Is this an ATX style PC (where you can command the thing to shut down by issuing a command to do so at the console) or an older AT style machine (where you always have to physically shut it down by pressing a power switch)?
ATX style systems always have power to the mainboard, shut down or not. If you reseat cards on such a machine without first disconnecting the system from the power source (i.e. pull the bloody plug out!) then you risk electrical damage to components. Perhaps this might have happened?
Minimum requirements should be the processor, RAM and display circuitry. To troubleshoot disconnect or remove everything but the processor, RAM, display card. Hook it up to a keyboard and a monitor, and you should be able to boot and have POST screen information displayed.
You should be able to use PC2700 or PC3200 RAM in it, although the faster module will only operate at the speed of the slower one. You may find incompatibilities between different modules, so it's best to have an agreement with the vendor so that you can return it if the module proves unsuited to your PC. Such incompatibilities relate to the way different manufacturers have assembled the RAM modules, rather than to their respective speed ratings. Fastewr RAM is generally backwards compatible.
XP Home will NOT speed things up. It's the same OS as XP Home, but with some extra features added.
You're most likely aware of this Alex, but for the benefit of philpotrebel (and others reading this) the following instructions should be followed when removing a heatsink and replaceing or refitting it:
The procedures described in that which relate to cleaning the processor and heatsink are relevent no matter WAHAT type of thermal transfer material is used afterwards. A processor heatsink should NEVER be removed and refitted without cleaning the surfaces and applying new material.
OEM in this sense basically means unpackaged, unbranded cheap RAM modules. It carries more risk of failure, and more risk that modules from different factories will have conmflict with each other. Hynix, Kingston and Kingmax are manufacturers which still have SD-RAM available for purchase.
If you're going to use them as some form of sculpture or other ornamentation, look closely at the motherboards and remove the CMOS batteries from them. They moght be round batteries in sockets, or they might be cells which are soldered to the board. (Some old P100 boards still had those, although they're usually only found on 486 boards).
If you don't remove them you'll end up with corrosion ;)
Try searching the knowledge base at www.symantec.com for manual uninstall instructions for your Norton product. Remove it (keep the system disconnected from the net afterwards of course, and uninstall/reinstall your soundcard. If it works correctly you'll know that it was the Norton product causing the problem, and you'll know you need to find a more suitable alternative.
Oh goodness, gecko, you wouldn't want that card if you're any sort of audiophile. I'd suggest a Creative SBLive! 5.1 as a minimum acceptable card, and preferably an Audigy2 ZS card for really good quality.
I would be very hesitant to purchase a 512Mb RAM module for that system. The model number you quoted is the motherboard id, by the way, and the motherboard was manufactured for use in some HP and Dell systems, rather than for retail. I can't be sure of the situation for your board, as Asus do not provide support information for it, but quite a few similar boards of that era had limits on the RAM module size they would accept.
I'd not purchase a module larger than 256Mb for it unless the purchase was a 'try before you buy' arrangement.
I guess the only issues i have seen were my harddrives not being found sometimes when i had a large overclock. i coudltn figure that out.
PCI bus not 'locked'? If you allow PCI bus speed to rise along with front side bus settings when overclocking, then interaction between components is adversely affected.
Sorry, format and fresh install is the go for this situation. There is a way to 'trick' the Windows installation into thinking it hasn't been moved, which involves a refresh install, but if you allow the system to try booting before you do it then it's too late!
Not worth the effort of trying to resurrect it, I'm afraid. Format and start over.
Windows XP is designed not to work if you change motherboards, because of anti-piracy protection methods.
Locate the forum section which suits your question. (This one in your case.) Bring up the forum section index page, where the list of topics appears.
Locate the 'New Thread' button and click on it. Give your topic a descriptive title, type your question in and then click on the 'Submit' button underneath the text entry box when you're happy with what you're posting/
I've just checked HP's website, and there are definitely no BIOS updates available, so if that processor was the limit in BIOS, then I think it'd be correct. Damned if I reckon it's worth upgrading an HP Pavilion, anyway. Damned if I even like working on the things!
Point 1: I don't believe future generations of display cards will be made available for AGP
Point 2: SLI'd 6600GTs will outperform even a 6800 Ultra at some specific aspects of 3D dosplay, but on the whole I would consider that the performance of SLI'd 6600GTs would be on a level with that of a 6800GT (or thereabouts, anyway). It also remains to be seen what an NForce4 motherboard with dual PCIE display card slots will cost. Not every NForce4 motherboard will have the dual slots for SLI, remember!
Point 3: Comparisons between AGP and PCIE are perhaps misleading at present. The peformance benefits of PCIE are mainly in software, and current games do not make use of the extra bandwidth which PCIE potentially has available. While performance might be comparable now, there's no guarantee that it will remain comparable for future 3D games.
