Stephen Van Siclen

Ronin, I BOW TO YOU. Your rock solid stability on your 840 chipset system gave me the incentive to move toward the 840 chipset in the face of it being slammed hard by just about every hardware site on the net. Your mature response when you were told to "shut the **** up!" really impressed me as well. Your technical expertise in helping people in this forum has been an asset to this group. I will admit that ALL of us techies tend to get a bit Big Headed from time to time and don't like intrusions from some of the weirder posts. (any one remember jdulmage's first strange new posts, Hey! I still wonder if there is any validity to the whole upgrade deal he went on about.) Oxide, I admit your specs are good. You say that you did this all for under a grand? Including the 15000 RPM Drive? Not bad. Nothing worse than being impressed by something you've done and finding yourself slammed by the community for wanting to impress. No doubt you are upset because you had thought you might get a few ego strokes. However there are a lot of us who will throw gobs of money at our system with nothing leftover for other stuff so you have some validity in what you say. No doubt that in a gaming contest neither Ronin's or any larger systems are really going to have that much of a faster feel. Heck. My daughters PII 300 doesn't really feel much slower than my lead system in my household. Heck the G3 400 actually "feels" faster than all of them, though in number crunching / fps tests I'm sure my lead system would win. Remember though, even though this is a hardware forum, it is on NTCOMPATIBLE and is really out there for each other to help one another. Lets make this productive eh? I propose if you really want to get into a pissing contest you show some benches to back it up along with the price you paid, then we can get a price / performance post rolling and see how much speed the extra money spent really gives a person. I surely know I was shocked to see that my system didn't clock that much better than DosFreaks when I went for the real numbers with my system. Lets keep this forum fun and most of all lets keep our heads in reality, for the truly intelligent, the numbers will speak more than the pissing contest. just my 2 cents.

Well said! Behemoth, listen to DosFreak, he is 100% correct. You are really better off spending the $50 to $100 to get a new drive.

Are you using the stock HSF assembly from a boxed processor? or did you buy an OEM processor and a second hand HSF. I have noticed a lot of inscrutible companys selling those black cheapo HSF assemblys with OEM processors! I almost killed a 1ghz OEM using one of thier specials! Did it come in official intel box or wrapped in bubble wrap? if the latter its an oem with a cheap fan most likely. If this is the case, discontinue using this machine until you can purchase a suitable HSF. I would suggest a cooler master or an alpha. If it is a boxed processor you very are not making flat contact to the ceramic on the processor with the HSF! Do some researching on lapping the surface to smooth it out. Or look into using some thermal paste to smooth the contact to the HSF surface. In either case, it is likely NOT reporting an incorrect temp and the HSF is: A. not operating properly B. Not a sufficient HSF C. Not making contact. There is another possibility as well. Do you have any intake/outake fans on the case other than the power supply. If not, get some. By the way, I have this info not because I overclock (I DON'T). But because I have been sold some very BAD Heat Sink/ Fan Assemblys one too many times for way too much money.

Hi DosFreak I wanna Play! MidTower Case w/ 300W PSU SuperMicro PIIIDR3 Processor(s): 2x Intel Pentium III @ 1000MHz Installed Memory: 512MB AGP Slot Creative Labs GeForce2 Ultra (BladeRunner) [NV15BR] PCI 2 Adaptec AHA-2904/Integrated AIC-7850 PCI 3 Creative Labs SBLive!(5.1) Internal: Super Micro Computer Inc AIC-7892 Ultra160 SCSI Host Adapter Intel Corporation 82559 Fast Ethernet LAN on Motherboard Drives: A:\ El'Cheapo Supremo Floppy Drive c:\ 1 Quantum Atlas 10kII (ultra 160 scsi Rocks!!) Drive Index 26017 Buffered Read: 104 MB/s Sequential Read: 36 MB/s d:\ 2 quantum ide 66 drives raid 0 (ide raid 0 also Rocks!!) Drive Index 21659 Buffered Read: 41 MB/s Sequential Read: 30 MB/s E:\ ACER 16x DVD-ROM F:\ TDK Velocd 12/10/32 Windows 2000 Nvidia 6.67 Drivers Directx 8 Have both a Hollywood Plus and DXR3 but like the visuals from powerdvd 3 better!! So they are just....laying around. Any takers? No time for the single/muti test so here are the multi benchies CPU Dhrystone ALU 5290 MIPS Whetstone FPU 2660 MFLOPS MultiMedia Integer SSE 10842 it/s Floating-Point SSE 13268 it/s Memory Bechmark Int ALU/RAM Bandwidth 557 MB/s Float FPU/RAM Bandwidth 600 MB/s 3DMARK 2000 1024X768 32bc 32bt 24bz HARDWARE T&L only: HELICOPTER Low Detail: 123.5 FPS Medium Detail: 90.7 FPS High Detail: 49.4 FPS ADVENTURE Low Detail: 129.8 FPS Medium Detail: 76.0 FPS High Detail: 46.7 FPS Texture Render Speed 8MB 320.1 FPS 16MB 306.3 FPS 32MB 267.0 FPS 64MB 144.8 FPS Quake3 R_SMP0/1 All settings to MAX. 1024X768=101.7/90.9 Not sure what happened there. Think I'll stick to one processor though [This message has been edited by Stephen Van Siclen (edited 12 January 2001).]

