Hi Guys,

Wonder if anyone can proffer some advice. My Computer is as follows:

Athlon 2100+
Abit AT7 Motherboard
512Mb PC2100 DDR
Gainward GeForce4 4600 Golden Sample
IBM Deskstar GXP 30Gb (on RAID)
Windows XP SP1

This should be a fairly quick set up. However. I ran 3DMark2001SE yesterday and got a score of about 6200 at 1024x768 on default options.

This seems way too low. Any info ?

YES that is very low. Did u do a fresh install of windows when u installed the new hardare? Have u installed all the latest drivers and stuff?

Check your graphics settings, you might have FSAA and maybe even Aniortopt set to on also make sure vsync is set to off for benchmarking.
For Geforce 4 the 42.01 seem to be the best drivers at the moment.

Is your BIOS configured to take the 133 mhz FSB of the Athlon XP 2100+? Is your processor overheating? How about BIOS settings like AGP fast writes, your Aperture size set to 128 or 256? How about your drivers? Are your AGP GART drivers installed? (Chipset drivers for motherboards usually auto install those, VIA 4 in 1's and the such.) and the latest GeForce 4 drivers? Like the 41.09 detonators?

There are many reasons for a slowdown, you should look into each one of these.

There's also about 10 or so services that XP has running that usually are not necessary.

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

First step is to reinstall windows with a slipstreamed WinXP and SP1 install.

Then I will see what I can do with the BIOS settings. There is a guide on the internet that I recently found that seemed to go through all the possible BIOS settings possible.

Then I will install the latest drivers.

Then I will put on 3DMark2001SE again, and see what she says.

Watch this space !

PS My CPU isn't overheating but is pretty toasty - 61C - which I am not sure does it any good but I am putting in a cable modem before I start playing around with the insides of my computer again....

Well, I had a few problems with slipstreaming but that's another story. I reinstalled WinXP, and then applied SP1 and then Detonator Drivers 40.72 and now my 3DMark is

11077

much better. I did also do a bit of BIOS tweaking.

Two final questions:

1) Is it worth installing the VIA 4-in-1 's
2) Is it worth putting on different detonators ?

put on detonators 41.09 and score gone down ;( to 10750

not sure how that works

put on office xp and transferred my files and settings using provided wizard and score up to

10877

Defineltey use the Via 4in1's, they do speed up perfromance on the latest Via chipsets!

installed the 4-in-1's and they seem to have done bu**er all to be fair.

3dmark stands at 10866

Personally, I don't place much weight on benchmarks... Variance of ~10% IIRC is normal with most any benchmark. What's important, is does it seem to be running faster, and more stable?

yup, that it does. I was using the benchmark to put a number to it - it's just to point out that it is still working at the same speed. before, it seemed very sluggish - hence the 6000 benchmark, but now its above 10000 again and is working fine !

now to install simcity and exit real life again....

PS thanks for all the help guys

Sounds like fun... Glad all is well now...