Brian Frank

Yeah, ME/98 are usually faster in that area. I use the latest drivers for Nvidia cards, currently the 12.00 Dets. Doing some tweaks will help, but it all depends on the system. One of the best tweaking utilites you can get your hands on is Xteq X-Setup. It has tweaks for Win2k/98/ME/NT, and they are very good. There's even a tweak to optimize the L2 cache for the cpu. That Asus board is about as good as it gets. I would suggest getting the ram up to 256MB at least, 384 is better, and I havent seen any improvements after that. To check for hardware conflicts, just check device manager. Any conflicting hardware will have yellow exclaimation point by it.

Post 666!!! 8) So now Ive joined the ranks of Satans army like a few people here. :p

Whaaazzuuuuuupp!! :p

Actually, I still live with my parents ;(, so I can afford college. So, of course the filtering has to go on. My dad saw that he could install Norton on my little bros pc and get updates. If I have to be filterd Id rather have that. CyberSitter seems to crash constantly. When we were using it under 98, the whole computer would crash

Im really puzzled as to why the darned thing refuses to overclock at all. What am I not doing right here? How far should I increase the voltage. I have the BIOS revision 1.00. I got the slocket adapter recently and that didnt do anything for me yet? Any thoughts here?

Well, I might have a fix. It seems CyberSitter 2000 is the problem. In addition to crashing IE out every other second , it also is preventing me from getting to sites. Getting Norton Internet Security Family Edition soon...

You shouldnt have a problem with it at all. I have a P3 on a different motherboard, and I have run it on PC100 ram and not had a problem. As long as the board can run the ram at 100 and the P3's frontside but at 133, I dont see that big of an issue. You wont have the full potential of the cpu, but it should still run very well. My only question is why dont you get a board that can run the ram at 133 instead? It is a 440BX based board and BX boards have been know to overclock to 133MHz FSB and run totally stable. The only catch is, unless there's an AGP divider and PCI divider, the AGP and PCI buses will run way,way,way outta spec. If you dont want to get a new mobo, just make sure your bios is the latest.

Your kidding about Linux just coming on one cd right? Ive gotten a distro with at least 4 cds for $50. Plus the sheer amount of tools and apps you get with it save you from having to download the stuff in the first place.

Well, the main reason they charge is just to pay for the labor and stuff to make the versions. You can always download Linux and burn it to cd. Unfortunately, that takes way too long even with dsl. If I jump to XP, I will buy 1 copy between my machines. I refuse to buy the same software twice. I'll just wait till I can get around the activation code. Upgrade or full, it doesnt matter. If I could get a legal copy of XP final for like $50, sure I'd buy two then, but Im not about to buy the same OS at nearly $200 a sh0t. But Im not sure If MS will have promo upgrades like they did for ME.

Do you have the latest drivers for your hardware, service pack 1, microsoft updates...installed?

Got the 1.04 drivers?

Hmm...not bad. What bit depth--16 or 32? Well, to everyone his own... [ 18 April 2001: Message edited by: Brian Frank ]

No kidding! I can overclock that sucker to 182MHz and not see any artifacting. The Voodoo 4 that I had could only go up to 177MHz tops or Id have lockups. The last 2 voodoo cards were nothing extrodinary in comparison with the Voodoo 3. Oh sure, they had more memory, but that was pretty much it. Not even TV out . 3dfx said they didnt see too many consumers wanting that item...but a lot of GeForce2-based cards have some sort of video connection. I know its definitely not the fastest thing on the block, but its definitely a good performer. I had that card when it was the top one. Even if I put in a different card, I think I'll still keep it. Just random thoughts...

Oh, yeah, baby!! Got my case all painted. I'll post some pics once I take them.

Hercules has a tweaker to overclock their cards, and that should be on the cd. If not you can get it off their website. Ive got mine overclocked to 221 core and 210 ram. You will see some heavy artifacting in 3dmark2001 with this high of overclock on the ram. And just be sure youve got some cooling on the core. I have a dual fan blowing onto some of my addon cards, and so far no problems. You can clock the ram higher that 210, but the artifacting becomes extremely obvious and annoying at this point, so its your call.

My only complaint is the checked sig line as I dont post that too often. [ 18 April 2001: Message edited by: Brian Frank ]

I agree, as the layout is much cleaner. It took a little getting used to, but it didnt take too long.

What's this bump thing here?

I have to disagree with you on that one,euankirkhope, at least from a personal basis. The Radeon drivers suck, and that is the biggest and probably only problem behind an otherwise great card. Nvidia has much better drivers, even the beta's. My voodoo 4 that I had performed better in some areas than the Radeon. Not saying ATI doesnt work at their drivers, but for me the Radeon didnt cut it, where as the GeForce 2MX did. IMO the Radeon has some driver issues that need to be fixed soon, or ATI could be eating Nvidia dust. I do think that Nvidia is getting full of themselfs though, seeing as how they bashed the Kyro II chipset for features that the current GeForce lineup, excluding the GF3, doesnt support anyway. I dont want another section of the hardware industry ted by one force, like the sound card biz is with creative.

Im guessing it will be whenever MS feels like it. Im patched up so Im not sweating it.

Oh I just though of something, cant guarantee it would do anything but there is a patch for PCs running Win2k with a Duron or Athlon cpu. Heres the link if you're interested: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon-duron/amd_win2k_patch.html Its supposed to fix crashing in games, but it couldnt hurt to have.

SP1 sometimes causes problems for people. I havent had a problem with it, but everyone has a different pc, so sometimes one size does not fit all. There seem to be some things that just go out of whack with SP1, and Ive never heard a reason why it does. Bad luck is all I can figure.

If the fan is getting louder and louder, its probably going bad. Thermaltake has a Blue Orb chipset/video chip cooler that ~$20. Just grab some thermal paste before you strap on the new cooler. Id definitly go that route as you wont have to send out the mobo and you can fix it yourself.

Thats not too bad considering what you've got. It amazing how "older" video cards like that and the Voodoo 3 series are still capable of running many games and a decent pace. I love my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, that was my first real video card. That was when it was the card to have. Yeah, Ive tweaked out and overclocked my system, and its just with a $100 Duron 800 and a $100 GeForce 2 MX. Never underestimate the cheap hardware, as its the biggest bang for the buck. Its the knowledge that makes a 1GHz pc knock your socks off. Sure you can get the latest and greatest, but if you dont know how to unleash the power, you just blew some cash.

Where did you get the drivers from. The 1.04 drivers are on the 3dfx website. You need the Voodoo 4/5 drivers. Those build things are either referring to beta versions of Win2k or betas of WinXP. The best thing to do is to get a complete version of Win2k, not the beta. Actually, is that the Beta version or the plain consumer version of Win2k. If its not beta, try getting Service Pack 1 to see if that irons out the issues. Also, if youve got an Athlon or Duron cpu, you need to get a patch for Win2k or games will lock up. Here's the patch http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon-duron/amd_win2k_patch.html Also, do you have the latest drivers for your motherboard under Win2k. Do you have at least a 250 Watt powersupply? 300 could be better, as the V5 has that power connection.