So what to do? I'd be grabbing the 6800GT system now, if I could afford it, and worrying about all the new technology when time comes for the NEXT upgrade. But then I work on a limited budget, and try to build systems cheaply and upgrade them more often. Stay one step behind technology and you always get adequate performance at the cheapest cost, I believe ;)
Powerquest products have been 'taken over' by Symantec, and now form the basis of the Norton products referred to. I personally prefer the lesser known products from Paragon:
Your system files are certainly best kept on the first partition of your primary drive. Programs on a partition of their own, and data files kept separate also. The pagefile can be kept on it's own partition as well, of course, although to tell the truth I don't believe it makes enough appreciable difference to be worth the effort, especially with fast drives such as you already have.
Was it instructions for actually achieving these ends you were after? I'm not fully clear from your post.
By the way, the comments from suRoot are certainly a bit 'wide of the mark' in relation to the question, but in a Public forum questions attract answers from a range of people with a range of experiences. Reacting intolerantly and aggressively is not necessarily helpful either ;)
If it works for you mate, then go right ahead. I'll simply say this:
* The PS/2 socket is not designed to be hot-swappable. * I've had many a system handed to me to troubleshoot, and found the telltale scorchmarks on the top of the PS/2 socket when I've opened them up - every one of those caused by what I described above.
The 6800GT will outperform two SLI'd 6600GTs for most purposes. there are some situations where the SLI'd cards would outperform even a 6800 Ultra. I'd imagine that the SLI capable motherboards, when they appear, will be restrictively expensive anyway, so I'd go for the 6800GT AGP for now ;)
Theoretically, that motherboard should accept a pentium 4 533FSB processor of around 3GHZ, if one can be found. Most Pentium 4 processor of that speed are now using an 800MHz FSB, and those would not suit the board.
But you need to be careful, and you really should check on the HP website to see the upgrade potential for that particular PC. 'Name Brand' PCs are usually not as forgiving with upgrades as 'White Box' PCs, and the BIOS of the system may not allow for the necessary clock multiplier settings that would be needed to use the maximum potential of the chipset. Companies like HP actively encourage you to REPLACE your PC, not upgrade it :(
In short, I can't be sure without checking the HP website, and I'll leave that up to you to do. Post back here if you have trouble.
If it's a PS/2 mouse, then unplugging/replugging it as described, with the system powered up, could well be what's caused the problem. You should NEVER connect or disconnect a PS/2 mouse with power to the motherboard, because the socket is liable to 'blow' and the motherboard rendered useless for a PS/2 mouse. Same goes for a PS/2 keyboard!
You can also find out about how to change the options for how email notification is hanled for your member account, and other useful infoo, in the 'How to do stuff....' topic in the Site News and Feedback section:
I've personally got an FX5900XT, and not planning to upgrade it for another 12 months at least. I'd be incredibly happy with a 6800GT, and as I said before, I think it's the best value high performance card available at present. It's pretty hard to predict 3 years into the future, but I'd be sure such a card would give good value for a long time to come!
I personally wouldn't change a moytherboard for use with the same processor. An AThlon64 3400+ coupled with a 6900 Ultra AGP display card would give bucketloads of performance, now and into the future. There's been no definite avnnouncements of an BForce4 Socket 754 motherboard as yet, although there have been strong murmurings that such a thing will be made available.
But I think the extra money a new motherboard would cost would be better used going into savings towards the NEXT major system upgrade.
If I was considering that sort of monetary outlay I'd be opting for Socket 939 AMD, rather than Socket 754 AMD, as future processor upgrades (or the initial processor purchase) can be more powerful than Socket 754 will ever go.
PCI-E has potential benefit over and above AGP. But don't expect to see results from that potential initially, because those will come from software rather than from hardware. When games make use of the additional bandwidth available, PCIE cards will perform well in excess of their AGP brethren. Current PC games, despite their complexity, simply don't use enough bandwidth to make a dent on the performance difference ;)
I'm not so sure yet that the NVidia top-end cards are necessarily 'better' than the ATi top-end cards. In the long run the reversae may prove to be correct, and we can only really assess them based on today's games rather than tomorrow's games. Remember, the more time went on the more the 9xxx cards drew ahead of the FX5xxx cards in terms of performance. But I suspect that with their PS 3.0 capability, this time around NVidia might have the edge.
But I tend to discount the very 'top-end' cards from consideration because they're not realistic market place alternatives. Everybody talks about them, but hardly anybody really ends up having them! In the latest analysis done by Steam, for example, there are more people logged in using an ancient TNT2 card or onboard i810 graphics than there are people using a 'top of the range' card from either ATi or NVidia, for example!
In their respective price brackets, I'd consider the 6600GT and the 6800GT to be currently the best 'bangs per bucks' display cards available. In the lower price brackets, the 9800 Pro and the FX5900XT still hold the crown in their price brackets, and I'd not consider anything lesser to be still a worthy purchase for a gaming rig.
Perhaps the cheapest and best platform to adopt at present is the Socket 754 Athlon 64 platform
Purchase a motherboard which uses the NVidia NForce3 250 chipset, at least 512Mb of PC3200 DDR RAM, and whatever Socket 754 Athlon64 processor can fit within your budget.
