mike3411

I'm interested in new video card that will support two monitors, has a good-quality TV-out, and decent 3D performance. I first looked at Nvidia chipset-based TwinView cards, but I was told that Nvidia chipset-based cards have poor TV-out quality, but more importantly these cards do not appear to be available with dual monitor and TV out, but only one or the other. I looked at Matrox's (who, I'm told, has by far the best TV-out quality) and their G450 looks perfect except that its 3D performance is truly mediocre. I have an AGP GeForce DDR that I've very happy with, and would be happy to keep if I can use it. Any suggestions? Thanks! -Mike

I am currently using a GeForce AGP video card to output to a single monitor in Windows 2000. I plan on buying a second monitor to set up multimonitor, and I also plan on moving my TV in to the room with my computer, and outputting to the TV from my computer. I think the best way to accomplish this is to buy a new PCI video card with a good TV out. I can use Win2k's ability to use two video cards for multimonitor (with the desktop spread between the two), and use the second video card for TV out. My questions are these: 1) Would this work? Does Win2k allow complete control over the second video card (TV out, etc.) without messing with the primary card (can I, for example, split my desktop between a TV and a PC monitor using the above setup?)? 2) What would be the best card to do this? I plan on using it mainly for playing DVD's, but it must support high resolutions, and I would like at least decent 3D acceleration. Most importantly, the drivers should be rock solid. 3) Would it be better to simply replace my current main video card with new video card that supports two monitors with a TV out? Are there any cards that do this? Thanks so much! -Mike

Blech. Tru dat, but I wanted to check to see if I could get it to work first, since I'm reformating/reinstalling shortly anyway. That worked great! By benchmarks jumped very nicely Thanks! -Mike C.

I just installed a second PIII-800EB after having just one in my VP6 for some time, and although the BIOS recognized the second CPU, Win2k Pro does not appear to be using it. I ran Passmark Performance Test before and after the upgrade, but I get the same score. Additionally, when I go to system information, it only lists one processor. Finally, while looking around to see if there was something I should be enabling, I found in the Environment Variables of one of the Win2k control panels, the number of processors was set to 1. I tried changing this to 2, but that didn't seem to make a difference, although I didn't reboot. Is there something I have to do to get Win2k to utilize the second processor? Thanks! -Mike C.

Just did a fresh install of Win2k Pro, and I'm wondering what's the latest word on the new(er) VIA 4.29 driver set? Should I install all four drivers? Only some of them? Any help would be appreciated, I'm using Abit's VP6. Thanks, Mike C.

It's really a mixed bag. If you just want to run a single game, it won't make all that much difference, but Win2k will take advantage of it and should use one processor for the background processes (OS, ICQ, etc.) and devote the entire second CPU to the main task (the game). In terms of price/performance, it's generally not worth it for this type of use. For something like surfing & burning, I would recommend a burn-proof drive (I love my Plextor 16/10/40 burnproof much more than I should) over dual proc's. If, however, you're running something like Adobe Photoshop, 3D Studio MAX, or other CPU-intensive programs simultaneously, it can make a larger difference. If, like 3D Studio MAX, the program is multithreaded to take advantage of multiple processors, the speed increases can be enormous. I just ordered the second PIII 800EB for my dual processor VIA system, so I'll do a few before/after benchmarks and link the results if anyone's interested. -Mike

We just set up a new computer in our house (to go with the other three), and want to connect it to the rest of the network through the concentrator box (network hub). I put jacks on the end of a 20-ish foot long CAT5 cable, and plugged it in on both ends, but both the computer and the hub think that the cable is not attached on both ends. I tested the cable by using it with a different computer, and it appeared to work fine. I looked through the network settings on the first computer, and couldn't find any problems, so then I swapped nic's, but nothing has changed. Any ideas?

Think about it: if you have to keep the ground wires between the others to stop crosstalk, then scrunching them up will make wires next to each other without ground wires. I do not recommend you do this with SCSI cables, you may be able to get away with it with Wide SCSI or some of the other older ones, but I wouldn't bother. If, however, you do want to try it, don't buy them online, it takes about 7 seconds to use three cable ties to scrunch them up. -Mike

Whenever I move my mouse over text, such as on a web page or in word, (any time it should be changing to that "I" cursor shape) it dissapears. I've tried messing with the mouse settings, to see if the icon file is just corrupted, but that doesn't seem to do any good. I'm using an ASUS v6800 GeForce DDR with 7.52 reference drivers. My mouse is a Microsoft USB Intellimouse Explorer. Thanks! Mike C.

I ended up reformatting after some other issues, what drivers should I now install? The VIA AGP driver? The IRQ Routing Drivers? The INF Update? Thanks! Mike C.

I just installed the latest beta (4.29) of VIA's 4-in-1 drivers, and am having some troubles with my IDE devices. In the device manager, under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, I have five listings: Primary IDE Channel Secondary IDE Channel VIA BM Ultra DMA Channel VIA BM Ultra DMA Channel VIA Bus Master IDE Channel The Primary and Seondary IDE Channels have littel !'s on them, and, in their details, say "This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. (Code 12)". When I go to the resources tab, it says: Input/Output Range 01F0 - 01F7 used by: VIA BM Ultra DMA Channel Input/Output Range 03F6 - 03F6 used by: VIA BM Ultra DMA Channel Interrupt Request 14 used by: VIA BM Ultra DMA Channel Do other people have this problem? I don't want RAID, I'd like DMA but at this point I'll settle for anything that works. Any ideas? Thanks! Mike C.

I didn't. PowerDVD is a software dvd decoder, and as I explored it more I realized there IS no way to have it use a hardware dvd card, as that's not what it's for. The problems I did fix were with Creative's player, when I found options to get it to stop being squiggly and have it always on top.

I never had any problems with Power DVD, the only "problem" was that it decodes the DVD via software, not taking advantage of my hardware decoder card.

Works fine for some, didn't work for me. Everything appears to work differently on different people's computers, the H+ drivers/software didn't work on mine, but the Creative beta stuff works great.

When did I say I used WinDVD?