Ali

I would stay away from AMD Athlon since there it has not much advantage over price, performence, and most importanly reliability. If you are a technician yourself, then it is ok to get AMD. Intel makes the BEST chipsets for P4 (i think everyone agrees with this one). Intel Also makes motherboard that are very reliable, no breakdown, or anything like that (I have been dealing with Intoel mobo's for past 3 years or so). Others make fancier motherboard at better prices compare to Intel, but you must be careful with them. I personally trust most boards that are made by intel, most of them because i have not tried few of the low end ones yet! If you use Intel, power supply will not be the big issue of the day, you can use any p4 certified 350W+ and it will work just fine. for AMD, you MUST buy high end power supply or you may end up dealing with wired problems. Most intel boards work with High Quality memory only (at least work better with high quality memory). high quality means at least Kingston Value ram or Crucial. stay away from "Generic" brans since it will give you few crashing/freezing problems once in a while. I personally DO NOT like low end Wester Digital HDD's, the SCSI and Workstation ones are OK, but not the destop ones. I get WAY TOO MANY WD RMAs Compare to Maxtor and SEAGATE. therfore i suggest Maxtor or Seegate as well. Samsung drives are generally lack in perforemence a little bit, but they may be cheaper (i wouldn's buy that myself thou). For case: Walk into the store and buy whatever matcher your ferniture!!!! Usually i look at the built of the case, how many drives i could fit in, how strong the structure is, and LOOKS too. I like lights and windows, and you just name it. I am personnaly an ATI Fan, i have used ATI cards and they are comparatively better than their Nvidia counter cards. You may have problems with LINUX operating systems thou. nVidia makes easire to use drivers for Linux, and ATI doesn't. but i still prefer ATI cards forsome technical reasons, some related to heat. Use only GOOD POWER SURGE protectors, don't pay too much, but don't be cheap.

Quote: It's a know via problem with Creative cards Since you have an older chipset, I would try the newest bios for your board, then newest 4 in 1 drivers, then creative drivers HOLY CRAP!!! Who could think of that!!! You know what!! i'll stick to my Intel Chipset P4's! thank god i didn't have that kind of problems with my AMD system after fixing all those power and heating promlems, otherwise i would have canned a brand new system for sure!!!

there could be two common problems: there could be something wrong with the Network Card Drivers (if the same adapter has been working before) like skier nemtioned, or if you use Cable Internet connection (Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, etc. ) recently they have started locking on the MAC addresses. that means if you have two computers, or two NICs on the same system, and you have been using one for a sufficienly long time you have to call them and have them release your MAC. I have seen this problem happening in southers Ontario, as ISP's are starting to do the MAC thingee here (they have no reasons for doing that thou, there is no point!). I know this for the fact that some of our customers buy new systems from our store, or anywhere else, and their new system will not connect to internet, while the old one can still connects (or the other way around).

Or you could borrow a USB FDD from a friend or someone, use it, and then give it back!!! that's one option!!! depending on How easy it is for you to get the external FDD!!!

Quote: Anyhoo, I'm just using it until i get a Zalman cooler. They make zero noise. ZERO NOISE???? There ain't no such thing man!!! is there? 8)

Quote: Would it work if I disconnect the high speed, leave only the computers connected to the switch, turn off the firewall, restart both computers and try the Set Up Network Wizard again? Is that a Switch or a router? a router can assign IP's to your computers and you can share your internet connection. a switch is just a dumb device and cannot be used for sharing internet connection. it somehow works if you have one computer and the internet connection on the swithch but the poroblem starts when you connect two computers AND your internet connection to the switch and try to do internet/file sharing! If that is the case that is not how you use a switch!