DaveInVA, I'm not sure which drivers you downloaded from the creative site. However, if you want to try the wdm drivers from the Liveware 3 for 2000 distribution from june I had good luck with those. I could email them to you (2.3meg zip. On a side note, I checked at www.dejanews.com/usenet "a7v sblive w2k" and found the horror once you actually get these installed. There was at least one post from someone who claimed to have good luck with the live in slot3 at irq10. However, there seems to be a lot of lockups and crackling with the live once liveware is installed. Also a lot about NOLF crashing Win2k completely because of the sblive. THere is even a post about the A7V Clearly Requiring Additional Programming but I don't own an A7V so I wouldn't be much more help than giving you some different drivers to try

You might try logging out and logging in as administrator. As far as I can see you can install the driver first and then reinstall the entire package. Try to install using the setup exe and when it fails it should have left the wdm driver in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\Lw3w2k\Audio\English\Wdmdrv If it didn't, you can still get to it during the setup when it displays that no valid hardware was found, instead of hitting ok first wind your way to this directory: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\Lw3w2k\Audio\English\ and copy the Wdmdrv directory to your desktop. Manually install the drivers from your device manager. Then rerun the setup, it should detect the card now. This worked for me with the download version of liveware3 for 2k. [This message has been edited by Stephen Van Siclen (edited 08 January 2001).]

1. 8 megs is not supported on this Operating System, Its too little. Move up to 64 megs you should be within reasonable tolerence, of course 128 megs is better ~ 2. It really depends on driver support and the Hardware Abstraction Layer. This is something 9x Operating Systems don't have so there is some overhead. Of course it was designed this way to provide stability, so not to worry This is normal 3. The kernel, in its simplest terms, is the base set of instructions which are designed to unify all other instructions in an Operating System (OS) to work. This is in its simplest terms, the first program called which loads all other programs. We won't even get into the popcorn analogy, it would only confuse. 4. Ask Bob for some help. He likely has some experience if you are running a 166 processor, I am likely to agree with him. We now have processors almost 10 times the speed of what you own, he is very likely correct. 5. A. Make sure you check the system requirements on the box before you install any software. This is imperative! You can check disk usage on your disk my going to "My Computer" clicking on the drive with your right mouse button(only if your right handed, switch if you are left handed) and selecting properties from the resulting dialogue box. B.Generally, programs are installed in a package format comprising many programs and files. You need to research the importance of each file you delete before you do it. It could hold a great deal of value, and was likely put there for a reason. If you are unsure, it may be best to only remove programs via the add/remove programs/control panel. If the file is not listed or you can not determine where the file belongs seek professional help or ask in this forum. Most people are glad to help. C. Jump up and down and scream like a maniac once you have the managers attention. This is an 80% 20% split. 80% of the time you will get your money back. 20% of the time you will get escorted out the door by security. If you fall into the 20% you will still win, pursue with the retail stores corporate headquarters and tell them how brutally you were treated by security. You will get your money back. If you do not follow these rules then you have only yourself to blame, you were not screwed, you just didn't fight hard enough. 6. It varies, first you need to isolate the complaint to a particular piece of hardware or software. Once you have done this, determine the manufacturer for the particular piece of hardware or software. Get on the internet, I know you have internet access or you wouldn't be reading this. Search for the hardware manufacturers home page and then get thier customer support number. 7. See item 6! Valve should be able to help 8. see item 7, let valve know your driver revisions, they should be able to help. Be sure to know the manufacturer of the hardware for these drivers and to give them the harware manufacturer and driver revision numbers so the can be of assistance. 9. Very likely you are using a graphic card that cannot properly detect plug and play monitor info if your monitor needs to use the drivers. Generally, most monitor manufacturers can provide proper drivers which can help to define the paricular features of your monitor. I have the very same problem with my PF790 from viewsonic. Fortunately they provide drivers that work ok with windows 2000. 10. Coax can be found at any radio shack, though this likely has nothing to do with your computer unless you also have a TV tuner card. Radio Shack can help. 11. Frame Rates are dependant on many different factors. Most important are graphics processing speed and pentium speed. You cannot achieve this frame rate with your current hardware. Get an expert involved, also check hardware sites and ask other deus ex users what framerates they get and what thier hardware is in the cpu /graphic card arena. Once you find the match, purchase the correlating products. This will involve upgrading hardware, which I strangly suggest. As I said before, the newest hardware is 10X the speed of your current setup. I need a beer.

