abit board w/o an issue. Just get a 3 pin to 4 pin connector, because the FOP 38 has a major drain on juice. And make sure you get some good heatsink compound. Look for AMD approved stuff, that will be the best for you. 850MHz Athlon/Duron should hit 1GHz no problem, you may need to bump the voltage up a little to get it stable.

Sometimes I use Mandrake on my test machine, but right now its not on. Im holding out for Mandrake 8.0 so I can buy it, but Im also looking at SuSe 7.1 pro as thats the only distro Ive seen around town in a long time. Id really like to see Linux suceed, but there has to be major work on it before I can really see it being a true contender for Windows. In the server arena, yes, but if its really gonna go places, it needs to be a home desktop OS alternative to the Mac OS and Windows. Linux is a good OS, but Ive found it much easier to setup hardware under Windows. Plus, Windows is a tad simpler for me, and I consider myself learned in computers, not an expert mind you, but Ive had more experience than the average joe, and I just dont see Linux as a really strong contender for home pc's yet. Ive yet to experience the 2.4 kernel, but I think that is a major step in the right direction for it with the much needed USB support. I personally think the biggest problem with Linux is that most manufacturers dont provide Linux drivers, and those that do dont provide support for them. If more manufacturers, ie. nVidia, put out drivers at the very least, that will be another major step forward. But the biggest obstacle, as Ive stated before, is the ease of use. I would never setup some newbie with Linux in its current state, because Windows, and even the MacOS are more average user oriented. Love Linux, hate to configure it. Right now, its a hobby OS for the most part.

I have no clue, unless its a dual boot with NT/2k/Linux, as those can actually use the dual cpu. Or it could be for the status, at a high cost.

Actually, it looks like MS is trying to push everyone to XP, as they are dropping support for 98/ME, and somewhere in the nearer future, Win2k too. Im surprised they havent already, as I havent seen Win2k SP2 out yet (not that I really need it). I dont think MS is forgetting the older OS's as much as just abandoning them. Thats gonna piss a lot of people off, especially those whove gone to Win2k. MS is getting a tad agressive on their OS release schedual. What do they really have to compete with? Linux, but thats not a home desktop threat to MS by a long shot, but it does have a little hold on the server end. Mac OS___, I dont think so, fruity colored innovations only last so long before other pc makers start doing that too. Honestly, what reason, other than money, does MS have to release another OS this soon? It looks like it could be a hard way to go, since people are happy with NT4.0 and Win2k. ME isnt as hard to justify, as that was a mistake on MS's part. I still think they shouldve just kept 98 and skipped ME altogether.

Did you set the jumpers correctly? Its possible you could have a bad drive, too. Have you tried installing a different OS on that IBM drive?

Ive found out that whatever Windows has with ACPI, its best to leave it that way. I know firsthand how bad Win2k is with ACPI changes--I had to reinstall. Ive seen no reason, provided there are no problems with it, to EVER change ACPI. Its one of those things that doesnt seem to be worth it. ;( While I dont agree with everything MS does, I think ACPI is best left untouched if at all possible. It seems changing ACPI is like changing the motherboard w/o a clean install. OLEerror, thanx for the info.

First of all, they Cyrix chips dont run at their spec'd speed in the first place. Second, what motherboard are you using. Find that out, as you may be able to flash the bios.

Yeah, some of those hard-core Linux users are really *******s. "Oh, my OS doesnt crash...games run faster...blah,blah,blah..." Dont get me wrong, I like Linux a whole lot, but its a pain in the neck to set up hardware. Solutions usually involve recompiling the kernel, which Ive been far too lazy to even learn, but that requires some console crap which Im not too fond of. They compare to 98 and not 2000. Im sorry, but Win2k is better than Linux in its current state, and even with the 2.4 kernel, it still has miles to go before its really a viable alternative to Windows. Games may run faster, but look how many games there are for Linux and compare that to Windows. And they run well enough for me on Windows, thank you very much. I think Linux will be in a much better position when it comes preinstalled on home users pc like Windows. At that point, the superior OS factor can be debated, providing Gates hasnt achieved world domination. Also, I wonder why Linux doesnt come preinstalled on home pc's. Maybe because Windows is easier to use!? *shock* Im not saying Linux is a bad OS, but in comparison with Windows 2000, its gonna be much harder than if 98 was still the hot item, since Win2k solves problems in the crashing area of 98. End rant.

Finally!! I finally was able to get my P3 on my Tyan Trinity 400 to overclock. I had tried the 138MHz FSB, and no go. When I finally had the smarts to try the 140MHz FSB it would fly. 150 no go, as it would freeze up on me, voltage increase or no. Plus some bios tweaks I hadnt played around with because its my secondary system, and viola! its now at 700MHz and hit 2773 in 3dmark2000. Thats better than before with the psyachadelic 1.07 drivers. It still runs UT really good. And just think its an "old" card.