the very basic things to look for: 1. You should have a Raid Bios, usually you enable the raid controller in the BIOS. you hook up the HDD's to your raid controller, after the first bootup screen you will see a second screen where you will be prompted to press such and such key to get to the raid Bios. (Doesn't have to be the same for all Mobo's/ Controllers) 2. you get into the raid bios and setup ypur raid drive the way you want (i.e. raid0, 1, 0+1 etc.) 3. Here is the part that can dissapoint you a bit: installing windows XP: it askes you at the very beggining to press F6 to install SCSI or Raid Controllers (drivers) and it askes to to "Insert the Floppy into Drive A"!!! 8) I have not been able to make that thing point to a CDROM drive or anything! JUST FLOPPY DRIVE A! that actually made me go to another computer and copy the drivers off the mobo cd to a floppy disk and then go on from there!!! that is why i have a floppy drive that i use only once a year! to install XP on my raid0 Controller! ;( That is a same story with intel ICH5 boards and Intel D845PEBT2 with the Sillicon Image SATA RAID Controller. therefor, (unless someone has a better solution) go get a floppy drive first! :x

Quote: Anybody here have the Aopen AX4SG-N? If you have it, is anybody running SilentTek? If so, does anybody hear beeping when SilentTek turns the CPU fan off? If so, does anybody know how to disable that beeping? If so, how? It's annoying, and basically defeats the purpose of SilentTek. That is what i call nested if's. Well... check the BIOS see if you cand find any hardware monitoring or alert options. I have never used Aopen Mobo's but on many (new) motherboards I don't think you can disable the Hardware Monitor, but you should be able to disable the alerts, even thou since last P3's that option seems to be fading away in BIOS configurations.

That is interesting. I have samsung DVD roms but they are 16x. you guys mean you can't even see the files on the DVD disk either? You mean it acts like a normal CDROM with no DVD capability? that is wired! :x

Quote: well ya screwed up by buyin intel for starters. just being told that you need some screwy application accelerator or whatever its called should have thrown up a red flag. personally i would can your system or get your money back, and go with the amd 64 bit processors. I Have been using Intel Boards for the last 3 years, and i should say intel chipset is the best chipset you can find for P4 CPU. I prefer Intel chipset above anything else. By the way, AMD has it's own problems, which are in fact more complicated and more difficult to deal with. personally i will never recommend AMD to any new user/starter. WD HDD's are s odelicate, they could go bad quickly. I have had a LOT of bad experience with WD's. I wouldn't use a WD IDE HDD or SATA 7200RPM ones myself. Since i have had a lot of luck woth the WD SCSI drives, i can't say the same about the SATA 10000RPM, but i won't buy one untill i see them in action. Check the drive itself as well. it is very possible that the drive could be bad. Good Luck

Quote: That's a point for sure... BUT, can they read? I often skip over reading tech texts, who doesn't? BUT, guys like us have a HECK of alot of saavy in this field along w/ experience... & can usually work-around things w/out using those. BUT, there are times I wished I would have taken the time to take a read though FIRST too, I have to admit. True!!! Like Techs say, "When every attempt failed, then consult the user's manual". I personally deal with more hardware than software. and when you have 20 services to do everyday you may not have the time for cooking!!! so too many times a day I juat throw the frozen stuff in the microwave to save time!!! (use OEM preinstall kit/Ghost image) or use canned drivers when doing thigs from scratch for customers!!! i do take the time to fix up myown computers in the best possible way. once they're set they just work because it is done properly. It happens alot tho, customers do their own installations and there are a lot of lose screws! and it just doesn't work the way they want it! sometimes they don't know there is a can they've got to open!!! it sometimes happens that people don't even know they must install drivers!!! so they don't even go for the can. they just starve!!!!

Quote: So any thougths would be appreciated on this issue, thanks With Cat. 3.9 they had a hot fix for All-In-Wonder cards as OpenGL and D3D games crashed. the hot fix worked perfectly fine for cat 3.9, but my A-I-W 9700 pro has no problems working with cat. 3.10. you could try the hotfix first (it does include the drivers also) and see if that helps.

Quote: (Part of WHY I stick to batchfile installs, very reliable... ugly as hell, but work under ANY circumstances & totally customizeable & analyzeable by end-users too!) APK If the "end user" is you. for my clients, they better use the "Canned" drivers!!! they can't cook!!!!

