Posts by Coconut Monkey

However, I was referring to aspects of IDE/ATA technology other than the ability of attached devices to operate at their optimal speed (even when connected to the same IDE channel as possibly slower drives).

Ah, OK. I'll keep my eye on the thread then. ;)

Yes- actually it can make a difference, and the reasons for that are related to how IDE/ATA technology works as a whole (as opposed to something like SCSI).

Actually DMR, I'll have to disagree on that. Thanks to independent device timing, hard drives can operate at their maximum speeds on the same cable, assuming of course the right cable is used (80 conductor cable for ATA66 and above) and you're not just copying between the two (obviously the faster drive is limited to the slower one's speeds).

Performance issues arise when you have a hard drive and an optical drive on the same cable, since they use different transfer protocols.

first of all DRAM isnt the best but it is cheap it constantly needs to be refreshed so it slows it down sram which is used for CACHE on the cpu and off-die COAST is much fast and does not need to be refreshed

ShawnCplus, please don't resurrect old topics, especially those from 3 years ago!

By the way, welcome to the forums.

Is it not detecting the drive itself?

You need to provide Windows setup with SATA controller drivers on a floppy disk (hit F6 when prompted during setup so you can install these drivers). Dell's support website will have the drivers you need (unless you were supplied with either a program on a CD to make a SATA driver disk or an actual floppy disk with drivers).

Is this a new install of Windows XP?

Is the onboard sound enabled in the BIOS?

Do you have any programs running in the system tray, such as a virus scanner?

That may be a typo, either with the model number, the frequency or the socket type. It may even be an overclocked chip! I cannot find a socket 939 3200+ running at 2.2Ghz in AMD's list or on this third party one. I would seek clarification on the item and some proof that such a CPU exists should the seller defend the original specs.

I forgot to mention - the socket 370 CPUs have been through several revisions which include voltage changes. Sticking unsupported CPUs into motherboards could cause damage!

Looking at the manual for that motherboard, it only "officially" supports Celeron processors up to 400Mhz. Also, it uses the Intel 440LX chipset, which only supported a maximum safe front side bus speed of 66Mhz. The 1Ghz Celeron has an FSB of 100Mhz, which the 440LX chipset simply cannot reach.

Unless I'm mistaken regarding the motherboard model, I'm afraid you cannot run that CPU in that motherboard.

You need to provide Windows setup with SATA controller drivers on a floppy disk (hit F6 when prompted during setup so you can install these drivers). Gigabyte's website will have the drivers you need, although you should have been supplied with either a program on the motherboard CD to make a SATA driver disk or an actual floppy disk with drivers.

I suggest you google some benchmarks belama, and compare the numbers you care about. ;)

Yes, you can buy expansion cards that increase the number of IDE ports, like the one you mentioned.

USB 2.0 has a 480 Mbps interface and FireWire has a 400 Mbps interface

That's true nowhere, but it's not as simple as that. ;)

I pulled this handy little explanation off another messageboard:

Technically, firewire is better at SUSTAINED data. Firewire is fairly simple - it does some handshaking at both ends, then pours data down the line. That's compared to usb, which sends little fragments of data, with handshaking for each. This makes firewire superb for high-bandwidth situations (such as scanners or DV cams), pretty poor for packet-type situations (e.g. input devices) and middling (depending on the type of data and disk fragmentation) for disk access.

So as we can see, it depends on what kinds of data transfer are in mind. Plus, there's always IEEE1394b - a new firewire standard with a maximum 800Mbps transfer rate!

Connection Type: ADSL.
Connection Speed: 5440Kbits down, 992Kbits up.
Cost Per Month: $50 a month, 10Gb peak/10Gb off-peak, shaped to 64Kbits after that.
Country: Australia.
Name Of ISP: iiNet.

Yea, that looks good, but I would look for something with a socket 754 at least. If that is too expensive then go on down the list, socket A is basically bottom of the food chain with mobos. This is the line up of socket mobos, from best to worst:

socket 939
socket 775
socket 754
socket 478
socket 370
socket A

Whooha! How did socket 370 get classed above socket A? It went out along with the Pentium 3s!

The list you see there is mostly an indication of the best performance you can achieve from what I gather to be the high end CPUs available for each socket type, primarily gaming. However, I wouldn't base your purchase on that list. The socket types themselves have no real impact on your speed - it's the processors and other bits that plug in that matter the most!

Things become more confusing depending on what you plan to use your system for and what kind of budget you're on. If gaming is what you want, then an A64 system is the best choice. If you're on a shoestring budget for this, then you might want to look at socket 754. Otherwise, stick with the more future proof 939.

If video editing and some dabbling in multimedia is your aim, then a P4 setup might be the answer for you. 478 if you're a bit tight, otherwise look into 775.