Back to the topic: Hmm...put out the game w/o optimizations for every last piece of hardware or get my *** fired? Hmm...I guess the 486 optimizations will go along with the TNT and Voodoo2's...on second though the voodoo's will stay--too popular to dump...YET. Also, this little programming Ive done shows me how easy it is to make a mistake. One character missing or improperly put in can screw up the program...and this is probably only a few k. Imagine the time to look through the entire 400+ megs a game usually contains even with multiple people, theres still room for human error. If a game company keeps putting a game off until all is perfect, no one is gonna be impressed, because there will still be a problem along the line. Duh! Look at Daikatana, 4 freakin' years after it was promised! Look at how many people think it sucks ***! Its the most despised game on earth! Not saying it runs poorly, but it offers nothing new, except a headache. You want to wait four years for the newest game to come out? Like I said, your just pissed because the game programmers dont support everything all the way back to the stone age! If you dont like the fact that games dont run on your system--get a console and quit *****in'!

Oh yeah, I just grab the latest drivers out, beta or no. They run well, and are a tad faster than the 11.01 which were a tad faster than the 10.80 which wer a ton faster than the 7.58's or something like that. They run fine with DX8. The only problem I notice with anything, and its probably the game itself, is in HL in D3D when I exit a game the screen is black, so you have to use the keyboard shortcut commands, which really suck.

Yeah, unless you want a cheap Intel overclock, the Celeron is worthless. The Duron 600 is comparable to the Celeron 800. Other than that the Celeron gets slapped silly by AMD. The Duron is closer in performance to the Pentium 3, and a hell of a lot cheaper than the Celeron or P3. Unless you plan on overclocking, yeah, stay away from the Celeron.

Well, theoretically, any slot 1 cpu that runs at a 100MHz FSB could be run on that board. So you *could* run a 1GHz P3 on it, but Im not sure those are there. I havent kept up on the latest P3's and the FSB variations.

Try not to double post, please.

Bottleneck, actually, I think that HL was built on a combo of Quake and Quake 2, and then they used their skinning thing so it looked really good. ;(

ACPI seems like something to mess with only if you're having a problem. And then only try it as a last resort, before a reinstall. Ive found Windows will not play nice if you change the ACPI setting.

Whaaaazuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup! :p :p

Hey, pimpin', howz the ol' pc comin along?

Specs please! To check for a conflict, just look in device manager. Did you hit APPLY at all? Got the latest drivers? For everything? Try taking out your DVD Decoding card and see if everything else works fine.

Okay, this is bugging the crap out of me, so here I go. Some sites wont come up and we've got DSL with a D-Link router and a separate D-Link hub, and a Fujitsu DSL modem. My dad couldnt get to a couple of sites, so he shut down all 4 computers here, and shut down the dsl arrangement too. We now have a different IP address, but now, more sites wont come up. Im totally perlexed here. Exactly what settings should be enabled on the network, so that we can still play games on the occasion--HL is the only thing that happens, but there is a little filesharing going on too. There is tcp/ip, ipx/spx, netbuei, and the MS windows stuff under networking here. Im guessing part of the problem here is too much networking crap, but Im not totally sure thats great either. 2 pc's run Win2k exclusively and have total access to the net, one is 98 only and is purposely limited on the internet, and the other is a dual boot between ME and Win2k also with restricted internet access. Also, is there a substitute for Cybersitter that wont crash IE out? Thanx. Oh, yeah, ipx/spx is required for some games too. Also, we cant see other computers on the network w/o netbuei. [This message has been edited by Brian Frank (edited 14 April 2001).]

Yup, Cybersitter 2000 was the problem. I love the norton line of products.

You might want this patch here: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon-duron/amd_win2k_patch.html All it does is stop crashing in games for Athlon/Duron based Win2k. Get Service Pack 1. Get the 4.29 Via-4-in-1 Drivers. Youve got enough ram, So I wouldnt worry about it. With that SBLive! the ACPI may cause a problem. Win2k using ACPI has most of the devices on one IRQ--This is normal! So dont sweat. Gaming at that speed and ram youve got, you probably wont be able to tell the difference. If you notice too much of a slowdown in the graphics apps, up your ram to 512. There are tweaks by the busload for Win2k, but I suggest getting this little utility called Xteq X-Setup. Some very good tweaks are in there. If you're really worried about Win2k being an issue, you could always setup a dual boot, and use the FAT32 filesystem for it instead of NTFS.

Yeah, programming takes a long time. Im in this class where we're just doing a little QBasic. We're working on a program that takes 5 seconds to complete and weve worked on it for over four hours and its not yet done. Even with this stuff, I can see why they just cant whip out a game every day and sell it.

Yes, halflife better support lower end machines and run really good, because its based on Quake and just heavily modified! Of course its gonna run well! 1GHz wasnt a thought when Quake came out. With todays games coming in at around 450MB a piece, there is only so much that can be supported if the company hopes to get it out in a reasonable time and not pull the Daikatana crap. Look, nobody says you have to play the thing...geez. You guys are mad because game programmers wont support every last bit of hardware. ;( Therefore, logically, they are lazy, because they wont spend six months programming for a 486. DosFreak is right--go buy a console, as you obviously will have hardworking game programmers on that end of the spectrum. ;(

What filesystem are you using: FAT16? I hope not. Go either FAT32 or NTFS. Do you have the correct BIOS setting? The correct hdd jumper settings?