Quote: I tried the 3.10 drivers with my old Radeon 8500 and they work well, I still have problems with texture popping in Call of Duty if I increase the texture detail to Maximum. wow never noticed that with my 9700Pro. ET crashes very often on all my computers. especially when you download a new map it crashes as soon as you join a team. when you restart the game and go to the same map it works perfectly fine there after!!! I have lots of problems with ATI's Linux drivers!!!! the simply SUCK!!!!

My All-In-Wonder 9700Pro had problems with 3.9 and i had to use a Hot fix to get it to work with many games in the first place!!!! therefore have not dared to upgrade it to 3.10 yet!!! But my 9100 and 9200 cards all working fine with 3.10 (considering that these cards don't take advantage of many parts of that drivers they should just work!!!) Maybe i install it tonight!!!

I have been using Intel Motherboard and i find the new ones VERY reliable, especially i865 and i875 Chipsets. I use D865GBF myself and it seems to be a solid, reliable board so far (i also build them and service these systems and never found any problems related to Intel boards). Intel 865 and 875 Chipsets come with ICH5 and Two SATA connector on board (Raid 0 and 1 Capable), but if you want to connect more HDD's and have a more complex raid sequence you are better off getting a PCI SATA controller with enough connectors or your drives.(there are non that i have personally used so i have no personal preference) If the users are accessing the files through LAN it is not really as important to have raid0 on all of your drives as it will not improve your performence by much over a 100Mbs LAN. However it will give you the Huge storage as one drive. You also have to keep in mind that HDD's DIE!!!! They are not very reliable for long term storage as they can die on you anytime!!! so you need to think about some way of getting around that issue by using Raid1 (then you'll need more drives) or some other type of storage like a network Tape Storage system (Expensive).

I agree with clutch. i have built AMD and Intel systems, and i have always been more successful with Intel. Not that AMD is bad, but I have rather to have an intel myself. Just personal preference, I pay a little more for the CPU and put it together and forget it. No checking for overheating, Voltage monitoring, and dealing with noisy Vocano fan!!! Actually the Intel stock fan is ENOUGH for cooling!!!! and even some overclocking! The AMD system i have in the specs made me regret my purchase after i had to change the cooling fan and Powersupply. At end my AMD cost me a little more than my P4 system listed below (DV Editing, Including all the parts, without the Video cards). Just to be fare I built an older AMD Athlon 1700 and it is still being used with no problems what so ever, but Athlon XP .... well, never again.

I have a stupid problem. I'm trying to dual-boot my system (Windows XP on Raid0, and Mandrake Linux on IDE secondary master HDD). the problem is Linux does not see my raid controller, and since i'm a newbe to linux (my second time installing) i don't know how to make it see the raid thingee anyways. on the other hand i like to keep booting from the raid drive containing Win XP Pro (i'm not confortable playing around with linux boot loader yet). I need to know what line i should add to my boot.ini to make it load linux. i can make it work with any installation of windows using 'windows="whatever"/fastdetect', but not Linux. ;( anybody has any simple solutions for the newbe guy (that i can understand and the least ammount of Linux command console) for now i change the boot sequence in the BIOS everytime to boot into different OS. :x thanks in advance for your help

Quote: I use celerons from the time they first came out C300A and I also had a few pII and pentiumIII processors so I know what I'm talking about. It depens on the price. I'm sure you don't get twice the performance of a celeron 2,4 in a P4 2,4/800 but the p4 costs twice as much. My celeron calculates a seti unit in aprox 4,5 hours. It reaches 8900 3dmarks and almost 10000 overclocked. It's good enough for me also playing games doing some video and audio editing from time to time. I'll probably get a p4 when they become cheaper. I work for a computer company. I have used Celeron for our reception desk and I could clearly see the difference when I just replaced the Celeron 2.4 with a p4 2.4b. I’ll never buy Celeron for home use anyways. Celeron is good if you are building more than one computer for a company and all they want is cheap systems for their secretaries.

