Posts by Coconut Monkey

Whoops, sorry, I believe there is one board that supports socket 478 and 775 CPUs. :D

Sometimes a BIOS update can fix that issue, and there are also utilities available from hard drive manufacturers that force the system to recognise the entire drive.

NOTE: The XP uses socket A, which is being phased out, the sempron uses socket 754 which is the mainstream budget AMD socket (their high end is 939)

Incorrect. The first Semprons came out in socket A format, and were based on the old AthlonXP thoroughbred cores. The 3100+ Sempron is the socket 754 model and is based on the Athlon 64 core, minus 64-bit support.

you are correct...you cannot mix diff speeds of RAM together. This causes problems because of different settings between the types of RAM.

Incorrect. You can mix different speeds of RAM together, but success is not guaranteed. Ensure that the RAM timings set in the BIOS are supported by both sets of sticks and the slower RAM is not being forced to run at a higher speed (i.e. overclocked). Buying the same brand and model of RAM will also increase the chance that it all works.

See here for more information.

Your computer does not have PCI-E slots.

The x800 Pro would be the better buy (considering the price premium on the XT), but I would recommend waiting for the X800XL or trying Nvidia's 6800GT.

The X800Pro has 12 pixel pipelines and the XT has 16 (the XL will have 16). I'm not sure what the non-pro has.

Performance will be significantly boosted, and you can carry the card across to a new, non-PCI Express system in the future (there are no boards that support both AGP and PCI-E, and PCI-E will eventually replace AGP).

Well, first you need to choose which type of processor you want (AMD - Athlon64 754 and 939, Athlon XP, and Sempron 754 and A. Intel - P4 478 and 775) because otherwise it's going to be a very long list!

There is no board that supports different socket types (e.g. A64 754 and 939) and/or different CPU manufacturers (e.g. Intel and AMD).

Thanks,
That would be the cheapest route right now. As I said before this is for internet usage, basically surfing, maybe a bit of music download, but no major movie downloads, etc.
There are 3 Dimm slots, and there is an Infineon 256mb stick in slot 1. Do I buy two more new 256sticks, and put them in slots 1 and 2, and put the Infineon in slot 3.
Tyan says the max is 768mb.
Thanks
George

Consider this before buying new sticks. ;)

The Athlon XP would be faster, but how much does each cost?

The Sempron has a 2Ghz clockspeed and 256Kb of L2 cache.

The 2600+ Thoroughbred has a clockspeed of 2.083Ghz and 256Kb of L2 cache and the 2600+ Bartoon has a clockspeed of 1.917Ghz and 512Kb of L2 cache.

Most motherboards these days allow adjustment of CPU speeds via the BIOS, although some models do retain an FSB jumper.

Note that by setting a speed higher than what your CPU/RAM/etc is rated for is classed as overclocking, which can increase heat output and reduce the overall life of the component. Overclocking is not recommended for the complete novice!

The master drive must be connected to the the end of the IDE cable and the slave must be connected to the middle. Ensure both have the correct jumper setup.

Once the BIOS recognises the drive, you may also have to activate it in Windows. See this article for help on how to do this.

I believe you're still using the previous video card, which is either an actual card or an onboard solution (built into the motherboard). As far as I can tell, the new 9250 is being used as a secondary display with an extended desktop (which is why you see nothing but a background). Great for dual monitors, useless for your single display setup. You need to uninstall the old video card from Windows (if there's no entry in Add/remove programs, then delete the entry for it in Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager->Display adaptors) then either physically remove the card or, if it's an onboard solution, disable it via the BIOS (see your motherboard manual).

Clawhammer: 2.2Ghz, 1Mb of L2 cache.
Newcastle: 2.4Ghz, 512Kb of L2 cache.

Which pins? There are usually:

1. The IDE data cable connector.
2. Power.
3. Jumper pins to set slave/master/cable select (if you have 2 drives on the one cable/IDE channel).
4. Analog CD audio out (connect to your sound card).
5. Digital CD audio out (as above).

You can control your CD-ROM drive's function quite easily from within Windows! Just right click the drive in My Computer or Explorer.

For general office usage and gaming, dual processors are useless (especially since only a few games actually support them, and they're probably all Quake 3 based).

Have you tried the ATI control panel?

Regardless, there is hardly any performance difference between AGP4X and AGP8X.

Note: PC2700 RAM (and indeed, any RAM) is happy to run at lower speeds.

Thus, if you used PC2700 RAM in the above board, it would run at the speed of the slowest stick (133Mhz).

I don't see why the board would only recognise 128Kb of L2 cache. Looking at Intel's documentation on the chipset reveals no such limitation (it wouldn't be surprising if they just shoved that under the carpet though). Are you able to get your hands on any 400Mhz FSB Pentium 4s?