SnowHawk, There apparently have been some bios issues with 2000 and the BP6! I found some interesting info at http://bp6.gamesquad.net/win2k_install.phtml that may be of use, it suggested being sure you are running with the RU bios version. It also has a driver install package that includes the latest drivers you would need for win2k and the bp6. This may resolve the problem. I suspect the lockups may be bios related after looking at the info there.

Interesting. I too have an SMP setup. Shrink, I did try the 3073 drivers. I had only tested using some tried and true test programs. Quake III and 3dmark. Also ran the Alice demo. I did a clean install of Windows 2000 as well. I don't overclock, it seems too risky to me. Seems like it may only be a problem with specific setups as was / is the case with the Nvidia drivers with some VIA /AMD chipsets. I suspect your setup may be ok though. Interesting that you are both running BX iteration of Intel chipset. One is working, one is not. My specs: PIIIDR3 2x P3 1Ghz FSB 133 Non o/c'ed internal network card 350w p/s 1 burner 1 DVD drive 2 ide HD 1 SCSI HD 1.44 floppy 512mb PC800 [ December 29, 2000: Message edited by: Stephen Van Siclen ]

Purchased an ATI RADEON AIW because I really wanted to believe that ATI has changed in the way of thier driver development. No luck. The card went back the same day. Wouldn't stay running on an Intel MotherBoard without crashing 2000 within a few hours. I have had no problems with the GF2 Ultra from Creative but darn it the picture isn't as clear or as pretty as the ATIs were. I really wanted the ATI to work! (and still do but need to wait and see if they ever get the drivers straightened out) Thats the problem with ATI they design solid hardware but their drivers tend to stink. I really think the drivers are the problem. My suggestion would be that you take it back where you purchased it and wait till you see reports pooring in about how great ATIs drivers have gotten for windows 2000. I had the same problem with the Rage Fury MAXX last year on a 98 machine and never saw the posts stop about how awful the drivers were. I waited for what seems like forever and the stable drivers never came. I wouldn't want to see you go through the same hell I went through with the Maxx.

Topshelf, 35 is the limit on spanned dynamic disks. (Might as well be as many as you want, I'd love to see the disk housing for that many disks, probably would look like a SAN.) I did a bit more research on MSDN and am very confident you will not lose your spanned disks if you just setup.You might(but very unlikely, I've not seen it happen) lose it initially but the disk admin snap-in can still repair and recover after you are up and running (dynamic disks are designed to be highly recoverable)if they are not found initially. All the drive info is not in a header as I said earlier but in that 8mb section at the end of the disk that 2000 won't let you format. I don't think ghosts supports dynamic partition info, be interested to see if it works though. Dosfreak, topshelf is using spanned disks, a feature of dynamic volumes. Some of the other features include being able to mount a disk to a folder within another disk (very cool, almost unix like), spanning, and of course raid setups.

I have 2 ide drives in software striped. I think that the change to dynamic disks maintains some headers on the disks so they will be identified as a single unit. I have reformatted my boot drive many times due to the fact that I like to break things. Never once have I lost the software striped disks. I would think you'd be safe reloading the OS on the boot drive. You can check during setup if Windows still sees them as a single unit at the format /partition portion of setup. The disks will all be identified with the same drive letter. I suppose if setup does not identify them this way you could hit F3 and quit, then find another way to go about backing up the important stuff. Hope this helps.

Are you using windowblinds or object desktop? If so unload it and the H+ will run. Let me know if this works.

I would not suggest a dual processor based on older GX or BX chipsets, there are many reports of problems on these. I had the same question a while back and there were many posts of SMP users having problems(search on SMP and you'll see what I mean). One stood out that had none, Ronin's system, and I am GLAD he posted his specs. He had no problems. He is running on a tyan 2400 board based on the i840 chipset. The tyan 2400 has been phased out and is no longer available so its not one I could go with. I did buy a PIIIDR3 based on his experiences and must say I was not surprised to find that I had little problems with this board as it is also an i840 board. I think you will need to do the research to find out which board you want. I am not sure if the PIII 850s you have are slot1 or fcpga so I wouldn't know which board to look for. Also, you may not want to look at buying expensive RDRAM so this too is a consideration. There are many i840 boards out there with different configurations if you look real hard. I have also heard of some companys selling RDRAM risers that convert to SDRAM. Just be sure its an 840 chipset if you want it to be stable.

Next time Hit Y and reboot. I have never seen it fail.