If you just …

Does it work on another PC?

JjEjFjF has the right idea. Optical drives don't need drivers, but you do need some software to burn with. One of the most popular products out there is Nero, so you might want to give that a shot (but don't install lots of burning software on your PC or you could suffer from software conflicts).

If you have Windows XP sitting around, then you have one other reason to install it - built-in basic burning!

Mine have jumpers.
WD Raptors

WD tend to include legacy bits in their drives (like the old molex power connector). Jumpers aren't necessary for SATA drives though, since there's only one per cable!

Many LCD displays have an auto-config feature that tweaks the screen to the right dimensions and alignment, either in button form or when you turn it on.

I don't think there's any standard for other monitor settings though, since everyone's eyes are different. One setting that's comfortable for some may be head-splitting for others. It's really up to you to twiddle with the settings to get your definition of "right".

Ah, there's something. What kind of headset is it? Is it just a microphone, or does it also come with headphones?

If it's a combo (with two leads), then you might find that the microphone will not work if the headphones are not plugged in. Not to worry though - if you have a secondary output jack on your sound card (for multiple speaker setups) you can just plug the headphones into there and still use your speakers.

What is your sound card? Are the input/output jacks colour coded? Which jack is the microphone plugged into? What program are you using the microphone with? Did you adjust the recording microphone volume or the playback microphone volume (which should be muted unless you want to hear the sound of your own voice)?

I'm shocked that Crucial simply rebrand memory.

I wouldn't be! Many high-profile memory producers do the same. You will find a lot of memory chips come from either Samsung, Hyundai/Hynix, Winbond and a collection of lesser known "generic" manufacturers.

No, you cannot "convert" RAM. ;)

Nor can you run SD and DDR RAM (PC133 & PC3200 in your case) at the same time on boards with slots for both.

Quite a few motherboards enjoy switching boot drive preference to PATA when you plug one in, which is what's happening here (it's a royal pain, and has happened to me a number of times). You need to head into the BIOS and change the priority to the 80Gb SATA drive.

It sounds like you have a hard drive controller that Windows has no drivers for. These days, it's usually a SATA controller, but it might also be a RAID setup or an obscure product. You will need the drivers for it on a floppy disk. Also, make sure you press F6 when prompted during the Windows XP setup.

If you're not sure what to do, then please post your system's specifications so we can point you in the right direction.

The AthlonXP 2500+ Barton core CPU has an FSB of 333Mhz.

It's possible. You might want to try one stick at a time to see if any are faulty. Also, make sure you're using relaxed RAM timings (i.e. higher, like 3-4-4-8 for starters), in case the new stick can't handle the timings of the old one. They are both rated to run at whatever speed you've set them to right?

Good. A review on the internet said the x850xt was limited by the amd athlon 64 4000+ he used for his tests.

Well, that is true.......for pretty much any consumer processor currently on the market. Thing is, you get such good performance regardless that it's not really worth worrying about. :-|

Any CPU above 3000Mhz or 3000+ will give you suberb performance with that video card. Any CPU that starts doubling in price for the next model up in that 3000 and above range is probably not worth the investment for a few extra frames per second.

For some reason when i changed the settings to openGL in counterstrike it restarted and gave me a message to say the card didnt support it :o prob just matter of installing the openGL soft?

Make sure you have the latest drivers from Nvidia's website.

Also, when you first choose OpenGL, it alt-tabs you do the warning page regardless of whether you have the right drivers or not. Head back in and you should be able to select it.

Bother, a dodgy card. At least you're sorted now!

By the way, I recommend OpenGL mode with Counterstrike (unless you mean CS: Source, then Direct3D is your only choice!) - the graphics engine was originally designed for it.

Did you remove the TNT2 drivers from add/remove programs before installing the 9200SE? ;)

Mixing drivers is a receipe for disaster, especially when dealing with chipsets from two different manufacturers!

And speaking from experience, I'd think a PCI card would be more stable than an AGP equivalent.

Why do you want to run both cards? Dual monitor support?

I'm thinking your 60Gb is disk 2 (unless there's another drive I don't know about) - check the properties! (total size, unpartitioned?)

Make sure you're logged in with your administrator account, and head into Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management. On the right you should see a list of drives, with your new 60Gb drive somewhere within (if you have one other disk, it should be labelled Disk 1, with the primary drive called Disk 0).

Right-click the entry, choose to ‘initialise’ the drive, and follow the wizard. Then right-click again, choose to ‘partition’ the drive, and set it up according to your partition preference. After that's done (phew), right-click the drive once more, and select ‘format’.