Wrong forum. ;)

Note that a P4 model would be noticeably faster than the Celeron you have there. If you can get a replacement cheap, it might be worth considering.

YEr i need help too. ! i just bought a new processor its a AMD sempron 2400 + 1.67 ghz but when i check my system status it says 1000 mhz why is is not running as it should ? and also is says my processor is an AMD athlon but it isnt its a sempron !! NAME of motherboard :ECS K7S5A - MAUFACTURRER: elitegroup computer systems

I believe the ECS K7S5A only supports socket A processors with front side buses of up to 133Mhz (266Mhz double-pumped). The Sempron you have there (actually just an AthlonXP Thoroughbred core) is a 166Mhz fsb processor (333Mhz double-pumped). At the moment, it's running with an fsb of 100Mhz, which combined with its multiplier of 10 equals a running frequency of 1000Mhz. You can try increasing the fsb (in the BIOS) to 133Mhz, which will result in 1333Mhz. Unfortunately, you won't reach full speed with your current motherboard .

What do you plan to use the server for? If you're not hosting a busy site or anything, a second hand P2 or P3 would easily fit the bill for basic operations. Heck, even a P1 can do the job.

For a higher-end server, might I suggest you look at AMD's Opteron? ;)

The drive has no jumpers? What model is it? How old?

Are you sure you don't have a SATA drive there?

A 6800 Ultra costs a whole lot more for a whole lot less performance. The only difference between the 2 models is clockspeeds! It's not worth it for the average gamer.

Make sure your card is one before attempting a flash!

Why do you want to flash to a 9800XT? The performance difference would be negligible (there are some driver specific 9800XT optimisations though), and you won't be unlocking any extra hardware or anything. If you want the 9800XT's minor clockspeed increase, just grab something like ATITool and attempt (at your own risk!) to overclock to 412/730 (core/mem).

I also don't think you can flash to a true 9800XT BIOS without a R360 GPU (the chip used in the 9800XT. The 9800 Pro uses the R350). ATITool can try to tell you what you have, but the full-proof way of finding out is to pop off the heat sink fan on the card and look for yourself (once again, at your own risk!).

That "IEEE1394" is a firewire port, which you can use to connect your DV camcorder to stream off digital video.

The inputs and outputs on your video card allow you to output (TV-out) a signal to your TV (or some other display device), as well as accept (in!) signals from a VCR etc, although I think this would be limited to an analogue format (not as good as digital).

Were you supplied with any cables and appropriate software?

can you run a primary SATA HDD and a slave ATA/133? on the same system?

Yes.

and i have a DFi LANPARTy mobo does that support everything SATA has too offer?

Does it have SATA connectors (and thus a SATA controller)? Yes? Then you're SATA ready.

Most new boards come with SATA and RAID support.

Buy the 3500+. The 4000+ is far too expensive for the extra performance you would get.

If you want stability, I would consider the Asus A8V Deluxe. For overclocking, I would go for the Abit AV8.

For rendering, the best route would be professional 3D graphics cards, which cost a fortune if you choose top of the range. Otherwise, I would just pick out a 6800GT. The only difference between it and the ultra is reduced clockspeeds. Plus you will easily get 1.5 years out of it.

SATA (150Mb/s max theoretical transfer) is not much faster than ATA133. However, the standard does offer smaller cables, easier physical installation (no jumpers), and some degree of future proofing (should IDE ever be phased out - which won't be happening any time soon).

Throwing two drives into a RAID 0 configuration does not net you twice the speed, as numerous benchmarks can attest. A combination of overheads, access times, the fact that most RAID controllers in consumer boards are software based and lack of data redundancy in RAID 0 means that RAID 0 isn't really worth it for general usage and gaming (unless you really like gaining several precious seconds in loading screens). RAID 1 can be handy if you're paranoid about data loss, but you are sacrificing an entire drive for mirroring.

NOTE!! :!: :!: :!: :!: wow, I just looked at newegg. the prices are insane!! 165 is the cheapest for an oem ATI card. That is DEFINATELY more than my friend paid. I do not know why there would be arise in price?

9800 Pros are in short supply at the moment, as reported here, so I wouldn't be too surprised at any prices rises. Mind you, that newegg price seems about right for US dollars. :confused:

Might I suggest an AGP 6600GT instead? Superior performance in most games (unless you really crank up the resolution and graphical detail, which likely results in unplayable framerates anyway).

lol, so either then though ATi performed better in HL2, Nvidia's 6800Gt will kill my 9600Xt in HL2 am I correct?

You saw the benchmarks.

and I also have a question, ATI beat Nvidia in HL2, but wasnt Nvidia using their outdated 61 drivers?

Nvidia now has 65 drivers which should give you an extra 10-20fps in hl2.

Maybe so, but the 6800GT is still a damn good card (and HL2 is optimised for ATI cards).

well on paper 150Mhz and 100Mh doesnt seem like that much extra strain on the gpu and ram.