Quote: Quote: i then must disagree too. $30 for a converter to run a drive that probably costs $100 or so, is pretty expensive. Toss in 2 for raid and it's almost $60 extra. Then I must disagree again $60 to convert your existing PATA drives to SATA would be cheaper then purchasing a pair of new SATA drives in canada there is about $10 difference between seagate 120 GB ata133 w/ 8MB cach and the same HDD SATA. unless you already have the ide drives and you don't wanna buy new drives.

IDE raid is good (I use it). i have installed SATA raid0 for other people, and it seems a lot faster than a single IDE drive, but what is a good way of actually comparing the performence of IDE Raid and SATA Raid? will it really make any difference to use IDE Hdd's and connect it to SATA? (My logic tells me it doesn't, but i don't really know!)

Quote: Quote: Thank you all for the piece of advice concerning DOOM 3 i reckon i will say with nivda ge-force. cheers dave. dont do it!!!!!! Quote: Quote: Thank you all for the piece of advice concerning DOOM 3 i reckon i will say with nivda ge-force. cheers dave. do it!!!!!! O boy!! This is so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know, just buy whatever that is in your budget!!!! these cards all have their goodies and badies!!!!!!!

Quote: Quote: Nobody plays games at 14000x1050 or 1600x1200 yet! Umm, I do... I regularly run Q3A/TA, RTCW, and W:ET at 1600x1200, max details... I usually stay around 90 FPS, only slightly dropping some frames when there is intense video processing. That's with a P4 2.26GHz, and Geforce4 Ti4400... yac!!!!!! try Unreal 2 with that, or NFS Underground!!! then you may use some 256MB Video card!!! Correction on my previous post: I have never tried that because I personally use an LCD (17" Samsung). If i could get my hans on a 20" monitor i might have tried to do it!!! Since i like my eyes i prefer 1024x768 on al least 75Hz.

what is the point of having PC4200 if your mobo only supports upto PC3200? I have 3.0GHz system and i find the stupid Maxtor diamond Max 9 as a real bottle neck to my performence when it is doing anything with the HDD. what difference does it really make if you are using windows or linux on slow 7200RPM Hdd's? that SATA Raid 0 10,000 rpm sounds like a plan thou. i'll keep my dual 400 and try to get my hands on that. Edit: I have IDE raid 0 on one of my systems and it really works, and it is a lot more cost effective that those 36GB 10000 RPM thingees (But IDE is slower). 8MB buffer in a raid system may not make it faster (i think we have had this topic before on NTcompatible), but i have tested SATA Raid0 in Intel D865Perl mobo and ICH5 (2xSeagate SATA 120GB 7200RPM) and installed windows XP, they seem to be faster.

Quote: I have an ATI card ( 9000 pro with 128MB to be exact ). Any idea on whether I'll have to update the card to play Doom3/HL2? My monitor is only 1280x1024 so no high res stuff here. I have not seen any recommend system specs for either game yet. I'm also starting to see recommended processor speeds go up as well. A processor upgrade (not counting memory) is quite a bit less then a video card upgrade. I seriously doubt that I'll upgrade my 9 month old system just for Doom3. Nobody plays games at 14000x1050 or 1600x1200 yet! so i don't think having a 256MB video card will make any difference at all compared to a 128MB one!!! I'll stick to what i have untill it actually "Makes a Rsonable Difference" to upgrade! don't be too concerned about your Video card for now. use it untill you feel maybe you need a new video card to run your applications/games. besides they come up with new stuff every 3 - 6 months, and right now i'm waiting for intel 64-bit CPU's, just like i was waiting for P4C (800Mhz with HT) and P4B (533Mhz FSB) and P4 (first socket 478) and so on. Who knows when Doom III comes out!!! By then we could be using 64-bit platforms and Longhorn, or maybe we will be back to linux.