Ensure you do a full format (I like to for new drives), and go and make a few cups of tea (it'll take a while, although you can do some other things while the drive is formatting).

If you don't have Windows XP (which the above guide applies to), then you'll need to use fdisk in pure DOS mode to partition and format the drive (which I will explain further if this is the case).

First of all, the hard drive needs to be on its own IDE controller (i.e. its own cable), otherwise you will suffer from degraded performance. Then, follow the jumper diagrams printed on the drive to set it up as master (there is usually a "jumper" that fits over two pins on the back of the drive) and plug the drive in using the end connection of the IDE cable. If you can't understand the jumper layout, then chances are it's already set to master if it was the primary drive in the Compaq.

You need to remove the old video card drivers before swapping things around. Then, you boot with the new card installed. Windows will use standard VGA drivers that do the job but lack advanced video acceleration (and so any fancy Windows effects will appear to render rather slowly). Once you're in Windows, you will need to install the Radeon drivers, preferably the latest version availabled from ATI's website.

Without third party apps (CPU-Z is small in size), an open case, an old receipt or a simple reboot, you can't tell what kind of RAM you have.

You don't have to run dual channel. However, it is recommended for P4 systems, and all you need are two or four matched sticks. The RAM doesn't have to be special "dual channel" RAM - just make sure you have sticks of the same brand and model. Mixing and matching can work, but don't count on it.

I'm flying by the seat of my pants somewhat, but have you selected the correct output type based on your location? NTSC, PAL, etc.

My experience has been that if you load it up just in a single-drive configuration, Windows shouldn't need any drivers to load onto it. In fact, you don't even need to go into the RAID BIOS to set up a RAID set, or anything.

That would be true alc if the board had a native SATA implementation (like Intel chipsets), but many boards don't and so require drivers before Windows will recognise any connected SATA drivers.

A. Would it be possible to connect the hdds together through a parallel cable? Is it possible to connect 4 hdds together with a parallel cable?

I doubt that you could connect 4 hard drives together through a single parallel port unless you had a device designed specifically to handle that many (unless you have 4 of these enclosures). Plus, I doubt that the parallel port provides the power for the connected drive. Is there no connection for external power?

You also need to keep in mind that a parallel port connection is a very slow means of data transfer.

And if so, can the out put of those devices be either USB or FireWIre?

You can buy USB and Firewire "enclosures", allowing you to connect laptop (2.5") and desktop (3.5") hard drives to your PC via those interfaces.

Alternatively, you could buy a motherboard with more IDE controllers and ports, so you can plug in all of those drives internally. You might also want to consider JBOD support (Just a Bunch of Disks) which allows you to cobble together (rather inefficiently) all of those disks into one virtual drive (since I am assuming they are different sizes/brands making them undesirable for RAID arrays).

I see three other threads on the same subject. djlethal109, please keep your request for help to one thread. If no one responds within a reasonable timeframe, then post in that thread again to bring it back to the top of the forum listing (but don't bump it constantly, like every hour). If help is not forthcoming, then perhaps there is no answer to your problem or maybe you should try elsewhere. I will leave this thread open for now and lock the others.

Making sure you're logged in with your administrator account, head into Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management. On the right you should see a list of drives, with your new drive somewhere within (if you have one other disk, it should be labelled Disk 1, with the primary drive called Disk 0). Right click the entry, choose to initialise the drive, and follow the wizard. Then right click again, choose to partition the drive, and set it up according to your partition preference. After that's done (phew), right click the drive once more, and select format.

I don't suppose there's any kind of warranty on this, considering you just bought it?

(if there isn't, might I recommend an external mouse instead?)

Well, Windows update will get you on the way to Service Pack 2. As for your motherboard chipset drivers, I need to know what PC you have - either the model or just the motherboard if you know it.

I didn't even know they made external SB Live!s - I thought it was only the Extigy. Are you sure you have an external sound card there?

Internal is the way to go for gaming on a desktop - far less CPU utilisation means better game performance, but if you're happy with the performance now I wouldn't really bother with an upgrade. As for sound quality, I haven't noticed much difference in my upgrades (but I'm no audiophile) - Live->Audigy->Audigy 2 (plus the sound needs to have been recorded in 24 bit to start with).

How are you connecting it? Wirelessly? Ethernet? USB? Are all three connection types available?

Sounds like your friend formatted in FAT16, an old filesystem that was phased out after Windows 95, or his PC might not support large hard drives (which can be fixed with a BIOS option, update, or a utility from the hard drive manufacturer).

What PC does he have? Specifications and Operating System.

You will experience no problems.

Have you installed SP1 or 2 for your PC along with the motherboard chipset drivers? Otherwise, if you have a USB2.0 capable PC, then you probably don't have USB ports properly installed!