You'd be surprised.

Just remember that overclocking isn't always guaranteed to work. While many people may report successes, you shouldn't assume that your card will manage the same.

will the 6800GT out perform my 9600XT in HL2?

Very much so (compare using the X600XT - a PCI-E 9600XT).

and will there be a big difference in performance in HL2 between the 9600XT and 6800GT?

See above.

and what would U classify this pc,
AMD 64 3400+
1024Mb PC3200 Ram
DFi LANPARTY 250GB chipset mobo,
360GB HDD
6800GT

can I call that a high-med range to low- high range pc?

I'd call that a high-end gaming machine. Now stop bragging! :cheesy:

you can up to the extent of your agp

You sure can (AGP Aperture size, AGP fast writes and AGP transfer speed). In the motherboard BIOS however, you can only overclock the CPU, fsb, AGP and PCI buses (not recommended!) and RAM.

most of the time it comes with a program to overclock it, ati I believe has smart doctor,
but you can download a program that will overclock it for you.

ATITool for ATI cards.
Coolbits to enable overclocking in the Nvidia control panel.

also your bios might do it if its an overclocking board.

You cannot overclock video cards in the motherboard BIOS.

Might I suggest non-beta drivers? They're marked beta for a reason! (i.e. not finished and thus potentially very buggy)

Otherwise, did you uninstall the old drivers from add/remove programs beforehand?

Yes, same thing. The 150 you see the maximum theoretical transfer rate in megabytes per second.

Does it stay "on" or just completely shut down after a short period of time?

When you do retire one of your optical drives (highly recommended - you don't need 3!), have the 2 hard drives on one IDE channel (i.e. one cable between them) and the two optical drives on another. Since optical drives use a different transfer protocol to that of a hard drive, performance will be slower if they share a channel.

The heat transfer plate is officially known as an Integrated Heat Spreader.

if you got your celeron after 2000, mostly likely it is socket 457,

There is no such thing as socket 457. Celerons come in slot 1, socket 370 (a few different variants in here!), socket 478 and socket 775.

Download CPU-Z.

I think the problem (AGP/PCI not present or not working properly) occurs on all revisions, but the second was supposed to have fixed it (I'll need to further look into it later). Regardless, you should try a BIOS update first.

Apparently there are issues with AGP/PCI locks on the Asus A8V - a BIOS update should introduce a menu option for it and allow you to set the speeds at 66/33. This isn't guaranteed to work however!

You can't just plug in your other hard drive with an existing Windows installation - XP will kick the bucket if the hardware is different. You can either attempt a repair through the setup CD or preferably a complete reinstall.

And while you're in Windows XP setup, you can use the built-in partitioning and format tools to wipe that old ME drive clean. ;)

Either the 160Gb or 40Gb would be fine as one of the main system drives.
If you require additional space however, then a standard 7200rpm SATA drive of some capacity from Seagate, Western Digital or Maxtor should serve you well. I wouldn't bother with a 10000rpm model - the extra cost and reduced storage capacity isn't worth the minimal decrease in load times.

That's what you get for overclocking - instability if you're not careful! It can also affect other components, as you've noticed with the hard drives not detecting. Graphical artefacts will occur if the video card is overclocked too far, so clock back until the screen is clean once again.

But honestly, why overclock on that system? It's a beast, and should play any game at smooth framerates. On the other hand, if you're cranking it for the challenge and benchmark figures, then I'll shut up. ;)

The "chipset" is, simply, what the motherboard is based on. A chipset is a combination of microchips that, together, provide a means to connect everything in a PC together, allow communication between them, and maybe throw in the odd extra feature here and there. There are Pentium 4 chipsets, Athlon 64 chipsets, and within each are several others from different manufacturers. A chipset dictates what CPU, RAM, expansion cards, drives and more a motherboard supports.

For example, a motherboard that uses the i875P chipset from Intel supports socket 478 processors (Pentium 4s and Celerons), DDR1 RAM, PCI and AGP cards.

Do you experience freezing in 3D Games? Crashes during system intensive tasks?

If you answered no to all of the above, then you should be fine. I run the same power supply on an overclocked P4, 9800 Pro, 2 optical drives, 2x 512Mb sticks of RAM, 2 SATA hard drives, and 5 fans.

Well, I am planning to build my own pc, I am doing research on it now. I have a case, i need to know of a good motherboard. It is a work in progress, but in regards to my last question about the video card, i decided just to go with a whole new computer. It is my first computer to build, i think it will be a good experience, and i will be looking to this forum for alot of help, so thanks alot.

If that's the path you want to take, then I suggest you buy everything in one hit instead of piece by piece (besides, you won't be able to use anything until you have everything!). By the time you've saved up enough money, prices will have dropped and new technology will be available to choose from. The world of computers is a fast changing one!