Couple that with as good a display card as you can get your hands on, and you will have a decent games system.
Bear in mind that you'll also most likely need a new power supply unit, or perhaps even a new case, if your old one isn't suited to the components you purchase.
Sorry, but upgrading from an old, underpowered system isn't really a simple, straightforward and cheap path to take.
That's quite correct, willis86. If you have 128Mb allocated to 'Shared memory' it must be used for onboard video. Adding more RAM will give you a performance boost, of course, but its benefit to framerates in your games is going to be minimial at best.
The best course of action is to purchase an add-in display card, and set that 'Shared RAM' figure back to the lowest setting you can have for it, and disable the onboard video as well if BIOS allows you to. The most important factor for games performance is your display 'card'. The number of megabytes of RAM your onboard or add-in card video has available is far less important than the quality of its graphics processor. And onboard video generally has quite poor quality graphics processors included.
As indicated earlier, we need to know the make/model of your computer, or the make/model of its motherboard, in order to best advise you of what you need.
Have to agree. That PC is definitely not suitable as the basis for a powerful video card upgrade. It's suitable as an Internet terminal, office machine, or for playing some very old PC Games.
Time to upgrade all round, for sure. If your monitor, keyboard and mouse are in good order, then you could save money by purchasing an 'upgrade' system box.
Well I can't recommend one supplier over another, because I'm only familiar with my local suppliers here in Australia. But it seems to me that if you purchase the components from there, then this does not add too much to the purchase price:
Avoid using a Celeron. Obviously better processors give better performance, but if you really must go ultra budget an AMD Sempron will be better suited to the task than an Intel Celeron. Try for the best Athlon64 or Pentium 4 motherboard/processor combination you can fit into your budget.
Display card is not particularly important if you are not going to be gaming. An entry-level display card will be perfectly adequate.
The most important things to fit into the budget would be:
* Plenty of RAM. Try for 1Gb. * Two hard drives. Video editing is far more efficient when the video files are stored on a separate drive.
programmer_ted. please read my first two posts in this topic. they represent the 'basics' in getting a new motherboard working. If you have followed the directions indicated in them precisely and thoroughly, and still have problems, then please start a new topic indicating what motherboard you are using, and we can try to assist you.
In the meantime, please be aware that simply assessing a power supply unit by its wattage level isn't enough. A decent quality model from a reputable manufacturer will always be better than even lower wattage units from a 'generic' supplier. Cheap power units are NEVER the best option!
To repeat the basic troubleshooting procedure for those having problems:
Power down and either switch off at the wall outlet or remove the power cord
Remove ALL plug-in components except the processor and its heatsink/fan, one RAM module (usually in Slot 1 unless the motherboard manual specifically states otherwise), and a display card if the motherboard does not have onboard video. If the motherboard has onboard video, remove an add-in display card also.
Physically reset CMOS either by using the appropriate jumper or by removing and later replacing the CMOS battery.
Ensure that the power supply is connected to the motherboard
Ensure that the front panel case connector leads are attached correctly to the motherboard.
Sounds to me like there is a BIOS password set. Try resetting CMOS to see if that clears it:
Shut down and remove the power cord. Open up the system case and locate the round CMOS battery. Remove it, wait several minutes at least, then replace it and see if the PC boots up without asking for the password.
If you do decide to upgrade the thing, make sure you format the hard drive and install Windows 98 clean. Otherwise you will simply inherit the problems of the earlier version's installation. An 'upgrade installation' is not advisable when problems already exist.
That's a Compaq you have there, I presume. Backweb is installed as part of the error reporting and diagnostics software which Compaq preloads onto your system, and deselecting that .PIF entry is causing other related components to 'hang'.
Look through the 'Startup' list in msconfig, check the entries against the information about them you'll find at:
and deselect any entries which relate to preinstalled Compaq diagnostic and/or reporting tools. You don't need any of them, and they will have been of no use to you anyway since the Warranty first expired ;)
P.S. If thre are any entries which don't correspond with an entry in the task list database I linked, google for information about them :)
Go into BIOS setup again, set 1st boot device to CD-ROM, and ensure all other boot devices are set to 'disabled'. With a bit of luck, that should restore your ability to boot from the CD. Use the setup routine to delete existing partitions, and then create a new one for the installation.
Be watchful, however. when the system reboots during the Windows installation, you will need to go back into BIOS setup and set 2nd boot device to HDD-0 before continuing.
Did you by any chance use the same monitor cable to connect both monitors? If so it could be damaged, and I'd be trying a different cable before assuming that it's a more drastic hardware problem.
I've edited your email address from your post, because it is not our policy to have members requesting the answer to to emailed to them. Doing so helps no one but the person asking for assistance, and our problem resolutions should be available for all to see.
You should also post your question in the Internet Explorer forum section, if that is the browser you use:
